laurels. The occasion was one to put in too soon in this department of his art. Sportmotion all his loftiest powers. The great iveness is, on occasions, more effective than accused had fought side-by-side with Mr. Sheil in the perilous and well-foughten field" of Catholic freedom, and now that the pupil was to lift up his appealing voice to protect his teacher from a dungeon, all expected such an effort as might be worthy the advocate and the client. The bar was all compact of wigs-rank and fashion, to use the gravest logic or most pompous eloquence; but for all things there is a time. We are not professors of rhetoric, or expounders of critical rules. Genius, like the wind, bloweth where it listeth. Mr. Sheil's instinctive skill and practised habits are a surer guide than our sayings or opinions. But we shape our remarks by a judgment less fallible than the stereotyped vocabulary of the newspapers, our own the countenance of Mr. O'Connell crowded the galleries. Like the ladies of an bearing "the mind's impress" on its sagaharem peeping from their lattices, bright cious front. He pressed his lips-knit his eyes gleamed out from every nook and corner. brows-shifted his spectacles-looked into a Even the seat of justice was not free from paper lying before him, and, as if to interthe anxious intruders. The steps on both rupt the strain, handed the speaker a volume sides, leading to the judicial arm-chairs, were of Carrington and Payne's reports, which thronged with a solid column, while some, drew him off to more sober considerations and not having the fear of the law before their eyes, thrust themselves fair in front of their lordships. We knew by one patient judge that his gallantry was sadly on the ebb, and that he had rather the gentle intruders remained at home over their pianos or knitting frames. There was a rumor in court-the loftier eloquence. He stirred the court with alternate admiration and laughter. The Attorney-General alone was an immobility. It has been his hard fate to undergo the assaults of many tongues. Honorable, and fearless, and manly, it pained us to see him exposed to the effects of his position. Mr. Sheil hit him circulation of a wag, who sought a comfort- hard, but there was no serious bitterness in able seat on Dean Swift's manœuvre of or- his sarcasm-it was light-jocular-somedering oysters for his horse-that Mr. Sheil times penetrating, but never for a moment was too unwell to speak that day. The dis- insulting or malicious. It was easy to disappointment soon cleared off, for he came criminate between delicate and playful irony into court at the appointed hour. He looked, and cold and vindictive severity. The tramin truth, very ill. His face was pale, and net and the miraculous catch of agitators, traced with suffering. The tender motion editors, and priests, was in the happiest style beneath showed that the proverbial curse of of conception, and the very perfection of de aldermen had laid his toes under contribution. But that was not the time to sink under infirmities. He did not, like Appius, enter the senate in a litter, or, like Lord Chatham, on crutches-he moved suis pedibus, but not without pain. He is before us, and now let him proceed on his eloquent way. When he rose, the universal hum subsided into a dead livery: and when he looked laughingly at the Attorney-General, and then shot forward with pointed finger, and asked, "why did you not catch a Bishop?" Judge Burton passed his hands over his face, and even the Chief Justice smiled. This may be said to be the personal part of his address. A wider and more interesting picture was now before stillness. Leaning forward on the table, he him. The past supplied the materials out of same time the most influential on the minds of the Jury, if the kindling power of an impassioned oratory could awake in them a remembrance of duty to their country, rising high and far above the charge of the chief, and the cruel strictness of the law. If Mr. Sheil left no permanent effects in his glorious track, it was not because he did not sink deep. That was perceptible to all, but it was soon effaced by other causes. opened his oration in a few faint and fluttered which were moulded the most beautiful and periods. He told the jury of the magnitude eloquent passages of his speech, and at the of his duty, and he appeared to feel it. He was deeply agitated, and his lips quivered with convulsive emotion. For a few minutes, he jerked out his sentences with a drooping though distinct voice. He implored the jury to pardon or bear with his defects, compared with the intellectual powers and forensic expertness of the eminent lawyers with whom he was associated. His modest appeal was quite touching, but underneath that simplicity there lay consummate art. Passing rapidly from the solemnity of powerful and well-digested exordium, he floated along for nearly one hour in a current of mingled wit, playfulness, and banter. He seemed to us to have broken ground His historical sketch of the state of Ireland, and the changes in her condition and constitution, was singularly clear and graphic. If Mr. O'Connell spoke with freedom of the injustice of England, was he alone in his indignant denouncement? There was the famous "Case of Ireland"-there were the the child of her that watches over him from heaDrapier's letters-there was the burning ven, and shall look out for some high place far grandeur of Grattan, and the logical invective and wide into the island, whose greatness and whose glory shall be for ever associated with his of Flood-there was the free-speaking opponame. In your love of justice-in your love of sition in the Irish Parliament, and the volun- Ireland-in your love of honesty and fair playteers in their conventions and congresses! I place my confidence. I ask you for an acquitNo Attorney-General dared to prosecute tal, not only for the sake of your country, but for them for sedition and conspiracy. If he did, would a jury of '82 convict them? Would they immolate their patriots and their own liberties on the same altar? This was the train of his argument and eloquence. One passage from the very brilliant conclusion of his speech drew down a universal burst of applause. The spirit that informs it is in the best vein of pathetic eloquence. It was the closing appeal. As we shall hereafter take up ne speeches of Mr. Sheil, Mr. Whiteside, and others in a separate paper, we abstain from extracts at present; but the beauty of this peroration will lose in no repetition : your own. Upon the day when this trial shall have been brought to a termination, when amidst the burst of public expectancy, in answer to the solemn interrogatory which shall be put to you by the officer of the court, you shall answer 'not guilty, with what a transport will that glorious negative be welcomed! How will you be blest, adored; and when retiring from this scene of excitement and of passion. you shall return to your tranquil homes, how pleasurably will you look upon your children, in the consciousness that you will have left them a patrimony of peace, by impressing upon the British cabinet, that some other measure besides a state prosecution is necessary for the pacification of your country." It is unnecessary to pass in review all the "There is not a great city in Europe in which, topics on which Mr. Sheil dilated. All were upon the day upon which the great intelligence shall be expected to arrive, men will not stop each other in the public way, to inquire whether twelve men upon their oaths have doomed to incarceration the man who gave liberty to Ireland. Whatever may be your adjudication, he is prepared to meet it. He knows that the eyes of the world are upon him, and that posterity, whether in a gaol or out of it, will look back to him with admiration. He is almost indifferent to whatmay befall him, and is far more solicitous for others at this moment than for himself. But I-at the commencement of what I have said to you, I told you that I was not unmoved, and that many incidents of my political life, the strange alterna tions of fortune through which I have passed, well conceived and apposite, forming the constituent parts of a complete and elaborate whole. The various elements, and they are multitudinous, which could be brought to bear on a jury of Irishmen, and above all of Dublin citizens and Protestants, were skilfully mixed up the glories of '82 with its Protestant volunteers-the gloom of the Union, with the consequent decay of trade-the petitions of the Orange Corporation to restore the Parliament "the guilty desire" that Ireland had been a nation of Protestants-all were expounded for the palate of the jury with the most refined artistic skill. As a display of forensic eloquence, however, it is no demerit came back upon me. But now the bare possibility at which I have glanced has, I acknow- to its excellence to state, that it fell short of ledge, almost unmanned me. Shall I, who those models of magnificence which fill the stretch out my hand to you in behalf of the son highest places in the temple of oratory, and -the hand whose fetters the father had struck which we are accustomed to regard as the off-live to cast my eyes upon that domicile of masterpieces of sublime art. We have heard sorrow, in the vicinity of this great metropolis, it foolishly remarked, that it rivalled or surerator of Ireland, with his fondest and best be- passed the immortalities of ancient or modern loved child? No! it shall never be! You will times. The most that may be said in the and say 'Tis there they have immured the Lib not consign him to the spot to which the Attorney-General invites you to surrender him. No. When the spring shall have come again, and the winter shall have passed-when the winter shall have come again, it is not through the windows of this mansion that the father of such a son, and the son of such a father, shall look upon those green hills on which the eyes of many a captive has gazed so wistfully in vain; but in their own mountain home they shall listen to the murmurs of the great Atlantic; they shall go forth and inhale the freshness of the morning air together; they shall be free of mountain solitudes; es: they will be encompassed with the loftiest images of liberty upon every side; and if time shall have stolen its suppleness from the father's knee, or impaired the firmness of his tread, he shall lean on panegyrical fashion is, that it was worthy the reputation of Mr. Sheil-and this is proceeding far in the direction of real praise. When we reflect on the grave character of the issue -when we consider that he was on that occa sion the advocate not of one, but of millions -that the most sacred privileges of the people were in his keeping that the first and loftiest principles of the constitution, and the venerable common law of the realm, were in danger-that he was the advocate of a nation against a government-that the history of centuries was at his command, to extract the finest materials that ever quickened, elevated, and inspired human eloquence-when we weigh all these, and read the speech, grand as it is, we persuasive. If he was not first in oratory, he must say, that Mr.Sheil might have soared into was foremost in effect. There was little proan "ampler ether." Pictures might be drawn fessional argument, not because he was incaof triumphs and defeats of sufferings and of pable of application to that department, but struggles-more comprehensive in design, because his duties lay in an opposite direcand richer or more sombre in coloring, than tion. He was not to convince the court, but the most eloquent of painters ever completed. to move the jury, -to shame the ministerExcept the cause of his country in the hands to soften the parliament, and absorb the atof Demosthenes, there was nothing compara-tention of the people of England in painting ble to the occasion of Mr. Sheil; principally the wrongs and sufferings of their oppressed to him, because in the allotment and distribution of the parts, that of history was assigned to his picturesque eloquence, the more weighty consideration of constitutional law and particular facts being appropriated to others. He alone had "verge enough" to trace in imperishable characters the past, brethren in Ireland. Why, men said, did not Sheil explain the law? He had a higher duty-to lay the basis of future laws. If he was not profound in legal exposition, it was because five were to follow who would exhaust the subject, through all its magnitude and variety. He had art, tact, and passion-the present, and future fortunes of his country. whole set off by the most exquisite acting, We proudly acknowledge the splendid mani- very curious, though very impressive. Every festations of intellectual power in many parts gesture and tone and cadence and position, of his speech-there were streams of spark- was a study for the actor and elocution-mas ter. It was perhaps too violent in some respects, and subversive of personal dignity, for you might feel that the orator was tricking you into an acknowledgment of his ability, by putting you off with empty dexterity of body instead of inspirations of mind. But in Mr. Sheil's case the orator accompanied the actor, ling beauty and subduing pathos alternating with high and ennobling oratory-but we missed those imperishable flashes which are treasured up and remembered-the emanations of mind, which, like the bursting of the fountains of the great deep, fling out their living waters, to refresh and gladden for ever -the enduring power which for ever is incor- and the mind and the eye were alike satiscase of Mr. Moore, it was only the old law of Taliv. Mr. Smith pierced, and was punished in return. That Mr. Moore so smote, let the Attorney-General accuse the quickness of his own temper, which is for ever rising up in judgment against him-a weakness, however, which is more than balanced by many virtues. porated with the history of the human mind, and which, like the conqueror of the Python, leaves the image of the orator to all future time in ever-living and unrivalled beauty and grandeur, when the orator and the epoch are passed away, and both are only known or remembered by the embalming powers of immortal eloquence. In these remarks we set up the standard of an ideal excellence which very few have, but which has been reached. Mr. Whiteside, whose overpowering effort we shall notice in due order, has closely approximated to it in some passages-Mr. Sheil hovered near the confines, but, attracted by more inviting and transitory elements, he dropped into mid air. To derogate, however, from the extreme finish and beauty and effect of his oration, we are utterly indisposed. If we were to judge of its splendor by the response of universal admiration and applause, its merit stands confessed. One learned Judge declared it to be the most eloquent speech he had ever heard, and he had heard the defence of the Catholic Delegates the prosecution and defence of the Bottle Conspirators-Mr. O'Connell's speeches in defence of Magee and Barrett, with many other of the most consummate displays of the Irish bar. Such was his estimate of Mr. Sheil. To roll up this long distended thread of gentle criticism, Mr. Sheil was witty, brilliant, polished, and fied. In style it was the chastest of his we ever read. There was none of the redundancy and straining after expression which is perceptible in most of his earlier and some of his later efforts. No such conceits as calling tears" the "steam of burning hearts" and patriotism "the sunflower of the soul." Such frigidities had yielded to a more graceful and accomplished diction. The portraits of Saurin and Bushe, though brief, were characteristic and beautiful-the royal procession to College Green, and the delineation of the sovereign-the wife and the mother-the very gems of pictorial eloquence. The most faultless and touching of perorations drew forth some tears-O'Connell himself wept. Some idea of its subduing effect may be formed from one miraculous circumstance-the unexampled phenomenon of Mr. William Ford pouring out his feelings in hysterical sobs,-Pluto's iron tears! The effect produced by Mr. Sheil somewhat resembled that produced by Sheridan's speech, for Mr. Moore, following the example of Mr. Pitt, obtained from the court an adjournment. No ladies fainted, though sensitive town clerks shed tears-something still more strange than the accounts we read of the impressions produced on the Athenian audience by the Eumenides of Æschylus. A grey attorney in hysterics! On the following day Mr. Moore commenc ed his address for the Rev. Mr. Tierney. jeffect quite appalling. His parliamentary His task was comparatively easy, as, of all career, and we ourselves acknowledge a guilthe accused, the meek pastor of Clontibret ty participation, has exposed Mr. Smith to was the least involved in the conspiracy. But much unprovoked bitterness. To gall a genMr. Moore did not limit himself to the mere erous steed by a continual pricking of his ulexculpation of his client. He stood on high-cerated wounds, is unkind and cruel. Had er ground, and, while he prominently kept he done deeds of dishonor and disrepute, let his peculiar cause in front of the argument, him pay the penalty of a criminal rememand extracted ample proofs of his client's in- brance-otherwise let him be spared. In the nocence from the indictment and the evidence, he did battle at the same time for all the traversers. He had not Mr. Sheil's wit to vivify-or his eloquence to inspire-or his vigorous action to rivet attention: but he had pure and unembarrassed reasoning-constitutional principles to lay down-sound and just conclusions to draw rational conjectures from complicated and contradictory testimony to infer-and all impressed with that authority and weight which the highest professional character can bestow. If he had none of the impassioned bursts, or that overwhelining vehemence which constitute the more exalted style of advocacy, he had that unpretending but not the less convincing plainness and simple force of expression which spring from sterling sense and clear and calm reason. You could cull no particular passage, and say, "this is eloquence"-but you would say that the entire was characteristic of a powerful mind. It was remarkable for two qualities-a condensed exposition of the law, and cutting, we might almost say savage, sarcasm. He is a modest and good-natured man, to whom the utterance of a harsh expression is quite a novelty. An understanding so sound, and judgment so well balanced, rarely yield to the impulses which sway less sober and reflective minds. Irony and invective are alien to such natures; they are found in the wayward, the sensitive, the strong of passion and intemperate of tongue; but who would have sought them in Richard Moore? His severity to the Attorney-General broke on us with surprise. Keen as was the satire, and poignant and wicked the wit of Mr. Sheil, he was surpassed by Mr. Moore in the intensity and unsparing weight of his blows. And yet there was nothing which fell without the circle of professional duty. This is the difficulty to guard against, and for transgressing which, in the esteem of the Attorney-General, Mr. Fitzgibbon was honored with his cartel. We can account for the unloosing of Mr. Moore's generally inoffensive tongue. A deep deposite had been accumulating in his mind since the day he was charged with "gross ignorance." The long fast since then had sharpened his appetite. He gathered up and nursed his just indignation for a future day, when it suddenly burst on the Attorney-General's ear with an To pass to more pleasing contemplations than the quarrels of honorable men, which, after all, amount to nothing more than that artificial enmity engendered by the temporary conflict of heated minds, and which soon fades before the returning light of cool and deliberate reflection-Mr. Moore cleared up what Mr. Sheil left for the most part untouched in all its purity-the law of conspiracy, and its application to the case of all the traversers. He was very clear and powerful in untying the hard knots with which the Crown had drawn in and fastened the accused. Every sentence contained a principle. Without identifying himself with the repeal question, from which he kept sedulously distant, he rested the right of the Irish people to pursue it on the true, intelligible, and constitutional grounds. From an abstract view of the law, he descended to particulars, and alit on the Clontarf meeting, which it was stated by the Attorney-General was not held by Mr. O'Connell, "from a conviction of its illegality." This afforded Mr. Moore a fine opportunity of assailing the conduct of the government in their tardy issue of that memorable proclamation, and at the same time, of explaining the views and extolling the humanity of Mr. O'Connell, in saving the unarmed multitudes from the chances of a collision with the soldiery. Whether the projected march to Conquer-Hill, with Mr. Morgan's "turms of horse and wings," and the sable denizens of the Coal Quay in divisions and sections-was legal or not, we shall not inquire after the verdict, but that the motives of the leader originated in purer and better feelings than those attributed by the Attorney-General, we cannot for a moment doubt. Mr. Moore, with simple eloquence, depicted the disastrous consequences which might ensue from a rash or sudden act or word of offence-and with the possible horrors of a butchery before the eyes of Mr. O'Connell, he left the Jury to choose between the convictions of humanity and illegality. pondence of the Society-ordering the publiThe speech occupied two hours in the de- cations of the Society-and discharging the livery, and within that time it would be diffi- bills of the Society. It was monstrous, cult to compress more solid reasoning-more "Gentlemen," preposterously monstrous! comprehensive, and at the same time minute Mr. Hatchell's language was distinguished and particular exposition-more, successful for abstinence from all personality or attribudevelopment of principles, and more skill tion of unfair or uncandid motives. He in their application. He aimed at no splen- spoke without offence, and his efficiency was did display he forgot himself in the interests not less. The doses administered by his pre of his clients, and was content with the more humble duty of keeping close to his subject. After the high flavor of Mr. Sheil's oratory, the homeliness of Mr. Moore was a great relief-one had the cream of champagne, the other of humble but more nutritious milk. Each, however, is good in its season. Mr. Hatchell's defence for the Secretary of the Association surpassed in effect the customary run of his jury addresses. Circumspect and cunning, he threw deep into shadow, or passed over with the slightest glance of his cautious mind, those points of the ac decessors were strong enough, and perhaps the policy of moderation in that juncture was the best that could have been adopted. Mr. Fitzgibbon had from the commencement thrown himself into the lead, and maintained it with an inflexibility which often savored of undue hardship to his opponents; but the cause lay deeper in the peculiarity of his temperament. It was his constitution, the character of his mind, and not the result of an obtrusive or vindictive disposition : for though a bold and courageous man, he is in many respects gentle and retiring. Pro cusation which bore most heavily on Mr. fessionally he strikes forward, and stays withRay. He pressed the Crown with well-af- in no limits which he conceives it his duty to fected indignation on the solemn mockery of surpass. In all this there is no "criminal inpunishing a man for a conspiracy who was tent." He was counsel for Dr. Gray, of the merely the paid servant of the conspiring Freeman's Journal, and unlike Mr. Moore, body. This was the very danger in which who contented himself with a rapid and his client was involved, and he pushed it forcible sketch, there remained for him the aside with a Really, gentlemen of the jury, boundless variety of the law and evidence. this is too bad. Was there ever any thing so This was the ponderous task which Mr. monstrous, as to punish my client for speak- Fitzgibbon incurred, and he accomplished it ing no seditious speech-moving no criminal in a speech of immense length. He pitted resolution-attending no monster-meeting? himself against the eleven hours of the AtFor I will show you that the excursion to torney-General, and in truth assumed the part Tara was an innocent pic nic?"-and sic to of Attorney-General for the accused. He the end. The light materials of his defence was able, searching, and logical; but had he were worked together with much adroitness, been more compressed, he would have been and put forth with vigor and effect. One more convincing. His fault lay in his propoint he turned to the greatest advantage. lixity. Condensed into five or six hours, his In the cases of Horne Tooke and Hardy, argument would have proved the masterthe law officers of the day, influenced by piece of the trials: but being long of arguBritish feelings, and dealing with British ju- ment, and strict of conscience, he gave the ries, produced for examination the secretary accused the full benefit of both. The foreto the Corresponding Society-a reluctant taste of his severity in the past discussions witness for the Crown: but an English Attor-influenced all the law officers to erect their ney-General gave accused Englishmen the united ears, and watch every word of Mr. benefit of his cross-examination. That wit- Fitzgibbon. It was believed that he, with ness established the innocent character of his usual fearlessness, would take advantage the Society. Here the "Secretary" was of the occasion, and "speak the truth that distorted into a conspirator, and struck mute was in him." Feeling, perhaps, that in the for self and fellows. Mr. Hatchell was over-stern discharge of his duty, his language flowing with "monstrosities"-this was mon- might give offence, he opened with a high strous-that was monstrous-every thing eulogy on the professional merits of the Atdone by the Crown, in fact, was to him in- torney-General-he rounded off his character explicably monstrous. Now was it to be be- as a gentleman and a lawyer most panegyrlieved that in a free country-governed by a ically, but then he took care to discriminate free constitution and laws-that the Crown between what was due to him as a private in should bear down on so innocent a man as Mr. Ray-for doing what?-receiving the moneys of the Society-directing the corres dividual and state prosecutor. In the latter capacity he felt bound to speak as his client, standing at the bar, would have spoken. |