wouldn't much mind that," rejoined O'Connell. "He is not very popular with his Kilkenny friends now. I do not think they will again return him. Kilkenny is the pleasantest place in the world to be returned for; it costs the member nothing. Hume's election cost him only sevenpence, the sevenpence being the extra postage of a letter he gct the day before he was returned. Matters are managed in Kilkenny by three or four families, who are in the confidence of the people. Among the rest, there is the family of Smithwick. The head of that family has made about 4000l. a year by trade; a most respectable and patriotic family! I am keeping Kilkenny for a nest-egg for myself, in case I should not deem it advisable to go to the expense of contesting Dublin at the next election. Lord Lyndhurst has got a clause into the Municipal Act which confirms the titles of a vast number of fictitious freemen in Dublin-those fellows might give us trouble."

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O'Connell complained that he had received a letter from some person soliciting "patronage." Well, well!" he exclaimed, "is not this fatuity most unaccountable? In spite of Lord Ebrington's recent declaration, that no patronage should be given to Repealers, here are these blockheads still persisting to suppose that I can get what I please from the government!"

O'Connell was greatly pleased and interested with an article in the “Edinburgh Review," for October, 1840, on "Ranke's Lives of the Popes." I remarked that the Reviewer had ascribed to human policy, that which no human policy could have availed to produce, namely, the essential vitality of the Catholic Church. That vitality can only be ascribed to the care and protection of the Divine Founder of the Catholic religion. No human wisdom could have possibly availed to perpetuate through the stormy vicissitudes of eighteen centuries any institntion which merely had men for its authors.

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"Yes," replied O'Connell, "but it is pleasing to observe, that the Reviewer fully admits the vitality, though he errs in his mode of accounting for it. I like the article very much; it is one of the many pioneers of Catholicity in Britain.”

O'Connell constantly spoke with much interest of the number of converts in England who were swelling the ranks of the Catholic Church. I remember the delight with which he exclaimed, one morning in London, "Yesterday I dined in company-blessed be God! with fourteen converts!" And he often said, "I hope that I may yet live to see mass offered up in Westminster Abbey, as it formerly was. God has mercy yet in store for England."

He was an enthusiastic admirer of the ancient cathedrals of England. In that of Canterbury he took a peculiar interest, as it was the scene of the martyrdom of St. Thomas à Becket; an occurrence which he employed Mr. Alfred Elmore to commemorate, in the spirited picture which hangs in the church of St. Andrew, Westland-row, Dublin. O'Connell said, "I have presented this picture to the church, in the hope that the sight of it may put other people in mind to follow my example."

There was a slight incident connected with his visit to Canterbury Cathedral, which he took pleasure in frequently recording. "While walking through the noble old Catholic pile,” said he, “I chanced to remark to my daughter,* who accompanied me, that it was not a little singular that not one Protestant prelate had ever been interred within its walls. This remark was overheard by the female guide who shows the cathedral to visitors. She listened attentively, and after some apparent hesitation, said, 'May I take the liberty, sir, of asking a question!'-Certainly,' said I.-Then may make so bold as to ask, if all those Archbishops were Papists?' 'Every one of them, madam,' said I.-Bless me!' cried the woman, in astonishment, I never knew that before.'-I then described

* The accomplished and highly-gifted Mrs. Fitzsimon.

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the effect of the high altar lighted up for the celebration of mass in Catholic times; when the great aisle, now boxed up into compartments by the organ loft, stretched its venerable and unbroken length from the altar to the portal, thronged with kneeling worshippers. The picture delighted the woman. 'Oh!' cried she, clapping her hands, ‘I should like to see that!'-' God grant you may yet.' returned I."

Then he would sometimes add," and he may yet grant it-England is steadily and gradually returning to the Catholic faith."

Comparing the cathedrals of Catholic times with those erected since the Reformation, he observed, "Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's afford us good specimens of this sort of contrast: the very architecture of the former seems to breathe the aspiring sentiment of Christianity; but St. Paul'sit is a noble temple to be sure; but, as for any peculiarity of Christian character about it, it might just as well be a temple to Neptune!"

CHAPTER XIII.

"The best-abused Man in the British Dominions"-O'Connell abused by William the Fourth-By George the Fourth-Personal Appearance of George the Fourth in 1794 and 1821His Object in coming to Ireland-Anecdote of his liaison with Mrs. Fitzherbert.

MR. O'CONNELL was in the habit of saying that he was the best-abused man in the British dominions. That he should have served as a target for the factious enemies of liberty to discharge their pop-guns at, is exceedingly natural, when we consider the prominent position he occupied as the champion of constitutional freedom.

"You are used to this now," I observed to him one day; "but did it not at first annoy you?" "Not a bit," he replied; "I knew the scoundrels were only advertising me by their abuse."

But he sometimes was the object of abuse of a less usual description than that of pamphleteers or newspaper-paragraph writers.