phere of his own
vision. And so we reach the conclusion of the whole matter.--

"I now take a final leave of this subject of Ireland. The only
difficulty in discussing it is a want of resistance--a want of
something difficult to unravel and something dark to illumine. To
agitate such a question is to beat the air with a club, and cut down
gnats with a scimitar: it is a prostitution of industry, and a waste
of strength. If a man says, 'I have a good place, and I do not choose
to lose it,' this mode of arguing upon the Catholic Question I can
well understand. But that any human being with an understanding two
degrees elevated above that of an Anabaptist preacher should
conscientiously contend for the expediency and propriety of leaving
the Irish Catholics in their present state, and of subjecting us to
such tremendous peril in the present condition of the world, it is
utterly out of my power to conceive. Such a measure as the Catholic
Question is entirely beyond the common game of politics. It is a
measure in which all parties ought to acquiesce, in order to preserve
the place where and the stake for which they play. If Ireland is gone,
where are jobs? where are reversions? where is my brother, Lord
Arden?[57] where are 'my dear and near relations'? The game is up, and
the Speaker of the House of Commons will be sent as a present to the
menagerie at Paris. We talk of waiting, as if centuries of joy and
prosperity were before us. In the next ten years our fate must be
decided; we shall know, long before that period, whether we can bear
up against the miseries by which we are threatened, or not: and yet,
in the very midst of our crisis, we are enjoined to abstain from the
most certain means of increasing our strength, and advised to wait for
the remedy till the disease is removed by death or health. And now,
instead of the plain and manly policy of increasing unanimity at home,
by equalizing rights and privileges, what is the ignorant, arrogant,
and wicked system which has been pursued? Such a career of madness and
of folly was, I believe, never run in so short a period. The vigour of
the ministry is like the vigour of a grave-digger--the tomb becomes
more ready and more wide for every effort which they make.... Every
Englishman felt proud of the integrity of his country; the character
of th