All Ireland would present the features of a general election--every one would be fascinating, courteous, affable, and dishonest. The unpopular debater in England might have his windows smashed. With us, it would be his neck would be broken. The excitement of the people will be felt within the Parliament; and then, fostered by all the rancour of party hate, will be returned to them with interest. The measure discussed out of doors by the Liberator, will find no one hardy enough to oppose it within the House, and the opinions of the Corn Exchange will be the programme for a committee. A notice of a motion will issue from Merrion-square, and not from a seat in Parliament; and wherever he moves through the country, great Daniel, like a snail, will carry “his house” on his back. “Rob me the Exchequer, Hal!” will be the cry of the priesthood, and no men are better deserving of their hire; and thus, wielding every implement of power, if Ireland be not happy, he can only have himself to blame for it. [Illustration: 078] A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE. National Pride must be a strong feeling, and one of the very few sentiments which are not exhausted by the drain upon them; and it is a strange thing, how the very fact upon which one man plumes himself, another would regard as a terrible reproach. A thorough John Bull, as he would call himself, thinks he has summed up, in those few emphatic words, a brief description of all that is excellent in humanity. And as he throws out his chest, and sticks his hand with energy in his breeches pocket, seems to say, “I am not one of your frog-eating fellows, half-monkey, half-tiger, but a true Briton.” The Frenchman, as he proclaims his nation, saying, “_Je suis F-r-r-r-rançais_” would indicate that he is a very different order of being, from his blunt untutored neighbour, “_outre mer_;” and so on to the end of the chapter. Germans, Italians, and Spaniards, and even Americans, think there is some magic in the name of their fatherland--some inherent nobility in the soil: and it was only lately I read in a French paper an eloquent appeal from a general to his soldiers, which concluded by his telling them, to remember, that they were “Mexicans.” I devoutly trust that they understood the meaning of his phrase, and were able, without difficulty, to call to mind the bright prerogative alluded to; for upon my conscience, as an honest man, it would puzzle me sorely to say what constitutes a Mexican.