r college, to be exclusively
confined to Roman Catholics, would be a retrograde step, undoing the
benefits of the recent concession of the authorities of Trinity; would
be "a revival and re-enactment of the principles of separation and
exclusion," and an injury to the whole community. For, as he wisely
contended, nothing was so important to the well-doing of the entire
people as the extinction of the religious animosities which had hitherto
embittered the feelings of each Church toward the other, and nothing
could so surely tend to that extinction as the uniting the members of
both from their earliest youth, in the pursuit both of knowledge and
amusement, as school-fellows and playmates. If Mr. Froude's
interpretation of the motives of those who influenced Grattan on this
occasion be correct, he was unconsciously made a tool of by those whose
real object was a separation from England, of the attainment of which
they despaired, unless they could unite Protestants and Roman Catholics
in its prosecution. The bill, however, was passed by a very large
majority, and L9000 a year was appropriated to the endowment of the
college. Half a century afterward, as will be seen, that endowment was
enlarged, and placed on a more solid and permanent footing, by one of
the ablest of Pitt's successors. It was a wise and just measure; and if
its success has not entirely answered the expectations of the minister
who granted it, its comparative failure has been owing to circumstances
which the acutest judgment could not have foreseen.

But it seems certain that neither the concession nor the refusal of any
demands put forward by any party in Ireland could have prevented the
insurrection which broke out shortly afterward. There were two parties
among the disaffected Irish--or it should, perhaps, rather be said that
two different objects were kept in view by them--one of which, the
establishment of a republic, was dearer to one section of the
malcontents; separation from England, with the contingency of annexation
to France, was the more immediate aim of the other, though the present
existence of a republican form of government in France to a great extent
united the two. As has been mentioned before, the original movers in the
conspiracy were of low extraction, Dublin tradesmen in a small way of
business. Napper Tandy was an ironmonger, Wolfe Tone was the son of a
coach-maker. But they had obtained a recruit of a very different class,
a younge