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witness, safely and faithfully describe the pleasures of the tented field-the fasting and fatigues of marching, the ennui of the bloodless, though deadly, blockade or siege, in trenches half filled with water-the comforts of the bivouac, exposed to the refreshing dews of heaven,-the dangers of "th' imminent deadly breach." He may portray the "moving accidents by flood and field;"-Descant upon and compare the faults and merits of the respective or opposing chiefs;-and all this without having ever seen a shot fired in his life, except, perhaps, in a trial of skill, in that humane, manly, rational, and delightful amusement, pigeon-shooting.

THE DRAMATIST may, with the trifling aids to be derived from our own drama, and a few recently imported French farces, heap together the materials of a new piece. Should he not be perfectly au fait at the business, which sometimes happens, he may then apply to some person of more wit and less sense than himself, whom he shall engage to transpose, arrange, correct and add to the mélange, with a promise of ample remuneration—an adequate proportion of the profits. Should the piece be intended for an opera or melo-drame, he may then tax the poetical powers and ingenuity of the aforesaid, and other, friends, for songs, being much hurried himself. Having composed the music, in the same gratuitous and eleemosynary manner, he may look out for some promising debutant or debutante, (the latter, if handsome, should always be preferred,) to whom he should offer a part in which to make a first appearance, the assistance of whose personal friends thus judiciously secured, in addition to his own, the allies will become a formidable body. But he has the support of another powerful auxiliary in view, the sympathy and indulgence of the audience, which is never withheld from a young and beautiful candidate, although seldom displayed upon the first performance of a drama coming from the pen of an unknown author. These preliminary precautions to secure approbation being taken, he (the author) having, perhaps the ear of the manager, being on an intimate footing with him, presents his piece it is received, accepted, played-succeeds. The produce (from the theatre) he may privately bestow upon some deserving object. Though offered money for the copy-right of piece and music, he may print them at his own risk. They leave no profit to be divided with the literary assistant. though only the idea of the undertaking, and the collection of the materials, were the author's, his name blazes in the titlepage, the profit and reputation are his exclusively; it goes forth to the world as his own, while (like Sir John Cutler's hose) it has been so patched and so darned, as to pass for the same, without containing one thread of the original stocking.

Al

In short, (for the recapitulation of all that can be done in this way, would itself be book-making,) with a good library, an

ective pen, a little knack-(tact is a better word) and a tolerable share of industry, a man or woman may raise a great name, and, perhaps, no inconsiderable fortune. Esto per petua!

Having said so much in favour of Home manufacture, we shall offer to our readers a few specimens pointed out to us by correspondents, and in their own words, commencing with the Tourist.

"Sir, I had the honour and the pleasure to arrive in Dublin precisely on the day when his gracious Majesty, King George the Fourth, made his faithful Irish subjects happy, by his arrival on the green shores of Erin. I witnessed the joy, the affection, the loyalty, of the people; the benignity, affability, and goodness of our Sovereign. I remained in the beautiful capital of Ireland during the royal sejour. After his Majesty's lamented departure, I waited for the subsiding of that flood of population which had flowed to the metropolis, and determined to view its environs, so celebrated for their beauty. Not wishing to put my Dublin friends to the trouble of doing the honours of the country, which they would cheerfully have undertaken, I sallied forth under the guidance of THE SCIENTIFIC TOURIST THROUGH IRELAND.-London, printed, 1816.'

"Until very lately it has been the fate of Ireland to be almost totally overlooked by the curious and investigating English traveller, whilst the most remote, and to him the most unimportant, countries, have been visited; their antiquities and curiosities examined, illustrated, and described; their histories, natural, civil and political, have been published. Within these few years, however, that island has attracted some portion of public notice, and a spirit of inquiry concerning its population, its produce, and its soil, appears to have been excited; and the late auspicious visit of the King, with the gracious promise of repeating it, having given it additional interest, I make no doubt that country will be attractive to the traveller, when the present unhappy local disturbances shall have been suppressed.

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"Of the incorrect description of the country, and mislocation of places in Irish Topographies,' I had, unfortunately, proof positive furnished me by the Scientific Tourist' above mentioned, and who I so unhappily selected for my guide. Indeed, so eccentric are his vagaries, that I suspect the Tourist' had all his knowledge and information, vivâ voce, from some waggish Hibernian, who enjoyed, by anticipation, the Will-o'the-Wisp pranks he was about playing upon future visitors of the sod.'

"In describing the county of Dublin, the Tourist says " In

the northern district there are many bogs.' Having heard much of them, and despairing of meeting with the moving bog then on its travels, I resolved to have a peep at a stationary one; but, with the exception of a small one near Danybatt and the sea-side, I could not discover (nor does there exist) a bog in the county of Dublin north of the Liffey, until I reached Garristown, on the borders of the county of Meath. The Irish derive their fuel principally from the bogs, and their paucity in the county of Dublin is so well known, that it has given rise to a common saying, which I afterwards learnt

In the parish of Lusk, and the yoke of Fingall,
When the wad is out, the fire is out all.

"So much for the Tourist's information on bogs.

"The Tourist has also impiously contrived to unite places which the Creator designed should for ever remain separated. He desires you, 'See at Rathmines, close to the city, the ruins of Baggotsrath castle, celebrated in the military history of this part of the island,' &c. The British traveller might as well look for Lambeth palace at Vauxhall. On the ground where stood Baggotsrath castle (of which the late Lord de Blaquiere was governor, with a salary of 800l. per annum, for many years after its disappearance from the face of the earth,) there is now built an handsome street, and Rathmines is more than a mile distant from it, and two from the castle of Dublin.

"The accurate tourist proceeds and directs the traveller to See in the NORTH-WEST, Castleknock, a small pleasant village, four miles west, and its old castle in ruins, built in the reign of Henry II., and commanding a fine view. Near it is the venerable ruin of Drymnagh castle, in a most romantic spot; also Dunsink, where stands the observatory.' Without in

quiring whether Castleknock was built in the reign of Henry II. or not, (and that it was not, there is strong reason to believe,) I shall only observe that, although Dunsink is certainly near Castleknock, Drymnagh is not within miles of it; nor is its castle in ruins, but is the comfortable residence of a respectable family. Drymnagh lies in a south-west direction, about three miles from Dublin, and a little to the left of the road leading to Kildare, whilst Castleknock stands on the other side of the Liffey, north-west of the city, and on the high road leading to the counties of Meath and Cavan. In addition to all this misrepresentation, we are further told that the castle of Rathfarnham is "the seat of the Morgans of Ely!" This family must certainly be of the tourist's creation, for, until he brought it forward, none such was ever known to exist in Ireland. It is but an unpleasant task to exhibit the imperfections and oversights of an author, but the manner in which Ireland has been misrepresented, calls for these observations, if it were only to warn future writers on the affairs of that country to be more cautious in misleading the public.

[To be continued.]

POLITICAL PROPHECIES.

No. II.

BEFORE we begin regularly to give the individual prophecies which proceeded from the opposition oracles, it may be well to enter into the spirit which guided those men, not only in predictions, but in opinions with respect to what was past.

The great idol of opposition is consistency, for by that name they distinguish obstinacy. Having once said that a thing is right or wrong, it must remain so to the end of the chapter. Mr. Fox was the person who carried this doctrine to the greatest length. He was like Lord Peter, in Swift's Tale of a Tub, or like one of the members of the family of Sancho Panza, who, he said, were so obstinate, that if they said a thing was right, it must be right were it ever so wrong.

It was in consequence of this determination, to be what he called consistent, that Mr. Fox, having once pronounced his approval of the French constitution of 1789, continued to eulogize it long after it was exploded and despised by those who had seen its operation, and who judged of it by its effects.

It is true that Mr. Fox got into some terrible dilemmas by this affectation of consistency. An English whig, admiring our constitution of 1688, could not properly say that the French constitution of 1789 was the grandest fabric ever erected by human wisdom, inasmuch as those two constitutions were essentially different.

By the French constitution, the King was a mere cipher. There was no House of Lords, no distinction of ranks, no permanence in any law or any institution. Every thing, even the constitution itself, was changeable at pleasure, and accordingly it was soon changed; but still Mr. Fox admired it as the grandest effort of human wisdom and genius.

When he paid his respects to Buonaparte, the greatest despot that ever appeared, some people said that was inconsistent with the creed of the man of the people; but then it was quite consistent with his admiration of every thing that the French Revolution produced.

The Whigs, or Foxites, observed the difficulties into which their leader fell by his doctrine of consistency, and they modified it in their own way, so as to be less inconvenient. Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. Tierney, and others, admit the right to change in every thing, except in uniformly opposing every measure of government.

There is some wisdom in thus limiting the nature and extent of consistency, and perhaps it may cause some wonder that in prophecies it is preserved, with as much care and attention, as in giving opinions respecting past events or present This can only be accounted for by concluding that the prophecies are adapted to the views and wishes of the prophets.

Occurrences.

When those great politicians spoke of the war with France, they laid it down as a principle that a people fighting for their liberty were invincible, consequently that Britain would fail in the contest.

Unfortunately for this prediction, the basis on which it rested was false, for France was not fighting for her liberty. The war was a war of aggression on the part of France, and not defensive, as the English prophets represented it to be.

Now what did those same prophets do when Spain was engaged in a real and serious contest for her liberty? They at once turned round and said, that France must in the end conquer Spain, and make her free in despite of herself!!

How can all this be accounted for, but by the determined resolution to maintain that the English government was always in the wrong, and that whether France was ruled by republican regicides or a military despot, she was right when opposed to the British government?

Buonaparte acted his part well when the whigs went over after the peace of Amiens to prostrate themselves before his consular dignity. He considered them as his allies and assistants employed in fettering the British government in its exertions against him; and in one of his moments of good humour, which were not very frequent, he said, "it was wise to encourage insubordination in the subjects of an enemy, but to punish it severely in his own."

The Parisians said, that the English Wigs, (as they termed them,) would be all sent to the dungeon of Vincennes, if they were the subjects of the First Consul; and there is no doubt but that they would have been sent to some one of the bastilles, in which Buonaparte had at one time above fifty thousand prisoners confined for political crimes, or, in other words, disaffection to his government.

Having shewn the spirit in which the prophecies were uttered, and given the key to them, we shall proceed in our next to give the individual predictions concerning which Mr. Pitt made a very good observation when at Bath during his last illness.

The subject after dinner one day was the misfortunes of the allied armies and the great success of Buonaparte, when some one observed that Mr. Fox would be considered as a political oracle, having predicted the failure of the allies.