manner, and he wanted taste. Yet, without these accomplishments, his speeches were superior, and even sublime orations." Itisjustly observed, as a matter of regret, that almost nothing is preserved of them which can give an adequate conception of their merits. Yet a few sentences may be given, as a specimen of that mixture of argumentative force and poetic beauty which distinguishes the nobler spirit of the often-calumniated Irish style. The subject is the unpropitious one of a Sugar Bill. Yelverton launched out into principle. "Destroy one part of the system of trade, and you destroy the whole-you destroy all trade." He then adverted to the abuse of the past popular acquisitions, " He could not help remarking the prostituted use which had been made of the term Free Trade.' When we first received it, an intemperate burst of applause broke forth, like the extravagance of lunacy, or the giddy joy of a child. If a constitutional question was started, if grievances were represented, we were answered-you have got a free trade. If a declaration of our rights was demanded-we should be satisfied with a freetrade. If a modification of an oppressive law was attempted, we were stunned with the explanation -you have got a free trade. Your free trade was food and raiment to you; it was the burden of the ministerial song; it was the lullaby which hushed your necessities to rest, and the requiem which was sung over the perturbed spirit of your poverty! Every struggle for liberty was called sedition a free trade was thrown out as a bubble, and meant to answer all the ends of those who never meant to grant you any. The people will see too late that they have been amused with a plaything; and, when they have lost it, will sit down like a child, and cry for all that their folly has lost them."

Yelverton had striking qualifications for public life. He was a great lawyer, as well as a man of elegant knowledge. He had alike the physical and mental requisites of the orator: "a great volume of voice, a rich flow of ideas, a rapid imagination, an austere pathos: his speeches were a regular, continued flow of legal reasoning. When he warmed upon a subject, his mind and his eye fixed: he did not illumine his speech by brilliant figures,

NO. CCLXXXVIII. VOL. XLVI,

like Burgh, nor adorn it with pointed sentences, like Flood, who was a master of the art of oratory; but he came forth with a strength of reasoning, that struck the listener as the finest species of ratiocination. Grattan compared him, and well, to the rolling of the Atlantic wave, a column three thousand miles deep!"

A proof of his prudence is given. Flood had taken the favourite question of the day, Payning's Law, out of his hands. Yelverton, however indignant, suffered it so to remain. He wished to avoid Flood's merciless tongue. He was accustomed to say, "I shall yet ascend the bench; and it is best that I should not ascend it soiled by the abuse of any individual." He ascended it unsoiled. On the death of Hussey Burgh he was made Chief Baron.

His powers at the bar were of the first order. Lord Annesley (Chief Judge) who was certainly not partial to Yelverton, used to say, "that he was the best advocate he ever heard in either England or Ireland." He carried away the court, the hearers, the jury, while listening to him." But, with all his prudence, he could sometimes be furious. On one occasion, Fitz-Gibbon (Lord Clare) had attacked Grattan, who was not then in the House; Yelverton started up, and replied to the charges, concluding with these fiery paragraphs, - " If my friend were present, the honourable gentleman would take some time to consider, before he hazarded an encounter with his genius, his eloquence, and his integrity. My honourable friend did not provoke the attack, equally ungenerous and untrue, and for which no justification can be found in any part of his splendid career. That learned gentleman has stated what Mr Grattan is I shall state what he is not. He is not styed in his prejudices; he does not trample on the resuscitation of his country, or live, like a caterpillar, on the decay of her prosperity; he does not stickle for the letter of the constitution with the affectation. of a prude, and abandon its principles with the effrontery of a prostitute."

The true cause which enabled Grattan to advance, against the Government and without his party, was the growing force of the volunteers. From a protecting militia they had become a disposing army; from sol

diers they had become politicians; and from the servants of the constitution had become the arbiters of Parliament. This state of things naturally excited especial alarm, at a period when America was still at war, and when the example of her revolt was the perpetual topic of all the mischievous and shortsighted tribe that longed to profit by public plunder in an Irish rebellion. Burke alludes to this hazard in his speech to the electors of Bristol. He described it as the establishment of " a military power in the dominions of the Crown, without the consent of the British legislature, contrary to the policy of the constitution, contrary to the declaration of right." "Two illegal armies are seen," said he, "with banners displayed at the same time, and in the same country. No executive magistrate, no judicature in Ireland, will acknowledge the legality of the army which bears the King's commission, and no law, or appearance of law, authorizes the army commissioned by itself."

Burke's capacious vision even then contemplated the consequences of put ting power into the hands of the multitude. He argued on the natural dangers of force and irresponsibility combined; the follies natural to great bodies of men guided by the frauds of faction; the boundless field which popular passion throws open for the demagogue; and the desperate wickedness into which that demagogue is ready to plunge the nation for the most selfish prize of power. This Burke saw, and this he deprecated, even in 1780; a clear evidence that he never was a Whig. If he had been, he might have seen, but he never would have deprecated. He bore the name of a Whig, because, in being thrown a stranger on the great plain of public life, he had first accidentally wandered into the ranks of the Whigs. But when the campaign became real, when the field-day flourishes were over, and he found them hoisting the revolutionary flag, he boldly marched over in front of the two armies, ranged himself under the standard of the monarchy, and stood forth, the noblest champion of law, loyalty, and religion.

The volunteers passed away. They were a brilliant phenomenon, but a formidable one: their light was meteoric, and it was impossible to tell by

what sudden change of course it might not turn to the earth, and crush and consume. But Ireland was fortun. ately relieved from leaving her ashes as an example. The Cessation of the American war brought back the day; the irregular light was wasted no more, in the return of the sunshine. I waned before the eye, and, after a few wild flashes, vanished be low the horizon, The man who raised Grattan first before the people, ought not to be forgotten. We have already said that this most honest of all Whigs, perhaps the only honest Whig that ever existed, came into Parliament originally as member for a borough, under the patronage of Lord Charlemont. The noble lord was the artist who fashioned the future idol and placed him on the altar, to see the sculptor eclipsed by the work of his hands. Lord Charlemont was the balloon, and Grattan the man in the parachute. When it had raised him high enough to catch the popular gaze, the balloon was cut off and let fly into the clouds or the sea; while the man in the parachute came down into the popular arms, to be applauded and wondered at, and carried in an ovation. But Charlemont was a memorable man. Without power of any kind, large property, or striking talents, he became suddenly the first nobleman of Ireland. Grattan's description of him is grateful, and yet unexaggerated.

"He was the most accomplished man of his day; the most polished and the most agreeable. In these respects he was superior to any person who had yet appeared in Ireland, or probably whom Ireland will ever again behold. His society was charming. He was fond of humour, and occasionally indulged in sarcasm, but never on his company. He was full ofs pirit, integrity, and public virtue. He possessed ambition, a great love of power, a great contempt for money, the consideration of which never entered into his mind: he was incorruptible. His spirit and integrity would not permit him to yield to Go vernment; but when the people had triumphed, he strove to reconcile the parties, and would not abandon the Government on a question which endangered it."

It is clear that this man never was a Whig. We have the additional evidence." One predominant feature in his character was a sacred attachment to the British connexion. His desire was, to keep well with England, and he worked in favour of Government, not for this or that minister, but for the Government solely, and was not only anxious to have the people supporting him, but to have the people supporting the Government." Let libel say what it will, this man was no Whig. He was the antipodes of Whiggism. He might as well be called a negro born in Christendom with a white skin, a Roman nose, and thin lips. He wanted the selfishness, the rashness, the vice, and the vulgarity of Whiggism.

We fully agree with the elder Grattan (for it is impossible that the younger should have written the words), that "it was most fortunate that such an individual existed. [The volunteers had chosen Lord Charlemont for their general-in-chief.] His grave and civil character was necessary to restrain the ardour of the volunteers, and rescue them from their own excesses, for he well knew that liberty loses half its value if it is purchased by victory over the people. There are times, and there are occurrences, when a man ought to stop, and should prefer to break with his party, to going forward. Yet few men who have acquired popularity possess courage enough to risk its loss."

It is equally impossible to disagree with those sentiments. The command of the volunteers was the command of a vast power, which, in the hands of a political traitor, might have subverted the kingdom. The first extravagance of the volunteers resisted by Government might have brought on a civil war; and the first drop of blood shed in this war might have been the spring-head of torrents. The prejudice of party led some to say, that this noble person was merely a man with exquisite manners; but they were mistaken. He was a man of excellent sense. He was at the head of a most powerful national army, supported by the upper classes, and comprising all. He assisted in leading them on to civil liberty. He assisted also in guarding them against popular excesses.

His private life was that of an elegant and cultivated mind. "He wrote well; his replies to the addresses of the volunteers were excellent; and

We give a slight specimen of this easy courtship of the nine, and in their own country. He had been travelling in Greece-no slight achievement in the year 1749, and for a young noble of twenty-one. At that time the Morea and the Islands were almost a terra incognita to the more civilized portions of Europe. "How many times," says his letter to Marley, "I wished that you could have seen us in some of the droll equipages in which we have been during our abode in the Islands, mounted on asses, and glad to get them-padsaddles, without either bridle or stirrups-seven or eight days without a bed to lie on, encamped on desert islands! My birth-day this year we kept at sea, between the Islands of Crete and Cos-the feast was celebrated with several actings, dutiful and voluntary, firing of cannon, &c. No kind bard being here to write my birth-day ode, and the sea gods being bad poets, I am obliged to cry my own ballad, an extempore as you will easily perceive.

"My Marley! see the rolling years With certain speed our lives devour; Each day its due proportion bears,

And nearer brings the fatal hour.

"'Tis one-and-twenty years this day, Since first I drew my vital breath; So much the nearer to decay!

So much have I approach'd to death!

"He well hath lived, who, when the sun Departing yields to low'ring night, Can say, This day my task is done,

And let to-morrow seize its right.

"No more of that this festal day, In harmless pleasure let us pass. One bumper toast: I'll show the way, 'Tis Marley's health, fill up my glass!" Don't you think the tossing of the ship is in these lines? I don't think my residence at Delos, the sacred birthplace of Apollo, has much improved me; but if my verses be not good, I am sure they are sincere."

Like all the men of sense in his day, Charlemont was utterly hostile to the encroachments of Popery. So early as 1785, Opposition in Parliament, having worn out all other topics, and, always looking for novelty, let the risk be what it will, took up the Popish question, and proposed to give the Popish peasantry the fatal right of voting for members of Parliament. Against this the argument, and nothing could be truer, was, that the Popish po peasantry being wholly in the hands of the priests, to give the franchise to the peasant was in fact to give the priest the power of sending members to Parliament; that though the members thus sent were Protestants, the inevitable result would be, that of engendering a spirit hostile to Protestanism in the legislature, thereby impairing the true liberty of the country, enfeebling its constitution, and ultimately destroying the connexion with England. Those just and forcible arguments prevailed for nearly ten years, but Opposition was active, Protestantism too little aware of its danger, and ministers too eager to purchase popularity by a guilty concession; and, as the result, the privilege of voting was given. The gratitude of Popery for this criminal concession, was a bloody rebellion in 1798. The punishment to the Parliament was the Union, and the product to the nation was a continued increase of faction, until 1829, when the presence of Popery first polluted the English Parliament, after the lapse of a hundred years of freedom. But as Charlemont grew old and feeble, he grew negative. When the elective franchise was proposed in 1793, he neither aided nor resisted, and before he died, was supposed to be favourable to the change, which was to make all the labours of his life in vain.

It is only due to Grattan to say, that, though combined through life with a tribe who jobbed every thing, he never obtained any office from Government. His fortune was small. " I am," said he, "one of the poorest of commoners, as Lord Charlemont is one of the poorest of peers. But

"As

we will take nothing. I have £500 a-year." This self-denial had its reward, and deserved to have it. the ministers could not purchase me," said he, on another occasion, "the nation purchased me." In 1782, on the address of the Viceroy to Parliament, communicating the acquiescence of the English Government in the motion for independence, it was determined to make a provision for Grattan. Mr Beauchamp Bagneal, member for Carlow, a man of opulence and weight in the country, moved, spontaneously, that £100,000 should be granted, to purchase an estate for him, as a reward for his public services. "But at the request of Mr Grattan's friends, the mover was induced to alter it to £50,000, to which the House and the minister agreed." The reduction was by Grattan's own delicacy. In the first instance, he had intended to refuse any thing, but his sensible old relative, Colonel Marlay, who knew the world better at that time, advised him to accept it. The money was put into the bands of a commission, who purchased a small estate with it, and, such is the wisdom of many counsellors, were said to have made a very improvident bargain. The original grant would not have been too much. Grattan ought to have been placed beyond all further consideration of money. If the House were sincere in its estimate of his services, they were not to be repaid by any sum. If their calculation was to be formed by the resulting value of those services, any sum would be too much. But it was a time of universal illusion. Ireland imagined that Grattan had broken chains that no other hand could break, lifted her from the ground into an elevation where empire lay before her, and opened the floodgates of a commerce which was to swell with the gold of mankind. Such were the dreams of the hour. But Grattan was a dreamer like the rest, and he deserved to be paid the price of teaching the people how to revel in such magnificent dreams.

Another character of peculiar mould next passes across the stage-Scott, the Attorney-General. Scott was a man of remarkable powers, a clear head, a determined heart, with a large knowledge of law, and a larger knowledge of human nature. Like all the