became an object of regard, as one to whom the important duty of resistance was entrusted; and, if we were to judge by his demeanour, he seemed fully impressed with the consequence which he seemed to derive from the occasion.

O'Connell for a few minutes appeared upon the lobby. He had been in the house all the time during which an election ballot was proceeding. He now came to the door, as if he sought for some person in the crowd. A few persons immediately surrounded him as he came out, but, with his usual avoidance of common-place colloquy, he soon broke from them and re-entered the house.

The election ballot being terminated, the strangers were admitted, and we soon found ourselves upon a bench, under the gallery, which gave us a full view of the entire assembly. By a preliminary arrangement the members who had repeal petitions were allowed to present them before the order of the day would be called on, and accordingly a great number from various parts of Ireland were rapidly given in without any other preliminary than the reading of their titles. Mr. Emerson Tennant was the only person who brought up a petition from the anti-repealers, but when he announced the nature of the document to the House, a simultaneous cheer seemed to break forth from both sides, as if the solitary instance of Belfast was a triumphant counterpoise for the heap of petitions of an opposite nature which, at the time, seemed to cover the table. At length, the monotonous formalities of presentation having terminated, the Speaker, with his fine sonorous voice, called out, Mr. O'Connell. The mention of the name seemed like "the chain of silence" to produce an instantaneous attention; and the mover, rising from his seat, approached to the table where he had previously placed some small portfolios containing the extracts and documents with which he intended to support his statement.

We had seen him in almost all the various situations which his extraordinary political career afforded. We had seen him oftentimes haranguing conventions, where the green valley was the arena and the vault of Heaven the only limit to the scene.

We had seen him in all the variety of positions which the arbitrary laws, passed on purpose to counteract him, compelled him to adopt, and yet we felt that the occasion which now found him about to address the Imperial Senate afforded the greatest epoch of his life, and whether the cause of which he is the great defender failed or prospered, that the twentysecond of April, formed an era which cast upon his past existence a brilliancy, emanating from the grand and magnificent project which he now stood up in the British Senate to propose. In that brief interval, which elapsed between the moment when the Speaker pronounced his name and the sound of the first words with which he began his address, an indescribable sensation seemed to pervade the entire assembly. The effect was not produced by any forethought of his capability as a speaker, for the members were familiarised with the style and manners of the orator who now stood before them. Neither was it the effect of that expectation which strangers feel prior to the opening words of some speaker, whose fame has raised their anticipations of his oratorical power. No!— the associations connected with the man, great and peculiar as is their nature, still they were secondary at that moment. It was the cause-his cause, and the consequences of its triumph with a misgiving in their own power to prevent it, that awed the boldest of its pre-determined antagonists, and produced the almost breathless stillness which at that time pervaded the assembled Senate. To the surprise of many persons present, Mr. O'Connell commenced by relating an anecdote of an honourable member who, in conversation with himself a few days before, had said that the Canadas are endeavouring to escape us-America has escaped us, but Ireland shall not escape us. This exordium, although it produced a momentary disturbance, seemed however to enforce a more reluctant but still greater attention to his speech than if he had opened in the ordinary manner, for it compelled the members not to involve themselves with the sentiment of the pre-determined gentleman, by betraying an unwillingness not to listen to the case which he was going to detail. He reproved the first slight interrup

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tions by a timely intimation that it was too soon to begin them, which, being accompanied with the sanction of the injunctional "order, order," from the Speaker, the assembly, with exemplary patience, seemed to resign itself to the infliction, and yielding its unwilling attention to the narration of English domination and Irish endurance.

The consciousness of having for an auditory a class of persons whose interests and feelings are different, if not even opposed to those which are cherished by the speaker, is perhaps the greatest disadvantage that is to be encountered in public life. A promiscuous assembly will bear down the efforts of the person that endeavours to inculcate principles which are not held in general repute; but, whatever allowances may be made for the madness of an association composed of heterogeneous elements, no excuse should be allowed in extenuation of such conduct in a delegated and deliberative assembly. The consciousness even of this disposition, without its overt action, is in itself sufficiently embarrassing, for the speaker does not know at what part of his address the latent hostility of his hearers will rise against and compel him to retire. The attention with which Mr. O'Connell was heard throughout his address that night was evidently the effect of a discipline which he has at last been able to enforce, chiefly by means of the constant reproof with which he meets those manifestations of his parliamentary unpopularity. The aversion borne towards him by the great mass of the members present, was chiefly indicated by their avoidance of any participation in those occasional cheers which arose from a few others, whenever any just or generous sentiment fell from his lips,-sentiments which deserved to be applauded, and to which perhaps, if they had heard them from any other quarter, they would have responded with sincere acclamations. O'Connell was encouraged by the cheers of the Irish voices alone, and, as far as any symptoms of the perception of his argument by any of the English members present was concerned, his orations might as well have been bestowed upon the inmates of a deaf and dumb asylum. One solitary occasion, however, be

trayed them into something like a stir of vitality. It was at that part of his speech where he bore testimony that military violence was resorted to, in order to crush the efforts of the anti-Unionists, and described the meeting at the Royal Exchange, which was entered by a military party. The reference to the occasion was highly interesting. It afforded an irresistible proof of the consistency of the speaker upon the question he was advocating: and the occasion was also distinguished by another circumstance to which, perhaps, the life of any other public character does not supply a parallel. Amongst various documents, that relate to the period at which the Union was achieved, he read from Plowden's History an extract of a speech made by himself upon the foregoing occasion-his maiden essay upon Irish politics-from which it appeared that, on the first proposition of the Union, he gave it all the opposition that undistinguished youth could command, and now that after an interval of five and thirty years, he was still labouring, in the autumn of his existence, to reverse that national calamity which thus, in the opening of his remarkable and eventful life, he had vainly endeavoured to avert.

It was evident, both from the nature and arrangement of his speech, that, as he had declared in his exordium, he spoke not for the present hour, nor adapted his language to his present auditory, and he evidently treated those who were to oppose him with a corresponding disregard. Anticipating the species of evidence reserved by his opponents, he haughtily taunted Spring Rice with the pettifogging nature of the arithmetical logic upon which he relied, to refute the claims of a country containing eight millions of inhabitants, for the resumption of her legislative independence; and, observing Mr. Stanley taking a note during the delivery of an important sentence, he suddenly paused and said, that, "perceiving the Right Honourable Secretary for the Colonies taking a note, he wished to afford him full time to complete it," and then proceeded. Upon another occasion, alluding to Spring Rice, he inadvertently designated him the Hon. Member for Limerick, but, immediately correcting the misnomer, he satirically re

peated, with peculiar emphasis, "I beg Limerick's pardon, I should have said the Member for Cambridge."

The speech occupied five hours in delivery, and when, at length, the mover had closed his last impressive sentence and the clerk of the House read the resolution, we then expected to have seen the son of Henry Grattan advance to second its proposition, but we were somewhat surprised, however, to hear that Mr. Fergus O'Conner had already performed that office. The Speaker immediately pronounced the name of Spring Rice, while a few voices called "adjourn," which, conflicting propositions being reduced to a motion, the ayes were declared adverse to the endurence of the Under Secretary's eloquence for that night, and he was therefore obliged to reserve his thunder for the next.

A few minutes after five on the following evening we found Spring Rice upon his legs as we entered the House. He had just turned a few sentences upon the designs of the mischievous agitators, which were intended to ensure some encouraging cheers at the beginning of his course and gain him confidence and courage to sustain the very arduous service he had undertaken. With the exception of Stanley, perhaps, the Treasury bench does not contain one that would enjoy the ungracious task of vindicating British domination over Ireland more than the Anglo-Irish Under-Secretary. He brought to his aid the ultra virulence of an Irish auxiliary under English pay, and entered upon his duty with an effrontery that evidently arose from a consciousness of the mercenary nature of his advocacy against the cause of that country to which he nominally belonged. Aware, however, that he was open to a reproval for this desertion of all the obligations of nationality, he took an opportunity of renouncing every association of country, and having mentioned the name of Scotland, he artfully corrected himself and said North Britain, and then in a parenthesis he had the audacity to insinuate that he wished the name of Ireland should also undergo a similar mutation, and be distinguished in future geographical arrangements as West Britain only. This shameless admission was sanctioned by an ap