HYLAS THEOCRITUS IDYLLIUM XIII. THE IRISH BAR AS IT WAS, AND AS IT IS WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY, BANCKS AND CO. MANCHESTER, SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. We beg leave to present our warmest acknowledgments for the extreme kindness, and active co-operation of our numerous friends, who have evinced such gratifying interest in our success. We have received several contributions in prose, which are not sufficient length to be made available for the purposes of our Magazine. The Life of Governor Walker, Geber, Colon, Alpha, M. N. have came to hand. Sandhurst Sketches, the Emigrant's Apology, the White Knight, Tanthe, Mary Tracy, and the Moss Trooper, are in their present forms, inadmissible. A Letter for the Author of the pamphlet on Political Economy, lies at our Publishers. We e hope to hear shortly from Ormsby, Rev. R. W. N., An Idler, Rev. H. T. C. M. H. Sydney, and L. S. A Dialogue between Antony Poplar, Gent., and Doctor Neverout, touching the conduct proper to be pursued at the present juncture; in which sundry and important matters are discussed, and Antony's views of Conservative policy explained. NEVEROUT-Is it true that you are about to undertake the management of a periodical, to be conducted on Tory principles ? POPLAR-It is. NEVEROUT-Upon genuine Tory principles ? POPLAR Even so. Upon genuine Tory principles. NEVEROUT SO I heard; and I scarcely believed it. But have you duly considered all the difficulties you will have to encounter, and the almost hopeless state of that prostrate party at present? For my part, I think you might as well attempt, single handed, to raise the Royal George, as to restore the Tory party to the position which they occupied before the passing of the Reform Bill; and anything short of that will be but of little moment. It may retard, but it cannot avert the certain ruin that now impends over all our institutions. POPLAR-I am fully aware of all our difficulties. Matters have, indeed, come to a fearful pass. But, there is this of good in our present position,-principle is brought, as it were, "in discrimen rerum." And I feel that within me which shrinks more from a suspicion of insincerity or cowardice, than from any losses or dangers that may await upon a course of fearless and virtuous consistency. Besides, when things come to the worst, they are sure to mend. It is impossible that the people of this great empire can long remain under this great delusion; and although, when they do recover, they may not be able to remedy the evil that has been done, it is impossible that they should not distinguish their friends from their enemies. call NEVEROUT-Aye; but until that change does take place, what is to become of such concerns as that which you are about to engage in? Think again, my dear friend. I advise you for your good. Just veer a little from what you the right course at present, if it were only for the purpose of gaining and keeping a certain command over public opinion, which by and by you may be able to use for the public advantage. Believe me, without a little spice of inconsis tency, a periodical can never maintain its ground. POPLAR-I would much rather lose ground by deserving to maintain it, than maintain, by deserving to lose it. I am, however, no vapourer, and desire to be judged by acts and not by professions. But I am not sure, that, even in an interested point of view, your advice is good. You are not wrong in supposing that those who can dexterously follow public opinion, must always profit more VOL. I. B than those who attempt to stem, or who aspire to lead it. But never could I hope to merit the praise of such ambi-dexterity as would qualify me for acting as bottle-holder to our revolutionary bravos. My principles are a part of myself; they have not been put on for one purpose, and therefore cannot be put off for another. NEVEROUT-Why you are as bad as old North. For him, too, I have a great regard, and would fain have him adopt my view of expediency; but the crazy dotard would not hear reason. POPLAR-Nay, nay; whatever you are pleased to say of myself, speak none but good words of old Christopher. I love him like a father: and it is inexpressibly consolatory to me, that he, also, perseveres in his devotion to the good old cause. Hopeless I no longer consider it ; for, with such an auxiliary, it were sinful to despair. What I, in my weakness, cannot accomplish, he, in his might, may; and we will both, you may depend upon it, do more for the resuscitation of genuine Tory principles, and the reconstruction of an efficient Tory party, than levellers have as yet accomplished for the extinction of the one, or apostates for the destruction of the other. NEVEROUT-Well, you will both yet rue the day when you did not take my advice. I will have the melancholy consolation of witnessing your bitter but unavailing repentance. POPLAR-There is this difference between good principles and their opposite, that, even though ill success should attend the strenuous assertion of the former, it is not accompanied by any consciousness of self-reproach. You may, therefore, set it down as a truth, that, however events turn up, I will be spared at least the bitterness of repentance. NEVEROUT—It is not, you well know, from any love to the Whigs that I advise some little abatement of the hostility with which you have hitherto regarded them. But it can, surely, be no disgrace to imitate the conduct of the King and the nobility. If they have stooped, from consciousness of inability to resist the present power and violence of the ochlocracy, it is not for such as you to stand erect in such a contest. POPLAR-I love the King. I respect the nobles: but I cannot very widely depart from that course which is most consistent with the dignity of the one, or the honour of the other, if I make the QUEEN my model at the present crisis. She has, I think, acted with as much lofty principle and wise moderation as ever distinguished a crowned head in circumstances of difficulty and danger. If, therefore, I follow her example, I can hardly transgress as a subject, and I am sure I shall be right as a man. NEVEROUT-But you see the storm she has brought about her ears. POPLAR-I do. And I see, also, how serenely she has risen above it. I mistake, greatly, if the truculency of her denouncers have not already produced a salutary effect upon the mind of the Sovereign, as I am sure it has upon many who were, previously, but too favourable to revolution. We are not yet, thank heaven, so utterly democratic-so hopelessly Frenchified, as not to feel horrorstruck at regicide insinuations. And the reckless malignity of her unmanly persecutors may thus counteract their worst designs, and prove, in the end, the safety of the monarchy. us. NEVEROUT-The safety of the monarchy, under the domination of a reformed parliament! Alas! my friend, if others are wicked, you are visionary. Who does not see that all the constitutional safeguards of our monarchy have passed away? Monarchy is, at this moment, tolerated rather than established amongst The king is either endured as a cipher, or made use of as a tool; and when he ceases to be a stepping-stone, you will see how long he will be suffered to be a stumbling-block in the way of his revolutionary masters. No, Antony. If I saw the least hope, by a strenuous assertion of Conservative principle, to stay, or even to mitigate the present evils, I would be the last man in the world to advise you to abandon your old colours. But I cannot so far deceive myself. You might do much for the ancient institutions of the country, if you had only to contend against their natural enemies; but it is impossible to save them when their natural enemies are reinforced by those who ought to be their natural friends!-when you have to contend not only with the whole tribe of infidels, |
