While the rays of the sun shall shine in these windows
My name shall shine bright as my ancestor’s shines,
Emblazoned on journals as his upon signs.”
How many must have felt their minds respond and their hearts bound at the following argumentative and spirited declamation:
“When the elective franchise was conceded to the Catholics of Ireland, that acknowledgment and anticipation, which I now call upon the House formally to ratify and realize, was, in point of fact, irrevocably pronounced. To give the latter the elective franchise was to admit him to political power; for, to make him an elector and at the same time to render him incapable of being elected, is to attract to our sides the lowest orders of the community, at the same time that we repel from us the highest orders of the gentry. This is not the surest or safest way to bind Ireland to the rest of the Empire in ties of affection. And what is there to prevent our union from being wrought more closely? Is there any moral—is there any physical obstacle? Opposuit natura? No such thing. We have already bridged the channel! Ireland now sits with us in the Representative Assembly of the Empire; and when she was allowed to come there, why was she not also allowed to bring with her some of her Catholic children? For many years, alas! we have been erecting a mound, not to assist or improve the inclinations of Providence, but to thwart them. We have raised it high above the waters, and it has stood there frowning hostility and effecting a separation. In the course of time, however, chance and design—the necessities of man and the sure workings of nature—have conspired to break down this mighty structure, till there remains of it only a narrow isthmus standing
‘between two kindred seas,
Which mounting view each other from afar,
And long to meet.’
What, then, shall be our conduct? Shall we attempt to repair the breaches, and fortify the ruins? A hopeless and ungracious undertaking! or shall we leave them to moulder away by time and accident? a sure but distant and thankless consummation! Or shall we not rather cut away at once the isthmus that remains, allow free course to the current which our artificial impediments have constructed, and float upon the mighty waters the ark of our common constitution?”
And we are now to be told that this same man, so playful and jocose, so ornamented and brilliant, was a close arguer, and indefatigable in attendance at his office. But though always ready for business, he would not scruple to introduce a piece of drollery into the most serious affairs. For instance: