s me
often the air of retrograding and losing; but, in fact, these
retrogressions are momentary, these losings of my object are no more
than seeming, are still but the same stealthy creeping up under cover of
frequent compliances with the breeze that happens to thwart me, towards
the one eternal pole of my own self-interest; that is the pole-star
which only never sets, and I flatter myself that amidst vast apparent
wanderings or multiplied divergences there will be detected by the eye
of the philosopher a consistency in family objects which is absolute, a
divine unity of selfishness.'

This we do not question. But to will is not to do; and Mr. O'Connell,
with a true loyalty to his one object of private aims, has _not_
maintained the consistency of his policy. All men know that he has
adventured within the limits of conspiracy; that could not be for his
benefit. He has touched even the dark penumbra of treason; that could
not but risk the sum of his other strivings. But he who has failed for
himself in a strife so absolute, for that only must be distrusted by
his countrymen.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] 'To horsewhip,' etc. Let it not be said that this is any slander of
ours; would that we could pronounce it a slander! But those who (like
ourselves) have visited Ireland extensively know that the parish priest
uses a horsewhip, in many circumstances, as his professional _insigne_.

[20] Look at Lord Waterford's case, in the very month of November, 1843.
Is there a county in all England that would have tamely witnessed his
expulsion from amongst them by fire, and by sword and by poison?

NOTE BY THE EDITOR.--This article on O'Connell, written in the end
of 1843, is printed, not on account of any political reference it
might be presumed to have, but only because of its historical and
literary interest. Apart from the light it may throw on De
Quincey's leanings, as, in certain respects, distinctly in the
direction of patriotic Toryism of the most rampant type, it may be
of value as suggesting how essentially, in not a few points, the
Irish question to-day remains precisely as it was in the time of
O'Connell; and how the Tories of to-day are apt to view it from
precisely the same plane as those of 1843. It might also be cited
as another proof not only of De Quincey's very keen interest in all
the leading questions of the time, but as an illustration of the
John B