ity from Ireland in the event of Sir Robert's power
continuing, required that some new conspiracy should be cited to the
public service, possibly (after the 15th of April) some new
conspirator. The new seditious movement could not be doubtful: by many
degrees of preference, the war upon the Irish church had the "call."
This is to be the war now pursued, and with advantages (as we have
already said) never possessed by the Repeal cause. The chief advantage
of _that_ lay in the utter darkness to the Irish peasantry of the word
"Repeal." What it meant no wizard could guess; and merely as a subject
to allure by uncertain hopes, on the old maxim of "omne ignotum pro
magnifico," the choice of that word had considerable merit. But the
cause of Popery has another kind of merit, and (again we remind the
reader) reposes upon another kind of support. In that cause the Irish
peasantry will be unaffectedly and spontaneously zealous; in that
cause there will be a confluence from many quarters of English aid.
Far other phenomena will now come forward. Meetings, even of the kind
convened by Mr O'Connell, are not, we must remember, found to be
unlawful by the issue of the late trials. Had certain melodramatic
features been as cautiously banished from Mr O'Connell's parades as
latterly they were affectedly sought, it is certain that, to this
hour, he and his pretended myriads would have been untouched by the
petrific mace of the policeman. Lay aside this theatrical costuming of
cavalry, of military step, &c., and it will be found that these
meetings were lawful. Most certainly a meeting for the purpose of
petitioning is not, and (unless by its own folly) never can be, found
unlawful.

[29] The trial of the seven bishops for declining to obey the
king's order in council against what, in conscience, they
believed to be the law of the land, is the more strictly a
parallel case, because, as in Ireland, the whole Popish part
of the population--in effect, therefore, the whole physical
strength of the land--_seemed_ to have arrayed itself on the
side of the conspiracy; so in England, the only armed force,
and that close to London, was supposed to have been bought
over by the systematic indulgence of the king. Himself and the
queen (Mary of Modena) had courted them through the summer.
But all was fruitless against the overwhelming sympathy of the
troops with an universal popular feeling. Bishop Bur