pose that the life of the patriot, demagogue, and agitator, was occupied exclusively in the one great and absorbing cause? It is, however, on his way home from the courts, and after legal labours, that have occupied him from the dawn of light, that, (as if to escape from the homage which haunts his steps,) he turns into the Catholic Association-it is after having set a jury-box in a roar by his humour, made "butchers weep" by his pathos, driven a witness to the last shift of Irish evasion, and puzzled a judge by some point of law, not dreamed of in his philosophy, that, all weary and exhausted as he must be, he mounts the rostrum of the Corn Exchange, the Jupiter Tonans of the Catholic senate; and, by those thunderbolts of eloquence, so much more effective to hear than to read, kindles the lambent light of patriotism to its fiercest glow, and with "fear of change perplexes" Brunswick clubs and Orange lodges.*

Again, this boldest of demagogues, this mildest of men, "from Dan to Beersheba," appears

* Insigne mœstis præsidium reis,

Et consulenti, Pollio, curiæ.

HORAT. 1. 2, Ode 1.

in the patriarchal light of the happy father of a happy family, practising all the social duties, and nourishing all the social affections. It is remarkable, that Mr. O'Connell is not only governed by the same sense of the value of time as influenced Sir Edward Coke, but literally obeys his injunctions for its partition, which forms the creed more than the practice of rising young lawyers. It is this intense and laborious diligence in his profession, that has won him the public confidence. Where his abilities as a lawyer may be serviceable, party yields to self-interest; and many an inveterate ascendancy man leaves his friends, the Orange barristers, to hawk their empty bags through the courts, while he contributes his official gains indirectly to the Catholic rent, by assigning to Catholic talent the cause which Catholic eloquence can best defend.

Then, as we are on the subject of the association, there is another of its distinguished members, Thomas Wyse, an antiquarian, linguist, traveller, artist, scholar, painter, and author, no less than an orator and a politician. What industry, what application, what energy must have gone to make

up all this acquirement! In a careless and desultory conversation, Mr. Wyse will throw out as much, and as varied knowledge, as would qualify some noble pedant for the chair of what Horace Walpole calls " the old ladies' society." Without the aptitude for labour, nothing great ever was or ever will be produced. Poets talk of inspiration; but their finest passages are uniformly the result of the deepest study. Even Sheridan, the man of eminence most quoted for his idleness, has left proofs behind him of the intensity of the effort by which his inimitable comedies were elaborated; and his biographer and countryman might bear his own personal evidence to the great truth, that not even the slightest and most sparkling effusions of the muse, are emancipated from this great governing law of excellence. The supposition of amazing talents, latent in the capabilities of indolent triflers, is like the theory of those elaborate and ingenious machines for producing perpetual motion, which are extremely surprising and admirable, but which labour under a small practical disadvantage, that-they do not perform.

FRANKNESS.

NOTHING wins on the affections more than that frank and generous disposition which, ever ready to risk itself for others, may excite the derision of the crafty and designing, but has an unfailing advocate in the self-love of society. The manoeuvrer, male or female, may deceive for a time--obtain admirers by a plausible exterior, make dupes, and secure dependants; but such persons win no friends, excite no confidence. The cold and crafty Octavius, with all his power, had no devoted intimates of the heart; while Cæsar, with all his crimes, and Anthony, with all his vices, won, by their generous and unreserved dispositions, the affections of all who approached them. He who in his patriotism had said, that "he could neither be false to the republic nor survive it,”* was yet

* "Nam neque deesse, neque superesse reipublicæ volo."

devoted to Cæsar, whose captivating affability and generous temper were irresistible; and many a stern republican relaxing his severity, and, surrendering his feelings to Anthony, suffered the sophistry of the affections to master the graver impressions of patriotism.

"Mark Anthony I served, who best was worthy
Best to be served: whilst he stood up and spoke,
He was my master, and I wore a life

To spend upon his hater."

The two great captains of antiquity seem to have possessed singular arts of fascination; while of the two great captains of modern times, one only excelled in that species of bonhommie, which lays contributions on the hearts of the multitude, often dangerous to their rights and happiness. Napoleon Buonaparte-stern at the Tuileries, where he was surrounded by those whom he knew to be despicable, and whom he had proved to be corrupt-when in the midst of his soldiers, gave a full, free scope to his frank and brusque cordiality. The idol of his troops, had he trusted to their affection and their fealty, he would not have fallen a victim to the treachery of that false grade, which he himself had the folly to