His most intimate companion was young Broome, who was not a member of the University. Their friendship seemed to have been based upon a community of taste and feeling. They had a strong love of poetry and rural scenery, and a decided taste for literature. It was odd enough that Broome was a military man; he was a cornet of horse when he made the acquaintance of young Grattan. The two friends became voluminous correspondents; and the letters of young Grattan to Broome are remarkably suggestive of the writer's character, and require particular notice.

Through all those letters, written in the twentieth year of his age, traces of the same style as that which he preserved through life are visible. In tone rather affected, they are uniformly artificial in their composition; they abound in expressions often incorrect, but often most forcible, and even picturesque. They are all formed on the model of style set by the letters of Pope, whose genius was much admired by Grattan. It may be needless to remind the reader that in 1765 (when we get the first samples of Grattan's style) Pope was regarded as the poet. Polished, clear, and artificial-seldom abandoned to enthusiasm exhibiting more care in finishing, than genius in inventing; sceptical without impiety-and caustic without coarseness--the poetry of Pope, the bard of prudence, possessed a sort of complexional resemblance to the character of English society during the latter part of the lifetime, and for twenty years subsequent to the death, of the author of the “Essay on Man”. It was an age of modish, town-bred philosophy; of manners elaborately artificial; of a certain conventional elegance, which was constantly aspiring after the Beautiful in taste, and as constantly violating in practice the principles of natural grace. It was an age of the Theatre—but the Drama was indebted to incomparable actors rather than to original authors for support. It was Garrick, and not Shakspeare, who obtained the admiration of the town; and the Macklins, Mossops, Quins, were more thought of by an elegantly finical public, than the Massingers, Ben Jonsons, and Shirleys of the old English Drama. The manners of the time were favourable to luxury rather than to enjoyment. The fine gentleman of that day aspired to an artistic refinement of manner, but never thought of attaining ease. The woman of fashion was all powder and toupée-hoops and high-heeled shoes. Everything was modish, artificial, and unreal. Even the pulpit partook of that character. The great divines of England were extinct, and a race of petit maitre prelates, of neat, shallow, sparkling, superficial preachers, occupied the places of the Barrows and Tillotsons of former times. The genteel bad prevailed over the grand; the elegantly small was everywhere visible; and the sublime was nowhere to be seen in English life, save in one conspicuous instance—the great Lord Chatham, whose grandeur was heightened by contrast with the petty objects around him ; like a forest tree amidst the shrubs of a trim suburban garden.

The character of that age (between the close of the Jacobite contest and the American Revolution) had considerable effect on the mind and style of Grattan. Its effects on the development of his genius were decidedly injurious. The young orator was naturally given to emotion; his cast of mind was melancholy, poetical, and rather vague; he was besides eager, passionate, and withal reflective in his habits. He loved others intensely, and the warmth of his friendship was universally reciprocated. He delighted in wandering in the open country, and his, love of rural scenery had the nature of a passion. He was also fitful. rather wayward, and subject to abrupt transition of feelings. On the whole, the poetical element largely entered into his composition. But never was there an age less favourable to the poetical spirit than thio

period (1766) when Grattan was attaining to manhood. Yet it so happened that the times influenced Grattan's mind, and accordingly we find that he restrained the expression of his natural emotions; became modish, affected, and finical; gave up racy originality for striking affectation, and tortured his powerful genius into the painful adoption of unnecessary epigrams and fantastical antithesis. But his genius was too strong for him; the artificial culture on false principles which would have destroyed an ordinary mind, was only able to spoil but not to smother Grattan's splendid powers.

On a cool and critical contemplation of his original mind and charater, it may be fearlessly asserted that he was far more a poet than an orator or states

It is confessedly admitted on all sides that he is the most poetical of orators, ancient or modern. Nor does his failure in the poems he wrote contradict in any degree the theory now put forward, namely, that Grattan is to be considered rather as the poet of Irish political passion and national ambitiou, than as the statesman expounding her wants, and providing for her necessities. It will be found that the facts of his life and the subsequent character of his eloquence, go far to corroborate this mode of estimating his character.

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rhyming tragedies on the French models; and would Walter Scott ever have been known, if, instead of pouring forth his inspiration in the picturesque forme of the ancient ballad, he had written upon a severely dramatic model ?

During his occasional residence in London, Grattan's mind was a good deal unsettled. He did not appear to enter into sympathy with the social character of the metropolis. Althouglı very far from being a puritan” in his habits, he was (unlike most Irishman) not given to conviviality His existence was comparatively isolated; nor did he show any decided inclination to mingle with much company. In those times, society was more open to strangers than it is at present. Clubs were not established, and the men of letters--the actors, the gay and clever loungers upon town—were all to be met with at the fashionable taverns. The Grecian Coffee-house was at that tiine the favourite lounge for young Irishmen. But though Grattan occasionally visited it, he was not one of its habitual frequenters. He had an early rencontre there with the odious Duigenan. That person, on his first introduction to young Grattan, like a mean varlet thought that servility would ingratiate him with his new acquaintance. It so chanced that Recorder Grattan and the celebrated Doctor Lucas were political foes; and accordingly the sycophant Duigenan launched into vituperation of Lucas. But Grattan, to Duigenan's surprise, espoused the cause of the popular champion with considerable warinth. High words ensued, and Robert Day was apprehensive of a quarrel on the spot. In the evening Grattan again repaired to the Grecian with a long sword by his side; but Duigenan did not appear, though he wrote a comic poem on Grattan's droll appearance upon that occasion.

Of Grattan's habit of declaiming to himself numerous stories are preserved. His landlady in London wrote to his friends requesting that he should be removed, as he was always pacing her garden, addressing some person whom he called “Mr. Speaker”, and she was in doubt of the sauity of her lodger! Judge Day records an anecdote of Grattan's having in one of his moonlight rambles in Windsor Forest, stopped at a gibbet, whose chains he apostrophized in bis usual animated strain. He was suddenly tapped upon his shoulder, by a very prosaic personage, who inquired, “How the Devil did you get down ?"

In 1768, Grattan's eldest sister was married to Mr. Gervase Parker Bushe, and a very brilliant circle of society was thereby opened to the young Templar. The county of Kilkenny was then inhabited by a very gay and spirited gentry, characterized not merely by their love of sport, but of refined and elegant plea

Private theatricals were maintained amongst them with considerable spirit, and foremost in that joyous company was Henry Flood, with whom Grattan then for the first time made acquaintance. For the next four or five years of his life he led a very gay existence, and was a member of the most brilliant circles of Irish society. He was naturally, like all Irishmen, very fond of the theatre, and he took a prominent part in the private theatricals of those days. He does not seem to have been well adapted for histrionic excellence. llis manner was abrupt and violent; his nature too vehement and not sufficiently mercurial; his delivery disagreeable from a redundancy of uncouth gestures; and his voice without agreeable modulation. Indeed, from his acting, no one would have augured the presence of an orator. But Grattan was more deficient in the mechanical parts of public speaking than any orator of his age.

In 1774, at Marlay, the seat of the La Touche family, he acted in the Mask of Comus, in company with Hussey Burgh, Gervase Bushe, and seventeen (!) Lu Touches. The epilogue, spoken by Miss La Touche, afterwards Countess of Lanesborough (so celebrated for her beauty), was written by Grattan, and

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exhibits more social liveliness than might have been expected from the tone of his mind. It contains some very nervous couplets :

But why choose Comus? COMUS won't go down;
Milton, good creature! never knew the town.
Better a sentimental comedy,
That leads the soul unconsciously astray-
Where, about good, fierce rakes are always ranting,
And fond, frail woman so divinely canting-
And sweet, sad dialogue, with feeling nice,
Gives flavour and variety to vice!

The state of Grattan's mind during the first years of his manhood, may be imagined from one of his early letters to his friend Broome. He writes of himself in the following terms : A breast the slave of a thousand discordant passions; now intoxicated with company-now saddening in solitude; sometimes disturbed with hope--sometimes depressed with despair, and equally ravaged with each ; disgusted often, and often precipitately enamoured-all this makes me poor in my own esteem”.

From the time that he had first become a Templar, up to his thirtieth year, he lived a great deal in London: and as he increased in years, he appears to have acquired considerable relish for the public amusements of the metropolis ; he was naturally fond of music, and his ear was most susceptible to the beauty of cadence. The Italian Opera was one of his great enjoyments; and whenever he was not indulging in meditation, he was either listening to some Italian syren, or intently watching the course of politics in the Houses of Lords and Čommons. In fact, with all his moodiness and wayward impulses, he appears to have led a most delightful existence, and gradually to have become a more brilliant and accomplished man of the world, than might have been anticipated from one who had lived in self-imposed seclusion. His acquaintances might have taken him for an idle man, but the “strenua inertia” of Grattan was not to be confounded with the habitual indolence of a loitering dandy. He read many of the first-rate authors with attention, and the text writers on politics appear to have been studied by him with much care. By study and observation he became well qualified to offer an opinion in grave matters, his discernment of character was generally correct, and his descriptions of men and things were vivid and characteristic, though tinged with his singular mannerism. The reader must be referred to his correspondence with Broome and others, for many suggestive traits of his character.

Few circumstances, however, had more effect on the life of Grattan, than his close intimacy with the famous Henry Flood. It will be necessary to mark this acquaintance, which was attended with very important results.

In the year 1770, and thereabouts, Flood was unquestionably the first man in Ireland, possessed of public fame. By birth and property he was amongst the first Irish Commoners, and by character he was raised above them all. He may have had his equals in talent, but there was, from his first entrance to public life, a decided moral purpose in Henry Flood. He was bold, intractable, austere; ambitious both of power and popularity, and though “a candidate for contradictory honours”, in the main he contrived to make his personal ambition subservient to his patriotic purposes. He was the first Irishman who obtained a reputation as a great parliamentary leader. In mere debating talent he was @yualled, if not surpassed, by John Hely Hutchinson; but this latter person,

with all his accomplishments, was a mere conventionalist a courtier by his tastes, and a waiter on Providence by profession. Flood was, however, a man remarkable for much moral enthusiasm and ardent attachment to Ireland. Throughout all his life he laboured to raise his native land.

Intimacy with such a man as Flood produced great effect on Grattan. Previously he had been merely a lounging politician-a virtuoso in matters of state importance. He had surveyed public questions from too remote a position, to share their excitement; but he appears to have become an eager politician from his intercourse with Flood. The brilliant success which Flood had obtained as a public speaker, joined with his popularity and fame, naturally had effect on Grattan, who had been distinguished by Flood in social intercourse with a most marked complimentary attention. They read together a great deal ; declaimed with each other, and acted in the same plays. In short, their personal friendship soon ripened into political sympathy.

In this brief memoir the writer cannot diverge into a general narrative of the Irish politics of the last century; yet, it is hardly possible to understand the career of Grattan without comprehending the state of politics when he entered upon the public stage. Hence, a few additional words upon Heury Flood are absolutely necessary.

In the progress of Irish Protestant Nationality, or Irish Legislative Independence, five persons chiefly attract the notice of the political historian. These are, first, Molyneux, who, in his “ Case of Ireland”, inpeached the legal authority of British Legislative power in Ireland ; secondly, Swift, who created an Irish feeling amongst the English interest planted in Ireland, and by his mingled wit, public spirit, and literary talents, diffused Irish sentiments; thirdly, Doctor Lucas, who, imbibing the sentiments of Swift, practically asserted and maintained the legal principles of Molyneux; fourthly, Henry Flood, who first raised an Irish political party, on principles analogous to those on which the rival parties in England have been founded ; and lastly, Henry Grattan, the inost splendid and dazzling, though some have thought, not the most politically effective of them all.

Of Molyneux and Swift it is needless to speak. Of the importance of Lucas in Irish politics, it is enough to say, that after having maintained the principles of Irish Independence, he was prosecuted by government, and compelled to quit Ireland, after which the House of Commons voted him to be an enemy to his country. The great Johnson honoured hinn after the following fashion, in a review of some medical publications of Lucas; “The Irish ministers drove him from his native country by a proclamation, in which they charged him with crimes which they never intended to be called to the proof, and oppressed him by methods equally irresistible by guilt and innocence. Let the man thus driven into exile for having been the friend of his country, be received in every other place as a conferrer of liberty ; and let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish”.

The first movement measure which gradually led to Irish Independence, was the Octennial Bill of 1768, and the original steps which led to that measure were, in the opinion of Lord Charlemont, due to the influence of Lucas. It has been said of him that "he raised his voice when all around was desolation and silence. He began with a corporation, and he ended with a kingdom”. So much for the influence on politics which a virtuous and courageous citizen can obtain.

Flood's great public effect on Irish politics was from 1761 to 1770—during the successive Viceroyalties of Lords Halifax, Northumberland, Weymouth, and Townshend. In those times he raised a powerful opposition party—a sort of