outburst of national
charity--no public work upon a grand scale to give employment to the
idle, food to the hungry, health to the sick, and hope to all. None of
these. Your panacea is the Repeal of the Union; you purpose to
substitute for those amiable jobbers in College-green, who call
themselves Directors of the Bank of Ireland, another set of jobbers
infinitely more pernicious and really dishonest, who will call
themselves Directors of Ireland itself; you talk of the advantage to
the country, and particularly of the immense benefits that must accrue
to the capital. Let us examine them a little.

Dublin, you say, will be a flourishing city, inhabited by lords and
ladies: wealth, rank, and influence will dwell in its houses and
parade its streets. The glare of lamps, the crash of carriages, all
the pride, pomp, and circumstances of fashion, will flow back upon the
long-deserted land, and Paris and London will find a rival to compete
with them, in this small city of the west. Would that this were so;
would that it could be! This, however, is the extent of what you
promise yourselves: you may ring the changes as you please, but the
"refrain" of your song is, that Dublin shall "have its own again."
Well, for argument's sake, I say, be it so. The now silenced squares
shall wake to the echoes of thundering equipages, peers and prelates
shall again inhabit the dwellings long since the residence of
hotel-keepers, or still worse, those little democracies of social
life, called boarding-houses. Your theatre shall be crowded, your
shops frequented, and every advantage of wealth diffused through all
the channels of society, shall be yours. As far as Dublin is
concerned, I say--for, mark me, I keep you to this original point, in
the land of your promise you have strictly limited the diffusion of
your blessings by the boundary of the Circular road; even the people
at Ringsend and Ballybough bridge are not to be included, unless a
special bill be brought in for their benefit. Still the picture is a
brilliant one: it would be a fine thing to see all the pomp and
ceremony of proud popery walk the land at noon-day, with its saints in
gold, and its relics in silver; for of course this is included in the
plan. Prosperous Ireland must be Catholic Ireland, and even Spain and
Belgium will hide their diminished heads when compared with the
gorgeous homage rendered to popery at home. The "gentlemen of
Liffey-street chapel," far better-lookin