from the reign
of Henry the Second to the reign of William the Fourth, has left us an
immense mass of discontent, which will, no doubt, in ordinary times,
make the task of any statesman whom the Queen may call to power
sufficiently difficult. But though this be true, it is not less true,
that the immediate causes of the extraordinary agitation which alarms us
at this moment is to be found in the misconduct of Her Majesty's present
advisers. For, Sir, though Ireland is always combustible, Ireland is not
always on fire. We must distinguish between the chronic complaints which
are to be attributed to remote causes, and the acute attack which
is brought on by recent imprudence. For though there is always a
predisposition to disease in that unhappy society, the violent paroxysms
come only at intervals. I must own that I am indebted for some of my
imagery to the right honourable Baronet the First Lord of the Treasury.
When he sate on this bench, and was only a candidate for the great place
which he now fills, he compared himself to a medical man at the bedside
of a patient. Continuing his metaphor, I may say that his prognosis, his
diagnosis, his treatment, have all been wrong. I do not deny that the
case was difficult. The sufferer was of a very ill habit of body, and
had formerly suffered many things of many physicians, and, among others,
I must say, of the right honourable Baronet himself. Still the malady
had, a very short time ago, been got under, and kept under by the
judicious use of lenitives; and there was reason to hope that if that
salutary regimen had been steadily followed, there would have been
a speedy improvement in the general health. Unhappily, the new State
hygeist chose to apply irritants which have produced a succession of
convulsive fits, each more violent than that which preceded it. To drop
the figure, it is impossible to doubt that Lord Melbourne's government
was popular with the great body of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. It is
impossible to doubt that the two Viceroys whom he sent to Ireland were
more loved and honoured by the Irish people than any Viceroys before
whom the sword of state has ever been borne. Under the late Government,
no doubt, the empire was threatened by many dangers; but, to whatever
quarter the Ministers might look with uneasy apprehension, to Ireland
they could always look with confidence. When bad men raised disturbances
here, when a Chartist rabble fired on the Queen's soldi