ill of a practised speaker. He had opened his address by mentioning
the circumstances which had then brought him before them. He explained
that but from an adverse incident--a passing indisposition--they were on
that night to have heard one of those accomplished speakers who had won
fame and honor in the old country. There was a reserve and delicacy in
the mention of the circumstances by which he became the substitute for
this person that struck Layton forcibly; he was neither prepared for
the sentiment nor the style of the orator; but, besides, there was in
the utterance of certain words, and in an occasional cadence, something
that made his heart beat quicker, and sent a strange thrill through him.

The explanation over, there was a pause,--a pause of silence so perfect
that as the speaker laid down the glass of water he had been drinking,
the sound was heard throughout the room. He now began, his voice low,
his words measured, his manner subdued. Layton could not follow him
throughout, but only catch enough to perceive that he was giving a short
sketch of the relative conditions of England and Ireland antecedent to
the Union. He pictured the one, great, rich, powerful, and intolerant,
with all the conscious pride of its own strength, and the immeasurable
contempt for whatever differed from it; the other, bold, daring,
and defiant, not at all aware of its inability to cope with its more
powerful neighbor in mere force, but reposing an unbounded trust in
its superior quickness, its readiness of resource, its fertility of
invention. He dwelt considerably on those Celtic traits by which he
claimed for Irishmen a superiority in all those casualties of life which
demand promptitude and ready-wittedness.

"The gentleman who was to have occupied this chair tonight," said he,
raising his voice, so as to be heard throughout the room, "would, I
doubt not, have given you a very different portrait, and delivered a
very different judgment. You would at this moment have been listening
to a description of that great old country we are all so proud of,
endeavoring, with all the wise prudence of a careful mother, to train up
a wayward and capricious child in the paths of virtue and obedience. But
you will bear more patiently with me; you will lend me a more favorable
hearing and a kindlier sympathy, for America, too, was a runaway
daughter, and though it was only a Gretna Green match you first made
with Freedom, you have lived to see