GALLERY OF LITERARY CHARACTERS. No. LXXIII. MRS. S. C. HALL. [June, "HONOUR to Woman!" is our standing toast. The female philosophers and politicians of France, at the close of the last century, so did their godless work, that he who runs may read its consequences in the present generation. We would not that Britain should be thus, and so contaminated; and therefore have felt it to be our duty occasionally to hold up to ridicule the praise-intoxicated presumption which, with cap and bells jingling, would "run a muck" against all established and even sacred things. It is not the lady, but the inflated, ignorant charlatan, at whom we point with the finger of scorn. Quacks are of no sex. But to our subject. Whether the authoress of The Outlaw, née Anna Maria Fielding, claim kindred with the immortal chronicler of Tom Jones, is to us unknown. believe, was of French Huguenot lineage; the Co. Wexford being filled with such Her mother, we exiles for conscience sake, for whom "the lines "fallen on pleasant places," theirs being the singular lot to be tumbled out of the can scarcely be said to have frying-pan of the edict of Nantz into the fire of Scullabogue. The Fieldings, it appears, had estates, which they resolved and re-resolved to "see about " improving; till, somehow, while they were debating, the acres glided out of their possession. But this is "a way they have in Ireland;" so nobody was surprised, except, perhaps, the outgoers. What became of the old people is not on record. The young lady, however, seems not to have been inclined to go simpering, "Fuimus," throughout the land. She left the paternal halls, and, appearing in England, took possession of a new Hall by right of conquest; assuming (like Scipio Africanus) the name of what she had subdued. Although a dozen years have elapsed since this event, we are happy to add that the conquered party has evinced no disposition to throw off the yoke, nor has the question of "repaling the union" been once mooted. The Irish sketches of Mrs. S. C. Hall are her most prominent performances. In them, like the admirable Edgeworth, she makes her pen ancillary to national improvement, by the gentle, shrewd, and good-humoured indication of Milesian absurdities. The rotting shed of an Irish hovel, sheltering, as it does, the most helpless and trampled on of God's creatures, covers an inexhaustible mine of pathos, as well as fun-there is the true flebile ludibrium of the satirist. When Gonzalvi took to exterminating the banditti in the neighbourhood of Rome, loud murmurs arose among the artists at the prospect of being deprived of such capital materials for their craft, in costume, grouping, and incident. Poulet Scrope is not aware of the ruin his POOR LAW FOR IRELAND Would entail on the numerous artisans who make a livelihood of the present state of things,-Wilkie, by painting "Peep o' day boys;" or Maclise, by "installing Captain Rocks;" Banim, by the heart-rending fidelity of his graphic scenes; or Lover, by the arch waggery of his prose-not to be surpassed, save by the witchery of his song. All this would pass away; nor would the living models from which they now draw have more substantial existence than Crofton Croker's "fairies," or Moore's "ragged royal race of Tara." Solved by the magic touch of substantial emancipation from rags and famine, the copper chains in which the archbeggar contrives to keep his "hereditary bondsmen" would have the fate of Wood's halfpence in the last century. Happily, however, for poets, painters, and Mrs. S. C. Hall, our enlightened ministry have a different method of doing "justice to Ireland," and are wisely impressed with the expediency of continuing the starvation system, as the fittest regimen for the distempered greenlanders. They seek to amuse them, meantime, with municipal moonshine; and have found a most dignified occupation, Igainst the "JUSTICE TO IRELAND." OUR motto is our text. It cannot, therefore, be inconsistent, as we hope it will not be dull, to adhere to it; it must be the final measure, as it constitutes the burden of the Agitator's harangues; the loudest and longest note in his lusty clamours; the alpha and the omega of his orations within and without the walls of St. Stephen's. "Justice to Ireland !" shouts the Big Beggarman; "Justice to ould Ireland!" add all the joints of the tail, from John— that was so merciful to his brother, on the way to mass, in the streets of London-downward, to the least and last of the O's. It is a fair demand; it may not be a kind nor a merciful one; but with the last consideration we have nothing to do. Our ministers do not go to the root of the matter; but, in the most unsatisfactory way, concede this and concede that, and often do the rankest injustice to Ireland. They are disposed, for instance, to surrender all the municipal corporations of Ireland into the hands of Roman Catholics, who are in the hands of the priests, who are in the hands of Dr. Murray, who is in the hands of Dens, who is in the hands of Satan; and thus, as might be established by a logical process, as clear as it is conclusive, do the greatest injustice to Ireland. They are also half inclined to grant the endowments and patronage of the state to the popish priests of Ireland, who are under the patronage of the canons of the council of Trent, which are under the patronage and power of the nethermost hell; and in this, as it needs no lengthened nor elaborate reasoning to demonstrate, do the grossest injustice to Ireland. They (that is, his majesty's ministers) are under many strong temptations from within and from without, to consign the established Protestant church of Ireland to the tender mercies of Popery. By doing so they would break down the ramparts which have repressed the grossest inroads of Rome's abominations; they would remove the refuges under which pure and undefiled religion has enjoyed a shelter; they would desecrate and pull down the altars by which the martyr has often found an asylum, and amid the sanctities of which the widow and the orphan he left behind him have learned to wait for the day of mercy, and the hour of a righteous reckoning; and by this fell deed they would perpetuate deep injustice toward Ireland. Justice to Ireland, in the vocabulary of many, and these in the cabinet as well as in the cabin, is understood to mean the most outrageous injustice to England. These sciolists, conceiving it perfectly fair to grant justice to Ireland, do not conceive it grossly unfair to inflict the most unmitigated injustice on England. They have come to the mad conclusion, that whatever hap piness is imparted to the one country must be subtracted from the other; that if Irishmen be allowed to rejoice, Englishmen must be forced to weep; that if Ireland is to be raised, England must be degraded; that if Pat chooses to play the murderer, John Bull must peaceably submit to be the martyr. This is cruel philosophy, but it is Whig politics; it is monstrous legislation, but it is the march of intellect; it stings Britons to the hearts, but it enables ministers to keep their places. Let it be accounted 66 justice to Ireland" that Daniel O'Connell, M. P., should be patiently listened to by the commoners of Britain, his suggestions calmly considered, his insolence forgiven, his rebellion unpunished; but is it not injustice to England that he should be admitted to the society of English gentlemen, whose character he has traduced, whose heroes he has stigmatised, whose wives and daughters he has basely slandered, whose church services in our churchyards he has contemptuously despised, whose creed he detests, and the confessors of which he would carry the fagot to enable an impure priesthood to burn? Let it be called "justice to Ireland" that Papists should have the ascendency in Dublin Castle, and in the municipalities of the country; but it is rank injustice to England that they should possess the same sway among us, and that the path to the consummation of their purposes should be strewed and paved with fragments from the altar and from the throne-from the Word of God, and from the statute-book of Britain. Let it be " justice to Ire land" to give grants to her "Maynooths" and her Popish educationschools,-endowments to her priests, and altar-pieces and materials for building, duty-free, to her chapels, which have been and are refused to Protestant ministers and Protestant churches: but is it not injustice to England to break down the constitution of her universities to admit Papists, and to destroy her church to propitiate Romish priests, and to desecrate her constitution at the bidding of the disciples of St. Omer and the emissaries of the Propaganda? If Ireland is to be conveyed in fee-simple to O'Connell and the priests, and their heirs, let not England be included in the bequest. If Irishmen, in their love of justice, demand a confessional in every parish, let not Englishmen have the nuisance forced upon them also. If the "tail" be allowed to pace the length and breadth of Ireland as their rightful domain, let them not be allowed to ride rough-shod over the liberties and altars of Englishmen, the honour and the chastity of Englishwomen. If it be "justice to Ireland" to foster her Popery and favour her Papists, it must be injustice to Ireland to crush her Protestantism and to exterminate her Protestants. If it be justice to subscribe to raise a monument to his highness the pope, it cannot but be injustice to wink at the rebels that blew up with gunpowder the statue of William, Prince of Orange. Justice is represented as even-handed; but in Ireland she must give largely to Popery, and charily to Protestantism. To use an Irish phrase, the reciprocity is all on one side. But justice must mean justice; and if justice to Ireland is O'Connell's demand, by all means let the legislators of Britain concede it. Let us then fairly and honestly consider what would be justice. We have felt the pulse of Ireland, we have studied her diagnosis, we have thoroughly examined her idiosyncrasy, we may then prescribe. Justice is the desideratum; the only question is, How and by what means is it to be attained? Our first prescription must have regard to the Big Beggarman." Here is a person scouring the provinces of his country, impressing the minds of a been their best blessing, is their greatest curse; that the tithes which belong to the Protestant church, and of which nine-tenths of them do not pay sixpence, are the cause of their poverty; and that Ireland will never be happy till Protestants are banished from it. Here is a man who wrings from a starving people 17,000l. per annum, in addition to all the dues that are wrung from them by an avaricious priesthood, who, not content with this, sells the boroughs of Ireland to the highest bidder, and calls the conduct of the honourable, persecution, when they attempt to bring the atrocious hypocrisy to the light of day. Here is the man who makes choice of the Sunday and the hour of mass for the time-his own child, disowned, unprotected, and perishing through hunger, for his victim; and, after he has patiently beheld the poor boy beaten and bruised by a brother, inheriting a larger share of his father's cruelty, illustrates his humanity by the Inquisition-like admonition, "Don't strike him any more, John.” If to invent falsehood, to goad on the midnight assassin, to extort money, to be enabled to misrepresent and to slander, to agitate to fill one's pocket, to shout justice to Ireland to swell the "rint," if this be justice to Ireland, may it speedily and totally perish. It is injustice that cries to Heaven for intervention, and to the parliament of Britain for instant and vigorous treatment. We do not more pointedly apply our remarks. We mean only to prescribe that Daniel O'Connell be respectfully moved to the tread-mill, or to Botany Bay, to earn his livelihood in an honest manner, and to rid his country of a political pest-a Popish firebrand, and an avaricious agitator. When this "instalment" of justice is made to Ireland, a portion of the hectic flush will evanish; much of the fever that preys on her vitals will subside; her pulse will be slower, and subsequent exhibitions of suitable medicines rendered more palatable and easy; and the watchword of O'Connell, "Justice to Ireland!" be much more substantially realised than “in his philosophy he ever dreamed of." Our next step in our treatment must be the remodelling of the national Ireland. A Whig govern ix it was |