up on Tower Hill. The evil days were over. A bright and tranquil century-a century of religious toleration, of domestic peace, of temperate freedom, of equal justice-was beginning. That century is now closing. When we compare it with any equally long period in the history of any other great society, we shall find abundant cause for thankfulness to the Giver of all good; nor is there any in the whole kingdom better fitted to excite this feeling than the place where we are now assembled. For in the whole kingdom we shall find no district in which the progress of trade, of manufactures, of wealth and of the arts of life has been more rapid than in Clydesdale. Your University has partaken largely of the prosperity of this city and the surrounding region.

The security, the tranquillity, the liberty which have been propitious to the industry of the merchant and of the manufacturer, have been also propitious to the industry of the scholar. To the last century belong most of the names of which you justly boast. The time would fail me if I attempted to do justice to the memory of all the illustrious men, who, during that period, taught or learned wisdom within these ancient walls-geometricians, anatomists, jurists, philologists, metaphysicians, poetsSimpson and Hunter, Miller and Young, Reid and Stewart, Campbell-whose coffin was lately borne to a grave in that renowned transept which contains the dust of Chaucer, of Spenser and of Dryden; Black, whose discoveries form an era in the history of chemical science; Adam Smith, the greatest of all the masters of political science; James Watt, who perhaps did more than any single man has done since the New Atlantis of Bacon was written, to accomplish the glorious prophecy. — LORD MACAULAY.

MONG his Catholic countrymen O'Connell bears the proud title of the Liberator. Averse to war and anarchy, he effected the most conspicuous peaceful revolution in the history of the world

the removal of the political disabilities of Catholics in the foremost Protestant nation. Ireland had for centuries been treated by England as a conquered, but still hostile, country. Everything was done by law to humiliate, irritate and exasperate the people. Their religion was proscribed, and those professing it were deprived of the opportunity for worship, for education, and even of the right of succession to property. From this state of degradation the genius of one man, by cautious use of legal means and undeniable rights, saved his co-religionists and won their undying gratitude. From this triumph of Catholic emancipation he advanced to the advocacy of Repeal of the Union. But though the same genius was displayed in marshalling his forces, and though marvellous success attended his work in Ireland, it was impossible by pacific measures to accomplish this partial disruption of the Empire. His personal victory when the House of Lords declared his arrest illegal did not avail to the benefit of his cause. Famine came to inflict still sorer misery on his beloved land. Worn out with arduous toil, and prostrated by the failure of his hopes and the sight of new woes which he could not alleviate, the great agitator died while on a pilgrimage to Rome. His countrymen warmly cherished his memory, and his name stands highest on the roll of Irish patriots.

Daniel O'Connell was born on the 6th of August, 1775, near Cahirciveen, in county Kerry, in the southwest of Ireland. His father, Morgan O'Connell, was a Catholic gentleman, and his ancestors had been Celtic chiefs. From them he inherited a firm attachment to his proscribed faith and an unrelenting hostility to his country's oppressors. From a Catholic school recently allowed to be established near Cork, the promising lad passed to France, where he attended the Jesuits' College at St. Omer, and another at Douai. The excesses of the French Revolution made a lasting impression on his mind. Long afterwards he declared "he would accept of no social amelioration at the cost of a single drop of blood." He studied law and was called to the bar in 1798, though still excluded on account of his creed from attaining any promotion. In spite of caste hostility, the eloquent and dexterous Catholic attained eminence in his profession. He was well versed in law, skillful in examining witnesses, and successful in winning causes. But his matchless power was best exhibited in the field of politics.

The penal code which had been devised with rancorous ingenuity to extirpate Catholicism in Ireland had utterly failed of its purpose. The rebellion of 1798 had been relentlessly crushed. The separate Irish Parliament which had existed for eighteen years had been drawn exclusively from the Protestant minority. The legislative union with Great Britain was accomplished by wholesale corruption in 1801. Still the vast mass of the people were loyally and invincibly Catholic. O'Connell, as thoroughly Catholic, formed the bold design of uniting these outcast millions in a firm league to demand political equality. In all parts of the country Catholic Associations were formed under the direction of the priests. Small at first, they grew in numbers and soon made their power felt, while their actions were kept within the strict letter of the law. Attempts of the local authorities and of the general government to suppress them were baffled. In 1815 O'Connell having in a speech called the corporation of Dublin "beggarly," was challenged by D'Esterre, one of its members. In the ensuing duel D'Esterre received a mortal wound. O'Connell, deeply grieved, would never thereafter

send or accept a challenge. In course of years the Catholic Association grew to vast proportions. The mighty giant, who had slumbered so long under the mountain of oppression, was roused to turn his bulky body, even at the imminent risk of Protestant supremacy. O'Connell was the head of the national movement, not merely by suggesting the idea or by eloquent advocacy of its purpose, but by careful guidance in restraining it from illegal acts. His appeal was through the united effort of the subject people to the conscience of the dominant race.

A momentous step was taken when in June, 1828, O'Connell was elected to Parliament from the county Clare. On proceeding to take his seat, he refused as a Roman Catholic to take the test oaths. These oaths had been framed for the express purpose of excluding members of that faith. The new challenge to the law caused protracted discussion both in Parliament and before the people of the United Kingdom. In Ireland the agitation rose to such a height that the leaders of the Conservative party, Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, resolved to grant emancipation to the Catholics. The purpose was announced at the opening of Parliament in 1829, and in May, when the last of the civil disabilities imposed on Catholics were repealed, O'Connell took his seat. He gave hearty aid to Parliamentary Reform and voted with the Whigs. He afterwards represented Kerry and for several years Dublin. Kilkenny and the county Cork also claimed the honor of sending to Parliament the foremost of his race.

But Ireland needed more than a handful of representatives overwhelmed by a vast majority of members ignorant of her wants and adverse to her interests. The excitable natives, overjoyed at their first great victory, hastened to demand the abolition of tithes and the disestablishment of the alien church. The Whigs could give no sanction to such movement, and the people were now so roused that they could not submit to the prudent restraints of the past years of struggle. Violence became rampant, and the Government determined to suppress it. O'Connell sided with his countrymen, though they had violated his own principles. He was now a prominent debater in the House of Commons, powerful in argument,

forcible in denunciation, and often overbearing in manner. Yet he had personal dignity and self-respect. As the representative of a people, he refused office for himself, but he rejoiced when it was given to other Catholics. The welfare of Ireland lay nearest to his heart. When the Tory leader, Sir Robert Peel, became minister in 1841, O'Connell felt that the change boded ill for his country. His experience in what he regarded as an alien assembly had convinced him that the repeal of the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland was the only means of obtaining lasting peace for his native land. Home rule was the true remedy for existing disorders. To this new object his grand talents were devoted for the remainder of his career. In the meantime, to compensate the representative of the Irish people for the loss of his income as a lawyer and to reward him for his public services, an annual subscription was organized and paid to him, under the truly Irish designation "rent." Monster meetings were organized and held by the friends of repeal on the royal hill of Tara, the Curragh of Kildare and other places memorable in Irish history. At these the Liberator skillfully roused the passionate feelings of his countrymen to the utmost pitch, yet always restrained them within the verge of the law. At last a meeting was called to be held at Clontarf, near Dublin, on Sunday, October 8, 1843. It seemed to have a military aspect, and the Government therefore on Saturday declared that the public peace was endangered by such assemblages and warned all people to keep away from Clontarf. O'Connell then countermanded the meeting; yet within a week, he, his son and other associates were arrested for conspiracy and sedition. They were tried and convicted. O'Connell was sentenced to a fine of £2,000 and imprisonment for a year. Appeal was taken to the House of Lords, and eventually the decision of the Irish judges was reversed. But the trial really gave a deathblow to the Repeal movement.

A new party had grown up within the ranks of the Repealers. It chafed at the restraints imposed by the conservatism of O'Connell. It was in sympathy with the Republican agitators on the Continent. Under the name "Young Ireland" it advocated the use of physical as well as moral force