bustling Thalestris, wild as the winds, and fierce with the intoxication of impunity. The mild temperament of the plodding missionary was baffled, burlesqued, and thrown into fever: he laboured with humble diligence, but laboured in vain; he talked of conciliation, while popery talked of conquest; he proposed concession, while faction shouted triumph; and, when he suggested the suppression of the old and sharp acerbities of the sects, he was answered by universal laughter. Burke, awakened at last to the truth of things, recalled him, in a long despatch, concluding in these words--"If you find the Roman Catholics _irreconcilable with each other_, and that government is resolved to side with them, or rather, to direct those who _would betray the rest_, then, my clear opinion is, that you ought not to wait the playing the _last card of a losing hand_. It would be disreputable to you. But when you have given your instruction to the _very few_ in whom you can place confidence for their _future temperate_ and persevering proceeding, that you will then, with a _cool_ and _steady dignity_, take your leave." So ended the attempt of this man of genius and sensibility to guide an Irish faction in the paths of public tranquillity. He had forgotten that clamour was their livelihood, and grievance their stock in trade. In the simplicity of a noble spirit, he had eloquently implored quacks to take their degrees and follow practice, and solemnly advised travelling showmen not to disturb the public ear by the braying of their cracked trumpets, and he succeeded accordingly. Great as he unquestionably was, he could not make bricks without straw; and after wondering at the perversity of fortune, and lavishing his indignant soul on a hundred splendid perplexities touching the nature of politicians in general, and of Irish politicians in particular, he gave up Ireland as a problem too profound for his analysis, and to be postponed till the discovery of the philosopher's stone.