tion that his precious treasure may be the first glorious gleam of a coming development, is not very likely to diminish his eagerness to cherish and promulgate it. His priest, his bishop, has plainly no authority to interfere; a bishop might as justly have suppressed the first mention of Purgatory or Image-worship; manifestly nothing under absolute infallibility has any lawful right to overbear what may be as important a development as either. To apply to Rome in every such private case would be impracticable and ridiculous; the repose of Rome is not to be disturbed to satisfy the uncertainty of every individual conscience; and, after all, Rome itself is admitted not to be final and absolute in the matter. Where, then, shall he apply? What restraining authority exists on earth to control him? An Ecumenical Council, a new Lateran or Trent, must be called; or this man is justified, by virtue of the theory of development, in living and dying in his private heresy, as long as he believes it may be unrevealed truth. No other conceivable remedy exists; and even supposing the absurdity got over, of convoking such an assembly to cure every in

dividual dreamer's crotchets, the Ecumenical Council itself must deal timidly enough with one who may be the chosen of God; when it remembers that (by virtue of the same theory) half the Councils of the Church would confessedly have gone astray on half the doctrines it now believes !

Justified, therefore, in his independence, our developist goes forth to open the mind of the Church' to his dogma. It spreads -spreads justly, if prelates but understand their duty, for how shall they venture to deny the possibility of the new apostle's mission? Whatever their personal opinion of the doctrine, they cannot forget how the best and gravest prelates of the eighth century were as deeply persuaded of the peril of Image-worship as they, yet that development ultimately justified itself by its success. Discussion arises, discussion for years, and millions die in the new belief unwarned, unhindered; for where is the authority that shall dare to interdict its diffusion; or who is there whose duty is not rather to watch and wait upon the providential movement, 'lest haply he be found fighting against God?'"

SIR,-When I was a boy, I was wonderfully curious to know what was meant by the term "Clerk of the Pipe."

I used to consider within myself, what pipe? and wavered in my deter. minations whether this clerk, mysterious, dark, might be clerk of a shepherd's pipe, an organ pipe, a gas-pipe, a water pipe, or a tobacco-pipe.

After much vain inquiry, I at length consulted a gentleman of the law, who, also at length (being first duly feed) informed me that the clerkship of the pipe was one of those enviable offices, called sinecures; and that the term 'pipe" was a part for the whole "pipe," for the Pipe Rolls, of which this snug gentleman was keeper, or clerk, and for which he had some pretty considerable of a salary, with pretty considerable of nothing at all to do for it.

Now, sir, I had often heard of civil and religious liberty, and the liberty of the rolls, and the Master of the Rolls,

HAWKINS BROWNE.

and the Deputy-Master of the Rolls; these pipe rolls, however, are another batch of the same bakery; they are called Pipe Rolls, because they are made up for the office, tubularly, or in the shape of so many pipes or rolls. Such was my discovery of the nature and office of Clerk of the Pipe.

Whether this desirable situation be still in existence I really cannot say (though for the sake of the occupant thereof, it is to be hoped so); but it strikes me forcibly, that, if non existent, it is in contemplation to revive it for our benefit in this green-I had almost said, very green island; and that the first-to-be-newly-created Clerk of the Pipe is, or was intended to be, no less a personage than our last, though not least, Lord Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland. If your genius inclines you to recollection, good Mr. Editor, you may recollect that Lord John Russell, during the debates in the last session of Par

liament upon the proposed removal of our Viceroy, took his stand, or rather, I should say, his stride-for never was argument so narrow on so broad a basis-on the pillars that stem the tide of MENAI; like the Colossus of Rhodes, or rather of rail-roads, his Lordship be-straddled the metallic ligament of the son of Stephen; hence, like that Rhodian concern (I do not allude to the celebrated Rat-Powder of that name, sir, I assure you), he extends in his right hand the beacon light of peace and union to both nations;

"Ye gods, annihilate both time and space,
And make two nations happy."

His Lordship, who, in truth, proves himself thereby an almost universal genius, has desperately solved the hieroglyphical Edipisms of Bradshaw; and having got himself into a line, which you and I, Mr. Editor, with oftexploring finger, and oft-imploring eye, never could do, expounds to an admiring world the Sphynxian theory of the United Kingdoms.

Slippery thing that UNION. Yet slippery as it is, we have it by the tail-at last; his lordship has pounced upon it, has netted it in the inextricable net of Bradshaw. Indistinct and misty, oftentimes, appeared that UNION; in fact, many people said, and were sure, they couldn't see it at all, yet now by the light of both nations, I mean Bradshaw, extended in the hand of the colossal John, we have it-as clear-yes, as clear as mud!

Bradshaw has been translated by Lord John; since the days of CHAMPOLLION, SO great a feat has not been achieved in the hieroglyphical world— here it is. The countries are united by Bradshaw-thirteen hours of disunion only-a poor baker's dozen of inconsiderable hours is interposed between; as in the matchless fresco of Guido Reni, our Aurora is flying over, with Lord John, Bradshaw, and the Hours in her train.

Which way is she flying?

Ah! there's the only weak point in the master-piece, Mr. Editor; and I tell you, that she certainly does not appear to be flying our way?

Now considering that this new and improved tubular mode of uniting nations, which the disaffected would call "piperly," is determined on by Lord John, though his lordship's determination on any subject is rather indermi

nate; and as the incomprehensible Bradshaw has been declared to be his Lordship's

"GUIDE, Philosopher, and Friend,"

I would venture through your columns, which I may truly call Basaltic, to suggest to Mr. Bentham-I mean Mr. Bradshaw, the Bentham of Lord John -the extension of this system of governmental metallic macaroni.

Why a great tube and principle, malleable and ductile as it is, should not extend across other straits than the Menai, I know not. Why not across the straits of Dover? why should it not be hammered into the heads, and riveted to the hearts of our Gallic brethren and through them of the Cis-Alpine and Trans-Alpine continent?

England might, through the centre of her tubes, centralize all EuropeAsia by a pipe acress the Bosphorus ; America is, and would require too great a bore; Africa, or at least the Cape, seeming determined to cut the connexion, might be cut; the Cape to cut her own capers.

Fancy, Sir, our happiness as West Britons, when we should behold the terrestrial globe, as our countryman Lord Rosse does the celestial, through gigantic and Titanic tubes of true Britannia metal. London, the polished speculum, reflecting from its capacious disk the doings of all nations; Robert Stephenson, our Galileo, who, in the darkness of the midnight of our ignorance, displays to our admiring eyes the glories of centralization; the heaven—a heaven entirely on one side, however— of true Imperial Government opened to us at last!

We Irish are to be governed in future, as sailors in a storm, by means of a monstrous speaking trumpet.

Our grievances, lisped through the great whispering gallery of the Menai, will swell into voices of thunder, on the East British side, and the thousand benevolences which our centralized Executive intends to confer upon us, will make us kick up a tremendous racket of gratitude at our end of the aperture.

Bradshaw, expounded by Lord John, is to be our deliverer out of the House of Bondage and out of the land of Egypt. As No. 45 was the number of the North, so is No. 13 to be that of the West Briton.

Now that the Government has se

cured the "pipe," they will not, surely, object to pay the piper. As for us, the day of our Destiny, or rather of our Deputy, is over; our Lord Lieutenant will be a Lord Left-tenant; our General Governor will be a General Gone-over; the Shamrock of Ireland must pale before the Tube-Rose of West Britain. It is a great bore, certainly, our being in future to be governed in this manner, and the manner of our being governed in future is a great bore!

Like Pyramus and Thisbe, the brother and sister countries, Mr. Bull and the Fair Hibernia will interchange their amorous endearments through a hole in the wall. ROBERT, the Son of STEPHEN, doth enact the part of Wall.

"In this same interlude it doth befal,

That I, one Stephenson, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you
think,

That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
Through which the lovers, TAURUS and
HIBERNI-A,

Did whisper often very secretly.
This strong-cast iron and these rivets
show

That I am that same wall-the truth is
So,

And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to
whisper."

It is to be hoped, sir, that the whisperings of the great Mr. Bull and the fair Hibernia will be of the nature of the communications of Mr. JOSEPH ADY-"something to their advantage,” but not to the same No-purpose.

If this latest-found, though by no means best-beloved, measure of centralization, based upon the splendid

66

spread" of Stephenson-not that which we swallow, but that which swallows us and the enigmatical numerals of Bradshaw, should be persisted in— if Stephenson the Great, Bradshaw the Oracular, and John, the reverse of Great the triumvirate of centralize

union-"trios junctos in uno"-should work out their apparent determination to "carry our Lady to London," the effect will be this. This will be the effect. We have seen what iron, cast and malleable, can do; we shall see what iron, malleable and cast, cannot do. We shall see that hours of themselves neither unite nations nor separate them; Bradshaw, or any other enemy of mine, may write a book, but the truth will not be in him; John, or any other Minister of mine, may expound Bradshaw, but the truth will not be in John.

"We measure distance by the heart,"

as the charming HELEN FAUCIT-I mean the ingenuous MR. Marston, speaking through the heaven's gate of those charming lips, expresses himself. It is not in a baker's dozen of hours of intercommunication that union consists, nor in any dozen or half-dozen of hours, nor in "piperly" contrivances of whatever magnitude. If this were true, everybody that sits next to every. body must be in love with everybody!

When this tubular constitution breaks down, which I foresee, if attempted, it will, though the tube itself may last till doomsday; when Lord John, this second TUBAL CAIN, finds out, as find out he will, that his metallic conductors, however they may shock our nerves, have no power to affect our hearts, I would venture, however humbly, to intimate my new invention. This, I confess, has never been tried, but I should hope its startling novelty may not be received as conclusive evidence against its utility.

It is only this if you want to UNITE the countries of Ireland and England, "JUST CONSULT THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND."

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

From the "Hole in the Wall," Phoenix Park.

J. F.