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the nations continues to be indulged. We are satisfied to acknowledge your superiority-to bear your badge: all we ask is, allow us to manage our own affairs. Sooner or later it must be done-the sooner the better-the sooner done, the sooner will a real union grow up between the nations, the sooner will prosperity and happiness visit our land, and be reflected back on England. We cannot live alone, we cannot live in enmity. England cannot be happy or prosperous while she has Ireland at her side in want and wretchedness; her labourers and artizans cannot be fairly remunerated while there are millions here to whom their most meagre fare would be feasting. Ours were formed by nature to be Sister Islands; not one as the Mistress, and the other as the Slave; but as bosom and indissoluble friends, bound by the closest ties of interest and fraternity. I repeat it, our cause is one-whether it be the struggle for improved laws from the English Parliament, or for the repeal of the legislative union. An overgrown centralisation has trammelled the exertions of Government, and, if there were no other reason than the utter impossibility of its getting through the labours it has undertaken with anything like the prudent exactness which they deserve, some of them should be shifted to other shoulders.

Had we the resolute, indomitable will of the people of England, our right would soon be acknowledged; but we are cowards. With all our share in the victories of Europe and India, centuries of subjugation, and a religion unaided by intellect have done their work upon us but another generation is arising,-temperate, thoughtful, learned; they will see and feel their power, and they will be irresistible. Pray God, that before that time comes the people may not be goaded on to attempt that by physical which must be gained by moral power! There is yet rife among them a fearful war spirit. So long as it exists, they know not their true power; so long as they fear to rest upon their right, so long are they cowards. would say to them, but with no martial meaning

"Bide your time, the morn is breaking,

Bright with Freedom's blessed ray-
Millions from their trance awaking
Soon shall stand in firm array.

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Bide your time, one false step taken
Perils all you yet have done;
Undismay'd-erect-unshaken

Watch and wait, and all is won.

I

'Tis not by a rash endeavour

Men or states to greatness climb;
Would you win your rights for ever,

Calm and thoughtful, bide your time."

Men of England, help us! I say again unto you, it is your cause ! You have independent minds, and honest hearts; you are before us in the march of freedom-the men who wrought out your freedom riveted our chains. Your Cromwell, the scourge of kings, who taught both monarchy and aristocracy that the people's voice is not to be resisted, wrote his name in our country's history in one deep, dark, blood-streak. The people, whom he led to victory in England, in Ireland he exterminated; and William, who freed you from the hateful, imbecile, tyrannical Stuarts, placed his iron hoof upon our necks, and crushed us to the earth. Your statesmen followed in their train. However liberal and just in England, in Ireland their policy was changed, and grinding oppression and rampant injustice were the only laws we knew, until after six centuries of warfare, Ireland was conquered, and laid her calmly down at the feet of her spoiler. Amock union was effected, and our independence passed away. Did I think that an imaginary evil, far would I be from lamenting over it; but nearly fifty years of experience has found our people more deeply steeped in poverty than ever: the manufactures we had, have all but disappeared; religious dissensions are still kept alive amongst us; and while all the rest of Europe has been advancing, we have been going back; and the conviction has been forced upon us that the worst legislation by Irishmen was better than the wisest efforts of the English parliament. Do away with this conviction by a course of policy different from any you have yet manifested, or give us our own again. S. S. V.

THE "RAGGED SCHOOL."

RADIANT was the light that spread
From Hymettus' honied head;
Stately shone its sculptur'd beam
In Ilissus' limpid stream :

Dusky groves where Fancy wander'd,
Pictur'd halls where Reason ponder'd;
Forms around of grace supernal,
Fanes above of awe eternal;

All that Nature's genial will,
All that Man's ideal skill,
Fashions fair—at Athens wrought
To ameliorate the thought;

Spread o'er earth, and sky, and ocean,
Lustrous lessons of devotion;

Seconded with stroke of Art,

Each high impulse of the heart;

And bade th' exalted Passions

prove

That Grace was Truth, and Wisdom, Love.

Ah! beneath another rule,

Pupils of the "Ragged School,"

Was your tutelage conducted;

Clouds your narrow skies were shading,
Beauty-Art, to wrong persuading,
Virtue named but in upbraiding,

And Love left you uninstructed.

Whilst a lore-'tis hate to learn,
Tutors sedulously stern

Taught the sordid haunts ye lurk in.
Hearthstone cold and cupboard bare

Were the grim preceptors there,

With foul earth and fœtid air,

Conforming minds to what they work in.

Tho' within this noisome room,
Where the glimmer streaks the gloom
Aspirants ungainly pant;

Tho' disgrace to scent and eye,
Offals of Humanity

Reek in this enclosure scant;

Tho' each student fierce and foul
Bend a brow that wears a scowl,
Move a lip of Hardship's bleaching,
Though dull'd Sense and dogged Will,
Tyroes here, but augur ill

For the mild Instructor's teaching;

Yet on God's amending plan,
Here shall reprobated man

Bless his brother man's tuition;
This-Improvement's softest spell-
That his teacher means him well,
Solacing his soul's submission.

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KEEN blew the wind over the waves, washing them upon the breakwater at Harwich. Seldom had Eolus so well worked at his bellows. On the jetty there was no anxious crowd awaiting the arrival of the steamers from Ipswich or from London. The Beacon-hill was deserted. On the esplanade no gay company. paraded. A few weather-beaten seamen and myself formed the whole humanity of the scene.

"It is very cold," said I, addressing a Preventive Service man,. who, in company with an ordinary seaman of the port, was leaning against the lesser lighthouse-each chewing a quid of tobacco, and ever and anon squirting its poisonous juice from the mouth, in a manner at once peculiarly dexterous and nonchalant.

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It is very cold,” said I.

Pretty stiff breeze, sir," replied the Preventive Service man. "What quarter does it blow from?"

"Full east," said the mariner.

"Just the right quarter for Harwich," interposed the Preventive.

man.

"The right quarter for Harwich!" I exclaimed; "why, situated as Harwich is, just out of the water, with sea and river at both ends of each street, it is cold enough always, without the east wind to make it colder. And this esplanade, and the Beacon-hill yonder, have enough wind from the sea-breeze, without these cutting blasts, which almost take one off his legs, but which you say blow from the right quarter."

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Ay, ay, sir; you have kept a clear log as far as you have sailed; but there is something else in the wind, which you have not scored."

"What's that?" inquired I.

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Why, sir, where the wind goes the ship goes."

“ What then?" said my ignorance.

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Why, sir, when the wind 's east, it's all up at Harwich. It drives the craft into port.'

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The light on the east wind being in the right quarter for Harwich, here dawned upon my previously benighted understanding. I nevertheless continued the conversation.

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The craft coming into port," said I, "is an advantage to Harwich, and the east wind is therefore a blessing which drives them in."

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Ay, ay, sir-that's it, sir-Great benefit to trade! All up at Harwich when there's a good stiff east wind!”

"But there may be a shipwreck," said I, with the solemn look of a landsman.

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May be, sir; can't be helped. All the better for Harwich." "But you are not wreckers?"

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No, bless you; but there's always something picked out of such jobs."

Oh thought I, what a condition is this life of ours; even shipwrecks are at a premium in some places! As society is now divisively constructed, the distresses and losses of some are ever, if not the joys, yet certainly the gain of others. I knew before

that an epidemic was often a carriage to a doctor. I knew before that the conflagration of a street was a good fire to carpenters, bricklayers, and so forth. I knew before that a tempest of litigation was a south breeze to a barrister. I knew before that a murderous war was a field of laurels to a general. But now, oh unfortunate, but yet needed knowledge! I know that an east wind is in the right quarter for Harwich, as it delays voyages, creates shipwrecks, and therefore increases trade in that Christian little seaport.

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