kind as a curse, at the building of Babel. It would be of vast advantage to mankind if all the inhabitants of the earth spoke the same language. Therefore, although the Irish language is connected with many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great, that I can witness without a sigh the gradual disuse of the Irish."

He said that in 1828 he had made a speech in Irish at a Catholic meeting in the county Louth; and that at some other place (Tralee, if I recollect aright) the reporters from a London journal were ludicrously puzzled at an harangue he delivered in the ancient tongue of Erin. Their pencils and tablets were all in readiness, when the Agitator advanced to the front of the platform and pronounced a speech of which they did not understand a syllable.

O'Connell's parliamentary career for the years that followed 1833 presented no such vigorous efforts of genius as his opposition to the Coercion Bill exhibited. He made many admirable speeches; but he had not the excitement of such stormy elements of strife as those which aroused his great powers in that memorable session.

In the month of January, 1834, I was in Dublin,

and met the Liberator at a Repeal meeting held in the Corn Exchange. I spoke in reply to a Unionist effusion of Emerson Tennent's. O'Connell then proceeded to assail Mr. Tennent, whom he accused of political tergiversation, styling him "the species of monster we read of in the Arabian Nights,' with a green back and an orange tail." After a lengthened attack on the object of our animadversion, the Liberator asked me to accompany him to his house in Merrion Square.

Some allusion was made to the Liberator's political labours, and his relinquishment of his profession. He said, "I believe I am the only person on whom a voluntary annual tribute was ever bestowed by a nation."

Among his reminiscences of bar practice, he mentioned the trial of Judge Johnson for a libel which Cobbett had printed. Cobbett had been previously tried and convicted; and rather than undergo the legal penalty, he gave up Johnson, who was the author of the libel. It was a curious document to emanate from a judge. O'Connell said;—

"It called Lord Hardwicke a sheep-feeder from Cambridgeshire, and Lord Redesdale a stout-built special-pleader from Lincoln's Inn. Johnson's great object was to gain time. He sued out his habeas corpus in every one of the courts. The last was the

Common Pleas. One of his counsel was Scriven, whose instructions were to be as lengthy as possible. He accordingly opened by stating that he had eighteen distinct propositions to enunciate. Lord Norbury soon got tired, and tried to cut the matter short by occasionally saying, That will do, Mr. Scriven the Court is with you on that point, so you need not occupy your time by demonstration.' 'That won't do, my lord,' said Scriven; 'I must assist your lordship with some additional reasons; I well know the great ability of my learned friends who will follow on the other side, so I cannot possibly accept your lordship's concession.' The first day was wholly occupied by stating the eighteen propositions; the succeeding days were devoted to proving them. The opposite counsel, whose game was brevity, let Scriven run on uninterrupted. When he came out of court the first day, he said, 'D-n those fellows! I could not get one of them to interrupt me.' But he and his brethren succeeded in wearing out the term. Meanwhile, the administration changed; the new government (of 1806) let Johnson off easily. He was not turned off the bench, but induced to retire on a pension of 12007. a year."

This Johnson had been made a judge for sup

porting the Union. He afterwards wrote the remarkable essay on the military capacity of Ireland for self-defence, which was published under the signature of "Philip Roche Fermoy."

The year 1834 was rendered remarkable by the introduction of the Repeal question into the House of Commons. O'Connell told me he was forced to take this step, bitterly against his will. "I felt," said he, "like a man who was going to jump into a cold bath, but I was obliged to take the plunge." His speech was certainly an able one, but very inferior to the masterly oration in which he introduced the same question, in 1843, into the Dublin corporation.

Notwithstanding the obstacles thrown by the Coercion Act in the way of petitions to the legislature, O'Connell was backed, on this occasion, by more than half a million of signatures to petitions in favour of Repeal.

It is told of him, that on the day he was going down to the House of Commons to make his motion on Repeal, he stopped opposite King Henry the Seventh's chapel, took off his hat, and blessed himself, saying aloud, "The Lord Almighty be merciful to your soul, Henry the Seventh, who left us so magnificent a monument of your piety. You

left provision at your decease to have perpetual

up for your

soul;

but from the time

masses offered that ever execrable brute, Henry the Eighth, seized on the revenues of the church, and of course laid hands on that endowment with the rest, perhaps no human being recollected to aspirate the words 'the Lord have mercy on your soul,' until it struck the humble person who now offers that prayer with the utmost sincerity."

The Repeal debate, of 1834, is fresh in the memory of the reader. Spring Rice, as being an Irishman, and an expert financial juggler, was selected by government as the most appropriate assailant of his country's rights. His fallacies, absurdities, and falsehoods, were affirmed by an imperial majority of 525 to 40.

In January, 1835, there was a general election. The number of Repealers returned to Parliament was not so numerous as in 1832. Some of the Repeal members did not offer themselves again to their constituencies; others did, and were defeated. The anti-Repeal landlords wreaked terrible vengeance on the electors who had voted at the previous election for Repealers. Those landlords are now paying a bitter penalty for their short-sighted

* I take this anecdote from the "Cork Southern Reporter," of October 2, 1847.