hot meet with the approbation of his Majesty's Ministers; and why not? The answer is plain; and however painful it may be to speak as we are about to speak, the answer shall be unflinchingly given.

The real grievances of Ireland arise out of the Protestant Church establishment, and the plans that have been adopted to maintain that establishment. But the Ministers do not wish to get rid of this gigantic burthen; they cling to it; they love it; they will attempt any thing rather than overturn it. They have had recourse to subterfuge to attain their end. What, in the present disturbances, they peculiarly dislike, is the avowed enmity to the Established Church, and the means adopted to abate that nuisance. They did not dare say this, however; they therefore had recourse to an artifice. They insist on the outrages of the Whitefeet; they paint in terrible colours, the disturbances created by these lawless depredators; they pretend that they desire powers to put down these evil doers, and they thus endeavour to frighten the English people. In their plans, however, these Whitefeet are forgotten. The efforts of the Government are directed against the non-payers of tithes; their increased powers are directed against church and political agitation. The House of Commons would not thus see the conduct of the Ministers. They were still determined to have confidence in the reforming Ministry; and they voted confidence in them, and a determination to give powers before abating grievances, by a majority of 301 to 65.

These two symptoms of the old malady, which men vainly fancied was cured for ever, were followed by two others equally significant. Lord Althorp, on being asked whether he intended to abolish the taxes on knowledge, answered in his usual manner: He was extremely desirous of doing away with these taxes; but he could not say whether he could do so, because the quarter's Revenue had not been ascertained. Put this answer in juxta-position with the next step of His Majesty's Ministers. They could not determine to abolish the most mischievous tax which is now levied from the people, because they did not know the state of the Revenue: but they could resolve to maintain a parcel of Naval and Military sinecures, come what would, be the situation what it might of the Revenue. Are not these significant symptoms? Is there not much unworthy artifice in this mode of dealing with the people's demands? The Ministry, moreover, say that they intend to do nothing respecting the Corn Laws; they have given an ambiguous answer respecting slavery; and very openly hinted that no reduction in taxation will take place. If this be all that we are to obtain from a Reformed Parliament, we have laboured hard, and for many months, for very little purpose.

One word as to the composition and temper of the House of Commons. The last division of 232 against 138, on Mr. Hume's motion to reduce Military and Naval sinecures, gives us hopes that, on questions of econo my, the people's demands will be attended to; that time will destroy the prestige which now exists respecting the present Ministers; and that the representatives of the people will not long be cajoled by the shifts and artifices daily employed to deceive them. Although this be our opinion of the majority of the House, there is much in its composition to create disgust; many having found their way into that assembly, possessing not one quality required in the legislators of a great nation. Much, by far too much, of the old leaven remains. Dandies, emptyheaded coxcombs, insolent aristocrats, yet form too large a portion of the legislature. It would be invidious to mention names; but to any

one who goes into the People's House, there will appear to be a strange assembly of idle loungers, of mere youths, and dangling boys of fashion, congregated behind the Speaker's chair; youths whose fit place would be some strict seminary of useful instruction, where they might learn something beyond the "nice conduct of a clouded cane;" and some twenty years hence be enabled to come to some rational conclusion upon the great matters on which they now, so improperly, are called to decide. To any one who will go into the great Council of the Nation in a sedate and sober spirit; who feels the immense responsibility which the office of a representative necessarily imposes; it will appear a matter of serious lamentation, of deep and bitter regret, that our destinies, our whole well-being, and the well-being of the many millions under our dominion, should be trifled with in this awful manner; and should be suffered to depend, in any degree, upon the whim and fancy of a parcel of insolent, idle, ignorant, school. boys. When we consider, that the most powerful minds the world ever saw, have, day after day, night after night, spent their best energies in endeavouring to understand and solve the many difficult questions which the science of legislation involves; when we know that, after all their efforts, their knowledge has hitherto been imperfect; that the science which they have endeavoured to frame is imperfect also; what shall we say to the wisdom of those who select, for the practical application of this difficult and perplexing science, a host of ignorant youths, possessed even of very few kindly or generous feelings? Assuredly the People have had little to do in the affair beyond that of permitting it. It is to be hoped that the time is not far distant, when all this rubbish will be, utterly and for ever, swept from the legislature of the people.

cessors.

Although there is a large portion of the House, nearly one half, who have never before been within its walls; still, the tone and temper of the present House resembles strongly, too strongly, indeed, that of its predeAt present, the new, and better disposed part of the members, are somewhat dashed by the impudent old leaven which sets the fashion, and apparently guides the estimation of the House. This will not long be the case. The demands of the people must quickly be attended to; the feelings that, out of doors, find favour, must be predominant within; and the high tone of morality, which the mass of the people admire, will be adopted and admired by their representatives also. At the present moment, however, it would be difficult to find any public assembly in the kingdom, (the House of Lords excepted,) in which the tone of the morality is worse; in which the arguments employed to guide their understandings are so vulgar; and, in conclusion, in which the emotions which are predominant are so utterly selfish, mean, and contemptible. The better men of the House ought to rise up in indignation, and at once introduce a higher and more dignified morality, a more wise and instructive mode of argument. The House must not permit the present empty set, who guide its councils, to predominate after the fashion which has hitherto prevailed.

THE WISHING-CAP.

No. II.

A Flight to the Cape. Inferiority of all other hunts to the Lion-hunt. Character of the Lion vindicated. Dr. Johnson caught wild. Inquiry into the reason of the existence of Lions.. Nature's love of Pomp and Show. An awkward question for our friends in America. National Symbols in need of Reformation. Terrible mistake of Napoleon.

THE perusal of a jovial ballad upon a "Lion-hunt," in a late publication, has made us wish to be in Africa, and see one for ourselves; and accordingly, we have been there. We saw a variety of other animals, such as cameleopards, quaggas, and Dutchmen ; partook of a breakfast of honey with our friend the Cuculus indicator; and had a sight of the Spirit of the Cape, and the gentler Ghosts of Vaillant and his Narina. As we go winged, we of course go as the crow flies," straight to the mark,—or, to use a more apposite simile, as Mercury in the ancient poets, with his Winged Cap, goes over land and sea on his messages; so that, if travellers had had proper eyes in their heads, they might have seen us skimming along, now like a pigeon, and now like an albatross, over France, the coast of Italy, the Mediterranean, Barbary, and the Desert. It was bitterly cold in crossing the Channel and the Alps; and we cannot say we felt much warmer, when we dipped down among the orangeries and the waters of the Riviera. The southern part of the Mediterranean was the place. In the desert, we saw, beneath our feet, a host of pillars of sand, moving along in a burning and fiery twilight, like the spirits of Dom-Daniel. The Spirit of the Cape faced us in a very grand manner towards our right, as we entered Caffreland, frowning high up in the air, just as Camoens beheld him on his return from India; but we declined his acquaintance; and closing our pinions, descended into the vineyards of French Corner, where we took refreshment and a dance with the goodnatured family of M. du Fresne; some of the most pious, and at the same time most pleasant people we ever met with-a perfect model for those who would show a truly religious sense of the bounties of God's creation.

A "Lion-hunt!"

How grand is the sound, and how it raises in our estimation those who engage in it! How it seems to open to us at once all the romance and wayfaring universality of the times we live in ; and throws back into domestic and tea-drinking nothingness the experience of the last century! And how poor, or to-be-deprecated, sound all other kinds of hunting in the comparison,-the "stag-hunt,"-inhuman; the "hare-hunt," ditto, and sneaking; the "fox-hunt," vulgar and squire-archical. A “ tiger-hunt" is something; but the sportsmen get up on elephants, out of the way. The "lion-hunt" is the thing. It is Homer come to life. Those who have been parties to it, have lived epically. Only think, reader :-let the Almanach des Gourmands talk as it will of its "Jury of Tasters ;"-let Mr. Ude and Mr. Gunter boast as much as they please ;-let the aristocratic historian record the exploits of the young gentlemen, who tossed up a slipper of Ninon's into a ragout;

* Ephemerides, or Occasional Poems written in Scotland and Southern Africa, by Thomas Pringle.

but here is a gentleman among us, Mr. Pringle, who has tasted lion! He thinks it " insipid," and cannot recommend it. At what a disadvantage does this tone of indifference, this superiority to a lion-chop, put all of us, who have never risen above beef and mutton!

Of a similar grandeur compared with our home-feelings, and begetting a doubt within us whether most to admire its superiority to our amusements, or to be grateful for the natural every-day air with which he speaks of it as a commonplace, is the description of the hunt in Mr. Pringle's verse; as, for instance, where, in language no loftier or more assuming than if he were talking of a badger, he says,

"But tighten your girths, and look well to your flints,
For heavy and fresh are the villain's foot-prints."

Who does not feel that the lion is in his neighbourhood, when he hears these two natural epithets? And, yet, who does not, at the same time, feel an alarm, unknown to the gallant writer, when thus told of the necessity of tightening his horse's girths, and looking well to his flints? One of the huntsmen is down, and fairly under the lion's paw; yet the poet has no greater alarm for him than he expresses in the following jovial couplet:

"Bezadenhout, up man! 'tis only a scratch

You were always a scamp, and have met with your match."

To have been under a lion, his paws on one's breast, and his great visage panting and looking round him; and yet to be told it was "only a scratch!" This is "coming to the scratch" with a lustre!

We shall not repeat, however, the details of a sport which has been so well described in the verse and prose of this gentleman, and by so many other writers. We shall content ourselves with bearing testimony to their accuracy, and with saying how glad we are to see the character of the lion for courage and magnanimity vindicated by the latest of our fellow-travellers. Some mechanical-minded persons, out of an idle jealousy of the poets, (the best of all observers,) would fain have had us believe of late years, that the lion was a sneaking fellow, no better than a cat. They triumphantly desired us to notice how he watched, cat-like, for his prey; how idle he was, except when roused by hunger; and how quietly he could walk off before a score or so of men and dogs, after standing and looking them in the face, and considering their presented muskets, Unquestionably the lion has a relationship to the cat; just as a great man has to the little people among his species. He also holds a man in his mouth, (a very terrible sight!) just as a cat does a mouse. But he does not sport with his prey! He is not cruel; not willing to get his pleasure out of one's pain. He watches, it is true, for his prey; but so would Jenkins, if he were an outlaw with nothing to eat, and a boy was going by with a leg of mutton. So would "Jenkins," do we say? So would the most dignified Doctor or the greatest Saint among us. Suppose that Dr. Johnson, or the Bishop of London, or even our Gracious King William, had, by some accident, grown up in the woods, without education or speech, and been caught, and called Sam or William, the Wild-Boy; and suppose he had been brought to town in a caravan, and had got loose about six o'clock in the evening, having had nothing to eat all day, and a man were going by with a dish of turtle from the pastry-cooks! Conceive the eye with which Wild Sam would stand looking from behind the caravan door, for fear his master should see him; and then the shout with which he would bolt forth upon the turtle, gob

bling it up as if no dignity was in him. We say nothing of the varieties of other kinds of prey for which certain human beings watch; because we do not wish to lower the character of the lion who lurks only out of necessity, and not from their love of cheating and gain. That the lion is idle, except when he is hungry, may be admitted; but what is the plea for human occupation in general, except that a man "must live;" that he must "get his bread ;" and that if he is idle, he will have no butcher's meat. It is astonishing with what coolness we flesh-eating, fish-hooking, staghunting, war-making, boroughmongering, two-legged animals, sit in judg ment upon our fellow-creatures the quadrupeds; and abuse them for doing, out of sheer instinct and compulsion, what we perpetrate out of a deliberate self-indulgence! Let those among us who have really not been educated for nothing, and who have a decent quantity of humanity to go upon, do justice to the common instincts of lion and noblelord. As to his walking off before a multitude of men and dogs, with loaded muskets, and all sorts of advantages over him, it is what, in a Xenophon or a Frederick the Second, would have been called a retreat, not a skulking away. The lion refuses to risk his life, and that of others, to no purpose; and instead of praising him for it, we call him idle and skulking. It is surely enough that, before he makes up his mind to decline the battle, he can look calmly upon his enemies; nay, (as they acknowledge themselves,) with the most lofty and courageous aspect. If a dog or so happens to come too near him on that occasion, he makes a movement of his paw, invisible as one of Belcher's pieces of by-play, and smites the mongrel "Do not misinterpret me, to death; which is just as if he had said, and behave like a puppy. I am standing thus, not for fear of you, but like a proper general calculating his forces." When Homer speaks of a lion walking off, it is in compliment to his bravest warriors, and the reluctance with which they retire.

There is no one thing in the creation, which, deeply considered, is more mysterious than any other; but with that kindly permission to question her proceedings, in which Nature indulges us, we may be allowed, with all due reverence, to express our amazement at the existence of your wild beast. We can see "no exquisite reason for him." He seems, as if his uses had been anterior to the present system of the world, and that he is "going out" accordingly. Perhaps the lion was the lap-dog of the antediluvians, or hunted a superior order of mice in the reign of Gian Ben Gian. At present, (unless it be his office to keep down the population of the Cameleopard and the deer,) we see nothing in a lion or tiger, but a raging stomach, in the shape of a quadruped, impelled to fill itself at the cost of other stomachs; except, indeed, its existence involve some very exquisite sensations of health and comfort during its hours of repose; or be kept up in order to furnish our story books with a pleasing terror, and our poets with similes. Doubtless, there are corners of things of which human inquiry knows nothing; even in objects with which it concludes itself to be well acquainted. A lion has affections, and will take kindly to the company of a dog or a kid. He has also a lofty, and even thinking countenance in its way; and Heaven knows what may be his meditations during a bland interval of digestion, He is also handsome or what he or any other animal may know of us. after his kind. Marcus Aurelius, that most amiable of utilitarians, found beauty in the very gape of his jaws, that "chasm of teeth," (xado) as Anacreon calls it. Certainly the lion has a mane, the sole use of which seems to be to give a luxuriant grandeur to his aspect. Nature seems