constitutional relations, cannot be repeated.
Our repose is no longer startled by the phantom
of a disputed succession. The race of the
Stuarts has perished and passed away. The
prerogative of assent once claimed as a fief by
the elected head of the Germanic Empire on the
marriage of an electoral prince ceased on the
extinction of that dignity in 1806, and the
creation of the inferior and limited title of
Emperor of Austria. By his act of abdication,
Francis the Second—the last Emperor of
Germany—formally absolved all the princes of the
confederation from the fealty which they owed
to him as their chief. The reconstruction of
the empire is expressly forbidden by the modern
federation of the German states. What pretence
can there be, then, for continuing in England
a power of prohibition adopted from our
Hanoverian connexion, from which even that
German crown has been exempted? Even if it
were in force there, we have long since sent
back its crown jewels to Hanover.

There is no policy to justify, there is everything
to make England despise and disdain, the
pitiful support to be derived from matrimonial
alliances with petty German princes. The
Anglo-Saxon race asserts and sustains its
supremacy in every country and in every clime.
Shall the highest of our young nobility at home,
alone remain subject to the Hindoo distinctions
of caste? Why are we to exclude those
ennobled by ancestral honours, pre-eminent for
intellectual or acquired endowments, or
illustrious by glorious achievements, if "born and
bred Britons," from the more intimate and more
affectionate relations of that domestic circle,
within which the purest private virtues dignify
a royal home? Why are we to limit so closely
for our sovereigns the chances of domestic
happiness, by a custom that leaves to an English
princess only about a dozen men from among
whom her husband must be sought?

THUGGEE IN IRELAND.

IN Ireland a mysterious spirit of vindication
seems to come equally from utter destitution, and
from extreme comfort and prosperity. A sort of
wantonness gets into a nation's veins as well from
an over-richness of blood as from a thinness and
poorness in that circulating fluid. The same
acridity breaks out in either case.

The crime of murder, indeed, in various shapes,
is growing fast to be a notorious and unenviable
characteristic of the British isles. In Great
Britain, the forefinger will grow weary, running
down a tabulated column of the useful "judicial
statistics," set apart for this horrid crime; and
judges of assize find themselves, as in a recent
Liverpool "jail delivery," almost broken down
with the duty of investigating the revolting
details of nearly one dozen and a half of murders.
The poisoned bowl, the bludgeon, and the knife,
are the popular instruments of the British
assassin; the rusty single barrel and the heavy
slug, those of the Irish. The guilty domestic
mansion, or the retired suburb, is the favourite
scenery of the one; the open country road, the
hedge, and a starlight night, are the traditional
accessories of the other.

Without rambling off into the eternal "tenant
right," it may be said that one reason why this
barbarity still endures in Ireland, must be placed
to the account of the peculiar social position of
the Irish peasant. With him his scrap of land,
be it only the size of a small room, is a necessary
of life, as much as bread and meat are to other
men. He is not an agriculturist, and he does
not spin, professionally. Once this support is
taken from him (and he may be cut adrift at
any moment), he becomes destitute and a
pauper. There is too much competition for this
precious commodity among those who are a
shade better off than himself, to render it likely
that he can obtain a rood in another quarter.
So he borrows the old rusty firelock, and has the
wild Indian satisfaction of going out and laying
low his enemy. Much, too, must be placed to
the account of that Corsican spirit which someway
savours the blood of most Celtic nations;
but until something is done to alter this serf-like
relation to land, from one of pure life and death,
to a natural commercial connexion, readily
dissoluble without violence or fatal consequences,
no very radical reform may be looked for.

Quite sixty-five years ago, in the present
month, an outrage of this sort took place in
the county of Clare, which was marked by some
very painful yet very dramatic incidents. There
was a certain Reverend Mr. Knipe, a clergyman
of the Established Church, living in that part
of the country, in a substantial house, known as
Castle Richard. This gentleman had rendered
himself obnoxious by various acts of lawful
landlord sovereignty, which from time immemorial
have been understood to be gross outrages
and flagrant invasions of the tenants' rights
and prerogatives. Latterly, intangible rumours
had been abroad, low shapeless whispers of
coming trouble—unreliable, and yet giving a
certain sure warning. The Reverend Mr. Knipe
did not wholly neglect them; but took some
precautions as to less publicity in going abroad,
and as to writing for police aid. Someway the
times were very disturbed about this date; and
possibly the Reverend Mr. Knipe did not half
believe that any mischief was intended towards
himself. Whatever was the reason, on the
fatal Saturday night that followed, he had no
additional protection.

On the fatal Saturday night, about the stroke
of twelve, there was some curious doings in
his immediate neighbourhood. In a retired
place, by that hour, a force of no less than
three hundred men had been silently collecting,
all well armed with swords, blunderbusses,
and pistols. They were all under the command
of a person who enjoyed some lawless
reputation, under the denomination of Captain
Fearnought, but whose real name was Taite.
This officer having mustered his force on a place
called the Hill of Ballydrirnna, then led them
away silently, in the direction of Castle Richard,
where the luckless clergyman was sleeping