the blessings of honest equality, and who had, during all the preceding part of his life, treated lords, as a man would use a pocket-handkerchief, now deplored a chimerical danger of their being blown up in company with common people, pigs, asses, and wives, whom in his distracted visions, he saw floating in the air before him. The truth, however, was, that nothing was in danger of being blown up except his own conscience, as it was soon afterwards by an explosion of three hundred pounds a year! To give the devil (for an apostate is nothing else) his due, he mouthed very hard for it; but so excessive was his gratitude that it hurried him into the most ridiculous excesses, by o'ertopping his part, and contrary to the instructions of Hamlet to all players, whether dramatic or politic, "o'erstepping the modesty of nature," as will be seen from the following instance. In the midst of a most solemn and energetic speech, intended to have produced the most unbridled indignation against the levellers, he was not contented with impressing all the tropes and figures into his, or rather his paymaster's ser vice; he pulled from beneath his coat, where

he had concealed it for the purpose-not a sword-but that lesser instrument humourously

styled by Butler,—

his page,

That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so
As dwarfs upon Knights-errant do;
It was a serviceable dudgeon,
Either for fighting, or for drudging:
Where it had stabb'd, or broke a head,
It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread;
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse-trap, 'twould not care;
'Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and so forth."

So useful an instrument could not escape the notice of the modern Hudibras. Forth it was dragged-flung on the floor, and after a solemn pause, the orator pointing to it, said pompously: "Behold what they are to expect who seek an alliance with the Gulls.” The rest of the delegates were so surprised at this unexpected figure in rhetoric, that they exactly resembled a certain jolly British tar of whom I'll tell a story. Jack went into one of the booths at a

fair, where a conjurer was displaying his wondrous slights of hand to the great amusement of the spectators. Unfortunately, in the midst of the exhibition, some gunpowder, which was deposited in an under-part of the building for the conjurer's use, blew up, and forced the conjurer and spectators into the air. Jack was landed on his breech in an adjoining garden, where the softness of the ground prevented his receiving any injury. After he had ascertained the soundness of his bones by giving himself a shake, he burst out into a laugh and exclaimed:"Darken my top-lights! What trick will this fellow play us next!”

In like manner the delegates, when they saw the dagger, were struck with as much surprise as Jack, especially as Quirke bad just before prepared them for it by his gunpowder plot; but when they found that the mountain had brought forth a mouse, the pantomimic trick excited the risible muscles of both parties, and Merryman declared to a friend, that he would work up the incident for his theatre. Quirke was so much burt at the raillery of some of his former friends,

that he soon afterwards solemnly renounced them, and declared that he would never more act, nor even hold any kind of communication with them. In making this declaration, he ran very little risk of being ever tempted to break it, as there was not at that time the most distant prospect of their ever getting into that situation, in which he would wish to have acted with them. Brush deprecated this final breach of their ancient friendship in the most submissive and unmanly terms; he even whined like a whipt school-boy, and was not ashamed of tears; but Quirke was pension-proof against all this womanish artillery. Thus childishly did these great men conduct themselves at the most awful crisis that ever Freeland witnessed, and when unanimity was indispensably neces sary, it appeared as if they met rather to talk of themselves, than to debate on measures for the public safety. But great men are very subject to fall into little weaknesses, as a certain commentator tells us, that Homer sometimes falls asleep" aliquando dormitat bonus Ho

merus."

Besides Quirke, the Squire himself, and many

others of the gentry, who began to foresee the danger with which they, in particular, were threatened by the levelling system, not only desisted from all opposition to the Steward, but declared their intention of giving him their support; and from that time, the Squire's former party, (as Merryman himself told the te nantry on a subsequent occasion) held very little communication with him.

The Steward and his adherents suspended allcommunications with the Gulls, alleging that they were in the nature of outlaws after having deposed their lord. The Gulls made vast efforts to pacify the Freelanders, but finding them wholly ineffectual, they denounced open hostilities against the Freelanders and the Bighose, - whose Stateholder had entered into an alliance with the Lord of Freeland.

Being now rendered desperate by the hostile attitude of the neighbouring lords, the Gulls accused their Lord and Lady with having excited enemies against them, and most foully murdered them. All the neighbouring lords now made a common cause against them, and Frederic, Farmer Gildrig's second son, bravely