The members of the mess are partly English, partly Irish, and partly Scotch: I will not here mention their names, but let them “_fall in_” just as the dialogue may call them up. _Time about seven o'clock.—Cloth just removed._ _Capt. Ball_ (_president for the day_). Gentlemen, fill. _Major Swordly_ (_“vice” for the day_). We are all ready at this end of the table. _Capt. Ball_ (_looking through a full glass_). “THE KING! GOD BLESS HIM!” [_All drink bumpers to the toast._ “GOD BLESS HIM!” “GOD BLESS HIM!” _passing from one end of “the line” to the other, while the band without change to the royal and national anthem. The Mess in under-tones chat to each other._] _Capt. Ball._ Gentlemen, I'll give you another toast:—THE REVERED AND CHERISHED MEMORY OF THE LATE DUKE OF YORK, THE FATHER OF THE ARMY. [_All rise and drink the toast in solemn silence, after which they resume their seats, and a slight pause ensues._] _Capt. Killdragon._ Heaven bless his memory! it will be a long time before we forget him. _Col. Shell._ I think we may say with Shakspeare— “He was a man, take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again.” _Capt. Killdragon._ Yet kind, generous, good, and great as he was, men were not wanting to revile him. _Major Mc Rocket._ _Men!_ did ye say? mere like deevils. _Capt. Killdragon._ Devils, indeed! Mc Rocket, and my _own_ country devils too: sorry am I to say it. _Dr. Slaughtery._ Yes, yes, Killdragon; but this was not worse than the _English_ conspiracy formed against him some years ago: the attack made upon him by Mr. Shiel was the effect of the unfortunate party feeling which prevails in Ireland. I do not speak so because I am myself an Irishman, but because I am convinced that so long as the violence of party exists in that country, you will have such things. _Capt. Killdragon._ Oh! doctor, you have too much of the milk of human kindness about you. I (as you all know, Gentlemen) am a Catholic—I hope yet to see the members of my religion emancipated from their grating chains; but is it by such firebrands as now inflame the Irish, we are to be liberated? No; those can only make our chains red-hot, and weld them firmer—those are but the evil tools of their own selfish purposes, and to be the idols of a mob, would lead it to its perdition the while. However, let the motives be what they may, the conduct in this affair was detestable. The man who would draw aside the curtains of the death-bed, that the rabble which followed him might mock the dying, while he himself stood by it, displaying his venomous teeth, and mixing with the prayers of his helpless victim his own horrid yells—is a monster, which I had thought was only to be imagined, until a demagogue, my countryman and fellow Catholic, embodied the horrid conception. _Dr. Slaughtery._ But he neutralized it by the _amende honorable_.