The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1875-11-10
DANIEL O'CONNELL.
Temple Bari

The secret of O'Connell's power with
his countrymen was his consummate
knowledge Of their idiosyncrasics, and
his natural capacity for rejecting on
gloritied scale their aspir atoms, their
follies, their conceits. He was an cpl
tome of all that is most brilliant in the
Irish character, and as such his fascina
ton and his influence for an Irish crowd
never failed. He knew when to Hatter and
to wheedle, when to cajole and
to coax, when to terrify and alarm, when
to rouse to indignation, when to queil to
submission. He made his hearers feel
that they had only to gaze upon his per-
son and to hear his words to witness an
apotheosis of all those qualities and char
acterist:cs which were the chief gr ound
Of their patriotic pride. "Nobody' SAID
one who knew him we'll, and who hated
him as we'll as he knew him, "csn deny
to HIM the praise Of inimitable dexterity,
versatility, and even prudence in tn eem-
ployment of the means which he m kes
conducive to his ends. He is thoroughly
acq tainted with the audiences which he
addresses, and the people upon whom he
practices, and he operates upon their pas
sions with the precision of dexterous
anatomist who knows the direction of
every muscle and every fiber of the hu-
man frame" And in miscellaneous So
ciety, in London Is we'll as in Dublin, the
Liberator could make himself highly
agreeable. He was visitor at the Hol-
land House, and it would not be too
much to assume that the recognition ex-
tended to him had something to do with
his temporary abandonment of Repeal.
When Mr.. Greville met him at William
Ponsonby's, in 1923, the year Of emanci.
patton, he said: "There is nothing re-
markablein his manner, appearance or
conversation, but he seems lively, well
bred, and at his ease" In the House of
Commons 0 Connell was failure, as eve
| ry man must be who has lived the best
years of his life and has grown quite in
capable of. readily adapting himself to a
new and peculiar atmosphere. He could
never catch its tone, and therefore he
could never for long hold its ear. His
quotations and his adaptations of poetry
were sometimes exceedingly happy.
Nothing could be better than his parody
on Colonies Sibthorp, Percival and Yer.
ney:
''Three Colonels, in three distant countries
bonn,
Lincoln, Armagh and Sligo did adorn:
The first in matclless impotence surpassed,
The next in bigOtry in both the last.
The force Of nature could no further 60
TO beard the third she shaved the other two"
Of these gentlemen, two were in,berbis
and the third intomsus. He was also de-
oil o11 1r.h uuh Ia IN
order by the Speaker for having charac-
ter:zed the Interruptions with which he
was assailed on all sides Of the House as
"beastly bellowings,'' he retracted the OBJ
noxious epithet, but added that he had
never heard of any bellowings that were
not beastly. 'Perhaps,' writes his friend
Mr.. Phillips, personality was his most be-
setting sin. He had nickname for every
one who presumed to thwart him-curt,
singing, and vulgar, suiting the rabble
taste, and easily retained in the raoble
memory The personally aggressive in.
stinct, which, in the House Of Commons
found it's qualification in such jeu d es.
prit as that just quoted appropos of the
three Colonies, assumed a far more vehe-
menta spect on popular reforms "a man. -
writes Mr.. Lecky, the staunch admirer of
O'Connell, ''who did not hesitate to des-
cribe the Duke Of Wellington as stunt.
ed corporal and who applied to other
opponents such terms as a mighty big
liar, or "a lineal DESCENDANT of the impcn.
itent thief, or "a contumelious cur or "a
SCORPION las he called the late Lord Der.
by,) place him beyond, the pale of court.
esy. But there were force, point and
sting in O'Connell's vituperative phrases.
They stood thetest Of al excellence