Mr. O'CoNNELL's provisional declaration in favour of Federalism has provoked
a symptom, though not a very fierce one, of mutiny among his own proper forces, the real Repealers : Mr. CHARLES G.tveN Dem, editor of the Nation and representative of the ultra-national section of the Repealers, has written a letter of re- monstrance to the Liberator ; a curious production, that seems to mean more than meets the eye. It is respectful, and has been cri- ticized as tame and betraying inferior tactics ; yet under its grave .deference lurk some sly rebukes ; and, although its earnest zeal for impracticabilities may savour of less worldly cunning than the Li- berator's shifty manucevres, we may remember that some cunning is inferior to simplicity. We are apt to forget that the knave who cajoles a simple lad, raw from the plough or the college, may be a greater fool in his heart than the gull who does not filch away his own faith. Mr. Dos-pr's grave remonstrance is schoolboyish ; but sager men than the Member for Ireland have learned wisdom from the mouth of babes. The earnest Repealer condemns Federalism as an essentially worse thing than Repeal ; complains that it would be a greater innovation on the constitution; especially de- plores that it would abolish the Irish House of Lords; and depre- cates the breach of faith with the Repealers who joined the Asso- ciation as such. Mr. DUFFY'S firm stand at the starting-point of Repeal marks the extent of Mr. O'CoNNELL's backsliding. He is imbued with fervid longing for that nationality to which Mr. O'CoNNELL has ever affected to aspire. His enthusiasm looks genuine, and his leader's in the contrast acquires a tinge of spuri- ousness. Mr. O'CoriNELL's tactic may be the best for present show, with a view to mustering the largest body of recruits to pa- rade as if they were all agreed ; Mr. DUFFY'S may exhibit a puerile impracticability ; but let us not forget that one enterprise is as im- practicable as the other. "Young Ireland" is in a dream of ra- ther juvenile romance : " Ould Ireland" consents, for purposes of his own, to keep his mind in this state, that he waives his better knowledge in order to bring his understanding down to the Con- ciliation-Hall level, and not to unfit himself for that task of half- madness half-cajolery implied in the enterprise of Repeal. Some English commentators think the Arch-Repealer's the wiser state !
As a pendant to Mr. DUFFY'S letter and the comparison that it suggests, we may take the attack by "An Irish Priest" on his paper, the Nation, for its " un-Catholic," " un-Christian," and " Infidel" priuciples. The heterodoxy of the Nation is shown in such things as the admission that formerly Irish popular leaders may have been actuated by "superstition" ; that English oppres- sors may have been instigated by "bigotry against bigotry," ; and in the deprecation of a censorship of the press. The Irish Priest seems to be shocked at the confession that superstition or bigotry has ever been possible in a Roman Catholic, and still more at the dislike to a censorship of the press ; which he stoutly vindicates on the authority of divers Councils and of the Sovereign Pontiff; who says that even to object to it is temerarious. This letter, thus making the Inquisitorial charge of "Infidelity," is reprinted as "a public duty" by a leading Repeal journal that follows Mr. O'CoN- NELL right faithfully ; and it is remarkable that it is reprinted .on the first opportunity after the appearance of Mr. Durres incon- venient display of stiffnecked singleness of purpose.
These are notable objects for comparison,—the representative of "all Ireland" and its "blarney," the ultra-Irish reckless and hoping-against-hope nationality of GAVAN Derry, and the attempt of the " Irish Priest" to restore an ecclesiastical despotism. Fill up the background with a few agrarian murders, ancrwith the non- sensical Orange "Protestant Operative" Anti-Repeal humbug, and its miniature imitation of "the rent," always going on in Dub- lin, and you have the present popular state of Ireland.
