the empire—that is to say, gentlemen at large, unowned by one country and unelected by the other-suspended between both false to both and belonging to neither. The sagacious English secretary of state has foretold this. "What advantage," says he, " will it be to the talents of Ireland, this opportunity in the British empire thus opened?"-That is what we dread-the market of St. Stephen's opened to the individual, and the talents of the country, like its property, dragged from the kingdom of Ireland to be sold in London; these men from their situation-man is the child of situation -their native honour may struggle-but from their situation they will be adventurers of the most expensive kind—adventurers with pretensions-dressed and sold, as it were, in the shroud and grave clothes of the Irish parliament, and playing for hire their tricks upon her tomb, the only repository the minister will allow to an Irish constitution-the images of degradation, the representatives of nothing. Come, he has done much-he has destroyed one constitution-he has corrupted another, and this corrupted constitution he calls a parental parliament. I congratulate the country on the new baptism of what was once called the representative body of the nation-instead of the plain august language of the constitution, we are here saluted with the novel and barbaric phraseology of empire. With this change of name we perceive a transfer of obligation converting the duty of the delegate into the duty of the constituent, and the inheritance of the people into the inheritance of their trustees.

WAY IN WHICH THE HISTORY OF IRELAND OUGHT

TO BE CONSIDERED.

THE history of Ireland a century ago has been appealed to as furnishing strong arguments in opposition to my

motion. What is that history? Why, generally, it is the tale of an unhappy province, ill governed and cruelly mismanaged. The historian is in the case of Ireland, generally speaking, very bad authority. He wrote to gratify power. His own private advantage absorbed all his thoughts, and his contemplation only dwelt on that which might be turned to his own account or that of his patrons. But if you wish to state the case of Ireland fairly, do not fly back to barbarous times and long exploded principles-state her conduct since she became a nation-take it for instance, during the last forty years; do not go back to senseless acts when the oppressions of England made Ireland retaliate-do not say, on this spot such a crime was committed, here such a town was burned, here so many Englishmen were murdered, here such a chieftain raised his merciless and despotic sway—but come closer to our own times and say, here did Englishmen and Irishmen fight in one cause-here such a Catholic regiment maintained its ground and nobly fought in defence of that constitution from the benefits of which its brethren are excluded here it undauntedly braved the dangers of the battle in the laurels of which it was not allowed to participate.

CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM.

THE secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity: His august mind over-awed majesty, and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No

state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity.~Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardour, and enlightened by prophecy.

The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness reached him; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel and to decide.

A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her.

Nor were his political abilities his only talents: his eloquence was an æra in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through the painful sub

tilty of argumentation; nor was he like Townshend, for ever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed.

Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, tó summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe.

PERORATION TO HIS SPEECH ON THE UNION.

BUT if this monster of political innovation is to prove more than the chimera of a mad minister rioting in political iniquity-away, with the Castle at your head, to the grave of a Charlemont, the father of the Irish volunteers, and rioting over that sacred dust, exult in your completed task and enjoy all its consequent honours. Nor yet will the memory of those who opposed you wholly die away-the gratitude of the future men of Ireland will point to their tombs and say to their children, " here lie the bones of those honest men, who, when a venal and corrupt parliament attacked that constitution which they fought for and acquired, exerted every nerve to maintain, to defend, and to secure it."-This is an honour which the king cannot confer upon his slavesit is an honour which the crown never gave the king.

INVECTIVE AGAINST MR. CORRY, IN REPLY TO HIS ASPERSIONS.

MY guilt or innocence have little to do with the question here. I rose with the rising fortunes of my country—I am willing to die with her expiring liberties. To the voice of the people I will bow, but never shall I submit to the calumnies of an individual hired to betray them and slander me. The indisposition of my body has left me perhaps no means but that of lying down with fallen Ireland and recording upon her tomb my dying testimony against the flagitious corruption that has murdered her independence. The right honourable gentleman has said that this was not my place— that instead of having a voice in the councils of my country, I should now stand a culprit at her bar-at the bar of a court of criminal judicature to answer for my treasons. The Irish people have not so read my history-but let that pass —if I am what he has said I am, the people are not therefore to forfeit their constitution. In point of argument, therefore, the attack is bad-in point of taste or feeling, if he had either, it is worse-in point of fact it is false, utterly and absolutely false-as rancorous a falsehood as the most malignant motives could suggest to the prompt sympathy of a shameless and a venal defence. The right honourable gentleman has suggested examples which I should have shunned, and examples which I should have followed. I shall never follow his, and I have ever avoided it. I shall never be ambitious to purchase public scorn by private infamy-the lighter characters of the model have as little chance of weaning me from the habits of a life spent, if not