THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
"SIR,—It is announced that the Queen is to make her son Arthur Duke of Connaught, and Irishmen may take it as a good omen. The literary and political fanatics of Force are gloating over the -deeds by which the choice of " Hell or Connaught " was offered to women and children as well as men, and saying that it will never be well till this is once more the watch-word of English rule in Ireland. But the Speaker of the House of Commons, not many nights ago, treated that grim phrase--not, we may suppose, from historical ignorance, but rather from historical conscience—as -mere unseemly tibaldry ; and now the name of infamy is to become a title of royal dignity in palaces and Courts, and a word of honour and of promise in all English mouths. Let us accept the token as an expression of the truer and better mind and will of England, in its relations with Ireland.—I am, Sir, &c., CELTOPHILUS.
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