er or later avenged by their own inevitable consequences. But that hateful bigotry-that baneful discord which fired the heart of man, and steeled it against his brother, has fled at last, and I trust for ever. Even in this melancholy place I feel myself restored and recreated by breathing the mild atmosphere of justice, mercy, and humanity.-I feel I am addressing a jury of my fellow countrymen, my fellow subjects, and my fellow christians;-against whom my heart is waging no hostility-from whom my face is disguising no latent sentiment of repugnance or disgust. I have not now to touch the high raised string of angry passion in those that hear me-nor the terror of thinking that if those strings cannot be snapt by the stroke, they will be only provoked into a more instigated vibration.

SPEECH OF GALBA ON THE ADOPTION OF PISO, AS HIS SON AND SUCCESSOR.

TACITUS.

If the mighty fabric of this great empire could subsist on any foundation than that of a monarchy, the glory of restoring the old republic should this day be mine. But, at my age, all that remains for me is to bequeath to the people an able successor: your youth may give them a virtuous prince. Under Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, we were all the property of

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one family. By hereditary right the Roman world was theirs. The Prince is now elective, and the freedom of choice is liberty. The Julian and Claudian race are both extinct, and virtue may now succeed by adoption. To be born the son of a prince is the result of chance; mankind consider it in no higher light. The method of adoption allows time to deliberate, and the public voice will serve as a guide to direct the judgment of the emperor. Let Nero for ever be before your eyes: proud of his long line of ancestors, and warm with the blood of the Casars, he did not fall by the revolt of Vindex, at the head of a province naked and disarmed; nor was he deposed by me, who had only one legion under my command: his own vices, his own cruelty hurled him from his throne, no more to trample on the necks of mankind. Of a prince condemned by a public sentence, there was till then no example. As to myself, raised as I was by the events of war, and called to the sovereignty by the voice of a willing people, I know what I have to expect: envy and malice may pursue me, but the glory of doing good shall still be mine. Old age is at present urged against me; but when it is known whom I have adopted as my successor, I shall appear in him to be young. You are now at a time of life at which the passions subside. Fortune has hitherto frowned upon you: you must now beware of her smiles. Prosperity tries the human heart with the deepest probe, and draws forth the hidden character. We

struggle with adversity, but success disarms us. I trust however, that you will carry with you, to the highest station, the candor of your mind, your good faith, your independent spirit, and your constancy in friendship; virtues that exalt and dignify the human character; but the arts of insidious men will lay seige to your best qualities, and undermine them all. Dissimulation will deceive you; flattery will find admission to your heart; and self interest, the bane of all true affection, will lay snares to seduce your integrity. To day you and I converse without disguise, in terms of plain simplicity: how will others deal with us ?Their repect will be paid to our fortunes, not to ourselves. To talk the language of sincerity to a prince, and guide him by honest counsels, is a laborious task. To play the hypocrite requires no more than to humour his inclinations, whatever they are. It is the grimace of friendship: the heart has no share in the business.

,PLUNKET, ON THE UNION.

Let me ask you, how was the rebellion of 1798 put down? By the zeal and loyalty of the gentlemen of Ireland rallying round-what? A reed shaken by the winds, a wretched apology for a minister, who neither knew how to give or where to seek protection? No-but round the laws and constitution, and independence of the country. What were the affections

and motives that called us into action? Our abhorrence of French principles and French ambition.What was it to us that France was a republic? I rather rejoiced when I saw the ancient despotism of France put down. What was it to us that she dethroned her monarch? I admired the virtues and wept for the sufferings of the man, but as a nation it affected us not. The reason I took up arms, and am ready still to bear them against France, is, because she intruded herself upon our domestic concerns,-because, with the rights of man and the love of freedom on her tongue, I see that she has the lust of dominion in her heart; because, wherever she has placed her foot, she has erected her throne, and that to be her friend or her ally, is to be her tributary or her slave. Let me ask, is the present conduct of the British ministry calculated to augment or to transfer that antipathy? No, Sir, I will be bold to say, that licentious and impious France, in all the unrestrained excesses which Anarchy and Atheism have given birth to has not committed a more insidious act against her enemy, than is now attempted by the professed enemy of civilized Europe, against a friend and an ally, in the hour of her calamity and distress—at a moment when our country is filled with British troops-when the loyal men of Ireland are fatigued with their exertions to put down rebellion-efforts in which they had succeeded before these troops arrived; whilst our habeas corpus act is suspended-whilst trials by court martial are

carrying on in many parts of the kindgom-whilst the people are taught to think that they have no right to meet or deliberate, and whilst the great body of them are so palsied by their fears, and worn down by their exertions, that even the vital question is scarcely able to rouse them from their lethargy;—at the moment when we are distracted by domestic dissensions-dissensions artfully kept alive as the pretext for our present subjugation, and future thraldom. Sir, I thank the administration for this measure. They are, without intending it, putting an end to our dissensions.Through this black cloud which they have collected over us, I see the light breaking in on this unfortunate country. They have composed our dissensions-not by fomenting the embers of a lingering and subdued rebellion-not by hallooing the Protestant against the Catholic, and the Catholic against the Protestant— not by committing the north against the south-not by inconstant appeals to local or to party prejudices -No, but by the avowal of this atrocious conspiracy against the liberties of Ireland, they have subdued every petty and subordinate distinction. They have united every rank and description of men by the pressure of this grand and momentous subject, and I tell them, that they will see every honest and independent man in Ireland rally round her constitution, and merge every other consideration in his opposition to this ungenerous and odious measure. For my own part, I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and with the last drop of my blood, and when I feel the hour