punished, since, by a lucky accident, they had
not had time to affix, their signatures to those
already attached to the manifesto which Princess
Anna had hoodwinked me into carrying to
her brother's house, and which was a document
pledging its subscribers to a general revolt.

Years afterwards, at Lisbon, where Dillon was
first attaché, the latter told me that the words
he had vainly attempted to bawl in my ears as
the train swept me past the platform, merely
comprised this friendly warning:

"Ignatius Kraskoff is a notorious spy of the
police!"

In which capacity, and in consequence of my
intimacy at the Sobieski palace, that pink and
paragon of good travelling servants had been
instructed to attach himself to me.

THE IRISH BLUNDER-BORE.

THE lives of great men have usually something
that reminds us especially of their fame.
Watt has his steam-engine, Arkwright his
spinning-jennies, Cæsar his Commentaries. So the
Irish Blunderer of all time, Sir Boyle Roche, is
linked for ever to a bird with the mysterious
property of being "in two places at once."
Some of the great memories just enumerated
may pass away. Their works may be eclipsed
by a yet greater stretch in human progress.
But posterity will not willingly let Sir Boyle
Roche and his ubiquitous bird die. They are
always at hand to stop up a leaky sentence
handsomely. Hundreds of the grand circle of
humanity are every day itching to make the same
remark; toppling over into this loud blunder.
For, virtually, we feel that a bird is very often
almost in two places at once — the progress of a
fowl of the air is the most convenient expression
for swift transit. But we fear the danger of
saying so, and shabbily fall back upon the
baronet and his ornithological companion.
Sheltered in this cowardly fashion, we reap all the
profits of a commodious expression in the most
perfect security, and with a conversational
heartlessness turn the jest upon the man who
was courageous enough to speak out boldly.
We smile at his comic celebrity, yet we must
admire this manliness, which did not scruple to
furnish the great human race with a happy form
of expression, at the cost of a burlesque
immortality.

All the world, then, knows of this famous
bird. It is accepted universally. The allusion is
understood at once. There is no need of
commentary or scholia. Sir Boyle Roche and his
bird, which was in two places at once, are bound
up with the language. Yet never was there an
historical character of such notoriety so little
known.

Sir Boyle Roche was a member of parliament.
The bird in question is said to have been
introduced to public notice in the sacred legislature;
for it will be recollected that it was to
"Mr. Speaker," personally, that Boyle put the
curious hypothesis. In that assembly, however,
he spoke very often, and curious to say, even
as we read the meagre reports of the Irish
Hansard, we are conscious of the presence of
the famous fowl fluttering close by, and every
instant on the verge of flying direct into the
middle of a speech. Passages, however, have
survived, which are significant of the quality of
what have been lost. Who was the noble
lord whom he described as "the first law
character in the kingdom, whose honour, whose
principles, and whose patriotism would, he was
convinced, be as jealous of the rights of his
country, as any other gentleman in the land" ?
For this "law character," a companion was soon
found in that other gentleman "whose known
integrity, learned knowledge, constitutional
principles, were superior to every imputation
inimical to such principles." If he did not treat
this question with "learned knowledge," he is
described by the reporter as entering on it
with truly national zeal, loyal enthusiasm, and
soldierly decision.

It was in speaking of the excesses of the
French Revolution, and the danger to which
his country was exposed in consequence of too
liberal legislation, that Sir Boyle Roche introduced
what might be considered as a pendant for
the famous fowl; a no less remarkable tree on
which it might settle. The tree has been unfairly
passed over. "This," said the honourable
baronet, speaking of some of the Irish revolutionary
societies, "is not the only convention we have.
We have two or three, all branches of the same
stock — all sprouts of the barren Tree of Liberty,
which bears nothing itself, and blasts everything
under its shade, or in its neighbourhood." This
curious bit of oratory is gravely reported, not
as a piece of eloquence, but as part of the regular
debate in official form. But that remarkable
tree which bears nothing and yet has sprouts,
and casts a shade that blasts, is surely now
entitled to some decent notoriety. Warmed by
the success of his tree, another image suggests
itself, which he deals with no less happily.
"Many," he says, mournfully, "many are the
Jack the Painters who, under the influence of
these societies, run through the people." A new
and startling mode of propagating sedition, and
a new specie of emissary alluded to as "Jack
the Painter," who was no dagger nor rapier, but
merely an incendiary. "Have you not thus,"
he goes on, "encouraged the scum to boil
uppermost — have you not? I know you have! Any
clumsy magician may raise the devil; but he
must be an expert one who can lay him."

He then gives a disastrous picture of the
French excesses. "While the French nobles
went on reforming themselves, there was a
bloody Jacobin party observing their motions,
who took the first opportunity of jumping on
their necks, cutting their throats, and burying
them, the monarchy and monarch, in the same
grave. It seems," he adds, "as if the same
spirit of felo-de-se had seized on us also."

Praise of the army: "that loyal army whom
it was the fashion to decoy; but the day would
come when the loyalty, the property, and the