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same reply the priest would probably do in this circumstance--How can we help it? We want a mob; if he sings, we have it--we know his character as well as you; so only let us fill our pockets, and then ---- I do not blame them in the least, if the popery of their politics has palled upon the appetite; if they can work no more miracles of reform and revolution, I do not see how they can help calling in aid from without. Dan, however, will not consent, like Duprez, to be damned when he is done with; he insists on a share of the profits, and, moreover, to be treated with some respect too. He knows he is the star of the company, and can make his own terms; and, even now, when the house is broken up, and the manager beggared, and the actors dismissed, like Matthews, he can get up a representation all to himself, and make a handsome thing of it besides. If one could see it brought about something in the fashion of Sancho's government of Barrataria, I should certainly like to see O'Connell on the throne of Ireland for about twenty-four hours, and to salute King Dan, _par la grace de diable_, king of Erin, just for the joke's sake! A NUT FOR LEARNED SOCIETIES. [Illustration] We laugh at the middle ages for their trials by ordeal, their jousts, their tournaments, their fat monasteries, and their meagre people; but I am strongly disposed to think, that before a century pass over, posterity will give us as broad a grin for our learned societies. Of all the features that characterise the age, I know of none so pre-eminently ridiculous, as nine-tenths of these associations would prove; supported by great names, aided by large sums, with a fine house, a library and a librarian, they do the honours of science pretty much as the yeomen of the guard do those of a court on a levee day, and they bear about the same relation to literature and art, that do the excellent functionaries I have mentioned, to the proceedings around the throne. An old gentleman, hipped by celibacy, and too sour for society, has contracted a habit of looking out of his window every morning, to observe the weather: he sees a cloud very like a whale, or he fancies that when the wind blows in a particular direction, and it happens to rain at the same time, that the drops fall in a peculiarly slanting manner. He notes down the facts for a month or two, and then establishes a meteorological society, of which he is the perpetual president, with a
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