passing topics of the day; something in his manner savouring of
affectation, something in the semi-Saxon lisp that struggled through his
low-toned utterances, something in the total lack of suitable gesture,
gave his listeners at the outset an unfavourable impression of the young
speaker. He was boyish, and some did not scruple to hint conceited; he
had too much of the fine gentleman about his appearance, and too little
of the native brogue and stirring declamation to which his listeners
had been accustomed. The new man is a failure, was the first idea that
suggested itself to the audience: but he was not; and when he resumed
his seat he had conquered all prejudices, and wrung the cheers of
admiration from the meeting. Warming with his subject, and casting off
the restraints that hampered his utterances at first, he poured forth a
strain of genuine eloquence, vivified by the happiest allusions, and
enriched by imagery and quotations as beautiful as they were
appropriate, which startled the meeting from its indifference, and won
for the young speaker the enthusiastic applause of his audience. O'Brien
complimented him warmly on his success, and thus it was that the orator
of Young Ireland made his debut on the political platform.

Meagher was not quite twenty-three years of age when his voice was first
heard in Conciliation Hall. He was born in Waterford of an old Catholic
family, which through good and ill had adhered to the national faith and
the national cause; his school-boy days were passed partly at
Clongowes-wood College, and partly under the superintendence of the
Jesuit Fathers at Stoneyhurst in Lancashire. His early years gave few
indications of the splendid wealth of genius that slumbered within his
breast. He took little interest in his classical or mathematical
studies; but he was an ardent student of English literature, and his
compositions in poetry and prose invariably carried away the prize. He
found his father filling the Civic Chair in Waterford, when he returned
from Stoneyhurst to his native city. O'Connell was in the plenitude of
his power; and from end to end of the land, the people were shaken by
mighty thoughts and grand aspirations; with buoyant and unfaltering
tread the nation seemed advancing towards the goal of Freedom, and the
manhood of Ireland seemed kindling at the flame which glowed before the
altar of Liberty. Into the national movement young Meagher threw himself
with the warmth and enth