scene.

The Marquis was dressed in a rich uniform, with a profusion of orders. He wore white pantaloons, with short boots lined with gold, and with tassels of the same material."*

On the form of local administration best suited to the wants and feelings of Ireland, his opinions were never, perhaps, thoroughly understood. In 1825, he had publicly given utterance to a hope that the day might not be distant when the Duke of Sussex should be appointed viceroy, as his brother had been in Hanover. So long as the office was to be maintained, he wished to see it filled by one whose liberality of sentiment and geniality of disposition would tend to win the attachment of the people to the administration of the law. But he was deeply impressed with the provincializing tendency of a vice-regal court. Its mimicry of imperial state suggested irresistibly to his mind associations of unreality and mockery. The assumption of royal formalities and royal airs, whether of condescension or hauteur, by the various lord-deputies whom he had seen play the coxcomb or the duller fool upon the Castle throne, filled him with a sense of his country's humiliation. Nor was this sentiment qualified by the perception that, in proportion as the person invested with chief authority in Ireland is

* The Tabinet Ball. New Monthly Mag. Vol. xvi., p. 548.

wrapped up in folds of official dignity, he is rendered inaccessible to opinion, and made liable to be unconsciously swayed by those who surround him.

Discussion of the Catholic question was considered inexpedient during the session of 1826. It was feared that, on the eve of a general election, some of those who had voted in the previous session might be deterred, by the fear of opposition at the hustings, from recording again what must be an unavailing opinion. Advice, founded on these considerations, had been in private offered by the leading friends of the Catholics in England to their chiefs in Ireland. Mr. O'Connell and others were unwilling that a whole year should be suffered to elapse without bringing the question under the notice of the Legislature. Great distress prevailed amongst the commercial and manufacturing classes in Great Britain; serious alarm had been created by disturbances in several places, having their origin in the want of food and employment; it was urged, therefore, by many, that a season of so much embarrassment ought not to be suffered to pass by unimproved, but that they should recal and act upon the maxim that England's exigency was Ireland's opportunity. This line of argument was easily perverted into an expression of

exultation at the misfortunes of the more powerful nation by the weaker. Mr. Sheil foresaw the evil which the imputation of such views must do the cause, and earnestly deprecated everything that might seem to give occasion for it. He considered the counsel tendered by their Parliamentary friends to be sound and wise. He pointed out vividly the damaging effect of an adverse division in a House of Commons, which had three times affirmed the principle of relief. It was better to wait for the new Parliament, and meantime devote all their energies to the strengthening the number of their advocates therein. He repudiated the idea of taking advantage of the embarrassment caused by industrial misfortune in the sister kingdom. So long as the people of England were prosperous, he had not shrunk from remonstrating freely with them on the injustice they permitted, if not approved. But he could not, in the hour of undeserved and unforeseen calamity, stand forth to taunt them, or even in appearance exult in their affliction. They had read of the dreadful evils then desolating England; they had heard of the starvation and sufferings of the unfortunate artisans at Manchester and Birmingham. When they perused these harrowing details, surely they could not indulge

in exultation; they could not wade through such accounts, and not feel for individual woe. He (Mr. Sheil)" by no means wished to be understood as if he accused his friend (the chairman)* of having indulged in such cold and heartless exultation; he was aware he took a distinction which might satisfy their friends, but which he might be certain their foes would not be candid enough to examine. Many of the people now most distressed in England were the very persons who in their prosperity had been the most disposed to advance their claims. Who amongst his hearers could forget the meeting held last summer at Manchester, when the honest operatives all declared in their favour? If he (Mr. Sheil) were in low and humble condition, and felt that he had been insulted and ill-treated by a wealthy neighbour, while that neighbour increased in prosperity and basked in the sun of fortune, he (Mr. Sheil) might be inclined to vent his feelings against him; but if he saw him, by a sudden reverse, bowed down to a level with himself -if he saw him working the earth-if he saw him covered with the shame of poverty-and the poet says there is nothing so shameful-then should he forget all his animosity, and forgive him his faults in com*The Hon. Gonville Ffrench.

passion for his calamities. So, when England was at the height of her prosperity, she might excite feelings of animosity in a generous breast, but the moment calamity desolated the land-and, after all, it was a great and glorious land-all these feelings should give place to a sympathy for her distress. Enmity would yield to compassion when the proud had been humbled—when the punishment had been inflicted, and the once haughty nation suffered beneath the shafts of adversity,—that 'tamer of the human breast'—that great instructor of nations, and best monitor of the minds of men."* He dwelt with emphasis on the imprudence of exposing the English Liberal members to the temptation of endeavouring "to save their seats by votes given in the spirit of a death-bed repentance :" and advised that, beyond the presentation of numerous petitions, no active steps should be taken.

This advice prevailed. Ungenerous and impolitic reproaches were no more heard, and the undivided energies of agitation were directed to making preparations for the impending electoral struggle.

*Speech, 6th May, 1826.