I

insinuated, nor was it advanced under the cover of a review. attacked him openly in my own name, and only not by his, because he had not then publicly avowed the flagitious production, by which he will be remembered for lasting infamy. He replied

Conten

in a manner altogether worthy of himself and his cause. tion with a generous and honourable opponent leads naturally to esteem, and probably to friendship; but, next to such an antagonist, an enemy like Lord Byron is to be desired, one, who, by his conduct in the contest, divests himself of every claim to respect; one, whose baseness is such as to sanctify the vindictive feeling that it provokes, and upon whom the act of taking vengeance is that of administering justice. I answered him as he deserved to be answered, and the effect which that answer produced upon his lordship has been described by his faithful chronicler, Captain Medwin. This is the real history of what the purveyors of scandal for the public are pleased sometimes to announce in their advertisements as Byron's Controversy with Southey. What there was 66 dark and devilish" in it belongs to his lordship; and had I been compelled to resume it during his life, he, who played the monster in literature, and aimed his blows at women, should have been treated accordingly. "The Republican Trio," says Lord Byron, "when they began to publish in common, were to have had a community of all things, like the Ancient Britons to have lived in a state of nature like savages and peopled some island of the blest with children like

A very pretty Arcadian notion !" I may be excused for wishing

that Lord Byron had published this himself; but though he is responsible for the atrocious falsehood, he is not for its posthumous publication. I shall only observe, therefore, that the slander is as worthy of his lordship as the scheme itself would have been. Nor would I have condescended to have noticed it even thus, were it not to show how little this calumniator knew concerning the objects of his uneasy and restless hatred. Mr. Wordsworth and I were strangers to each other, even by name, at the time when he represents us as engaged in a Satanic confederacy, and we never published anything in common.

Here I dismiss the subject. It might have been thought that Lord Byron had attained the last degree of disgrace when his head was set up for a sign at one of those preparatory schools for the brothel and the gallows, where obscenity, sedition, and blasphemy are retailed in drams for the vulgar. There remained

one further shame . . there remained this exposure of his Private Conversations, which has compelled his lordship's friends, in their own defence, to compare his oral declarations with his written words, and thereby to demonstrate that he was as regardless of truth as he was incapable of sustaining those feelings suited to his birth, station, and high endowment, which sometimes came across his better mind.

(From Letter Concerning Lord Byron.)

IRELAND AND CATHOLICISM

NEVER was there a land in a state so disgraceful to its rulers, and its wealthy inhabitants. Never in any part of the world, or in any period of history, have four millions of men existed in circumstances so fearful and so humiliating to human nature. Having for seven centuries been subject to England, being now united to it, and lying almost within sight of it. . of a country where the arts and comforts of civilisation are carried to a higher pitch than they ever attained elsewhere, the great mass of the Irish people are at this moment, in their bodily condition, worse than slaves, and in their moral condition, worse than savages. Pestilence, perpetual warfare, bloody superstitions, and the difficulty of procuring food, keep down the number of men in other countries wherever they approach to the state of wild beasts. Government, and their geographical position, preserve the Irish from three of these evils; and against the fourth they are secured by the use of a root, of all others the most productive, and the most easily cultivated; and in this state of degradation they are enabled to increase and multiply, so as to be truly styled the great and growing majority. Meantime their whole education is confined to the mere forms and vulgarest fables of their false faith, the very dregs and fæces of the most corrupt Catholicism. They have no other intercourse with those who should, by their presence, and influence, and labours of love, be gradually improving and humanising them, than what is just sufficient to excite in them all rancorous and mutinous feelings; and the knowledge which they possess serves only to supply the means, and increase the power, of mischief. They are gifted with a quickness of feeling, and with all the elements of genius, perhaps in a degree

above all other people; and yet these very endowments, which, if well cultivated, might produce such infinite blessings, serve only in their present miserable condition, to render them more sensible of wrong, more tenacious of resentment, and more eager for revenge.

For these people Catholic Emancipation can do nothing, a Catholic establishment might do much; but, though it would remove much misery, it would perpetuate so much evil, that it is no more to be thought of than Harrington's extraordinary proposal of selling Ireland to the Jews. This, however, is the ultimate object of those people who have any object at all, and this would readily be conceded by the majority of their advocates; a number, happily so inconsiderable, that there is no reason to be alarmed at their disposition. No opinion has been more loudly and insolently maintained by men who disguise their irreligion under the name of liberality, than that nations are to be suffered to enjoy their superstitions, however monstrous; that no attempt should be made to shake their faith and supplant it by a better; and that the established religion of every country ought to be that of the majority of its inhabitants. The ground of these political dogmas is a heartless and hopeless Pyrrhonism, and that desperate moral atheism, which, resolving all things into expediency, considers truth and falsehood as equally indifferent in themselves. Even upon their own grounds these reasoners might be confuted. For, were it admitted that truth is not to be attained, and that there is no resting-place for the heart and hopes of man, .. that which is false may still be proved to be so, the specific evils which originate in such falsehood can be demonstrated from history and experience, and it is our duty to prevent those consequences. Wherever the Roman Catholic superstition predominates, it offers only these alternatives. Unbelief, with scarce a decent covering of hypocrisy, and all the abominations of vice, as exhibited in Italy and France, among the higher ranks; or base, abject, degrading, destructive bigotry in all, as in Spain, Portugal, and the Catholic Low Countries. These are the effects which always have been, and always must be produced by a Roman Catholic establishment. Whatever good, therefore, might immediately be obtained by the complete restoration of Popery, would be more than counterbalanced by the subsequent evil.

(From Collected Essays.)

TOM FOOL A KNIGHT

IN these days when honours have been so profusely distributed by the most liberal of Administrations and the most popular of kings, I cannot but think that Tom Fool ought to be knighted. And I assure the reader that this is not said on the score of personal feeling, because I have the honour to be one of his relations, but purely with regard to his own claims, and the fitness of things as well as to the character of the Government.

It is disparaging him, and derogatory to his family, which in undisputed and indisputable antiquity exceeds any other in these kingdoms,it is disparaging him, I say, to speak of him as we do of Tom Duncombe, and Tom Cribb, and Tom Campbell; or of Tom Hood and Tom Moore, and Tom Sheridan; and before them of Tom Browne and Tom D'Urfey, and Tom Killigrew. Can it be supposed if he were properly presented to his Majesty (Lord Nugent would introduce him), and knelt to kiss the royal hand, that our most gracious and good-natured king would for a moment hesitate to give him the accolade, and say to him "Rise Sir Thomas!"

I do not ask for the Guelphic Order; simple knighthood would in this case be more appropriate.

It is perfectly certain that in this case Sir Thomas More, if he were alive, would not object to have him for a brother knight and namesake. It is equally certain that Sir Thomas Lethbridge could not, and ought not.

Dryden was led into a great error by his animosity against Hunt and Shadwell when he surmised that dulness and clumsiness were fatal to the name of Tom. "There are,” says Serjeant Kite, "several sorts of Toms; Tom o' Lincoln, Tom Tit, Tom Tell-truth, Tom o' Bedlam and Tom Fool!" With neither of these is dulness or clumsiness associated. And in the primitive world, according to the erudite philologist who with so much industry and acumen collected the fragments of its language, the word itself signified just or perfect. Therefore the first Decan of the constellation Virgo was called Tom, and from thence Court de Gobelin derives Themis and thus it becomes evident that Themistocles belongs to the Toms. Let no Thomas then or Sir Thomas, who has made shipwreck of his fortune or his reputation or of both, consider himself as having been destined to such disgrace by his

The

godfathers and godmothers when they gave him that name. name is a good name. Any one who has ever known Sir Thomas Acland may like it and love it for his sake and no wise man will ever think the worse of it for Tom Fool's.

No! the name Thomas is a good name, however it has been disparaged by some of those persons who are known by it at this time. Though Bovius chose to drop it and assume the name Zephiriel in its stead in honour of his tutelary angel, the change was not for the better, being indeed only a manifestation of his own unsound state of mind. And though in the reign of King James the First, Mr. William Shepherd of Towcester christened his son by it for a reason savouring of disrespect, it is not the worse for the whimsical consideration that induced him to fix upon it. The boy was born on the never-to-be forgotten fifth of November 1605, about the very hour when the Gunpowder Treason was to have been consummated; and the father chose to have him called Thomas, because he said this child, if he lived to grow up, would hardly believe that ever such wickedness could be attempted by the sons of men.

It is recorded that a parrot which was seized by a kite and carried into the air, escaped by exclaiming Sancte Thoma adjuva me! for upon that powerful appeal the kite relaxed his hold, and let loose the intended victim. This may be believed, though it is among the miracles of Thomas à Becket, to whom, and not to the great schoolman of Aquino, nor the Apostle of the East, the invocation was addressed. Has any other human name ever

wrought so remarkable a deliverance?

Let

Has any other name made a greater noise in the world? Lincoln tell, and Oxford; for although, omnis clocha clochabilis in clocherio clochando, clochans clochativo, clochare facit clochabiliter clochantes, yet among them all, Master Janotus de Bragmardo would have assigned pre-eminence to the mighty Toms.

The name then is sufficiently vindicated, even if any vindication were needed, when the paramount merits of my claimant are considered.

Merry Andrew likewise should be presented to receive the same honour, for sundry good reasons, and especially for this, that there is already a Sir Sorry Andrew.

I should also recommend Tom Noddy, were it not for this consideration, that the honour would probably soon be merged in an official designation, and therefore lost upon him; for when a