e any part in the ceremonial. The young Earl
could not restrain his indignation at this utterly uncalled-for insult.
He obtained a royal audience, and exerted himself with so much energy,
that the obnoxious order was rescinded. The Earl's rank, as well as his
patriotism, naturally placed him at the head of his party; and he
resolutely opposed those laws which Burke had designated as a "disgrace
to the statute-books of any nation, and so odious in their principles,
that one might think they were passed in hell, and that demons were the
legislators." In 1766, his Lordship brought a bill into the House of
Lords to enable a poor Catholic peasant to take a lease of a cabin and a
potato-garden; but, at the third reading, the Lords rushed in
tumultuously, voted Lord Charlemont out of the chair, and taunted him
with being little better than a Papist. The failure and the taunt
bewildered an intellect never very clear; and, perhaps, hopelessness
quenched the spirit of patriotism, which had once, at least, burned
brightly. In fear of being taunted as a Papist, like many a wiser man,
he rushed into the extreme of Protestant loyalty, and joined in the
contemptible outcry for Protestant ascendency.

The eighteenth century was also rife in Irishmen whose intellects were
devoted to literature. It claims its painters in Barrett, who was
actually the founder of the Royal Academy in England, and in Barry, the
most eminent historical painter of his age; its poets in Parnell,
Goldsmith, Wade, O'Keeffe, Moore, and many others; its musician in
Kelly, a full list of whose operatic music would fill several pages; its
authors in Steele, Swift, Young, O'Leary, Malone, Congreve, Sheridan,
and Goldsmith; and its actors in Macklin, Milliken, Barry, Willis, and
Woffington.

Sheridan was born in Dublin, in the year 1757. He commenced his career
as author by writing for the stage; but his acquaintance with Fox, who
soon discerned his amazing abilities, led him in another direction. In
1786 he was employed with Burke in the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
The galleries of the House of Lords were filled to overflowing; peers
and peeresses secured seats early in the day; actresses came to learn
declamation, authors to learn style. Mrs. Siddons, accustomed as she was
to the simulation of passion in herself and others, shrieked and swooned
while he denounced the atrocities of which Hastings had been guilty.
Fox, Pitt, and Byron, were unanimous in their pra