three students to meet with them-they hesitated. He forced them into the room, and closing the door, he exclaimed, with a thundering voice-"We are constituted-Mr. Shiel, I call on you to speak!" From this moment, the Association began to send its agitating waves outward, like a stone dropped suddenly into still water. In a short time, all the priests became members. These levers of Irish society secured, the passions and energies of the nation were lifted with ease. The Rent was instituted, and the sinews of war poured in so rapidly, that the Association became a powerful engine both for offensive and defensive warfare. An energetic press supported the exertions of the new National Party, and a host of talent rushed into the ranks. The government of the day became alarmed, and in 1825 they brought in a bill for the suppression of the Association. This measure had the effect of causing the Association to dissolve itself; but, like the fabled monster of old, no sooner was the head cut off, than a thousand others sprung from its blood. Every provincial town now had its Association, ostensibly for the purposes of charity, but really to carry out the agitation which the metropolitan institution had been suppressed for beginning. This year, Mr. O'Connell succeeded to the Derrynane estate on the death of his uncle.

At the election of 1828, Mr. O'Connell was returned to Parliament for the county of Clare. The concession of Catholic emancipation was announced from the throne at the commencement of the session of 1829.

In 1830, he first commenced the agitation for the repeal of the Union. In 1834, after a debate of seven nights, the question of repeal was decided in Parliament by a vote of 523 to 38. Only one British member voted for repeal.

Mr. O'Connell supported the Melbourne administration, but did not abate, for a moment, his agitation of Ireland.

In 1836, he formed a general National Association; in 1838, the Precursors' Society, which afterwards made way for the Repeal Association. When Sir R. Peel came into power, in 1841, O'Connell commenced this agitation with the fierceness which he always exhibited towards the Tory party. He roused the whole population; and during the summers of 1843 and '44, Ireland witnessed a scene such as it never did before, and, perhaps, never will again-assemblies of men counted by the hundred thousands, swayed by the will of one man, and meeting and dispersing without the slightest violence. The Peel ministry, however, became frightened at their increasing numbers, and with the simple display of the artillery and dragoons upon the meeting-place of Clontarf, put an end, forever, to these demonstrations. The trial of O'Connell and his fellowconspirators, as they were called, is so fresh in the memory of the

public, that we need not here allude to it. The split between the Old and Young Irelanders seems to have been the first event which shook the confidence of O'Connell in his own powers. He saw, with dismay, the young and most vigorous of his partisans, headed by Smith O'Brien, who stood high with the Irish Liberals, arrayed against him, and the guiding principle of his life, the doctrine of non-physical force, derided and laughed at. The famine then came, and paralyzed the Rent; disease fell upon him; and, broken down and debilitated, he retired to die, far away from the active scenes of his youth, and that mountain home, where the merry cry of his beagles had resounded for so many long eventful years.

He died at Genoa, on the 15th of May, 1847.

The author of Sketches of the Irish Bar describes Mr. O'Connell in the days of his greatest activity, after this manner. Alluding to his dwelling, he says:

"The half-opened parlor-shutter, and the light within, announce that some one dwells there whose time is too precious to permit him to regulate his rising with the sun's. Should your curiosity tempt you to ascend the steps, and, under cover of the dark, to reconnoitre the interior, you will see a tall, able-bodied man standing at a desk, and immersed in solitary occupation. Upon the wall, in front of him, there hangs a crucifix. From this, and from the calm attitude of the person within, and from a certain monastic rotundity about his neck and shoulders, your first impression will be, that he must be some pious dignitary of the Church of Rome, absorbed in his matin devotions. But this conjecture will be rejected almost as soon as formed, as soon as the eye takes in the other furniture of the apartment-the book-cases clogged with tomes in plain calfskin binding, the blue-covered octavos that lie about on the tables and the floor, the reams of manuscript in oblong folds, and begirt with crimson tape."

"If, by accident," says the same writer, "you should afterwards look in at the Four Courts, you would have seen the same individual, transferred from the severe recluse of the morning, to the joyous, bustling lawyer, environed by clients and attorneys. You would hear him in the midst of some eloquent harangue, addressed to the jury with that winning sweetness, and assurance of success, which he so well knew how to assume, burst forth into an exordium upon the beauty of Green Erin, and proclaim that the hour of her redemption was at hand. The thought of Ireland liberated seemed never absent from his thoughts; it was as a religion, and he mixed it up with every thought and action of his life."

As Mr. O'Connell was one of the most remarkable men of the age, we feel excused in extending this biographical notice still fur

ther, for the purpose of adding a well-drawn picture of the close of his life.

reer.

"The monster meetings were truly the climax of O'Connell's caThat fatal prosecution gave him his death-blow. Not all the triumph of the after decision of the House of Lords, not all the millions who wept with joy at his release, or fired the hills, and thronged the wayside, on the day of his conqueror-like passage through Dublin, from the prison to his home-not even these rare gifts of fate to man, could stop the decay which was even now commencing. We remember well our sensations of pain and sorrow, when we first saw him after his release and return to England. The massive frame still was there; but the vacant eye, the sunken cheeks, their hectic tinge, the shrunken arms, which hung listlessly by his side, the measured but feeble step-all told, too truly, the tale of his coming decline. That magnificent man was already stranded-let a few waves more burst over him, and he would become a wreck.

"Nor was the tempest long a-coming. That which no human power could avert, or have averted, was at hand. The famine fell on Ireland. Instantly O'Connell strove all he could to prepare the people for it; he sank all political feeling; he raised his voice, now feeble, to promote union. He thought he saw in this calamity the hope of a better future, when exasperated parties might meet on the common ground of charity, and the feuds and quarrels which disgraced his country, might be lost sight of in one pervading nationality. But, alas! this was forbidden him. The work was not yet complete, and he was not to live to complete it. We always believed in O'Connell's heart, and now, we believe, he was heartbroken. At length, nature refused to sustain him longer. He sought to lay himself at the feet of the Pope. But it was not to be. A poor, weak, feeble old man, was now this miracle of and power, and the choice even was denied him where to die. His body to Ireland-his heart to Rome!"

energy

S.

JAMES KENT.

This eminent jurist died at New York the 12th of December, 1847, in the 85th year of his age. He was born in Dutchess County, New York, the 31st July, 1763. His grandfather was a Congregationalist minister-his father was a lawyer. He graduated at Yale College, and studied law with Egbert Benson, AttorneyGeneral of New York. He was then, as afterwards, studious and temperate-never indulging in fashionable pleasures-and was adVOL I.-MAY, 1848.

18

mitted to the bar in 1787. In 1798, he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court, when he commenced the practice of delivering written argumentative opinions, supported by legal authorities; and hence the series of recorded judicial decisions which have enriched the jurisprudence of New York.

In connection with Judge Radcliffe, he revised the statutes of the state in 1800. In 1804 he was appointed Chief Justice, and in 1814 he received the appointment of Chancellor. In 1824, having arrived at the age of sixty, the constitutional limit of service in New York, he left the bench, and was appointed Law professor in Columbia College. In 1826 appeared the first volume of his admirable "Commentaries on American Law."

Chancellor Kent was an exemplary Christian, and sustained an excellent reputation in all the relations of life. His works were highly esteemed in Europe as well as in America; and as evidence of which, the Chief Justice of England, Baron Denman, wrote to him some years since, acknowledging the indebtedness of the legal profession for his able commentaries. From the many tributes of respect paid the memory of this great man, we select an eulogium pronounced by a citizen of another state-himself a learned and distinguished man-Horace Binney, Esq., of Philadelphia.

"It is not for me," said Mr. Binney, "nor is this the occasion, to trace the entire life of the late Chancellor Kent. A sketch of his many services to his profession must be reserved to others. I cannot offer the resolutions without some allusion to the useful career of this eminent man. We first hear of him as a Judge of the Supreme Court of New York; it will be fifty years from the time of his appointment in February next. Four or five years after, he was appointed Chief Justice, and continued to administer justice, and, in fact, established the reputation of the court, not only in his district, but through the United States and the world. But it was chiefly as Chancellor that his reputation was acquired. His usefulness was particularly directed for the benefit of the young. He deserved to be called the father of American Equity. His decisions are a school for the young practitioner. They stand like great works in the studio of an artist. His commentaries upon the law are immortal. As a jurist, his views were sound, liberal and comprehensive. He was not only all this, but when you go into a view of his private character, there was no shade, not the shadow of a shade, to dim the picture. His integrity was as pure as a child's. There was no man more simple; he appeared to be the only one who was not aware of his own greatness; he believed himself to be best suited for a private life, and when most at home he was most happy." S.

SILAS WRIGHT.

The sudden death of this distinguished statesman, on the 27th day of August, 1847, produced a profound sensation throughout the United States. Possessed of a strong and vigorous mind, with popular talents of the highest order, and a manner calm, simple and unaffected, he was greatly esteemed and respected by men of all parties.

"Mr. Wright was born in the town of Amherst, Mass., on the 24th day of May, 1785. The subsequent year his father and family removed to Vermont. In 1815, he graduated at Middlebury College, in that State, and in the fall of that year removed to New York, to commence the study of law at Sandy Hill. In the fall of 1823, he was elected to the State Senate, from St. Lawrence county. In 1826, he was elected to Congress. In 1829, he was chosen State Comptroller, to which office he was, in 1832, re-elected by the Legislature. In 1833, he was chosen United States Senator, to which office he was re-elected in 1837, for the term of six years. In 1843, he was again re-elected, and in 1844, was called from the Senate to take the post of Governor, on which he entered on the 1st of January, 1845, and from which he retired on the 1st of January, 1847. He died, aged 52 years."

An eminent divine has pronounced his eulogium in these words: "Silas Wright never occupied a station he did not honor. In his college life, his characteristic modesty was associated with the powers of a young giant. His first effort at the bar so strongly contrasted itself with his unpretending manner, and, I may add, his plain and rustic appearance, that it was hardly less triumphant than a similar one by Patrick Henry, and it called forth a like admiration from the spectators. In the Senate chamber of the United States, no man rose, in his own peculiar element, higher than he. His simple, straight forward presentation of his subject-his clear elucidation of its essential parts and intrinsic materials-his eloquence of thought, clothed in words only as its transparencies, and not as its embellishments-his logic, unmingled with sophistry-his direct and undisguised method of approaching and compassing his end-his courtesy in debate, a bright and perfect model for deliberative assemblies-which rendered him a safe friend and ally, and a fair and respected opponent-have built for him a monument that will outlast the marble. These qualities of intellect and heart are identified with thought and memory, and will live among the imperishable treasures of mind, in the generations which are to succeed us in this republic. A patriot more pure and unostentatious—a statesman more sagacious and far-seeing-a friend of human rights and