g fellows than any foreign
priest you'll meet with from Trolhatten to Tivoli, will walk about _in
pontificalibus_; and all the exciting enthusiasm that Romanism so
artfully diffuses through every feature of life, will introduce itself
among a people who have all the warm temper and hot blood of the
south, with the stern determination and headlong impulse of the north
of Europe. By all of which I mean to say, that in points of strong
popery, Dublin will beat the world, and that before a year of such
prosperity be past, she will have the finest altars, the fattest
priests, and the longest catalogue of miracles in Europe. Lord
Shrewsbury need not then go to the Tyrol for an "estatica," he'll find
one nearer home worth twice the money. The shin-bone of St. Januarius,
that jumped out of a wooden box in a hackney coach, because a
gentleman swore, will be nothing to the scenes we'll witness; and if
St. Patrick should sport his tibia at an evening party of Daniel
O'Connell's, it would not in the least surprise me. These are great
blessings, and I am fully sensible of them. Now let me pass on to
another, which perhaps I have kept last as it is the chief of all, or
as the late Lord Castlereagh would have said, the "fundamental feature
upon which my argument hinges."

A very common topic of Irish eloquence is, to lament over the enormous
exportation of cattle, fowl, and fish, that continually goes forward
from Ireland into England. I acknowledge the justness of the
complaint--I see its force, and appreciate its value. It is exactly as
though a grocer should exclaim against his misery, in being compelled
to part with his high-flavoured bohea, his sparkling lump sugar, and
his Smyrna figs, or our publisher his books, for the base lucre of
gain. It is humiliating, I confess; and I can well see how a
warm-hearted and intelligent creature, who feels the hardship of an
export trade in matters of food, must suffer when the principle is
extended to a matter of genius; for, not content with our mutton from
Meath, our salmon from Limerick, and our chickens from Carlow; but the
Saxon must even be gratified with the soul-stirring eloquence of the
Great Liberator himself, with only the trouble of going near St.
Stephen's to hear him. I say near--for among the other tyrannies of
the land, he is compelled to shout loud enough to be heard in all the
adjacent streets. Now this is too bad. Take our prog--take even our
poteen, if you will; but leav