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general merits of his oratory, but was weakened by its numerous vices too. It was bold and ani

mated, but coarse and vituperative, with some ardent declamation, but much uncalled for personal allusion. As usual, it contained some jokes; and these, as all his attempts at wit invariably are, were dull and bad; there was even in this first address, an effort of apparent ambition; a determination, thinly veiled, at once to be, if possible the leader of a party. The venerable John Keogh, to whom the Catholics owed so much, was in the room; coming, in the decline of life, once more to offer his counsels in that cause which he had so often advocated. He was received, as he deserved, with the deepest respect; but, amid all the deference of Mr. O'Connell, the ill-constrained feelings of rivalry were but too strongly visible; there was no man within the reach of memory to whom the Catholics were more deeply indebted than to Keogh.

He was ardent and fearless in their service when to be so was hazardous and full of danger. His eloquence, bold and masculine, was often exerted to rouse the apathy of his countrymen, or subdue the bigot ry of their opponents. He had raised himself to ample independence by the honourable endeavours of years of industry; and his private life was as respectable as his public was independent and useful. All that the Catholics possessed most valuable in latter days they owed to his enterprize and devotion. He had fearlessly sought an interview with the minister of England; and convinced him, that to preserve Ireland, her people must be conciliated. The last repeal was the result of his endeavours; every thing about him was manly and open; the ultimate success of his efforts, and the benefit it would bring to his country, were what he considered, and not the purchase of a false and fleeting popularity. He would not, to gratify power, resign an atom of what he conceived to be principle; or, to gain the people, support a position which his good sense told him must weaken that cause to which his heart was devoted. We remember him well; his fine and

once agile form, though then bent and enfeebled by age; his proud and speaking eye, which yet retained all its early fire; his voice, though broken by illness and suffering, still possessing much of that force and harmony which, in other days, gave him such command in a popular assembly. Such was the man, and such the rival with whom Mr. O'Connell, then in the maturity of manhood, entered the list of competition; and before whom, ten years before, he would have reeled and sunk in the dust in the very first encounter. Mr. Keogh soon after died; he went down to his grave. in the maturity of years, and Mr. O'Connell has kept the field, but with other arms and a different im

press in his shield from that so long borne by the venerable champion. His career has since been perilous and troubled; often dangerous to himself without any possibility of benefit to those whose quarrel he professed to espouse. It is a question with us, whether the Catholic cause has not suffered less from the opposition of its enemies, than from the injudicious advocacy of its kindred friends. Nothing could be less calculated to conciliate or disarm hostility, than the intemperate addresses, and more intemperate allusions of Mr. O'Connell. His per

sonal attacks were coarse and offensive; those on Mr. Wellesley Pole, and Mr. Peel were peculiarly virulent and uncalled for; his latter reflections on Mr. Plunkett have been in the same style. Yet such intemperance and such illusions should not, remain a charge on the Catholic body generally; they are quite foreign to the feelings of the respectable portion of it, with whom Mr. O'Connell has no connection whatsoever. If he be, as he would assume, the leader of any part of the population, it can be only of the most uneducated and unreflecting division of it; and even with them he has now fortunately lost much of his influence. Judgment, indeed, never has been a quality for which Mr. O'Connell has been very remarkable; his want of it has been strongly exemplified on many occasions of his public life. His defence of the late Mr. John Magee, the proprietor of the Dublin Evening Post,

(the leading public journal in Ireland) was a strong and lamentable instance. Mr. Magee, then quite a young man, and in extreme ill health, was prosecuted by the Irish Attorney General, "ex officio," for a Libel reflecting on the Government of that country. Party was then at its height between the Castle and the Catholics, the bigotry of Mr. Saurin on one hand, and the violence of Mr. O'Connell and a few followers on the other, had opened and inflamed all the causes of quarrel, but no feelings of public or private hostility would have induced a prudent and reflecting advocate to compromise the safety of his client, or make him the devoted Curtius to fill the political gulph; his speech to the jury, on this occasion, was most ill-judged and violent; he stood before them a living volcano, from whence the lava of fury and intemperance flowed for hours; his address was an invective, solely from beginning to end, against the Irish administration and its adherents; it was a collection and epitome of all the speeches he had ever made at Catholic Boards or Catholic Meetings; with Orange Lodges, and Bible Societies; all heaped and mingled together in the storm of his indignation: it has been urged as his plea, that Mr. Magee must at any rate have been convicted, and that no defence, how ever moderate, could have brought him an acquittal. But it was not considered that such a defence must have had the certain effect of entailing on his hapless client the unmitigated vengeance of the Crown prosecutor, and the heaviest retribution from the Bench. Mr. Magee was too young to think prudently for himself, but Mr. O'Connell was sufficiently old, and sufficiently experienced both to think and act more calmly. The unfortunate defendant was convicted of course, and subsequently sentenced to a long and dreary imprisonment, where he lay unfriended by those to whom he was devoted and without solicitude from the party by whom he was sacrificed. On his being brought up for judgment, Mr. O'Connell then appeared in his best garb; the speech of the Attorney General was rancorous, bigotted and vindictive;

he was cheered by a servile bar, and actually applauded from the galleries of a Court of Justice by some of the worthy Aldermen of Dublin. Mr. O'Connell rose in reply; he seemed roused by the solitude of his situation, and the dangers of his client, to ten-fold energy and exertion. tion. He spoke ably, powerfully, and most eloquently; he withstood the bench, silenced the surrounding bar, and the crown accuser shrunk, dismayed and defeated, before him. His duel with Mr. D'Esterre soon after followed, proving fatal to that unfortunate gentleman. Mr. O'Connell had in one of his numerous speeches made some contemptuous allusion to the Corporation of Dublin, and it was caught at by Mr. D'Esterre as the Quixote of that body. The worthy corporators of that capital had been so long suffered to rule on the sage principle of "Divide et Impera," they were so much used to see their sapient and liberal harangues lauded, or at least unquestioned, that they hated Mr. O'Connell because he dared to question their supremacy, and had often ridiculed and even reviled them. He was fond of a jest, and he talked "of the classic name of Abraham Bradley King ;" and his followers at a Mansion-house procession, or a Mansion-house feast, were indignant as a Mussulman who heard the mission of his prophet impeached. Mr. O'Connell had just before had some temporary difference with a respectable brother barrister in circuit, which the praiseworthy exertions of the gentlemen of the bar had settled, when the parties (both husbands and fathers) were on the ground, and their pistols levelled in their hands. The Government prints sneered at Mr. O'Connell, and the magnanimous corporation imagined they might beard him, because he had preferred an honourable accommodation to the probable spilling of blood, but they were egregiously mistaken in their man: Mr. O'Connell at once cut short the correspondence of Mr. D'Esterre, by declining to receive any communication but a final one; a challenge was the unprepared result; the parties met some miles from Dublin; Mr. D'Esterre, almost solitary, and unattended from that

body who had cheered him to the contest, Mr. O'Connell followed by anxious thousands; they agreed to fire deliberately; and, after some pistol play, both levelled together. Mr. D'Esterre received the ball of his antagonist, and fell; the wound proved mortal-a vital artery was eut-an hemorrhage ensued-and the unfortunate D'Esterre in a few hours expired in the arms of a young and beautiful wife whom he had only married a short time before,

and then left destitute and almost despairing!

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The warfare of the castle and of Mr. O'Connell and his party was closed by the extinction of the Catholic Board, this was the scene where the Irish Cato! disowned by all beside, was wont to give his little senate laws; never was there more heterogeneous compound than the members and motions of this strange assembly; chaos was order to the confusion that prevailed. Motions on Irish costume one day, and on Irish vetoism the next. An embassy to his holiness the Pope, and a mission to their excellenza's the Spanish Cortez. An address to a victorious General in heroic prose, and to a patriotic Bricklayer, in corresponding measure. A hymn to the Virgin, and a hymn to Liber

ty. The Canonization of the orthodox Dr. Drangoole, and the reception of his Holy Oriflamme at one sitting, and a disavowal of the infallibility of the Doctor, at the very next meeting, and a rejection of him and his standard too; this by the way was hard usage of the pious Doctor, who had hoisted his banner of exclusive salvation, high

in the front of battle, and who, had he lived in other days, must have rivalled the intrepidity of the stubborn Athanasius, exceeded the cenobitic piety of the unwearied St. Francis, or equalled the indefatigable castigations of Dominic the Cuirassier himself. Nothing was too various or dissimilar for the

attention and oratory of this indescribable convention; their projects extended from Dublin to Rome; from Rome to Cadiz; and, for ought

we remember to the contrary, to Jerusalem itself.

"Omnibus in terris quae sunt a Gadi. bus usque

Auroram et Gangem pauci dignoscere possunt,

Vera bona et quae illis multum diversa remotâ

Erroris nebulâ."

A Government proclamation extinguished it just when its last light was weakly flickering-it was an unnecessary measure-for its final moments were rapidly approaching, and it long had all the elements of dissolution in itself. It had ceased to be remembered by almost its nearest friends, and most kindred acquaintance; and the state physician went out of his way, to administer an expiring draught to a hectic patient, then in the last stage this period, Mr. O'Connell seems of a galloping consumption! At to have attained the summit of his popularity, and the utmost height bition could reach, in the sister of public notice, to which his amremarkable in his career, except his Island: there has been since little quarrel and prevented duel with Peel. Not satisfied with impugning the present Home Secretary, Mr. principles, Mr. O'Connell, as we

before mentioned, was too much in the habit of personal allusion, and it involved him in more contests than one. He had declaimed at one of those eternal meetings, which he was ever either raising or assisting at, either in theatres or Catholic

chapels, of the Irish Secretary having attacked him in the House of would not have ventured to do, were Commons in his absence, in a way he he, Mr. O'Connell, present; the report of this assertion, in an Irish paper, met the eye of Mr. Peel on his return to Ireland, and was followed with more courage than prudence by an immediate demand of explanation; on this being declined, a hostile message from Mr. quarrel becoming public, the Irish Peel was the instant result; the Minister and Mr. O'Connell were both arrested late at night by the Sheriffs of Dublin, and bound, before the competent authorities against any breach of the peace in : an intimation was, how

Ireland:

ever, given by Mr. Peel, with the same fearless spirit that marked his entrance into quarrel, that he was ready to adjourn its termination on

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any other field. It was, in consequence, arranged that they should meetin France. Somehow or other, Sir Charles Saxton and Mr. Lidwell, the mutual friends of the parties, had also differed seriously, and at length engaged to terminate their dispute on the same ground,and in the same way; what their cause of combat was, we now forget, unless as Sir Lucius O'Trigger says, "they care to do a kind office first for their friends, and then proceed to business on their own account." Mr. Peel left Ireland at once, and Mr. O'Connell, with his "cortege," after some preparation, soon after. Fortunately, his movements, and those of his followers, were so minutely detailed, day after day, in the orthodox journals of the period, with all the accompaniments of Homer's heroes, high courage and beroic daring beaming on his brow, that there was little danger of any sanguinary rencontre occurring; and, on his arriving in London, he was easily traced by the police; and the parental anxieties of Sir Robert Peel the worthy father of his high spirited antagonist, fully satisfied. Mr. O'Connell was arrested at his hotel, and taken before Lord Ellenborough, the then chief justice, and obliged to enter into recognizances to keep the King's peace, which -were afterwards occasionally respited, until all possibility and almost memory of quarrel died away. Mr. Peel was in France, awaiting his antagonist; and Sir Charles Saxton and Mr. Liwell also contrived to meet and fight, but bloodlessly, and thus ended Mr. O'Connell's expedition against the modern Orlando, whose high and chivalrous bearing certainly took nothing from his reputation in the land of the shamrock. On the King's visit to Ireland, Mr.O'Connell so far from being found"un mauvais sujet," was one of the first and loudest in offering the testimonies of his homage to the gracions monarch; his speeches were full of loyalty and gratulation; he appeared at the Irish court, and his house was remarkable for the brilliancy of its illumination. Some inconsistency, it is true, was noticed in those same windows blazing so soon for the King, which but a few weeks before had been lit up for the triEur. Mag. Jan. 1823.

umph of the hapless Queen; and the transition, it was observed, was rather rapid to a court suit, and a crowded levée, from the garb so recently worn of her Majesty's official adviser in Ireland (and that while her cold remains were journeying to their final restingplace in the tomb of her brave ancestors); but the smile of Royalty, like the Pope's dispensation, can remove all scruples; and Mr. O'Connell, accordingly, was every where seen full of delight and joy. Soberer and more phlegmatic Englishmen beheld such transitions and demonstrations of rejoicing with surprise; their colder feelings were at a loss to discover by what the universal pageant was occasioned; but it is the felicitous disposition of Irishmen to think more gaily. It was quite sufficient for them, that their monarch had come among them, in all the fullness of confidence; and they were determined they would be happy; let the sum of human misery, accordingly, have been what it may, during the sovereign's stay, it never appeared; the sigh of wretchedness was suppressed, and the moan of famine and anguish never rose above the gratulations of the thronging crowds. We do not seek to impeach the ardency of attachment, which was shewn to the King during his residence in Ireland. We are sure the monarch came with the kindest and most be nevolent intentions to that country; seeking, by his great influence, to amalgamate all parties, and heal the wounds of religious discord and strife. His parental endeavours were directed to that great purpose while he stayed, and his parting admonition was in the same feeling; urging all to social concord, and breathing the spirit of beneficence and peace.

We have heard that Mr. O'Connell contemplates the arrival of Catholic emancipation as the patent of his admission into the House of Commons. From what we know, we do not believe, that, if that great and necessary measure passed to-morrow, there would be the smallest likelihood of his return to parliament; but if there were, it is a sphere to which, in our humble opinion, he is wholly unsuited. His reading and information are not equal to great ques

C

tions of national policy. His ac cent, as we before remarked, is bad; and his style of oratory, never eloquent or polished, has become deeply debased from his constant intercourse with Irish mobs. He is, beside, much too advanced in life, to acquire that taste and manner fitted to an English House of Com mons, which is, after all, the first and most enlightened assembly in the world. Mr. O'Connell, though hold and fluent, has been too much in the habit of indulging in the coarse luxury of popular applause, to succeed in calmer and more influential discussion. In all his orations, he seems rather to canvass the passing shouts of an inconsiderate multitude, than the ultimate success of the measure he is engaged in. In his numberless addresses to the thousands, who have attended him, he never yet sought to correct their prejudices, or amend their habits; on the contrary, he cherishes their worst bigotry by inflaming it, and slurs over their vices by imputing all that they suffer to oppression, and nothing whatever to themselves. He talks to them in mournful accents of " the five hundred years, a starless night of desolation that has passed since the green banner of Ireland was trampled to the earth by English force and numbers," but he never explains to his auditors what has raised England to her présent un

parallelled height of wealth and power; or the industry, patience, and perseverance which supplied her mighty resources, and so markedly distinguish her people. He neither writes nor speaks for futurity; a kind of passing publicity and preeminence seem all he looks for, and fully to content him, no matter how or where obtained. Amid his countless speeches we never remember a really wise and instructive sentence to have dropped from his lips, or fallen from his pen; the triumphs of his oratory have been solely confined to large popular congregations, that is, to mobs; for among the better order of his Catholic countrymen he seldom appeared, and never possessed any influence whatever. The best com parison that can be drawn between him and his distinguished predeces sor, the venerable and lamented John Keogh, is the result attained by their contrasted exertious in the same cause. In times of peculiar difficulty and danger, Mr. Keogh steered his bark on a troubled ocean, free of all contests, and succeeded in obtaining for the Catho lics of Ireland the most valuable privileges they now possess. Mr. O'Connell's career has been one of inconsistency, strife, and turmoil. He obtained for himself an accession of business and wealth, and for the Catholics at large—nothing.

LINES

TO THE CELEBRATED AND VENERABLE MR. DE LUC.

O, bless'd with science, whose resplendent ray
O'er all creation pours a flood of day,
Before whose beams the clouds of error fly,
And subtile sophists veil the dazzled eye;
Still be it thine, De Luc, with aim sublime,
To spread Religion o'er each age and clime;
To prove the Works of God (supremely bright)!
Shed o'er the Word reveal'd encreasing light.
And to reward thy pious labours past,
When thy bright course of life shall set at last,
May'st thou to endless glory then arise,
And shine for ever in unclouded skies.

S. R.

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