It's a strange thing, but the more I have to think of about my own affairs, and the worse they are going with me, the more my thoughts run after politics and the newspapers. I suppose that's all for the best, and that if people dwelled too much on their own troubles, their heads would n't stand it. You've seen a trick the horse jockeys have when a horse goes lame of one foot,--to pinch him a little with the shoe of the opposite one; and it's not bad philosophy to practise mentally, and you may preserve your equanimity just by putting on the load fairly. And so it is I try to divert my thoughts from mortgages, creditors, and Chancery, by wondering how the King of Naples will contrive to keep his throne, and how the Austrians will save themselves from bankruptcy! I know it would be more to the purpose if I turned my thoughts to getting Mary Anne married, and James into the Board of Trade; at least, so Mrs. D. tells me, and although she is always repeating the old saw about "marriages being made in heaven," she evidently does n't wish to give too much trouble in that quarter, and would like to lend a hand herself to the work. Jellicot has sent his clerk here to tell me that I have been pronounced "Contumacious," for not appearing somewhere, and before somebody that I never heard of! Egad! these kind of proceedings are scarcely calculated to develop the virtues of humanity! They sent me something I thought was a demand for a tax, and it turns out a judge's warrant; for aught I know, there may be an order to seize the body of Kenny James Dodd, and consign him to the dungeons of the Inquisition! Write to me at once, Tom, and above all don't forget the money. Yours, most faithfully, K. I. Dodd. Why does Molly Gallagher keep pestering me about Christy? She wants me to get him into the "Grand Canal." I wish they were both there, with all my heart. I open this to say that Vickars has just sent me a copy of his address to the "Independent Electors of Bruff." I'd like to see one of them, for the curiosity of the thing. He asks me to give him my opinion of the document, and the "benefit of my advice and counsel," as if I had not been reading the very same productions since I was a child. The very phraseology is unaltered. Why can't they hit on something new? He "hopes that he restores to them, unsullied, the high trust they had committed to his keeping." Egad! if he does so, he ought to get a patent for taking out spots, stains, and discolorations, for a dirtier garment than our representative mantle has been, would be hard to find. Like all our patriots that sit in Whig company, he is sorely puzzled between his love for Ireland and his regard for himself, and has to limit his political line to a number of vague threats about overgrown Church Establishments and Landlord tyranny, not being quite sure how far his friends in power are disposed to worry the Protestants and grind the gentry.