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He was a Jew, a travelling Jew. He had come to Ireland only a few days before, led by curiosity, or a desire of making the people what they never were, nor even will be either literally or metaphorically-Jews.

The clergymen listened to his arguments, and what they would deem his blasphemies, with patience, and replied to them as well as they could. Neither party, as usual, could convince the other, though the Jew gave one proof of his having the worst of the argument, by his losing his temper. The clergymen making him swallow another glass of wine dismissed him with good humour. He gave them his name and address. He is a partner in a respectable mercantile house in the city. Bedlam, I think, would be a fitter habitation for him.

I have amused myself the greatest part of the evening, with looking over the books in the library. They are mostly Treatises on Divinity and Reviews. A Presbyterian clergyman has not the means of procuring many books, to make himself, therefore, in any degree acquainted with what is passing in literature, he must have recourse to reviews. How imperfectly they ac quaint him, it is almost needless to say. How necessarily imperfect perhaps for such is the particular irritability of an author's nature, that he is rarely to be trusted, nor should he scarcely ever trust himself in giving an opinion of another.

On one of the shelves was a parcel of Dublin

newspapers, mouldy, and in some places motheaten; published in the years 1796 and 1797. They were a series of a well-known print called the Press; and seemed to the full as revolutionary, as some publications of the present day. I looked over a few of them, and was as much gratified with the talent they displayed, as I lamented its mis-application. For lamentably is even talent misapplied when it breaks with sacrilegious hand the sanctuary of established order, and profanes, with unhallowed touch, the holy and mystic tye, which unites the different members of a state into one great and peaceful family. For lamentably (again let me say) is talent misapplied when it employs itself in rousing the passions of the lower classes, and in exaggerating to them the natural and inevitable evils of their condition-which it must be well known are inherent to mortality, and common, perhaps, (putting feeling apart) nearly equally common, to all countries and governments.

In every country, and under every government, a few will revel in luxury, a few will work with their minds, and the many (the happy many would they but think so) must work with their hands. And, notwithstanding all the bustle and disturbance that have been made about modes and forms of government, there is hardly any truth more incontrovertible, than that they have worked

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in almost all countries in nearly equal security. Luckily for mankind, Providence has not trusted their happiness to statesman or speculatists. The great business of life goes on under despotic, as well as under free governments-corn grows in Thrace as well as in Middlesex, and the vintager of the Rhine, or the Moselle, gathers his grapes (in ordinary times) as quietly as the man of Kent does his hops. It is not, indeed, necessary to be deeply conversant in human affairs, to know that mankind have ever suffered more in one year by their endeavours to get rid of what they were taught to consider the evils of their situa tion, than they would have done in a century by the evils themselves.

In the papers I have been looking over, the grand evil of Ireland, the root and source of every other, is said to be her connection with England, which is, therefore, attacked in every form, serious, jocular, angry, by argument, ridicule, and expostulation. Whether the doctrine of separation was ever very acceptable in Dublin, when these papers were published, I do not know

but I do know that it was never palatable in the north. The people here, even amidst the wildest frenzy of revolution, still clung to their ancient attachments, and while they listened with cold and reluctant ears to the advantages to be gained by a separation from England, they

became animated and exhilarated, when they were told, that they were not to run alone the glorious race of republicanism, but that their English and Scotch brethren were as ready as themselves.

I insert the following piece of ingenious levity, to shew, how Proteus-like the Press assumed all shapes, and adapted itself to all degrees of rank, and of comprehension.

"Patrick O'Blunder, to John Bull, Esq.

"SQUIRE BULL,

* I received your letter which did not surprize me--it is of a piece with the rest of your conduct towards me; you eat up my meat, you drink up my drink, I do my best to entertain you and your train, (and a hungry devouring set I find them.) Nothing in my house is too good for you and your's; I am almost beggared with the expense-and what is the return?—You loll out your tongue, turn up your nose, and make faces at me-nay, I am told, that you have been known, when I had taken an extraordinary glass of whiskey, to spit in my face, and pick my pockets. You think proper at times to call me cousin-the Devil take such coxeners, (as Shakespeare says) when you want to carry any point then it is cousin Paddy, you know, I have a sincere regard for you our interests are the same-all I do is for your good-your money is just as safe

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in my pocket as in your own all things should be in common between loving friends-and then Patrick O'Blunder is an honest lad, a generous fellow, he values money no more than the dirt of his shoes, and he's always ready to fight up to his knees in blood, for the honour of his rela tions.

"Many a fair pound of my money have you cajoled and wheedled out of me with fine speeches, to carry on your lawsuits ;---when you got your turn served, the worst word in your cheek was too good for me--and Patrick O'Blunder, was a fool, and a fortune hunter-a blunderer, and a bog-trotter. The meanest of your beggarly brats, when they come to me, are more caressed and courted, than the best of my own children-and feed on the fat of the land, while I and my family want a meal's meat-but when I go to your place, how am I treated-you encourage your very scullions and link-boys to twirl my hat, chalk my back, pelt me with mud, and throw potatoes in my teeth.

"A great part of my grounds lie waste; I cannot send my goods to a fair market, but must let them rot in my warehouses, or sell them to you at your own rate. If you want to man a fleet, or raise an army, to fight the blacks or the yellow fever, or, to serve under ground in the West Indies, Ogh its send to Paddy-Paddy