close connexion of Ireland with England is as necessary to the welfare of Ireland as to that of the empire. It is the sheet-anchor of enlightened liberty and civilization to both. How little chance there is of preserving the connexion without great sacrifices of private interests and gigantic measures for re-instating society in Ireland, is grievous to reflect upon. Whether statesmen equal to the emergency will arise-whether bolder causes will be adopted in the future than the peddling reforms of the past, is impossible to foresee; but it is not too much to presume that a reformed Parliament offers some reasonable chance of a new and a better career. The last thing that becomes a genuine patriot is despair of his country; and nothing but despair would justify Irishmen in that precipitation, which will prevent the due developement of this new element of natural happiness and prosperity, and destroy the one remaining chance of a return to peace and a regular government.

M.

HOUSE OF RECOVERY FOR THE YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL.

MR. EDITOR.-The establishment of a new and independent periodical, neither bound to a faction, nor yoked to the chariot of a fashionable publisher, is an event calculated to give great and general satisfaction. To me, however, it is a matter of especial interest, who have personally experienced the manifold difficulties arising out of the want of a publication which, while it is conducted on the principles you profess, possesses dimensions capable of admitting an original article such as I have the honour now to submit for your acceptance. The "Metropolitan," I take it, is no mare clausum, either politically or physically; but an ocean open to all honest traders, and wide enough to float an East-India convoy, or a British fleet; and in that confidence, I solicit sea-room for my venture on its high seas-a venture which for some time back, "like a skiff on ocean tost," has been refused anchorage in every periodical port of literature, as not being freighted according to the jealous navigationlaws, which guard the petty interests and rivalries of the two or three great traders who legislate for this portion of the public press. But to drop my figurative style, which I inherit with some acres of bog in Kerry from a maternal uncle, one of the Ciceros of the late Catholic Association, and to come" to that complexion" to which in these utilitarian days we must all "come at last,"-to come to the fact, the plan which you are now about to inspect, has been concocted nearly three years, and has been presented for insertion to periodicals innumerable, daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly, to no purpose not that it is deficient in truth, utility, or the average literary merit; but, unluckily, its object is opposed to the private interests of flaunting bibliopolists, who have a stake in periodicals known and unknown, and who use the interest thus acquired for the better carrying on great schemes of monopoly. You will perceive, when you have done me the honour to glance over my scheme for a "House of Recovery for the Young and Beautiful," that it is written for purposes diametrically opposite to those of the "fashionable novels," "Tales of Ton," "Court Journals," &c. &c. &c. got up below-stairs, which enfeeble the minds, falsify the tastes, and waste the time of

the British youth of both sexes. The various editors therefore upon due inspection affirmed, with an unanimity quite marvellous, that to print it was to incur the certain loss of an immense annual sum on account of the puffs, paragraphs, and advertisements, which the offended parties would certainly withdraw upon such a violation of the terms of their treaties. Despairing of England, I took advantage of my bog-estate in Kerry, from which I have never derived any thing but a law-suit, to try Ireland: but there I could not get a single paper to insert even a paid puff in behalf of my plan, with the exception of an old Orange journal, which insisted on interpolating a line in praise of the constitution of 88, and "the glorious and immortal." This did not exactly dovetail with my House of Recovery, and I accordingly refused the offer.

Convinced that the liberty of the press in Great Britain had sustained a more deadly blow from the puffing system of the times than from all that the spirit of Toryism and the eloquence of Scarlett himself have effected, I drew up a résumé of my plan, and sent it to a friend in Paris for insertion in the French papers, and set off to Kerry with my bog rent-roll and Ms. in the same portmanteau. On arriving at a miserable inn, at the ruined and historical town of Kilmacrackskully-bogue, on the frontiers of Cork and Kerry, (once debateable ground to the borderers of that long disturbed district,) I called for a newspaper, while my landlady went forth to catch and kill the fowl, which was to be served au naturel with bacon and greens, (the usual Irish-inn dinner,) at such time as it pleased the rival nimbleness of the killer and her victim to determine. Instead of a stale "Evening Post," or a last week's "Morning Register," the bare-legged, bare-headed, dirty-faced, and good-humoured "maid of the inn" served me up a fresh, wet sheet, which after having smoked it for a while before the blazing turf-fire, I found to be the "Kilmacrackscully-bogue Free Press, or Munster Weekly Advertiser," with a curious Irish motto, taken from the black book of " that ilk," -Thamenahulagh na dhushame; the meaning of which is, I am asleep, and don't wake me." Here then, I thought, is a paper which corruption cannot have reached, which no monopolizing bookseller can have bought. Here is a primeval paper, honest, ardent, unsophisticated, to which the world of "fashionable" publishers is unknown-Here is at last an independent organ of public opinion; a paper in which I can insert my plan for the establishment of a House of Recovery for the Young and Beautiful. Remote as was the scene of action thus offered, this was all I wanted; for the paragraph once published, the Metropolitan editors (not the editors of the "Metropolitan") were free to reprint it from their "esteemed contemporary," with a gentle commentary of abuse, which, as they said, comes nearly to the same thing.

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The advertising columns of the "Munster Weekly Advertiser" did not exhibit much press of matter. I cut them out for my aunt's scrap-book; and they run as follows: "Lossed, or strayed, from Terence Toole's, a bran new churn, too well known to need concealment; also a goose, having its full complement of quills: no questions asked, if returned unplucked." "Notice-In regard of the accident which befell Shane Geraty at the new-drop in Cork, the same will be waked and keened at his mother's place, by the ould

berrin-ground of Crossmakillum, near the Four-ways, or Deadman's walk." Hurrying over a few other advertisements of merely local interest to get at the leader, in order to make acquaintance with the spirit of the journal, the name of a fashionable London street met my eye, and, to my surprise and horror, I read "Advertisement-Messieurs and have the honour to inform the readers of Kilmacrackscully-bogue, that the long-expected novel of the Mysteries of the Castle, or the R- Retreat,' a tale of Court-life, by the Hon. * will be ready for delivery on the first of next month." The effect of this advertisement on my nerves was perfectly ridiculous; I actually grew faint. Hurrying over the paper to get rid of the horrid lines, it was "out of the frying-pan into the fire" with me,a figure, by the bye, I much prefer to the worn-out classicality of Scylla and Charybdis. In the most conspicuous part of the paper, and in well-leaded type, stood the puff referential to this advertisement: "While the literary and learned in the fashionable and scientific circles of Kilmacrackscully-bogue are endeavouring to solve the enigma which still covers (like Mr. Moore's Veiled Prophet) the arcanum of our temple-videlicet, the real purport and characters of the Mysteries of the Castle, or the R Retreat,' a little bird, who sits chirping at our elbow, has just whispered us the secret; we can therefore confidently state that the author is not, as the world supposes, Lady A. B., but is really and bona fide the Hon. ***, as announced in the title-page; whose last novel received the autograph approbation of the first personage of the state. With respect to the story, we candidly confess there is some foundation for the reproaches levelled against the author for having revealed more of the 'secrets of his prison-house' (i. e. the C— of W-) than becomes his station and high office. The respectable publishers refuse, it is said, to hold themselves responsible for the personalities of their author, as that honourable gentleman has avowed his readiness to answer for himself. We can however pledge ourselves for the wit, causticity, and revelations of high life, displayed in this extraordinary production. Our readers will ask how we are enabled thus to speak of a work which has not yet appeared, and will not appear till the first of next month, (see advertisement) — but have they forgotten our little bird?"

Thus perished all my hopes in the "Kilmacrackscully-bogue Free Press;" and on my return to London, I found my expectations of the Parisian journals not better founded: even in the wide domain of French journalism, there was as little room for truth without intrigue as elsewhere; and my excellent plan for the redemption of the better half of the species seemed destined to fall to the ground for want of a medium for making it known, when my hopes were revived by an accident of the most simple character. Driving my cab along the Kensington road, I read, for the thousandth time, the thousand-times repeated "Try Warren's Blacking!" which glares in white and striking characters from every dead wall for miles out of London; when the bright idea flashed on me suddenly, like a sunbeam through the darkly-congregated clouds of a retiring tempest. Here then was a branch of the press free as air-free to all-Here was no editor to purchase, no publisher to "cope withal." I resolved at once to become the sole proprietor and editor of a wall myself; and changing

a drive of idleness into a voyage of discovery and commercial speculation, I commenced looking out on either side for a disposable concern. To my own and my horse's great fatigue, I passed Slough, without finding a single square foot not previously occupied; so putting up my cab at Salt Hill, and ordering my dinner, I walked forth to push my inquiries further westward on foot. I had not proceeded above half-a-mile, when I lighted on a charming old wall, the boundary of an orchard, the old gates of which a respectable-looking old man was locking, as I approached. I inquired for the proprietor. "I am the proprietor," he replied. "Is this wall about coming down?" I asked, as carelessly as I could modulate my voice. "Oh dear, no, sir, 'tis too good a thing for that." "I was in hopes," I replied, "that it was too bad for any thing but to scrawl an advertisement upon, for which purpose I am inclined to take it at a trifling rent." "A trifling rent! Lord bless you, Sir, I could not give you an inch of it, if you offered me a guinea a brick; it is all taken."

Disappointed and vexed, I returned to my lamb-chop, when your Prospectus met my eye in the columns of the "Times." I had just consciousness left in my vexation to understand that a wall on a great London road, where all who "run may read," was too powerful an organ of public opinion to be at every one's disposal; and I was delighted to find that the "Metropolitan" still held out a niche in the periodical world where principles might be advocated, even though they do run counter to the interests of all pseudo-fashionable monopolists. And now, Sir, having taken up so much of your time in detailing the obstacles which have opposed themselves to my plan, I will come to the plan itself, which I beg to preface with a brief abstract of my own qualifications for carrying it into full force and activity.

I am the son of an apothecary; my twin-brother and myself being the only offspring of my father's marriage with an Irish gentlewoman, -a poor one, it is true, in means, but rich in blood. It is from her that my brother and myself inherit those notions of gentility, which have determined our fate in life. She would never hear of my father's bringing us up to his own profession. "Necessity," she said, “had made her the wife of one apothecary; nothing should oblige her to become the mother of two." The utmost for which my father could gain her consent, was that we should follow a more elevated branch of physic. My brother became a fashionable cupper, and I a fashionable dentist. We both thus got into a line of life, which placed us in contact with the rich, the great, and the luxurious. My brother has had the honour of being engaged with all the royal, noble, and civic candidates for apoplexy, during more than ten years; while nearly all the pearly mouths of the young, and the toothless ones of the old, have passed through my hands during the same interval. We had fast reached the prime of life and of fashion, and were sufficiently wealthy for all the purposes of real enjoyment, when the death of a paternal uncle in the West Indies (a less noble but more profitable kinsman than our uncle of the boglegacy) put us at the head of a fortune, which rendered it unnecessary to follow our professions. Dividing between us a hundred thousand pounds, we took out a brevet of gentility, and a house at

the west-end of the town; and we placed ourselves on the long list of candidates for fashionable notoriety, by endeavouring to convert our quondam patients into guests. The struggle was toilsome and painful, and the end all but unattainable; till my brother's marriage with Lady Catherine Macsmugglevote, a pauper Irish lady of quality, purchased for us a sort of free-ticket of admission into good society. We were never indeed counted of the first circle of the audience; still less were we admitted behind the scenes. My brother and noble sister-in-law permitted me to remain a silent partner in the firm; and we continued to spend our fortunes upon some of the first and most worthless people in England. For myself, I was a mere observer of all that was passing in the great world, on whose skirts I was permitted to hang; and having a good deal of time on my hands, I was seized with a wish to speculate on the possibility of improving its existing combinations. Many of its absurdities and many of its evils struck me forcibly; but, above all, that mortal evildissipation, which drives so many of the young and beautiful into premature old age and an untimely grave. I felt a particular interest in watching the progress of the lovely debutantes, who come forward annually for immolation, like the thousand virgins in the book of martyrology. I saw new troops burst upon society in all their bloom, beauty, and vigour: I saw them after a season or two fade and fall, never to bloom again; and I drew a parallel between them and the exotics, which are let out for the season from the gardens on the King's Road to adorn the abodes of the wealthy,--at first, all flowers and fragrance; then, assuming fainter tints, and shrinking in their leafless dimensions, ere the sap however of the plant is dried, and its vitality quite exhausted, it is carried off from the scene of its decay by the vigilant gardener, more tender of his charge than the fondest (that is generally the vainest) London mothers are of those committed to their care. I remarked a beautiful rose-geranium, which had ornamented my sister's boudoir, thus prematurely fade, losing blossom after blossom and leaf after leaf; and I saw leaf after leaf again spring forth, and its ruby blossoms bud and expand into all its pristine brilliance, when thus restored to its native garden. Not so the lady Hebe Beaumont, the rose-geranium of the season of 18-. Never did a more lovely creature pass the threshold of fashion to become its idol and its victim. She made her appearance at H- House in all the luxuriance of health and beauty. These she retained for the first season with a vigour which showed what was the constitution she had formed in her father's rural palace, where her pleasure-loving mother had left her to be educated. To the dissipations of London, those of a fashionable watering-place succeeded in due course; which were followed by the private plays, nine-o'clock dinners, and the midnight revels of the country-seat: and when the fair Hebe returned to her second season, it was without that stock of rude health which had carried her through her first campaign. Her name was now an epigram; her rich bloom was exchanged for a variable hectic; her eyes had sunk; her Venus-like bust had shrunk, and its natural symmetry was replaced by the corsage drapé of a fashionable dress-maker. Her spirits were as artificial as her person. I watched her fading form, from ball to ball, from assembly to assembly. August approached—a hot August: London was like a