accidentally opened a volume containing the orations delivered by many distinguished men on that solemn occasion, and I noted some expressions of a few who now sit in this hall, which are deep fraught with the then prevailing, I may say, universal feeling. It is inquired by one, "Is this the effect of accident or blind chance, or has that God, who holds in his hand the destiny of nations and of men, designed these things as an evidence of the permanence and perpetuity of our institutions?" Another says, " Is it not stamped with the seal of divinity?" And a third, descanting on the prospects, bright and glorious, which opened on our beloved country, says, "Auspicious omens cheer us."

Yet it would have required but a tinge of superstitious gloom, to have drawn from that event darker forebodings of that which was to come. In our primitive wilds, where the order of nature is unbroken by the hand of man; where majestic trees arise, spread forth their branches, live out their age, and decline; sometimes will a patriarchal plant, which has stood for centuries the winds and storms, fall when no breeze agitates a leaf of the trees that surround it. And when, in the calm stillness of a summer's noon, the solitary woodsman hears on either hand the heavy crash of huge, branchless trunks, falling by their own weight to the earth whence they sprung, prescient of the future, he foresees the whirlwind at hand, which shall sweep through the forest, break its strongest stems, upturn its deepest roots, and strew in the dust its tallest, proudest heads. But I am none of those who indulge in gloomy anticipation. I do not despair of the republic. My trust is strong, that the gallant ship, in which all our hopes are embarked, will yet outride the storm; saved alike from the breakers and billows of disunion, and the greedy whirlpool-the allengulphing maelstroom of executive power, that unbroken, if not unharmed, she may pursue her prosperous voyage far down the stream of time; and that the banner of our country, which now waves over us so proudly, will still float in triumph-borne on the winds of heaven, fanned by the breath of fame, every stripe bright and unsullied, every star fixed in its sphere, ages after each of us now here shall have ceased to gaze on its majestic folds for ever.

XXXVIII.

The Public Informer.*—CURRAN.

THE learned gentleman is pleased to say, that the tra verser has charged the government with the encourage ment of informers. This, gentlemen, is another small fact that you are to deny at the hazard of your souls, and upon the solemnity of your oaths. You are, upon your oaths, to say to the sister country, that the government of Ireland uses no such abominable instruments of destruction as informers. Let me ask you, honestly,-What do you feel, when in my hearing, when in the face of this audience, you are called upon to give a verdict that every man of us, ay, and every man of you, knows by the testimony of your own eyes, to be utterly and absolutely false ?

I speak not now of the public employment of inform ers, with a promise of secrecy and of extravagant reward; I speak not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have been so often transferred from the table to the dock, and from the dock to the pillory: I speak of what your own eyes have seen, day after day, during the course of this commission, from the box where you are now sitting: I speak of the horrid miscreants who have avowed, upon their oaths, that they had come from the very seat of government-from the castle, where they had been worked upon by the fear of death, and the hopes of compensation, to give evidence against their fellows. I speak of the mild and wholesome councils of this government, holden over these catacombs of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then dug up -a witness.

Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, after his resurrection from that tomb-after having been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table, the living image of life and of death, and supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked, when he entered, how the multitude retired at

Extracted from a speech delivered to a jury.

his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of wo and death; a death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent. There was an antidote-a juror's oath; but even that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth; conscience swings from her moorings, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim.

XXXIX.

Speech of Macbriar to the Scotch Insurgents.—
WALTER SCOTT.

YOUR garments are dyed-but not with the juice of the wine-press; your swords are filled with blood, but not with the blood of goats or lambs; the dust of the desert on which ye stand is made fat with gore, but not with the blood of bullocks; for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. These were not the firstlings of the flock; this is not the savour of myrrh, of frankincense, or of sweet herbs, that is steaming in your nostrils; but these bloody trunks are the carcasses of those that held the bow and the lance, who were cruel and would show no mercy, whose voice roared like the sea, who rode upon horses, every man in array as if to battle.

Those wild hills that surround you are not a sanctuary planked with cedar and plated with silver; nor are ye ministering priests at the altar, with censers and with torches; but ye hold in your hands the sword, and the bow and the weapons of death,-And yet, verily, I say unto you, that not when the ancient temple was in its first glory, was there offered sacrifice more acceptable than that which you have this day presented, giving to the slaughter the tyrant and the oppressor, with the rocks

for your altars, and the sky for your vaulted sanctuary, and your own good swords for the instruments of sacrifice.

Leave not, therefore, the plough in the furrow-turn not back from the path on which you have entered, like the famous worthies of old, whom God raised up for the glorifying of his name, and the deliverance of his afflicted people-halt not in the race you are running, lest the latter end should be worse than the beginning. Wherefore, set up a standard in the land; blow a trumpet upon the mountains; let not the shepherd tarry by his sheepfold, nor the seedsman continue in the ploughed field, but make the watch strong, sharpen the arrows, burnish the shields, name ye the captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens; call the footmen like the rushing of winds, and cause the horsemen to come up like the sound of many waters, for the passages of the destroyers are stopped, their rods are burned, and the face of their men of battle hath been turned to flight.

Heaven has been with you, and has broken the bow of the mighty; then let every man's heart be as the heart of the valiant Maccabeus-every man's hand as the hand of the mighty Sampson-every man's sword as that of Gideon, which turned not back from the slaughter; for the banner of reformation is spread abroad on the mountains in its first loveliness, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Well is he this day that shall barter his house for a helmet, and sell his garment for a sword, and cast in his lot with the children of the covenant, even to the fulfilling of the promise; and wo, wo unto him who, for carnal ends and self-seeking, shall withhold himself from the great work; for the curse shall abide with him, even the bitter curse of Meroz, because he came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

Up, then, and be doing; the blood of martyrs, reeking upon scaffolds, is crying for vengeance; the bones of saints, which lie whitening in the highways, are pleading for retribution; the groans of innocent captives from desolate isles of the sea, and from the dungeons of the tyrant's high places, cry for deliverance; the prayers of persecuted Christians, sheltering themselves in dens and

deserts from the sword of their persecutors, famished with hunger, starving with cold, lacking fire, food, shelter and clothing, because they serve God rather than man-all are with you, pleading, watching, knocking, storming the gates of heaven in your behalf.

Heaven itself shall fight for you, as the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Then, whoso will deserve immortal fame in this world, and eternal happiness in that which is to come, let them enter into God's service, and take arles at the hand of the servant,-a blessing, namely, upon him and his household, and his children, to the ninth generation, even the blessing of the promise, for ever and ever!

XL.

Speech on the Catholic Question.-GRATTAN.

WHERE, ask, where are those Protestant petitions against the Catholic claims, which we were told would by this time have borne down your table? We were told in the confident tone of prophecy, that England would have poured in petitions from all her counties, towns and corporations, against the claims of Ireland. I ask, where are those petitions? Has London, her mighty capital, has the university of Dublin, mocked the calamities of your country, by petitioning in favour of those prejudices that would render us less able to redress them? Have the people of England raised a voice against their Catholic fellow-subjects? No; they have the wisdom to see the folly of robbing the empire, at such a time, of one-fourth of its strength, on account of speculative doctrines of faith. They will not risk a kingdom on account of old men's dreams about the preva lence of the pope. They will not sacrifice an empire because they dislike the sacrifice of the mass.

I say, then, England is not against us. She has put ten thousand signatures upon your table in our favour. And what says the protestant interest in Ireland! Look at their petition-examine the names-the houses-the families. Look at the list of merchants-of divines. Look, in a word, at protestant Ireland, calling to you in a