never irritate his nerves, nor destroy his
slumbers. Some insignificant bills--some unimportant appeals--some
stray fragments that fall from the tables of sturdier politicians, are
his daily diet; and he dozes away the remainder of life, happy and
contented in the simple and beautiful delusion that he is legislating
and ruling--just as warrantable the while, as his compeer of Chelsea,
in deeming his mock parades the forced marches of the Peninsula, and
his Sunday guards the dispositions for a Toulouse or a Waterloo.

A NUT FOR THE ART UNION.

The battle between the "big and little-endians" in Gulliver, was
nothing to the fight between the Destructives and Conservatives of the
Irish Art Union. A few months since the former party deciding that the
engraved plate of Mr. Burton's picture should be broken up; the latter
protesting against the Vandalism of destroying a first-rate work of
art, and preventing the full triumph of the artist's genius, in the
circulation of a print so creditable to himself and to his country.

The great argument of the Destructives was this:--We are the devoted
friends of art--we love it--we glory in it--we cherish it: yea, we
even give a guinea a-year a-piece for the encouragement of a society
established for its protection and promotion;--this society pledging
themselves that we shall have in return--what think ye?--the immortal
honour of raising a school of painting in our native country?--the
conscientious sense of a high-souled patriotism?--the prospect of
future estimation at the hands of a posterity who are to benefit by
our labours? Not at all: nothing of all this. We are far too great
materialists for such shadowy pleasures; we are to receive a plate,
whose value is in the direct ratio of its rarity, "which shall
certainly be of more than the amount of our subscription," and, maybe,
of five times that sum. The fewer the copies issued, the rarer (_i.
e._, the dearer) each impression. We are the friends of
art--therefore, we say, smash the copper-plate, destroy every vestige
of the graver's art, we are supplied, and heaven knows to what price
these engravings may not subsequently rise!

[Illustration: "This is a Rembrandt."]

Now, I like these people. There is something bold, something masterly,
something decided, in their coming forward and fighting the battle on
its true grounds. There is no absurd affectation about the circulation
of a clever picture disseminating in remote