crease, the munificence of the Crown increases also; in proportion as our clothes are rent, the Royal mantle is extended over us.

"But notwithstanding the pension list, like charity, covers a mul titude of sins, give me leave to consider it as coming home to the members of this house; give me leave to say, that the Crown, in extending its charity, its liberality, its profusion, is laying a foundation for the independence of Parliament; for hereafter, instead of orators or patriots accounting for their conduct to such mean and unworthy persons as freeholders, they will learn to despise them, and look only to the first man in the state; and they will by so doing have this security for their independence, that while any man in the kingdom has a shilling they will not want one.' I. 204-206.

In 1787, he paid a short visit to France, from which there are two or three letters of no great interest-the most remarkable thing in them being, that they take no notice of the political ferment that had by that time begun to show itself in that country. Soon after his return, he received a visit from a worthy clergyman of the name of Boyse, to whose kindness he had been indebted in his early youth-the opening of which strikes us as extremely characteristic of the peculiarities of Irish manners.

Upon the morning of Mr Boyse's arrival in Dublin, as he was on his way to Ely Place, he was met by his friend, who was proceeding in great haste to the courts, and had only time to welcome him, and bid him defer his visit till the hour of dinner. Mr Curran invited a number of the eminent men at the bar to meet Mr Boyse; and on returning home at a late hour from court, with some of his guests, found the clergyman, still in his travelling dress, seated in a familiar posture at the fire, with a foot resting upon each side of the grate. “ Well, Jack, said he, turning round his head, but never altering his position, "here have I been for this hour past, admiring all the fine things that I see around me, and wondering where you could have got them all."-" You would not dare," returned Mr Curran, deeply affected by the recollections which the observation called up, assume such an attitude, or use so little ceremony, if you were not conscious that every thing you see is your own. Yes, my first and best of friends, it is to you that I am indebted for it all. The little boy whose mind you formed, and whose hopes you animated, profiting by your instructions, has risen to eminence and affluence: but the work is yours; what you see is but the paltry stucco upon the building, of which you laid the foundation." I. 232, 233.

4 to

Now, all this might have done very well in a tête-à-tête between the two friends; but when we consider it as their debut, before various learned Serjeants and other Primates of the bar, assembled on the occasion, we think no Englishman can avoid feeling that the speech of the clergyman is rude and indelicate, and that of his friend dreadfully too theatrical to be tolerated in private society.

The stormy debates of 1789, and the vote of the Irish Parliament, offering the regency of their kingdom to the Prince of Wales, unfettered by any limitations, are sufficiently known. The motives which led so great a majority of that dutiful and submissive legislature to take part on this occasion against that ministry to which they had hitherto been so laudably devoted, are rather hinted at than spoken out by the author before us. In so far as we can gather his opinion, however, from the vague and cautious expressions he has employed, we take it to be, that their great object being personal gain and advancement, they concluded, that upon this occasion it would probably be better served by securing the favour of the new sovereign, than by adhering to a party with whom he was likely to be dissatisfied; and accordingly, with a few honourable exceptions, including the Duke of Leinster and the Ponsonbys, they returned to their allegiance, as soon as the King's recovery destroyed their golden hopes,-and testified, by their zealous and devoted compliances, the sincerity of their penitence for this occasional error. On a motion for a vote of thanks to the Lord Lieutenant, for his early communication of his Majesty's illness, Mr Curran, who contended that it had been unduly delayed, observed, among other things

For my part, I am but little averse to accede to the sentiment of an honourable friend who observed, that he was soon to leave us, and that it was harsh to refuse him even a smaller civility than every predecessor for a century had got. As for me, I do not oppose his being borne away from us in the common hearse of his political ancestors; I do not wish to pluck a single faded plume from the canopy, nor a single rag of velvet that might flutter on the pall. Let us excuse his manners if he could not help them; let us pass by a little peculation, since, as an honourable member says, it was for his brother; and let us rejoice that his kindred were not more numerous. But I cannot agree with my learned friend who defends the 'conduct of the noble lord on the present occasion. He has abused his trust by proroguing the two Houses, and has disposed of every office that became vacant in the interval, besides reviving others that had been dormant for years. Yet the honourable member says he acted the part of a faithful steward. I know not what the honourable member's idea of a faithful steward is; I will tell him mine. good steward, if his master was visited by infirmity or by death, would secure every article of his effects for his heir; he would enter into no conspiracy with his tenants; he would remember his benefactor, and not forget his interest. I will also tell him my idea of a faithless, unprincipled steward. He would avall himself of the moment of family distraction while the filial piety of the son was attending the sickbed of the father, or mourning over his grave, the faithless steward

:

A

would turn the melancholy interval to his private profit; he would remember his own interest, and forget his benefactor; he would endeavour to obliterate or conceal the title-deeds; to promote cabals among the tenants of the estate; he would load it with fictitious incumbrances; he would reduce it to a wreck, in order to leave the plundered heir no resource from beggary, except continuing him in a trust which he had been vile enough to betray.

pp. 244-6. This may appear to be fiery enough; but a still better idea of the inflamed tone of discussion which then prevailed in that assembly, may be obtained from the account which is given of another debate which took place the year after, on a motion of Mr Curran's, for an address against a late increase in the officers and salaries of the Board of Stamps and Accounts. In introducing this motion, Mr C. observed

Sir, I bring forward an act of the meanest administration that ever disgraced this country. I bring it forward as one of the threads by which, united with others of similar texture, the vermin of the meanest kind have been able to tie down a body of strength and importance. Let me not be supposed to rest here; when the murderer left the mark of his bloody hand upon the wall, it was not the trace of one finger, but the whole impression which convicted him. -I bring forward this motion, not as a question of Finance, not as a question of regulation, but as a Penal inquiry; and the people will now see whether they are to hope for help within these walls, or, turn

ing their eyes towards Heaven, they are to depend on God and their own virtue. I rise in an assembly of three hundred persons, one hundred of whom have places or pensions; I rise in an assembly, one third of whom have their ears sealed against the complaints of the people, and their eyes intently turned, to their own interest; I rise before the whisperers of the treasury, the bargainers and runners of the Castle; I address an audience, before whom was held forth the doctrine, that the Crown ought to use its influence on this House. This confession was not made from constraint; it came from a country gentleman, deservedly high in the confidence of administration, for he gave up other confidence to obtain theirs. - I know I am speaking too plain; but which is the more honest physician, he who lulls his patient into a fatal security, or he who points out the danger and the remedy of the disease? I should not be surprised if bad men of great talents should endeavour to enslave a people; but, when I see folly uniting with vice, corruption with imbecility, men without talents attempting to overthrow our liberty-my indignation rises at the presumption and audacity of the attempt. That such men should creep into power, is a fatal symptom to the constitution: the political, like the material body, when near its dissolution, often bursts out in swarms of vermin.. In this administration a place may be found for every bad man, whether it be to distribute the wealth of the treasury, to vote in the House, to whisper and to bargain, to VOL. XXXIII. NO. 66. T

stand at the door and note the exits and entrances of your members, to mark whether they earn their wages-whether it be for the hireling who comes for his hire, or for the drunken aid de-camp who swaggers in a brothel. In this country, Sir, our King is not a resident; the beam of royalty is often reflected through a medium, which sheds but a kind of disastrous twilight, serving only to assist robbers and plunderers. We have no security in the talents, or responsibility of an Irish ministry: injuries which the English constitution would easily repel may here be fatal. I therefore call upon you to exert yourselves, to heave off the vile incumbrances that have been laid upon you. I call you not as to a measure of finance or regulation, but to a criminal accusation, which you may follow with punishment.' pp. 256-263.

In answer to this speech, neither argument nor explanation was offered; but the party abuse was pretty well made up by personal' invective. Sir Boyle Roche having observed that not being used to deal out scurrility by the yard to the highest bidder— not having been bred a pettifogger, or a Newgate solicitor, he was hardly able to follow the learned gentleman through the long windings of his declamation';-and after resenting, in the same dignified style, the insinuations made against the military retainers of the Court, actually concluded by recommending it to his antagonist to take a little more care of his expressions, lest some of those gentlemen might speak to him on the subject in another place! The threat was not altogether without meaning; for, a few days after, Mr C. was insulted in the street by one of the lower tools of the Government; and, on applying to Major Hobart, then one of the Secretaries of State, for his dismissal, an angry correspondence ensued, which terminated as usual in a duel, in which neither party received any injury. We really cannot say that Mr C. seems to have been justifiable in pushing the matter to that fatal extremity.

-

Lord Clare was now raised to the peerage, and made Chancellor; and unworthily remembering, in that exalted situation, the mortifications of the Attorney-general, proceeded to revenge the wounds he had received in the Senate, by excluding Mr C. from all practice in his Court-a pitiful and flagrant abuse of the judicial function, for which, if the facts be as stated in the work before us, he has never been sufficiently reprobated.-Mr C. is said to have lost upwards of 1000l. a year by this paltry piece of vindictiveness. He persisted, however, with unabated spirit, to expose the manifold corruptions of that wretched Government. And in 1791, in bringing forward a motion as to the sale of peerages, observed,

I have proof, and I stake my character on producing such evidence to a committee, as shall fully and incontrovertibly establish the fact, that a contract has been entered into with the present ministers, to

raise to the peerage certain persons, on condition of their purchasing & certain number of seats in this House.' 1. pp. 295, 296.

The charge was afterwards followed up by Mr Grattan, who expressed himself in the following emphatic terms.

"We charge them (the ministers) publicly, in the face of their country, with making corrupt agreements for the sale of peerages; for doing which, we say that they are impeachable: We charge them with corrupt agreements for the disposal of the money arising from the sale, to purchase for the servants of the Castle, seats in the assembly of the people; for which we say that they are impeachable: We charge them with committing these offences, not in one, nor in two, but in many instances; for which complication of offences we say that they are impeachable; guilty of a systematic endeavour to undermine the constitution, in violation of the laws of the land. We pledge ourselves to convict them; we dare them to go into an inquiry; we do not affect to treat them as other than Public Malefactors; we speak to them in a style of the most mortifying and humiliating defiance; we pronounce them to be public Criminals. Will they dare to deny the charge? I call upon and dare the ostensible mem. ber to rise in his place and say, on his honour, that he does not believe such corrupt agreements have taken place. I wait for a specific answer. Major Hobart avoided a specific answer. Six days after, Mr Grattan, alluding to these charges, observed, "Sir, I have been told it was said that I should have been stopped, should have been expelled the Commons, should have been delivered up to the bar of the Lords for the expressions delivered that day. I will repeat what I said that day." After reciting the charges seriatim in the same words, he thus concluded, "I repeat these charges now, and if any thing more severe was on a former occasion expressed, I beg to be reminded of it, and I will again repeat it. Why do you not expel me now? Why not send me to the bar of the Lords? Where is your adviser? Going out of the House I shall repeat my sentiments, that his Majesty's Ministers are guilty of impeachable of fences; and advancing to the bar of the Lords, I shall repeat these sentiments: and if the Tower is to be my habitation, I will there meditate the impeachment of these Ministers, and return, not to capitulate, but to punish. Sir, I think I know myself well enough to say, that if called forth to suffer in a public cause, I will go further than my prosecutors both in virtue and in danger.” pp. 296-298, Note.

We approach now to the most appalling, and most instructive part of our domestic history-to the proceedings which led to the rebellion of 1798-the measures adopted to suppress that rebellion, and the consequences by which they have been followed. In 1794, the discontent of that unhappy nation was extreme, and almost universal. Previous to 1782, it had been relentlessly domineered over by the English Parliament, and