Liberator told me had formerly belonged to his ancestors. As we came within view of Chief Baron O'Grady's seat, Mr. O'Connell conversed about the proprietor. In 1813, some person having remarked to O'Grady that Lord Castlereagh, by his ministerial management, "had made a great character for himself."-" Has he?" said O'Grady; "faith if he has, he's just the boy to spend it like a gentleman!"

"O'Grady," continued O'Connell, "was on one occasion annoyed at the disorderly noise in the Court House at Tralee. He bore it quietly for some time, expecting that Denny (the High Sheriff) would interfere to restore order. Finding, however, that Denny, who was reading in his box, took no notice of the riot, O'Grady rose from the bench, and called out to the studious High Sheriff,

Mr. Denny, I just got up to hint that I'm afraid the noise in the court will prevent you from reading your novel in quiet.'

"After O'Grady had retired from the bench, some person placed a large stuffed owl on the sofa beside him. The bird was of enormous size, and had been brought as a great curiosity from the tropics. O'Grady looked at the owl for a moment, and then said with a gesture of peevish impatience, Take

away that owl! take away that owl! If you don't, I shall fancy I am seated again on the Exchequer Bench beside Baron Foster!'

"Those who have seen Baron Foster on the bench, can best appreciate the felicitous resemblance traced by his venerable brother judge between his lordship and an old stuffed owl.

"I remember," continued O'Connell, "a witness who was called on to give evidence to the excellent character borne by a man whom O'Grady was trying on a charge of cow-stealing. The witness got on the table with the confident air of a fellow who had a right good opinion of himself; he played a small trick, too, that amused me: he had but one glove, which he used sometimes to put on his right hand, keeping the left in his pocket; and again, when he thought he was not watched, he would put it on his left hand, slipping the right into his pocket. 'Well,' said O'Grady to this genius, do you know the prisoner at the bar?' 'I do, right well, my lord!'' And what is his general character?' 'As honest, dacent, well-conducted a man, my lord, as any in Ireland, which all the neighbours knows, only—only—there was something about stealing a cow.' The very thing the prisoner is accused of!' cried O'Grady, interrupting the witness to character.""

แ

O'Grady," continued O'Connell, "had no propensity for hanging people. He gave fair play to men on trial for their lives, and was upon the whole a very safe judge."

Among the Liberator's professional reminiscences was the following unique instance of a client's gratitude. He had obtained an acquittal; and the fellow, in the ecstacy of his joy, exclaimed, “Ogh, Counsellor! I've no way here to show your honour my gratitude! but I wisht I saw you knocked down in my own parish, and maybe I wouldn't bring a faction to the rescue!"

A tattered-looking stroller recognised O'Connell at some place where we stopped for a few minutes, and asked him for money, pleading a personal acquaintance in aid of his claim. "I don't know at all, my good man," said O'Connell; "I never saw you before."

honour's son would

you

say to

"That's not what your me," returned the applicant, "for he got me a good place at Glasnevin Cemetery, only I hadn't the luck to keep it."

"Then, indeed, you were strangely unlucky," rejoined O'Connell; "for those who have places in cemeteries generally keep them."

CHAPTER X.

Pageant at Limerick-Peerages granted by Napoleon-Remark upon Napoleon's Power-O'Connell's early Thirst for Fame -Narrow Escape of shooting a Man-O'Connell at DouayTrial by Jury-Value of the Law that 'requires Unanimity in a Verdict-Illustrative Instances.

THE crowds who assembled to welcome the Liberator into Limerick were estimated to amount to 100,000 persons. Large numbers of the tradesmen met him about three miles from the city, on the Cork, road. The ship-carpenters displayed a sort of pageant; Neptune, bearing a trident, and dressed in a sea-green philabeg and sash, occupied a boat which moved along on wheels; and when the Liberator's carriage approached, the ocean-king addressed him in a quaint set speech, full of such crambo conceits as might figure to advantage in the mythological masques of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. O'Connell replied in character, declaring "he felt quite refreshed by receiving an aquatic compliment upon the dusty high road;" and expressing his high

sense of "the condescending courtesy of the illustrious monarch of the deep."

Arrived in Limerick, the men hurra'd and tossed up their hats; a poor woman, equally enthusiastic, but having no hat, tossed up the child she held in her arms.

c'

The cavalcade halted in George Street, opposite Cruise's Hotel; and O'Connell there addressed the multitude upon the Repeal of the Union; alluding with powerful effect to the local recollections of the City of the violated Treaty;"—the city 66 consecrated by Irish fidelity-desecrated by English perfidy." Thence we proceeded to the "Treaty Stone," where Steele spoke at length, with energy and fervour. In the evening, O'Connell was entertained at a dinner in the theatre. His speech was admirable. Sentence followed sentence; each an axiom of political wisdom; I never had heard him more effective; yet he was wretchedly reported.

Next morning we set off for Ennis, where 50,000 persons were met; we spent the evening at the house of Mr. Charles O'Connell, a relative of the Liberator's, where we met my friend Hewitt Bridgman, then member for the borough, who boasted to me with honest pride that the first political act of his life was signing a petition against the Union, in 1799. On our return from Ennis to Limerick on the