"I have had," said he," the honour of sustaining some royal abuse. William the Fourth scolded me in a royal speech; but George the Fourth had previously bestowed a most royal malediction on me. I attended the first levée after the Emancipation Bill passed; the wretched king was suffering from an utterly broken constitution, and the presence chamber was kept as thin as it was possible, to preserve him from inconvenient crowding. When I got into the midst of it, approaching the throne, I saw the lips of his majesty moving; and thinking it possible he might be speaking to me, I advanced, in order to make, if requisite, a suitable reply. He had ceased to speak-I kissed hands and passed out. In some days I saw a mysterious paragraph in a Scotch newspaper, remarking on the strange mode in which an Irish subject had been received by his prince, who was stated to have vented a curse at him. I happened to meet the Duke of Norfolk, and asked him if he could explain the paragraph. "Yes,' said he,' you are the person alluded to. The day you were at the levée, his majesty said, as you were approaching, 'There is O'Connell !—G—d damn the scoundrel!'

A recent writer had praised George the Fourth's colloquial abilities.

Why," said O'Connell, "from his rank, he of

course found ready listeners, and he could talk familiarly of royal personages, concerning whom there is usually some curiosity felt. That kind of talk might have passed for agreeable; but his favourite conversation was like that of a profligate, halfdrunken trooper."

"Was he, in your opinion, a handsome, princelylooking fellow?"

"When I saw him in 1794," replied O'Connell, "he was a remarkably handsome-faced man; his figure was faulty, narrow shoulders, and enormous hips; yet altogether he was certainly a very finelooking fellow. But when I saw him in Dublin in 1821, age and the results of dissipation had made him a most hideous object; he had a flabby, tallowcoloured face; and his frame was quite debilitated. He came to Ireland to humbug the Catholics, who, he thought, would take sweet words instead of useful deeds. Ah! we were not to be humbugged!

"I believe," he added, "that there never was a greater scoundrel than George the Fourth. To his other evil qualities he added a perfect disregard of truth. During his connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert, Charles James Fox dined with him one day in that lady's company. After dinner, Mrs. Fitzherbert said, ' By-the-bye, Mr. Fox, I had almost forgotten to ask you, what you did say about me in the

House of Commons the other night? The newspapers misrepresent so very strangely, that one cannot depend on them. You were made to say, that the Prince authorised you to deny his marriage with me!'-The Prince made monitory grimaces at Fox, and immediately said, ' Upon my honour, my dear, I never authorised him to deny it.'—' Upon my honour, sir, you did,' said Fox, rising from table; I had always thought your father the greatest liar in England, but now I see that you Fox would not associate with the Prince for some years, until one day that he walked in, unannounced, and found Fox at dinner. Fox rose as the Prince entered, and said that he had but one course consistent with his hospitable duty as an English gentleman, and that was to admit him."

are.'*

* One Sunday, in 1796, my maternal grandfather, who was the Protestant Rector of Ardstraw, on returning from church, told some members of his family who had spent the day at home, "that he had publicly prayed in the Litany for Mrs. Fitzherbert." On their expressing surprise, he replied, "I prayed for the Princess of Wales; and there is not, in the sight of Heaven, any other Princess of Wales than Mrs. Fitzherbert."

CHAPTER XIV.

O'Connell's Reminiscences of his own Courtship-Hands the goaler-Ballads-Travelling in the Olden Time.

ON one of our Repeal journeys-namely, to Waterford-he adverted, as he frequently did, to the memory of the late Mrs. O'Connell.

"I never," said he, "proposed marriage to any woman but one-my Mary. I said to her, 'Are you engaged, Miss O'Connell?'-She answered, 'I am not.'-'Then,' said I, will you engage yourself to me?'-'I will,' was her reply. And I said I would devote my life to make her happy. She deserved that I should-she gave me thirty-four years of the purest happiness that man ever enjoyed. My uncle was desirous I should obtain a much larger fortune, and I thought he would disinherit me. But I did not care for that. I was richly rewarded by subsequent happiness."

"And your profession made you independent ?"

"Yes-the first year I was at the bar I made 587., the second year about 150l., the third year 2007., the fourth year about 300 guineas.* I then advanced rapidly; and the last year of my practice I got 90007., although I lost one term."

"Did your wife reside in Tralee ?'

"She did, with her grandmother; and it was my delight to quiz the old lady, by pretending to complain of her grand-daughter's want of temper. Madam,' said I, ' Mary would do very well, only she is so cross.' Cross, sir? My Mary cross? Sir, you must have provoked her very much! Sir, you must yourself be quite in fault! Sir, my little girl was always the gentlest, sweetest creature born.'

"And so she was," he added, after a pause. "She had the sweetest, the most heavenly temper, and the sweetest breath."

He remained some moments silent, and then resumed

1

"When my wife was a little girl, she was obliged to pass, on her way to school, every day, under the arch of the gaol; and Hands, the gaoler of Tralee, a most gruff, uncouth-looking fellow, always made her stop and curtsey to him. She despatched the

* I think I have stated these sums correctly, but am not quite certain.