"Think it a sin!" replied Ned, with an expression of countenance that would had have brought thunders of applause at Drury-lane; "Yes, sir, it is a crying sin, and one of the very worst signs of our time. It is a foul blot upon our scutcheon. When I was a younker, the gentlemen did not set their poor neighbours such examples as they do now, and we see the fruits. What right has a man, who is returning home from a bull-bait himself, though he rides a fine horse, and has ten thousand a year, to talk to an ignorant savage that he sees on the high road for goading a jaded bullock to market, or belabouring an overloaded ass up the hill? or what right has any man who encourages the wicked amusement of prize fighting, which teaches people to become brutes, and mangle each other in cold blood, to abuse others for doing the same in hot blood, when they meet at a fair, and meet too as enemies who think that they are _bound_ to revenge some real or imagined wrong? No, no, sir, preachers must be _doers_, or they will only be laughed at." "Whom else do you think well of in our great National Assembly, Ned?" asked Bentley. "Sir, I like Mr. Robinson. He knows his business. He found things in a bad condition, and it is more troublesome to mend than to make. He is going the right way to work, and he is not frightened by opposition. Mr. Huskisson too, sir, is a sensible man, and knows what he is about." "What say you, Ned, to Mr. Canning?" "Why, sir, I think that at all events he can _talk_ well, and I love him better for one thing that he said the other day, than if he had given me a hundred pounds in hand. Do you remember, sir, when he defied the house to shew him any act of liberality, any treaty upon a broad generous foundation, that was not proposed by the Tories. That was nuts and apples, to my heart, for it was _truth_, and very well they all knew it, for not a man dared to contradict him; even Mr. Hume, who contradicts every thing and every body, let _him_ alone when he threw that challenge in their teeth." "You do not then like Mr. Hume, Ned.?" "I should like him better, sir, if he took the trouble of being better informed. He, sir, is the watch dog in the orchard, but he barks so often when no harm is at hand, or when he mistakes a crow for a band of robbers, that when the thieves come in earnest, people do not mind him, and the uproar that he makes then, passes by unheeded, which is a pity. However, sir, he does some good, though not so much as he might do, and the fear of _giving tongue_ keeps many a pilferrer out of the apple trees." "Well, Ned, will it not be a fine thing for Ireland, if we live to see the day when emancipation is proclaimed, and all animosity, discontent, and rebellion, are laid in the dust?"