The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-19 00:00:00

Y) N, fillU RS AY• EVEN N G-97 JULY; 1855.

family tutor, the Abbe de Grimean, a native of Langue-
doc, one of the priestly refugees froth the infidel revolu-
tion. Subsequently, this swine good Abbe conducted his
young scholar across the Channel to London. and left him,
still a mere child (iu his eleventh year), at_ a French
academy then flourishing in Kensington House, tinder the
care of the Fires de la Foi—no less a personage than Mon-
sieur le Prince de BroL;lie, tieing. there installed as head of
the establishment. Here Richard- Shed took his place in
the school-room, having on one side of him a lubberly brat,.
the son of the Count Docar, and on the other a hands,une
young Creole, one Davarieux, fr)in Martinique. The
middle boy of the group, Richard Shell himself, being at
the time, accorOing to the account of one of his associates,
"a strange wayward boy, callous, and slovenly in dress,
and very imperfectly educated." His • gliiet instructor
here, according to his own ac'knOwledgment, in an animsted
record of his "Schoolboy Recellectionn,".published'neA,rly
30 years-afterwards in the New Monthly Magazine,
Genoese, M. Molinari. From the Frenoh school at Ken-
sington, Sbcil was removed. during the Oetober of 1804 to
the Catholic College of Stonyhurst.• Here he was entered
as a student on tlie 24th of that s:ime October, and here he
remained until the sth of November, 1,:07: is *thus
described by one of his college mates (Mr.. Justice Ball),
when, at tho'age of 13, he first entered the pt ecincts of the
Jesuit alma mater, near the town of Olitheree,..in Lanca-
shire : , •

" His first 'appearance I recollect well: it was strikingly
grotesque. His face -was pale and 'meagre ; his . limbs
lank ; his hair starting upwards from his 'head like a
brush ; a Sort of muscular action pervading his whole
frame ; his dress foreign ; . his talk broken English, and
his voice a squeak. Add to this a pair of singularly bril-
liant eyes, .lighting up all the peculiarities of his figure,
and you have before you the boy Shen. His perform-
ances wero at first as singular as his pereon. His efforts to
kick a football wero sai generic. He never engaged iu-the
game along with the other boys, but kept aloof, occupied in
reading or Walking about the playground ; but whenever-the
ball was thrown across his path, he used to dart at with a
frantic energy, his legs and arms all pretty equally on the
stretch, so that it was out of the question to determine with
what limb he would assail the ball, until a kick at it, proba-
bly from the left leg, solved the problem; andAten back he
would go to his reading, amid the yells of the urchins, en-
raged at his disturbing- their game."
After quitting Stonyhurst in 1807, Richard Sheil (then 16)
before the close of 'November, became a student of Trinity
College, Dublin, entering it its a pupil of Doctor Wall,
now Vice-Prorest of 'the 'University. . Not long afterwards
his father was so far ruined as to be compelled to part with
Bellevue for 28 000/ and after paying off very coeeidereble
liabilities, to remove with his family to the Irish capital
upon a moderate and even narrow competence. Hereupon
a relative—be his name ever mentioned with honour—Dr.
William Foly, an eminent physician of Waterford, spon-
taneously provided Richard Shell with an allowance of
1001. per annum until such time as he could he called to
the bar. •In anticipation of which entrance upon his cho•
sen profession, the young student became a constant atten-
dant of the Historical -Society-then holding its meetings
within the walls of the University. His first public dis-
play as a speaker appears to have been ou the 9th of Feb.,
1811, when he was little more than 19, but when, in spite
of his shrill voice, his boyish look, and his wild uasettled
air, he nevertheless contrived even then, by that maiden
effort, to make au impression upon his auditors. Insomuch
chat at the close of his speech he receive 4 the especial
compliments and congratulations of the Knight of
Kerry, the .late Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald. In the
July of 1811 Shell took his degree of A. 8., and
on the 13th of the following November went up
to London and entered as a student of Lincoln's-inn. It
was on the first day of HUary term, 1814, that he was ad-
mitted a member of the Irish bar • and on the 19th of
February, in the same year (Shell being then ju..t turned
twenty-three), that (with O'Niel acting the character
of the heroine) our young adventurer witnessed the per-
formance of his first dramatic effort—Adelaide; Or, The
Emigrants. This was at the Crow-street Theatre, Dublin.
The tragedy was successfuls—to the mingled delight and
dismay of Shell's father. Exulting though the latter did
in his son's distinguished progress in classical study, in
English composition, and rhetorical exercises, while at
Stonyliurst, rejoicing though he did at his precocious cele-
brity as an orator at the Catholic meetings, and gratified
beyond expression by the praises generally lavished upon
"Adelaide"—he yet dreaded lest the fascination of success
at the playhouse might lure his eldest born, the hope of
his house, from the prosecution of what he regarded as
a more eminent and lucrative profession. The bent of
the young man's earlier ambition was, however, not to be
interfered with. He possessed, so far as it wont, the
energy and the faculty divine, and these were not to be
permanently baulked, though they might, of course, be
temporarily interrupted. By the 23d of May, 1816,
" Adelaide" had been promoted from the beanie of Dublin
to those of London. It was brought out at Covent-garden,
but owing to some contre temps " went off flatly", and was
never reproduced. A year afterwards, on the 3d of May,
1817, a happier fate attended the second of Mr. Shell's
tragedies, The 4postate, the success of which was triumph-
ant. For the copyright of this he received from Mr.
Murray 3001., and from the managers of the theatre
4001.-700/. in all, besides the still larger reward of a re-
putation. At the _beginning of 1818, appeared (not quite
so successfully, though still successfully) Mr. Shell's third
tragedy, entitled Beli.armira; or, The Fa!lof Tunis, for which
the author received 3001. from the theatre, and 101. (from
Mr. Murray) for the copyright. It was during the re-
hearsal ef this piece that the following incident inter-
rupted the business of the scone with an unexpected burst
of laughter at the young Irish poet's bull of explanation.
At the end of the 'fourth act:Montalto, T.eviien seeking to
rescue his daughter from the grasp of Aanuratia, instinctively
feels the handle of his sword, forgetting that in the previous
scone he had given it to his brother. The intention of this
gesture not being understood, some embarrassment arose at
the rehearsal as to the tone and action with which the line—
My scimitar, my scimitar,- my child I'
ought to be given. The author eagerly interposed, and in his
ardent method of instructing the actors, he put himself in the
place of Young, to show him how he wished the conduct of
the scene to be managed : Now observe,—here's Mr. Young,
here's Mr. Kemble.' Well, the guard comes on—Mr. Youug
draws his sword, and finds he has not got it.' "
During the first night's performance of the previous tra-
gedy, the one already mentioned as so eminently successful,
we learn from Mr. M'Cullagh that Sheil (haunted, no
doubt, by the London failure of its produceSsor) scarcely
eenceeled his secret and gnawing solicitude.
" All went' well, however. There was some applause, no
murmurs, and at length, sick of his owe misgivings, and con-
scious perhaps that he betrayed a .certain want of dignity in
the irrepressible excitement of his look and manner, he be-
took himself to the green-room when the third act began, re-
'solved to remain there during the remainder of the
play. Few of its usual occupants were luigering there ;
and one of the attendants soon observed the restless
author pacing with measured steps' the estrade, or nar-
row platform, which was placed all round the room;
on which a-contineons row of seats was specially devoted to
the performers. For a time he seemed wholly unconscious
that any one was present ; then suddenly stopped, and in a
low tone exclaimed, Can you tell me, sir, about what time
they generally begin to hiss tragedies at this house ? ' "
The greatest dramatic triumph, however, enjoyed by Mr.
Sheil had yet to come. It occurred on the 10th of February,
1819, when his exquisite trgady of Evadne.made its first
appearance—the plot of which had been taken from Shir-
ley's " Traitor," but the whole merit and poetry of which
was Shell's, and no others, the very fable being rendered,
so to speak, his own by passing through the alembic of his
refined and lofty imagination. Conspicuous though the
literary merits of .evadne were beyond all doubt, the
author received from Mr. Murray no more than ono
hundred guineas for the copyright- 4001, more, accru-
ing to him, however, from the theatre as the tribute
of its histrionic popularity. A fifth tragedy was
written by Sheil during the autumn of 1819—written like
the rest of his dramatic. pieces, "with great rapidity"—a
tragedy called the Huguenots. And on the 3d of May,
1829, was first performed his serious play, or dramatic-
poem, as it is more accurately designated by his biographer,
Montoni. The previous tragedy, that of the " Huguenots,"
not being produced before the footlights until long after-
wards, and then only to complete its ill-fate from first to
last by a signal " damnation. The six productions already
enumerated complete the catalogue of Mr. Sheil's contribu-
tions to our dramatic literature, if we except, in addition
to these original performances, his subsequent adaptation,
in 1821, of Massinger's Fatal Dowry—and his production,
four years earlier, conjointly with Mr. Minim, of the then
eminently successful play of Damon 'and Pythias. With
these particulars we may close the record of Richard Shell's
graceful labours as a dramatist.
hile he had been thus sedulously " courting the muses,"
—to the gratification, of his love of the' beautiful, to the
filling of his pockets, and to the popular extension of his
reputation—our author had been no less sedulously culti-
vating the friendship of several of the more illustrious
among the great men still surviving from the last genera-
tion, as well as of many of the more conspicuously promis-
ing among his own immediate contemporaries. During
his stay in Dublin, for example, he was a not unfrequent
guest at the Priory—the suburban residence of the then
Master of the Rolls, Mr. Curran; while occasionally, too,
he enjoyed the privilege of sauntering in social converse
with Grattan through the woods of Tinnehinch. Long
afterwards we find him, in the September of 1819, extol Z-
ing his acquaintance by a strange , contrast to the foregoing;
among a very different class of celebrities-e-when on visit-
ing Paris he seized the opportunity to obtain an
introduction to Telma. Although Mr. M'Cullagh
given no date in connection with an event so interest-
ing to the generality of biographers as that of the
marriage of the individual whose life is being celebrated in
the memorial, we are allowed to conjecture from the con-
text of the narrative that it was some tune in 1815 which
was the period of Mr. Sheil's union with Miss O'Halloran,
a young lady of great beauty and many accomplishments,
who, although her mother was sister to Colonel Sir Wil-
liam M`Mahon, the private secretary to the Prince Regent,
brought to her husband none of the questionable advan-
tages usually supposed to be attendant upon the opportu-
nities of patronage. Unaided by men in power, the
young Irish barrister nevertheless contrived to work his
way onward and upward. His three brothers, on their
part, secured to themselves a moderate share of ,good for-
tune in different parts of the world—John distinguishing
himself in the Company's Service at the time of the attack
upon the Pagoda of Kee Kloo—Justin being promoted
from the same service to the British Legation at the
Court of Persia—and Edward, who had adopted a mercan-
tile instead of either a military or a political career,
ultimately settling in South America, where he amassed
wealth enough to compensate in some measure for his vo-
luntary expatriation. Richard, as all the world knows,
flying at higher game, achieved somewhat loftier suc-
cesses, winning fame as an orator and a dramatist ; be-
coming for Ireland one of the chief among her patriot-
demagogues, and for the United Kingdom one of the most
distinguished debaters in the popular branch of the Legis-
lature ; ultimately attaining the dignity of a Privy Coun-
cillor, and expiring at last in Florence, while sojourning
at the court of Tuscany as ono of the representatives of
his Sovereign.
In recounting these incidents, which might reasonably
be regarded as the salient points in this active and useful
life, Mr. M'Cullagh has penned with very admirable per-
spicuity the political history of there islaude dosing an in-
terval no lees momentous than the tint half of the present
century. He has traced out anew the whole annale of the
Catholic Question. Beginning in earnest with that
first spurious attempt at the conciliation of all parties,
whop, towards the close of 1821, Ord Liver Pool deemed,

it advisable to appoint Mr. Goutboru chief secretary,
while entrusting Lord Wellesley with- the-Vieeroyalty, re-
teining Mr. Gregory as under-secretary, and Sir George
Hill as vice-treasurer, and Lord Manners as Chancel- I
lora,unpopuiar thongh-they were 'as atnrefg 'tire entire vire-
lentepertisens of • 'scendancy. lt was shertlyafterwards,
on the 7th January, 1822, that Mr`slieil IsePplidel an 'aa-
dress which heel been moved by Mr. O'Connell, congratu-
lating Lord Wellesley upon -his nomination to the Lord
Lientenantey. Two deyslater, on the_ 9);'a, of that same
3:inuety; Ttire'Sheilwas gladdened-by tea birbli of his only
child (a son who expired prematurely some yeas" afters
wanis id What should have been the b nen (of-him early men;,
hotel); ,and a little while laterstill w - Barro,wfally etricken
by taaradeath of his YOung Wife from - peleaperal fever— a
calamity under the influence of which the bent:yed hus-
band long. remained inconsolably despondent.
' It Was about tills period, during the eourai Of 1522, that:
Richard Lalor Shell and Willienr Henry Curran com-
menced that joint series of papers entitled ."- Sketches or
the Irish Bar," which continued to be for some time con-
spicuous among the chief attractions of the New elforithig,
.211(ta4zifg:...707, fecehtla, these are:myna:etas .effusions
have been collected together, and separately issued under
the names oftheiyaeepective authors, in-two distinct pub-
lications. The "Sketches—Legal and Political,',' jotted
doWn in those wonderful mivasielike pen-and-ink "por-
traits from thelife".by, Mr.- Sheil, we ourselves took occa-
sion, not long- since; td -co-amend in these columns as ear-
neetlyae we bell vs) them toehaae deerved, to an spacial
share in the popular Consideration. Sincewhich limo the
companion treprint, comprising the kindred aencillings'
from the hand of Mr. Curran, pencilliugs equally masterly
in thcirvigOunand verisimilitude, have, in like manner,
according to, promise, ,made their appeaeanco. So that
the various: essays constituting this ample and brilliant
series may now readily enough be traced to the. Steele and
Addison of that notable department of the Wen, Monthly.
Passing down that ample portrait gallery, we may t now, -
therefore, recognisa, on one hand, the canvass -Woe which-
" It. L., S." has delineated the features of Busheeand Sau•
rin, ener3ey, and 'Bellew, and O'Loghlin, of'lca lle Foster
and ;Lord Narbeiry and, on - the - other : hand, the, ,
confronting canvass upon wbiabet"ares4,,, C,{.-has de-
picted; with a trnthluliress as untaisterkeeahle as that
which apparrea in every line and tint of his brilliant con-
frere or callaborateur the lineaments of O'Connell, and '
North, and Wallace, and Doherty, of Sergeant G-oold and
Lord Plunkett. Collectively these sketches commanded
for themselves a large amount of public atteption, even
while remaining strictly anonymous. Separately they
cannot but- be stored; up among the more valuable contri-
butions towards the history of Ireland, especially now that
their distinguished authorship has at length been explicitly
acknowledged.
The patriotic labours of Mr; Shell in his character as a
tribune of the people; as one Of the most'gifted among Irish
demagogues, in,ea be said to have commenced in earnest with
the memorable 12th of May, 1823, when in a meisting pre-
sided ever by Lord Killeen, the present Earl of Fingall, the
celebrated C tholic Association was formally inaugurated.
The Wonderful career of Daniel O'Connell had already
been, sonie time before then, commenced. That of •Richard
Sheil, in his political capacity had, up to the date we have
just given, remained unanticipated we suspect by:himself
even in. his moments of moat sanguine expectancy. It
'began' then, however, and it must be allowed 'after that-
period t 3 have been anything but tardy or obsdure in its
development, It was second only in impedance to that
of the Liberator. But second; of course, to hishy au enor-
mous difference-aby a difference as immense asthat dividing
the fortunes of Alexander from those of the chief among
his chiefs—Hcephestion. It is in respect to the subor-
dination of this somewhat deteriorative contrast that we
conceive Mr. M'Cullagh's labours as a biographer to have
been conducted with the most judicious adroitness.
Throughout the entire • work he never once ventures to
bring the mightier shadow upon the scene with a distinct-
ness that must inevitably have dwarfed all others by the
superior grandeur of its proportions. O'Connell is seldom
alluded to in these volumes, Save by an occasional, and
then always .an unavoidable, " aside." The whole at-
tention ,is concentrated throughout upon •.Sheil, , and -this
without any attempt whatever to exaggerate his merits,
or to depreciate, even by an innuendo, those of his colossal
contemporary. - -
The earliest proceeding consequent upon the organising
of the Catholic Association was the presentation of the
petition of its members to the Imnerial Legislature—a
petition laid upon' the table of the Upper Hous© by Earl
Grey, and uponthatof the Lower House by Mr. Brougham.
It is interesting now to remember that the association held
its first sittings in a small room in the house of Mr. Cayne,
a Cepel-street bookseller. Later on, when it heel grown
rather considerably in importance, it removed to a Parlia-
ment House of its own, famous in the first instance as the
Corn Exchange, and afterwards as the renowned Concilia-
tion Hall. It was in the spring.of 1825 that Mr. Shell, in
company with Mr. O'Connell and several of the leading
Members of the association, proceeded to London ass mem-
bers of a deputation. During their absence in that metro-
polis, namely, on the 18th of March, 1825, the association
was closed—voluntarily. This, it will be remembered,
was in the illusory expectation that an act so strikingly
self-abnegatory would so far tend to conciliate,. the
Legislature as to lead, sooner or later, to the con-
cession by it of the long-desired boon of emancipation.
Hopesliko these were strangely encouraged, when; on the
21st of Apia, the second reading of the Relief 13i11 was
carried iu the Commons bye majority of 268 to 241—but
four days afterwards, on the 25th of April, no less
strangely dashed to the duet, when the Duke of York
(then heir presumptive to the Crown), with an indecent
outburSt of Orange fanaticism, declared in the Lords, that-
in whatever situation of life -he wig,htate„pleasl (lluding,
of course, in this, to his-advent tae-the ti .reWalle, would
adhere to the anti-Catholic prinitiplekhe had. always ex-
pressed—" So help him God !" Tile duke's speech was
thereupon " printed in letters of gold, and became the
Shibboleth of party and the watchword of Ora egeism."
Almost immediately afterwards; or at least on tho 20th of
August following, the Irish' Catholics recovered With re
rowed energy from their delusive day-dreainiags—the
date just mentioned- being that solemnly inaaegurative
.of the New Catholic Association. It was so con-
structed as .not in any way' to contravene the prohi-
bitory statute, 6 Geo. IV., cap. 4, by which the existence
of the previous association had been seriously threatened.
From that time the exertions of the emancipationists
were never relaxed until their object had been attained,
until the warning pronounced by the eider Pitt as far back
as 1759, that France looked to the discontent of Irsland,
had found its tardy but signal fruition at last in the con-
ference upon the Roman Catholics of the United Kingdom
of all the treasured rights of citizenship ! Until the re-
commendation in 1793, by Mr. Secretary Hobart, of the
concession of the elective franchise had been followed tip
by the permission to the electors of the exercise 'of their
franchise in favour, whenever it so pieta:el them, of their
Catholic compatriots ! Until •the motion of Mr. Fox in
1891, and the carrying of the Bill of Plenary Relief through
the Commons twenty years afterwards, had ripened by two
Or three more seasons into the full and perfect measure of
emancipation! We are, however, anticipating. MuCh had
yet to be accomplished before the pear was mellow—before it
dropped in, the rude blast of the Clare election, and under
the effect of reiterated concussions by the association.
good cause,
Towardsfully,
and t hpies r et
innda
cyoru. s lSy h. e i IH. l
ea bt oo ui
ireedd
iceoutrbaegeously, man-
both in speaking and writing. Nay, his oratorical laborite
alone appear to have been twofold in their character, foi
Mr. M'Cullagh tells us, in regard to the subject of his bio-
graphywbitbethmaetaintt"tweassahyiL(Ssherdiresm)htarbeietttionwgrite before hand
Unpremeditated peril of the extemporaneouhs.ininselof
exerted
oertthede
his energies in the holy cause, moreover, at ones) at home
and abroad, in France as well as in Ireland. As became
sufficiently manifest on the issue of his brilliant arguments
in idiomatic French, in the columns of L'Etorlet a journal
published afterwards under the title of•La Gazette do
France. Anonymous articles which were violently at-
tacked from time to time (as they appeared) in the columns
of the Courier, then flourishing as the recognised or-
gan of the Liverpool Administration. It was in the
midst of-this stormy and anxious crisis in his public career
that Richard Sheil was thus described to the very life by
a keen French observer, M. -Duvergier. •
SHIM THE ORATOR !
" ' Were I commissioned,' writes Mr. Dnvergier, 'to take
down the eignalement of Mr. Shell, this vainid be very nearly
thev re
icesuulpta:lefiveehfienet
vfoeuinrt;edefesbaqiuricdk and
dark;
mouth middle-sized, I flatter myself I should have given a
and
derciing n:ddcoiemg:
description not to be excelled in exactness at the bureau des
paeseports. But this is the portrait of too gentleman ; that of
the orator is widely diverse. When you behold that little
Gascon figure in repose, it is impossible to suspect to what
changes passion is capable of converting it, There is in Shell
something of Juveeal,. of Pinder, and of Mirabeau. His
;hihsissaie•enatshm,u
se
iaatei
iii Tie iesasrhrireeewdyeaunda
wit iatying ;Wili sp e
nboee tfiryin
gdsafzezrl eats
a bitter smile contracts his lips; when he threatens, his eyes
dart forth lightnings ; when ,he is under the dominion of
powerful inspiration, they take an expression altogether sub-
lime. His voice is meagre, harsh, and shrill; but a profound
emotion seems to regulate its vibrations. His gesture is
fqeueite ka
e,
eaebrr ud
withp t , andeu such
a tsheenrt
idmi seonrtdee ra
s b
ly
b; e
hasut itt 0
rs i
express. alwyi n as sph eer-
i i
possesses in an eminent degree the surprising faculty of ex-
citing himself to the very verge of delirium without once
losing his complete Self-possession. I was at
all his limbs
his side whilst
speaking and more than once I saw
tremble ; a moment after he resumed the discussion
with not less composure than ingenuity.
taste,
Like the English,
;
whom in other particulars he so little resembles, Sheil is too
badde
bestite it
of may.
also of quotati
observedou s,.
funde s beo
speeches; and in general it has been remarked, that in both
elocution and diction there is something too much of the
theatre about him. These reproaches lave some appearance
an in
of being well-founded, as more th once deed I imagined I
had the figure of Kean actually before me, but then I must
0 eeas Certainien a
lly passages i
disfiguren
also add, that Kean is a very admirable actor. In a word, I
was seduced, I was dazzled, and together with me, the whole
assembly. During an entire hour one single soul, that of the
orator, seemed to animate this living mass ; and from time to
time you would have said that an electric shock completely
“
convulsed them. I never before assisted at sceabsolute a
triumph.' "
It is curious to observe in opposition to this animated
sketch of Sheil by an impartial foreigner, that given not
very long afterwards by one of the orator's own country-
men. We allude to a passage in Moore 's Diary," under
date 14th September, 1830, where it it observed :
" Shell, one of the earliest speakers: his manner, action,
110., all made me tremble a little for his chance of success
in the House Of Commons, about which I had before felt
very sanguine. His voice had no medium tone, and,
when exerted, becoming a scream ; his action theatrical,
and of the barn order of theatricals ; but still his oratori-
cal powers great, and capable of producing (in an Irish
audience at least) great excitement.
This—of one who was very scion to prove himself one of
the most brilliant orators in the English Parliament ! It
is amusing to find Moore describing almost immediately
afterwards, in glowing terms, his own wonderful triumphs
as a rhetorician !
We have said that after the reconstruction of the Catho-
lie Association as above related, the members of it never
once relaxed their efforts until the final triumph of the
cause of emancipation. It should be observed, however,
thet there was, indeed, a momentary suspension of agita-
tion at that one other slip 'twixt the cup and the lip—con-
sequent upon Mr. Canning 's nomination to the premiership,
and the tantalising reign of a hundred days which marked
the limited duration of his Government. On the 10th of
April, 1827, Mr. Canning filled u 2 the place vacated by
the ]?eke of WOlllOlOO2 Lora .eilacos Mr, Joel, Lord

. .
af.liiirst, Melville, and Westinoreland, by intluctir7 into
o;Ece men Mike i the Duke ,otabirence, the Duke of °Pert-
13.nd, the Marquis ,of Angles*, and Lords Lansdowne,
Ocderichl- ("Abotit this -{iine, by the
wIIY, Shell himself was threatenqd • with indictMent
for a speech which had been re3ardect by the rate
Cabinet as f3etlititl'.3 and inflammatory. The new Pro-
uder, however, setting- the pro tell prostfution aside
as preposterous, a; 'rule of noire prdscvii, Was forthwith
entered by the Attorney-General. --sooh afterwards a
severe fracture of his -leg by,a fall from his horse, on the
28th of Jtfue, threw Mr.. Slwil noon that ccucha vffering,
upon which lie received; on the 10th of August, the start
ling new.l of the sodden and calamitous death of the
Prime- Minister. 'Thereupon succeeded a number of.
changes handy less remarkable 'than the premature evenl
in which they had orighiated-political changes, the first
and,naost notable of which was,the installation of the me-
reOrs,ble Cabinet of the Duke of Wellington.„ An mind-
-1828,
cell isLanug.r iainloritionir!tf t7ii
ss't
j'eisi9itehd members—ofa.
njMatnr:.
rvCitin; a3and
Grant, ..Mr. 11ml:1as-on, •A
ucl ' Lord Palmerston ; of other
ethaucipationists, Lord Melville and Loril,Venborongh
and of foes to the nuttier removal of religions disabilities
(seine fast, some laese),'besides the'Preinier himself, Peel,
fferries, Goulburn, Aberdeen, andlryndhurst. It was a
coalition, in fact, between the -old ultra Tories of Lord
Ehhin's school, and the half Ij.beral, half axidtoerati:".Can-
ningites ; a coalition so insecure, however, that by the
20th of May not Only Mr. Iluskisson, but with him
Mr. 'Lamb and Mr. Grant, Lord DiullyY and Lord
Palmerston, had all of -them "quitted' the Adminis-
tration. It can hardly yet be forgotten how and by whom
they Wer3 succeeded—Mr. Huskisson, as Colonial Secre-
tary, by Sir George Murray ; Mr. Lamb, as Secretary for
Ireland, by Lord 'Francis L. Gower ; Lord Dudley, as
Foreign Minister, by the Eirl of Aberdeen ; Viscount
Pahnerston, secretary-at-War, by Sir Henry Hardinge;
and Mr. Grant, as President of the Board of Trade, by
Vesey Fitzgerald. The .last=nained alone is of itself
-sufficiently suggestive—for on the acceptance-of office by
_Ntr. Vesey Fitzgerald hung as an inevitable consequence
th.o:(2kr6 eloction—ttie famous' Clare eleotiorf that trst
sea" oanill O'Connell to the Imperial Lea latiiee as Mein-
bar for All Ireland !

....
It-appears to tei rather strange that Mr. M'Cullegh, in
mentioning the curious share taken by Mr. Shell in the
notorious Orange meeting upon' Penenden Heath, on the
24th of October,. 18t8, sould give a version of the pro-
ceedings so different from that given by Mr. Sheil himself
in the article penned by bins almost immediately after-
wards for the New Monthly Magazine, and comprised
among the. papers reprinted the other- day in the
two volumes of his collected " Sketches Legal and Politi-
cal.' Mr. M'Cullegh, after alluding to the storm of groans
and hisses in which the voice of the-orator was drowned,
observes (vol. ii. p. 35), "Though little accustomed to such
amode of reception, he persisted in delivering, almost ver-
batim, what he had prepared to say and an accurate copy
having been furnished by him to one of the evening papers
the audience whom he really desired to' reach throughout
every part of the kingdom, became in a few hours ac-
quainted with what the men of Kent had refused to listen
to." An account rather opposed to the, one humorously
detailed by Mr. Sheil himself in the descriptive essay above
mentioned, during the course of which he takes occasion to
mart-el with a comical affectation of bewilderment over
the seemingly miraculous manner in which The Sun, the
journal vaguely implied by thehiographei as "one of the
evening papers," had obtained so wonderfully accurate a
report of an oration which no one upon Penenden Heath
or anywhere else could possibly have heard' delivered !
Nevertheless, while making this facetious acknowledgment
with a gravity the moat sedately ludicrous, Mr. Shell for-
mally vouched, at the same time, for the veracity of the
speechreperted in this magical fashion in The Sun as the
faithfal exponent of his own ideas in his own language.
Uttered or not uttered, it was a harangue eminently wor-
thy of preservation—an oration upon the perwal of which.
in our columns Jeremy Bentham thus expressed his un-
bounded admiration—' So masterly an union of logic and
rhetoric as Mr. Shell's speech scarcely have I over beheld."
It was at the close of its impassioned peroration that the
orator was represented as speeking of the Catholic claims for
emancipation, as claims in the justice of which—" Burke,
the foe to revolution—Fox, the assertor of popular right—
Pitt, the prop of the prerogative, concurred." The rea-
sonableness and wisdom of this concurrence was at length
about to be asserted upon the statute book by the Legisla-
ture and the Government, by•the King, the Lords, and the
Commons—the ti ipodial altar, or basis, of the Constitution.
The penumbra of the shadow of the " coming event" first
became visible on the sth of February, 18e9, through the
memorable. Speech from the Throne, recommending that
the laws imposing civil disabilities upon his. Ma-
jesty's Roman Catholic subjects, should be reviewed by the
assembled Parliament. The triumph of the sacred cause
became from that moment universally apparent. So un-
mistakeably apparent that by the 12th of that same
February, on the motion of Mr. Shell, the renowned
Catholic Association, after an existence of nearly six years
duration, was dissolved. The Relief Bill was, in fact,
finally passed through the Commons on the 31st of March,
by a majority of 178—its second reading was carried lathe
Lords, upon the 4th of April, .by a majority of 104—and
upon the 13th of April, 1829, it received the .royal
assent : the crowning victory being thereby secured to
the great cause of CatholiC Emancipation. There was but
one reason for regret in the midst of the prevailing exul-
tation, namely, the summary abolition of the forty-shilling
freeholders—by which act more than two-thirds of the en-
tire constituency of Ireland was, " at one fell swoop," dis-
franchised. The sister kingdom, indeed, was• after all,
only partially " relieved" even by the '..93,elief Bill." from
the ancient burthen under the weight of which sho had
so long groaned, the irksome and intolerable burden of so-
called ascendancy. O'Connell recognised the grim reality
of this evil perpetuation. He was not blinded to it by the
illusory influences of victory. He determined in the very
hour of triumph to endeavour by inaugurating a new
epoch of agitation to win the boons still requisite for the
social well-beink of hie folloW-countrymen, for the poli-
tical welfare of their common fatherland. This resolve
was announced by the great Tribune on the 24th of Sep-
tember, 1830, by his first letter on the Repeal of the,
Union to the people of Ireland. Then commenced that
grievous delusion which was the will-o'-the-wisp of the
Celtio million, rho- political mirage that led astray up to
lt,ohoe t
voefrym theirommeingt oilt
yfdeath the
er,revere
d otherwiset g
s.
tb e
isle.
chosen
ins
Chief,n e
and beloved as their Liberator. To the fi nit fascinations of the
new movement Mr. Shell himself succumbed for a time
being welcomed with extraordinary enthusiasm on the 29th
of November, 18.31, whenhe first joined the Repeal Associa-
tion—but, finally, withdrawing from it (after the rejection
of Mr. O'ConnelPs motion for 'Repeal on the 29th of April,
1834), when the Question was peremptorily get aside by a
formal decision of '533 against merely 38 in the popular
branch of the Imperial Legislature.
It was some considerable time after the passing of the
Relief Bill before the more eminent members of the Cutho-
lie bar received the distinction of silk-gowns, the bestowal
of which in their instance
•was necessarily to be the' first
sign of the reality of Catholic Emancipation. It wag only
in fact towardg the close of Trinity Term, 1830, that Mr.
Sheil was calledewith some others to the inner bar—Daniel
O'Connell, inconiparahly the most illustrious of the whole
Laxly, being' denied the honour to which he had incontest-
ably a signal right, by a paltry and contemptible act, of ex-
clusion. Upon the 20th of July in that same year 1830
Mr—Sheil,contra.cted his second marriage—his choice fall-
ing this time upon Anastasia, the widow of Mr. Power of
Garteen, in the county of Waterford, and daughter of
John Lalor, Esq., of Crenagh, in the county of Tipperary.
As co-heiress with her sister (the wife of Richard M. Bel-
lew, Esq.), Mrs. Shod inherited by the way considerable
property—thereby not only 'giving, a new name to her
husband,• but rendering him thenceforth in a man-
ner independent of ' his profession. Shortly after his
second marriage, Richard Later Shell became a candidate
for the representation of Louth, but after a 'severe contest
was defeated, together with his brOther-in-law, by Messrs.
Dawson and M'Clintoek,`their more fortunate antagonists.
Subsequently, however, after the defeat of Ministers on
Sir Henry Parpell's motion regarding the civil list, when
the 'Wellington Cabinet closed its career, and Earl Grey
was summoned by the King to form a new Administra-
tion, Mr. Sheil, on the Bth 'of March, 1831, entered the
House of 'Commons as member for Lord Anglesea's pocket
borough of Milborne Pert, in Dorsetehire. • At last the
dream of his early bcyhood was realised.' At last he bim-
self enjoyed the fruits of Catholic Emancipation. At last
—at last he had taken his place among the number of the
national representatives. The appearance of the Irish de-
magogue (then 'in the fortieth year of his age) on taking his
seat in the groat popular assembly at Westminster, was
thus commented upon by the late Professor Wilson in
Blackwood's Magazine—the satirist speaking through the
mouth of Tickler in his famous Noctes Ambrosiance :
" To make some amends for her carelesiness to all other
external affairs, nature has given him as fine a pair of eyes as
ever graced human head—large, deeply set, dark, liquid,
flashing like gems, and these fix you like a basilisk, so that
you forget everything else about him."
The member for Milborne Port was, in the July of 1831,
admitted a member of Brookes's—at that period regarded
by Irish barristers as something of a privilege. Previously,
that is in May, Ministers having been defeated in their first
attempt to carry a Reform Bill, had induced the King to
dissolve Parliament. During the general election conse-
quent upon which dissolution, Mr. Sheil was returned both
for Mil borne Port and for the County of Louth, and, elect-
ing to sit for the latter, a new writ had to be issued for the
Marquis of Anglesea's 'snug little constituency. At the
next general election Shell threw aside the county of Louth
for that of Tipperary, audit was as representative for the
latter that he took his place in the first Reform Parliament'
opened by William IV. on the sth of February, 1833. "It
was on the 15th of February, only ten days afterwards,
that Lord Grey introduced, iu the Upper House, the cele-
brated bill for the suppression of disturbances in Ireland—
on the 27th it was read for the first time in the Com-
mons, on the motion of Lord Althorp--snd, after a
stormy discussion, was passed on the 29th of March
by a majority of 345 to 86. , It was the first serious
rebuff by a Coercion Act of the growing repeal agitation.
Some time after this event, Mr. Shell laid aside his wig
and gown, and dedicated his energies thenceforth exclu-
sively to the furtherance of his political ambition. That
ambition,was somewhat threatened on the sth of February,
1834, with a sudden and disastrous close—when Lord
Aithorp, acting upon 'the strength of an assertion put forth
on the 22d of the preceding October, in an address made
to his constituents at Hull, by Mr. Mathew Devonport
Hill—solemnly charged Mr. Shell, in the presetice of the
assembled Parliament, with an act of almost unparalleled
treachery, viz., with voting against every clause of the
Coercion Bill, and speaking against it in the house with
the utmost violence, and yet going secretly to Ministers
and saying " Don't bate one single atom of that bill, or it
will be impossible for any man to live in Ireland." The
sensation produced in the House of Commons by Lord
Althorp's distinct charge against the member for the
county of Tipperary, is remembered. Mr. M'Cullagh thus
records its immediate result :--
" After a momentary pause, Mr. Shell rose, and, placing
his arms across his breast, said with a low aed firm voice,
Having heard the statement which the noble lord has just
made to the house, I beg on the other hand to declare in the
face of my country, and if IhnaY do so without irreverence,
in the presence of God, that if any individual has said to the
noble lord or to others, that I gave any appr bation of the
Coercion Bill in private he has belied me by a gross and
scandalous calumny ; but as the noble lord has put the state-
ment on his own responsibility, I shall say no more.
Then followed Alan nad deoltory dila/Woo, ending in a