“peaceful agitation” might be turned to good account in the constitutional states of the Continent, and we took care to introduce it into France, when we visited that country, with what effect those who remember the “Reform Banquets” which preceded the Revolution of February, 1848, need not to be informed. From the Liberator, or, as we chose to call him, the Agitator, we went to meet the chiefs of the Young Ireland party, still apparently acting in harmony with him. We formed no great expectations of them. They talked too much, and made too much noise and bluster. We found them in excellent dispositions, but too unsubstantial for our purpose. They were all blaze, and no heat. The devil, having no creative power, could not himself make much of them, and gave them up in despair. Hence their miserable failure four years later at Slievnamon. Indeed, Ireland was a country by no means to our philanthropic and reforming purpose, and we made no account of her in preparing our revolutionary movements. We however erected a small battery in the west, with a view to some ulterior operations, and which we left in charge of Exeter Hall. It has produced some temporary effect; but inasmuch as it has served to arouse the Popish bishops and clergy to a more diligent discharge of their duties, in regard to the religious and moral instruction of the people in that hitherto somewhat neglected district, it is not certain but it will, in the long run, produce an effect the reverse of that intended. Rome, too, has sent a man after her own heart to look after the Irish Church, the present Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland; so the philanthropists have not much to hope from Ireland. Pat will sometimes live and talk as an unbeliever, but he has a singular propensity to die a Christian. From Ireland we visited Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Highlands, and the Hebrides—the Highlands and the Hebrides, for the purpose of making observations on the “second sight” of the natives. We were much pleased with Scotland. The Scottish character has many admirable features, and there is not upon the whole a finer race in Europe than the Scotch, when unperverted. We found nothing to do among them. There was no need of mesmerizing them. Their own “_ingenuum fervidum_,” a sort of permanent mesmerization, was amply sufficient for all our purposes. Besides, there seemed to be a natural and ample supply of the odic fluid in her own mountains and glens, which were still peopled by brownies and fairies. CHAPTER XIII. THE TOUR CONTINUED.