to Ireland, the question is different. I ask has she not had wrongs?"Wrongs! Lord Melbourne attempt. ed to justify the Association merely by the insolence of its achievements. "It scorned to hide any of its acts, be their colour what they may.' Lord John shifts the ground, and justifies their illegality on their wrongs. What wrongs, we demand? If they have them, why not apply to Parliament to the tribunals? But nine years after the Emancipation bill, which was declared to have wiped away all the recollection and all the existence of Popish wrongs! Seven years after the halcyon commencement of Whig supremacy! Three years after the jubilee of Lord John's accession! But when was it ever heard of before, that the wrongs of a party justified it in forming a government for itself, in defiance of the Government of the country; entitled it to seize the whole power of a large portion of empire in equal defiance of the laws, and invested it with authority to persecute a great class of their fellow-subjects in defiance of the constitution? We demand, what are their wrongs? We defy the faction to bring forward any, but their being prohibited from having their full vengeance on the Church, the Protestantism, and the English connexion of Ireland. Can there be more unequivocal proofs that the Ministry are tied hand and foot in the fetters of the faction; that the tenure of their existence is submission to that faction; and that the longer they are suffered to retain the name of Ministers, the heavier must be the price which they, and we through them, still will be compelled to pay to this faction.

But the great question for us is this-By what means shall England be saved? They must be prompt, for all things are urged on to rapid overthrow; vigorous, for they have to. resist ferocious activity; and high principled, for they struggle for the noblest inheritance of man, civil and religious freedom, against every artifice and atrocity of men to whom principle is unknown. Englishmen must not, for a moment, let it escape their view, that the first and last ob

ject of the faction is the utter ruin of Protestantism. The cry is for the subjection of England to the old sway of Rome, and the reinstalment of the old pollutions of Popery in the churches of the empire. The Papists have no hesitation in avowing this object. "Your church shall perish, and with it the heresy of England," say the Popish haranguers. The Popish publications are already insolently congratulating England on the increasing numbers of Popish chapels and colleges. And the Popish ecclesiastics are in all directions sounding their coming triumph. To this purpose all their political movements are subservient. O'Connell is but the creature of the priests; the peasantry, for whose wrongs his clamour is raised, are but dust under the march of that arrogant and sanguinary supremacy. Let not Englishmen, in their lazy confidence, imagine that such things are impossible. Nothing is more within the judgment of Providence than the loss of religion to a people careless of the gift. Where are the early churches of Asia? Where the Protestant churches of Spain, Italy, and France? Every portion of the civilized world has had a church on Protestant principles in its day of light. Where are those churches now? Removed from nations, negligent of their purity, indolent in their preservation, and thus unworthy of their presence. And what is there to exempt England from the common punishment, if she is found guilty of the common crime? What is there to save her pastors and her people from the horrid tyrannies, which the returning power of Rome has always exercised upon those who resist her pollutions. We are as far

from superstitions as any men alive. But who can see the system, the practices, and the purposes of Popery, without seeing their utter opposition to the Scriptures? Who can read those sacred books, without seeing the solemn denunciations launched against all who worship the "persecutor of the saints?" Who can hear, without conviction, the divine command-" To come out of her, lest we perish in her plagues?"

"I CAN'T for my part see the least use of wind when we could go so nicely by steam without it can you, sir?" This very sensible observation was addressed to me by a tall goodnatured looking lady, my fellow passenger on board the Apollo, from Portsmouth to Havre. There are certain seasons of a man's life when he is not disposed to be so particularly polite as at others; and the awkward hour or two after getting on rough water, before you have quite ascertained whether you are going to be squeamish or not, is not exactly the time for the display of the graces. I accordingly made my responses in a tone not much calculated, as I imagined, to tempt the lady to prolong the conversation. But she was not so easily daunted.

"Yes, very."

"But they say it is only in its infancy yet. Fine baby, sir! don't you think so?"

I looked at her as she said this. She was as grave-visaged as a judge, and had her eyes fixed on me as if expecting my opinion.

"Fine baby, ma'am !" I exclaimed, determined to silence my talkative friend with a burst of the sublime; "a chubby child, madam; but what can you expect of a boy, the offspring of fire and water; who was nursed by a hurricane, and suckled by a volcano?"

"This is charming! How I wish my lord were here to hear you! He is so fond of poetry."

"My lord?" I enquired.

66

My husband, sir," replied the lady, drawing herself up to her full height, and throwing her veil still further back upon her bonnet. There was not a line of Debrett written in her countenance; not a vestige of the red book was there, except that her nose, under the influence of the stiffish south-wester then blowing, might have furnished the binding. I only bowed to this half discovery she had made of her rank and title; and I confess I became interested in the very unusual style of

her conversation.

"Oh, my lord so doats upon poctry," she continued; "he knows all

Lord Byron by heart, and Shakspeare, and Barry Cornwall, and all the rest of the moderns. 'Tis quite delightful to hear him quote long passages when he comes home fatigued."

"A pleasing relaxation, no doubt, madam. Does his lordship speak much in the House?"

"Oh! no-he generally reads in the house; but you ought to hear him spouting so beautifully when we take our walk into the fields on Sundays."

"His lordship," I replied, "must indeed be a powerful orator; may I ask if he has published?"

"Lots of advertisements every week."

"Advertisements!" I thought, why, this silly she-grenadier must be quizzing, though she keeps her countenance so well. A lord spouting Barry Cornwall in the fields on Sundays, and sending advertisements every week to the newspapers-preparing, I suppose, for the reformed House of Peers. "And does his lordship," I said, “ reside principally in town?"

"Constantly. Business, you know, sir, must be attended to."

"Ah! Downing Street?" I said, with a knowing look, anxious to humour what I now thought was the insanity of my companion.

"Never heard of it. We live in the very middle of the City." "His lordship studies the fluctuations of trade?'

"He does, indeed; but of course, every one, you know, sir, for him self; he attends principally to his own

laziness, rewarding another for attention; seeing to all their meals, and counting year after year the gains and losses. My lord, I am sure, will feel quite at a nonplus at the chateau Rosigny, with nothing to do but superintend his crops."

"And quote the poets."

"Ah, true enough, sir, but even that would very soon grow tiresome. I am half afraid of the experiment, I assure you. I sometimes think it would be better to stay as we are."

"His lordship, perhaps, has no turn for agriculture?"

"I don't know. He has never tried. He has stuck very close to the shop." "To the shop? Do I understand you clearly, madam? Does his lordship amuse his leisure hours by keeping a shop?"

"No; not exactly a shop-but he is a manufacturer on a great scale. They call shops counting-houses there."

"Pray, what article is honoured by his lordship's manufacture?”

The lady bent forward with a very consequential air, and said-.“ Buttons.

There could now be no manner of doubt that her ladyship was a humorist, and I accordingly rewarded her last effort with a burst of uproarious laughter. But she seemed by no means pleased with the compliment.

"Buttons, I assure you, sir," she said, very coldly; "both gold and silver, plain and ornamented, ivory, horn, and mother-o'-pearl of the very finest quality. We supply all the buttons to the Legion of Honour." I looked again at the communicative lady, but there was nothing in her face that favoured the supposition that she was trotting me out. A lord making buttons for the Legion of Honour was a sight too extraordinary to be passed over, and I resolved, if my companion again asked me to remain at Rouen, that I would put off a day or two in that fine old town, and examine her and her husband, along with the other curiosities. Happily, though the passage was rather rough, I managed to strengthen my inner man to such a comfortable extent with some medicines furnished to me by the steward out of a Dutch-built bottle, that smelt uncommonly like veritable Cognac, that before we had got under the lee of the Channel Islands, I could have navigated the Bay of Biscay in a washing-tub. When a man feels un

As it

expectedly that he has got quit of a great calamity, such a reaction takes place on his previously low spirits, that he becomes rather perhaps too boisterous in his mirth. When I discovered that for this time I had escaped the demon of sea-sickness, nothing could surpass the hilarity of my conversation. I could have paid compliments to my grandmother; but as she did not happen to be within reach, I betook myself to the next object of admiration I could find, and poured all manner of soft speeches into the ears of the right honourable the Coun tess of Buttons. If she had been a bona fide duchess, I could scarcely have paid her more attention. was, I found I had made myself an especial favourite. She did not rest satisfied till I had promised to stay a week with them at Rouen, and afterwards to visit them when they should have settled in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux; and to all these polite invitations I answered of course in the affirmative, though with no great intention of keeping my engagement, at least to the full extent. A whole week in the same house with my lord and my lady appeared to me too much; but I resolved, as I had nothing to do, and only intended to amuse myself by a few months' residence in France, to devote a day or two to consolidating my acquaintance with my new and hospitable friend. The voyage at last came to an end; the deck was covered with trunks and packages of all sorts and sizes; the passengers were superintending the debarkation of their goods; some, who had had a salutary terror of the dangers of the seas, now came up from the lower regions, for the first time; and, in short, what with porters, sailors, passengers, custom-house officers, and hackney coachmen, swearing, scolding, and quarrelling in all sorts of languages, it seemed as if the Glorious Apollo had been boarded by the plasterers of the Tower of Babel; and in the mêlée I nearly lost sight of my friend. last, however, I found her, but now she was no longer alone. On her arm leant a figure wrapped up in a cloak, and covered with a very thick veil, so that she was almost completely concealed. I do not know how it happens, yet it most assuredly always does happen, that one knows by the first glance at a cloak, however

At

loosely it may be made, whether there is a beauty or a fright beneath it. For my own part, I know things of that sort to a certainty; so that all disguises are quite useless, so far as I am concerned. Luckily, also, on this occasion, the wind had not altogether ceased, and did me the favour to blow aside-only for one instant—the lower part of the cloak, so that I saw the prettiest foot and ankle in the world. The bonnet, veil and all, could not hide the tournure of the head, and in one moment I felt that Cupid had stuck one of his arrows up to the very feathers in my heart. I looked round to discover the villanous god, but an old boatswain chewing tobacco was the only person I could suspect. Love, I know, takes many disguises, but such a metamorphosis as that was scarcely to be met with in Ovid; so I resolved to submit to the wound as I best could, and try to persuade the fair incognita to pull the arrow out again herself. I went up to them directly, and was profuse in my offers of assistance, keeping an eye all the time on the movements of the mysterious veil. It seemed glued over the

face, which I felt quite certain was beautiful. My friend the Countess never thought of introducing us, or indeed of speaking a syllable to the lovely being at her side. To me, however, her kindness continued unabated. As her arrangements were concluded first, she soon stept ashore; but before leaving the vessel she gave me her card, reiterating her invitation to see her the following day at Rouen. There was now no hesitation whatever in according her the honour of my company for a week—or a month, if she expressed the least desire for it. But in the mean time her card bewildered me more than ever. All that it contained was simply, "Arnaud Crequillez, Fabricant de Boutons, Rouen." Not a single word about lord or right honourable, or even (for now.I saw, from the name, he was a Frenchman) prince, comte, or seigneur. It was a perfect riddle, and I wasn't Edipus enough to unbutton it. However, I consoled myself by thinking that the following day would lift up the veil from this perplexing mystery, and also from the beautiful unknown.

There was no great difficulty in finding my way to the house of M. Crequillez. A fine, large, handsome house it was, with a huge port-cocher, lofty rooms, and immense rambling passages. In the apartment usually occupied by Madame there had been some attempts made at English comforts. A carpet and rug, an open grate, sofas of tolerable width, and chairs strong enough to bear an ordinary weight, gave an appearance of snugness such as is rarely to be met with out of the "tight little island." Madame Crequillez received me very graciously, told me that her husband longed for the pleasure of my acquaintance, and that he would even hurry home from the counting-house an hour earlier than usual to have the delight of welcoming me to his house. How was it possible to resist so much kindness? I resolved to gratify every wish they might express to see as much of me as possible, for with an eye fixed inalienably on the door, I expected that every moment would present to me the object of my curiosity. But

the whole morning passed in listening to the talk of my friend Madame, who still continued the same style of conversation that had astonished me so much on board the Apollo; and even now, when I knew her so much better, I could not exactly decide whether she was only very odd, and played off the simpleton by way of an amusement, or was in reality the noodle she appeared. She still went on very magniloquently about " her lord." "His lordship" would soon be here; "his lordship would return from his shop; "his lordship" would close his ledger; and, in fact, she so pestered me with her continuous prattle on that single subject, that I began to think America must really be a delightful country to live in. But patience and politeness, like time and the hour, wear through the roughest day; and my curiosity continued if possible to increase as the hour of dinner drew near. I listened to every sound-but always to be disappointed. At last I heard a light step in the passage ;—it paused at the door-the handle turned

round-I sprang to my feet, feeling assured my hopes were now to be realized, and was immediately enclosed in the firm embrace of "M. Crequillez, button-maker at Rouen.' He was a light, active little man, of about fifty-five years of age, dressed in a bright blue coat, glaring-coloured, close-fitting nankeen pantaloons, and yet with all that, and in spite of his exaggerated manners, and the previous idea I had conceived of the husband of Madame and the manufacturer of buttons, he was evidently a gentleman. Strange how impossible it is either to conceal or to assume that indefinable, inexplicable" something," which at a glance reveals to you that its possessor has that within which passeth show. Nine tailors can make a man, but a whole universe of tailors can neither make nor hide a gentleman-a most distressing piece of news for Sunday bloods and the overdressed worshippers of Baron Stultz. But my friend M. Crequillez, though you saw in a moment that he was thoroughbred, contrived to make himself a very ridi. culous individual notwithstanding. How was it possible to help laughing at a little fellow, dressed in the way I have described, sidling up to the three-decker he called his wife, and elevating himself on tiptoe to give her a salute?

"Aha, Madame!" he cried, "I have great honour to receive your friend on board the steam ship in my house here; and, sare, how you do? Make yourself at home- I give thee all; I can't no more.""

Mr Charles Montague," I suppose, "wants nothing so much as his dinner;' said Madame Crequillez, giving her husband a card with my name on it, which, in the hurry of our parting in the steamboat, I had torn off one of my trunks.

"I am rejoiced," said mine host, "to see you, Mister Charles Montague, and shall take good care to give you an umbrella if it rains, and a greatcoat on the top of all. Are you damp just now, sare?"

"Damp, sir?" I said.

"Yes; for if you are at all moist, there is a large fire in de kitchen, which will put you right very soon. Will you go down into the fire, sare?"

This, be it observed, was in the dog

days no rain had fallen for months; and here was an extremely civil little man pressing me to go into his kitchen to have the benefit of his stove. I said nothing, expecting every moment he would ask me to walk into the oven; but his lady came to my assistance.

"What do you want Mr Montague to roast himself for, in a day like this? the thing is ridiculous."

"What is there of the ridicule in it, Madame? does he not write upon his card, Mister Charles Montague, to be kept dry?"

The

And there to be sure was the direction plain enough, which I had included for the benefit of my clothes, but which had produced me so warm a reception in my own person. matter was soon explained to Monsieur Crequillez's entire satisfaction, and we shortly adjourned into the diningroom, but still without the company of the lady of the veil. There were chairs set for four-but no notice was taken of the supernumerary. We ate and talked, and I watched every word that was said, in hopes of hearing something or other about the additional guest who had evidently been expected. But Monsieur's thoughts were fixed on far higher concerns. He was intent on showing the perfect acquaintance he had with English literature, and for this purpose, he lost no opportunity of lugging in quotations, whether, as it appeared to me, they were pat to the subject or not. When he discovered that I had been often in France before, and that I could comprehend him, if any thing, better in his own language than in his attempts at mine, he betook himself to French for every thing but his eternal quotations. And it is a very extraordinary thing what a different appearance a man has when he speaks his own language, from the miserable figure he cuts when labouring at a foreign tongue. Monsieur Crequillez immediately became a shrewd, clever, intelligent companion, instead of the grimacing silly sort of fellow I had thought him at first. Perhaps one great reason of my altering my opinion, was the compliment he paid me of assuming English fashions while I condescended to be his guest, and among others, that of sitting a good while after dinner. The wine was admirable; we got near an open window looking upon a little