and from the manager of the theatre he | but Mr. Peel strongly opposed this motion, received £400. In 1816, the year in which The Apostate was written, Sheil married Miss O'Halloran, niece of Sir William Macmahon, master of the rolls. In 1817 he produced Bellamira or the Fall of Tunis, a play that met with a favourable reception, although not so successful as The Apostate. He was now advised by a friend to make an adaptation of Shirley's play The Traitor. He began the work, but after a time threw Shirley aside, and out of the new material which he had written he produced the tragedy of Evadne or the Statue. This became the most popular of Sheil's pieces, and elicited the praise of many eminent critics. His next play, Montoni, was a failure. The Fatal Dowry and The Huguenots followed, but also proved failures, owing possibly to the absence through illness of the actors intended for the principal parts. The author, who had expected great things from The Huguenots, was so disappointed at the failure that he resolved to renounce dramatic literature for ever. After receiving for his dramatic writings a sum of about £2000, he, in 1822, turned his attention to his profession once more, and set himself to work up the practice so long neglected. Like many lawyers of that period he took an active part in the prevailing political agitation, and wrote a severe criticism on O'Connell, which drew forth a not very flattering retort; but all this was forgiven and forgotten when Sheil gave the laudatory portrait of the Agitator which appeared in the "Sketches of the Irish Bar" he was then contributing to The New Monthly Magazine. In the same year (1822) Sheil sustained a great blow in the loss of his wife, shortly after the birth of an only child. For some time after this calamity he continued quietly attending to his profession, and continuing to contribute to The New Monthly Magazine papers on the Irish bar, written in conjunction with W. H. Curran. The Sketches of the Irish Bar were afterwards published collectively. An accidental meeting of Mr. O'Connell with Mr. Sheil at the house of a mutual friend in 1822 led to the former antagonists becoming fast friends in the work of Catholic emancipation. Shortly afterwards, at a meeting held in Dublin, it was resolved to petition parliament to institute an inquiry into the unjust manner in which the laws were administered in Ireland. At O'Connell's request Sheil drew up the petition. When laid before parliament Mr. Brougham proposed to refer it to the "Committee on Courts of Justice;" and would not consent to any reference of a petition which he characterized as "more in the declamatory style of a condemned tragedy than a grave representation to the legislature." In 1825, when Mr. Goulburn brought in a bill for the suppression of political associations, Sheil, O'Connell, and others formed a deputation, proceeded to London, and demanded to be heard at the bar of the House of Commons. The deputation was received most cordially by the leaders of the Whig party, but their mission, notwithstanding, was unsuccessful, the Duke of York declaring in the House of Lords, that in the event of his succeeding to the throne he would never consent to Catholic emancipation. This raised a storm of indignation against the duke, in which Sheil took an active part. Sheil's business at the Nisi Prius bar was now considerable, yet he found time to go heart and soul with O'Connell into the struggle for emancipation. He hurried about from county to county, and in the number and variety of his speeches almost equalled the great Agitator himself. To escape for a short time from the constant pressure and turmoil of public life he visited France in 1826. Here his friend the Abbé Genoude was so much struck with his description of the state of Ireland, that he induced him to contribute to L'Etoile, a paper of which he was editor, a series of anonymous articles on the subject written in the French language. On the death of the Duke of York Sheil made, in a speech at a public meeting, a kind of apology for the severity of his former attacks, but it seems to have had little effect in allaying the resentment felt towards him in high quarters. At length proceedings were instituted against him, founded on a speech which he had delivered on Theobald Wolfe Tone, in which he appeared to approve of the sentiments and doings of that patriot. Plunket was attorney-general at the time, and most reluctantly took up the case, well aware that this act would destroy for ever his influence in Ireland. Canning said afterwards of Sheil's speech that it might have been delivered in the House of Commons without even drawing forth a call to order. Sheil, "to cut down," as he said, "Goliath with his own sword," asked Plunket to conduct the prosecution in person, intending to cite passages from his (Plunket's) earlier speeches, which were, at least, equally as violent and unconstitutional as his own. Matters had assumed a somewhat serious aspect for Sheil, who, by rashly acknowledging the authorship of the letters in L'Etoile, gave his enemies fresh weapons wherewith to wreak their vengeance. He was desirous to let the case take its course, but O'Connell, his counsel, wisely put in a claim for the defendant's delaying his answer to the indictment. This delay was a great relief to Plunket, who was only too glad to grant it. The dissolution of government, on the death of Lord Liverpool, still further postponed the trial, and on Mr. Canning's accession to office it was entirely abandoned. In 1827 a serious accident withdrew Sheil for a time from public life; when able to return to it once more, Canning, on whose aid the emancipation party had reckoned, was dead, and the Duke of Wellington was at the head of the government. With these changes came the Clare election, and the passing of a resolution by the Catholic Association to oppose any Irish member who should accept office under government. When the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed, Lord John Russell advised the withdrawal of this resolution, with which advice O'Connell would have been willing to comply had not his opinion been overruled. The point was speedily brought to issue by Mr. Fitzgerald, the candidate for Clare, accepting office as president of the Board of Trade. By the advice of Sheil and others O'Connell was induced to stand for the borough. Sheil was indefatigable in canvassing for his friend. He went from place to place, delivering in out-of-the-way country towns speeches eloquent enough to move a House of Commons. The result is well known-O'Connell's triumph was secured. Sheil, at the request of the viceroy, advised O'Connell to put a stop for a time to the mass meetings, and on the 25th September, 1828, O'Connell indicated his desire, which was law to the people. At this time the question of emancipation was under discussion, and the people of Kent, apprehending danger, held a great meeting on Penenden Heath for the purpose of recording the opposition of the Protestants of England to any concessions the government might be disposed to make. On hearing of their intention he determined to be present, and in order that he might be entitled to speak he proceeded to London, purchased a freehold, and on the 24th of October, 1828, presented himself at the meeting. Upwards of 20,000 men were present, and after appealing to their generosity for a hearing he made a speech, which, in consequence of fre VOL. IIL quent interruptions, was scarcely heard, but nevertheless his object was gained, as it appeared in The Times with others delivered on the same occasion. Filled with admiration of his courage as a man and brilliancy as an orator, the people received him on his return to Ireland with a great ovation. Shortly after this the passing of the Emancipation Bill relieved Sheil from his incessant toil in the Catholic cause, and opened for him an entirely new field for labour and triumph. In 1830 he received the silk gown, and the same year he adopted the name of Lalor, on the occasion of his second marriage with the widow of Mr. Power of Gurteen, a lady who inherited large property in the county of Tipperary from her father Mr. Lalor of Crenagh. Sheil now resolved to attempt to enter parliament. After some disappointment and a defeat in contesting Louth, the Marquis of Anglesea offered him the seat for Milborne Port, which he accepted. His first speech in the House of Commons was made on the Reform Bill in March, 1831, and it produced a very favourable impression. On the dissolution of parliament after the rejection of the Reform Bill Mr. Sheil was urged by his friends to stand again for Louth. He hesitated, but at last consented, and this time was returned member. He now took a prominent part in opposing the plan for changing into rent-charge the tithes which the Irish groaned under, and supported O'Connell in the Irish Reform Bill, proposing that it should be similar in its provisions to the English bill which had preceded it. His advocacy did not gain anything for the cause. The bill was only a poor imitation of the English one, and instead of giving more liberty to the Irish subject, rather restricted what little he had. Sheil did not at first take part in the new agitation for repeal of the union; but as time passed on and he saw that emancipation had not brought the changes it had promised, he determined to rejoin his old friends the agitators, by whom he was warmly welcomed. At the next general election, in 1832, he was returned for the county of Tipperary, which he continued to represent in parliament till 1841, when he became member for Dungarvan. His wife's fortune rendering him entirely independent of his profession, he now retired from the bar, and devoted himself exclusively to a political career. His speeches on "Repeal of the Union" in 1843, "Turkish Treaties" in the same year, "Orange Lodges" and the "Church of Ireland" in 1839, the "Corn Laws" in 1842, 48 "Vote by Ballot" in 1843, and "Income Tax” | scene and climate. He went to Florence as in 1845, were among the most important of those made by him in the House of Commons. After the death of William IV. Sheil accepted office under government as commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, an appointment which was only temporary. In 1839 he was made vice-president of the Board of Trade. The acceptance of these offices was resented by his friends in Ireland, and he was stigmatized in some of the more democratic papers as a place-hunter. That this charge was unfounded his speeches and votes in the House of Commons proved. The good of Ireland was always his first consideration. He opposed the movement for repeal in 1840, but did so under the conviction that it could effect no good end, and that the House of Commons would not concede it. In 1841 he was appointed judge advocate-general, a more remunerative office than the one which he held in the Board of Trade. The repeal agitation was ended, and with the beginning of the year 1844 the O'Connell trial came on. Sheil ably defended John O'Connell, son of the Liberator, and in his speech exposed the system of jury-packing, bringing forward as a sample of this great injustice the case of Charles Gavan Duffy, and his notable trial for an article in The Belfast Vindicator. About this time a proposal was laid before the House of Commons for providing unsectarian colleges in Ireland, and this measure was warmly advocated by Sheil, whose desire was "to have the common truths of Christianity" taught in every school. In 1845 the death of his only son at Madeira, where Mrs. Sheil and he had gone for the sake of the young man's health, threw him into deep melancholy, and for a time he could not be induced to leave the island. ambassador at the court of Tuscany, where he spent some very happy days, surrounded as he was by treasures of art in which his poetical nature delighted. His familiarity with French enabled him to mix in society, where his wit and geniality were highly appreciated. In this city he died on 25th May, 1851, of an attack of gout. His remains, which were conveyed to Ireland in a ship of war, are interred at Long Orchard in Tipperary. Several editions of Sheil's Speeches with a memoir by T. MacNevin have appeared; also Memoir and Speeches of Richard Lalor Sheil by W. Torrens M'Cullagh, two vols. London, 1855. In a speech delivered at the City Temple, March 22, 1877, Mr. Gladstone thus gives his recollections of the great orator:-"I am afraid no one here ever recollects hearing Mr. Sheil. If nobody recollects him there is nothing which I can appeal to; but if you will consider a tin kettle battered about from place to place, producing a succession of sounds as it knocked first against one side and then against the other, that is really one of the nearest approximations that I can make to my remembrance of the voice of Mr. Sheil. Then again, in anybody else I would not, if it had been in my choice, like to have listened to that voice; but in him I would not have changed it, for it was part of a most remarkable whole, and nobody ever felt it painful when they listened to it. He was a great orator, and an orator of much preparation, I believe, carried even to words, with a very vivid imagination and an enormous power of language and of strong feeling. There was a peculiar character, a sort of half-wildness in his aspect and delivery; his whole figure, and his delivery, and his voice, and his matter were all in such perfect keepUlti-ing with one another that they formed a great parliamentary picture; and although it is now thirty-five years since I heard Mr. Sheil, my recollection of him is just as vivid as if I had been listening to him to-day.]" mately, in 1846, he was prevailed upon to return to England, and again to enter upon public life. In parliament he found a new coercion bill proposed. This roused him from his lethargy, and in an eloquent speech he reviewed Sir Robert Peel's Irish policy, and urged the Liberal party to unite in driving the ministry from power. The result of this speech was the resignation of Peel next day, and the accession of Lord John Russell to power. On this change of ministry Sheil was appointed master of the mint, a state office usually held by members of the cabinet. The year 1850 saw the close of Mr. Sheil's parliamentary career, and the failing health of his wife caused him to seek a change of SPEECH AT THE CLARE ELECTION.1 But, sir, while I have thus made the acknowledgment which was due to Mr. Fitzgerald, let me not disguise my own feelings of legitimate, but not I hope offensive exultation at the result of this great contest, 1 This election took place in September, 1828, when O'Connell defeated Mr. Fitzgerald. that has attracted the attention of the English | eloquent advocate at the head of all the patripeople beyond all example. I am not mean enough to indulge in any contumelious vaunting over one who has sustained his defeat with so honourable a magnanimity. The victory which has been achieved has been obtained not so much over Mr. Fitzgerald, as over the faction with which I excuse him to a great extent for having been allied. A great display of power has been made by the Catholic Association, and that manifestation of its influence over the national mind I regard as not only a very remarkable, but a very momentous incident. Let us consider what has taken place, in order that we may see this singular political phenomenon in its just light. It is right that we attentively survey the extraordinary facts before us, in order that we may derive from them the moral admonitions which calculated to supply. What then has they are a cian opulence of the county, what did we oppose? We opposed the power of the Catholic Association, and with that tremendous engine we have beaten the cabinet minister and the phalanx of aristocracy by which he is surrounded to the ground. Why do I mention these things? Is it for the purpose (God forbid that it should!) of wounding the feelings or exasperating the passions of any man? No, but in order to exhibit the almost marvellous incidents which have taken place, in the light in which they ought to be regarded, and to present them in all their appalling magnitude. Protestants who hear me, gentlemen of the county Clare, you whom I address with boldness, perhaps, but certainly not with any purpose to give you offence, let me entreat your attention. A baronet of rank and fortune, Sir Edward O'Brien, has asked whether this was a condition of things to be endured; he happened? Mr. Fitzgerald was promoted to place in the Duke of Wellington's councils, and the representation of this great county became vacant. The Catholic Association determined to oppose him, and at first view the undertaking seemed to be desperate. Not a single Protestant gentleman could be procured to enter the lists, and in the want of any other candidate Mr. O'Connell stood forward on behalf of the people. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald came into the field encompassed with the most signal advantages. His father is a gentleman of been large estate, and had been long and deservedly popular in Ireland. Mr. Fitzgerald himself, inheriting a portion of the popular favour with a favourite name, had for twenty years placed in such immediate contiguity to power, that he was enabled to circulate a large portion of the influence of government through this fortunate district. There is scarcely a has expatiated upon the extraordinary influence which has been exercised in order to effect these signal results; and, after dwelling upon many other grounds of complaint, he has with great force inveighed against the severance which we have created between the landlord and tenant. Let it not be imagined that I mean to deny that we have had recourse to the expedients attributed to us; on the contrary, I avow it. We have put a great engine into action, and applied the entire force of that powerful machinery which the law has placed under our control. We are masters of the passions of the people, and we have employed our dominion with a terrible effect. But, sir, do you, or does any man here, imagine that we could have acquired this formidable ability to sunder the strongest ties by which the different classes of society are you think that Daniel O'Connell has himself, single family of any significance among you fastened, unless we found the materials of exwhich does not labour under Mr. Fitzgerald's citement in the state of society itself? Do obligations. At this moment it is only necessary to look at him, with the array of aristo- and by the single powers of his own mind, cracy beside him, in order to perceive upon unaided by any external co-operation, brought high position for victory he was placed. the country to this great crisis of agitation? what a He stands encompassed by the whole gentry Mr. O'Connell, with all his talents for excitaof the county of Clare, who, as they stood by tion, would have been utterly powerless and him in the hour of battle, come here to cover incapable, unless he had been allied with a his retreat. Almost every gentleman of rank great conspirator against the public peace: and fortune appears as his auxiliary, and the and I will tell you who that confederate is gentry, by their aspect at this instant, as well it is the law of the land itself that has been by their devotedness during the election, Mr. O'Connell's main associate, and that ought furnish evidence that in his person their own to be denounced as the mighty agitator of cause was to be asserted. To this combination Ireland. The rod of oppression is the wand as friend, to the accomplished gentleman, to the the penal code. Break the wand of this poli tical Prospero, and take from him the volume | discontent. Let men declaim for a century, of his magic, and he will evoke the spirits and if they have no real grievance their which are now under his control no longer. harangues will be empty sound and idle air. But why should I have recourse to illustra- But when what they tell the people is true— tion which may be accounted fantastical, in when they are sustained by substantial facts, order to elucidate what is in itself so plain effects are produced of which what has taken and obvious? Protestant gentlemen, who do place at this election is only an example. The me the honour to listen to me, look, I pray whole body of the people having been previyou, a little dispassionately at the real causes ously excited, the moment any incident, such of the events which have taken place amongst as this election, occurs, all the popular passions you. I beg of you to put aside your angry feel- start simultaneously up, and bear down every ings for an instant, and believe me that I am obstacle before them. Do not, therefore, be far from thinking that you have no good surprised that the peasantry should throw off ground for resentment. It must be most their allegiance, when they are under the painful to the proprietors of this county to be operation of emotions which it would be wonstripped in an instant of all their influence; derful if they could resist. The feeling by to be left destitute of all sort of sway over which they are actuated would make them their dependants, and to see a few demagogues not only vote against their landlord, but would and priests usurping their natural authority. make them scale the batteries of a fortress, This feeling of resentment must be aggravated and mount the breach; and, gentlemen, give by the consciousness that they have not de- me leave to ask you whether, after a due reserved such a return from their tenants; and flection upon the motives by which your as I know Sir Edward O'Brien to be a truly vassals (for so they are accounted) are govbenevolent landlord, I can well conceive that erned, you will be disposed to exercise any the apparent ingratitude with which he was measure of severity in their regard. treated has added to the pain which every landlord must experience; and I own that I was not surprised to see tears upon his eyelids, while his face was inflamed with the emotions to which it was not in human nature that he should not give way. But let Sir Edward O'Brien and his fellow-proprietors who are gathered about him recollect that the facility and promptitude with which the peasantry have thrown off their allegiance are owing not so much to any want of just moral feeling on the part of the people, as to the operation of causes for which the people are not to blame. In no other country except in this would such a revolution have been effected. Wherefore? Because in no other country are the people divided by the law from their superiors and cast into the hands of a set of men who are supplied with the means of national excitement by the system of government under which we live. Surely no man can believe that such an anomalous body as the Catholic Association could exist excepting in a community which had been alienated from the state by the state itself. The discontent and the resentment of seven millions of the population have generated that domestic government which sways public opinion, and uses the national passions as the instruments of its will. It would be utterly impossible, if there were no exasperating distinctions amongst us, to create any artificial causes of I hear it said that before many days go by there will be many tears shed in the hovels of your slaves, and that you will take a terrible vengeance. I trust that you will not, when your own passions shall have subsided and your blood has had time to cool, persevere in such a cruel, and let me add, such an unjustifiable determination. Consider whether a great allowance should not be made for the offence which they have committed. If they are under the influence of fanaticism, such an influence affords many circumstances of extenuation:-you should forgive them, "for they know not what they do." They have followed their priests to the hustings, and they would follow them to the scaffold. You will ask wherefore they should prefer their priests to their landlords, and have a higher reverence for the altars of their religion than for the counter in which you calculate your rents? Consider a little the relation in which the priest stands towards the peasant. I will take for my example an excellent landlord and an excellent priest. The landlord shall be Sir Edward O'Brien, and the priest shall be Mr. Murphy of Corofin. Who is Sir Edward O'Brien? A gentleman who from the windows of a palace looks upon possessions almost as wide as those which his ancestors beheld from the summit of their feudal towers. tenants pay him their rent twice a year, and have their land at a moderate rate. But what His |