If Parliament is industrious in the grinding of bills, more
real progress in the furtherance of important questions is made by dilettante associations out of doors ; it is made in a better spirit, and probably it obtains a wider influence. Although losing every vestige of novelty with the repetition of its visit to Edinburgh, the British Association still excites a lively interest for its meeting, as the annual casting of accounts in matters of science, speculative or practical. Convivial Olympic games like those of the North- umberland Agricultural Association or the Scottish Association at Glasgow, have a more positive effect in stimulating production than any statute that Parliament can pass. In Dublin, we see the new Tenant-right League vigorously concentrating the opinion of Ireland on the land question which certainly is assuming a more practical aspect than that Repeal phantom which suddenly looms into sight once more—like Vanderdecken's ever lost and ever recurrent ship. Mr. John O'Connell seems to have reserved to himself the faculty of an occasional meeting when there may bc a little rent to collect; as idle boys, tired of _fruitless angling, leave their line in the water for such prey as may volunteer to hook itself.
