Surrey. Wyatt. Is thy mind gone, or dost thou worship shadows On nights like these,-less calm perhaps, And winds awaken, and the West grows dark Beauty and Love, Death and the Poet's dreams Spare me.-Let us go. Take this (gives gold)-Keep Surrey in thy memory. [Exeunt.] STATE OF PARTIES IN DUBLIN.* In a Third Letter to a Friend. I CONCLUDED my last letter with the achievements of Lord Wellesley at the Beef-steak Club, and turn from the noble Marquis to a person who not long since enjoyed much more substantial power than the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Mr. Saurin, who for more than fif teen years had exercised an authority little short of absolute dominion, had been removed from office with such peremptory haste, as almost amounted to disgrace. The support given by Mr. Plunket to the Six Acts made the cabinet over-willing to accede to the stipulations of the Grenville party, that he should be restored to the situation for which he had displayed so many unequivocal requisites. Saurin was promptly sacrificed. Few men are more sensitive than this virulent politician, I have been informed that, not Mr. Murphy himself, but some of his friends have greatly complained of the allusion contained in my last letter to one of the political incidents in that gentleman's life. If my motives in making that allusion were even as uncharitable as it appears they have been charged to be, I might still reply that Mr. Murphy has made himself conspicuous in public life, and that occasional animadversion is the inevitable price which public men must consent to pay for their notoriety;-but I have too much respect for the individual in question, and for those who I understand have complained on his behalf, to resort to this hackneyed justification. It is easier and fairer to declare at once, that if offence has been taken, none was intended. The political sentiments and conduct attributed to Mr. M. at a period of great danger and distraction, would equally apply to many eminent Irishmen, with whose principles it cannot be matter of reproach to say of any man that he was associated ;-and if the subject was glanced at in a tone of incautious levity, it was because the writer was little conscious of putting forward an accusation, imagining that the party concerned, from his known urbanity and good sense, would be among the first to join in the smile which the allusion might provoke. who carried into his retirement those deep and dark emotions which, however hidden by a superficial congelation in characters so externally cold as his, do not boil and fret with the less vehemence from being secret and unheard. Even in prosperity his mind had manifested its vindictive tendencies. All the long sunshine of fortune could not make it completely bright, or divest it of its gloomy and monastic hue. When placed upon the top of provincial power, and virtually the Proconsul of Ireland, he exhibited a strange inveteracy of dislike to all those who attempted to thwart his measures. If this spirit could not refrain from shewing itself, when every circumstance contributed to allay it, his political disasters impelled it into new activity and force. Few indeed will deny that the ignominy, and I may add the wrong, which he had sustained at the hands of those to whom he had made the ill-requited sacrifice of his old republican opinions, was calculated to gall the most apathetic nature. He had been discharged, like a menial, without notice, to make room for the man towards whom he had long entertained a political and almost personal aversion. Yet he endeavoured to carry a sort of dignity into his retreat, and, wrapping himself in the cloak of principle, exclaimed "Meâ virtute me involvo." The mantle was a little tarnished, nor was it difficult to discern the writhings of the wounded politician underneath. Even this thin and threadbare covering was soon after torn away. His famous epistle to Lord Norbury was discovered. There is in Ireland a kind of Spartan notion of criminality. It is not so much the perpetration that constitutes the offence, as the discovery. The detection of this document, in which an Attorney-general had taken upon himself to exhort a Chief Justice to employ his judicial influence in the promotion of a political purpose, created universal surprise. Few could persuade themselves that a man so conspicuous for his wily caution, could have thus committed himself with the facetious Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. When the letter was first spoken of, the partisans of Mr. Saurin exclaimed that it was a rank forgery; but when it was actually produced, and it became evident that it was written in the official autograph, they stood amazed. This unfortunate disclosure of the system upon which his government had been carried on, tended not a little to augment the gall which so many circumstances had conspired to accumulate; and when the ex-officio proceedings were instituted by his successor, no man was more vehement than Mr. Saurin in his reprobation of the high prerogative proceeding. He protested (and he is in the habit of enforcing his asseverations by appeals to the highest authority, and by the most solemn adjurations) that in his opinion the conduct of Mr. Plunket was the most flagrant violation of constitutional principle which had ever been attempted. He seemed to think that the genius of Jeffries had by a kind of political metempsychosis been restored in the person of William Cunningham Plunket. He became so clamorous in his invocations to liberty, that he almost verified the parable in the Scriptures. The demon of Whiggism, after a long expulsion, seemed to have effected a re-entry into his spirit, and to have brought a sevenfold power along with it. He was much more rancorously liberal than he had ever been, even at the period of his hottest opposition to the Union. Little did he think, in this sudden but not unaccountable paroxysm of constitutional emotion, that his own authority would be 66 speedily produced as a precedent, and that his great rival would find a shelter under the shadow of so eminent a name. It was not, however, to convivial declamations that his invectives were confined. The press was resorted to, and a pamphlet entitled "A Year of Lord Wellesley's Administration" appeared. It was written with skill, but without power. It was destitute of real eloquence, but exhibited that species of dexterity which a veteran practitioner in Chancery might be expected to display. It was believed that if not actually written by Saurin, he supplied the materials. The poison was compounded by other hands. This book was a good deal read, but owed its circulation rather to the opinions which it inculcated, than to the language in which they were conveyed. Having succeeded in exciting the public mind to an adequate tone of irritation, Mr. Saurin resolved to push his attack into his enemy's territory, and to invade him in the House of Commons. The selection which he made of one of his instruments for this purpose was a little singular. His oratory illustrates a phrase of the satirist, tenero supplantat verba palato." The spirit of Saurin, however, breathed some of its masculine nature into his soul, and he exhibited a sort of Amazon intrepidity in his encounter with Mr. Plunket. His coadjutor was more appropriately chosen, and a certain noble Lictor was felicitously selected for the scourging of the Attorneygeneral. That the latter was guilty of some indiscretion in revenging the affront which was offered to the viceregal dignity, his firmest advocates do not now dispute. He was probably actuated by an honest desire to pierce into and disclose the penetralia of Orangeism, but this object he might perhaps have attained without committing the rioters for high treason against the representative majesty of the noble Marquis. He lent himself not a little to the personal exasperation of that distinguished nobleman. Lord Wellesley regarded the Bottle affair not only as a violation of his honour, but as an attempt upon his life. It has been happily observed in a very excellent pamphlet, written by Mr. Æneas M'Donnel (the author of the Letters of Hibernicus, in the Courier), that in the year 1817 Lord Wellesley had, in a speech in the House of Lords, expressed a hope that the Ministers would not allow themselves to be frightened with glass bottles. He now looked with no ordinary awe upon these vitreous engines of destruction. Death appeared to have been uncorked, and like Asmodeus in Le Sage's novel, who rises in smoke from the mysterious phial of a conjurer, the king of terrors ascended upon the imagination of his lordship in the foam of porter and the exspuitions of ginger-beer. The illustrious statesman beheld the Parcæ seated in the front row of the upper gallery. Nor was this conviction of treasonable intent confined to the viceregal bosom. The whole Privy-council, with one exception, participated in his apprehensions with a courteous feeling of sympathetic complaisance. It is said, indeed, that a single person, Doctor Radcliffe, the Judge of the Prerogative Court, and who as such holds a place in the Irish cabinet, remonstrated against the committal for high treason. His voice was however too still and small to be attended to; and mere ruffianism was exaggerated into formidable guilt. Mr. Plunket accordingly undertook a task, to which, with all his talents, the event proved him to be unequal. He had not only to contend with a certain rashness that constitutes a predominant feature in his charac ter, but with a previous indisposition, which was fully as much personal as political, that was created against himself. He has no party in the country. He has not the talent of attaching men to his interests by the strong ties of individual regard. Saurin is in this particular essentially his superior. The unaffected affability of the latter, which is wholly free from "enforced ceremony," has secured to him the strict adhesion of his political partisans, and tended in some degree to mitigate the hostility of his opponents. The manners of Mr. Plunket are peculiarly impolitic and unhappy. It is said that the authoritative frigidity of his demeanour is the result of mere heedlessness. But what business has a statesman to be heedless? The austerity of his occasional recognition is not a little annoying to the self-respect of the individuals who chance to fall within the scope of his unobservant vision. It may be figuratively as well as literally said, that he is short-sighted. It was the sagacious Alva, I think, who said that he could purchase a man with a touch of his bonnet. Mr. Plunket seems generally indisposed to pay even this low price for a commodity which is at once so valuable and so cheap. Yet upon occasion, and when he has some immediate object in view, he assumes a sort of clumsy condescension. His temporary politeness is like a new garment that sits uneasily upon him. At the approach of a college election the film is gradually removed from his eyes. He kens a voter at a mile's distance, and acquires a telescopic vision. He is no Coriolanus in his candidateship. It was quite pleasant to see him during the last election standing upon a wet and drizzling day on the steps of the college examination-hall, with his hat in his hand, and while the rain fell upon his broad and haughty forehead, soliciting the glance of every scholar that happened to pass him by, and congratulating the students upon the premiums which they had obtained, and for which they were no doubt indebted to the estimable instructions of their tutors, who united to their great talents the no less valuable faculty of having a vote. I am far from meaning to say that at an election the very extravagances of courtesy are not almost legitimate. It is the subsequent and almost instantaneous contrast that renders these caprices of demeanour so ridiculous. A week or two after his return, the sight of Mr. Plunket becomes impaired. The dimness increases in a month, and in a year he is stoneblind. This infelicity of manner is a great drawback upon his many excellent qualities, and has produced no little alienation. His advocates are influenced in their support, rather by a sense of duty than by any individual partiality. It should be added, that he has been guilty of a grievous mistake in the distribution of his patronage. In place of endeavouring to extend his influence among those who had already rendered and who were still able to confer upon him political services, he gave places to his sons. This was an error (for it deserves no stronger designation) which Saurin did not commit. The latter commanded all the patronage of the government at the Bar. His spirit was felt in every appointment. He sat in the centre of the system which he had himself elaborated, and "lived in every line." But Plunket, after having indulged in his parental partialities, allowed the Solicitor-general to supersede him at the Castle. The latter who, although a recruit from the Saurin faction, often casts " a lingering look behind," has made good use of the official nonchalance of his confede rate, and snatched the horn of plenty from his hands. It was matter of universal surprise, that when recent vacancies in the situation of assistant barrister had occurred, Mr. Plunket had not exercised his influence in the nomination of some members of the liberal party. His friends apologized for him by alleging that he was relaxing from his political labours at Old Connaught (his country residence), and listening to the cawing of the rooks in the lofty avenues of that magnificent villa, while Mr. Joy was busily employed in feathering the nests of his partisans, and turning the reveries of his absent friend into political account. I mention these circumstances because they afford an insight into the character of this very able man; and although they do not fall into the natural order of events, explain the absence of sympathy, in the great emergency into which he was suddenly thrown. He had, indeed, a few old and staunch supporters, the friends of his youth, and to whom he is most honourably and immutably attached; but they were lost amidst the crowd of railers who triumphed in the anticipation of his fall; and that he would have fallen is most likely, but for a discovery which produced an immediate and powerful revulsion in the public mind. It occurred to a professional gentleman, Mr. Foley, whose recollection was less evanescent than the memory of Mr. Sealy Townsend (the gentleman who had actually drawn the ex-officio informations for Mr. Saurin as well as for his successor), that a precedent might be found for this stretch of the prerogative even in the constitutional dictatorship of the Ex-Attorney-general. It is indeed a matter of surprise that Mr. Sealy Townsend should not have remembered so important a fact. In no less than two instances had Mr. Saurin resorted to the exercise of this formidable authority, and employed upon both occasions the professional labours of Mr. Townsend, who is what is generally called "Devil to the Attorney-general." Considering the tenacity of his memory, of which he is peculiarly boastful, it is not a little singular that all trace of his official lucubrations should have been erased from "the book and volume of his brain." So distinguished is Mr. Townsend for the permanence of his recollections, that there are those who insinuate that even its failings lean to memory's side, and that his very oblivion is the result of reminiscence. Whether he remembered to forget I shall not venture to decide, but certain it is, that in this important conjuncture the integrity of his recollection was like the chastity of Haydee, and "He forgot Just in the very moment he should not." Mr. Foley, having ascertained by an inspection of the records that Mr. Saurin had fulminated two of the prerogative bolts, where the bills of indictment had been ignored, hastened to communicate the discovery to Mr. Plunket, who is said to have been overjoyed at the intelligence. He felt like a man who had been fighting without arms, and in the very crisis of the combat was supplied with weapons of irresistible power. The effect produced in the House of Commons is well known. The disclosure struck the ascendancy faction in Ireland like a palsy. The hopes of the liberals rose in proportion to the declination of the opposite party; and when soon after Sir Abraham Bradley King was produced at the bar of the House of Commons, it was expected that Orangeism would be at length unmasked, and that its sanguinary tur |