The Prince of Wales seems to be doing his duty
as well as taking his pleasure in Ireland. Besides attending the racecourse at Punchestown, he has visited all sorts of dull institutions for which he does not care a button, but to which it is right that he should show proper respect, and he has visited Protestant and Catholic institutions alike,—he has inspected Maynooth College, for instance, and the Catholic University,—and exhibited the proper amount of interest and curiosity in all. He was solemnly installed, with great pomp, a Knight of the illustrious Order of St. Patrick, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, this day week, the cere- mony being attended with that magnificent amount of parade which now seems specially appropriate to an entire absence of practical significance in the rite. The genealogist, the usher, pursuivants, heralds, &c.,—all of them real human beings, who lend themselves to this sort of solemn game for grown-up people, —seem to have attended under the leadership of the Ulster King- at-Arms, and the Prince of Wales received his banner, mantle, sword, and collar with proper gravity, and made the becom- ing reverence to the Grand Master (who is the Lord-Lieu- tenant) in doing so. Indeed, the Marquis of Abercorn said at the banquet that the ceremony was not " a mere pageant," but a pledge of increased attachment between the heir to the Throne and the Irish people. The visit of the Prince to Ireland may, un- doubtedly, be so taken ; but whether playing at knighthood in St. Patrick's Cathedral were such a pledge, seems to us extremely questionable. The Irish nobility seem to have held aloof.
