66 went on to observe, that it was hardly justifiable to address the house in that manner upon any case which did not possess, besides a character of transcendent merit, some particular and individual claims upon parliamentary consideration. While it was reasonably to be expected that, if these proceedings were prefaced in the manner in which he could wish to preface his present address, they should be of adequate importance and merit, he thought that there could be no reason to suspect the sincerity of any part of the house in giving their concurrence to them; and he would add, that in speaking of names so celebrated, they must act under the peculiar disadvantage of speaking, as it might be said, in the presence of posterity, which must review, and might reverse, their decision. Having stated these conditions, he had only to add the name of Grattan, and the house must be convinced that he was justified in this view of the subject. The first of those peculiar claims, in the present instance, was to be traced in the most memorable occasion of Mr Grattan's life. As far as he knew, Mr Grattan was the only man of this age who had received a parliamentary reward for services rendered in parliament, although he was then only a private gentleman without civil or military honours. He was the only person to whom such a recompense had been voted under such honourable circumstances. It was now nearly forty years since the commons of Ireland voted an estate for him and for his family, not indeed as a recompense, because it was wholly impossible to recompense such services,— but, as the vote itself expressed it, as a testimony of the national gratitude for great national services." These were the words of the grant. He need not remind the house what those services were, or what were the peculiar terms on which they were acknowledged: the only thing necessary to be said was this, that he was the founder of the liberties of his country. He found that country a dependent province upon England, and he made her a friend and an equal; he gave to her her native liberties, and he called to the enjoyment of their freedom a brave and generous people. So far as he knew, this was the only man recorded in history who had liberated his country from the domination of a foreign power, not by arms and blood, but by his wisdom and eloquence. It was his peculiar felicity that he enjoyed as much consideration in that country, whose power over his own he had done his utmost to decrease, as he enjoyed in that for which he had achieved that important liberation. But there were still more peculiar features in the general character and respect which he was so fortunate as to maintain in both kingdoms. It must be admitted that no great political services could be rendered to mankind without incurring a variety of opinions, and of honourable political enmities. It was then to be considered as the peculiar felicity of the man whose loss they deplored, that he survived them for a period of forty years: he survived till the mellowness of time, and the matured experience of age, had subdued every feeling of hostility, and had softened down every political enmity. If it were possible that in that divided assembly any honour could now be paid to that exalted individual equal to that which he had enjoyed in life, it would be clearly that which should be an unanimous recognition of his meritorious character. He need not remind the house, that the name of Grattan would occupy a great space in the page of history; for it would be connected with the greatest events of the last century. Fertile as the British empire had been in great men during our days, Ireland had undoubtedly contributed her full share of them. But none of these,-none of her mighty names,-not even those of Burke and Wellington,—were more certain of honourable fame, or would descend with more glory to future ages than that of Grattan. He had not touched, neither did he intend to touch upon any question which might have a tendency to provoke political discussion; he meant. no allusion which should apply to any opinions entertained by honourable gentlemen; but he might be allowed to observe that those opinions of his great public services which had obtained for Mr Grattan the gratitude of his country in the year 1782, were totally distinct from those which might be formed upon other subsequent acts of his, and particularly as regarded the union; for whatever those latter opinions might be, this at least was certain,--that no safe and lasting union could be formed between the two countries till they met upon equal terms, and as independent nations. What Mr Grattan said, therefore, of the union-which he trusted might be lasting to eternity-was this, -that instead of receiving laws from England, the Irish members in this country would now take their full share and equal participation of the duties of legislation, and of the conduct of the affairs of both kingdoms. It resulted, therefore, that the reward which Mr Grattan had formerly received was equally good and merited, and that he was still equally entitled to the approbation of his countrymen. If he might be permitted to mention the circumstance, he would observe that there was one strong peculiarity in Mr Grattan's parliamentary history, which was, perhaps, not true of any other man who ever sat in that house. He was the sole person in the history of modern oratory, of whom it could be said that he had obtained the first class of eloquence in two parliaments, differing from each other in their opinions, tastes, habits, and prejudices, as much possibly as any two assemblies of different nations. He was confessedly the first orator of his own country. He had come over to this country at the time when the taste of that house had been rendered justly severe by its daily habit of hearing speakers such as the world had never before witnessed. He had therefore to encoun He ex ter great names on the one hand, and unwarrantable expectations ou the other. These were his difficulties, and he overcame them all. He surpassed his friends' expectations, and he made others bend to the superiority of his genius, who had, perhaps, formed a very different estimation of his powers. This great man died in the attempt to discharge his parliamentary duties. He did not, indeed, die in that house, but he died in his progress to the discharge of those duties. pired in the public service, sacrificing his life with the same willingness and cheerfulness with which he had ever devoted his exertions to the same cause. It was not for him to define what those services and exertions were. He called on no man to remodel or to alter his former opinions, relative to that great measure which Mr Grattan was about once more to propose to them; but he would only mention that Mr Grattan considered it in the same light as he had always done. Mr Grattan risked his life to come into that house for the purpose of so proposing it, because he believed that it would be the means of healing the long-bleeding wounds of his suffering country;-of establishing peace and harmony in a kingdom whose independence he had himself achieved; of transmitting to posterity, with the records of her political, the history of her religious liberation ;-of vindicating the honour of the Protestant religion;-of wiping from it the last stain that dimmed its purity, and of supporting the cause of religious liberty, whose spirit went forth in emancipated strength at the Revolution, although its principle was long unknown to the reformers themselves. There was one important circumstance in the case of Mr Grattan, which was well entitled to observation: his was a case without alloy; it was an unmixed example for the admiration of that house. The purity of his life was the brightness of his glory. He was one of the few private men whose private virtues were followed by public fame, he was one of the few public men whose private virtues were to be cited as examples to those who would follow in his public steps. He was as eminent in his observance of all the duties of private life as he was heroic in the discharge of his public ones. Among those men of genius whom he had the happiness of knowing he had always found a certain degree of simplicity accompanying the possession of that splendid endowment; but among all the men of genius he had known he had never found such native grandeur of soul accompanying all the wisdom of age, and all the simplicity of genius, as in Mr Grattan. He had never known one in whom the softer qualities of the soul had combined so happily with the mightier powers of intellect. In short, if he were to describe his character briefly, he should say, "Vita innocentissimus; ingenio florentissimus; proposito sanctissimus." As it had been the object of his life, so it was his dying prayer that all classes of men might be united by the ties of amity and peace. The last words which he uttered were, in fact, a prayer that the interests of the two kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland might be for ever united in the bonds of affection; that they might both cling to their ancient and free constitution; and as most conducive to effect both these objects-that the legislature might at length see the wisdom and propriety of adopting a measure which should efface the last stain of religious intolerance from our institutions. He trusted that he should not be thought too fanciful if he expressed his hope that the honours paid to Mr Grattan's memory in this country might have some tendency to promote the great objects of his life, by showing to Ireland how much we valued services rendered to her, even at the expense of our own prejudices and pride. The man who had so served her must ever be the object of the reverential gratitude and pious recollection of every Irishman. When the illustrious dead of different kingdoms were at length interred within the same cemetery, there would seem to be a closer union between them than laws and nations could effect; and whenever the remains of the great man should be carried to that spot where slept the ashes of kindred greatness, those verses might be applied to him which had been elicited on another occasion of public sorrow from a celebrated poet, who resembled Mr Grattan in nothing but this,-that to a beautiful imagination be united a spotless purity of life: 'Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest, Nor ever to the bowers of bliss conveyed A purer spirit or a holier shade.' Sir James Mackintosh was followed in a similar strain of panegyric by Lord Castlereagh, Mr Grant, Mr Wilberforce, and others. Mr Grattan was publicly interred in Westminster abbey on the 16th of June. The spot of earth dedicated to his mortal remains adjoins that which incloses the dust of Pitt and of Fox. Mr Grattan's speeches were collected and published by his son, in four volumes 8vo., in 1821. The following is the peroration of his celebrated speech on introducing the 'Declaration of Irish Rights,' on the 19th of April, 1780: "There is no policy left for Great Britain but to cherish the remains of her empire, and do justice to a country who is determined to do justice to herself, certain that she gives nothing equal to what she received from us when we gave her Ireland. "With regard to this country, England must resort to the free principles of government, and forget that legislative power which she has exercised to do mischief to herself. She must go back to freedom, which, as it is the foundation of her constitution, so it is the main pillar of her empire. It is not merely the connection of the crown, it is a constitutional annexation, an alliance of liberty, which is the true meaning and mystery of the sisterhood, and will make both countries one arm and one soul, replenishing from time to time in their immortal connection, the vital spirit of law and liberty from the lamp of cach other's light. Thus combined by the ties of common interest, equal trade and equal liberty, the constitution of both countries may become immortal, a new and milder empire may arise from the errors of the old, and the British nation assume once more her natural station, the head of mankind. "That there are precedents against us, I allow. Acts of power I would call them, not precedents; and I answer the English pleading such precedents, as they answered their kings, when they urged precedents against the liberty of England. Such things are the weakness of the times; the tyranny of one side, the feebleness of the other, the law of neither. We will not be bound by them; or rather, in the words of the Declaration of Right, No doing judgment, proceeding, or any wise to the contrary shall be brought into precedent or example.' Do not then tolerate a power-the power of the British parliament over this land—which has no foundation in utility, or necessity, or empire, or the laws of England, or the laws of Ireland, or the laws of nature, or the laws of God,—do not suffer it to have a duration in your mind. "Do not tolerate that power which blasted you for a century; that power which shattered your loom, banished your manufactures, dishonoured your peerage, and stopped the growth of your people; do not, I say, be bribed by an export of woollen or an import of sugar, and permit that power which has thus withered the land, to remain in your country, and have existence in your pusillanimity. "Do not suffer the arrogance of England to imagine a surviving hope in the fears of Ireland; do not send the people to their own resolves for liberty, passing by the tribunals of justice and the high court of par liament; neither imagine that, by any formation of apology, you can palliate such a commission to your hearts, still less to your children, who will sting you with their curses in your grave for having interposed between them and their Maker, robbing them of an immense occasion, and losing an opportunity which you did not create, and can never re store. "Hereafter, when these things shall be history, your age of thraldom and poverty, your sudden resurrection, commercial redress, and miraculous armament, shall the historian stop at liberty, and observe,-that here the principal men among us fell into mimic trances of gratitude,they were awed by a weak ministry, and bribed by an empty treasury, -and when liberty was within their grasp, and the temple opening her folding-doors, and the arms of the people clanged, and the zeal of the nation urged and encouraged them on, that they fell down, and were prostituted at the threshold? "I might, as a constituent, come to your bar, and demand my liberty I do call upon you, by the laws of the land and their violation, by the instruction of eighteen counties, by the arms, inspiration, and providence of the present moment, tell us the rule by which we shall go,— assert the law of Ireland,-declare the liberty of the land. "I will not be answered by a public lie in the shape of an amendment; neither, speaking for the subject's freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe, in this our island, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chain, and contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags: he may be naked, he shall not be in iron. And I do see the time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted; and though great men should apostatize, yet the cause will live; and though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ which conveyed it; and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him. "I shall move you, that the king's most excellent majesty, and the lords and commons of Ireland, are the only power competent to make laws to bind Ireland." John Eardley Wilmot. BORN A. D. 1748.-DIED A. D. 1815 MR WILMOT was the second son of Sir John Eardley Wilmot, Lordchief-justice of the court of Common pleas, of whom a brief notice has been already presented to the reader. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford, and was originally intended for the church. It was for him that Warburton drew up those directions for a young clergyman's reading which were afterwards published by Hurd. The following curious indorsation was found in his father's handwriting on the back of the learned prelate's plan of study: "These directions were given me by Dr Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, for the use of my son when he proposed to go into orders; but, in the year 1771, he unfortunately preferred the bar to the pulpit, and instead of lying on a bed of roses. ambitioned a crown of thorns: Digne puer, meliore flamma!'" In 1781 Mr Wilmot was appointed a master in Chancery by Lordchancellor Thurlow. He had a few years previous to this entered par |