Who that reads this address will not acknowledge his majesty's genius for speaking was equal to his talents for ruling? Shades of Fox, Grattan, and Sheridan, what a display of eloquence was here, delivered, too, by the "most polished man in Europe!" We may easily account for the rapturous admiration which the Irish people evinced for their monarch! Naturally eloquent themselves, they knew how to appreciate the energy and beauty of what a king addressed to their taste and understanding. When he assured them, in the most elegant and lofty language, that "his heart was entirely Irish," and that, in proof of the sincerity of his royal professions, he would "drink all their healths in a bumper of good Irish whiskey," they felt, with its superiority, the exhilirating stimulant of kingly declamation, and yielded to all the ecstacy that forms so prominent a characteristic of their sensations. The declaration of a British king, that his heart was wholly Irish

[[29]]was a kindness as highly strained, with respect to them, as disheartening to the feelings of all his other subjects. Great as was our admiration of the nobleness, both in matter and style, of this oratorical display, we scarcely were able, for a time, to reconcile our startled judgment to the perfect equity of this sudden partiality for a people who had never before experienced any mighty favours from the same quarter. But our error, we frankly confess, was the child of our stupidity: we understood his majesty to the simple letter, rather than in the royal meaning, of what he addressed to his long-forsaken children, and were too dull to understand his language till some time afterwards, when he visited his German dominions. But when, after assuring his Hibernian subjects that his heart was wholly Irish, he, in the same exquisite style, protested that his heart was entirely Hanoverian, we were wise enough to comprehend his majesty. There is a kind of ductility in this sort of affection that soars as much above the ordinary course of human feeling as the language in which the sentiment is conveyed surpasses the general powers of lingual eloquence. Such goodness and such eloquence may be ADMIRED, but we hope they will never be COPIED!

However gaily and flatteringly his majesty was received by his Irish subjects, all unbiassed people were shocked at the unbecoming incongruity of a king lost in the intoxication of mirth and wine, while his persecuted consort's passing hearse was calling forth the tears of his pitying people. Even under circumstances the most proper and respectful

[[30]]towards her late majesty, in regard to the conveyance of her remains to their destined place of rest, the appalling knowledge that, while her obsequies were performing, her husband's heart and soul were wrapped in the transports of convivial enjoyment, would have deepened the gloom of the dismal occasion, and excited exclamations of anguish and astonishment; but, witnessing the sordid neglect and studied insult with which the government conducted the melancholy preparation and procession, they combined with the sad spectacle the idea of her husband's simultaneous joy and merriment, and felt disgusted at such indecent and unmanly conduct. Of the qualities of the Irish character, generally viewed, there is much to admire; they are liberal and kind-hearted, and, in some few instances, have shewn a public spirit and a manly sense of their political wrongs and oppressions. We cannot, however, compliment either their delicacy, as men, in not feeling for the cruel death of an amiable woman, or their loyalty, as subjects, in slighting the memory of their sacrificed queen. At the cold indifference manifested by the Hibernian ladies, at this period, we were perfectly amazed. Over and above the tenderness natural to their hearts, their sex had an interest in her case, which ought to have awakened their concern, and commanded their tears. But the whole drama of life abounds with discordant scenes; and, without female inconsistency, the piece would be incomplete.

"All the world's a stage,
And men and women are the players!"

[[31]]A tyrant drops his head upon the scaffold, and they weep!—an innocent queen is poisoned, and they "show no sign of sorrow!"—a cruel, cowardly yeomanry, and a brutal, sanguinary soldiery, massacre an unarmed populace, and thanks and a subscription acknowledge and reward their heroism!—here a people are stripped of their rights and privileges, and content themselves with complaining!—there a country is everwhelmed in penury and wretchedness, and finds a cure for all its distresses in the casual visit of its despotic ruler, and his unmeaning and stupid speeches!

The despicable figure which the king made at this period, and the fulsome flatteries bestowed upon him by the Irish people, did not escape the keen penetration of the illustrious and patriotic Lord Byron. We had the pleasure of his lordship's acquaintance for some years before his lamented death; and he was in the habit of sending us many brilliant effusions of his muse, which he probably never intended for publication. But the following verses, on the subject of which we have just been speaking, possess so much poetical beauty and justness of expression, that we cannot refrain from gratifying our readers by inserting them in this place.

THE IRISH AVATER[31:A].

Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide;
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave
To the long-cherish'd isle, which he lov'd like his—bride.

[[32]]True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone,—
The rainbow-like epoch, where freedom would pause
For the few little years out of centuries won,
Which betray'd not, or crush'd not, or wept not her cause.