properties which abound in your mind, and qualify you for legislation. "Reproof of the Irish Protestant Bishops. "Here are the sovereign pontiff of the Catholic faith, and the Catholic king of Spain, distributing one-third of a part of the revenues of their church for the poor, and here are some of the enlightened doctors of our church deprecating such a principle, and guarding their riches against the encroaching of Christian charity; I hope they will never again afford such an opportunity of comparing them with the Pope, or contrasting them with the Apostles. I do not think their riches will be diminished; but if they were to be so, is not the question directly put to them, which will they prefer, their flock or their riches? for which did Christ die, or the Apostles suffer martyrdom, or Paul preach, or Luther protest? Was it for the tithe of flax, or the tithe of barren land, or the tithe of potatoes, or the tithe-proctor, or the tithe-farmer, or the tithe-pig? Your riches are secure; but if they were impaired by your acts of benevolence, does our religion depend on your riches? On such a principle your Saviour should have accepted of the kingdoms of the earth, and their glory, and have capitulated with the Devil for the propagation of the faith. Never was a great principle rendered prevalent by power or riches; low and artificial means are resorted to for the fulfilling the little views of men, their love of power, their avarice, or ambition; but to apply to the great design of God such wretched auxiliaries, is to forget his divinity, and to deny his omnipotence. What! does the word come more powerfully from a dignitary in purple and fine linen, than it came from the poor Apostle with nothing but the spirit of the Lord on his lips, and the glory of God standing on his right hand? What! my lords, not cultivate barren land; not encourage the manufactures of your country; not relieve the poor of your flock, if the church is to be at any expense thereby! Where shall we find this principle? not cendancy in the sovereign mercy of its nature. Laws of coercion, perhaps necessary, certainly severe, you have put forth already, but your great engine of power you have hitherto kept back; that engine, which the pride of the bigot, nor the spite of the zealot, nor the ambition of the high, nor the arsenal of the conqueror, nor the inquisition, with its jaded rack and pale criminal, ever thought of: the engine which, armed with physical and moral blessings, comes forth, and overlays mankind by services; - the engine of redress-this is government: and this the only description of government worth your ambition. Were I to raise you to a great act, I should not recur to the history of other nations; I would recite your own acts, and set you in emulation with yourselves. Do you remember that night, when you gave your country a free trade, and with your hands opened all her harbours?—that night when you gave her a free constitution, and broke the chains of a century—while England, eclipsed at your glory and your island, rose as it were from its bed, and got nearer to the sun? In the arts that polish life, the inventions that accommodate, the manufactures that adorn it, you will be for many years inferior to some other parts of Europe: but, to nurse a growing people; to mature a struggling, though hardy community; to mould, to multiply, to consolidate, to inspire, and to exalt a young nation;-be these your barbarous accomplishments! "I speak this to you, from a long knowledge of your character, and the various resources of your soil; and I confide my motion to those principles not only of justice, but of fire, which I have observed to exist in your composition, and occasionally to break out in a flame of public zeal, leaving the ministers of the crown in eclipsed degradation. It is therefore I have not come to you furnished merely with a cold mechanical plan; but have submitted to your consideration the living grievances; conceiving that any thing in the shape of oppression made once apparent,-oppression, too, of a people properties which abound in your mind, and qualify you for legislation. "Reproof of the Irish Protestant Bishops. "Here are the sovereign pontiff of the Catholic faith, and the Catholic king of Spain, distributing one-third of a part of the revenues of their church for the poor, and here are some of the enlightened doctors of our church deprecating such a principle, and guarding their riches against the encroaching of Christian charity; I hope they will never again afford such an opportunity of comparing them with the Pope, or contrasting them with the Apostles. I do not think their riches will be diminished; but if they were to be so, is not the question directly put to them,-which will they prefer, their flock or their riches? for which did Christ die, or the Apostles suffer martyrdom, or Paul preach, or Luther protest? Was it for the tithe of flax, or the tithe of barren land, or the tithe of potatoes, or the tithe-proctor, or the tithe-farmer, or the tithe-pig? Your riches are secure; but if they were impaired by your acts of benevolence, does our religion depend on your riches? On such a principle your Saviour should have accepted of the kingdoms of the earth, and their glory, and have capitulated with the Devil for the propagation of the faith. Never was a great principle rendered prevalent by power or riches; low and artificial means are resorted to for the fulfilling the little views of men, their love of power, their avarice, or ambition; but to apply to the great design of God such wretched auxiliaries, is to forget his divinity, and to deny his omnipotence. What! does the word come more powerfully from a dignitary in purple and fine linen, than it came from the poor Apostle with nothing but the spirit of the Lord on his lips, and the glory of God standing on his right hand? What! my lords, not cultivate barren land; not encourage the manufactures of your country; not relieve the poor of your flock, if the church is to be at any expense thereby! Where shall we find this principle? not in the Bible. I have adverted to the Sacred Writings without criticism, I allow, but not without devotion: there is not in any part of them such a sentiment; not in the purity of Christ, nor poverty of the Apostles, nor the prophecy of Isaiah, nor the patience of Job, nor the harp of David, nor the wisdom of Solomon! No, my lords; on this subject your Bible is against you; the precepts and practice of the primitive church against you; the great words increase and multiply; the axiom of philosophy, that nature does nothing in vain; the productive principle that formed the system, and defends it against the ambition and encroachments of its own elements; the reproductive principle which continues the system, and which makes vegetation support life, and life administer back again to vegetation; taking from the grave its sterile quality, and making death itself propagate to life and succession; the plenitude of things, and the majesty of nature, through all organs, manifest against such a sentiment: this blind fatality of error, which, under pretence of defending the wealth of the priesthood, checks the growth of mankind, arrests his industry, and makes the sterility of the planet a part of its religion." Mr. Grattan was a warm friend, and, in early life, a bitter enemy; but years, which did not bereave him of his best affections, at length mellowed and softened down his animosities, so as to supply the place of rancour with benevolence. The following character of him was drawn up by one of his contemporaries, during his life-time: "No man, perhaps, was ever raised to such an astonishing height of popularity as Mr. Grattan. Perhaps the unblemished character of his acknowleged patron was not a little instrumental towards uplifting him in the opinion of the idolatrous multitude, inasmuch as a part of the highly venerable properties of the good old peer, was collaterally reflected upon himself; and the public gave him credit for a participation of those laudable opinions, which were known so purely to exist in the bosom of his illustrious protector. "As a public speaker, Mr. Grattan's voice was thin, sharp, and far from powerful; not devoid of a variety of tones, but these neither rich nor mellow; and though not harsh, its want of an harmonious modulation is often striking. Unequal to impassioned energy, it is shrill when it should be commanding, and in its lower notes is sometimes scarcely audible, from its hollowness of sound. His management of it is but ill adapted to remedy its natural defects or to supply its deficiencies, as he allows it to expatiate at large unrestrained by any curb from rule; now raising it to an elevation that it cannot bear, and then sinking it to a depth where its distant murmurs can be barely guessed at. "His language is lofty, magnificent, copious, and peculiarly his own. Not tricked out with the gaudy dress of poetic phrases, nor fatiguing the attention with pompous terms, high-sounding and unmeaning; but familiarly combining strength with beauty, conciseness with ornament, and sublimity with elegance. Adapted to the exigence of the occasion, it is now a wide-spreading conflagration, and anon, a consecrated fire: now abundant and splendid, then brief and pointed; equally fitted to instruct, delight, and agitate; to soothe the soul to peace, or to awaken and arouse all its exalted and elevated energies. "His delivery admirably accords with the style of his oratory; never languid, insipid, or cold, but always possessing a pleasing warmth, expressive of feeling and imparting spirit: whilst his pronunciation, generally correct, though frequently rapid, is never crowded or redundant, but distinct and articulate, leaving ample space for strength and propriety of emphasis. In his manner, life, animation, and ardour predominate, and that to such a degree that they fascinate the prejudiced, and invigorate the torpid. "To the praise of grace his action has few pretensions; always forcible, and often expressive, it is seldom elegant: with much of that vehemence which all must condemn, it has little of that delicacy which the judicious can admire, and when it offends not, is hardly pleasing. With comprehensive in |