After having accomplished the object of his mission at Belfast, O'Connell, accompanied by Mr. Steele, proceeded to Leeds. They sailed from Donaghadee to Port Patrick, at which place some delay occurred in getting Mr. O'Connell's carriage on shore. Still further delay took place, from the sudden death of one of the post-horses, on the road between Paisley and Annan. The Rev. Doctor Cooke, of Belfast, who had triumphed in the riotous spirit of the Orange mobs of Ulster, affected to regard the prostration of the horse as ominous;

and accordingly addressed to O'Connell the following prophetic exercitation:—

Be

The

"I have called you a great bad man!' ware, or you will soon become a little one. towns of Kilworth and Annan have afforded you two ominous warnings. I am not superstitious. But I tell you again to beware the hand of Providence, and not of accident, prostrated the animals before you—and, be sure, these events are but the precursors' of the prostration of your character and your influence, if you return not by repentance to the utterance of truth and the practices of peace. I remain, an inveterate enemy to your principles and practices, but a sincere friend to your immortal soul, "H. COOKE."

6

There is a ludicrous incongruity in the above grave recommendation of the "practices of peace;" proceeding as it does from the pacific gentleman who could publicly boast of the obligation under which the ferocity of the Orange party had placed O'Connell's friends, "to steal him into Belfast and swear him out of it."

Passing through the little village of Gatehouse, in the south-western corner of Scotland, O'Connell was surprised to find that his arrival excited the enthusiasm of the quiet rural population of the district. I quote the following description of the scene, from a letter addressed by Mr. George Dun, a native of Gatehouse, to the editor of the Newry Examiner.*

"When Mr. O'Connell came out to his carriage to continue his journey, he was immediately greeted with a loud burst of hearty cheering, which continued without intermission till he took his departure. And as his carriage drove off, we followed it with our eyes as far as it could be perceived, and we felt a kind of happy pride that we had enjoyed the honour of shaking hands, and listening for a while to the sonorous voice of the far-famed, able-minded, and indefatigable Daniel O'Connell."

* Newry Examiner, 27th of January, 1841.

Mr. Dun thus describes his impression of O'Connell's personal appearance at this period:

"Mr. O'Connell, we understand, is now sixty-five years of age, but he really bears his years well, for we would have at once pronounced him ten or fifteen years younger. He has got a strongly knit, compact, and active muscular frame; and his face is extremely comely; the features being softly mellowed, yet determinedly manly. His noble countenance, which beams with national intelligence, has an expression of open frankness, accessibility, and inviting confidence; and we could trace nothing in it of that wily malignity imputed to him by the Tories. Indeed, his bright and sweet blue eyes, the most kindly and honest-looking that can be conceived, at once repel the hateful imputation."

The delays which occurred on the journey, prevented the arrival of O'Connell at Leeds until the day following the great Reform Meeting, to which he had been invited. Steele was O'Connell's sole travelling companion upon that occasion.

Some Tory journal, I forget its name, arraigned O'Connell for having sought to bring the judicial character into disrepute, because one of his speeches at Leeds contained the following commentary upon the judicial wig:

"The judges of the land, who come down to preside in your Courts with all their solemn gravity and antiquated harlequinade, astonish the people with their profusion of horse-hair and chalk! For must not every one think what a formidable, terrible fellow he is, that has got twenty-nine pounds' weight of an enormous powdered wig upon his head? This is all humbug of the old times, and I long to see it kicked away along with many other antiquated absurdities and abuses."

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Master Humphrey's Clock"-Charles II. and the Irish Colonel -Attack on George III.-Taaffe, the Historian-Private Plays-H, the Portrait Painter-Martin Luther and the Reformation-Repeal in London--The Kerry Lad.

O'CONNELL was exceedingly fond of good novels. Among his favourites were the writings of Dickens. He was charmed with "Nickleby;" and he had regularly followed the fortunes of" Nell"-the heroine of "Master Humphrey's Clock." But on arriving at the heroine's death, he threw away the book with a gesture of angry impatience, exclaiming,

"I'll never read another line that Boz writes! The fellow hadn't talent enough to keep up Nell's adventures with interest and bring them to a happy issue, so he kills her to get rid of the difficulty."

The conversation turned on the knack some monarchs possessed of rewarding their enemies, and leaving their friends unprovided for. One of the party told a story of an Irish Colonel, who having