Mr. Healy contributes to Thursday's Westminster Gazette the beginning of
a study of Mr. Parnell, which represents him as full of superstitions derived from an old nurse, Mrs. Tup- penny, at whom he had, as a child, thrown a candlestick, though be declared that he had been greatly afraid of her. He would commence no new undertaking on a Friday; he re- garded thirteen as a thoroughly unlucky number, and even Ldded clauses he did not like to a Bill he was drafting, rather than leave them thirteen in number ; and he thought green so unlucky a colour that he attributed all Ireland's misfortunes to her green flag. Mr. Healy never loved Mr. Parnell, and may perhaps be exaggerating the superstitious vein in him, but he, no doubt, describes qualities which all the Parnellites must have had under their observation, and would not dare to paint his superstition up too obviously. To some men superstition is a sort of stimulus and tonic. It was to Dr. Johnson, and perhaps also to Mr. Parnell.
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