The Press.
London, England, 1855-02-17 00:00:00

Xittraturt.

lActolics, Legal and Political. By the late Right
Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil. Edited, with
Notes, by W. Savage, Esq. London : Hurst
and Blacked.
Tax long struggle to obtain the passing of the
bill of 1829 stands, in most of its character-
istics, quite alone in the annals of popular
effort. A great party in England, still bearing
the name of those who, from the time of
Charles 11., had been foremost in imposing
disabilities Upon Romanists, found itself to all
appearance permanently excluded from office.
The people of England, properly so called,
exhibited no desire for the return of the
“ great Whig families " to power, and the
"Principles of Lord Somers," and the chances
of office of the house of Russell, seemed des-
tined to slumber together. Not even in Ire-
land could any considerable assistance be ob-
tained in the sacra fames for place. The gentle
liberalism of the Ponsonbys and Charlemonts
was scarce sufficient to excite a passing cheer
from the great body of the Romanists who had
ceased to look to France for an invasion, and
placed their hopes on obtaining political power
by other means than the point of the pike.
In this extremity it became necessary for the
so-called Whigs to create a new stock, and
nothing offered at once so useful and so oppor-
tune as the Roman Catholic claims. The
granting of these after the act of 1793, which
gave Roman Catholics the franchise, was only
a question of time, for it is one of the qualities
of our Constitution that a party hungry for
office will always be found to conform to the
wishes of any who can vote. The machi-
nery of a Whig alliance with theparti pretrs in
Ireland was ready to hand. A peasantry (for
Romish yeomanry there was none), whom al-
most every page of the book before us shows
to have been in the last degree ferocious and
illiterate, had found lay tribunes partaking of
their passions, hopes, and emotions as fully as
of their origin and blood. With these was
roan concluded an offensive and defensive
treaty, which even yet survives, and of which
the compacts of Lichfield-house and Chesham-
place were but the more scandalous renewals
and published consequences.
Of the Irish Romanist demagogues Mr.
Sheil was one of the most remarkable. His
education, partly ecclesiastical, gave him sym
pathies with the Romish priesthood which
they cordially acknowledged. His personal
ambition and envious temperament made him
leader in the guerilla warfare against autho-
' to-day against a
orrow against a
'le co n stituen
:nouncing the
unscru-
and Peculiar
:r. Sheil went
unemployed coun-
client; but he
needed by his
*rite readably,

from 1803 to the
the greatest
The public of
the smallest
rhich the in-
people " was
What colour
A a ball, what
of a recruiting
had stoned a
Orange oppressor "
in the pound,
A subje • aggregate meeting of
" the Catholics of Ireland," could not be made
interesting on this side the Channel without
considerable art, and this Mr. Sheil displayed
to good account in the " Sketches" before us
at a time when the broadsheets of the Common.
wealth were being caricatured by a more
modern series of " Strange and Terrible Newes
"from Irelande."
Amongst the multitude of aspirants for
profit or distinction which the tumult of
Irish agitation threw up to the surface, Shell
stood alone as possessing a power consider-
ably beyond vulgar abuse and reckless accu•

a leader in the guerilla warfare ag
rity in Ireland that was waged to-c
lord lieutenant and to-morrow
churchwarden, now contesting the
cies of the kingdom, and now der
appointment of a gauger. Flipp
pulous, and endowed with great
powers of extravagant oratory, MI
far•ahead of the crowd of unemj
sellors who took the mob for a cliff
had one further quality greatly ;le
party at that period. He could ,iirr
stud such power at the period, fron
rise of " 'Young Ireland," was
lateessity of the agitators.
England had little sympathy with
tif provincial squabbles upon w]
Vlignation of " seven millions of
o often Witheringly poured out.
it deputy-lieutenant's lady wore at
tune was played by the fifer of
party, what Protestant urchin I
priest's geese, or what " Orange
had put his reverence's pig in
though subjects of an " aggregate
.• •• P Y 1