17 NOVEMBER 1866, Page 3

The Star called attention in an amusing article last week

to a pension conferred by Lord Derby which more than surpasses in stupidity Lord Palmerston's pension to Mr. Close, the Poet Laureate of King Pepple. In last Wednesday's Times we read -among the "Civil Service Pensions," "Robert Young, Esq., 401. a year, in recognition of his services as an historical and agricultural poet in Ireland." For historical read " Orange." This gentle- man, one of whose works now lies before us, adopts the sobriquet of "The Fermanagh True Blue," is the editor of The Orange Minstrel, published in 1832, and of The Ulster Harmonist, published in 1840, and chiefly devotes himself to celebrating victories of Orangemen over Roman Catholics. Finding a "fatal necessity" existing to "arouse the slumbering energies of the friends of the Altar and the Throne," Mr. Young stood out to resist Popery and infidelity, bringing to that noble work the aid of all the lyric poetry he could command. "What Marathon and Thermopylas were to the Greeks, Londonderry and Enniskillen will ever be to the Protestants of Ireland," says Mr. 'Young. He explains to critics of the Romish or Radical school that he "despises their malignity, and can afford to treat them with silent contempt." We may return to his doggerel next week ; of the political sentiment which Lord Derby honours with a pension, we can only say that it is exceedingly fierce and bloody towards Roman Catholics. Does Lord Derby wish to foster -Orange rowdyism by rewarding its bard ?