"It is a matter of official avowal, and, we may add, of personal

and painful recollection, that, in 1840, we were unable to collect

a few hundred seamen to make a show of preparation.... When England

was vainly trying to scrape together a few hundred seamen, France

had (in _compagnies permanentes_) upwards of 3000 ready in the

Atlantic ports, and probably not less at Toulon.

"It is a fact as surprising as it is discreditable to England, that

_Russia could send thirty sail of the line to sea before England

could send three_.

"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, we might _build_ a ship in

the time required to _man_ one."

We add not a word of comment on these admirable passages. Further

illustration were worse than useless, after such words coming from such

quarters.

It is often said that all fears of invasion are ridiculous, after the

failure of Napoleon, who had 130,000 of the finest troops in the world

to effect it. The _Times_, with its usual ability, makes the most

of this argument. We accept the challenge: and, if we are not much

mistaken, that able journal will have no reason to congratulate itself

on having referred to that period for support of its argument:--

1. The regular land forces of France at that period were 450,000 men:

about the same as they are now. But now that Power has, in addition,

2,000,000 well-trained National Guards in arms, which, by rendering

her territory wellnigh unassailable, leaves her whole regular force

available for foreign expedition.

2. England had then 160,000 regular troops on foot, including 30,000

of the army of reserve, raised in the preceding years, of whom about

100,000 were in the British Islands. In 1808, the Duke of York reported

to Government that, without detriment to any necessary home service,

60,000 regulars could be spared for the Peninsula; and in 1809 she had

80,000 in active warfare--viz., 40,000 at Walcheren, 30,000 in Spain,

and 10,000 in Sicily.

3. In addition to this, she had 80,000 militia, quite equal to troops

of the line, in Great Britain and Ireland, besides 300,000 volunteers

in arms, tolerably drilled and full of spirit.

4. She had 83 ships of the line in commission, and 230 in all the royal

dockyards, and 508 vessels of war bore the royal flag.

5. She had a system of impressment in active operation, which in

effect gave the Admiralty the command, on an emergency, of the whole

sailors in the mercantile navy of Great Britain, as they successively

came into harbour: and the magnitude of the royal navy was such, and

its attractions--especially the hopes of prize-money and glory--so

powerful, that the sailors of the fleet were as much a _standing force_

as Napoleon's grenadiers.

6. Austria and Russia were then in close alliance, offensive and

defensive, with Great Britain, and 80,000 Muscovites, under Kutusoff,

were hastening through Poland and Moravia to join 90,000 Austrians, who

were on the Inn, threatening to invade Bavaria.

7. So instant was the danger, and so pressing the approach of a contest

with the two greatest military powers on the Continent, that Napoleon

was obliged to count not only by weeks but _by days_; and he had only

just time enough to close the war, as he himself said, by "a clap of

thunder on the Thames, before he would be called on to combat for his

existence on the Danube."

Such were the circumstances under which Napoleon then undertook his

long meditated and deeply laid project for the invasion and conquest

of Great Britain. His plan was to decoy Lord Nelson away to the West

Indies by a feigned expedition of the combined Toulon and Cadiz

fleets, and for them suddenly to return, join the Ferrol squadron,

pick up those of Rochefort and l'Orient, unite with that of Brest,

and with the united force, which would be sixty sail of the line,

proceed into the Channel, where it was calculated there would only

be twenty or twenty-five to oppose them; and, with this overwhelming

force, cover the embarkation of the 130,000 men whom he had collected

on the coast of the Channel. The plan was not original on the part of

Napoleon, though he had the whole merit of the organisation of the

stupendous armament which was to carry it into execution. The design

was originally submitted, in 1782, by M. de Bouillé to Louis XVI., and

Rodney's victory alone prevented it from being attempted at that time.

France's designs in this respect are fixed and unalterable: they were

the same under the mild and pacific Louis as the implacable Napoleon,

and suggested as ably by the chivalrous and loyal-hearted de Bouillé,

the author of the flight of the Royal family to Varennes, as by the

regicide Talleyrand, or the republican Décrès.[9]

Such was Napoleon's plan, formed on that of M. de Bouillé; and, vast

and complicated as it was, it all but succeeded. Indeed, its failure

was owing to a combination of circumstances so extraordinary that they

can never be expected to recur again; and even these are to be ascribed

rather to the good providence of God, than to anything done by man to

counteract it.

Nelson's fleet of ten line-of-battle ships pursued the combined fleet

of twenty from Cadiz to the West Indies; but they had four weeks

the start of him: and upon arriving there in the beginning of June,

he received intelligence that they had set sail ten days before

for Europe. Instantly divining their plan, he--without losing an

hour--despatched several fast-sailing brigs to warn the Admiralty of

their approach. One of these, the _Curieux_, which bore the fortunes

of England on its sails, outstripped all its competitors, and even

outsailed the combined fleet, so as to arrive at Portsmouth on the 9th

July. Without losing an hour, the Admiralty sent orders by telegraph to

Admiral Calder to join the Rochefort blockading squadron, and stand out

to sea, in order to intercept the enemy on his return to the European

seas. He did so; and with fifteen sail of the line met the combined

fleet of twenty, on the 15th July: engaged them, took two ships of the

line, and drove the fleet back into Ferrol; where, however, he was too

weak to blockade them, as their junction with the squadron there raised

their force to thirty ships of the line.

Though this was a severe check, it did not altogether disconcert

Napoleon. He sent orders to Villeneuve to set sail from Ferrol, and

join the Rochefort and Brest squadrons which were ready to receive

him, and which would have raised the combined fleet to fifty-five

line-of-battle ships, then to make straight for the Channel, where

Napoleon, with one hundred and thirty thousand men, and fifteen hundred

gun-boats and lesser craft, lay ready to embark. On the 21st August,

the Brest squadron, consisting of twenty-one sail of the line, under

Gantheaume, stood out to sea. Every eye was strained looking to the

south, where Villeneuve with thirty-five line-of-battle ships, was

expected to appear. What prevented the junction, and defeated this

admirably laid plan, which had thus obtained complete success so far

as it had gone--for Nelson was still a long way off, his fleet having

been wholly worn-out by their long voyage, and obliged to go into

Gibraltar to refit? It was this: Villeneuve set sail from Ferrol with

29 sail of the line, on the 11th August, but instead of proceeding to

the north--in conformity with his orders--to join Gantheaume off Brest,

HE STEERED FOR CADIZ, which he reached in safety on the 21st of August,

the very day on which he had been expected at Brest, without meeting

with Sir Robert Calder, who had fallen back into the Bay of Biscay. For

this disobedience of orders, Napoleon afterwards brought Villeneuve to

a court-martial, by which he was condemned.

This unaccountable disobedience of orders entirely defeated Napoleon's

scheme, for Austria was now on, the verge of invading Bavaria. He

accordingly at once changed his plan; and, as he could no longer hope

for a naval superiority in the Channel, before the Austrian invasion

took place, directed all his forces to repel the combined Austrian and

Russian forces in Bavaria and Italy. On September 1, his whole army

received orders to march from the heights of Boulogne to the banks of

the Danube. On the 20th October, Mack defiled, with thirty thousand

men as prisoners before him, on the heights of Ulm; and on the day

after--October 21--Nelson defeated Villeneuve at Trafalgar, took

nineteen ships of the line, and ruined seven more. Between that battle

and the subsequent one of Sir R. Strachan, thirty ships of the line

were taken or destroyed; all hope of invasion for the remainder of the

war was at an end; and "ships, colonies, and commerce" had irrevocably

passed to Napoleon's enemies.

Such was the extraordinary and apparently providential combination

of circumstances which defeated this great plan of Napoleon for the

invasion of this country--a plan which, he repeatedly said, was the

best combined and most deeply laid of any he had ever formed in his

life. Its failure was owing to accident, or some overruling cause which

cannot be again relied on. Had the _Curieux_ not made the shortest

passage ever then known, from Antigua--twenty-four days; had Villeneuve

reached the Channel unexpectedly on the 20th or 21st July, as he would

have done but for its arrival--had he even sailed for Brest on the

11th August, as ordered, _instead of to Cadiz_, the invasion would in

all human probability have taken place. What its result would have

been is a very different question. With a hundred and eighty thousand

regular troops and militia in arms in the British Islands, besides

three hundred thousand volunteers, the conflict must at least have

been a very desperate one. But what would it be now, when the French

and Russians have greater land forces to invade us; when their naval

superiority, at least in the outset of the contest, would be much more

decisive; and, with a much more divided and discontented population

at home, we could only--at the very utmost--oppose them with fifty

thousand effective men in both islands, in the field.

It is often said by persons who know nothing of war, either by study or

experience, that "if the French invaded us, we would all rise up and

crush them." Setting aside what need not be said to any man who knows

anything of the subject--the utter inadequacy of an unarmed, untrained,

and undisciplined body of men, however individually brave, to repel the

attack of a powerful regular army--we shall by one word settle this

matter of the nation rising up. It would rise up, and we know what it

would do. The _most influential part of it, at least in the towns, who

now rule the state, would run away_. We do not mean run away from the

field; for, truly, very few of those who now raise the cry for economy

and disarming would be found there. We mean they would counsel, and,

in fact, insist on submission. Many brave men would doubtless be found

in the towns, and multitudes in the country, who would be eager at the

posts of danger; but the great bulk of the wealthy and influential

classes, at least in the great cities, would loudly call out for an

accommodation on any terms. They would surrender the fleets, dismantle

Portsmouth and Plymouth, cede Gibraltar and Malta--_anything to stop

the crisis_. They would do so for the same reason that they now so

earnestly counsel disbanding the troops and selling the ships of the

line, and under the influence of a much more cogent necessity--in

order to be able to continue without interruption the making of money.

Peace, peace! would be the universal cry, at least among the rich

in the towns, as it was in Paris in 1814. There would be no thought

of imitating the burning of Moscow, or renewing the sacrifice of

Numantia. The feeling among the vast majority of the manufacturing

and mercantile classes would be--"What is the use of fighting and

prolonging so terrible a crisis? Our workmen are starving, our harbours

are blockaded, our trade is gone, we are evidently overmatched; let

us on any terms get out of the contest, and sit quietly on our cotton

bags, to make money by weaving cloth for our conquerors."

We have said enough, we think, to make every thoughtful and impartial

mind contemplate with the most serious disquietude the prospect which

is before us, under our present system of cheapening everything,

and, as a necessary consequence, reducing the national armaments to

a pitiable degree of weakness in the midst of general hostility, and

the greatest possible increase of available forces on the part of all

our neighbours, rivals, and enemies. But let us suppose that we are

_entirely wrong_ in all we have hitherto advanced--that there is not

the slightest danger of an invasion or blockade from foreign powers, or

that our home forces are so considerable as to render any such attempt

on their part utterly hopeless. There are three other circumstances,

the direct effects of our present Free Trade policy, any one of which

is fully adequate in no distant period to destroy our independence, and

from the combined operation of which nothing but national subjugation

and ultimate ruin can be anticipated.

The first is the extraordinary and appalling increase which, since Free

Trade was introduced, has taken place in the proportion of the daily

food of our population which is furnished by _foreign states_. Before

the great change in our policy began, the nation had been rendered,

practically speaking, self-supporting. The importation of wheat, for

the five years from 1830 to 1835, was only 398,000 quarters; and

even during the five bad years in succession, from 1836 to 1841, the

average importation was only 1,700,000 quarters. From 1830 to 1840, the

average importation of wheat and flour was only 907,000 quarters.[10]

But since the great change of 1846, the state of matters has been so

completely changed that it is now notorious that, in ordinary years,

the importations cannot be expected to be ever less than 9,000,000

or 10,000,000 quarters of grain, about 5,000,000 quarters of which

consists of wheat.[11] The importation in the single month of July

last, in the face of prices about 42s. the quarter, was no less than

1,700,000 quarters of all sorts of grain;[12] and in the month ending

November 5, with prices about 39s. 9d. the quarter of wheat, the

importation was:--

Quarters.

Wheat, 309,162

Other grain, 181,753

Indian corn, 36,412

Flour and meal, 194,700

-------

721,657

--Price, 39s. 9d. quarter of wheat.

The average of prices for the last twelve weeks has been 39s. 9d. the

quarter; but the importation goes on without the least diminution, and

accordingly the _Mark Lane Express_ of December 28, 1850, observes,--

"In the commencement of the year now about to terminate, an opinion

was very prevalent that prices of grain (more especially those of

wheat) had been somewhat unduly depressed; and it was then thought

that, even with Free Trade, the value of the article would not for

any lengthened period be kept down below the cost of production

in this country. The experience of the last twelve months has,

however, proved that this idea was erroneous; for, with a crop

very much inferior to that of 1849, quotations have, on the whole,

ruled lower, the average price for the kingdom for the year 1850

being only about 40s., whilst that for the preceding twelve months

was 44s. 4d. per quarter. This fact is, we think, sufficient _to

convince all parties that, so long as the laws of import remain

as they now stand, a higher range of prices than that we have had

since our ports have been thrown open cannot be safely reckoned

on_. The experiment has now had two years' trial; the first was

one in which a considerable failure of the potato crop took place

in England and Ireland; and this season we have had a deficient

harvest of almost all descriptions of grain over the whole of Great

Britain. If, under these circumstances, foreign growers have found

no difficulty in furnishing supplies so extensive as to keep down

prices here at a point at which farmers have been unable to obtain

a fair return for their industry and interest for the capital

employed, we can hardly calculate on more remunerating rates during

fair average seasons. Under certain combinations of circumstances

prices may, perhaps, at times be somewhat higher; but viewing the

matter on the broad principle, we feel satisfied that, with Free

Trade, the producers of wheat will rarely receive equal to 5s. per

bushel for their crop."

Accordingly, so notorious has this fact become, and so familiar have

the public become with it, that it has become a common-place remark,

which is making the round of all the newspapers without exciting any

attention, that the food of 7,000,000 of our people has come to depend

on supplies from foreign countries. In fact a much larger proportion

than this, of the wheaten food of the country, comes from abroad;

for the total wheat consumed in Great Britain and Ireland is under

15,000,000 quarters, and the importation of wheat is from 4,000,000 to

5,000,000 quarters, which is about a third. And of the corresponding

_decrease_ in our own production of grain, a decisive proof has been

afforded by the decline since 1846 in wheat grown in Ireland, the only

part of the empire where such returns are made, which has stood thus:--

Acres.

1848, 1,084,000

1849, 511,000

1850, 674,000[13]

---------

Now, assuming--as experience warrants us in doing--this state of

matters to be permanent, and the growth of wheat in the British Islands

to be progressively superseded by importations from abroad, how is

the _national independence_ to be maintained, when a _fourth of our

people_ have come to depend on foreign supplies for their daily food?

Nearly all this grain, be it recollected, comes from two countries

only--Russia, or Poland which it governs, and America. If these two

powers are desirous of beating down the naval superiority, or ruining

the commerce and manufactures of Great Britain, they need not fit out a

ship of the line, or embark a battalion to effect their purpose; they

have only to pass a _Non-Intercourse Act_, as they both did in 1811,

and wheat will at once rise to 120s. the quarter in this country; and

in three months we must haul down our colours, and submit to any terms

they may choose to dictate.

In another respect our state of dependence is still greater, for we

rest almost entirely on the supplies obtained from a _single_ state. No

one need be told that five-sixths, often nine-tenths, of the supply of

cotton consumed in our manufactures come from America, and that seven

or eight hundred thousand persons are directly or indirectly employed

in the operations which take place upon it. Suppose America wishes to

bully us, to make us abandon Canada or Jamaica for example, she has

no need to go to war. She has only to stop the export of cotton for

six months, and the whole of our manufacturing counties are starving

or in rebellion; while a _temporary_ cessation of profit is the only

inconvenience they experience on the other side of the Atlantic. Can

we call ourselves independent in such circumstances? We might have

been independent: Jamaica, Demerara, and India, _might_ have furnished

cotton enough for all our wants. Why, then, do they not do so? The

mania of cheapening everything has done it all. We have ruined the West

Indies by emancipating the negroes, and then admitting foreign sugar

all but on the same terms as our own, and therefore cotton cannot be

raised to a profit in those rich islands--for _continuous_ labour, of

which the emancipated negroes are incapable, is indispensable to its

production. In the East Indies, the cultivation of cotton has not been

able to make any material progress, because the mania of Free Trade

lets in American cotton, grown at half the expense, without protection.

We have sold our independence, not like Esau, for a mess of pottage,

but for a bale of cotton.

In the next place, the progressive and rapid decrease in our shipping,

and increase of the foreign employed in carrying on our trade, since

the Navigation Laws were repealed, is so great that from that quarter

also the utmost danger to our independence may be anticipated. We need

not remind our readers how often and earnestly we have predicted that

this effect must take place; and we shall now proceed to show how

completely, to the very letter, these prognostics have been verified:--

The shipping returns of the Board of Trade, for the month ending the

5th of November, present the following results:--

TONNAGE FOR THE MONTH ENDING NOV. 5.

Entered inwards--

1849. 1850.

British vessels, 370,393 326,058

United States vessels, 30,677 54,164

Other countries, 67,733 140,397

------- -------

468,803 520,619

--_Times_, Dec. 7, 1850.

The general results for the ten months, from January 1, 1850, when

the repeal of the Navigation Laws took effect, to October 31, are as

follows, and have been thus admirably stated by Mr Young:--

"In the year 1840, the total amount of tonnage entered inwards,

in the foreign trade of the United Kingdom, was 4,105,207 tons,

of which 2,307,367 were British, and 1,297,840 foreign. In 1845,

the British tonnage had advanced to 3,669,853, and the foreign to

1,353,735, making an aggregate of 5,023,588 tons. In 1849, the

British entries were 4,390,375, the foreign 1,680,894--together

6,071,269 tons. Thus, in ten years, with a growing commerce, but

under protection, British tonnage had progressively increased

1,583,008 tons, or 56-1/3 per cent.; and foreign 383,054 tons, or

29-1/2 per cent. At this point, protection was withdrawn. Free

navigation has now been ten months in operation, and the following

is the result:--

"The aggregate inward entries during the ten months ended the 5th

of November 1849, were 5,081,592 tons, of which 3,651,589 were

British, and 1,430,003 foreign. During the corresponding ten months

ending the 5th of November of the present year, the aggregate

entries are 5,114,064 tons, the British being 3,365,033, and the

foreign 1,749,031. Thus, comparing the first ten months after the

repeal of the Navigation Laws with the corresponding ten months

of the preceding year, when those laws were in operation, we find

that British tonnage _has decreased within this brief period no

less than 286,556, or 8-1/10 per cent, while foreign tonnage has

increased to the enormous extent of 319,028 tons_, or 22-3/10 per

cent, the whole entries having advanced only 32,472 tons--thus

showing that our maritime commerce has not been augmented in any

appreciable degree by the alteration, but that it has simply

changed hands. The foreigner has taken what we have madly

surrendered. I may add, that never was the state, and never were

the prospects, of shipowners so gloomy. Freights in all parts of

the world are unprecedentedly low, and, for the first time within

my recollection, ships are actually returning from the British West

Indies in ballast.

"Could I regard the whole subject with less of humiliating

apprehension for my country, I might derive satisfaction from the

confirmation of many predictions on which I have formerly ventured,

afforded by an analysis of the return from which the melancholy

result I have exhibited is taken. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia,

and Germany--countries whose rivalry you have repeatedly derided

as undeserving of attention--have increased in the ten months

from 502,454 tons to 796,200 tons, or 58-4/10 per cent. But I

forbear. While all Europe bristles with bayonets, the loom and the

spindle seem to be regarded as the chosen defences of this now

the most unwarlike nation on the face of the earth. Wellington,

and Ellesmere, and Napier have in vain essayed to arouse England

to solicitude for her national defences; and till some imminently

impending alarm shall awaken my countrymen to a sense of the

insecurity in which they are unconsciously reposing, I almost dread

they will accept the unworthy advice recently tendered to them by

the unadorned oracle of Free Trade, to run every risk rather than

incur any expense. It is thus that, under the illusory expectation

of the most infinitesimally minute reduction in the freight of

imported commodities, the hazard of leaving our navy unmanned is

overlooked or disregarded."

In the single harbour of Liverpool, the decrease of British shipping,

in the year 1850, has been _no less than_ 100,000 _tons_; while the

foreign has swelled from 56,400 to 126,700.[14] If such has been the

result in less than one year, what may be anticipated if the system

continues three or four years longer? It is quite evident that the

foreign tonnage employed in conducting our trade will come to exceed

the British, and then, of course, our independence and maritime

superiority are alike at an end.

The Free-Traders, in answer to this appalling statement, say that the

entries outward exhibit a different and less unfavourable result.

Without referring to the authority of Mr Huskisson, who stated what is

well-known to all men practically engaged with the subject, that the

outward entries afford no correct data for judging of trade returns,

it may be sufficient to remark that the difference is mainly owing, in

the present instance, to the prodigious multitude of our _emigrants_

to America, the shipping employed in conveying whom is estimated

at 240,000 tons. The Free-Traders first, by their final measures,

drive some 300,000 of our industrious inhabitants out of the country

annually, in quest of the employment which they have lost at home, and

then they rest on the tonnage required to convey them away, in order to

conceal the effect of Free Trade in shipping on our mercantile marine!

They are welcome to the whole benefit which they can derive from the

double effect of Free Trade, first on our people, and then on our

shipping.

These considerations become the more forcible when it is considered, in

the third place, what immediate and imminent risk there is that either

our principal colonies will ere long declare themselves independent,

or that they will be abandoned without a struggle by our Free-Trade

rulers. Now, the tonnage between Great Britain and Canada is about

1,200,000 tons, and to the West Indies somewhat above 170,000. Fourteen

hundred thousand British tons are taken up with our trade to these _two

colonies alone_; and if they become independent states, that tonnage

will, to the extent of more than a half, slip from our grasp--as

they have the materials of shipbuilding at their door, which we have

not. Eight or nine hundred thousand tons will by that change at once

be severed from the British Empire and added to the foreign tonnage

employed in carrying on our trade, which is now about 2,200,000 tons.

That will raise it to above 3,000,000 tons, or fully a half of our

whole tonnage, foreign and British--which is, in round numbers, about

6,000,000 tons. The intention of Government to abandon our colonies

to themselves has been now openly announced. Earl Grey's declaration

of his resolution to withdraw all our troops, except a mere handful,

from Australia, is obviously the first step in the general abandonment

of the colonies to their own resources, and, of course, their speedy

disjunction from the British Empire. As the separation of Canada and

the West Indies is an event which may ere long be looked for--not less

from the universal discontents of the colonies, who have lost by Free

Trade their only interest in upholding the connection with the British

Empire, than from the growing disinclination of our Free Trade rulers

to continue much longer the burdens and expense consequent on their

government--it is evident that, the moment it happens, the foreign

ships employed in carrying on our trade will outnumber the British.

From that moment the nursery for our seamen, and with it the means of

maintaining our maritime superiority and national independence, are

at an end. And as this separation will, to all human appearance, take

place the moment that we are involved in a European war--which, with

the aggressive policy of our Foreign Minister, may any day be looked

for--this is perhaps the most immediate and threatening danger which

menaces the British Empire.

When the magnitude and variety of the perils which Free Trade and the

cheapening system have brought upon the British empire are taken into

consideration, it may appear extraordinary that the foreign powers,

_who are perfectly aware of it all_, do not at once step forward and

secure for themselves the rich prize which we so invitingly tender to

their grasp. But the reason is not difficult to be discerned. They know

what England once was, and they see whither, under the new system, she

is tending. They anticipate our subjugation, or at least our abrogation

of the rank and pretensions of an independent power, at no distant

period, from our own acts, without their interfering in the matter at

all. They are fearful, if they move too soon, of committing the same

fault which the Pope has recently done, on the suggestion of Cardinal

Wiseman. They are afraid of opening the eyes of the nation, by any

overt act, to the dangers accumulating around them, before it is so

thoroughly debilitated by the new system that any resistance would be

hopeless, and therefore will never be attempted. They hope, and with

reason, to see us ruined and cast down by our own acts, without their

firing a shot. Their feeling is analogous to Napoleon's on the morning

of the battle of Austerlitz, when the Allies were making their fatal

cross-march in front of the heads of his columns, and exposing their

flank to his attack. When urged by his generals to give the signal for

an immediate advance, he replied--"Wait! when the enemy is making a

false movement, which will prove fatal if continued, it is not our part

to interrupt him in it."

What, then, is the advantage which the Free-Traders have to set off

against these obvious and appalling dangers, past, present, and to

come, with which their policy is attended? It is this, and this

only--that the manufacturing towns are prosperous, and that our exports

are increasing. They point with exultation to the following statement:--

"The aggregate value of our exports, during the first ten months of

the present year, has been L.55,038,206, against L.49,398,648 in

the like period of 1849, showing an increase of L.5,639,558, which

has occurred in the following order:

Increase. Decrease.

£ £

Month ending

February 5, 858,285 --

March 5, 556,746 --

April 5, 418,089 --

May 5, 1,398,232 --

June 5, 1,604,623 --

July 5, 427,090 --

August 5, -- 334,858

Sept. 5, -- 279,961

Oct. 10, 807,742 --

Nov. 5, 183,570 --

--_Times_, Nov. 10."

Now, let it be supposed that this increase, which will amount to less

than L.7,000,000 in our exports in the whole year, is all to be set

down to the credit of Free Trade. Let us suppose that Californian gold,

which has given so unparalleled a stimulus to America, and the lowering

the discounts of the Bank of England to 2-1/2 per cent--which has

done so much, as it always does, to vivify industry and raise prices

at home--and the pacification of Germany by Muscovite influences or

bayonets, which have again, after the lapse of two years, opened the

Continental markets to our produce, have had nothing at all to do with

this increase in our exports,--what, after all, does it amount to, and

what, on striking the balance of profit and loss of Free Trade, has the

nation lost or gained by its adoption?

It has increased our exports by L.7,000,000 at the very utmost; and as

the total produce of our manufactures is about L.180,000,000, this is

an addition of _a twenty-fifth part_. It has made four or five hundred

thousand persons employed in the export manufactures prosperous for

the time, and increased, by five or six hundred thousand pounds in

the last year, the incomes of some eighty or a hundred mill-owners or

millionnaires.

_Per contra._ 1. It has lowered the value of agricultural produce

of every kind fully twenty-five per cent, and that in the face of a

harvest very deficient in the south of England. As the value of that

produce, prior to the Free-Trade changes, was about L.300,000,000

a-year, it has _cut L.75,000,000 off the remuneration for agricultural

industry over the two islands_.

2. It has cut as much off the funds available to the purchase of

articles of our manufacture in the home market; for if the land, which

pays above half the income tax, is impoverished, how are the purchasers

at home to find funds to buy goods?

3. It has totally destroyed the West Indies--colonies which, before

the new system began, raised produce to the value of L.22,000,000, and

remitted at least L.5,000,000 annually, in the shape of rent, profits,

and taxes, to this country.

4. It has induced such ruin in Ireland, that the annual emigration,

which chiefly comes from that agricultural country, last year (1849)

reached 300,000 souls, and this year, it is understood, will be still

greater.[15] This is as great a chasm in our population as the Moscow

retreat, or the Leipsic campaign, made in that of France; but it

excites no sort of attention, or rather the pressure of unemployed

labour is felt to be so excessive, that it is looked on rather as a

blessing. The _Times_ observes, on January 1, 1851:--

"We see the population of Ireland flowing off to the United

States in one continuous and unfailing stream, at a rate that in

twenty years, if uninterrupted, _will reduce them to a third of

their present numbers_. We see at the same time an increasing

emigration from this island. England has so long been accustomed

to regard excess of population as the only danger, that she will

be slow to weigh as seriously as perhaps she ought _this rapid

subtraction of her sinew and bone, and consequent diminution of

physical strength_. It is impossible, however, that so considerable

a change should be attended with unmixed advantage, or that

human forethought should be able to compass all the results. The

census of next spring may invite attention to a subject, the very

magnitude of which may soon command our anxiety."

5. It has totally ruined the West Highlands of Scotland, which depend

on two staples--kelp and black cattle--the first of which has been

destroyed by free trade in barilla, and the second ruined by free trade

in cattle, for the benefit of our manufacturing towns, and sent their

cottars in starving bands to Glasgow, already overwhelmed by above

L.100,000 a-year of poor-rates.

6. It has so seriously affected the internal resources of the country,

that, with a foreign trade prosperous beyond what has been seen since

1845, the revenue is only L.165,000 more than it was in the preceding

year, which was one of great depression; and the last quarter has

produced L.110,000 less than the corresponding quarter of 1849.

7. It has so lowered the _incomes_ of people in the country, that

although the number of travellers by railways has greatly increased,

and the total receipts of the lines have been swelled by L.1,700,000

since last year, the mileage _has decreased_-proving, that the

_general_ traffic of the country bears no adequate proportion to its

railway lines. It stands thus,--

1849. 1850.

Mileage on 6257 miles, L.2302 L.2247

--_Times._

which is a _fall_ of L.55 a mile in the midst of our boasted prosperous

export trade.

Such are the _advantages_, in consideration of which the nation has

embarked on a course of policy which so evidently, and in so many ways,

threatens our independence. It is class government which has done it

all--the determination to make the sovereign worth two sovereigns, and

a day's labour to the poor man worth one shilling to him instead of

two, which has induced dangers in every quarter, which threaten the

existence of Great Britain. Why is it that we are constrained--though

Government are perfectly aware of the danger, and the Duke of

Wellington has repeatedly pointed it out--to have a military and naval

force evidently incommensurate to the wants of our vast empire, and

unable to defend it from the hostility which our foreign policy does

so much to provoke? Simply because we have surrendered the government

of the country to a moneyed oligarchy, who are resolved, _coute qui

coute_, to cheapen everything, because it enhances the value of their

realised wealth, and because the measures of that oligarchy have cut

down Queen Victoria's income from £100,000,000--as it might have been,

and _is now, in real weight upon the country_[16]--to £50,000,000;

just as they have reduced the income of the poor needlewomen from

9d. a-day to 4-1/2d. Why is it that we are constrained, openly and

avowedly, to abandon our colonies to their own resources? Only because

the cheapening system and Free Trade have so paralysed and weakened our

resources, that, like the Romans, if we would protect at all the heart

of the empire, we must forthwith abandon its extremities.

Why are we evidently and undeniably losing the empire of the seas, by

the rapid and portentous increase of the foreign and decline of the

English shipping, in carrying on our own trade? Only because freights

must, it is thought, be cheapened as well as everything else; and the

independence of the country is a trifling consideration to a fall of

a farthing in the pound, in the transport of some articles, for the

benefit of the Manchester trader. Why are the West Indies utterly

ruined, and the annual importation of slaves into Cuba and Brazil

doubled,[17] and discontent so universally spread through our colonies,

that beyond all doubt, in the first reverse, they will break off from

the mother country, if not previously thrown off by it? Merely to carry

out the dogma of Free Trade, and lower sugar, watered by the blood of

the slaves, a penny or twopence a pound to the British consumer. Why

have we brought 7,000,000 of our people, in three years, to depend for

their daily food on foreign supplies, and put ourselves entirely at

the mercy of the _two states_ from which nearly all that food comes?

Only to enrich the Manchester manufacturers, and appease the cry for

cheap bread, by enabling them to beat down the wages of labour from

1s. 6d. to 1s. a-day. Why are poor-rates--measured in the true way,

by quarters of grain--heavier in this year of boasted prosperity than

they were in any former year of admitted adversity? Because, in every

department of industry, we have beat down native by letting in a flood

of foreign industry. Why are 300,000 industrious citizens annually

driven into exile, and Ireland threatened with a depopulation the most

rapid and extraordinary which has been witnessed in the world since

the declining days of the Roman empire? Because we would lower wheat

from 56s. to 39s. a quarter; and thereby we have extinguished the

profits of cultivation in a portion of our empire containing 8,000,000

of inhabitants, but so exclusively agricultural that its exports

of manufactures are only £230,000 a-year. It is one principle--the

cheapening system--devised by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy,

and calculated for their exclusive benefit, which has done the whole.

Is there, then, no remedy for these various, accumulating, and most

threatening evils? Must we sit down with our hands across, supinely

witnessing the progressive dangers and certain ultimate destruction of

the empire, merely because the measures inducing all these perils are

supported by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy who have got the

command of the House of Commons? We are far from thinking that this

is the case; but if we would avert, or even mitigate our dangers, we

must set ourselves first to remedy the most pressing. Of these, the

most serious, beyond all question, are to be found in our unprotected

state,--for they may destroy us as a nation in a month, after some

fresh freak of Lord Palmerston's has embroiled us with some of the

great European powers. In regard to other matters, and the general

commercial policy, the danger, though not the less real, is not so

immediate, and experience may perhaps enlighten the country before

it is too late. But it is otherwise with our external dangers: they

are instant and terrible. The means of resisting them are perfectly

simple--they will be felt as a burden by none; on the contrary, they

are calculated, at the same time that they provide for our national

defence, to mitigate the greater part of the domestic evils under which

the people labour.

Government tell us that they have a surplus of L.3,000,000 this year in

their hands. We hope it is so, and that it will not prove, like other

surpluses, greater on paper than in reality. But let it be assumed that

it is as large as is represented. _That surplus, judiciously applied,

would save the country!_ It would raise our armaments to such a point

as, with the advantages of our insular situation, and long-established

warlike fame, would prevent all thoughts of invasion on the part of

our enemies. It would give us 100,000 regular troops, with those we

already have--100,000 militia, occasionally called out--and 25 ships

of the line, with those already in commission, to defend the British

shores. It is true, the continuance of the Income Tax cannot be relied

on--nor should the country submit to it any longer; for a tax which is

paid exclusively by 147,000 persons out of 28,000,000, is so obviously

unjust, that its further retention is probably impossible. Additional

direct taxation upon the affluent classes is obviously out of the

question, for the chasms made in the incomes of those depending on

land, who pay three-fourths of it, are such that it would prove totally

unproductive. What, then, is to be done to uphold the public revenue

at its present amount, or even prevent its sinking so as to increase

instead of diminishing our helpless and unprotected state? An obvious

expedient remains. Imitate the conduct of America and Prussia, France

and Russia, and all countries who have any regard either to their

national independence, or the social welfare of their inhabitants. Lay

a moderate duty upon all importations, whether of rude or manufactured

articles. In America it is 30 per cent, and constitutes nearly their

sole source of revenue: in Prussia it is practically 40 or 50 per

cent. By this means nearly _half the tax is paid by foreigners_--for

competition forces them to sell the articles taxed cheaper than their

ordinary price, with the addition of the tax. It is spread over so vast

a surface among consumers, that its weight is not felt; being mixed up

with the price of the article sold, its weight is not perceived. We pay

in this way half the taxes of America, Germany, and all the countries

to whom we chiefly export our manufactures. Let us return them the

compliment, and adopt a system which will make them pay the half of

ours. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the Income Tax, which now

produces L.5,400,000 a-year, would by this change be spent in increased

purchases in the home market, and sensibly relieve its sinking state.

This change would at once obviate our external dangers--for it would

enable Government, without sensibly burdening the country, to maintain

the national armaments on such a scale as to bid defiance to foreign

attack. We shall see in our succeeding paper whether it would not, at

the same time, be an effectual remedy, and the only one that would be

practicable, to the most serious part of our domestic evils.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "We have now lying before us both the printed and manuscript

copy of the petition of a valued friend (the late Rev. W. Howells,

of Long Acre) against the bill for granting to Roman Catholics the

privilege of paralysing the hands and obstructing the labour of

Protestant statesmen. At page 92, in the Memoirs of that eminent man,

published by his friend and executor, Mr Bowdler, our readers will

find that petition speaking with little less than prophetic voice

of the confusion and misery certain to follow a measure which every

Protestant, in proportion to the clearness of his views of Divine

truth, must consider a downright infraction of his allegiance to his

God.

"We quote three of the clauses in the petition alluded to, and we ask

whether the fears therein expressed have not been fulfilled to the very

letter:--

"'That the concession of the elective franchise has not only multiplied

the crimes and aggravated the miseries of Ireland, but shaken likewise

the very foundation of the glorious British constitution, the majority

of Irish votes being virtually at the disposal of a demoralising,

disloyal, turbulent, and traitorous priesthood.

"'That the concession of the representative franchise would be

productive of further and progressive evils, and enable Romanists

either to prosecute a successful crusade for supremacy, or involve the

country in all the horrors of a civil war.

"'That the grant of the representative franchise would soon introduce

into the British Senate such an influx of members from each side the

Channel, as would, by voting together on all occasions of emergency,

control your honourable house and the other estates of the realm,

DICTATE TO THE MINISTERS OF THE CROWN, AND FORCE THEM INTO ANY MEASURES

they pleased.'"

* * * * *

"LORD ELDON'S PREDICTIONS IN 1829, ON THE THIRD READING OF THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.

"The following predictions of this venerable nobleman were at the

time sneered at as the senile and effete expressions of a bigoted

octogenarian. What a lesson has he left to those who now hold the

rudder of the state in their hands!--

"'I know that, sooner or later, this bill will overturn the aristocracy

and the monarchy. What I have stated is my notion of the danger to

the Establishment. Have they not Roman Catholic archbishops for every

Protestant archbishop--Roman Catholic deans for every Protestant dean?

Did not the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics dispute against Henry VIII.

in defence of the power of the Pope? and in Mary's time were not the

laws affecting the Roman Catholics repealed, not by the authority of

Parliament, but through the influence of the Pope's legate? And even

though you suppress these Roman Catholics who utter these seditious,

treasonable, abominable, and detestable speeches, others will arise

who will utter speeches more treasonable, more abominable, and more

detestable. No sincere Roman Catholic could or did look for less than

a Roman Catholic king and a Roman Catholic parliament. Their lordships

might flatter themselves that the dangers he had anticipated were

visionary, and God forbid that he should say, that those who voted for

the third reading of the bill will not have done so conscientiously,

believing that no danger exists or can be apprehended from it. But in

so voting, they had not that knowledge of the danger in which they

were placing the great, the paramount interests of this Protestant

state,--they had not that knowledge of its true interests and

situation, which they ought to have. Those with whom we are dealing

are too wary to apprise you by any indiscreet conduct of the danger to

which you are exposed. When those dangers shall have arrived, I shall

have been consigned to the urn, the sepulchre, and mortality; but that

they will arrive, I have no more doubt than that I yet continue to

exist.'"--_Bell's Life in London_, Dec. 21, 1850.

[4] Sidney Smith.

[5] JAMES'S _Naval History_, vol. i., Appendix.

[6] See _Saxe Gotha Almanac_, 1851, p. 415, 461.

[7] _Almanach de Gotha_, 1851, 466.

[8] ADMIRAL BOWLES' Pamphlet, 1840--_Suggestions for the more speedy

Equipment and better Manning of her Majesty's Navy_.

[9] The Author is in possession of M. de Bouillé's memoir to Louis

XVI., on this subject, in 1782, which is identically the same as

Napoleon afterwards put in execution. He owes this valuable historical

document to the kindness of his esteemed friend, Admiral Sir George

Seymour, who got it in the West Indies, whither a copy of it had been

sent.

[10] PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, p. 138, 2d. edition.

[11] "The official returns of the importations of grain, &c., into the

United Kingdom have not yet been completed; but for the eleven months

ending 5th of December 1850, the quantities were--

Wheat, 3,453,876 qrs.

Barley, 994,754 ...

Oats, 1,145,705 ...

Rye, 94,078 ...

Beans, 418,258 ...

Pease, 167,633 ...

Maize, 1,240,075 ...

Flour, 3,286,749 cwts.

---------

In 11 months 8,610,295

Which is at the rate, with prices at 39s. 9d., of 9,500,000 quarters

a-year."--_Morning Post_, Jan. 7, 1851.

[12] LONDON, WEEK ENDING JULY 12, 1850.

ARRIVALS.

Wheat. Barley. Oats. Malt.

English, 1,990 50 580 ...

Irish, ... ... ... ...

Foreign, 14,810 10,040 18,110 ...

Flour, English, 3,140 sacks.

--_Times_, July 17.

[13] Captain Larcom's Report. We quote from memory; but the above

figures are near the truth.

[14] _Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1851, p. 399, note.

[15]

1849. 1850.

Emigrants from Liverpool, 152,860 174,427

[16] £100,000,000 in quarters of wheat at 80s., 25,000,000 quarters;

£50,000,000 in quarters of wheat at 40s., 25,000,000. So that, after

all our boasted reductions, our taxes are now _thirty per cent_ heavier

than they were in the heaviest year of the war, when they were only

£72,000,000.

[17] See a most admirable pamphlet by Mr Stanley, the worthy inheritor

of his father's genius and patriotic spirit. The slaves imported into

Cuba have increased since 1847 from 23,000 to 50,000.

CURRAN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.[18]

A noble land lies in desolation. Years pass over it, leaving its aspect

only more desolate; the barbarian takes possession of the soil, or

the outcast makes it his place of refuge. Its palaces are in ruins,

its chieftains are in the dust; its past triumphs are regarded as the

exaggerations of romance, or the fond fantasies of fable. At length

a man of intelligence and vigour comes, delves into the heart of the

soil, breaks up the mound, throws aside the wrecks of neglect and time,

opens to us the foundations of palaces, the treasure-chambers of kings,

the trophies of warriors, and gives the world the memorials of a great

people in the grave.

All analogy _must_ be imperfect in detail; and we have no desire to

insist on the perfection of our analogy between the Golden Head of the

East, and the little kingdom whose fallen honours are recorded in the

volume before us. But, if Ireland is even now neither the _nominis

umbra_ which the Assyrian empire has been for so many ages, nor the

Irish legislature the heir of the fierce and falcon-eyed council which

sleeps in the sepulchres of Nineveh, there is something of a curious

relationship in the adventurous industry which has so lately exhumed

the monuments of Eastern grandeur, and the patriotic reminiscence which

has retrieved the true glories of the sister country, the examples of

her genius, from an oblivion alike resulting from the misfortunes of

the Land and the lapse of Time.

Nor are we altogether inclined to admit the inferiority of the moral

catastrophe of the Island to the physical fall of the Empire. If there

be an inferiority, we should place it on the side of the Oriental

throne. To us, all that belongs to mind assumes the higher rank; the

soil trodden by the philosopher and the patriot, the birthplace of the

poet and the orator, bears a prouder aspect, is entitled to a more

reverent homage, and creates richer recollections in the coming periods

of mankind, than all the pomp of unintellectual power. There would

be to us a stronger claim in the fragments of an Athenian tomb, or in

the thicket-covered wall of a temple in the Ægean, than in all the

grandeurs of Babylon.

It is now fifty years since the parliament of Ireland fell; and,

in that period, there has not been a more disturbed, helpless, and

hopeless country than Ireland, on the face of the earth. Nor has this

calamity been confined to the lower orders; every order has been

similarly convulsed. The higher professions have languished and lost

their lustre; the Church has been exposed to a struggle for life;

the nobility have given up the useless resistance to difficulties

increasing round them from hour to hour; the landed interest is

supplicating the Court of Encumbered Estates to relieve it from its

burthens; the farmers are hurrying, in huge streams of fugitives, from

a land in which they can no longer live; and the tillers of the ground,

the serfs of the spade, are left to the dangerous teaching of an angry

priesthood, or to the death of mingled famine and pestilence. A cloud,

which seems to stoop lower day by day, and through which no ray can

pierce, at once chills and darkens Ireland.

The author of this important and interesting volume, in a brief

preface, states his object as being that of giving personal sketches

of the leading Irish characters of his time, exactly as they appeared

on the scenes of professional and public life--most of them being his

acquaintance, some his intimates. He concludes by gracefully expressing

his "hope, that the reader will rejoice in a more intimate acquaintance

with them; and that, in endeavouring to _elevate the land of his

birth_, he may make some return for the kindness bestowed on him by

that of his adoption."

Here two objects are announced; and, whether the _first_ was the

elevation of his country by the characters of its eminent men; or,

whether the country was the background for the figures of the national

history-piece, he has given us a work which brings the patriots and

orators of Ireland with singular force before the eye.

His introduction to Curran was sufficiently characteristic. When at

the Temple, he had written a poem on the honours of his country, in

which the great orator of her Bar was named with due admiration. The

popularity of the verses excited the attention of their object, and

the young barrister received an invitation to dine with Curran, then

Master of the Rolls, at the Priory, his villa, a few miles from Dublin.

The appointed hour was five, and it was a matter of importance to be

punctual; for beyond that hour dinner was to wait for no man. His first

view of his host is graphically described. He found him in his avenue.

"There he was; as a thousand times afterwards I saw him, in a dress

which you would imagine he had borrowed from his tipstaff; his

hands in his sides, his face almost parallel with the horizon--his

under lip protruded, and the impatient step and the eternal

attitude, only varied by the pause in which his eye glanced from

his guest to his watch, and from his watch reproachfully to his

dining-room."

However, it appears that the ominous hour had not struck, and they

dined.

"I had often seen Curran, often heard of him, often read him,

but no man ever _knew_ anything about him who did not see him

at his own table, with the few whom he selected.... It was said

of Swift, that his rule was, to allow a minute's pause after he

had concluded, and then if no person took up the conversation

to recommence. Curran had no conversational _rule_ whatever:

he spoke from impulse, and he had the art so to draw you into

a conversation, that, though you felt an inferiority, it was a

contented one. Indeed, nothing could exceed the urbanity of his

demeanour."

If this description _could_ be doubted, on the authority of the volume,

it would be amply confirmed by the authority of his time. Curran was

confessedly _the_ wit of the day, and his witticisms were the more

popular from their being, in general, harmless. No man could sting more

keenly where he had a public culprit of his own class to sting, or a

political adversary to combat; but no man was seldomer personal.

Curran's nature was playful. His taste was also _dramatic_, and he was

fond of playing harmless tricks upon his friends. Of this taste Mr

Phillips had a specimen, even on the day of his introduction:--

"When the last dish had departed, Curran totally confounded me with

a proposal for which I was anything but prepared. 'Mr Phillips,'

said he, 'as this is the first of, I hope, your very many visits

to the Priory, I may as well at once initiate you into the

peculiarities of the place. You may observe that, though the board

is cleared, there are no preparations for a _symposium_; it all

depends on _you_. My friends here generally prefer a _walk_ after

dinner. It is a sweet evening, but if _you_ wish for wine, say so

without ceremony.'

"Even now I can see Curran's star-like eyes twinkling at the

disappointment no doubt visible in mine. I had heard, and heard

truly, that he never was more delightful than with half-a-dozen

friends after dinner over his bottle. The hope in which I had so

long revelled was realised at last, and here came this infernal

_walk_, and the 'sweet evening.' Oh, how I would have hailed a

thunderstorm! But, to say the truth, the sun was shining, and the

birds were singing, and the flowers were blooming and breathing so

sweetly on that autumn eve, that, wondering not at the wish of my

companions, I also voted for 'the walk.'

"We took the walk, no doubt, but it was only to the _drawing-room_;

where, over a dessert freshly culled from his gardens, and over

wines for which his board was celebrated, we passed those hours

which seemed an era in my life."

All this is very well told, and very amusing in description, and was

very innocent--when all was over. But it was exposed to the chance of

being differently taken, and had but one advantage--that it could not

be repeated on the _individual_.

Curran was born in 1760 at Newmarket, a village in the county of Cork.

His parentage was humble, his father being only the seneschal of the

manor. His mother seems to have been a woman of superior faculties, and

her celebrated son always spoke of her with remarkable deference.

As it was a custom, among the oddities of Ireland, to teach Greek and

Latin to boys who probably were to spend the rest of their lives at the

spade, Curran had what in Ireland was called a classical education,

but which his natural talent turned to better account than one in a

million of those half-naked classicists. It enriched his metaphors

in after life, and enabled him to talk of the raptures of antiquity.

In the Irish University, he shared the fate of other celebrated men.

Swift, Burke, and Goldsmith made no figure in their academic course.

We certainly do not mention this failure to their praise, nor would

they themselves have ever so mentioned it. We can easily conceive,

that in their palmiest days they regretted their waste of time, or

want of industry. Still, they may have found their palliative in the

ungenial nature of the collegiate studies in their day. We should

observe, that those studies have since been more advantageously adapted

to the national necessity, and are of a much more general and popular

description.

But in the last century, the whole _bent_ of the collegiate education

was mathematical: the only road to distinction was Euclid. The value of

mathematics is unquestionable. As a science, it holds its head among

the highest; but as a national education, it is among the most useless.

The mind made for mathematical distinction is as rare as the mind made

for poetic pre-eminence. One might as well make poetry a requisite, in

a national education, as the mastery of mathematics. The plea that they

invigorate the reason is contradicted by perpetual experience. Some of

the feeblest, and even the most fanciful, and of course the silliest,

managers of great principles, have been mathematicians of celebrity.

Napoleon said of Laplace, the first mathematician of his day, to whom

he gave a title and a seat in his Council of State, on the strength of

his scientific renown, that "he could do nothing with him,--that as

a public man he was useless--that his mind was full of his _infinite

littles_." And this is the history of nearly all mathematical minds:

beyond their diagrams, they are among the dullest, most circumscribed,

and most incapable of mankind. The mind of a Newton is not to be

ranged in this class of elaborate mediocrity: he was not the mole,

whose merit consists in seeing his way in the dark by an organ which

is blind in the broad light of nature; he was an eagle, and could

dare the full effulgence of the sun. But this meagre and inapplicable

acquirement was the chosen prize for the whole young mind of educated

Ireland; her mathematical crutch was the only instrument of progress

for all the salient spirits of a nation abounding in the most aspiring

faculties of man, and the quiet drudge who burrowed his way through

Cubics and Surds, or could keep himself awake over the reveries of the

_Meditationes Analyticæ_, was the Coryphæus of the College; while men

passed along unnoted, who were in future years to embody the national

renown.

As Curran's determination was the Irish Bar, he of course made the

customary visit to the English Inns of Court. Here, though his finances

compelled him to live in solitude, he contrived to amuse himself by

that study of which in life he was so great a master--the study of

character. Some of his letters from London are curious indications of

this early tendency of his mind. Curran was by nature a Tory. _All_

men of genius are Tories, until they get angry with the world, or get

corrupt, and sell themselves to Whiggism; or get disgusted, and think

that both parties are equally worthless.

"Here," says Curran, "every coal-porter is a politician, and vends

his maxims in public with all the importance of a man who thinks he

is exerting himself for the public service. He claims the privilege

of looking as wise as possible, and of talking as loud; of damning

the Ministry, and abusing the King, with less reserve than he

would his equal. Yet, little as those poor people _understand the

liberty_ they so warmly contend for, or of the _measures_ they rail

against, it reconciles me to their _absurdity_, by considering that

they are happy, at so small an expense as being _ridiculous_."

This feeling was too true ever to have been changed. The _language_ was

changed, and no tongue could pour out more showy declamation on the

multitude; but, when loosed from the handcuffs of party, no man laughed

more loudly, or sneered more contemptuously, at the squalid idol to

which he had so long bowed the knee.

Another fragment has its value in the illustration of his kindness of

heart:--

"A portion of my time I have set apart every day for _thinking

of my absent friends_. Though this is a duty that does not give

much trouble to many, I have been obliged to confine it, or

endeavour to confine it, within proper bounds. I have therefore

made a resolution to avoid any reflections of this sort except in

their allotted season, immediately after dinner. I am then in a

tranquil, happy humour, and I increase that happiness by presenting

to my fancy those I love, in the most advantageous point of view.

So that, however severely I treat them when they intrude in the

morning, I make them ample amends in the evening. I then assure

myself that they are twice as agreeable, and as wise and as good,

as they really are."

Whether the author of _Tristram Shandy_ would have been a great orator,

if he had begun his career at the Bar, may be a question; but that

Curran could have written admirable _Shandian_ chapters can scarcely be

doubted by those who have observed the exquisite turns of his speeches

from grave to gay; or perhaps even those who now read the few words

which conclude the story of Dr du Gavreau. This man was one of his

casual acquaintances, a French fugitive, who ran away with a Parisian

woman of a different faith. Whether they married or not is dexterously

veiled. The woman died, leaving a daughter; but, whether married or

not, their child would have been illegitimate by the existing laws of

France. The widower had often been pressed by his friends to return to

France, but he determined never to return, where his child would be

stigmatised.

"I did not know the particulars," says Curran, "till a few days

since, when I breakfasted with him. He had taken his little child

on his knee, and, after trifling with her for a few moments,

burst into tears. Such an emotion could not but excite, as well

as justify, some share of curiosity. The poor Doctor looked as

if he were conscious I felt for him, and his heart was too full

to conceal his affliction. He kissed his little '_orphan_,' as

he called her, and then endeavoured to acquaint me with the

lamentable detail. It was the hardest story in the world to be

told by a man of delicacy. He felt all the difficulties of it: he

had many things to palliate, some that wanted to be justified; he

seemed fully sensible of this, yet checked himself when he slided

into anything like defence. I could perceive the conflict shifting

the colours of his cheek, and I could not but pity him, and admire

him for such an embarrassment. Yet, notwithstanding all this, he

sometimes assumed all the gaiety of a Frenchman, and is a very

entertaining fellow."

In all these breaks of the story, and touches of feeling, who but must

recognise the spirit of Sterne?

The volume is a grave volume, and treats of high things with equal

grace and gravity; but Curran was an eccentric being, and his true

history must always be mingled with the comic.

"I have got acquainted," he says, "with a Miss Hume, who is also

an original in her way. She is a relation of the celebrated David

Hume, and, I suppose on the strength of her kindred, sets up for

a politician as well as a _sceptic_. She has heard his Essays

recommended, and shows her own discernment, by pronouncing them

_unanswerable_, and talks of the famous Burke by the familiar

appellation of _Ned_. Then she is _so_ romantic, _so_ sentimental!

Nothing for _her_ but goats and purling streams, and piping

shepherds. And, to crown all, it sings like a nightingale. As

I have not the best command of my muscles, I always propose

putting out the candles _before_ the song begins, for the greater

romanticality of the thing."

Then, as to his relaxations--

"You will perhaps be at a loss to guess what kind of amusement I

allow myself: why, I'll tell you. I spend a couple of hours every

night at a coffee-house, where I am not a little entertained with

a group of old politicians, who meet in order to debate on the

reports of the day, or to invent some for the next, _with the

other business_ of the nation! Though I don't know that society

is the characteristic of this people, yet politics are a certain

introduction to the closest intimacy of coffee-house acquaintance.

I also visit a variety of ordinaries and eating houses, and they

are equally fertile in game for a character-hunter. I think I have

found out the cellar where Roderick Random ate shin of beef for

threepence, and have actually drunk out of the identical quart

which the drummer squeezed together when poor Strap spilt the broth

on his legs."

He visited Hampton Court, and though he seems to have passed through

its solemn halls and stately galleries without peculiar remark, he

seized on his _game_ of living character.

"The servant who showed us the splendid apartments seemed to be a

good deal pleased with his manner of explaining a suite of tapestry

representing the Persian war of Alexander. Though a simple fellow,

he had his lesson well by rote, and ran over the battles of Issus,

Arbela, &c., with surprising fluency. 'But, where is Alexander?'

cries Apjohn, (a young fellow-student, who had accompanied him.)

'There, sir, at the door of Darius's tent, with the ladies at his

feet.' 'Surely,' said I, '_that_ must be Hephæstion, for he was

mistaken by the Queen for Alexander.' 'Pardon me, sir, _I hope I

know Alexander better than that_.' 'But, which of the two do you

think the greater man?' 'Greater!--bless your soul, sir, they are

both dead these _hundred years_.'"

Curran's observation on this official, or, as he would probably have

called it, _ministerial_ blunder, exhibits, even in these early days of

his mind, something of the reflective spirit which afterwards gave such

an interest to his eloquence.

"Oh, what a comment on human vanity! There was the marrow of a

thousand folios in the answer. I could not help thinking at the

instant, what a puzzle that mighty man would be in, should he

appear before a committee from the Temple of Fame, to claim those

laurels which he thought so much of, and to be opposed in his

demands, though his competitor were Thersites, or the fellow who

rubbed Bucephalus's heels!"

All this is showy if not new; yet, in defiance even of Curran's

authority, its argument is practically denied by all human nature. What

man ever acts _for_ the praise of posterity alone? Present impulses,

excited by present rewards, are the law of the living; and Alexander

charging through the Granicus, and sweeping the royal Persian cavalry

before him, had probably a heart as full of the most powerful impulses,

as if he could have assured himself of the inheritance for ten thousand

years of the plaudits of the globe. We are also to remember, that he

_has_ inherited the great legacy of fame, to this hour--that, to the

minds of all the intelligent, he is still the hero of heroes; that

clowns are not the clients of memory, or the distributors of renown;

and that the man whose history has already survived his throne two

thousand years, has exhibited in himself all the distinction between

the perishableness of power and the immortality of fame.

In 1775 Curran returned to Ireland, and after anxiously pondering on

the chances of abandoning Europe, and seeking fortune in America, as

other eminent men--Edmund Burke among the number--had done before him,

he fixed his fates at home.

This portion of the subject begins with a high panegyric on the

difficult but attractive profession into which Curran now threw

himself, without income, connection, or friend:--

"It is not to be questioned, that to the Bar of that day the people

of Ireland looked up in every emergency, with the most perfect

reliance on their talent and their integrity. It was then the

nursery of the parliament and the peerage; there was scarcely a

noble family in the land that did not enrol its elect in that body,

by the study of law and the exercise of eloquence to prepare them

for the field of legislative exertion. And there not unfrequently

arose a genius from the very lowest of the people, who won his way

to the distinctions of the Senate, and wrested from pedigree the

highest honours and offices of the Constitution."

That the Bar was the first body in the country was incontestible, and

that it often exhibited remarkable instances of ability is equally

known. But those facts must not be understood as giving the author's

opinion, that perfection lies in the populace. All the _remarkable_

persons of their time in Ireland were men of _education_, many of

birth, and many of hereditary fortune. Grattan was the son of a judge;

Flood a man of old family and estate; Clare, the Chancellor, was the

son of the leader of the Bar, and began the world with £4000 a-year--a

sum probably now equal to twice the amount. The Ponsonbys, the leading

family of Whiggism in Ireland, were among the first blood and fortune

of the land. Hussey Burgh was a man of old family and fortune. The

Beresfords were closely allied to nobility. Plunket and Curran were,

perhaps, those among the leaders the least indebted to the Heralds'

College; but Plunket was the son of a Presbyterian minister, and both

had received the best education which Ireland could give--both were

graduates of the University.

Of course, nature is impartial in the distribution of talents, but the

_true distinction_ is in their _training_. The Radicalism which fills

public life with vulgarity and faction is wholly the work of that

absence of all early training, which must be the fate of men suddenly

gathered from the _manual_ labours of life. We know the necessity of

those labours, but intellectual superiority must be the work of another

school. The men of eminence in Ireland were also men of accomplished

general knowledge, and of classical acquirement, to an amount seldom

found even in the English Legislature. There was not an assembly in

the world where a happy classical quotation, or dexterous reference to

antiquity, would be received with a quicker sense, or a louder plaudit

than in the Irish Parliament.

When the well-known antagonist of the Romish claims, Dr Duigenan, a

stern-looking and singularly _dark-featured_ old man, had one night

made a long and learned speech on the subject, Sir John Doyle wholly

extinguished its effect, by the Horatian line,--

"Hic _niger_ est, hunc tu _Romane_ caveto."

The House shook with applause, and the universal laugh drove the doctor

from the field.

On another evening, when the prince of jesters, Toler, then a chief

supporter of Government, contemptuously observed, on seeing a smile on

some of the Opposition faces--

"Dulce est desipere in loco;"

an Opposition member started up and retorted the quotation, by saying,

"That it was much more applicable to the conduct and position of the

honourable member and his friends, and that the true translation was,

'It is mighty pleasant _to play the fool_ in a _place_.'"

The novelty and happiness of the translation disturbed the gravity of

debate for a considerable time.

But those were the gay days of Ireland. Times of keen anxiety,

of daring change, and of social convulsion, were already shaping

themselves to the eye of the patriot, and the true debates on which

the fate of the nation hung were transferred from parliament to the

peasantry, from the council-room to the cabin, from the accomplished

intelligence and polished brilliancy of the legislature to the rude

resentment, fierce recollections, and sullen prejudices of the

multitude. It was on the heath, that Revolution, like Macbeth, met the

disturbing spirits of the land, and heard the "All hail, hereafter."

Curran's rapid professional distinctions were the more remarkable, that

the Irish Bar was aristocratic, to a degree wholly unknown in England.

If it is true, that this great profession often leads to the Peerage,

in Ireland the course was reversed, and the Peerage often derived its

chief honours from its connection with the Bar. The sons of the first

families wore the gown, and the _cedant arma togæ_ was more fully

realised in Ireland than it ever was in Rome.

But few men of condition ever entered the Army; and in a nation of

habitual passion for publicity, and proverbial love of enterprise,

perhaps fewer officers were added to the British service than from the

Channel Islands. This has since been largely changed, and Ireland,

which in the last century but filled up the rank and file, has since

nobly contributed her share to the names which register themselves in

the memory of nations. To Ireland, glorious England and rescued Europe

owe a WELLINGTON!

The Church, the usual province of high families in England, was poor,

feeble, and unpopular in Ireland. With a few positions of great

wealth, all below was barren: livings of vast extent, with a meagre

population, and still more meagre income; Romanism was hourly spreading

with a population, itself spreading until it had nothing to eat, and

embittered against Protestantism until conversion became more than

a hopeless toil--an actual terror. Law was the only instrument of

collecting the clerical income, and the collector and the clergyman

were involved in one common obloquy, and often in one common danger--a

condition of things which must have largely repelled all those who had

the power of choice.

The mitres were chiefly bestowed on the Fellows of English colleges,

and tutors of English noblemen. Every new Viceroy imported a succession

of chaplains, and quartered them all upon the Irish Church. The

majority of those men looked upon their position with the nervous alarm

of settlers in the wilderness, thought only of the common-room of the

colleges from which they had been torn, or of the noble houses in

which they had been installed; and reproached the ill luck which had

given them dignities which only excited popular disgust; and wealth,

from which they could derive no pleasure, but in its accumulation. We

can scarcely wonder that, through almost the whole of the eighteenth

century, the Irish Church lay in a state of humiliation, repulsive

to the public feelings. This, too, has changed; and the Church now

possesses many able men.

Commerce, which plays so vigorous a part in the world, was then a

swathed infant in Ireland, and swathed so tightly by provincial

regulations, that there was scarcely a prospect of its ever stepping

beyond the cradle. Manufactures--that gold-mine worth all the treasures

of the Western World--were limited to the looms of the north; and the

only manufacture of three-fourths of this fine country consisted in the

fatal fabrication of forty-shilling voters.

The Squiredom of Ireland was the favourite profession of busy idleness,

worthless activity, and festive folly. But this profession must have an

estate to dilapidate, or a country to ride over, and English mortgagees

to pamper its prodigality and accelerate its ruin. Gout, the pistol,

broken necks, and hereditary disease, rapidly thinned this class.

Perpetual litigation stood before their rent-rolls, in the shape of

a devouring dragon; and, with a peasantry starving but cheerful, and

with a proprietary pauperised, but laughing to the last, they were

determined, though hourly sinking into bankruptcy, to be ruined like a

_gentleman_.

All those circumstances coming together, made the Bar almost the sole

assemblage of the ability of Ireland. But they also made it the most

daring, dashing, and belligerent body of gentlemen that Europe has

seen. It was Lord Norbury's remark, in his old age, when he reposed on

the cushions of the peerage, had realised immense wealth, and obtained

_two_ peerages for his two sons--that all this came out of fifty

pounds, and a case of pistols, his father's sole present as he launched

him in life. The list of duels fought by the leading members of the

Bar might figure in the returns of a Continental campaign; and no man

was regarded as above answering for a sarcasm dropped in court, by his

appearance in the field.

But we must not, from this unfortunate and guilty habit, conceive

that the spirit of the higher orders of Ireland was deficient in the

courtesies of life. There was a melancholy cause in the convulsions of

the country. The war of William III., which had broken down the throne

of James II., had left many a bitter feeling among the Popish families

of Ireland. Many of the soldiers of James had retired into village

obscurity, or were suffered to retain the fragments of their estates,

and live in that most embittering of all conditions--a sense of birth,

with all the struggles of diminished means. These men indulged their

irritable feelings, or avenged their ruin, by the continual appeal to

the pistol. Always nurturing the idea that the victory had been lost

to them solely by the cowardice of James, they were ready to quarrel

with any man who doubted their opinion; and as their Protestant

conquerors were brave bold men, equally disposed to maintain their

right, and unhesitating in their claim to possess what they had won by

their swords, their quarrels became feuds. Law, which reprobated the

principle, by its laxity established the practice; and when lawyers

led the way, the community followed. Still, there can be no doubt that

duelling is a custom alike contrary to the order of society, and the

_command of heaven_; and, the first judge who hangs a duellist as a

murderer, and sends all the parties engaged in the transaction to the

penal colonies _for life_, will have rendered a signal service to his

country.

While every part of this volume is valuable, for the display of

vigorous writing and manly conception, the more interesting fragments,

to us, are the characters of the parliamentary leaders; because such

men are the creators of national character, the standards of national

intellect, and the memorials to which their nation justly points as the

trophies of national honour.

The Parliament of Ireland is in the grave; but, while the statues

of her public orators stand round the tomb, it must be felt to be

more than a sepulchre. Whatever homage for genius may be left in

the distractions of an unhappy country, must come to kneel beside

that tomb; and if the time shall ever arrive for the national

enfranchisement from faction, the first accents of national wisdom must

be dictated from that sacred depository of departed virtue.

Grattan, the first man in the brightest day of the Irish Parliament,

was descended of an honourable lineage. His father was a barrister,

member of parliament for Dublin, and also its Recorder. He himself

was a graduate of the Irish University, where he was distinguished.

Entering the Middle Temple, he was called to the Irish Bar in 1772.

But his mind was parliamentary; his study in England had been

parliament; and his spirit was kindled by the great orators of the

time. He who had beard Burke and Chatham, had heard the full power

of imaginative oratory--of all oratory the noblest. Grattan had the

materials of a great speaker in him by nature--keen sensibility, strong

passion, daring sincerity, and an imagination furnished with all the

essential knowledge for debate--not overwhelmed by it, but refreshing

the original force of his mind, like the eagle's wing refreshed by

dipping into the fountain, but dipping only to soar. Yet, though almost

rapturously admiring those distinguished men, he was no _imitator_.

He struck out for himself a line between both, and, in some of its

happier moments, superior to either; combining the rich exuberance

of Burke's imagination with Chatham's condensed dignity of thought.

Possessed of an extraordinary power of reasoning, Grattan had the

not less extraordinary power of working it into an intensity which

made it glow; and some of the most elaborate arguments ever uttered

in Parliament have all the brilliancy of eloquence. He continually

_reasoned_, though the most metaphorical of speakers; and this

combination of logic and lustre, though so unusual in others, in _him_

was characteristic. He poured out arguments like a shower of arrows,

but they were all arrows tipped with fire.

Mr Phillips' sketch of him brings Grattan before us to the life:--

"He was short in stature, and unprepossessing in appearance.

His arms were disproportionately long. His walk was a stride.

With a person swaying like a pendulum, and an abstracted air, he

seemed always in thought, and each thought provoked an attendant

gesticulation. Such was the outward and visible form of one

whom the passenger would stop to stare at as a droll, and the

philosopher to contemplate as a study. How strange it is that a

mind so replete with grace and symmetry, and power and splendour,

should have been allotted such a dwelling for its residence! Yet

so it was, and so also was it one of his highest attributes, that

his genius, by its 'excessive light,' blinded his hearers to his

physical imperfections. It was the victory of mind over matter."

It is then stated that, even while at the Temple, he exercised himself

in parliamentary studies, and made speeches in his walks in Windsor

Forest, near which he had taken lodgings, and in his chamber. Of

course, he was supposed to be a little mad:--

"His landlady observed, 'What a sad thing it was to see the poor

young gentleman all day talking to somebody he calls Mr Speaker,

when there was no speaker in the house but himself.' Nor was the

old lady singular in her opinion. In some few years afterwards, no

less a man than Edmund Burke wrote over to Ireland, 'Will no one

stop that madman, Grattan?' Assuredly when Burke himself enacted

the dagger-scene on the floor of the House of Commons, the epithet

was more applicable."

We refer to this remark, chiefly to correct a misconception generally

adopted. It has been supposed that Burke, to heighten the effect of

his speech on the discontents then engendering against the State,

actually purchased a dagger, to throw on the floor of Parliament.

This, of course, would have been ridiculous; and it is to do the

common duty of rescuing the fame of a great man from the slightest

touch of ridicule that this explanation is given. One of his friends

(we believe, a member of Parliament) had received, in the course of

the day, from Birmingham, a newly-invented dagger, of a desperate

kind, of which some _thousands_ had been ordered, evidently for the

purpose of _assassination_. Burke, naturally shocked at this proof

of the sanguinary designs spreading among the lower population, took

the weapon with him, to convince those who constantly scoffed at him

as an _alarmist_ that his alarms were true. The whole was a matter

of accident; nothing could be less premeditated; and every hearer of

the true statement will agree that, so far from being a theatrical

exhibition, it was the very act which any rational and manly man would

have done. The time was terrible: revolution threatened every hour.

Jacobinism was hourly boasting that it had the Church and Throne in

its grasp; and, at such a period, the positive statement of a man like

Burke, that thousands (we believe five thousand) of weapons, evidently

made for private _murder_, were actually ordered in one of our

manufacturing towns, and the sight of one of those horrid instruments

itself, was an important call on the vigilance of Government, and a

salutary caution to the country. It is not at all improbable that this

act crushed the conspiracy.

Mr Phillips observes, that when Burke wrote "that madman Grattan,

the _madman_ was contemplating the glorious future; his ardent mind

beheld the vision of the country he so loved rising erect from the

servitude of centuries, 'redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled' by

his exertions. Nor was that vision baseless--he made of it a proud

and grand reality: her chains fell off, as at the bidding, of an

enchanter."

Grattan's influence in Parliament was felt from his first entrance. But

he earned it in the only way in which even genius can be _permanently_

successful.

"His industry was indomitable. The affairs of Parliament were

to be thenceforth the business of his life, and he studied them

minutely. The chief difficulty in this great speaker's way was the

first five minutes. During his exordium, laughter was imminent. He

bent his body almost to the ground, swung his arms over his head,

up and down and around him, and added to the grotesqueness of his

manner a hesitating tone and drawling emphasis. Still there was an

earnestness about him, that at first besought, and, as he warmed,

enforced--nay, commanded attention."

His first entrance into the British House of Commons is described with

the same graphic effect:--

"He had said of Flood 'that he forgot that he was an oak of the

forest, too old and too great to be transplanted at fifty.' And yet

here he was himself. Whether he would take root was the question,

and for some moments very questionable it was. When he rose,

every voice in that crowded House was hushed; the great rivals,

Pitt and Fox, riveted their eyes upon him; he strode forth and

gesticulated--the hush became unanimous; not a cheer was heard; men

looked in one another's faces, and then at the phenomenon before

them, as if doubting his identity. At last, and on a sudden, the

indication of the master-spirit came. Pitt was the first generously

to recognise it. He smote his thigh hastily with his hand--it was

an impulse when he was pleased--his followers saw it, and knew it,

and with a universal burst they hailed the advent and the triumph

of the stranger."

Grattan was sincere, and this sincerity gave at once substance to

his popularity, and power to his eloquence. But, as a politician,

he was rash; and as a prophet, he had to see the failure of all his

predictions. He wielded a torch of exceeding brightness, it is true;

but the torch at once blinded himself and inflamed the nation. His

patriotism was pure, but it wanted practicability. He left no great

measure of public utility behind him. His liberation, as he called

it, of Ireland in 1782, was a showy fiction, to end in the disgrace

of a painful discovery. It was the _liberation_ of a fever to end in

exhaustion; of a dream of opulence and independence, to finish in an

awaking of poverty and despair. Its closest resemblance was to the

late festival at the Hanwell Asylum--an assemblage of lunatics dressed

for the night in feathers and flowers, dancing and feasting, until the

morning light sent them back to their cells, and the drudgery of their

melancholy discipline.

The whole policy of the Whig party in Ireland was the counterpart

of their policy in England, only on a smaller scale. It was, to the

performances of Fox and Opposition here, what the little stage-play in

_Hamlet_ is to the tragedy itself--the same characters and the same

crime performed in imitation of the larger guilt that gazes on it. The

wretched shortsightedness of supporting any demand of the populace

whom they at once deluded and despised; the perpetual agitation to

give the franchise to classes who _must_ use it without the power of

discrimination, and who must be careless of it but for the purposes of

corruption; the reckless clientship of the Popish claims, ending in the

sale of Irish independence by the Papists; the universal conspiracy,

and the sanguinary civil war, followed by the political suicide of the

Parliament--_all_ the direct and rapid results of the Whig policy in

Ireland--show either the headlong ignorance or the scandalous hypocrisy

of Irish faction.

Yet, in all this blaze of fraud and falsehood, the name of Grattan

was never degraded by public suspicion. He was an enthusiast; and his

robe of enthusiasm, like one of the fire-resisting robes of antiquity,

came out only brighter for its passing through the flame. But the

Legislature (all impurities) was left in ashes.

Mr Phillips seems to regret Grattan's transfer to England, as an injury

to his oratorical distinctions. He tells us "that it is in the Irish

Parliament, and in his younger day, that his finest efforts are to be

found!" Reluctant as we are to differ from such an authority, yet,

judging from his _published_ speeches, it appears to us that his powers

never found their right position until they were within the walls of

the British Parliament. These walls shut out the roar of the populace,

which disturbed him, but to which he once must listen. These walls

sheltered him from that perpetual clinging of Popery, which dragged

down his fine tastes to its own level. Within these walls, he was

relieved from the petty interests of partisanship, and raised from the

feuds of an island to the policy of an empire. In Ireland, popularity

required perpetual submission to the caprices of the multitude, and

no man had more fully felt than Grattan the impossibility of taking

a stand on his own principles--he must be either on the shoulders of

the mob, or under their heels. In England, no longer wearied with the

responsibility of leading parties who refused to be guided, or the

disgust of following his inferiors through the dust of their hurried

"road to ruin," he had before him, and embraced with the gallantry of

his nature, the great Cause for which England was fighting--the cause

of human kind. In Ireland, Grattan, with all his intrepidity, would not

have dared to make his magnificent speech on the war with Napoleon,

or, if he had, would have been denounced by the roar of the million.

In England, he was in the midst of the noblest associations; he was

surrounded by all the living ability of the empire; and if genius

itself is to be inspired by the memories of the mighty, every stone of

the walls round him teemed with inspiration.

Thus, if his language was more chastened, it was loftier; if his

metaphors were more disciplined, they were more majestic;--the orb

which, rising through the mists of faction, had shone with broadened

disc and fiery hue, now, in its meridian, assumed its perfect form, and

beamed with its stainless glory.

In recording the remarkable names of this period in Ireland, Mr

Phillips alludes to the celebrated preacher, Dean Kirwan:--

"He had been a Roman Catholic clergyman, but conformed to the

Church of England. He was a wonderful orator--one of the greatest

that ever filled a pulpit; and yet, when injudicious friends,

after his death, published a volume of his sermons, they were

scarcely readable. This sounds paradoxical: but it is true. The

volume is not remembered--those who heard the preacher never can

forget him. It was my happiness to have the opportunity thrice,

while a student in the University of Dublin. The church, on

those occasions, presented a singular, and, in truth, not a very

decorous spectacle--a bear-garden was orderly compared to it.

The clothes were torn off men's backs--ladies were carried out

fainting--disorder the most unseemly disgraced the entire service,

and so continued till Kirwan ascended the pulpit. What a change

was there then! Every eye was turned to him--every tongue was

hushed--all was solemn silence. His enunciation of the Lord's

Prayer was one of the finest things ever heard. Never before or

since did mortal man produce such wonderful effect. And yet he had

his disadvantages to overcome: his person was not imposing; he was

somewhat wall-eyed; and his voice at times was inharmonious."

We see in this striking portrait the writer _con amore_, and we must

give him due credit for his vivid tribute to Irish ability. But there

are few miracles in this world, and the fact that Kirwan's printed

sermons are wholly inferior to his reputation reduces our wonder within

more restricted bounds. If it is true, that much emotion is lost by

the loss of the actual speaking; that the full power of the oratory is

somewhat diminished by its being calmly read, instead of being ardently

heard; still we have but few instances, perhaps none, where true

oratory altogether loses its power in publication.