bitterness and hate which ripened in after times and
under gloomier auspices. I dwell on it as important, although a casual
incident, frequent and almost inevitable in political excitement. There
were two parties from whose memory the scene never passed. These were
the blind followers of Mr. O'Connell, to whom it seemed blackest guilt
to question his supremacy or infallibility, on the one hand, and on the
other, all who sympathised with genuine and lofty emotions, and regarded
the attack on Mr. Davis as wanton, brutal and contemptible. The
miserable little faction that existed on the spoils of the Association
magnified the difference and fanned the discontent. That Young Ireland
had received its death-blow passed into a watch-word among them.

An event of mighty augury and most trifling results, which distinguished
the year 1845, must not be passed unmentioned. This was the celebrated
levee, held in the Round Room of the Rotunda, on the 30th of May, the
anniversary of the imprisonment. It was referred to a sub-committee, on
which Mr. Davis and Sir Colman O'Loghlen were principals, to devise the
most appropriate celebration for that important day. They determined on
a public levee, to which were summoned whatever there was of
respectability, authority, genius and worth in the island, which
recognised the wisdom, justice and holiness of the struggle for
Nationhood. All the corporations, every delegation which derived public
authority from the popular voice, besides citizens of the unincorporated
towns, answered the summons with alacrity. That day witnessed a scene
the most extraordinary, imposing and formidable of the kind in modern
annals. The Round Room was thronged to excess, but preconcerted
arrangements had provided for the convenience of its favoured visitors,
while the public streets, abandoned to chance, presented an immovable
mass of human beings, swaying to and fro, but governed by a single and
omnipotent impulse, which steeled them to the pressure and broil as if
they felt themselves in presence of a speedy deliverance and free
destiny.

[Illustration: Richard O'Gorman, Jun. (1848)]

[Illustration: Patrick O'Donohoe (1848)]

The preparations engaged the vigilant activity of a large committee for
two entire days and nights. Yet these preparations bore an infinite
disproportion to the display of wealth of mind, of energy of thought,
and national pomp, which ushered in the glorious morning. Those who
scoffed