his way from Vienna to Lisbon. He passed several weeks in London; improved upon acquaintance; became even a sort of favourite,-like a ferocious beast whose instinct was tamed and overcome;-and, it was understood, addressed to the king at his departure a letter of thanks, in which he declared that if he attempted any thing in Portugal against the rights of his brother and niece, or against the constitution, he should be an usurper, a perjurer, and a wretch. Such precisely, if not more, he proved himself. Arrived at Lisbon in February, he immediately began the work of perjury and treason. His mother, who appears to have had an insane thirst of cruelty and blood, instantly resumed her influence over him, At their first meeting it was said that they literally licked each other, with the fondling savagery of a tigress and her cub. After a succession of intrigues and atrocities, the cortes were dismissed, the constitution abolished, Don Miguel proclaimed absolute king, and humanity, within the limits of Portugal, left a prey to this modern Nero. Don Pedro, in the mean time, wholly unprepared for a relapse of perfidy which he might have expected, sent his daughter, the young queen, with a retinue to Europe. She was grand-daughter of the emperor of Austria, and her destination in the first instance was Vienna. On her touching at Gibraltar, she was informed of the occurrences in Portugal, and her chief officers thought it advisable that she should proceed to England; where she was received in September with royal honours, and great kindness, by the government, the people and the king.

The Irish Catholics had been too wise, and, it may be presumed, too grateful, to embarrass Mr. Canning by pressing their claims. Lord Goderich was also their friend; but his administration did not inspire confidence. The effect of the change, however, though perceptible, was not serious: but no sooner were the duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel placed at the head of the government, than the machinery of agitation in Ireland was wound up to the highest pitch. The Association could not be officered or organised under the existing act; but the spirit and passions of the people, previously drilled, supplied the place of organisation. Pure despotism only can prevent national sentiment, when strongly felt, from manifesting and embodying itself.

The Catholic clergy had by this time completely identified themselves with the Association. As a stroke of false policy had predisposed, so meddling intolerance stimulated, the priests to obtain and exercise their present sway. Fanatical zeal, restless bigotry, simple good faith, and that trading char latanerie in morals and religion, which flourishes in the United Kingdom under the name of cant, combined in a crusade against popish idolatry in Ireland. So sanguine in their hopes, or so bold in their effrontery, were the new crusaders, that they promised to subdue the Irish Catholics, in a year or two, to the protestant faith. Lord Roden, in the house of lords, opposed emancipation as unnecessary, because the Catholics of Ireland would soon be protestants. The ostensible means of "the second reformation" so called, were, educating the children of the Catholic poor, and distributing "the Bible

without note or comment." But under this evangelical disguise were practised intrigue, bigotry, and base arts. The naked starving catholic poor were tempted, by a corrupting charity, with food and clothes to prostitute their consciences, and to dress their children in the livery of apostacy.

It will not be supposed that the priests remained idle whilst proselytism was seducing their flocks, and depriving them of their subsistence. They used all their defensive means of spiritual authority and denunciation; and recantations of popish errors were followed by relapses and remorse. This desultory warfare led to what Mr. Wyse has happily termed "a new and fantastic spirit of polemical chivalry." The" biblicals" challenged the priests to public disputation, the priests accepted the challenge; the time, the place, and the laws of combat were mutually agreed upon; and champions tried their prowess against each other, before a crowd of spectators. The protestant combatants were for the most part methodists; not regular clergymen, or members of the established church. Methodists have a fervid contagious mysticism of vocabulary, and enthusiasm of tone, but no logic. This placed them at a disadvantage beyond their own congregations. The catholic priests, on the other hand, are trained as disputants in the logical subtleties of the schoolmen; and even in the opinion of soberminded protestant spectators acquitted themselves well. Their own followers accorded them the palm. The stimulant of popular applause was too agreeable to be discontinued. They passed from the theological to the political arena, harangued at aggregate

and other catholic meetings, and were soon both the priests and the tribunes of the people.

The first display of their power, to use the expression of Mr. Sheil, "made the great captain start."* Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, who had vacated his seat for Clare by becoming a cabinet minister, reappeared on the hustings of his native county with every advantage of personal character, local influence of family and fortune, the support of the gentry of the county, advocacy of the catholic claims. But he was a member of the Wellington ministry; and the priests and the association, by their unbounded sway over the peasantry, not only drove him from the field before the close of the second day, but substituted in his place the disqualified catholic agitator, Mr. O'Connell.

The catholics were reproached with ingratitude for unseating one of their advocates. The reproach was unjust they rejected not him, but the Wellington administration. His vote and speech were but a mockery, whilst the government to which he belonged was substantially based upon the principle of exclusion.

Were the assessor an expectant pliant Irish barrister, Mr. Fitzgerald, in spite of his minority, would have been returned, and upon plausible grounds; but Mr. Keatinge stood high in his profession, and independent of all party: he advised the sheriff according to the law of the land; and Mr. O'Connell was returned to abide the proper ordeal at the table of the house of commons. It was, however, certain that Mr. O'Connell would not be admitted to sit and

* Speech in the house of commons on the reform bill.

vote; but still his return was a master-stroke of party policy. It was such an appalling manifestation of catholic determination and force, as no anticatholic minister would venture to encounter on a general election.

Mr. O'Connell was accustomed to give rash pledges; and, though a good pleading and consulting counsel, had no authority as a constitutional lawyer. His pledge, therefore, of his professional character, that he would assert his right to sit and vote, passed idly as the wind; but the elaborate argument and opinion of Mr. Charles Butler, one of the most eminent English lawyers, startled the public, and would startle a severely scrupulous judge. It is not that there was any doubt as to the legislative intention; but that the popery laws were a formless mass of enactments, heaped upon vanquished adversaries by blind passion and brute force, without unison, consistency, or the guiding light of consecutive design.

The term "agitators" was applied to the catholic leaders as a reproach and contumely. They adopted and wore it as a title of honour. This is a strong proof of the strength of a party, and an earnest of its triumph:-"Les héros Bataves," says Mirabeau,

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qui fonderent la liberté de leur pays, prirent le nom de gueux, parceque le mépris de leurs tyrans avait prétendu les en flétrir..... Les amis de la liberté se parèront des injures de leurs ennemis." The success in Clare gave a new impulse to agitation. The act, which had been evaded by a change of form, had no sooner expired, at the close of the session, than the association resumed its adjourned meetings, with the machinery of its committees, and