The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-06 00:00:00

THE ORATORY OF MR. SHIEL

Mr. Shiel is the Queen's officer, and the rebel's de-
fender. He touches Protestant pay for place, and Papist
gold for talking. He is Demosthenes in a gossamer hat
and a York wrapper; and his sayings are as brilliant,
graceful, and winning as if they were all true, and every
one to the point. However ambiguous the phrase may be
to many of our readers, there will be little ambiguity in
our reminding them that Mr. Shiel was once at a meeting
on Pennenden Heatb, at which be was not present; where
he delivered a speech which was not spoken ; but which
was printed in the Globe or Sun, and was more talked of
than read. The wonder lived its usual nine days, and
then expired. But Mr. Shiel's power to perform new ones
are by no means passed away. He has ceased to write
tragedies since he has discovered the little likelihood there
is of his making posterity forget the illustrious triad of
two-thirds sober, and one-third tippling Greeks, who have
made the earth vocal with their numbers. Even Parlia-
ment he frequents less than he was wont to do before his
sparkling novelties were found out to be more glass than
true diamond. But in oratory Mr. Shiel still possesses
his old faculties, untouched by age, and while he was os-
tensibly defending John O'Connell he addressed a mon-
ster meeting at which the three kingdoms were present,
wondering, applauding, and finally vexed with themselves
that they could be so moved at so infinite a deal of no-
thing. _ _

For nothing it was, when his speech is viewed as the
defence of a client. It noticed him by the way; he was
reduced to a mere passing incident ; but it was, in fact, a
brilliant magazine article ; a lecture that might have been
read before a learned assembly, or a Dorcas Society; it
was a paper for an Encyclopaedia; a sketch for an illus-
trated newspaper ; it was the shilling number and a sup-
plement of a forensic Dickens—it was each and every and
all of these ; and there was as much reason in its being de-
livered where it was, as there would be in Mr. Adolphus
advocating the cause of a petty larcenist, by reading to the
jury an essay on the Differential Calculus.
And when he did speak to the point, what was his ar-
gument? That O'Connell ought not to be punished, be-
cause he had been his (Mr. Shell's) benefactor; that the
law ought not to visit a man who had emancipated the
Catholics. Why, Dr. Dodd was hanged in spite of his
many excellences ; and Richard Turpin's lawyer would
not have saved his client from the gallows, by advising
him to plead his charitable propensities towards the de-
serving poor. But these, after all, are but follies; the
wickedness of the speech consisted in telling the jury that
he hoped they would not return a verdict of guilty—"for
their own sakes!" What does such a phrase mean?
We would charitably take it to signify for their conscience
sake; but in Ireland every one knows that the true read-
ing would be, for their bodies' sake; if they valued their
lives, in short. _ _ _

As Mr. Sheil is nothing if he be not poetical, as he
talked in blank verse of protestants having risen from
dretheeird!oin
ngkn
hexameters,eelin thatt they did n
the necksof papists,
liveists, ogantdhetehwer ason-
brethren. He himself knows well Why they do not-s not John O'Connell say in open court that he would
never consent, as Mr. Sheil in his speech was inclined to
do, to the periodical sitting of the Imperial Parliament in
Dublin,—that he would have all or none? It is this spirit
prevalent throughout the Popish population of Ireland,
that prevents Protestants from living with them in unity:
they will not have brethren, but slaves; they will not be
friends, but masters ; they will not even accept, they will
snatch ; they hate Protestants, with the hatred of men
designino evil ; nothing from that party but subordination,
and not that alone, would satisfy them—they scowl at all,
and, like the Hidalgo in Laxerilto de Toames, they are
angry even with those who pray God to bless them.—
Church and State Gazette.