sh questions, either to the right or to
the left, for _any_ government which at this moment the
Whig-radicals could form. Doubtless, Lord John cherishes hopes
of future power; but not at present. "Wait a little," is his
secret caution to friends: let us see Ireland settled; let the
turn be taken; let the policy of Sir Robert Peel (at length
able to operate through the last assertion of the law) have
once taken root; and then, having the benefit of measures
which past declarations would not permit him personally to
initiate, nor his party even to propose, Lord John might
return to power securely--saying of the Peel policy, "Fieri
non debuit, _factum_ valet."

It might seem almost unnecessary to answer those who thus answer
themselves, or to expose the ruinous architecture of politicians, who
thus with mutual hands tear down their own walls as they advance, were
it not for the other aspect of the debate. But the times are agitated;
the crisis of Ireland is upon us; now, or not at all, there is an
opening for a new dawn to arise upon the distracted land; and when a
public necessity calls for a contradiction of the enemy, it is a
providential bounty that we are able to plead his _self_-contradiction.
In the hurry of the public mind, there is always a danger that many
great advantages for the truth should be overlooked: even things seen
steadily, yet seen but once and amongst alien objects, are seen to
little purpose. Lowered also in their apparent value by the prejudice,
that what passes in parliament is but the harmless skirmishing of
partisanship, dazzling the eye, but innocuous as the aurora borealis,
demonstrations only too certain of coming evils receive but little
attention in their earlier stages. Yet undoubtedly, if the laws
applicable to conspiracy can in any way be evaded, we may see by the
extensive cabal now organizing itself in England for aiding the Irish
conspiracy to overthrow the Irish Protestant church, that we have but
exchanged one form of agitation for a worse. Worse in what respect?
Not as measured simply by the ruin it would cause--between ruin and
ruin, there is little reason for choice; but worse, as having all the
old supporters that Repeal ever counted, and many others beside.
Especially with Repeal agitation recommending itself to the Irish
priesthood, and to those whom the priesthood can put in motion, it
will recommend itself also and separately to v