its attractions. Another advantage possessed by him has not been so much remarked upon-the rapid, changeful expression of his features. By observing O'Connell's face, as he spoke, one could be sure of the tone and temper of what was coming. Was he about to make an adversary ridiculous by an anecdote or a witticism? His eyes, his lips, his whole face, suddenly became expressive of humour. Did he intend to turn from pleasantries to solemn warning, or fierce denunciation, (a usual habit of his,) the dark cloud was sure to cast its shadow across his manly features, before the thunder came forth.

His style was simple and forcible. He very seldom quoted the classics, although he was fond of giving passages from the English poets, more especially from Moore, but the lines which expressed the guiding principle of his life were taken from Byron :

Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."

The moment I read that passage, he once said, I saw it was the motto for Ireland; and up to 1829, the year of the Emancipation, he seldom spoke without quoting it. He avoided figurative language. He amused his audience with stories and old sayings which they understood and appreciated. He brought the shrewd apothegms, familiar at their own fire sides, to bear upon the principles he was inculcating, but flowers of rhetoric he knew would be feeble weapons for the warfare in which he was engaged. He once, indeed, complimented Sheil, by calling him "the brightest star that ever rose in the murky

horison of his afflicted country;" but that suited the man and the occasion.

He had a true conception of what a great teacher ought to be; and for this reason he kept repeating his principles and his arguments in the same or almost the same words. Many an admirer of his thought he dosed his countrymen far too much with, "First flower of the carth," and "Hereditary bondsmen;" but, as he said about his attacks on men, it was calculation made him do it, and he proclaimed this so late as 1846, at the Repeal Association, in the following words: "I have often said, and repeated it over and over again, that I had found, that it was not sufficient in politics to enunciate a new proposition, one, or two, or three times. I continue to repeat it, until it comes back like an echo from the different parts of the country; then I know it is understood, and I leave it to its fate." The lesson had been learned.

Physically, O'Connell was a very powerful man. He was taller than he seemed, his muscular frame taking away in appearance from his height. The earliest portraits of him make him a soft-faced athletic young man, very likely to be a dangerous antagonist in the prize ring, but his features, as given at the time, bear scarcely any resemblance to later portraits of him. His shoulders were broad, and in walking he pushed them forward alternately in a rather remarkable manner. peculiarity, arising more from physical necessity than from choice, gave him a sort of slinging gait, which caused a Tory print to call him, derisively, Swaggering Dan." This nickname of their favorite did not offend the people, they even thought it appropriate, there was such a dashing independence

This

in his whole manner; and Sheil never wrote anything more felicitously true, than when he said of him, "he shoulders his umbrella like a pike, and throws out his legs as if he were kicking Protestant ascendancy before him."

O'Connell was a liberal in the highest sense; he loved toleration; but he was also a Catholic to the heart's core-thorough, uncompromising: proud of the down-trodden Church to which he belonged, with, at first, perhaps, an intuitive feelinglater on, the proud consciousness that his name would be linked with her struggles and her triumphs.

"One of my earliest aspirations," he more than once said, was to do something for the good of my country, and write my name on the page of her history." He was fervently devoted to the holy practices of the Catholic Church. The fatal result of his duel with Captain D'Esterre, seems to have exercised a marked influence upon his whole life, and he frequently alluded to it in terms of the profoundest regret. It was a sight not to be forgotten to see him attend Mass and receive Holy Communion in Clarendon-street. When he was at home, his habit was to walk from Merrion-square to that, his favourite chapel, to eight o'clock Mass. On these occasions he usually wore a very ample cloak, the collar of which concealed the lower half of his face. Thus enveloped, he entered the sanctuary with an expression of recollection so profound, that it might have been a Trappist who had entered. So it was during the hour he remained; he seemed perfectly unconscious of any human creature being in the place, except the priest at the altar before him. He seldom used a prayer-book, and his eyes

T

were never once raised during the whole time. Buried in his great cloak, he moved noiselessly out, as he had entered-a bright example,-a very model-to the whole congregation.*

"History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847." p. 400.

APPENDIX A.

"I took my seat on Tuesday, the 3rd of March. We had continued our deliberations in Cabinet up to that time, and had agreed with perfect unanimity on the general outline, and indeed on the details, of the several measures to be proposed to Parliament. We acted under the impression that we had the sanction (the reluctant, certainly-but still the complete sanction) of the King for our proceedings. Being anxious that there should not be a moment of unnecessary delay, I gave notice on the 3rd of March that I would, on Thursday, the 5th, call the attention of the House of Commons to that part of the Speech from the Throne which related to the state of Ireland, and the removal of the civil disabilities under which the Roman Catholics laboured.

"In the interim, circumstances wholly unforeseen occurred, which appeared for a time to oppose an insuperable barrier to any further progress with the measures of which the actual notice had been thus given.

"On the evening of Tuesday, the 3rd of March, the King commanded the Duke of Wellington, the Lord Chancellor, and myself to attend His Majesty at Windsor at an early hour on the following day. We went there accordingly, and, on our arrival, were ushered into the presence of the King, who received us with his usual kindness and cordiality.

"He was grave, and apparently labouring under some anxiety and uneasiness.

"His Majesty said that we must be fully aware that it had caused him the greatest pain to give his assent to the proposition made to him by his Cabinet, that they should be at liberty to offer their collective advice on the Catholic Question, and still greater pain to him to feel that he had no alternative, but to act upon the advice which he had received. His Majesty then observed, that as the question was about to be brought forward in Parliament, he wished to have a previous personal conference with those of his