by which they have been snatched, as it were, from distant tropics, and wafted, so to say, to our feet. We give not a thought to the perils of land and sea encountered for their conveyance to our favoured clime, nor a tear to the waste of human life and human health braved in their culture or their manufacture; sweetening our Bohea, without reflection on the terrors of yellow fever; ensconcing our superfine blue coat, without dreaming of indigo and the liver complaint; swallowing our mutton-broth, careless of the magnified spleen of the ricegrower; and inhaling the spicy breath of "the crackling berry's juice," without one sympathising pang for the jaundiced complexion and disordered organization of the original planter! We of the medical profession, see these things in a different light. The arrival of an Occidental or Oriental fleet, laden with cargoes of colonial produce and colonial martyrs, serves at once to stir up our juleps and our feelings; we feel the throbbing pulse till our hearts beat responsive; we gaze on the bilious cheek till sugar loses half its sweetness to our palate.

One of my most esteemed patients is a gentleman whom I shall designate as Mr. Sangaree, formerly an eminent contractor for camels in the Honourable East India Company's service, and a grower of indigo in his own; who, having returned to the place of his nativity with an income of some thousands per annum, and a spleen emulating the dimensions of a Stilton cheese, was by my humble endeavours restored to comparative health. Mr. Sangaree, soon after his convalescence, became proprietor of a splendid villa at Wandsworth;-a mansion emulating the glories of Chatsworth, and standing on a lawn resembling a few hundred yards of green baize. For some time, he appeared a happy man; but no sooner had he gone the round of house-warming dinners, and discovered that he had not a single neighbour capable of encountering Mulligatawney, the refrigeration of a Punkah, or the elaborate edition of his interview with Sing Gong Futty Bothr All, Rajah of Banyshandan, than poor Sangaree grew hypped and fractious. I prescribed Cheltenham-I proposed Brighton;talked of a tour, and listened to three consecutive recitals of the Banyshandanic audience; but was obliged to take my leave and my fee without the restoration of my patient to health or temper.

Some days after my visit, I was startled at my frugal meal-some hashed mutton, most appetizingly prepared by the hand of my fair partner, and a pint of port simmered before the parlour-fire by the officious hand of my medical partner-when Sangaree's chariot drew up to my door; and his confidential housekeeper, a Mrs. Phibbs, who resembled a native dragoon in a dimity gown, stepped out, and stepped in.

"Oh! Doctor," cried she, flourishing a pocket. handkerchief like the mainsail of a man-of-war, " my poor dear master !-you must instantly accompany me back to Wandsworth."

Insensibly I glanced towards the hashed-mutton-" You shall dine like a nabob at the willa," cried she, with a look of contempt at its unctuous opacities; "but not a moment is to be lost;" and she touched her forehead so significantly, that I immediately adjourned to my shop and provided myself with implements of phlebotomy, and that crooked vest which is called a strait-waistcoat. In half an hour we

were at Wandsworth; and it was fortunate for me that during my suburban journey my Brobdignagian companion had prepared me for the spectacle which was about to meet my eyes; for on entering the gorgeous dressing-room of my patient, I found him seated on a brocaded sofa, with a black Bandana handkerchief disposed like a cravat between his upper lip and the tip of his singularly-elongated nose; while vast patches of rappee smeared his protuberant chin, to the extremity of which he occasionally applied a bottle of volatile salts.

"Ah! Doctor," faltered he, in a tone of decided hypochondriacism, “it is all over with your poor friend!-lost to society, Sir!banished from the fellowship of mankind!—a match for the satyr of the woods at the King's Mews, or Lord Horsephizz at the King's levee !"

"My dear Sangaree," I replied, in a soothing voice, accepting a seat by his side, "what is the meaning of all this?-whence arises this hideous transformation?"

"You see it then?" said he, lowering his tone to the thrilling whisper of maniacal affection. "Ah! Doctor, the servile wretches by whom I am surrounded pretend that I delude myself that my features remain in statu quo, and that my understanding alone is disordered!-But you, my estimable friend, are a sensible man;—and to you I may fearlessly reveal the secret of this mysterious catastrophe. -Doctor, prepare yourself for a tale of terror!"'

I assumed an air of respectful attention; on which my infatuated patient applied his pocket-handkerchief sonorously to his chin, and having wiped that arid feature with the diligence we commonly bestow on its nasal concomitant, resumed his narration.

"Last evening, Doctor, being, as usual, alone-(for that ass, our Curate, having quarrelled with my assertion, that the Hindù God Siva is the Oriental Isaiah, no longer drops in at tea)-I attempted to pass away my time till supper by reading a strange farrago of absurdities, called "Frankenstein;" after which, I found my curried rabbits, kibobed turkey, and capon marinated with mango-juice, extremely refreshing. My claret was well saltpetred-my sangrorum inimitable; and, lost in reflections on the romantic tale I had been perusing, I forgot to order the dishes to be removed.-Fatal forgetfulness! -horrible oblivion!-Had not my rascals waited till I rang my bell, the frightful crisis would have been anticipated."-He paused, and blew his chin, while I managed to preserve an imperturbable gravity.

"On a sudden, Doctor, the osseous fragments on my plate, and the dismembered limbs of the poultry still lingering on the dishes, became instinct with horrific animation. The legs of the rabbits united in preternatural collision with the carcass of the capon-the turkey rose on its drum-sticks-human faces intellectualized the superficies of two mealy potatoes, and surmounted the grisly spectres;—which now stalked from the table and seated themselves beside me!-Oh! -Doctor, Doctor!"

"A drunken dream," thought I; but I remained as dumb as a dormouse.

"The turkey, Doctor, was the first to speak. Sangaree!' said it, in a sepulchral voice, like that of Macready in a catarrh; Sangaree ! behold in me the renowned John Company, and the lady opposite is

6

my wife.'-Oh! Doctor, my very blood seemed saltpetred by this announcement!-'Sangaree,' said the thing, perceiving my trepidation, in thy last contract for camelling my campaign with the Rajah of Seninavadavad, one hundred spavined beasts disgraced thy bargain; fifty died of the glanders, and a score were foundered before they reached the first field!-By the honour of John Company, thou shalt pay the piper!'-At this terrible announcement, I felt in my breechespocket for my purse, meaning to tender it as a douceur to the Begum; but Mrs. Company grinned a horrible grin in my face, disclosing a row of patent mineral teeth. Wretch!' cried John, his long, lank throat reddening as it might have done in its pristine turkeydom, 'dost thou insult our consort?'-and extending his ornithologic claw, he seized me by the nose, and tweaked it into vice-versarious juxta-position with my innocent chin!-Oh! Doctor, the shriek with which I received this visual infliction dispelled the charm!-The spectres vanished! my varlets rushed in, and found me lying senseless under the table!-But, alas! on my restoration to consciousness, the truth of the apparition was painfully authenticated by the substitution of my chin for my nose-my nose for my chin!"

"I see it, my dear friend, I see it!" cried I, seizing him affectionately by the hand. "But do not despair;-John and Mrs. Company

have frequently visited my patients, leaving evidence of their malignant magic, and I am fully prepared with a counter-charm; resign yourself without apprehension to my hands." At this moment the door burst open, and his four domestics, arrayed according to my preconcertment with Mrs. Phibbs in Eastern costumes, borrowed from one of his old trunks, made a sort of fantastic entry, like the personages of one of Molière's burlesque entr'actes. At a signal from my hand, two of them advanced towards him and closely pinioned his arms; a third unbound the Bandana handkerchief from his pseudo chin; and the fourth, after violently lathering his nose with Naples soap, produced a blunt razor, and shaved that unresisting feature, even to excoriation; while the whole four chanted a quartette of mysterious adjurations.

At first poor Sangaree raved and swore, resisted and threatened; and replied to my inquiries, whether he found his features afford any promise of dislodgement, by a torrent of invective. At every fresh latheration, however, his fury became weakened by physical irritation; and at length, when his nose had been reduced to the condition of St. Bartholomew's, and he felt the jagged razor approaching it for the eleventh time, he cried out that "the spell was broke, and that his chin now formed the extreme Cape Matapan of his visage!"

He had literally been flayed into rationality! Never did I behold him more cheerfully himself than when he signed me a cheque on his banker, and dismissed me for the night;—and if indeed my friend Sangaree has experienced any relapse of hypochondriacism, he has at least taken precautions that the intelligence should never reach Conduit-street.

March.-VOL. XXXI. NO. CXXIII.

R

THE POLITICAL ASPECT OF IRELAND.

Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientiâ nostrâ? Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata jactabit audacia? How far, D. O'Connell, will you carry your abuse of our endurance? How long will you mock us in the frenzy of your desperation? To what length will your measureless effrontery hurry you? We can easily conceive, we can ourselves feel, how bitterly disappointed and how justly indignant those must now be, who, in the warmth of their zeal for the cause of Roman Catholic Emancipation, believed and declared that so soon as that measure was carried, Ireland would at once become peaceful, contented, and happy. We are all very apt to attribute too much efficacy and too much importance to that which we are accustomed to dwell upon as the predominant cause in producing any effect; and thus the minds of liberal men were carried away, and if they happened to be of an enthusiastic temperament, were exceedingly misled, as to the astonishing_results which were immediately to flow from Catholic Emancipation in Ireland. The ill effects of centuries of misrule and left-handed justice cannot be obliterated so easily, or quickly. While the patronage of Ireland, in all its ramifications, was extended solely to Protestants, not only were envy and disaffection excited among the few leading Roman Catholics, who were entitled by birth and fortune to aspire to the more exalted places of trust and emolument, but as the same system pervaded all the minor and more invidious appointments, as taxgatherers, excise-officers, tithe-proctors, constables, gaolers, and other subordinate and obnoxious functionaries of the executive, whose duties are inevitably attended with much unpopularity, were all of them uniformly selected from the class of Protestants, hatred and rancour, in addition to envy and distrust, were as naturally infused into the mass of the inferior and less informed Roman Catholics.

The angry passions that had thus necessarily been excited, the disaffected temper that had naturally prevailed, must take some time and management to be allayed. The bold bad brawling men, who had been raised into notice and ephemeral importance during the times of turbulence and struggle, must be allowed to sink back, slowly though surely, into their natural insignificance. The vexed and turbid waters must be permitted to subside, and the venomous reptiles to settle down again into their native mud. Then, when men learn the blessing of Issachar, to know that rest is good, and the land that it is pleasant, the genuine and beneficial effects of the great healing measure will begin to be experienced.

From these considerations it should be a subject far less of surprise than of regret to find the arch-agitator of the Irish populace hastening to assure that respectable community, that Emancipation was to be regarded merely as "the stepping-stone to recover the rest of the privileges of which they had been robbed," and pledging himself that before two years went about he would force Government to grant them their own Parliament, sitting in College Green." He had promised his partisans too much from Emancipation, and he knew it. Whatever glowing pictures he might have drawn within the walls of the Associ ation, of the plenty and splendour that were suddenly to follow in the train of that great measure, when possibly he neither expected nor hoped that it would be carried by the magnanimity of the Imperial Parliament, he could not but know that its real effects upon the people at large, however important and salutary in the end, would be gradual, and for some time scarcely perceptible in their operation. He naturally feared that the people would feel indignant when instead of the Pays-de-Cocagne--the lubberland that he had predicted, labour a dollar a day, and land for a song, they saw these golden visions vanish into thin air, and that Emancipation which had been depicted as so glorious a goddess in pursuit, prove what would seem to them but a cloud and a phantom in possession. Therefore some other topic of irritation was to be proposed, which might occupy both him and them, and, by engrossing their attention, prevent them

from dwelling too morbidly on the past deceit, of which they had been made in some degree the victims.

Mr. O'Connell was deeply stung too, not only by the unexpected advancement of that law-officer of the crown by whom he had been so signally defeated in his motion on the Cork criminal trials, but by his general and complete failure in the Imperial House of Commons. He felt that there his shallow dogmatism and swaggering vulgarity could not avail, and he hurried back to the more congenial atmosphere of Dublin taverns, and mob-meetings, where he might once more, fret his little hour among the rabble, and supplicate, but in vain, the more respectable part of his former associates to join in his career of wickedness and folly. His dictatorial style and swift success among the misguided persons who are still found to shout in his train, ought not to excite surprise. That success is a natural and easy result of an appeal to the passions of the crowd, at a period of great general excitement throughout Europe, of which he has not failed to take a shameful advantage, to inflame the minds of his ignorant auditors, and effect the utmost mischief in his power. "Herein," says the stern and haughty historian of the Catilinarian conspiracy, "the fortune of Rome seemed most deplorable of all, that when the whole world, subdued in arms, lay prostrate at her feet, when wealth and leisure and all things that mankind deem most desirable even superabounded, there yet were found within her own bosom citizens who were obstinately bent on the destruction of the state and of themselves. Not only the accomplices of the conspiracy, but also the whole of the populace, favoured the designs of Catiline; and this indeed they did according to their manner, through desire of change. For always, in every State, those who have nothing to lose envy the good, extol the mischievous, dislike the existing state of things, and long for something new. The profligate and needy, dissatisfied with their present condition, court revolution; in sedition and disturbance they can live without exertion, and they have no property to risk in the struggle."

We are very far from meaning to brand every man who thinks favourably of a repeal of the Union with an ill name, for we know that whilst the bad can always be excited, the good may also often be deceived; indeed on one occasion we perceive that Mr. O'Connell himself has anxiously disavowed the Jesuitical doctrine of justifying the means by the end, and pointedly declared, that he would not purchase the attainment of the greatest possible good by the commission of the least possible evil. His recent conduct generally, his constant ap peals to the worst passions of the misguided populace, holding out to them the examples of the French and Belgians, and assuring them that they want but a native Parliament to bring the King's Ministers to their trial like Polignac and his associates these things, and the wide-spread misery he attempted to produce by paralyzing commerce, and advising a run upon the banks for gold, whilst he himself" wrings from the hard hands of peasants their vile trash," form so ample a commentary upon this text of innocent means, that we deem it quite unnecessary to dilate upon the subject farther.

Of such a man we have no hope and little fear. A trader in agitation from his youth, without original genius or acquired general information, he has been proved to be altogether incapable of large or sound political views. Commonplace in his ideas, which are usually but the echo of whatever happens to be the prevailing topic of irritation, gleaned from the tattle of his associates, or at best from the ten times repeated trash of the party newspapers, coarse in his language and clownish in his action, he is well fitted to ensnare the unthinking multitude who have no other test for honesty but bluntness, or for courage but effrontery. Dangerous ambition, however, must be made of finer as well as sterner stuff. We have sometimes heard it wondered at that he has been able to preserve his popularity so long, notwithstanding the proverbial fickleness of his votaries. His secret is extremely simple; it is to be as fickle as they, to follow where he cannot lead, and veering about with every breath of popular feeling, still to throw up his cap as the rabblement shouts. The disgusting mummery of toasting the memory of William Third, in bumpers scooped from "the bloody