that gives the moral courage, even to a female author, to tell those bold truths, which the base, the sordid, and the corrupt, are interested to deny, The tone of mind and talent of a woman especially fits her to enter into this mystic communion with kindred thinkers spread over the whole world. It belongs to her finesse and spirituality, to the feeling and the fancy that breathe over all she writes, thus to open a private intercourse, through the medium of the public press, to waft a sentiment to the pole, and speed a thought to the line-to revive a fading prepossession across the steep Atlantic, and to waken a latent association beyond the Alps; to direct a sally to Calcutta; to billet a mot d'énigme on New York; and with the air of writing for the world, or the ambition of composing for posterity, to feel only the inspiration of an individual influence, and to clear out a cargo of odd and pleasant things by the good ship Sympathy, certain of its reaching the destined port and of being deeply prized by the correspondent to whom they are consigned. How many pilgrims has "Julie" brought to Lausanne, and “Corinne” to Copet, who in this marching age have directed

their movements to our " Ultima Irelande," to visit its natural wonders; and who have made a station on their route, to drop a bead, and tell an ave, at the cell of one, whose zeal (if not her works) has entitled her to some consideration from the liberal and the free. When so many delightful

spirits are abroad, who would not be always "at home," to receive them? Alas, for the home !the native home, that owes its charm, not to compatriot sympathy, or liberality, or genius, but to those

"Posters by the sea and land,"

who bring the intellect of Europe along with them, to shame our insular ignorance and bigotted prejudices.

If I had not taken this glance at my little visiting book, I should have had a solace the less to console me for the privations and sacrifices, which all who live in Ireland, from motives of private affection or public principle, must endure. There, the peaceable enjoyments and courtesies of life, its dis tinctions and its honours, are for a caste; while, for all others, are reserved proscription or per

secution!-the calumnies of a ribald press; and the contemptuous neglect, or (what is worse) the supercilious notice of that antinational class, which is alike insensible to genius and suspicious of patriotism. Among the great, the incalculable benefits to be conferred on Ireland by Catholic Emancipation, that of bettering the condition of private society, will not be the least valuable. Great rights and advantages come remotely and at intervals, to brighten, benefit, and improve the land to which they are granted; not so, the days, and hours, and minutes, that go to make up that existence, upon which a "long account of hate" between the oppressor and the oppressed has shed its bitter venom! What minute details of persecution !—what petty guerilla warfare, carried on from house to house, and street to street, in which no sex is sparedno virtues are a defence !-no talent forms a claim to compatriot respect! yet such has been the state of society in the most social of all countries for more than half a century! Should that act of common justice and common sense ever pass into a law-the act for removing Catholic disabilities, Ireland may still become one of the most liveable places in the

empire. For there are still to be found in the native land of Swift, Goldsmith, Sterne, Sheridan, Burke, Grattan, Canning, and Moore, all the elements which tend to brighten and illuminate the happiest circles. The temperament of the nation is essentially mercurial, prone to social enjoyment, affectionate, humorous, and pleasure-loving: and when the removal of those atrocious distinctions, which have so long spread dissension, and occupied the national mind with national grievances, shall leave the genius of the people to its fair and rational play, it may be prophecied that the capital of Ireland will become one of the most agreeable, if not the most important, of European cities.

Under such auspices, how delightful to open a visiting book, in which the names of all who are now divided into parties, sects, and factions, shall be found, without recalling one unpleasant association -and when (no longer indebted for all social, all intellectual enjoyments to the foreign visitor from happier and more enlightened lands), we shall feel and own,

"Our first, best country, ever is at home."

FOREIGN VISITORS.

"Point de rose sans épine."

OH!-рar exemple,-here comes a pretty commentary on the above text-a paragraph from some of the ribald journals which it would be pollution to name. It has just been sent me enclosed in an anonymous letter; for I have always some

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good-natured friend," (as Sir Peter Teazle says) who furnishes me with abuse of myself, from those newspapers which I should deem it an act of the highest immorality to let into my house. I never, by the bye, could understand the logic of those, who, professing to detest calumny, and to abhor slander, still think it no delinquency to read and to purchase the journals which exist but by their propagation. To add to the revenue of such a speculation, is to become a participator in its criminality; for if every one who disdains to be himself guilty of falsehood, would refrain from buying it, ready-made to his hand, such disgraces