THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.
THE good people of London slumbered as. long and soundly on the morning of Monday last, as if there were no Pope in Christen- dom, or the Gunpowder Plot had been a fable. "There is no villany," as the Times justly remarks, "too disgraceful for the present Ministers ;" and therefore it is not wonderful that they stopped the supply of ammunition and prohibited the firing of the Tower guns on the 5th. And yet the present is not a time to abandon any venerable practice which reminds Catholics what their ancestors did and suffered, and that themselves are yet under the Protestant heel. It was delightful to give them an annual kick. Truly is it sung by Captain Rock, that- " Popish purses pay the tolls At heaven's gate for Sasenach souls," But that is an every-day affair, dull and commonplace oppres- sion. Protestant zeal required a more stirring impulse ; and nothing brought so vividly to the imagination the horrors from which King JAMIE'S wisdom rescued the land, as vollies of artillery from the Tower guns. Many a sober citizen felt his faith strengthened with every discharge. The influence of gun- powder on the mind was never so strikingly proved. Indeed, we now begin to think that Lord MELBOURNE does aim at the over- throw of Protestantism. He is profound in psychology, has studied DUGALD STUART and Dr. Rip, and knows the effect of a sudden, startling reminiscence. Now, there is danger of the 5th of November passing away like any saint's day in the calendar, unhonoured, unnoticed. The religious ceremony, in- deed, may be continued ; but the " observation" of the day as directed by the Church is not fashionable ; and who in this country would be vulgar ? Yet there is bairn in Gilead. Popery may preside at the Council Board; it may flourish in Oxford University. But the rising Metropolitan generation, like Aurora Raby in Don Juan, "Keep their old faith ;tea their old feelings fast."
Inspector VALENTINE, of the K division of Police, made report to the Magistrate at the Thames 011ice, before whom certain dis- orderly Protestants were brought, that " ho had never seen so many Guys in his life, as he had seen that day." The Magistrate " thought the day was almost forgetten,"—a glaring prof of the mischievous consequences of saving the public powder. Had the "bronze cannon roared" as in olden times, 111r. Gaeeswoon would have been reminded of Guy FxrX at daybreak. From the report of the proceedings at Mr. GREENWOOD'S office it appears, that the juvenile Anti-Catholics made one little mistake in the costume of their effigy, arising from an imperfect acquaintance with the history of the plot amid the hero of it : they dressed their Guy like a BiNhop f—with a red cap on his head, in the shape of a mitre; instead of the picturesque, " black conical-shaped hat,- which the Inspector dech red to be the orthodox cover for Guy's cranium. But as a set-off against this blunder, (and to transform a Bishop into an incendiary was inked a portentous one,) the party exhibited pluck, and valorously repelled an attack of the " Popes " in a court occupied by Catholics, and into which they had marched n ith their Guy in the plenitude of Protestaot zeal. The performances on Monlay prove that there is yet a fund of good wholesome bigotry in the Metropolis, which only re- quires to be cherished and directed to worthy objects by the Chur ch.
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