The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-05-12
(Translated for the Morning Start
DANIEL O'CONNELL.

Ian oOVNNEIA.
Extracts from the French "Livre des orateurs' by
Timon, published in 1874.
1t is not here the parliamentary orator 1
pleading his own cause in the Oigarchical
forum of Athens; it is not Mirabeau dis
playing the magpifcence Of his oratory in
the hall of Versailles, before the three
orders the clergy, the nobility and the
third estate; it is not Burke, Pitt, Fox,
dows of Whitehall by the thunders of their
University eloquence; it is another style
of eloquence, an eloquence without name,
prodigious, startling, unprepared and such
as was never heard in ancient or in modern
times; it is O'Connell, the great O'Con
nell, standing on the soil OF his country
under the broad arch of Heaven, an i'm
mepse thropg for auditory, and for his
| subject the people, always the people, and
for echo the universal acclamations of the
multitude, like the roaring of the tempest
and the beating of the waves on the sands
and the shores of the Ocean.
Never, in any age or in any country, has
any man obtained over n nation an empire
so sovereign, so absolute, 30 complete. Ire
land personifies herself il O'Connell. He
is, as it were, in himself, ber army, her
parliament, her ambassador, her prince,
her liberator, her apostle, her God.
His ancestors, monarchs of Ireland, grid
ed on the sword OF battles. He, tribune of
the people, wields a weapon in the battles
of speech far more formidable than the
sword,-the trenchant blade of eloqsence.
See O'Connell with his people, for the
Irish are truly his people; he paEtakes of
the same life, enjoys the same joys, bleeds
from the same wounds, wai's at the same
sufferings. He transports them from fear
to hope, from slavery to liberty, from fact
to right, from right to duty, from supplica-
tion to invective, aud from anger TO mercy
and pity.
He commands the throng to kneel and to
pray, and they kpeel aud they pray to
lift up their brows to heaven, and they lift
them up to curse their tyrants, and they
curse them ; to sing hymns of liberty, aud
they sing them TO uncover their heads,
and with raised hands, in the presence of
the Holy Gospels t" swear, and they un-
cover their heads, aud theJ raise up their
hands and they swear to sign petitions
for tue reform of abuses, to unite their
forces, to forget their quarrels, to mbrace
their brethren, to forgive their enemies,
and they sign, and they unite, and they
forget, and they embrace, and they forgive.
But how explain, how define this excep-
tional genius who never rests, whose body
never tires, who manages to dispose of civil
and criminal cases, to attend to the labor1
GUS study of laws, to the immense cores
pondence of the agents of the association,
and nightly and daily to the agitation of
seven millions of men; how describe that
fery soul that burns within O'Connell
without consuming him; that wit of
Incredible mobility that glances upon each
snbject without witheriDg it, that increases
as lie proceeds, that is multiplied aB be
expands, that is regenerated and ipVigora-
ted from it's own exhaustion, that pbenom
enon of an old age, 30 green and so vigor-
Gus, that powerful life that contains within
itself several lives, that inexhaustible gush
ing of an extraordinary nature, without
rival and without precedent
If O'Connell, with clsymore in hand, had
attacked despotism, he would have been
annihiated by the thunderbolts of British
arlstocracy but in legality he protected
and walled himself up, as in an impFegna-
| BILE fortress. He is bold, but perhaps more
1sdroit than bold. He advances, then re
tires. He will go to the farthest limits of
| right but no further. By cavil he shields
himse as with buckler and battles on
that ground, foot to foot; by captious and
subtle interpretations he entangles his ad-
versaries in meshes that they cannot un-
ravel. Scholastic, punctillious, sparklin
in retorts, subtle proctor, he obtains by
cunning that which be cannot obtain by
force Where others would be lost he saves
himself; his skill protects his Ordor.
One feels that this grand orator is cramp-
ed and smothered under the cupola of the
British parliament as some grand plant
under a coverlid of glass. For his lungs
to expand, for his form to tower and for bis
voice to thunder he needs the air, the sun
and the soil of Ireland. 1t is when he treads
that sacred land, that native land, that be
breathes and he blooms. 1t is there in the
| presence of his people, that his revolution
ary and fiery eloquence bursts forth, hasheR
and radiates like sheafs of fire at some
grand pyrotechnical display. 1t is there
that he overhows and poars forth in seald-
/ inc streame that all-pOWeEful irony that