mongst all
official prizes which the voter could ask, or which the secretary could
refuse. Pensively the visitor reflected for a few minutes, and, suddenly
raising his eye doubtfully, he said, "Why then, Mr Secretary, have you
ever an old black coat that you could give me?" Oh, aspiring genius of
ambition! from that topmast round of thy aerial ladder that a man should
descend thus awfully!--from the office of vice-president for the U.S. that
he should drop, within three minutes, to "an old black coat!" The
secretary was aghast: he rang the bell for such a coat; the coat appeared;
the martyr of ambition was solemnly inducted into its sleeves; and the two
parties, equally happy at the sudden issue of the interview bowing
profoundly to each other, separated for ever.

Even upon this model, sinking from a regal honour to an old black coat, Mr
O' Connell has actually agreed to accept--has volunteered to accept--for
the name and rank of a separate nation, some trivial right of holding
county meetings for local purposes of bridges, roads, turnpike gates. This
privilege he calls by the name of "federalism;" a misnomer, it is true;
but, were it the right name, names cannot change realities. These local
committees could not possibly take rank above the Quarter Sessions; nor
could they find much business to do which is not already done, and better
done, by that respectable judicial body. True it is, that this descent is
a thousand times more for the benefit of Ireland than his former ambitious
plan. But we speak of it with reference to the sinking scale of his
ambition. Now this it is--viz. the aspiring character of his former
promises, the assurance that he would raise Ireland into a nation distinct
and independent in the system of Europe, having her own fleets, armies,
peerage, parliament--which operated upon the enthusiasm of a peasantry the
vainest in Christendom after that of France, and perhaps absolutely the
most ignorant. Is it in human nature, we demand, that hereafter the same
enthusiasm should continue available for Mr O'Connell's service, after the
transient reaction of spitefulness to the Government shall have subsided,
which gave buoyancy to his ancient treason? The chair of a proconsul, the
saddle of a pasha--these are golden baits; yet these are below the throne
and diadem of a sovereign prince. But from these to have descended into
asking for "an old black coat," on the American precedent! Faugh! What
remains for I