There would seem, too, something like an appreciation of our national character in the spirit of this law, which, unhappily for England, and Ireland, too, has not always dictated her enactments concerning us. It is well known that we hate and abhor anything in the shape of a legal debt. Few Irishmen will refuse you the loan of five pounds; still fewer can persuade themselves to pay five shillings. The kingdom of Galway has long been celebrated for its enlightened notions on this subject, showing how much more conducive it is to personal independence and domestic economy, to spend five hundred pounds in resisting a claim, than to satisfy it by the payment of twenty. Accordingly, had any direct taxation of considerable amount been proposed for the support of viceregal dignity, the chances are--much as we like show and glitter, ardently as we admire all that gives us the semblance of a state--we should have buttoned up our pockets, and upon the principle of those economical little tracts, that teach us to do so much for ourselves, every man would have resolved to be “his own Lord Lieutenant;” coming, however, in the shape of an indirect taxation, a voluntary contribution to be withheld at leasure, the thing was unobjectionable. You might not like cards, still less the company--a very possible circumstance, the latter, in some times we wot of not long since--Well, then, you saved your cash and your character by staying at home; on the other hand, it was a comfort to know that you could have your rubber of “shorts” or your game at _écarté_, while at the same time you were contributing to the maintenance of the crown, and discharging the _devoirs_ of a loyal subject It is useless, however, to speculate upon an obsolete institution; the law has fallen into disuse, and the more is the pity. How one would like to have seen Lord Normanby, with that one curl of infantine simplicity that played upon his forehead, with that eternal leer of self-satisfied loveliness that rested on his features, playing banker at _rouge et noir_, or calling the throws at hazard. I am not quite so sure that the concern would have been so profitable as picturesque. The principal frequenters of his court were “York too;” Lord Plunket was a “downy cove;” and if Anthony Black took the box, most assuredly “I'd back the caster.” Now and then, to be sure, a stray, misguided country gentleman--a kind of “wet Tory”--used to be found at that court; just as one sees some respectable matronly woman at Ems or Baden, seated in a happy unconsciousness that all the company about her are rogues and swindlers, so _he_ might afford some good sport, and assist to replenish the famished exchequer. Generally speaking, however, the play would not have kept the tables; and his lordship would have been _in_ for the wax-lights, without the slightest chance of return.