nessa, Grattan meditated on creating the political independence of Ireland. In those very bowers, where

the stern satirist, and the witty maid,

Talked pretty love, nor yet profaned the shade,

the regenerator of Ireland mused upon the liberty of his native land. He was perfectly true to his disposition-the imaginative and romantic prevailed in the development of his mind. He was bent upon doing something great and glorious, which would transmit his name to remote ages. He was not satisfied with the proceedings of the Yelvertons, Bushes, Dalys, Brownlows, and others of the principal leaders of the Irish party. He thought something bolder, grander, and more aspiring was necessary-in short, he believed that the freedom of Ireland was to be obtained.

But to venture upon declaring the independence of Ireland, was a bold measure. There were many unprepared for a scheme so full of risk and uncertainty. Those who held the property of the country were afraid of all political convulsion. And there was a large portion of the timid, hesitating public, not in favour of measures, which the originators called "bold," and which many thought desperate. Still, however, there were circumstances peculiarly favourable to the policy which Henry Grattan was about to unfold.

Foremost amongst those circumstances was the existence of the Volunteer force, a body which had been originally marshalled for the defence of the country against continental invasion, but which it was evident might now be turned against the British power. The Volunteers had originally sprung up about 1777. A large corps of them had been assembled at Armagh by Lord Charlemont, who in spirited style had placed himself at their head. Those troops, curiously enough, had been banded together after application to the government for military assistance. But the secretary, Sir Richard Heron, declared that government could render no help. In such a state of affairs a Volunteer force was rapidly raised; a military ardour seized on all classes, and the gentry marshalled in the same ranks with the traders of the country.

* From lines addressed to Dean Marlay, from Grattan's pen.

The presence of such a force greatly aided the objects of Grattan. The plot began to thicken, and the English government gradually became more embarrassed day after day. Throughout the whole island the Volunteers had sprung up-a a vast army-equipping themselves, and nominating their own officers. The Opposition, in the meanwhile, did not relax in its exertions. In the session of 1779, Grattan moved an amendment to the address in favour of Free Trade. Upon his motion, Hussey Burgh, a man of brilliant talents and upright character, moved a direct resolution that "nothing but a Free Trade could save the country from ruin." The motion of Burgh was carried without opposition.

England determined upon a change of Irish rulers, and sent over the Earl of Carlisle in place of Lord Buckinghamshire, and Mr. Eden, (afterwards Lord Auckland), in place of Sir R. Heron. The latter change, so far as regarded the British interests was decidedly for the better, as Mr. Eden was a remarkably clever man-shrewd, sagacious, and observant. But it would have been a difficult matter for any ministers to have repressed the advance of the Irish party.

Meanwhile, Grattan resolved to assert, by a resolution in the House of Commons, the right of Ireland to legislate for herself. Most of his friends and party, dissuaded him from the project. He was not, however, to be turned from his purpose, and his imagination was excited by the glowing hopes of giving freedom to his country. He has himself said, "Along the banks of the Liffey, amid the groves and bowers of Swift and Vanessa, I grew convinced that I was right. Arguments unanswerable came to my mind, and what I then presaged confirmed me in my determination to persevere."

On the 19th of April, 1780, he made his memorable motion of a declaration of Irish right. His speech upon that occasion was the most splendid piece of eloquence that had ever been heard in Ireland, and it vies with the greatest efforts ever made in the English House of Commons. He argued the whole question of Irish right with great ability-setting forward the most convincing proofs of its justice-but, in that department of the subject, he might probably have been equalled by more than one of his contemporaries; in what he surpassed them all, was the

superior splendour of his style, and the impassioned vehemence of his spirit. He not merely convinced, but he dazzled and inflamed. A great part of his audience caught the fire of his enthusiasm, and when his speech was circulated throughout the country, the effect was prodigious. The mind of the country felt that it was addressed in a style congenial with its own character. The enthusiasm and imagination of the speaker was warmly sympathized with by tens of thousands.

The great success of his splendid effort was to be principally attributed to his invoking the soul of the nation. He raised the spirit of the public far beyond the height to which his predecessors had carried it. Swift made the Irish sore, dissatisfied, angry;-but Grattan, in moving for Independenceintroduced into the public mind, a feeling of glowing, impassioned patriotism. Swift had often cast his contemporaries into fits of political wrath; but Grattan made the quarrel with England a subject of sublime moral emotion amongst his countrymen. He did not so much push the question of Irish freedom beyond the principles asserted by Molyneux, and laboured for by Flood, as raise it into a loftier region of thought and sentiment. With bold and masterly hand he sketched a brave design of Irish liberty, and coloured the picture with the hues of his own impassioned fancy.

Nor was he merely superior to those patriots, who had toiled before his time, in the brilliancy and splendour of his imagination. His character was less insular, and his intellect less hampered with provincial modes of thought. If he was an Irish genius, he had given his mind an European education; and with the writings of the philosophers, who for good and evil affected the eighteenth century, Grattan was intimately conversant. Amongst his contemporary statesmen, he ranked next to Burke, in knowledge of the speculative writers who have treated of human nature, and of Man in society. Inferior to Charles Fox in acquaintance with the details of historical transactions, and with the beauties of polite literature-Grattan was incontestably superior to his English Whig contemporary in profound and valuable philosophical accomplishments. For Fox had the English dislike to

According to Sir James Mackintosh, the three works which have most influenced the politics of modern Europe, are "De Jure Belli et Pacis" (Gratias);

all speculation that is abstract, and remote from immediate application to affairs; Grattan, on the other hand, loved to soar into those realms of thought which have been explored by the metaphysical politicians.

The influence produced on Irish affairs in 1780 by such a man as Grattan, it is easier to conceive than pourtray. Space is wanting in this memoir to enumerate all the effects of which he was the producer; but briefly it may be said, that at the conjuncture of Irish politics during the latter years of Lord North's government-Grattan was hailed by his countrymen as the prophet of Irish redemption. He became a popular idol, and the object of the enthusiastic affections of the people, who invested him with a popularity and applause, eclipsing the fame of all his contemporaries in the Irish Parliament. As Grattan introduced into Irish affairs an element of lofty moral enthusiasm, springing from his own impassioned and romantic mind, so was he in turn acted upon by the ordinary public passions of those around him, and in but a few months from his first motion for Irish independence, he reached the giddy and dazzling height of being recognised before the world as the man, who impersonated the cause of Ireland.

The cause of Ireland! Words of singular significance, fraught with historical recollections of deep interest, and still portentous to all English and Irish minds which reflect upon the future government of these kingdoms. If ever that cause was to have died away, it ought to have been in the middle of the eighteenth century. Many of the old sources of Irish hatred to England were extinguished. There was no religious quarrel to exacerbate the Irish feelings, for the Catholics crawled on without political existence, without civil rights, or even the hopes of gaining freedom. There was no question of disputed succession, for the Jacobite contest was at an end. The right to property was acknowledged to lie in the Protestant proprietors. The

Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"; and Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws." The second of these great works was never read by Fox, and he considered the last of them full of nonsense. The fact was, that the mode of his mind did not suit the study of such treatises: his understanding was powerful and sagacious, rather than acute and subtle, better fitted for appreciating the actual and historical, rather than examining the abstract and speculative. He would probably have applied to Metaphysicians, what a celebrated scholar said of the Basque people: "It is asserted that they understand one another, but I do not believe it.'

Houses of Lords and Commons were Protestant, and their members professed political adherence to the principles of the Revolution of 1688. In short, one would have supposed that the country was assimilated with England, and that they formed the same political power. After the total downfal of the Catholics one might have thought, that England was never to hear again of the Irish nation. And yet the cause of Ireland, as a nation distinct from England, was never stronger or more prosperous than in those very times, when (without any Catholic assistance) the Protestant and Anglican inhabitants of Ireland proceeded to demonstrate the existence, and vindicate the undying principles of that old historical quarrel. "Nation," says the profound Burke, "is a moral essence, and not a geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the nomenclator." essence of nationhood was as intensely existing in the Protestants of Ireland, as in the Catholics whom they had trampled into dust. Time had only changed the champions of the cause of Ireland; the historical strife was continued with unabated ardour by the Protestants.

That

One cannot pass those times without remarking, that much of Grattan's force in Irish politics was to be attributed to the conformity between his mind and the genius of his countrymen. He may be considered as the first great representative of Irish eloquence, and though Burke possesses the superiority as a statesman, Grattan carries the palm as the greater orator. The eloquence of Burke in the British senate has often been characterized (and with justice) as Irish oratory. Indeed, any one that consults the English ministerial writers who drudged in the service of George Grenville, may be amused by the mode in which they attack Burke as an Irishman. But Grattan was not (as many have idly said) a pupil of Burke in oratory. His style was far more dramatic, more startling, more picturesque, and much less prolix. It was not prone to run into dissertation, and was always calculated to move the passions, while it appealed to the judgment of the audience. As a public speaker, it must be confessed, with all admiration for his intellect, that Burke was frequently wearisome. His speeches were made to be read, and not to be spoken. But Grattan contrived with singular genius to be always original-generally profound, and never tiresome.