cattle rose in proportion, and every acre of ground which the grazier could reach, he converted into pasture-the husbandman was forced either to resign his farm, or to hold it at an extravagant rack-rent. Added to this excessive rent, he had to pay his tithe-and at a period when the price of labour was miserably low-Will it be considered surprizing by the protestant reader, that the Catholic peasant should grumble at paying a tenth of his produce to a clergyman of another persuasion, when the rich Protestant grazier was not bound to pay one farthing.

What was the consequence? The poor people of the south rose in arms, and endeavoured to obtain, by force and violence, that relief which a protecting Legislature ought to have administered. Arthur Young, an Englishman, equally remarkable for the wisdom of his observations, as the benignity and impartiality of his views, looking at Ireland with the eye of an honest politician-pointing out the high road to fair dealing and integrity-thus writes; Those Tithe farmers are a bad sort of people-very civil to gentlemen, but exceedingly cruel to the poor; the great power of the Protestant gentleman rendering his composition very light, while the poor Catholic was made, in too many cases, to pay severely for the deficiency of his betters."

What will an English reader say to this statement of Mr. Young?-Will he exclaim against the barbarism of Ireland, when he reads her excesses and her outrages, and takes into consideration the provocation which drove her to the committal of them?-The Irish Parliament were not idle during those scenes of civil war and convulsion; the atrocities of the White boys, and the sanguinary violence of the laws, kept an equal pace, and frequently the murderer and the midnight plunderer found refuge in the more malig. nant cruelty of the law. Acts of Parliament now passed (said the same Mr. Arthur Young) which seemed calculated for the meridian of Barbary, and this arose to such an height, that by one they were to be hanged without the common formalities of a trial, which, though repealed the following Sessions, marks the character and spirit of punishment; while others yet remain the law of the land, that would, if executed, tend more to raise than quell an insurrection; from all which, (he goes on) it is ma, nifest, the gentlemen of Ireland never thought of a radical cure, from overlooking the real cause, which in fact lay in themselves, and not in the wretches they doomed to the gallows. Notwithstanding those violent remedies-in the teeth of those furious and vindictive laws, the

country continued to be disturbed for the space of ten years, and at the termination of this period those disturbances ceased, as Mr. Arthur Young remarks; "Because a very considerable fall in the price of lands contributed much to abate them; and lessened the evil of hiring farms over the heads of one another." In 1784, the flame of popular tumult again burst forth, owing to the extraordinary fall in the value of lands after the American war ;-the fall operating on the occupying tenant as grievously as the former rise in 1760;-the people were equally loud in their complaints against Tithes and Tithe-proctors, and were often heard to declare that they would bear with willingness the exactions of the middle man, if relieved from the more unjust, and consequently more corrosive impositions of the proctor.

We have now arrived at that period when Mr. Grattan took up the cause of a suffering people, with a heart full of sympathy for the miseries and wretchedness of an oppressed peasantry.-Eminently susceptible of all the finest feelings of our nature with a mind stored with the treasures of classic literature;-invigorated by the strength, and refined by the genius of ancient days; with an eloquence of no common stamp; full-comprehensive-animating, and energetic;

on a subject of national grievance irresistible ;---with an industry seldom the companion of such extraordinary powers-and an imagination capable of fascinating the dullest audience--he came forward to plead the cause of the Poor of Ireland against the wiles of the Castle the corruption of the Treasury-the hypocrisy of the Priesthood, and the deep and mortal hatred of the English Cabinet. It has been said, by those who witnessed this great man's exertions in the years 1787-88-and 89-that the readers of his speeches can have but an humble idea of the enthusiasm they produced among his audience; though burning under the rays of corruption, they often felt the influence of native talent, genius, and integrity. Though menaced by the rebuke of the Secretary, they have often involuntarily poured praise on the head, which they would afterwards have sacrificed to the vengeance of a vanquished Government. In those contests Mr. Grattan was opposed by every person, and every engine formidable to the State. The Crown Lawyers, with the late Lord Clare, who in the years 1787 and 88 was Attorney General, were arrayed against him, and, like Sampson, his strength was only called forth by the number of his enemies. Mr. Grattan, however, whose spirit is not inclined to bend, ov

surrender to official petulance, or the ranting and swagger of Government bullies, was not to be deterred-he was not to be put down.His talents commanded attention, and the Treasury, with millions at their back, could scarcely purchase a sigh of praise, when Mr. Grattan poured forth the treasures of his exhaustless understanding. He has left on record the finest specimens of eloquence in the English language, and has given to Irishmen (if Irishmen shall ever see the resurrection of their country) the finest models of senatorial virtue, indefatigable industry, and exalted powers.

The reader of the following speeches on the subject of Tithes, while he is charmed by the effusions of a chastened and sublime imagination will smile at the absurdity and the weakness of the arguments which Mr. Grattan was obliged to combat of which time has proved the folly, and the present degradation of Ireland has established the iniquity. When he looks over the report of the Irish House of Commons, in 1799, and the Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, in the same year, he will then see the predictions of Mr. Grattan most fully verified-the integrity of his great and enlarged views in 1788, confirmed-and the sophistry and bypocrisy of his antagonists unmasked.