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plauding shout from the "Gentlemen of England," wag although they encouraged the traitor, to serve their own purposes, must have secretly despised the meanness that could thus unblushingly exult in his own degradation.

Spring Rice possesses many of the requisites necessary for a parliamentary speaker; a fluent and graceful delivery, a good voice, a facility of intonation, the command of copious and appropriate expression, with a judicious arrangement of language, enable him to sustain a much greater consequence on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons than in the subordinate station he holds under his Whig patrons at the Treasury Board. He who is their best defender, who, in the attributes of oratory is at least their equal, takes his seat as their very humble servant and secretary at Whitehall. The controversy upon Repeal, which he had courted, was now commenced; the champions of either side were in the lists, and Irish scepticism in the indissolubility of the Union was to be reconciled by a course of reasoning, which, like the discussion of rival disputants in matters of religious faith, generally was likely to render that scepticism even more fastidiously attached to its own opinion than it was before the controversy commenced. Rival polemical disputants have mostly afforded unbelievers some advantages, derived from the different extremities to which they mutually drive each other; and the subject which was now to be investigated was likely to afford those who stood aloof from Unionism on one side, and simple Repeal on the other, abundant material to strengthen and confirm that speculation which they cherish, but have not yet ventured to extend by precept. Spring Rice rushed into the nature of the connexion between the two countries with a flippancy that deprived the important subject of much of its supposed importance, and discussed international interests in terms that considerably diminished preconceived notions of the reciprocal advantages that both England and Ireland enjoy from the compact of Union. I am to describe, however, the incidents of the debate, and the nature and tendency of the arguments used on both sides. Mr. O'Connell had occupied

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five hours during the delivery of his luminous and powerful address; and Spring Rice, having the advantage of a day's preparation, made himself up for a reply that should be equal to the service for which it was intended, by being commensurate at least in length; and from the prolongation of his arguments to a six-hour speech, it seemed as if his reliance. was placed more upon the length than the strength of his oratorical production.

On the conclusion of Lord Athorpe's speech, a number of voices called upon O'Connell. It was evident that the toleration of the House did not extend to the endurance of another speech. Mr. Lalor and Mr. E. Ruthven both had to give way to the inexorable rudeness that prevailed; and so impartial was the House in its determination to hear no more, that the efforts of the Unionists and Anti-Unionists were suppressed with equal promptitude. Mr. Shaw and Mr. William O'Reilly were denied a hearing, as well as the Members, for the Queen's County and Kildare. Mr. O'Reilly was the last that essayed to speak; and after he had been permitted to deliver a few sentences, a voice called out, in the most impatient tone, "O'Connell-O'Connell "" The Member for Dundalk looked towards the quarter from whence the voice proceeded, and said, "I wish I could find out the gentleman who called 'O'Connell,' and I would keep him here all night, only that I would not like to trespass upon the other Members of the House." It was rather an extraordinary threat of punishment for one who had so offended, and implied an acknowledgment of a very unflattering nature. "I will punish the person who has interrupted me," said the Member for Dundalk, "by compelling him to listen to me!"

Mr. O'Dwyer, taking advantage of a pause in the storm, attacked Mr. Shaw, whom he denounced as an agitator of the sinister school, which, coming at the close, relieved the tedium, of the debate by the dash of invective which he infused into it. The patience of the collective wisdom, however, would endure no longer; a simultaneous summons was given. O'Connell

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now approached to the table, and there was silence. He had not delivered more than one or two sentences, when we foresaw that his reply would be equal to any of his former displays of eloquence, he appeared to be now in the mood most favourable to the command of his peculiar powers. A degree of fierceness, tempered with levity, rendered him merciless in invective, and irresistible in ridicule to those who had provoked his retaliation by their personalities in the preceding debate. Animated almost to a degree of exultation, he seemed proud of the success that his motion had attained, and the great importance that even its antagonists had acknowledged to be attached to it. Confident that, notwithstanding the ablest leaders of the Whig and Tory parties had combined against his cause, that still their joint exertions had failed to discourage its friends, or to produce a crisis fatal to its advance, he commenced his reply under auspices so favorable, that it was impossible he could have been otherwise than what he was, throughout the entire of his address.

In replying to the personalities that had been used by many of the preceding speakers, it was expected that he would have severally taken up the individuals who had indulged in them, from the mover of the amendment down to the Member for Dundalk. This course, however, he judiciously avoided; but, in order that their conduct should not pass unnoticed, he selected from the band of his assailants one individual only, the most distinguished, because the most virulent of those who had followed his example during their participation in the debate. Before Mr. O'Connell had conmenced to reply, we observed Mr. Emerson Tennant suddenly leave his seat behind the treasury benches, and rush through one of the side-doors that lead to the members' gallery: there, removed beyond the eye which he anticipated would soon be endeavouring to mark him amongst the crowd below, he seemed to await the moment when the vial which he himself had filled, would be poured upon his head. It came, and shortly; for it was the first topic that he touched upon after his exordium. "The first person

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that assailed me," said the speaker, "was the Honourable Member for Belfast. I presume he is in his place."-" Hear!" said a voice from the gallery, and O'Connell continued :—“I am glad of it; and I now ask was there ever any thing more indiscreet in a government than to take such a person as a seconder of their motion? If I could have desired to have lessened the effect of what had fallen from me-if I had desired that my argument should have as little weight as possible in Ireland-if I had desired that my opinions should be disregarded there, the course which I should have taken, would be to have as my seconder a factious and furious partisan, who would have pronounced an invective against the people, their religion, and their clergy, and taunted as 'adventurers,' men upon whom he, at least, ought to be sparing in casting such an imputation. The Goverment knew that there was a corporation inquiry, to forward which the greatest anxiety has been expressed by them. Now, what has been done by the Hon. Member for Belfast? Why, with an equal love of truth and chivalry, he denounced, long since, that very inquiry as an inquisition, and assailed one of the commissioners in a manner that did not terminate very creditably to himself. This is one portion of his political conduct; and now look to a preceding part of his career. When the Reform Bill was to be carried, the modern Conservative was an old Republican. A pampered prelacy,' and the folly of an hereditary aristocracy,' were then his favourite topics; and these, too, were expected to be abolished by him, as blessings which should follow from the Reform Bill. And this-this is the person the government has selected as the seconder of their motion, and whom, also, they have enthusiastically cheered, when he assailed me! I shall not, however, retaliate; but I can imagine a being who would assail me so-a being, at one time exulting in all the fury of republicanism, then a speculating adventurer, and dwindling at last into a mean and mercenary political dandy; I can conceive such a being servile and sycophantic in one situation-petulant and presumptuous in another-calumnious and contemptible in all."

O'Connell occupied about fifty minutes in his reply, which

space, considering that he noticed almost every speaker of any importance that had opposed his motion, proves how successfully he must have condensed his arguments within that compass, and how little time he had for the exercise of any of those oratorical expedients by which public speakers are often enabled to produce a considerable effect. He succeeded, without the aid of any of these advantages, by the powerful energy of his own talents alone, and in despite of a predetermined and inexorable host by whom he was surrounded. If, as he said, his first speech was not intended for his audience, he made amends for the omission by adapting the second in a more decided manner to the minds of his brother members; and although it failed to array them upon his side at the division, the general acclamation that burst forth as he concluded, proved how far at least he had gained upon their admiration and respect.

On the House proceeding to a division, it was found that there were 523 to 38, against Mr. O'Connell's motion; thereby unequivocally establishing the sense which the British Legislature held of the policy of the Union, and at the same time demonstrating to Mr. O'Connell, that although he might, in his harangues to the Irish people, have promised them to obtain the repeal the Union, as one of his great parliamentary achievements; yet that he was far, very far from the fulfilment of the promise.

The Irish Coercion Bill introduced by the Whigs in 1833, met with the decided opposition of Mr. O'Connell; his efforts, however, were nearly useless, some trifling modifications in the penal clauses were all the practical good that resulted from his exertions. The parliamentary majority was sufficient to out-vote his amendments, if they could not disprove his arguments; yet, in the following year, when the ministry were anxious to renew this oppressive measure, a Member of the Cabinet, Mr. Littleton, the Irish Secretary, thought it prudent to consult O'Connell on the subject, and solicit his powerful aid in tranquillizing the country, and if possible to secure its quiet submission to this unconstitutional

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