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Not only was he anxious to be enriched with the choicest heavenly benedictions, whilst kneeling reverently at the shrine of the Apostles, but he desired also, with a fervor which finds place only in the most nobly-moulded souls, whose love of liberty and whose patriotism are unfeigned and pure, to hold communion with one who was, no less than himself, a friend of liberty, and whose exalted station, and whose high duties towards mankind at large, hindered him not from laboring, as did Ireland’s patriot, to liberate his country, not, indeed, from such cruel bondage as that under which the land of O’Connell had for so many ages groaned, but from the no less dangerous tyranny of abuses which, like weeds that grow most luxuriantly in the richest soil, it becomes necessary, in due season, to extirpate.
What did not Daniel O’Connell, Ireland’s liberator, accomplish, by causing himself alone to be elected for an Irish constituency, and by proceeding to demand the seat to which he was elected in the British parliament, without uttering an oath which shocked his conscience?
In alluding to the well-known piety of O’Connell, the preacher said: “What more moving spectacle than to see the greatest man in the United Kingdom—to see him, who was the object of Ireland’s devotion, of England’s fear, and of the world’s admiration, kneeling with the people before the altar, practicing the piety of the people, with that humble simplicity, that recollection, that devoutness, and that modesty, which supercilious science and stolid pride abandon as things fit only to be followed by those whom they disdain as the people?”
Hail to thee, last of England’s bruisers, after all the many victories which thou hast achieved—true English victories, unbought by yellow gold; need I recount them? nay, nay! they are already well known to fame—sufficient to say that Bristol’s Bull and Ireland’s Champion were vanquished by thee, and one mightier still, gold itself, thou didst overcome; for gold itself strove in vain to deaden the power of thy arm; and thus thou didst proceed till men left off challenging thee, the unvanquishable, the incorruptible. ’Tis a treat to see thee, Tom of Bedford, in thy ‘public’ in Holborn way, whither thou hast retired with thy well-earned bays. ’Tis Friday night, and nine by Holborn clock.
Miley, “and the Roman Forum, from both sides of the Tiber, and from all the seven hills and their interjacent valleys, this people, who grow up from infancy with the trophies of thirty centuries of greatness around them on every hand, assembled with enthusiasm to supplicate heaven for the eternal happiness of Ireland’s liberator, and to exult in the wonders he had achieved, as if he had been their own.” The greatest homage paid by Rome on this melancholy occasion, was undoubtedly, the funeral oration, which was spoken by the Bossuet of Italy, the celebrated preacher, Father Ventura, the friend and fellow-student of Pius IX. This most eloquent discourse was listened to with attention and delight by the vast congregation that had gathered round the cenotaph of the immortal patriot.
It was not, however, appointed that Ireland’s liberator should ever see Rome. His illness continued to increase. No sooner had he reached the shores of Italy than the strength of his once powerful frame declined rapidly, and he was unable to proceed. Arrived at Genoa, O’Connell understood that his last hour on earth was near at hand.
I warrant me the people in the Moon take us a deuced deal more easily, and give themselves very little trouble to make out the size of Ireland’s eye or the height of Croaghpatrick. No, no; let the Chancellor of the Exchequer come down with a slapping measure of retrenchment, and make a clear stage of all of them.
Much later a similar product was published, entitled “Launige Reise durch Holland in Yoricks Manier, mit Charakterskizzen und Anekdoten über die Sitten und Gebräuche der Holländer aus dem Englischen,” two volumes, Zittau und Leipzig, 1795. The translation was by Reichel in Zittau. This may possibly be Ireland’s “A
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