any thing rather than Catholic emancipation, as it is called: and whose projects and designs are calculated and intended to retard that measure. This is not rhapsody, but the candid sentiments of an honest heart; and would that those who now hear me, that the man whose dangerous eloquence"-here the young orator was interrupted by the Secretary, who inquired was he a member of the association, and a reply in the negative having been obtained, O'Connell asked if he was a Catholic? This being denied with considerable emotion, and a declaration of his Protestantism being also given, he was desired by the chairman to proceed. "Emboldened by your success," he continued,-"in creating distrust in the peasantry, destroying their confidence in the magistracy, and establishing an hostility to the Protestant gentry and clergy, you proceed with confidence in your power of working mischief; but let me conjure you to beware of your danger, and to reflect, that although the progress of the laws may be occasionally slow, yet when they overtake delinquents, punishment is certain; and that, should you continue your present wicked course of proceeding, that terrible fate may overtake. you, which has befallen so many of your wicked and deluded countrymen, who have been impelled to blood and rapine, and have consequently sacrificed their lives to the offended

laws."

The conscientious Secretary here again interfered, and required to know it the gentleman intended his address to be the prelude of any motion for the decision of the meeting; but O'Connell again declared that the laws of the Association gave the speaker a right to be heard, upon the grounds that he was a stranger, and a Protestant. A friendly voice from the corner of the room also remonstrated with the Secretary for breaking the thread of the speaker's discourse, and hinted that his College Tutor would not fail to lecture him upon the subject when he next appeared before him. The young gentleman was again about to proceed in his admonition, when the pertinacious Secretary once more perplexed him by asking

him to favour the assembly by informing it, through him their officer, with the name of the eloquent individual whom he had the honour to address. The young gentleman, however, not relishing this inquisitorial proceeding, very coolly answered that he would not give his name! Mr. Conway here protested against permitting so great an irregularity as to sanetion the address of any person, who spoke incognito. The Chairman, however, overruled the objections of the Secretary and Mr. Conway, and intimated to the anonymous orator that he was at liberty to proceed--the question relative to his "sponsorial and patronymic appellation," seemed to have so disconcerted the eloquent young gentleman, as to have produced a complete oblivion of the pre-meditated oration. He paused for a moment-appeared to make an effort to speak, hesitated, and then tremulously declared that he would not resume his address.

It was evident, from the conclusion of the Gentlenian's magnanimous tirade, that he had not prepared more than the inflated exordium that we have given in the foregoing; and that it had been anticipated that by the time the declaimer had arrived at its conclusion, the temper of the agitators would have been so perturbed as to cause an enforced suppression of all that might have followed it The tolerant principle upon

which the laws of the Association were said to be founded, would, from this instance of their practical observance, it was supposed, come into disrepute; and the Orange orators and paragraphists would then only have to appeal to this occasion in order to establish that fair play was a maxim disregarded in the Association arena. They would have referred to the act of the body itself in evidence of the unfitness for that freedom which it so vehemently sought, and demonstrated the slender claims which it possessed, when it could not command suffi cient liberality, even to endure with ordinary patience the recital of a few unpalatable truths. The philosophy of the many, however, was not proof against the experiment. The sense of the meeting would have indignantly silenced the audacity that thus, with boyish temerity, dared to condemu

principles which his puny intellect could not sufficiently com prehend; but the tact of the leader turned the opportunity to its own advantage. The insolence of the young enthusiast was endured for the time, and the object which it was intended to achieve thus defeated. This was the first occasion, since the formation of the Association, that any degree of excitement was remarkable in its proceedings. The allusions of opinion amongst the members had never risen beyond animation, nor produced in their debates an undignified asperity of sentiment, but upon this occasion, the perverted allegations of the speaker seemed to rouse the feelings of the active audience. O'Connell would have allowed the petulant boy to sit down in silence, if his ill-timed essay had been prompted merely by his own inexperience; but there was too much reason to conclude that, however wild and even hyperbolical his sentiments were, still there were, perhaps, thousands who coincided in them and sanctioned their application to the fullest extent. The speech which this occasion elicited was perhaps, for its length, one of the happiest that he has delivered, for it was spoken under the influence of feelings which has mostly been favourable to Mr. O'Connell on similar occasions. After an argumentative refutation of the speaker's charges, he thus concluded:-" This may be an expiring effort of tyranny and weakness, or it may be the mere wanton prank of privileged insolence in a young exclusionist, anxious for the exercise of his inherent right to insult an oppressed and degraded people, or he may be a bravo hired by an Orange club, to assail my character and motives, in order to furnish materials for some slanderous attack upon me in the Orange journals. But, Sir, I have now passed that time of life when mere personal ribaldry can make me forgetful of the obedience I owe my Maker, and of my duty to my family; and, would to God, Sir, that I had ever been guided by the same feelings. Then, let this juvenile intolerant report to his employers that I withstood his impotent rage unmoved by the vile calumnies to which it gave utterance, that his slanders were to me but as playthings to a boy, which after amusing him, he flings to the wind-that in him we re

cognise an epitome of those odious peculiarities which distinguished the heartless Orangemen, and that his monstros audacity in coming into an assembly of Catholics, where he charged them with the vilest atrocities, but dared not to support them by one single proof, served but to excite our quiet contempt, whilst we could not withhold our pity from his early desertion of all those amiable and honourable feelings and principles necessary to the profession of Christianity, and which are indispensible in the character of a good citizen." The anonymous orator, however, did not make his retreat with the preservation of his honour. After Mr. O'Connell had let him fall to the earth like the tortoise from the grasp of the eagle, he was taken up by Mr. A. V. Kirwan, who severely criticised his oration, and pointedly insinuated that it must have been rehearsed at some canting coterie. An insinuation of this character seemed so much to resemble insult, that the equanimity of the young gentleman was for a time so deranged that he entirely forgot his own incog. and boldly demanded his castigator's card. Mr. Kirwan was about to comply, when a gentleman who sat next to him suggested that he should not accede to the stranger's demand unless the latter was equally willing to make a similar exchange. The mysterious orator however again refused to divulge his name and condition, and excused himself by declaring that if he revealed himself to the Association, he would be murdered in his bed! A burst of mingled indignation and ridicule responded to the orator's explanation, during which both he and his friend contrived to vacate their seats, and having thus abated the nuisance which their presence created, the Association soon after recovered its wonted good humour, and the business proceeded.

CHAPTER VIII

It was now conceived that the people of Ireland were sufficiently instructed in their duties for a new and great effort, on the success of which their cause so far depended, that, if the design succeeded, emancipation could not be withheld. There were already in Parliament some Irishmen, friends of emancipation, and of the claims of the Catholics in general. These, however, owed their seats to those arbitrary circumstances which then brought men into Parliament on either side. There were still no men representing any portion of the Irish people on their own side-the men whom the people, or the forty-shilling freeholders, had nominally elected to represent them in Parliament, were their enemies. It was now resolved that these freeholders should choose members to represent themselves, and not to represent their landlords. There were great difficulties in the way. These freeholders were brought into existence for the purpose of choosing the members pitched upon by their landlords, and no others. They were considered personal property; and many an affair of honour had originated from a landlord, by design or carelessness, allowing his freeholders to slip from his hand, and vote the wrong way-the excuse that he permitted them to make their own choice, was considered the greatest insult which could be offered.

When Parliament was dissolved, the first attempt was made at Waterford. This was going to the very door of the Beresfords. It was like the Scotch crime of hamesucken-assaulting a man in his own house. The very tenants of the prince of the "Ascendency" were to be urged to vote against him. The Marquis of Waterford (the head of the Beresfords) and the Duke of Devonshire had been accustomed to divide the county between them. Their candidate, in this instance, was