The right honourable member has told me I de. serted a profession where wealth and station were the reward of industry and talents. If I mistake not, that gentleman endeavoured to obtain those rewards by the same means; but he soon deserted the occupation of a barrister for those of a parasite and pander. He fled from the labour of study to flatter at the tables of the great. He found the lord's parlour a better sphere for his exertions than the hall of the four courts; the house of a great man a more convenient way to power and to place; and that it was easier for a statesman of middling talents to sell his friends, than a lawyer of no talents to sell his clients.

For myself, whatever corporate or other bodies have said or done to me, I, from the bottom of my heart, forgive them. I feel I have done too much for my country to be vexed at them. I would rather that they should not feel or acknowledge what I have done for them, and call me traitor, than

have reason to say sold them, I will always defend myself against tho assassin; but with large bodies it is different. To the people I will bow: they may be my enemy-I shall never be theirs,

At the emancipation of Ireland, in 1782, I took a leading part in the foundation of that constitution which is now endeavoured to be destroyed. Of that constitution I was the author; in that constitution I glory; and for it the honourable gentleman should bestow praise, not invent calumny. Notwithstanding my weak state of body, I come to give my last testimony against this Union, so fatal to the liberties and interests of my country. I come to make common cause with these honourable and virtuous gentlemen around me; to try and save the constitution, at least to save our cha

racters, and remove from our graves the foul disgrace of standing apart while a deadly blow is aimed at the independence of our country.

The right honourable gentleman says I fled from the country after exciting rebellion; and that I have returned to raise another. No such thing. The charge is false. The civil war had not commenced when I left the kingdom; and I could not have returned without taking a part. On the one side there was the camp of the rebel; on the other, the camp of the minister, a greater traitor than the rebel. The strong hold of the constitution was nowhere to be found. I agree that the rebel who rises against the government should have suffered; but I missed on the scaffold the right honourable gentleman. Two desperate parties were in arms against the constitution. The right honourable gentleman belonged to one of those parties, and deserved death. I could not join the rebel-I could not join the government-I could not join torture-I could not join half hanging-I could not join free quarter-I could not take part with either. I was, therefore, absent from a scene where I could not be active without self-reproach, nor indifferent with safety.

Many honourable gentlemen thought differently from me; I respect their opinions; but I keep my own; and I think now, as I thought then, that the treason of the minister against the liberties of the people was infinitely worse than the rebellion of the people against the minister.

I have returned, not, as the right honourable member has said, to raise another storm-I have returned to discharge an honourable debt of gratitude to my country, that conferred a great reward for past services, which, I am proud to say, was not greater than my desert. I have returned to

protect that constitution of which I was the parent and the founder, from the assassination of such men as the right honourable gentleman and his unworthy associates. They are corrupt-they are seditious-and they, at this very moment, are in a conspiracy against their country. I have returned to refute a libel, as false as it is malicious, given to the public under the appellation of a report of the committee of the Lords. Here I stand, ready for impeachment or trial. I dare accusation. I defy the honourable gentleman; I defy the government; I defy their whole phalanx : let them come forth. I tell the ministers I will neither give them quarter nor take it. I am here to lay the shattered remains of my constitution on the floor of this House, in defence of the liberties of my country. GRATTAN.

PARTY.

SIR, I will tell gentlemen what description of party is beneficial; party united on public principle, by the bond of certain specific public measures, which measures cannot be carried by individuals, and can only succeed by party.

I will state some of ours:—a pension bill; a place bill; a repeal of the present Dublin police bill; a responsibility bill, that is, a bill requiring the acts of the executive power to be signed by certain officers resident in Ireland, who shall be, with their lives and fortunes, responsible to this kingdom in the measures and expenses of government; also, a bill to preserve the freedom of election, by disqualifying revenue officers; and, further, a total demolition of the new charges created by the Marquis of Buckingham.

These are some of the measures which we, if we should have power, are pledged to the public to carry into specific execution; I read them the rather, because litera scripta manet, the public hears and will record.

These are some of our measures. Í now turn to administration, and call upon them to state their measures; what bills for the public good? State them; come forth. I pause to give them time to consider. Well, what are they? not one public, constitutional, or wise regulation: there they sit under the public eye-a blank, excavated, and eviscerated of any one single constitutional or economic bill, or principle, or project, for the good of the community.

Sir, will give these gentlemen of administration, on this topic of party, the greatest advantage they can in their situation receive. I will draw a veil over the past, and forget the specific services which we have performed, and those which we are pledged to perform for the good of the country; I will also forget the injuries which they and their abettors have at different times inflicted, and are at this hour inflicting on the community. Let us start, as it were, anew; set name against name, and we will beat them down by character.

I have submitted a description of a party which I conceive to be a public benefit; I will state to you a description of a party which I conceive to be a public curse; if party it can be called which is worse than a faction, and nothing more than an impudent phalanx of political mercenaries, coming from their little respective offices to vote for their bribe, and vapour for their character; who have neither the principles of patriotism nor ambition, nor party, nor honour; who are governed, not by

deliberation but discipline, and lick the hands that feed, and worship the patron who bribes them. Degraded men, disgraceful tribe! when they vote for measures, they are venal; when such men talk against party, they are impudent!

GRATTAN.

THE SCHOOLS OF ATHENS.

ATHENS, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of Ionia, and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the patrimony of a city whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand males, condensed, within the period of a single life, the genius of ages and millions. Our sense of the dignity of human nature is exalted by the simple recollection, that Isocrates was the companion of Plato and Xenophon; that he assisted, perhaps, with the historian Thucydides, at the first representations of the Edipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and that his pupils Æschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of Theophrastus, who taught at Athens, with the founders of the Stoic and Epicurean sects. The ingenious youth of Attica enjoyed the benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated without envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard the lessons of Theophrastus; the schools of rhetoric must have been still more populous than those of philosophy; and a rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and name. Those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander: the arts of Athens survived