The news of the week presents a curious contrast in
the posi- tion of two public men, which is full of political instruction. Mr. Duffy retires from the Irish stage, and from his association with the Irish people, to seek an asylum and better fortune in Australia. Lord Stanley opened the grounds and house of Knowsley, Lord Derby's patrimonial mansion, to five thousand of the middle and working classes ineorporated as the Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire. As in Yorkshire, the Mechanics Insti- tutions and local libraries have associated in order to circulate the books which each individual body possesses amongst the whole number, and to obtain a better class of lectures by forming a circuit for the lecturers. Thus 16,000 persons are incorporated in seventy institutions, possessing about 250,000 volumes ; and adult educa- tion makes a progress says Lord Stanley, which is independent of agitation or aid. Before it was quite so prosperous, Ills heir of the house of Derby had perfectly identified himself with that ad- vance of popular education. He may differ in view fronmany of his associates; he may be aristocratic; his motive marl), policy; there may be more of head than heart—though that i'old be a very unfair inference, for the heart is seldom the worse fot havitkg
a brighter light shed upon it from the head : but at all events, with the progress of the people in these parts Lord Stanley is identified as something better than a patron—a fellow workman, a guide.
Mr. Daffy, faithful to the old dogma that "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity," has been endeavouring to wave the green. flag ever since the rebels of 1848 were transported ; since famine, fever, and emigration have marched off millions of his countrymen ; since wages have risen to an English level, and high priests of Ifilesian faith have deserted to the British connexion. At last, convinced that the enterprise will not do, after identifying himself with the non-progress of the people and a state of things that is permanently passing away, the once popular Duffy has no other recourse but something very like self-transportation. An amiable man, a literary rather than a practical politician, he has mistaken his mission ; and he pays the penalty. But there is much taught by this lesson in the adversity of an Ultra-Liberal and the success of a young Conservative statesman.
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