"Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,The only throb she gives,Is when some heart indignant breaks,To show that still she lives."
"Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,The only throb she gives,Is when some heart indignant breaks,To show that still she lives."
"Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives,
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives."
Early in 1772, Grattan was called to the Irish bar—not from any predilection for the profession, but from the necessity of eking out his limited means by the exercise of his talents. It is recorded that having gone the circuit, and failed to gain a verdict in an important case where he was specially retained, he actually returned to his client half the amount of his fee—fifty guineas. A man who could act thus, was clearly not fitted for the profession, nor destined to arrive at wealth by its means.
At that time the rising talent of Ireland was decidedly liberal, and in favor of progress. Grattan was thrown into familiar intimacy with this society, and his own opinions were influenced, if not determined, by the Catholic spirit of their avowed principles. Lord Charlemont, Hussey Burgh, Robert Day, (afterwards the Judge,) Dennis Daly, and Barry Yelverton—men whose names are familiar to all who have read the history of Ireland's later years of nationality—were his familiar friends.
Grattan wished for the lettered ease of literary retirement, but his narrow means did not permit him to live without labour. He said, "What can a mind do without the exercise of business, or the relaxation of pleasure?" He took to politics as a relief from the demon ofennui. He attended the debates in Parliament. He said "they were insipid; every one was speaking; nobody was eloquent." He had become a lawyer, as he sadly confessed, "without knowledge or ambition in his profession." He would fain have gone into retirement, but complained that, in his too hospitable country, "wherever you fly, wherever you secrete yourself, the sociable disposition of the Irish will follow you, and in every barren spot of that kingdom you must submit to a state of dissipation or hostility." He said that his passion was retreat, for "there is certainly repose, and may be a defence, in insignificance."
He was destined for better things. He had married Henrietta Fitzgerald, who claimed descent from the Desmond family, (actually from that branch of which that Countess of Desmond, who died at the age of 162, was the foundress,) but had, as her own dowry, the far greater wealth of youth, beauty, virtue, talent, and devoted affection. The union was eminently happy. Mrs. Grattan became the mother of thirteen children, and it is known that on many occasions, but especially in the troublous times of 1798 and 1800, (the rebellion and the betrayal of Ireland by her parliament,) Grattan frequently consulted and acted on the advice of his wife, which invariably was to do what was right, regardless of personal consequences. After his marriage, he went to reside in the county Wicklow, where, almost from early youth, he had been enamoured of the beautiful scenery, and even then spoke of Tinnahinch, which he subsequently purchased, as a place which might be "the recreation of an active life, or the retreat of an obscure one, or the romantic residence of philosophical friendship." "Here," said his son, "he mused in when melancholy, he rejoiced in when gay; here he often trod, meditating on his country's wrongs—her long, dreary night of oppression; and here he first beheld the bright transient light of her redemption and her glory." Here, too, in the moments of grief he wept over her divisions and her downfall. The place continues a family possession, and, identified as it is with the name of Grattan, should never be allowed to pass into the possession of any others.
Grattan's wife, highly gifted by nature, and with her mind cultivated and enlarged by education, urgently pressed him to embark in political life. She knew, even better than himself, what his mental resources were, how patriotic were his impulses, how great his integrity, how undaunted his courage. She interested his friends in his behalf, and, at last, on the death of Mr. Caulfield (Lord Charlemont's brother), Grattan was returned to Parliament for the borough of Charlemont, and on the 11th of December, 1775, in his thirtieth year, Henry Grattan took his seat as member for Charlemont. On the fourth day after he made a speech—a spontaneous, unstudied, and eloquent reply—and it was at once seen and admitted that his proper place was in Parliament. From that day the life of Grattan can be read in the history of Ireland.
What he did may be briefly summed up. He established the Independence of Ireland, by procuring the repeal of the statute by which it had been declared that Ireland was inseparably annexed to the Crown of Great Britain, and bound by British acts of Parliament, if named in them—that the Irish House of Lords had no jurisdiction in matters of appeal—and that thedernier resort, in all cases of law and equity, was to the peers of Great Britain.
For his great services in thus establishing Ireland's rights, the Parliament voted him £50,000. He considered that this was a retainer for the future as well as a mark of gratitude for the past, and henceforth devoted the remainder of his life—a period of nearly forty years—to the service of his country.
Grattan's last act, as an Irish legislator, was to oppose the Union, which destroyed the nationalityhehad made—his last act, as a public man, was to hurry to London, in his seventy-fifth year, under the infliction of a mortal disease, to present the petition in favour of the Irish Catholics, and support it, at the risk of life, in Parliament.
Grattan's great achievements were all accomplished in early life, while the "purpurea juventus" was in its bloom, while the heart was in its spring. Great men, of all shades of political and party passion have been eager and eloquent in his praise. Byron, speaking of Ireland, ranked him first among those
"Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war,And redeemed, if they have not retarded, her fall."
"Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war,And redeemed, if they have not retarded, her fall."
"Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war,
And redeemed, if they have not retarded, her fall."
Moore, who knew him well, said,
"What an union of all the affections and powers,By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,Was embraced in that spirit—whose centre was ours,While its mighty circumference circled mankind."
"What an union of all the affections and powers,By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,Was embraced in that spirit—whose centre was ours,While its mighty circumference circled mankind."
"What an union of all the affections and powers,
By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,
Was embraced in that spirit—whose centre was ours,
While its mighty circumference circled mankind."
Faithfully too, as well as poetically, did he describe his speeches as exhibiting
"An eloquence rich, wherever its waveWandered free and triumphant, with thoughts that shone through,As clear as the brook's 'stone of lustre,' and gave,With the flash of the gem, its solidity too."
"An eloquence rich, wherever its waveWandered free and triumphant, with thoughts that shone through,As clear as the brook's 'stone of lustre,' and gave,With the flash of the gem, its solidity too."
"An eloquence rich, wherever its wave
Wandered free and triumphant, with thoughts that shone through,
As clear as the brook's 'stone of lustre,' and gave,
With the flash of the gem, its solidity too."
Lord Brougham said that it was "not possible to name any one, the purity of whose reputation has been stained by so few faults, and the lustre of whose renown is dimmed by so few imperfections." After describing the characteristics of his eloquence, he added, "It may be truly said that Dante himself never conjured up a striking image in fewer words than Mr. Grattan employed to describe his relation towards Irish independence, when, alluding to its rise in 1782, and its fall, twenty years later, he said, 'I sat by its cradle—I followed its hearse.'"
Sydney Smith, in an article in theEdinburgh Review, shortly after Grattan's death, thus bore testimony to his worth:—"Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days of Grattan? who has not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? who did not remember him in the days of its burnings, wastings and murders? No government ever dismayed him—the world could not bribe him—he thought only of Ireland: lived for no other object: dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence. He was so born, so gifted, that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the highest attainments of human genius, were within his reach; but he thought the noblest occupation of a man was to make other men happy and free; and in that straight line he kept for fifty years, without one side-look, one yielding thought, one motive in his heart which he might not have laid open to the view of God or man."
The man to whom tributes such as these were voluntarily paid, must have been a mortal of no ordinary character and merit.
Daniel O'Connell, at one period called "the member for all Ireland," was born, not at, but near Derrynane Abbey, in Kerry, on the 6th of August, 1775, and died at Genoa on the 15th of May, 1847. He had nearly completed his seventy-second year. For nearly forty years of that extended period he had been a public man—perhaps the most public man in Ireland. For at least a quarter of a century his reputation was not merely Irish—nor British—nor European—but unquestionably cosmopolitan.
Fallen as we are upon the evil days of Mediocrity, it may not be useless to dwell upon the conduct and the character, the aims and the actions, of one who, think of him as we may, candour must admit to be one of the great men of the age,—one of the very few great men of Ireland's later years.
"Some men are born to greatness—some achieve greatness—and some have greatness thrust upon them." Daniel O'Connell stands in a predicament between the two latter postulates. He certainly was the artificer of his own fame and power, but, as certainly, much of it arose out of the force of circumstances. When he launched his bark upon the ocean of politics, he may have anticipated something—much of success and eminence, but he never could have dreamed of wielding such complete and magnificent power as was long at his command. Strong determination, great ability, natural facility of expression, the art of using strong words without committing himself, and a most elastic temperament, ("prepared for either fortune," as Eugene Aram said of himself)—all these formed an extraordinary combination, and yet all these, even in their unity, might have been of little worth, but for the admitted fact that circumstances happily occurred which allowed these qualities a fair scope for development. Many poets, I dare swear, have lived and died unknown—either not writing at all, or writing but to destroy what they had written. Noble orators have lived and died, "mute and inglorious," because the opportunity for display had never been given. In truth, we may say, with Philip Van Artevelde,
"The world knows nothing of its greatest men."
It is the curse of Authorship that until the grave fully closes upon his ashes, the fame of the writer is scarcely or slightly acknowledged. When the turf presses upon his remains, we yield tardy justice to his merits, and translate him, as a star, into the "heaven of heavens" of renown. But the Orator, on the other hand, hashisclaims admitted from the commencement—he may make his fame by one bold effort—he may win admiration at one bound, and each successive trial, while it matures his powers, increases his reputation. He lives in the midst of his fame—it surrounds him, like a halo: he is the observed of all observers,—he has constant motive for exertion—he breathes the very atmosphere of popularity, and has perpetual excitement to keep up his exertions. Of this there scarcely ever was a more palpable example than O'Connell. Originally gifted with all the attributes of a popular if not a great orator, he advanced, by repeated efforts, to the foremost rank, because the public voice cheered him—the public opinion fostered him. Had he, for three or four years, spoken to dull or cold audiences, the world would probably have lost him as an orator. He might, indeed, have been a great forensic speaker, but of that eloquence which placed seven millions of Irish Catholics in a situation where, without being branded as rebels, they might openly demand "justice for Ireland," the chance is, the world have known nothing. What man, before this man, had ever succeeded in awakening at once the sympathy of the old and of the new world? Few men so well out-argued the sophistry of tyranny. Far above the crowd must he be, who, at one and the same time, affrighted the Russian autocrat by his bold invectives, and was appealed to as the common enemy of misrule, by the unhappy victims of the "Citizen-King"—who not only asserted the rights of his fellow slaves in Ireland, but hesitated not, at all times and in all places, to express his
"Utter detestationOf every tyranny in every nation!"
"Utter detestationOf every tyranny in every nation!"
"Utter detestation
Of every tyranny in every nation!"
O'Connell was often denounced as a "Dictator." What made him one? The exclusive laws which kept him humiliated in his native land. The wrongs of Ireland made him what he was, and Misrule carefully maintained the laws which made those wrongs. Had Ireland been justly governed, there would not have been occasion for such "agitation" as Mr. O'Connell kept up. If the "agitator" was indeed the monster which he was represented to be, Misrule is the Frankenstein which made him so. The wrongs of Ireland and the tyranny of evil government goaded him into action, and gave him power. Misrule sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind.
It has been strongly asserted, and as strongly denied, that a long line of ancestry gave O'Connell an hereditary right to take part in the public affairs of his native land, as if he, and all of us, did not inherit that right as an heir-loom derived from the first principles of nature. The tradition of his house was that the O'Connell family were entitled to rank among the most ancient in Ireland, antiquarians having avowed that his surname was derived from Conal Gabhra, a prince of the royal line of Milesius—that they originally possessed immense estates in the county of Limerick, and removed to the barony of Iveragh, in the western extremity of Kerry, where they enjoyed the almost regal office of Toparchs;—that, in the time of Elizabeth, their then chief, Richard O'Connell, made submission of his lands to the British crown;—that the rebellion of 1641 removed the sept O'Connell to the County Clare, by forfeiture (a certain Maurice O'Connell it was who forfeited his property in the Civil Wars of 1641, and received the estates in Clare as a partial indemnity; his uncle, Daniel O'Connell of Aghgore, in Iveragh, took no share in the Civil War, and thus preserved his estate);—that the Clare branch of the family supported James II., and, on the triumphs of the Orange party, had to seek in foreign lands the distinctions from which the Penal Laws excluded it in its own.
One of these, a certain Daniel O'Connell, who subsequently was created Count of "the Holy Roman Empire," disqualified, by his religion, from holding military or civil rank in his own country, entered the French service in 1757—when he was only fourteen years of age. He served in the seven years' war—at the capture of Port Mahon, in 1779, and was severely wounded at the grand sortie on Gibraltar in 1782—remained faithful to Louis XVI., until fidelity was of no further use—emigrated to England—was there appointed, in 1793, Colonel of the 6th Irish Brigade—retained that command until the corps was disbanded—returned to France, at the Restoration, in 1814—was there and then restored to his rank of General and Colonel-Commandant of the regiment of Salm, and named Grand Cross of the Order of St. Louis—refused to take rank under Louis Philippe—and died in 1834, aged ninety-one, a military patriarch, full of years and honours, holding the rank of General in the French, and being oldest Colonel in the English service. Count O'Connell was grand-uncle to "the Liberator."
It may not be generally known that the military tactics of Europe at the present day have emanated from Count O'Connell. The French Government resolved, in 1787, that the art of war should be thoroughly revised, and a military board, consisting of four general officers and one colonel, was formed for that purpose. Count O'Connell, who then commanded the Royal Suedois (or Swedish) regiment, was justly accounted one of the most scientific officers in the service, and was named as the junior member of that board. The other members soon discovered how correct and original were the views of their colleague, and unanimously confided to him theredactionof the whole military code of France. So well did he execute this important commission, that his tactics were followed in the early campaigns of revolutionized France, by Napoleon—and finally adopted by Prussia, Austria, Russia and England.
To Morgan O'Connell, father of "the Liberator," descended none of the property originally held by the family. His elder brother, Maurice, succeeded to a large portion, (that which eventually was bequeathed to Daniel,) and it had the peculiarity of being free from all chiefry, imposts, or Crown charge—an unusual thing, and occurring only in the instance of very remote tenure. This portion was held under what was called Shelburne leases—renewable for ever, and first grantedbeforethe enactment of the Penal laws, and therefore not "discoverable;" that is, not liable to be claimed from a Catholic holder by any Protestant who chose to claim them.
Daniel O'Connell's father became a petty farmer and a small shop-keeper at Cahirciveen. At that time he was simply known as "Morgan Connell,"—there being some to this day who wholly deny the right of the family to the prefix of "O." The Irish proverb says:
By Mac and O,You'll always knowTrue Irishmen, they say;For if they lackThe O or Mac,No Irishmen are they.
By Mac and O,You'll always knowTrue Irishmen, they say;For if they lackThe O or Mac,No Irishmen are they.
By Mac and O,
You'll always know
True Irishmen, they say;
For if they lack
The O or Mac,
No Irishmen are they.
The same doubters have contended that the independence realized by Morgan O'Connell was gained, not by farming nor by shop-keeping, but by extensive smuggling. But it was gained in some manner, and with it was purchased a small estate at Carhen, within a mile of Cahirciveen, where his years of industry had been passed, and not far from Derrynane. It was at Carhen that Daniel O'Connell was born, on the 6th August, 1775—the very day (he used to say) on which were commenced hostilities between Great Britain and her American colonies.
Daniel O'Connell's grandfather was the third son of twenty-two children. He died in 1770, leaving as his successor his second son, Maurice (John, the eldest, having predeceased him). This gentleman was never married, and it was on his death, in 1825, that the "Agitator" succeeded him as owner of the Derrynane estate. Morgan O'Connell (father to the "Liberator") died in 1809, and left two other sons, who are also handsomely provided for—John, as owner of Grena, and James of Lakeview, both places near Killarney.
I trust that I have not travelled out of my way to give this sketch of the descent of the family connexions of O'Connell. It shows that, at any rate,heis not thenovus homo—the mere upstart, without the advantages of birth and fortune, which he was often represented to be. At the same time, no O'Connell need be ashamed of what honest industry accomplished—that much of the landed property which O'Connell's father inherited, held by John O'Connell of Grena, was purchased from the profits of his business as a farmer and general shop-keeper.
From the first, Maurice O'Connell, of Derrynane, attached himself to his nephew Daniel, whom he educated. The earliest instructions in any branch of learning which the future "Liberator" received, were communicated to him by a poor hedge-schoolmaster, of a class ever abounding in Kerry, where every man is said to speak Latin. David Mahony happened to call at Carhen when little Daniel was only four years old, took him in his lap, and taught him the alphabet in an hour and a half. Some years later, he was regularly taught by Mr. Harrington—one of the first priests who set up a school after the repeal of the laws which made it penal for a Roman Catholic clergyman even to live in Ireland. At the age of fourteen he went abroad with his brother Maurice to obtain a good education.
Seventy years ago, the policy, or rather the impolicy of English domination actually prohibited the education of the Catholics within Great Britain and Ireland. They were, therefore, either compelled to put up with very limited education, or forced to go abroad for instruction,—rather a curious mode of predisposing their minds in favour of the English laws. Mr. O'Connell was originally intended for the priesthood, and was educated at the Catholic seminary of Louvain, next at St. Omer, and, finally, at the English college of Douay, in France. But, at that time, there were fully as many lay as clerical pupils at that college.
At St. Omer, Daniel O'Connell rose to the first place in all the classes, and the President of the College wrote to his uncle, in Ireland—"I have but one sentence to write about him, and that is, that I never was so mistaken in all my life as I shall be, unless he be destined to make a remarkable figure in society."
The two brothers commenced their homeward journey on the 21st of December, 1793—the very day on which Louis XVI. was guillotined at Paris. During their journey from Douay to Calais, they were obliged to wear the revolutionary cockade, for safety. But, as good Catholics, they were bound to abhor the atrocities perpetrated, at that time, by the Jacobins, in the sacred name of liberty, and when they stood on the deck of the English packet-boat, indignantly tore the tri-colour from their hats, and flung them, with all contempt, into the water. Some French fishermen, who saw the act, rescued the cockades, and flung imprecations against the "aristocrats" who had rejected them. At the same time, when an enthusiastic Irish republican, who had "assisted" at the execution of Louis, exhibited a handkerchief stained with his blood, the young students turned away and shunned him, in disgust and abhorrence. Not then, nor at any period of his career, was O'Connell an anti-monarchist. It is said that, during the trial of Thomas Hardy, at London, (October, 1794,) for high treason, he was so much shocked at the unfair means used by the Crown lawyers to convict the accused—means foiled by eloquent Erskine and an honest jury—that he resolved to place himself as a champion of Right against Might, and identify himself with the cause of the people. While he was on the Continent, that relaxation of the Penal laws took place which allowed the Catholic to become a barrister. It is probable thatthiswas the immediate cause of his becoming a lawyer. A young man of his sanguine temperament was likely to prefer the bar, with its temporal advantages,—its scope for ambition,—its excitement,—its fame, to the more secluded life of an ecclesiastic. Accordingly, I find that he entered as a law-student at Lincoln's Inn, in January, 1794—eat the requisite number of term-dinners there, for two years—pursued the same qualifying course of "study" at King's Inn, Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar, in Easter term, 1798, in the 23d year of his age.
The Rebellion was in full fling at the time, and (in order, no doubt, to show his "loyalty" as a Catholic) he joined what was called "the lawyers' corps," associated to assist the Government in putting down revolt.
The period of his admission was singularly favourable. Catholics had just been admitted to the Irish bar—to the minor honours of the profession; although it was hoped, and not extravagantly, that, in time, all its privileges would be thrown open to them. It was impossible to say what was Mr. O'Connell's ambition at the time; however high, he could not have had a dream of the elevation which he subsequently reached. He must have felt, however, that he had a wide field for the exercise of his abilities. His ostensible ambition, for many years, was to become a good lawyer. During what is called "the long vacation," and at other periods when he could spare time, he resided a good deal with his uncle in Kerry, where he pursued the athletic sports in which, almost to the close of his career, he delighted to participate. On one occasion, while out upon a hunting expedition, he put up at a peasant's cabin, sat for some hours in his wet clothes, and contracted a typhus fever. In his delirium he often repeated the lines from Home's tragedy of Douglas:
"Unknown I die—no tongue shall speak of me.Some noble spirits, judging by themselves,May yet conjecture what I might have proved,And think life only wanting to my fame."
"Unknown I die—no tongue shall speak of me.Some noble spirits, judging by themselves,May yet conjecture what I might have proved,And think life only wanting to my fame."
"Unknown I die—no tongue shall speak of me.
Some noble spirits, judging by themselves,
May yet conjecture what I might have proved,
And think life only wanting to my fame."
His son has preserved a letter, written in December, 1795, when he was in his twenty-first year, in which he communicates his views to his uncle Maurice, of Derrynane. A passage or two may be worth quoting, to show with what earnestness he devoted himself to the career upon which he was then preparing to enter. He says, "I have now two objects to pursue—the one, the attainment of knowledge; the other, the acquisition of all those qualities which constitute the polite gentleman. I am convinced that the former, besides the immediate pleasure which it yields,is calculated to raise me to honour, rank, and fortune[how prophetic were the young man's aspirations!]; and I know that the latter serves as a general passport or first recommendation; and, as for the motives of ambition which you suggest, I assure you that no man can possess more of it than I do. I have, indeed, a glowing, and—if I may use the expression—an enthusiastic ambition,which converts every toil into a pleasure, and every study into an amusement."
He adds, in the same honourable spirit, "Though nature may have given me subordinate talents, I never will be satisfied with a subordinate situation in my profession. No man is able, I am aware, to supply the total deficiency of abilities, but every body is capable of improving and enlarging a stock, however small, and, in its beginning, contemptible. It is this reflection that affords me most consolation. If I do not rise at the bar, I will not have to meet the reproaches of my own conscience. * * * Indeed, as for my knowledge in the professional line, that cannot be discovered for some years to come; but I have time in the interim to prepare myself to appear with greateréclaton the grand theatre of the world."
As a barrister, he naturally took the Munster circuit, and here his family connexion operated very much in his favour. In the counties of Clare, Limerick, Kerry and Cork, he had relatives in abundance, and being, I believe, the first Catholic who had gone that circuit, he naturally engrossed a considerable portion of the business which the Catholics had previously,ex necessitate, distributed among the barristers of a contrary persuasion. He succeeded, moreover, in establishing the reputation of being a shrewd, clever, hard-working lawyer, and briefs flowed in so abundantly, that he may be cited as one instance, amid the ten thousand difficulties of the bar, of great success being immediately acquired. There was nothing precarious in this success: he was evidently a shrewd, clever, long-headed lawyer, and while the Catholics gave him briefs, because of his family and religion, the Protestants, not less wise, were not backward in engaging his assistance—not that they much loved the man, but that his assistance was worth having, as that of a man with a clear head, a well-filled mind, strong natural eloquence, and, from the very first, a mastery over the art of cross-examining witnesses.
O'Connell's friends scarcely anticipated, from what his youth had been, the success which met him on his first step into active manhood. He held his first brief at the Kerry Assizes, in Tralee. Between a country gentleman named Brusker Segerson and the O'Connells there long had been a family feud. Brusker accused one of the O'Connell tenants at Iveragh, of sundry crimes and misdemeanors, which judge and jury had "well and truly to try and determine." Young O'Connell had his maiden brief in this case. Brusker, knowing the young lawyer's inexperience, anticipated a triumph over him, and invited a party of friends to witness the "fatal facility" with which the accused would be worsted. But it happened not only that the accused was the acquitted, but there was a general opinion, from the facts on the trial, that Brusker Segerson's conduct had been oppressive, if not illegal. Brusker turned round to his friends and soundly swore that "Morgan O'Connell'sfoolwas a great lawyer, and w ould be a great man." Henceforth he always employed O'Connell—but with the distinct and truly Irish understanding that the hereditary and personal feud between them should in no wise be diminished!
One of O'Connell's earliest displays of acuteness was at Tralee, in the year 1799, shortly after he had been called to the bar. In an intricate case, where he was junior counsel (having got the brief more as a family compliment than from any other cause), the question in dispute was as to the validity of a will, which had been made almost inarticulo mortis. The instrument was drawn up with proper form: the witnesses were examined, and gave ample confirmation that the deed had been legally executed. One of them was an old servant, possessed of a strong passion for loquacity. It fell to O'Connell to cross-examine him, and the young barrister allowed him to speak on, in the hope that he might say too much. Nor was this hope disappointed. The witness had already sworn that he saw the deceased sign the will. "Yes," continued he, with all the garrulousness of old age, "I saw him sign it, and surelythere was life in him at the time." The expression, frequently repeated, led O'Connell to conjecture that it had a peculiar meaning. Fixing his eye upon the old man he said,—"You have taken a solemn oath before God and man to speak the truth and thewholetruth: the eye of God is upon you; the eyes of your neighbours are fixed upon you also. Answer me, by the virtue of that sacred and solemn oath which has passed your lips,was the testator alive when he signed the will?" The witness was struck with the solemn manner in which he was addressed, his colour changed—his lips quivered—his limbs trembled, and he faltered out the reply—"there was life in him." The question was repeated in a yet more impressive manner, and the result was that O'Connell half compelled, half cajoled him to admit that, after life was extinct, a pen had been put into the testator's hand,—that one of the party guided it to sign his name, while, as a salvo, for the consciences of all concerned, a living fly was put into the dead man's mouth, to qualify the witnesses to bear testimony that "there was life in him" when he signed that will. This fact, thus extorted from the witness, preserved a large property in a respectable and worthy family, and was one of the first occurrences in O'Connell's legal career worth mentioning. Miss Edgeworth, in her "Patronage," has an incident not much different from this; perhaps suggested by it. The plaintiffs in this case were two sisters named Langton, both of whom still enjoy the property miraculously preserved to them by the ingenuity of O'Connell; they were connexions of my own (Sarah Langton, the youngest, was married to my cousin, Frank Drew, of Drewscourt), and I have often heard them relate the manner in which he had contrived to elicit the truth.
It is no common skill which can protect innocence from shame, or rescue guilt from punishment. Nothing less than an intimate knowledge of the feelings of the jury, and the habits and characteristics of the witnesses, can enable an advocate to throw himself into the confidence of a jury composed of the most incongruous elements, and to confuse, baffle, or detect the witnesses. There is no power so strong as that of good cross-examination; and I never knew any man possess that power in a more eminent degree than O'Connell. The difficulty is to avoid asking too many questions. Sometimes a single query will weaken evidence, while a word more may make the witness confirm it. Some witnesses require to be pressed, before they bring out the truth—others, if too much pressed, will turn at bay, and fatally corroborate every thing to which they already have sworn. It is no common skill which, intuitively as it were, enables the advocate to perceive when he may go to the end of his tether,—when hemustrestrain. The fault of a young b arrister is thathe asks too many questions. It is a curious fact, that, from the first moment he was called to the bar, O'Connell distinguished himself by his cross-examinations. If he was eminent in a criminal trial, he was no less so in civil cases. Here he brought all his legal learning to bear upon the case, and here, too, he had the additional aid of that eloquence which usually drew a jury with him.
John O'Connell gives an anecdote which illustrates his father's success in the defence of his prisoners. It had fallen to his lot, at the Assizes in Cork, to be retained for a man on a trial for an aggravated case of highway robbery. By an able cross-examination, O'Connell was enabled to procure the man's acquittal. The following year, at the Assizes for the same town, he found himself again retained for the same individual, then on trial for a burglary, committed with great violence, very little short of a deliberate attempt to murder. On this occasion, the result of Mr. O'Connell's efforts rose a disagreement of the jury; and, therefore, no verdict. The Government witnesses having been entirely discredited during the cross-examination, the case was pursued no farther, and the prisoner was discharged. Again, the succeeding year, he was found in the criminal dock; this time on a charge of piracy! He had run away with a collier brig, and having found means for disposing of a portion of her cargo, and afterwards of supplying himself with some arms, he had actually commenced cruising on his own account, levying contributions from such vessels as he chanced to fall in with. Having "caught a tartar," whilst engaged in this profitable occupation, he was brought into Cove, and thence sent up to Cork to stand his trial for "piracy on the high seas." Again Mr. O'Connell saved him, by demurring to the jurisdiction of the Court—the offence having been committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, and, therefore, cognizable only before an Admiralty Court. When the f ellow saw his successful counsel facing the dock, he stretched over to speak to him, and, raising his eyes and hands most piously and fervently to heaven, he cried out—"Oh, Mr. O'Connell, may the Lord spare you—to me!"
Here let me give my opinion, that the disqualification of his religious tenets, which kept him in a stuff gown while his juniors in standing, and inferiors in talent, were strutting about with all professional honour, wasnotmuch detriment to O'Connell's advancement. Here was a man, confessedly at the head of his profession, yet excluded from its honours by unjust and intolerant laws—it became, therefore, a practice to consider him a martyr for the sake of his religion, and he got many and many a brief because such was the feeling. His disqualification as a Catholic gained him business as a Barrister.
The Union failed to make Ireland happy—because the chains of the Catholics were still allowed to gall them, instead, as Mr. Pitt contemplated, of being removed with the least possible delay. George III. threw himself between Ireland and justice. Relief was expected from Mr. Fox, and might, perhaps, have been granted, but the death of that statesman, almost immediately succeeded by an Anti-Catholic Ministry, sounded the knell to the hopes of the people of Ireland. It was at this time that Mr. O'Connell came forward as a politician; he had personal reasons for doing so, because, now being in the enjoyment of a very excellent practice at the bar, he found numerous vexations arising from the privileges enjoyed by men less talented, less qualified than himself, but who enjoyed the advantages which religious and political "ascendency" gave them.
The Catholics at last threw themselves into an attitude of defence. O'Connell's first decided step16was the taking part in the proceedings of a meeting of Catholics, held in Dublin in May, 1809. Then, for the first time for over a hundred years, Catholics literally "spoke out." Their daring appeared to draw strength for their despair. What was called "the Catholic Committee" was formed, and this, strongly against O'Connell's advice, violated the law by assuming arepresentativecharacter. Lord Killeen (eldest son of the Earl of Fingal, a Catholic peer), and some others of the leaders, were prosecuted by the Government. They were defended by O'Connell, and Ireland then witnessed the almost unprecedented circumstance of Catholic agitators being acquitted by a Protestant jury in Dublin.
The Catholic Committee, however, became alarmed, and broke up. Then was formed the Catholic Board, at which it was a matter of dispute whether Emancipation might not be purchased by allowing the Crown to pay the Catholic clergy, and giving the head of the Church of England a veto on the appointment of Catholic bishops in Ireland. Feeble and vacillating, the greater portion of the Catholic nobility held aloof from the struggle, in which O'Connell took the popular side. Later in the day,
The late Duke of Richmond (Viceroy of Ireland) put down the Catholic Board by means of his Attorney-General Saurin. The members of that Board, as some small acknowledgment for the services of their colleague, voted Mr. O'Connell a piece of plate, of the value of 1000l.The Board being put down, the Catholic cause would have fallen but for the intrepidity of O'Connell, who assumed the leadership at once, and published a letter, continued annually for a long time, in which he stated the wrongs of Ireland, with her claims for relief, and suggested the mode of action. This annual message had the motto, from Childe Harold,
"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not,Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."
"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not,Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."
"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."
Mr. Saurin is said to have seriously contemplated prosecuting O'Connell for sedition because of this motto from "Childe Harold."
The Catholic Board was suppressed, it is true, but there remained a thousand modes of action by which the spirit of patriotism might be kept alive in Ireland. Aggregate and other public meetings were instantly held, and at one of these Mr. O'Connell, in 1815, designated the Corporation of Dublin as a "beggarly corporation." A member of that "beggarly" and bankrupt body took upon himself to play the bravo in its defence. This man was a Mr. D'Esterre, and is understood to have had a promise of patronage from the Corporation (in the shape of a good berth), if he humbled the pride of O'Connell. It is more charitable than reasonable to hope that the Corporation were not so ruffianly as to hold out this hope to D'Esterre, because he was notoriously the best shot in Dublin; and yet, such "honourable" assassination is exactly what such a body would reward, if they did not suggest it.
D'Esterre paraded the streets of Dublin with a horse-whip in his hand, and vowed vengeance against O'Connell. He did not meet him; but he afterwards challenged him. O'Connell refused to apologize—met the challenger, and mortally wounded him. D'Esterre, as I have said, was a crack shot, and O'Connell was not; but it sometimes happens that the practiced duellist suffers the penalty which he has inflicted upon others.
D'Esterre had been an officer of marines, and it has been stated, and always believed, that he constituted himself the Champion of the Corporation, not only in the hope, but with a direct promise of obtaining a lucrative appointment, provided that he "silenced" O'Connell. The odds were five to one in his favour—for he was cool and determined, and could snuff a candle with a pistol shot at twelve paces. His skill, his coolness, availed not. At the first shot he fell, and his death speedily followed.
Soon after, Sir Robert Peel (the then Irish Secretary) fastened a quarrel upon Mr. O'Connell, who again placed himself in the hands of his friends. A hostile meeting was appointed—the authorities in Dublin interfered—the parties were bound over to keep the peace—they agreed to meet on the Continent, but the duel was ultimately prevented by the arrest of Mr. O'Connell, in London, on his way to Calais. He was held to bail before the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, not to fight Mr. Peel; and since that time declined any further meetings of the sort.17It would have been well if, when he determined to avoid duels, O'Connell had also resolved to abstain from language offensive to men of honour and men of feeling. His chief fault, during his last thirty years, was the application of epithets towards his political opponents, which appear to have been culled rather in the market of Billingsgate, than in the flowery garden of Academe!
For several years after the duel with D'Esterre, O'Connell was almost alone in the struggle for Emancipation. His practice steadily increased, and his legal knowledge, ability and tact, united with wondrous art in the examination of witnesses, and great influence with juries (by the union of a species of rhetoric consisting of common sense, humour, and rough eloquence, cemented together by a good share of "Blarney"), soon made him a very successful barrister. Whenever a Catholic victim was to be defended or rescued, whether an Orange oppressor was to be assailed and punished, O'Connell was in the van. The Catholics readily took him as their champion, and he won their gratitude by his services, and gained their personal attachment by a good humour which nothing could daunt, and a plain, straightforward, affectionate manner of eloquence which went directly home to their hearts. To this hour it is a moot point whether the Irish had greater admiration for his talents, gratitude for his services, confidence in his fidelity, or attachment for his person.
He continued increasing in influence for many years. From 1815, until he relinquished most of his practice in 1831, the annual income from his professional pursuits cannot have averaged less than from £6000 to £8000—an immense sum for a lawyer to make in Ireland. No man could make such an income, except one who was at once an excellent Nisi Prius pleader, as well as a good Crown lawyer. He united the highest qualifications of both. He could wield at will immense power over a jury, and argue with a success rarely equalled, so as to reach the understanding of a judge. Hence, he had the most extraordinary versatility. You would see him at one o'clock joking a jury out of a verdict in the Nisi Prius court, or familiarly laying down cases for the information of the judge; and, the next hour, you might behold him in the Crown court, defending an unhappy man accused of murder, and exercising a caution and prudence in his unparalleled cross-examination of witnesses which would alike surprise and please. No man could more readily get the truth from a witness, or make him say only just as much as suits the particular point he had in view.
In 1821, when George the Fourth visited Ireland, Mr. O'Connell made "his first appearance, by particular desire," in the part of a courtier. He presented a laurel crown to the monarch on his departure, and eulogized him to the seventh heaven as "a real friend of old Ireland," anxious to see her
"Great, glorious, and free,First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea."
"Great, glorious, and free,First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea."
"Great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea."
He did more than this. He sacrificed his feelings, as a Catholic, in order to conciliate the Ascendency party. Intent on conciliation, he even dined with the Dublin Corporation, and drank their charter toast of intolerance,18"The pious, glorious and immortal memory." Concession was vain. The leopard would not change his spots; and, throwing away the scabbard, O'Connell drew the sword, and threw himself, body and soul, into the stormy battle of Agitation.
In 1823, O'Connell, finding how little was to be anticipated from George IV. (who, as king, forgot the promises he made when Prince of Wales), organized a great plan for uniting his Catholic countrymen into an array against the laws which excluded them from the enjoyment of their civil and rights. He had great difficulty in arousing the languid energies of the Irish people, so hopeless had they been for a long time. At last, the Catholic Association assumed a "local habitation and a name." The subscription to the somewhat aristocratical Catholic Board had been five pounds a year—one fifth of that amount was the payment to the Association; and, at last, the Catholic Rent was instituted on the basis of admitting contributions of a shilling a-year. Every subscriber to this small amount thereby became a member of the Association, and crowds eagerly joined it, on these terms, from all parts of Ireland. Here were agitation and combination. Here was money, the very sinews of war. Here was a fund, large in amount, annually augmenting, applicable to a variety of purposes connected with the assertion of the Catholic claims and the defence of Catholics, who thought themselves individually wronged or injured by their Orange masters. Here, with O'Connell at their head, was a band of leaders, most of them in the practice of the law, who had station, influence, audacity, courage, integrity, and the art of moving the multitude by voice or pen. The Government speedily feared, and felt, it to be animperium in imperio.
Armed with a vast numerical combination, strong in the possession of large funds, headed by able and fearless men, the Association assumed the duty of standing between the people and the mal-administration of the law. Every local act of tyranny, intolerance and oppression was exposed, if it were not visited with exemplary punishment. The complaints of the people were heard, through the influence of the leaders, within the very walls of the Imperial Parliament. A brilliant arena was opened for Catholic talent, for the Association held its discussions like a regular legislative assembly, and its debates were spread abroad, all over the kingdom, on the wings of the press. Of the whole system O'Connell was the motive power—the head—the heart. His influence was immense.
Such an array could not be beheld by any government with indifference. It was determined to put down the Association by act of Parliament. In 1825, O'Connell formed one of a deputation to England, to make arrangements for an adjustment of the Catholic claims—committed the error of consenting to take Emancipation clogged with "the wings" (that is, to State payment for the Catholic clergy, and confiscation of the 40s. elective franchise), but finally admitted his mistake, and his error of judgment was forgiven by his countrymen. The Association was suppressed. O'Connell, whose policy was to baffle rather than to contest, and whose boast ever was that he agitated "within the law," allowed the Catholic Association to dissolve itself, but continued the agitation by "aggregate meetings" in nearly every county of Ireland, and by the establishment of a new Catholic Association, formed ostensibly for purposes of charity alone. The Government could do nothing against this.
In 1826, when a general election took place, O'Connell brought into unexpected operation the forces which he commanded. He started popular candidates in several Irish counties, and defeated the former members, who had always voted against the Catholics. The lesson was a striking one, but the Executive in Downing-street heeded it not, and declared unmitigated and perpetual enmity against the Catholics. On the other hand, the Association pledged itself to oppose every candidate connected with the government. In 1828, a vacancy occurred, by Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald (who himself had always voted for Catholic Emancipation) having accepted a seat in the Duke of Wellington's Cabinet, and then O'Co nnell ventured the bold experiment of contesting the representation of Clare. He was returned after a most severe contest—forced Wellington, by that election to concede Emancipation—claimed his seat under that concession—was refused by Manners Sutton, the Speaker—was re-elected for Clare19—since sat for Waterford, Kerry, Dublin, Kilkenny, and Cork—made the best speech upon the Reform Bill—supported the Melbourne ministry when the contest between them and Peel came on—invariably maintained the most liberal principles, and supported the most liberal measures—diminished, if he did not conquer, the dislike which England and Scotland felt towards him as a Catholic and Irish agitator—and had a parliamentary influence greater than any man ever before possessed, being able to count on the votes offortymembers, who formed what is called the joints of his "tail."
Had O'Connell's labors as an agitator ceased when they achieved Emancipation, no reputation could have stood higher. But, from 1829, he attempted to make "Repeal" his party-cry. In April, 1834, he moved for the Repeal of the Union. Thirty-eight members votedwith, and five hundred and twenty-threeagainsthim. OnlyoneEnglish member supported him—Mr. James Kennedy, who sat for the small borough of Tiverton.
The influence of O'Connell continued great, with the Government, as well as in Ireland, while the Wh igs were in office. But the Melbourne ministry broke up in the autumn of 1841, and "Othello's occupation" was gone when they went over to the opposition benches. In 1843, it is true, he made renewed, important and remarkable attempts to excite Ireland—to agitate (within the law) against the government of which Sir Robert Peel was the head, but he was prosecuted, and the Monster Trials, lasting twenty-five days, and ending in his conviction and imprisonment, first taught his countrymen that he was not infallible nor invulnerable. His conviction was subsequently annulled by the House of Lords, on appeal, but the iron had entered into his soul, and when he resumed his seat in Parliament he evidently was breaking. Then followed the revolt against his supremacy by the vigorous and more decided "Young Ireland" party, and, with failing health and defeated aims, he went to the Continent—his desire being to visit that imperial and Papal Rome of which he had long been the energetic and obedient servant. He died before he accomplished his pilgrimage; but his heart rests in the Eternal City.
Here it can scarcely be out of place to glance at O'Connell's success as a Parliamentary orator.
In the British Parliament, where oratorical success is usually very difficult, Irishmen have generally shown themselves not merely good, but even eloquent speakers. Edmund Burke may challenge mention alongside of the great Chatham—and will have a more permanent place of honour, because his speeches, admirable even as compositions, now belong to the standard classics of the Anglo-Saxon race. Sir Philip Francis (the reputed author of "The Letters of Junius") was not inferior, in power and effect, to the younger Pitt. Richard Brinsley Sheridan and George Canning nobly maintained the national credit, as transcendently eloquent men. Lord Wellesley and Henry Grattan occupy a first position as great orators. In later days, assuredly Daniel O'Connell and Richard Lalor Sheil have not be en surpassed by any of their rivals. Whenever Irish parliamentary eloquence is spoken of, William Conyngham Plunket cannot be overlooked. He was, perhaps, the very best speaker in the British Parliament at any time. He had few of the ordinary characteristics of Irish eloquence. Wit he possessed in a high degree, but was chary in its use. Pathos he rarely ventured upon—though there are some incidental touches at once tearful and tender. He relied on clear arrangement of facts, logical closeness of reasoning, strong earnestness, remarkable sagacity, and the exercise of tact and common sense which a spirit at once strong and ardent had disciplined and exercised. His manner, also, grave and almost austere, added weight to his words of power. He succeeded Grattan in the leadership of the Catholic party in Parliament, and his speech (in 1821) converted nine votes from hostility to justice. It was on this occasion, alluding to the great departed who had joined in the discussions relative to Ireland's claims for civil and religious liberty, that he said—"Walking before the sacred images of the illustrious dead, as in a public and solemn procession, shall we not dismiss all party feelings, all angry passions, all unworthy prejudices? I will not talk of past disputes; I will not mingle in this act of national justice anything that can awaken personal animosity."
It was not, however, in the English legislature, but during the last twenty years of the Irish Parliament, that Irish eloquence was in its zenith. On one hand were Fitzgibbon and Scott (afterwards Lords Clare and Clonmel), Connolly, Cavendish, and Arthur Wolfe. On the other side was such an array of talent, patriotism, and eloquence as, in the same period of time, has never been surpassed—never equalled. There were Hussey Burgh and James Fitzgerald, Flood and Grattan, Curran and Barry Yelverton, Plunket and Saurin, Parnell and Denis Daly, Brownlow and Saxton Perry, Foster and Ponsonby, Goold and Peter Burrowes, silvery-tongued Bushe and honest Robert Holmes. Most of these were lawyers, and made an exception to the general rule that the eloquence of the Bar and of the Senate are so different in character as to seem almost incompatible in practice. In Ireland, during her last days of nationality, the great cause for which they were contending, appeared to have animated the members of the bar with a spirit which disdained all narrow limits of conventionality, and elevated them above the ordinary routine of common life. We read, in Holy Writ, how one of the seraphim touched Isaiah's lips with fire, and, with little effort of the imagination, we may well believe that Patriotism, in like manner, touched the lips of Irishmen, during that hard struggle for the very existence of their nation, at once hallowing and purifying the words which fell from them. But such eloquence was only a flash amid darkness, too brilliant to stay, and force and fraud were evil spirits superior, at that time, to Truth, Virtue, and Eloquence. The day may come when Ireland shall once again be a nation,—may the Past then and forever be a lesson and a warning.
It is singular that, in the Irish Parliament, nearly all the great speakers have been lawyers. With few exceptions, men of law have not succeeded in the English Parliament. Lords Mansfield, Lyndhurst and Brougham, with Romilly and Follett, are the chief exceptions. Camden, Thurlow, Eldon, Gifford, Cottenham, Truro, St. Leonards, Erskine, Scarlett, Stowell, Tenterden, Best, and a great many more did not maintain, in Parliament, the reputation they had won at the bar. Three Irishmen, however, albeit members of the legal profession, have taken the lead in the British Senate, even in our own time. These were Plunket, O'Connell, and Sheil.
Of Plunket and Sheil there may be another occasion and opportunity of speaking. It is of O'Connell that I would record a few impressions now. It must be remembered that when he entered Parliament, in 1829, he had entered into his fifty-fifth year. Plunket was at least ten years younger when he too entered the British House of Commons. Sheil was little more than thirty-six when he took his seat. It was feared by his friends and hoped by his enemies that, like Erskine and other great advocates, O'Connell would fail in Parliament. True it was that Grattan was fifty-nine before he first spoke in the English House of Commons—but Grattan was one in ten thousand. Besides, he was all his life a parliamentary speaker, which is very different from being a lawyer in full practice also—the essentials for success at the bar and in the Senate being far apart. Grattan himself, speaking of his great rival, Flood, who had greatly distinguished himself in the Irish, and as greatly failed, in the English Parliament, said "he forgot that he was a tree of the forest, too old and too great to be transplanted at fifty."
O'Connell's opponents confidently anticipated his failure. He is too much of a mob-orator, was the cry of one set. He will never please so refined an assembly as the British House of Commons; he is too much of a lawyer, said another section of ill-wishers, and we know how perpetually lawyers fail in the House. His accent is dead against him, lisped a few others, and will be laughed at as vulgar. One of his most violent antagonists was Lord Eldon, before whom he had appeared, in an appeal case before the Lords, when he visited London in 1825 (on the memorable occasion of "the Wings"); but this Chancellor, inimical as he was, turned round to Lord Wynford (then Sir W. D. Best), when the speech was ended, and said, "What a knowledge of law!—how condensed, yet how clear his argument!—how extremely gentlemanly, and even courtierly is his manner. Let him only be in the House once, and he will carry every thing before him." Many even of O'Connell's own friends doubted whether he could accommodate himself to the manners, fashion, habits, and restrictions of that very artifici al assemblage, presumed to contain "the collective wisdom of the nation," but the slightest doubt on the subject does not appear to have cast its shadow into his own mind. To him, as to Lady Macbeth, there was no such word as—fail! Like Nelson, he did not know what fear was.
His putting up for Clare Election, in 1828, was one of the boldest measures ever ventured on—short of raising the banner of revolt against the government. It compelled Wellington and Peel to concede Catholic Emancipation—a concession ungracious and ungrateful, since it was clogged with a clause, the result of personal spite, prohibiting O'Connell, because he had been elected in 1828, from taking the oaths contained in the Relief Bill of 1829. That prohibition sent him back to Clare for re-election, and he entered Parliament with his mind not unnaturally angry at the injustice for whichhehad been singled out as a victim.
He took his seat, and, almost immediately, it was perceived that he was not to be trifled with. Nature had been bountiful to him. In stature tall, and so strongly built that it was only by seeing, when a man of ordinary height was by his side, how much he over-topped him. Physical vigour and mental strength were well combined in him. Then, his voice—a miraculous organ, full of power, but not deficient, either, in mellow sweetness. His glance told little—but his lips were singularly expressive, as much so as the eyes are to ordinary mortals. Add to this, a full consciousness of power—a conviction that he had been the main agent for opening Parliament to his hitherto prohibited co-religionists—that Ireland looked to him, and not without cause, for a great deal more—that he virtually represented, not the men of Clare only, but was "Member for all Ireland,"—that he was a tactician, trained by thirty years of public life,—that he had also the practiced skill in handling all the available points of an argument which hi s professional career had given him,—and that he then looked upon Emancipation only as an instalment. Put all these together, and it will be seen, at once, that the man in whom they were embodied could scarcely fail to make himself felt, dreaded, and much observed.
In the first twelvemonth—that is, from his re-election in 1829, until the meeting of the new Parliament in November 1830—O'Connell disappointed a great many by playing what may be called a waiting game. It was expected that he would be perpetually speaking, upon all occasions, and, in that case, attempts would have been made to laugh, or cough, or clamor him down. He voted regularly, and always on the right side. In 1831, when the Grey ministry were in power, O'Connell, now strengthened by a strong and compact body of Irish members pledged to work with and under him (their return was the result of the General Election), took the station in the Legislature which he maintained for nearly fifteen years. During the prolonged struggle for Parliamentary Reform, one of the most impressive speeches in advocacy of the measure was O'Connell's. On all great occasions his voice was heard and his vote given. It cannot be asserted that he invariably spoke and voted as now, when we read the events of those days as history, it may dispassionately be thought he should have done; but he was undoubtedly an indefatigable, earnest, eloquent member of Parliament, through whose pertinacity and tact many concessions were made to Ireland which were calculated to serve her. The geniality of his nature was as unchecked in the Senate as it had been at the Bar, or in the Catholic Association. He was eminently a good-tempered man, and this availed him much in the House of Commons, where, if it so please him, a man can readily make himself and others uncomfortable by the exhibition of even a small portion of ill-temper. Sometimes he laughed at his opponents, but so good-naturedly that they also enjoyed the jest. Such was his cu t at John Walter, proprietor of theTimes, who had remained on the ministerial benches after his Tory friends had quitted them. He removed, speedily enough, when O'Connell pointed to him as—
"The last rose of summer, left blooming alone."
"The last rose of summer, left blooming alone."
So, when Lord Stanley (now Earl of Derby) separating from the Whigs, started a party of his own, which was lamentably small, O'Connell quoted against him a couplet from a familiar poet—