"He is now plain Mr. Saurin again, and he bears this reverse with a great deal of apparent and some real fortitude. When he was first deprived of his office I watched him in the Hall. The public eye was upon him; and the consciousness of general observation in calamity inflicts peculiar pain. The joyous alacrity of Plunket was less a matter of comment than the resigned demeanour of his fallen rival. Richard was as much gazed at as Bolingbroke. It was said by most of those who saw him that he looked as cheerful as ever. In fact he looked more cheerful, and that appeared to me to give evidence of the constraint which he had put upon himself. There was a forced hilarity about him— he wore an alertness and vivacity which were not made for his temperament; his genuine smile is flexible and easy; but upon this occasion it lingered with a mechanical procrastination upon the lips, which showed that it did not take its origin at the heart. There was also too ready a proffer of the hand to his old friends, who gave him a warm but a silent squeeze. I thought him a subject for study, and followed him into the Court of Chancery. He discharged his business with more than his accustomed diligence and skill; but when his part was done, and he bent his head over a huge brief, the pages of which he seemed to turn without a consciousness of their contents, I heard him heave at intervals a low sigh. When he returned again to the Hall, I observed him in a moment of professional leisure, while he was busied with his own solitary thoughts, and I could perceive a gradual languor stealing over the melancholy mirth which he had been personating before. His figure, too, was bent and depressed, as he walked back to the Court of Chancery, and before he passed through the green curtains which divide it from the Hall, I have seen him pause for an instant, and throw a look back at the King's Bench. It was momentary, but too full of expression to be casual, and seemed to unite in its despondency a deep sense of the injury which he had sustained from his friends, and the more painful injury which he had inflicted upon himself.

"If Rembrandt were living in our times he should paint a por

trait of Saurin: his countenance and deportment would afford an appropriate subject for the shadowy pencil of that great artist. There should be no gradual melting of colours into each other; there should be no softness of touch and no nice variety of hue; there should be no sky-no flames-no drapery-no marble; but a grand sober-minded man should stand upon the canvas, with the greater proportion of his figure in opacity and shadow, and with a strong line of light breaking through a monastic window upon his corrugated brow. His countenance is less serene than tranquil; it has much deliberate consideration, but little depth or wisdom; its whole expression is peculiarly quiet and subdued. His eye is black and wily, and glitters under the mass of a rugged and shaggy eyebrow. His whole demeanour bespeaks neither dignity nor meanness. There is no fraud about him; but there is a disguise of his emotions which borders upon guile. His passions are violent, and are rather covered than suppressed; they have little effect upon his exterior-the iron stove scarcely glows with the intensity of its internal fire. He looks altogether a worldly and sagacious man-sly, cunning, and considerate-not ungenerous, but by no means exalted—with some sentiment, but no sensibility-kind in his impulses, and warped by involuntary prejudice; gifted with the power of dissembling his own feelings, rather than of assuming the character of other men; more acute than comprehensive, more subtle than refined; a man of point and of detail; no adventurer either in conduct or speculation; a lover of usage, and an enemy to innovation; perfectly simple and unaffected; one who can bear adversity well, and prosperity still better; a little downcast in ill-fortune, and not at all supercilious in success; something of a republican by nature, but fashioned by circumstances into a tory; moral, but not pious; decent, but not devout; honourable, but not chivalrous; affectionate, but not tender;—a man who could go far to serve a friend, and a good way to hurt a foe; and, take him for all in all, a useful and estimable member of society."*

*New Monthly Mag., February, 1823.

In the course of the same year there appeared likewise from his pen, in the "New Monthly," sketches of Mr. Joy, who had succeeded Mr. Bushe as SolicitorGeneral, and of Mr. Sergeant Lefroy. His other contributions to the same periodical in 1822 and 1823 were "Recollections of Talma," already quoted; a review of Casimir Delavigne's play, "Les Vêpres Siciliennes ;" and the articles entitled "State of Parties in Dublin," which contain several graphic etchings of the political groups most prominent at the time in the Irish metropolis.

CHAPTER VI.

1823-1824.

Catholic Association-Administration of justice; petition and debate thereon-Epigram on Baron M'Clelland-Religious education-Polemics-Archbishop Magee-Lord Cloncurry on Repeal-Influence of the Association-Agrarianism— The forfeited estates; Lord Redesdale-Appeal to the English people-Prosecution of O'Connell-Mr. Plunket.

THE Condition of things existing in Ireland at the beginning of the year 1823, with reference to the question of Catholic emancipation, as contrasted with that which soon afterwards arose, was thus described by Mr. Sheil: "An entire cessation of Catholic meetings had taken place. We had virtually abandoned the question; not only was it not debated in Parliament, but in Ireland there was neither committee, board, nor association. The result was that a total

stagnation of public feeling took place, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the Catholic question was nearly forgotten; all public meetings had ceased; no angry resolutions issued from public bodies; no exciting speeches appeared in the public papers; the monstrous abuses of the Church Establishment-the frightful evils of political monopoly-the hideous anomaly in the whole structure of our civil institutions—the unnatural ascendency of a handful of men over an immense and powerful population—all these, and the other just and legitimate causes of public exasperation, were gradually dropping out of the national memory. The country was then in a state of comparative repose, but it was a degrading and unwholesome tranquillity. We sat down like galleyslaves in a calm. A general stagnation diffused itself over the national feelings. The public pulse had stopped; the circulation of all generous sentiment had been arrested, and (if I may use the expression) the country was palsied to the heart. What was the result? It was twofold. The question receded ir England, and fell back from the general notice. There it was utterly forgotten, while in Ireland the spirit and energy of the people underwent an utter relaxation, and the most vigorous efforts were neces