national opposition, intended as a lasting depository of fixed public principleswhich should not fluctuate with the intrigues of the court, nor with capricious fashions amongst the people". Previously, the British minister had been encountered in Ireland by a desultory opposition. The technical hostility of a Molyneux he did not fear, and the powers of a Swift could not be handed down to posterity with his principles. The order to which the Lucases belonged necessarily cramped the extent of their social importance, though it could not forbid the exercise of their abilities. And the opposition offered to government by the Boyles, Ponsonbies, and Fitzgeralds, was of a personal character, and not of a public importance; in objects factious, and in results futile.

He was not fond of Dublin society, and possibly dreamed of entering the English House of Commons. But Flood seems to have sucked him into the vortex of Irish politics. In Barataniana Grattan wrote several pieces (amongst others his celebrated character of Lord Chatham); and, in fact, he was one of that party of which the ostensible leader was Henry Flood. In short, to sum up in a sentence, the influence of Flood upon Grattan appears to have been of this nature_viz., to determine Grattan's mind strongly towards Irish politics—to give him the notion that something great might be done in Ireland—and that a man of powers might win an European name on the comparatively restricted ground of Irish politics. The example, rather than the teaching of Flood, suggested to Grattan what he himself might do.

Thus far have we traced the early development and formation of his personal character. We see that originally he was of a poetical nature, and that his affections were of exquisite sensibility. His passionate love of nature-the vagueness of his early purpose-his wayward moods, reveal to us much of bis interior structure. A certain lofty mien is also visible in his youthful character. We see also how he contracted the mannerismı which adhered to him to the last, and how much influence was produced on him by the age in which he was educated. Other things also attract our notice. These are his exchange of poetry for politics, and the fascinating influence of the great Chatham, whose sublime and soaring eloquence appears to have made Grattan feel that the career of a mighty orator was as grand as the rapturous existence of a poet. And lastly, we perceive, that if his style was influenced by the last century in England, and by the oratory of Chatham, that his purposes were materially affected by the career of Henry Flood. But if Pitt helped to make him an orator, and if he were partly trained into politics by Flood-in eloquence or statesmanship Grattan was the copyist of neither. He was eminently original, as we will clearly observe in examining his public and historical career, to which we will now proceed.

The public life of Grattan naturally resolves itself into two periods from 1775 to 1800, in the Irish Parliament, and from 1801 to his death in 1820. His political course in the Irish Legislature may be examined under three heads, namely, 1. Froin his entrance on the public scene till the conclusion of the Revolution of 1782. 2. From 1783 to the declaration of war against France. 3. From 1793 to the Union.

1. On the 11th of December, 1775, he took his seat in the Irish House of Commons, as member for the borough of Charlemont, to which he was nominated by its noble owner. At that time Grattan was very well known in society, and his reputation for ability and eloquence was the cause of his introduction to Lord Charlemont. With that nobleman he continued to act for many years, and though their friendship was terminated abruptly, their respect for each other was not diminished. Lord Charlemont was more fitted to be the ornament of any cause than its support. He was a most amiable and worthy private character, but for the conduct of great affairs he was little suited. His historical reputation rests on his connexion with the party that brought about the events of 1782, and his claim to the gratitude of Irish posterity depends on his having given a conspicuous example of an Irish nobleman, with ardent local affections-a love for the people of bis native land, and a desire to raise its honour and celebrity amongst nations. Of the liberal and useful arts he was a- munificent patron and judicious supporter; with meu distinguished for talent and probity he delighted to associate ; his mind and manners proved the humanizing and elevating influence of the intellectual pursuits which he culti

mons.

vated with ardour. His character has been as ridiculously exalted by the idle panegyrists of his own times, as it has been unjustly depreciated by harsh censors of our own days. He was an Irishman by affection, as well as by the accident of birth, and, despite that he was born and bred amongst the aristocracy, had a heart for his country. So let us qualify the adulation of which he was the object during his life, and mitigate the censure which has been often passed upon his memory.

But Lord Charlemont was not a statesman in any sense. He had not even the secondary accomplishments required by one who aspires to manage great affairs. He was a miserable speaker, and was a weak, though elegant writer on political matters. He wanted breadth of view-boldness of character-and energy of constitution. The nervousness of his physical system attacked his mind, and weakened his moral resolution. Nevertheless his association with Grattan was attended with most important consequences to both of them: for they were men peculiarly necessary to each other. Lord Charlemont gave to Grattan the great advantage of political connexion, in return for which he received an alliance and support of the most gifted intellect in the country. There was no Charlemont party in Ireland, until Grattan called it into existence; and the party which to be honoured the success of the Revolution of 1782, and which by many is held responsible for the subsequent failure of that political experiment, dates its formation from the appearance of Henry Grattan in Parliament. No time could have been better chosen for his entrance to the House of Com

Flood had become silent and quasi-ninisterial, and though there was a host of talent in opposition, its leaders were rather desultory in their mode of warfare against the ministry. Many things contributed to render the Irish cause dangerous to England. The contest of the Americans with the mother country; the decided hostility of the French and Spanish houses of Bourbon ; the distracted state of England during the government of Lord North : all these combined to make any Irish party formidable to the British power. But in addition to these sources of trouble, the Irish cause was in those days particul to be feared from the peculiar sources of the Irish discontent then prevailing. Hitherto, the battle between England and Ireland had been upon the point of honour (as far as the latter country was concerned); but, in addition to old and transmitted causes of feuds, the struggle between the countries on the appearance of Grattan was fiercer, because the trading interests of Ireland were grossly depressed by the monopolizing policy of England. The British manufacturers and their representatives in Parliament .cared just as much for the interests of Irish Protestant traders and Irish capitalists, as the English peers and Anglo-Irish absentees for the Roman Catholic families who had lost all their estates at the Revolution. For in all countries and in all ages, national ambition is little affected by sectarian sympathy; it is at once the most selfish and impartial of the passions. Confession of the same creed will never restrain a powerful empire from striking down its weaker rival.

The Protestant traders and manufacturers of Ireland desired Free Trade as a means of extending their commerce and emerging from their depressed condition; but they were told that their wishes could not be granted, because the British Parliament was supreme. The Protestant gentry of Ireland were ambitious of a nobler theatre of exertion, where they might obtain power and fame ---but they were told that their Irish Houses of Lords and Commons should remain a degraded provincial assembly, because the British Parliament was supreme. Mr. Flood and his friends, who had desired to govern for Irish pur

重

poses, were told that their suggestions could not be adopted, because the British Parliament was supreme. Whether propositions in favour of Ireland were made by the friends or foes of the ministry, the answer was, “Impossible! The British Parliainent was supreme".

The English minister of the time was Lord North, opposed by the Rockingham party-by the Shelburne interest—by Charles Fox--and, greatest of all, by Edmund Burke. In Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant was Lord Buckinghamshire, a man of notable political talents, who had acquired distinction as a diplomatist. His chief secretary was Mr. Richard Heron, who had been selected for that post, because he had been law agent and manager of Lord Buckinghamshire's estates. He was the nominee of the Lord Lieutenant, who had chosen him as his creature, and for his own convenience.

Meantime the Irish Opposition plied the administration with various measures, and attacked the British government in all directions. The law of Poynings (involving the whole question of Irish right to govern itself) was discussed in a surpassing style of legal ability by Yelverton : the iniquities of the Penal Code against the Catholics were denounced by Mr. Gardiner and Sir Hercules Langrishek Mr. Gervase Bushe applied himself to the question of an Irish Mutiny Bill (involving the existence of the volunteer force): Mr. Brownlow and the celebrated Denis Daly attacked the supremacy of the British Parliament. Events favoured their exertions. The government of Lord North was an “Iliad of blunders" General Burgoyne's army had surrendered to the Americans-on all sides England was menaced with danger.

Still there was something wanted to make the Irish question more formidable. The constitutional quarrel with England had been of a character not altogether nncompromising, and very litigious in its mode of procedure. The question hitherto had been like a wrangle between a colony and the parent state. There had been little in its nature that was grand and aspiring. Its domestic sources were physical misery, manufacturing discontent, and a sense of many local wrongs. But there was now about to be fung into the political caldron an ingredient of magic influence for exciting the most violent commotion; and the wizard was to appear, who by the spell of a passionate and romantic eloquence was to disenchant Ireland of her moral subservience to England, and make her aspire to political independence and national fame.

The Irish feeling of nationality, which had been appealed to ly Molyneux, Swift, Lucas, and Flood, was of a character rather negative. Their patriotism, in its style, was little coloured with the sentiment of country. They seemed as if they had resolved not to be English, rather than to be positively Irish. There was little in the fashion of their writings or eloquence that could be esteemed as distinctively national. There was no traditional feeling roused by them, and indeed on a close examination of their speeches and writings it would be difficult to discern the vestiges of genius "racy of the soil”. Flood's oratory flowed in that style most affected by British parliamentary debaters; there was too much of the spirit of a common-councilman in the speeches and tracts of Lucas; and Molyneux was legal and didactic. Swift, indeed, exhibited abun- ; dance of the humour that one looks for in an effective popular writer on Irish matters, and occasionally displayed genuine pathos. But who could have assimilated the writings and speeches of those men with the national character of the Irish people? Where can we find in the political writings of the Dean of Bt. Patrick's that genial nature and sensibility to emotion—in short, the enthusiam of the Irish? The Swifts and Floods had been most useful to the Irish in the work of resistance, but there was not enough of creative political

genius in their publie manifestations. The pile which they had raised would, perhaps, never have been wrapt in flame from the combustibles which they

applied. A more subtle aud brighter element than they had thought of, was | required.

Now, while the Irish Opposition was teazing Lords North and Buckinghamshire with the harassing methods common in ordinary political warfare, Henry Grattan was musing by the banks of the Liffey. The old and natural character of the man had broken out. He who had wandered through Windsor Forest, meditating on the dryads and fawns of the sylvan scene, was now in early manhood transformed into the patriot reflecting on Irish regeneration. His excellent uncle, Colonel Marlay, then lived at Celbridge Abbey, and there, in the bowers of Vanessa, 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,*

sure.

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 mea

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 the 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.

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 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 talants and

• Fromn lines addressed to Dean Marlay, froin Grattan's pen.