Everything that indicates nationality will then have its reward. Grave
dignitaries of the Church will practise the bagpipes, and prothonotaries
will refresh their jig-dancing; whatever is Irish, will be _la vogue_;
and, instead of reading that her Majesty wore a shawl of the Gordon
tartan, manufactured at Paisley, we shall find that the Queen appeared
in a novel pattern of rags, devised at Mud Island; while his Royal
Highness will compliment the mildness of our climate by adopting our
national dress. What a day for Ireland that will be!--we shall indeed be
great, glorious, and free; and if the evening only concludes with the
Irish Quadrilles, I have little doubt that her Majesty will repeat her
exclamation of “How grand!” as she beholds the members of the royal
suite moving gracefully to the air of “Stony-batter.”
Let us, then, begin in time. Let there be an order of council to
preserve all the parsons, agents, tithe-proctors, and landlords till
June; let there be no more shooting in Tipperary for the rest of the
season; let us “burke” Father Mathew, and endeavour to make our heads
for the approaching festivities; and what between the new poor-law and
the tariff, I think we shall be by that time in as picturesque a state
of poverty as the most critical stickler for nationality would desire.
A NUT FOR “A NEW COMPANY.”
By no one circumstance in our social condition is a foreigner more
struck than by the fact that there is not a want, an ailing, an
incapacity for which British philanthropy has not supplied its remedy of
some sort or other. A very cursory glance at the advertising columns of
the _Times_ will be all-sufficient to establish this assertion. Mental
and bodily infirmities, pecuniary difficulties, family afflictions,
natural defects, have all their separate _corps_ of comforters; and
there is no suffering condition in life that has not a benevolent
paragraph specially addressed to its consolation. To the “afflicted with
gout;” to “all with corns and bunions;” to “the friends of a nervous
invalid”--who is, by the bye, invariably a vicious madman; to “the
childless;” to “those about to marry” Such are the headings of various
little crumbs of comfort by which the active philanthropy of England
sustains its reputation, and fills its pocket. From tooth-powder to
tea-trays--from spring-mattresses to fictitious mineral waters--from
French blacking to the Widow Welch's Pills--all have their separate
votaries; and it would be difficult to conceive any real or imaginary
want unsupplied in this prolific age of contrivance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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