of the capriciousness of superiority, none of
the sultan spirit in the treatment of the rayah. But no minister had yet
started up in English councils capable of the boldness of throwing open
the barrier; none of intellectual stature sufficient to look beyond the
old partition wall of the countries; no example of that statesmanlike
sagacity which discovers in the present the shape of the future, and
pierces the mists, which, to inferior minds, magnify the near into giant
size, while they extinguish the distant altogether. But no man can ever
write the annals of England, without a growing consciousness that
magnanimity has been the instinct of her dominion; that she has been
liberal on principle, and honest by nature; that even in the chillest and
darkest hour of her sovereignity, this influence has existed unimpaired,
and like gravitation on the globe, that it has accompanied and impelled
her, day and night alike, through the whole circuit of her proud and
powerful career.

This was the glorious period of Grattan's public life. His task, by
universal confession, was the noblest that could be enjoined on man, and
he sustained it with powers fitted to its nobleness. On the later portion
of his history I have no desire to touch. The most hazardous temptation of
early eminence is the fondness which it generates for perpetual publicity.
The almost preternatural trial of human fortitude is, to see faction with
its vulgar and easy triumph seizing the fame, which was once to be won
only by the purest and rarest achievements of patriotism. When the banner
which had flamed at the head of the nation on their march to Right, and
which was consigned to the hand of Grattan as its legitimate bearer, was
raised again, in a day threatening the subversion of every throne of
Europe; he exhibited a jealousy of his obscure competitors, unworthy of
his renown. But he did not join in their procession. He was unstained. If
he felt the avarice of ambition, he exhibited no decay of that original
dignity of nature, which, in his political nonage, had made him the leader
of bearded men, and a model to the maturity of his country's virtue.

On this night he spoke with remarkable power, but in a style wholly
distinct from his former appeals to the passions of the House. His
accents, usually sharp and high, were now lingering and low; his fiery
phraseology was solemn and touching, and even his gesture, habitually
wild, distorted, and pantomimical, wa