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Grattan could hardly have brought himself to believe that the real repeal of the Union would actually be signed in London in the strange script as remote as the snaky ornament of the Celtic crosses. It would have seemed like Washington signing the Declaration of Independence in the picture-writing of the Red Indians.
Begin with orderly habits; next day try order in thought; and then will follow naturally order in principles. "You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan," said Curran, "if you would buy a few yards of red tape and tie up your bills and papers." Curran realized that methodical people are accurate as a rule, and successful.
Very recent outbreaks of the old agrarian combinations against both excessive rents and excessive tithes, in the Leinster as well as in southern counties, had called general attention to the subject, when Grattan, in 1787, moved that, if it should appear, by the commencement of the following session, that tranquillity had been restored in the disturbed districts, the House would take into consideration the subject of tithes.
The last of the great Irish patriots of the past age, Henry Grattan, had been buried in Westminster Abbey the year before George's visit to Ireland. It was well that so pure-minded and austere a lover of his country should have been spared the necessity of taking any part in the ceremonials of welcome which attended the arrival of the new Sovereign in Ireland.
I think it is true of the Irish aristocracy that even its period of greatest glory, even when Grattan was waving his arms and shouting "Esto Perpetua!" it remained sane. I have nothing else left of what my forefathers bequeathed to me, but I still have this temperament. A man clings desperately to the last remnants of his heritage. The artist's soul is a reality. I admitted that.
But during the last century the remains of this colony have been swamped beneath a flood of half-Anglicized people, of Irishmen from the country districts, who were formerly excluded, and who brought with them such a mixture of expressions and of phonetic tendencies derived from the Gaelic that the language of Grattan, Sheridan, and Burke has well-nigh gone out of existence.
It is always to be regretted that a man like Grattan should ever recede from his position as a constitutional patriot in the assembly where alone his counsels can have any practical weight; but of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor the same is not to be said, for these men and many of their friends had made up their minds that the time had come when only in armed rebellion there remained any hope for Ireland.
There was a long pause after that, and then, in a voice that seemed quite changed, Mrs Grattan said, "I never told you about Stephen and me, did I?" "No. I know that you have had some great trouble in your life, like mine indeed, your husband has told me that: that is all I know." "Well, it's not to be spoken of often.
It was in vain that all the great orators and statesmen of two generations exerted themselves to remove the Roman Catholic disabilities, Burke, Fox, Pitt, Windham, Grenville, Grey, Plunkett, Wellesley, Grattan, Canning, Wilberforce. Argument and expostulation were fruitless. At length pressure of a stronger kind was boldly and skilfully applied; and soon all difficulties gave way.
Ponsonby were the leaders, and to whom Mr. Grattan might be said to be attached rather than to belong, saw the rupture with regret, but considered it inevitable. Among "the Prince's friends" the attacks upon him in the Dublin meetings were regarded as little short of treason; while by himself, it is well known the "witchery" resolutions of 1812 were neither forgotten nor forgiven.
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