tion were then distinguished :-The promotion of public peace and tranquillity; the encouragement and extension of "a liberal, enlightened, and religious" system of education; to ascertain the number of the population in Ireland, the relative proportions which the professors of the different faiths bore to each other, and the number of children in each in the course of education; to erect suitable Roman Catholic churches, &c.; to encourage a liberal and enlightened press, favourable to the claims of the Catholics; to prepare a detailed account of the calumnies against Roman Catholics, contained in the petitions recently presented to Parliament, and publish confutations of them. Every person paying £1 was entitled to become a member. Such were the rules of the new Catholic Association; but a more important feature still, in the report, is the accomplished advice they gave to others, to do what "that most unconstitutional statute," as they termed it, prohibited them from doing themselves. They told the Catholics, all through the country, that it was "incumbent on them to adopt other means, altogether unconnected with the new Association, of preparing and presenting petitions to Parliament, and also for preventing and punishing acts of individual oppression, and of party insolence." It was recommended by the Association, that a petition should be presented from every parish in Ireland; to facilitate the preparation of these petitions, that each county should hold general or aggregate meetings, unconnected with the Association, which might be continued, even by the terms of the act, fourteen days. The Association recommended the repeal of the act suppressing itself, as a paramount object of importance in the aggregate meetings.

The limitation of meetings to a period of fourteen days, seems to have been considered a happy suggestion on the part of the legislature. It gave a hint to throw the power of the Association over the whole country, instead of confining it to Dublin; and the hint was obeyed. "Convened every day," says Monsieur Duvergier, the French traveller, in the year 1826, "by the call of a free press, they are in motion, at this moment, over the face of the entire country. There is not a

county, nor a city, nor a borough, nor a parish, where there are not meetings to address petitions to the new Parliament: to return votes of thanks to the forty-shilling freeholders; and, what is still more to the purpose, to offer assistance and support to those very men whom their masters have, in consequence of their late conduct, unmercifully ejected from their holdings. O'Connell and Shiel fly from province to province, from meeting to meeting. Everywhere they are received with enthusiasm; everywhere their eloquent declamations rouse, in the souls of the old Milesians, the stern sense of their strength and their degradation."

The new system, so happily suggested by act of Parliament, raised emulation through the whole country; and every part maintained a competition for the honour of the first provincial meeting. It was assigned to Waterford. "The first days of the week," says Mr. Wyse, "were employed in making necessary arrangements for the public meeting; the committees every hour increased, by new accessions from the most remote parts of the province; the Kerry, the Clare, the Limerick attendants, (they might be almost called deputies,) came clustering in. The meeting was held the third day, in the Catholic chapel of the city. It is one of the most imposing Catholic structures in Ireland. The whole of the great area of the building was densely crowded with the population from the country. Immediately before the altar rose the platform, on which were assembled Catholics and Protestants, indiscriminately, around the chair. It was a glorious morning-and the spirit of the people in full unison with the joyousness of the season, and still fresh with the late triumph, burst forth in a tumult of enthusiasm, which soon spread its contagion to the most indifferent heart in that vast assembly. Several speeches had been heard with more than ordinary marks of approbation, when Mr. O'Connell at last appeared on the platform." A critical examination of this speech, as printed, gives a splendid specimen of high-toned, bold, emphatic, English diction. It lays before us, at the same time, a state of the grievances of Ireland, accurately and logically detailed,

and adorned with those bursts of impassioned feeling with which the English language is seldom furnished, except from Irish oratory. Between these two qualifications, it appears, to the eye of the critic, an inexpressibly happy mixture of all that the most fastidious and instructed taste could wish, and all that can stir the uneducated mind, open to the impression of high feelings. It runs over a series of historical incidents, dictated by vast reading, which the philosopher must allow to be justly applied, and which are so told that the untaught peasant can appreciate their truth. But the consideration of the speech itself, as a literary production, is nothing. The time, the place, the circumstances-the man who uttered the speech, and the soul of expression which he was capable of throwing into his words-must be summoned before the mind before it can have a shadowy view of the effect of such an address on a vast meeting of men, subject, for a long train of well-remembered years, to an accumulation of oppression and contempt. "It is not easy to forget," says Mr. Wyse, “the acclamations which followed his magnificent harangue. It is on such occasions that Mr. O'Connell is truly eloquent; but on this occasion he far exceeded himself. There broke out a clamour of joy which had no words, but escaped in rude gestures from every man below him, when, appealing in bold and awful language to the young blood of Ireland on the one side, and to the infatuated government of the country on the other, he threw himself as a mediator between both, and im plored them, ere another generation, rushing impetuously into the ranks of present men, should render negotiation, as in America, impossible-to rouse from their slumber in haste,— to extend the hand ere it was too late-and to save, rather than to have to rescue, through carnage, perhaps, and conflagration, their common country." We give an extract or two from this celebrated speech:

"I say it not in menace; but I ask it in the tone of firmness-Was it ever deemed safe to oppress seven millions? Let the question be ruminated upon. I put it not in menace, but I put it in sober solemnity to the British ministry and the

British people. Let them not say, that Irish misery can be traced to Irish causes. Let them not say, that the evils of the land are to be attributed to Irishmen. They might say so. indeed, if the Parliament were Irish, and if the government of the country were in the hands of Irishmen. If the Irish governed themselves, then, indeed, would it be just to attribute to them the evils that pervade this country; but it is equally just, at first, to attribute to England those miseries which affright the people of Ireland. It is just to do so; because England, for more than six hundred years, has governed and ruled the destinies of Ireland. For six hundred years she has misgoverned Ireland. It is enough to make the hardest heart weep tears of blood, to think of the wretchedness of our native land, and to behold the determination, on the part of England, to continue the present system. May, Sir, I be permitted, in melancholy solemnity, to ask the reason why this system should be continued? Can they say, we refuse to be conciliated? Can they pretend to assert that we have shewn no disposition to meet, in a cordial and conciliatory spirit, British kindness? Every such pretext is vain. I myself was one of those who, last year, quitted our homes and occupations, to prostrate ourselves and our country before the bar of British justice. We offered all that we could offer we offered more than I would now offer, or would now consent to accept emancipation upon the terms of giving and how were we received? Why, we were treated with insult and scorn, and blasphemous derision. Then issued a voice. from the very footsteps of the throne, and it attested the Deity, that the Irish should for ever continue slaves,. The pliant Peel readily bowed before that voice-the vacillating Liverpool cringed beneath its sound-whilst the money-loving Eldon chinked his bags of gold, and rejoiced that bigotry could be still discounted into more pelf. There was a period of similar importance in the history of England :-FranklinBenjamin Franklin-with more of talent than any of us could boast, but with an equally sincere desire of combining America with England, and perpetuating the connection-the

virtuous Franklin proffered the dutiful submission of the hearts and hands of America to be devoted to the service of England. And what did he require? A mere act of justice. How was he received? With derision, contempt, and insult. England refused to be just. She laughed to scorn the force of America. She even boasted that, by the night-watch of a single parish, all the armed power of America could be put -down. It was deemed safe to oppress and oppression was therefore continued. The Americans forgot their feuds, banished their domestic dissensions, combined in patriotic determination, rushed to arms, and-oh! may Heaven be thanked for it!—prostrated the proud standard of proud England in the dust, and discomfited her, with all her chivalry.

"Our deputation, last year, was blamed for our over-readiness to conciliate-but what did that prove?-our earnest anxiety to promote the security and happiness of both countries, even by sacrificing ourselves.

"Popularity is said to be my idol. It is true; I do love popularity, but I was ready to sacrifice it when I saw a prospect that, by making that sacrifice, I could combine Ireland and England into one common interest, and lay, what I deemed, a sure foundation for securing the happiness of both. But we, too, were rejected-we, too, were scorned. The blasphemous oath was interposed between Ireland and her rights. Is this a safe course to pursue? I ask, is it prudent? Is it wise? They speculate upon the weakness of Ireland— we are more than seven millions. They speculate upon our attachment to British connection; and that speculation is not vain, so far as it refers to us who have grown into maturer years, under impressions, and with opinions favourable to that connection. They speculate upon our horror of blood and anarchy, of rebellion and crime; and they are right in that speculation. But let them not mistake our constitutional and conscientious submission to legal authority, into any unwillingness and unfitness to exert all our faculties, mental and corporeal, upon any fitting and constitutional occasion, in the