querulous appeal of the first minister.

CHAPTER V.

_The Passing of O'Connell._

LORD GEORGE wrote the next morning (Tuesday, March 31st) to a friend,
who had not been able to attend the debate: 'I look upon last night as
the most awkward night the government have had yet; I believe they would
have given their ears to have been beaten. We have now fairly set
them and the tail at loggerheads, and I cannot see how they are to get
another stage of either the tariff or Corn Bill before next Tuesday at
any rate. I doubt if they will do anything before Easter.'

It was understood that the House would adjourn for the Easter recess
on the 8th instant. There were therefore only two nights remaining for
government business before the holidays. On the first of these (Friday,
April the 3rd), Mr. O'Connell had announced that he should state his
views at length on the condition of Ireland, and the causes of these
agrarian outrages. Accordingly, when the order of the day for resuming
the adjourned debate was read, he rose at once to propose an amendment
to the motion. He sat in an unusual place--in that generally occupied by
the leader of the opposition--and spoke from the red box, convenient
to him from the number of documents to which he had to refer. His
appearance was of great debility, and the tones of his voice were very
still. His words, indeed, only reached those who were immediately around
him and the ministers sitting on the other side of the green table, who
listened with that interest and respectful attention which became the
occasion.

It was a strange and touching spectacle to those who remembered the
form of colossal energy and the clear and thrilling tones that had once
startled, disturbed, and controlled senates. Mr. O'Connell was on his
legs for nearly two hours, assisted occasionally in the management of
his documents by some devoted aide-de-camp. To the House generally it
was a performance in dumb show, a feeble old man muttering before a
table; but respect for the great parliamentary personage kept all as
orderly as if the fortunes of a party hung upon his rhetoric; and though
not an accent reached the gallery, means were taken that next morning
the country should not lose the last and not the least interesting of
the speeches of one who had so long occupied and agitated the mind of
nations.

This remarkable address was an abnegation of the whole policy of Mr.
O'Connell's career. It proved, by a