from this moment, no man respected him. After his addresses at the second Clare election, there could be no more mistake about O'Connell.

The Catholic Association assembled again, under the name of an 'aggregate meeting' of the Catholics, to promote the re-election of Mr. O'Connell. The rent was still in existence- -a large balance of its funds being in the hands of the treasurers, and disposable only at the bidding of the body which had collected it. Five thousand pounds of this money were voted towards the expenses of the new elections. On the 30th of July, Mr. O'Connell was returned without opposition, nearly a month after parliament had risen; so that he did not take his seat till the opening of the next session-February, 1830.

Here, then, we have witnessed the close of one of the most important controversies which ever agitated society in any age or country. In significance it perhaps yields to no social controversy whatever; in importance it must of course yield to some few great organic questions which concern essential principles of government. It must be considered as of less importance, for instance, in a large view, than the question of reform of parliament. But it was practically, and on a near view, of more pressing urgency than any other, or than all others put together; and under the pressure of this urgency, men generally judged amiss of the issues-as men are wont to do in circumstances so critical. The No-Popery terrorists were scarcely more mistaken in their anticipations of woe and destruction from the emancipation of the Catholics than the liberal politicans of the time were in their expectations of the contentment and tranquillity which were to ensue in Ireland. The last reasonably laughed at the hobgoblin images of the pope and the Jesuits which the London Tories and Irish Orangemen conjured up, to frighten themselves and everybody else whom they could alarm; they reasonably insisted on the impossibility of doing anything for Ireland till this measure of relief should be granted; but they unreasonably went further in their expectations, and concluded that the tranquillity of Ireland would follow from the measure of relief. Mr. O'Connell had said that it would; but all who looked at the aspect

of affairs for themselves, setting at nought the word of Mr. O'Connell as it deserved, saw that Mr. O'Connell never meant that Ireland should be tranquillised; and that if he had wished for her tranquillisation ever so earnestly, he could not have effected it. A sudden change in the law could not make a permanent change in the temper of a nation-even of a nation which knew how to reverence law. But by the Irish, the function and the value of law had never been understood; and it was now Mr. O'Connell's daily and nightly care that the people should not be the better disposed towards the law for its having become favourable to them. In his popular addresses at this time, we find the pervading thought and purpose to be inducing the people to distrust and despise legislation. He told them that he had got the new law for them, and could get as much more as he liked; and he represented the whole administration of law and justice in Ireland as purposely hostile to them, and to be regarded only for the sake of safety, whether in the form of obedience or evasion. He advocated, both by precept and example, a wholly empirical method of political and social existence, instead of using his efforts to bring society into a tranquil organic state. Accordingly, the relief measure appeared to produce no effect whatever upon the temper and troubles of Ireland. A multitude of Catholics found themselves deprived of the franchise; and landlords, Protestant and Catholic, found the value of their property much diminished by the operation of the same provision. The Orangemen became more furious and bigoted, through fear and jealousy of their triumphant neighbours; and those triumphant neighbours were urged on by their leaders to insufferable insolence towards the government and sister-nation which had granted them relief no longer possible to be withheld. The list of Irish outrages, the pictures of Irish crime which follow, in the registers of the time, the record of Catholic emancipation, are very painful; but they show, not that there was anything wrong in the procedure of relief, but that it had been too long delayed. There could not have been stronger evidence that a less generous measure would have done no good, and much mischief. As it was, there was no room for regret that the right thing had been done

at last, and done in the freest and amplest spirit and manner. If there was any cause for regret, it was that it had not been done long before; and also that even its promoters should so little understand the operation of tyrannical restrictions as to believe that their effects would cease with their existence. Injury may be forgiven, and even forgotten; insult may be forgiven, though perhaps never forgotten; but the temper and character generated under insult and injury cannot, by any process, be changed at once into a healthful condition of trustfulness, integrity, and good-humour. The emancipators of the Catholics therefore had to put up with a different fate from that which had been predicted for them by the true patriots and best political prophets who had anticipated a brighter coming time for Ireland. They had not grateful Ireland at their feet, relieved from the raging demon-calm, clothed, and right in mind; but, on the contrary, it could scarcely be seen whether or no the demon was really cast out. There was no gratitude, no peace, no trust, no inclination to alliance for great common objects. But then, on the other hand, there was infinite relief in the sense of the removal of wrong, in safety from revolution and civil war, in consciousness that the way was now clear for the regeneration of Ireland-clear as far as the political conscience of England was concerned. Ireland was not, under her new emancipation, what her Grattans and Plunkets had expected, nor what the Cannings and Broughams, and Wellingtons and Peels, had hoped to see her; but it was enough for support that the right act was done, and that the grand obstruction of all was removed; though so many more were found to exist, that, after a lapse of twenty years, we see no end to them yet.

CHAPTER VIII.

Admission of Catholic Peers-Changes in the Cabinet-Parliamentary Reform-Lord Blandford-Duel-Parliamentary ProceedingsRelations with Portugal-King's Speech.

THE Catholic question was so engrossing to the mind of the whole nation, that the records of the year present few notices of other subjects. In connection with it, however, some incidents occurred which are worthy of note.

When the House of Lords assembled after the Easter holidays, on the 28th of April, there was an unusually full attendance, and many ladies were present, in expectation of a very interesting spectacle. On the entrance of a group of persons who proceeded to the table, there was a profound silence; amidst which, three Catholic peersthe Duke of Norfolk, Lord Clifford, and Lord Dormertook the oaths. They had obtained entrance at last to the legislative assembly where their fathers sat and ruled when their faith was that of the whole land. In those days, the cathedrals were theirs, and the universities, and the crown, and the legislature; all the thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,' of the civilised world; and now, here was a little remnant of the old Catholic peerage re-entering upon the function of government under a sad reduction of pomp and circumstance. To the student of history and the antiquarian, the spectacle was one of deep and somewhat melancholy interest; but the more ignorant among the possessors of power looked upon these peers of ancient lineage as a sort of intruders-as the newest order of upstarts, whose admission vulgarised their Protestant legislature, while endangering its Protestantism. Here, however, was the hereditary earl-marshal of England present once more as a peer of parliament; and he and his companions were soon after joined by more of their own faith. On the 1st of May, Lords Stafford, Petre, and Stourton took the oaths and their seats. Soon after, Lord Eldon

paid a visit to two melancholy duchesses, who showed him their vast collections of Protestant speeches, protestations, and pledges-some in gold letters '-which, in better days, the ladies had taken for an ample security that no Catholic would ever sit as a legislator; but their sympathising old friend told them they might now throw all those valued securities into the fire. One of these ladies was the wife of the young Duke of Richmond, who did very well in all he said during the debates' against the admission of the Catholics, and in opposition to the ministry. Though he failed in his object, he was not without his reward for his opposition. I hear,' writes Lord Eldon, that he is a great favourite with the king; which seems not to be the fortune, be it good or bad, at this moment, of those addicted to his ministers.'

In the same cause, Sir Charles Wetherell, the attorney general, had made sacrifices. The administration had hoped that he would at least have kept silence on their great measure, though he had refused to prepare the bill; but he held it dishonest to keep silence, threw his whole powers into opposition, and of course was immediately dismissed from his office, in which he was succeeded by Sir James Scarlett, who had been attorney-general under Mr. Canning. Another change was occasioned by the retirement of the lord high admiral, the Duke of Clarence, who was thought, by the straightforward and simplemannered premier, to have mixed up too much of the popularity-seeking of the heir-presumptive with the business of his office. There had been a vast deal of jaunting and cruising about, presenting of colours, preparation of shows on sea and land, which appeared to the Duke of Wellington to be more expensive and foolish than in any way serviceable; and it is believed that the retirement of the lord high admiral was caused by a plain expression of the premier's opinion on this matter. It is said that on a long account for travelling expenses being sent into the treasury by the lord high admiral, the Duke of Wellington endorsed the paper: No travelling expenses allowed to the lord high admiral,' and dismissed it. The health of the Duke of Clarence was unsatisfactory at this time-enough so to justify his retirement without other cause. His