Improvident impatience! Nay, even from those who seem to have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which their actions speak?

The throne is in danger! we will support the throne; but let us share the smiles of royalty—the order of nobility is in danger! I will fight for nobility, says the viscount, but my zeal would be much greater if I were made an earl. Rouse all the marquis within me! exclaims the earl, and the peerage never turned forth a more undaunted champion in its cause than I shall prove. Stain my green riband blue, cries out the illustrious knight, and the fountain of honor will have a fast and faithful

servant!

What are the people to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our professions? Is this a system to be persevered in? Is there nothing that whispers to that right honorable gentleman, that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and every-day means of ordinary corruption !-or are we to believe, that he has within himself a conscious feeling, that disqualifies him from rebuking the ill-timed selfishness of his new allies?

32. ON THE COMPETENCY OF PARLIAMENT TO PASS THE MEASURE OF UNION.-Plunket.

Sir,-I, in the most express terms, deny the competency of parliament to do this act. I warn you, do not dare to lay your hand on the constitution-I tell you that if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this act, it will be a nullity, and that no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately I repeat it, and I call on any man who hears me, to take down my words;-you have not been elected for this purpose you are appointed to make laws and not legislatures -you are appointed to act under the constitution, not to alter it you are appointed to exercise the functions of legislators, and not to transfer them-and if you do so, your act is a dissolution of the government-you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you.

Yourselves you may extinguish, but parliament you cannot extinguish it is enthroned in the hearts of the people-it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the constitution-it is immortal as the island which it protects-as well might the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his miserable body should

extinguish his eternal soul. Again, I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the constitution; it is above your power. Sir, I do not say that the parliament and the people, by mutual consent and co-operation, may not change the form of the constitution.

But thank God, the people have manifested no such wisho far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been uttered in its favor, and you cannot be infatuated enough to take confidence from the silence which prevails in some parts of the kingdom; if you know how to appreciate that silence it is more formidable than the most clamorous opposition-you may be rived and shivered by the lightning before you hear the peal of the thunder! But, sir, we are told we should discuss this question with calmness and composure. I am called on to surrender my birthright and my honor, and I am told I should be calm, composed.

National pride! Independence of our country! These, we are told by the minister, are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned in such an enlightened assembly as this; they are trinkets and gewgaws fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predecessor in that chair, but utterly unworthy of the consideration of this house, or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who condescends to instruct it! Gracious God! we see a Perry re-ascending from the tomb and raising his awful voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom, and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man, are only calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher, who has been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet, to outrage the feelings and understanding of the country.

33. THE PHILOSOPHY OF HATRED.-Canning.

My honorable friend has expended abundant research and subtility upon this inquiry, and having resolved the phrase into its elements, in the crucible of his philosophical mind, has produced it to us purified and refined, to a degree that must command the admiration of all who take delight in metaphysical alchemy. My honorable and learned friend began by telling us, that, after all, hatred is no bad thing in itself. "I hate a

tory," says my honorable friend-" and another man hates a cat; but it does not follow that he would hunt down the cat, or I the tory." Nay, so far from it-hatred, if it be properly managed, is, according to my honorable friend's theory, no bad preface to a rational esteem and affection. It prepares its votaries for a reconciliation of differences-for lying down with their most inveterate enemies, like the leopard and the kid, in the vision of the prophet. This dogma is a little startling, but it is not altogether without precedent. It is borrowed from a character in a play which is, I dare say, as great a favorite with my learned friend as it is with me: I mean, the comedy of The Rivals; in which Mrs. Malaprop, giving a lecture on the subject of marriage to her niece, (who is unreasonable enough to talk of liking, as a necessary preliminary to such an union,) says, "What have you to do with your likings and your preferences, child? Depend upon it, it is safest to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle like a blackamoor, before we were married; and yet you know, my dear, what a good wife I made him." Such is my learned friend's argument to a hair. But finding that this doctrine did not appear to go down with the house so glibly as he had expected, my honorable and learned friend presently changed his tack; and put forward a theory, which, whether for novelty or for beauty, I pronounce to be incomparable; and, in short, as wanting nothing to recommend it but a slight foundation in truth. "True philosophy," says my honorable friend, "will always continue to lead men to virtue by the instrumentality of their conflicting vices. The virtues, where more than one exist, may live harmoniously together; but the vices bear mortal antipathy to one another, and therefore furnish, to the moral engineer, the power by which he can make each keep the other under control." Admirable! but, upon this doctrine, the poor man who has but one single vice must be in a very bad way. No fulcrum, no moral power for effecting his cure. Whereas his more fortunate neighbor, who has two or more vices in his composition, is in a fair way of becoming a very virtuous member of society. I wonder how my learned friend would like to have this doctrine introduced into his domestic establishment. For instance, suppose that I discharge a servant because he is addicted to liquor, I could not venture to recommend him to my honorable and learned friend. It might be the poor man's only fault, and therefore clearly incorrigible; but if I had the good fortune to find out that he was also addicted to stealing, might I not, with a safe conscience, send him to my learned friend with a strong recommendation, saying, I send you a man whom

ment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves; nor shall any thing but age restrain my resentment;―age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is the ardor of conviction and that zeal for the service of my country, which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit uncon cerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upor public robbery. I will exert my endeavors, at whatever hazard to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice,—whoever may protect them in their villany, and whoever may partake of their plunder.

28.

BENEVOLENCE OF THE SUPREME BEING.- -Chalmers.

that a

It is saying much for the benevolence of God, to say, single world, or a single system, is not enough for it—that it must have the spread of a mightier region, on which it may pour forth a tide of exuberancy throughout all its provincesthat, as far as our vision can carry us, it has strewed immensity with the floating receptacles of life, and has stretched over each of them the garniture of such a sky as mantles our own habitation-and that, even from distances which are far beyond the reach of human eye, the songs of gratitude and praise may now be arising to the one God, who sits surrounded by the regards of his one great and universal family.

Now, it is saying much for the benevolence of God, to say, that it sends forth these wide and distant emanations over the surface of a territory so ample—that the world we inhabit, lying imbedded as it does, amidst so much surrounding greatness, shrinks into a point that to the universal eye might appear to be almost imperceptible. But does it not add to the power and to the perfection of this universal eye, that at the very moment it is taking a comprehensive survey of the vast, it can fasten a steady and undistracted attention on each minute and separate portion of it; that at the very moment it is looking at all worlds, it can look most pointedly and most intelligently to each of them; that at the very moment it sweeps the field of immensity, it can settle all the earnestness of its regards upon every distinct hand-breadth of that field; that at the very moment at

which it embraces the totality of existence, it can send a most thorough and penetrating inspection into each of its details, and into every one of its endless diversities? You cannot fail to perceive how much this adds to the power of the all-seeing eye. Tell me, then, if it do not add as much perfection to the benevolence of God, that while it is expatiating over the vast field of created things, there is not one portion of the field overlooked by it; that while it scatters blessings over the whole of an infinite range, it causes them to descend in a shower of plenty on every separate habitation; that while his arm is underneath and round about all worlds, he enters within the precincts of every one of them, and gives a care and a tenderness to each individual of their teeming population. Oh! does not the God, who is said to be love, shed over this attribute of his its finest illustration! when, while he sits in the highest heaven, and pours out his fulness on the whole subordinate domain of nature and of providence, he bows a pitying regard on the very humblest of his children, and sends his reviving spirit into every heart, and cheers by his presence every home, and provides for the wants of every family, and watches every sick bed, and listens to the complaints of every sufferer; and while, by his wondrous mind, the weight of universal government is borne, oh! is it not more wondrous and more excellent still, that he feels for every sorrow, and has an ear open to every prayer!

29. ADDRESS TO THE ARMY OF ITALY.—Bonaparte.

Soldiers,-You are precipitated like a torrent from the heights of the Appenines; you have overthrown and dispersed all that dared to oppose your march. Piedmont, rescued from Austrian tyranny, is left to its natural sentiments of regard and friendship to the French. Milan is yours; and the republican standard is displayed throughout all Lombardy. The dukes of Parma and Modena are indebted for their political existence only to your generosity.

The army which so proudly menaced you, has had no other barrier than its dissolution to oppose to your invincible courage. The Po, the Tessen, the Adda, could not retard you a single day. The vaunted bulwarks of Italy were insufficient. You swept them with the same rapidity that you did the Appenines. Those successes have carried joy into the bosom of your country. Your representatives decreed a festival dedicated to your