his mingled melodrame, where tragedy and farce confused each other, until the spectators themselves grew weary; the manlier retired, the weak, the wild, and the intoxicated only remained, until the alarm of the empire was awakened by the furious follies of the scene; and, to prevent the name of the constitution from being used as the pretext for a den of Papists and rebels, the doors were shut, and the fabric was left to fall by its natural decay.
The memory of Henry Grattau holds the highest place in the recollections of Ireland. No man before or after him has eclipsed it—no man has rivaled it—no man has even been able to disturb it. The popularity of Irish leaders since his day has been built on foundations which must give way: public intrigue supporting scanty honesty—desperate appeals to popular ignorance, supporting tainted character—the brawling affectation of patriotism, supporting notorious selfishness—guilty temptation to peasant violence, supporting the pretences of a peacemaker. Such claims must be seen through, and from that moment they must be rejected. Their monuments of such men are not merely built of sand, but they are built on the sea-shore. The natural progress of opinion sweeps them away. The monument of men like Grattan is the watch-tower, to be washed perhaps by the tide, but to stand: in the season of serenity a noble memorial of the industry and power of the past—in the tempest, the object to which the eyes of the steersman of the state are naturally turned, to discover the true bearings of their course, and assure them of safety.
But in this tribute to the talents of Grattan, we must protest against giving any share to his politics. In fact, one of the most important lessons to be learned from this book, by men who are yet to emulate his ability, would be to avoid his footsteps. The unhappy accident of early association involved him in Whiggism. The public circumstances of Ireland held him in the chain, until nearly the close of his life. Grattan was forced to drag the manacles of a partisan at the wheels of a faction; while he had inherited faculties from nature to have mounted a triumphal chariot of his own, and led his country rejoicing after him up the steep of peace and honour.
Nor must we include in the tribute any portion of the authorship before us. Mr Henry Grattan, the son of a distinguished father, has only shown how fatal a possession may be the frailties of a man of talent, without the talent which relieved them of public ridicule, or the prudence which could fling them off in times requiring public and personal manliness. The fantastic antipathy to England, the love of imaginary grievance, and even the coxcombry of the parental style, have been transmitted to the descendant with the most scrupulous exactness. In the father, those follies were forgotten in the first moment when his real strength was to be put forth. They were the mere creations of his idle hours—the weeds that gathered round the trunk of the tree, but were swept off at the first blast of the storm. With the son, they have climbed and covered the whole tree; and will climb, till they have brought it to the ground: he is all over one parasite plant. Every sentence which his pen drops, blisters the paper with bitterness against England. An Irish member of Parliament, expressly brought in by the priests, he complains against the slavery of the Irish Papist; indulging in the utmost extravagance of speech, he tears his locks over the fettered freedom of Hibernian elocution; and, contemptuously aspersing all the political opponents of Popery and O'Connellism in England, he pronounces all the anathemas of an inflated fancy and a reckless tongue, against the English injustice of charging faction with the disturbances of Ireland.
Of his style we have no desire to say any thing. In the narrative of great men and things, style is scarcely important. But the style adopted by a great man, is a melancholy instrument in the hands of the smaller generation. The lion's hide that hangs with such ease on the shoulders of Hercules, suffocates the attendant dwarf. The truth is, that the genuine great man has no permanent style. Whatever affectations may have grown on him, they are matters which are altogether extraneous to his mind.—They disappear at the first moment when the interest of his topic awakes his powers. The lounging attitude, or the mincing step, are forgotten
