o the task of vigorous
agitation--and he is known to be in utterly desperate circumstances.
The reckless character of his proceedings during the last fifteen
months, is, in our opinion, fully accounted for, by his unexpected
discovery, that the ministry were strong enough to defy any thing that
he could do, and to continue calmly in their course of administering,
not _pseudo_, but real "justice to Ireland," supported in that course
by the manifest favour and countenance of the Crown, overwhelming
majorities in Parliament, and the decided and unequivocal expression
of public opinion. His personal position was, in truth, inexpressibly
galling and most critical, and he must have agitated, or sunk at once
into ignominious obscurity and submission to a Government whom,
individually and collectively, he loathed and abhorred. Vain were the
hopes which, doubtless, he had entertained, that, as his agitation
assumed a bolder form, it would provoke formidable demonstrations in
England against Ministers and their policy; not a meeting could be got
up to petition her Majesty for the dismissal of her Ministers! But it
is quite conceivable that Mr O'Connell, in the course he was pursuing,
forgot to consider the possibility of developing a power which might
be too great for him, which would not be wielded by him, but carry
_him_ along with _it_. The following remarkable expressions fell from
the perplexed and terrified agitator, at a great dinner at Lismore in
the county of Waterford, in the month of September last:--"Like the
heavy school-boy on the ice, _my pupils are overtaking me_. It is now
my duty to regulate the vigour and temper the energy of the people--to
compress, as it were, the exuberance of both."

We said that Mr O'Connell revived the Repeal agitation; and the fact
was so. He first raised it in 1829--having, however, at various
previous periods of his life, professed a desire to struggle for
Repeal; but Mr Shiel, in his examination before the House of Commons
in 1825, characterized such allusions as mere "rhetorical artifices."
"What were his real motives," observes the able and impartial author
of _Ireland and its Rulers_[35], "when he announced his new agitation
in 1829, can be left only to him to determine." It is probable that
they were of so mixed a nature, that he himself could not accurately
define them.... It is, however, quite possible, that, after having so
long tasted of the luxuries of popularity, he could no