39 66 mother, "kindless," "heartless," "prayer- pose to ensnare; he looks at the crow, less;" then there is "peaceless,' "pa- Mr. President, and the crow looks at rentless," weedless," "priceless," ""for tuneless," "cureless," "pretentionless," reposeless," conscienceless," "proofless ;" and a great many more,all used, for ought we can discover, because Curran once said "returnless." 66 His comparisons are so numerous, as entirely to overload his style, and they often put us in mind of Mr. O'Bother'em, in the "School for Orators," a performance which we would recommend to Mr. Phillips's perusal. On the question, "Does riches or poverty tend most to the exaltation of the human mind," Mr. O'Bother'em, having surmised the key-stone of his argument, says, "he shall proceed to compare" riches and poverty in such a way, as you will find there to be no comparison at all." In the course of his eloquent harangue, which, if we may judge from the success it met with, was never surpassed, he breaks out into an eloquent and learned description of the life of a man possessed of luxury," of which the following is a part. "He cannot, Mr. President, eat a single meal, unless he is surrounded all around, with the luxuriant and extatic productions of both atmospheres! Is not the rich cheney cup, he so languishingly and affectingly raises to his nruscaled lips, are they not, I repeat it, sir, brought from the deserts of Arabia? Is not the flagrant and chromatic tea found in the undiscovered regions of Chili, which there is there the highest mountains in the world?" (by the way, the old Pope might have been compared to Chimborazo,) “Is not, I say, sir, the dashing so fa, on which he declines his meagre and emancipated form, made from the mahogany of Hispaniola, from the shores of Indostan, and the cedar of Lebanon, from Mount Parnassus; ornamented with the richest and most munificent oriental silks, from the East Indies abroad?" After having given vent to this" torrent of eloquence, which he felt smothering within him, and ready to burst into a hurricane," Mr. O'Bother'em goes on to speak of the "man possessed of poverty," and after having ventured on some remarks, which be feared might be considered "as hazardous conjunctures on his part," he attributes the superiority of the "man possessed of poverty" to the fact that he "declines his expectations upon a low pinnacle of bliss;" "for," says Mr. O'Bother'em, breaking forth into a most striking comparison, 66 happiness is like a crow perched on a distant mountain, which the eager sportsman vainly tries to no pur him; but the moment he attempts to reprouch him, he banishes away, like the schismatic taints of the rainbow, which it was the astonishing Newton that first deplored and enveloped the cause of it." Mr. O'Bother'em, also, exhibits nearly as refined a relish for "the beauties of nature," and draws about as just and tasteful a picture of domestic felicity, as Mr. Phillips. "Cannot the poor man, Mr. President," says O'Bother'em, “precipitate in all the varied beauties of nature, from the most loftiest mountains, down to the most lowest vallies, as well as the man possessed of luxury? Yes, sir, the poor man, while trilling transports crowns his views, and rosy hours aitures his sanguinary youth, can raise his wonderful mind to that incompressible being, who restrains the lawless storm; who kindles up the crushing and tremendious thunder, and rolls the dark and vapid lightning, through the intensity of space, and who issues the awful metres and roll-a-borealis, through the unfathomable legions of the fiery hemispheres. Sometimes seated beneath the shady shadow of an umbrageous tree, at whose renal foot, flows a limpingbrook, he calls about him his wife and the rest of his children; here, sir, he takes a retrospective view into futurity; distills into their youthful minds, useful lessons, to guard their juvenile youth, from vice and immortality; and extorts them to perspire to endless facility, which shall endure forever. Here, sir, on a fine, clear evening, when the silvery moon shines out with all its emulgence, he learns his children the first rudiments of astrology, by pointing out the bull, the bear, and many more bright consternations and fixed stars, which are constantly devolving on their axle-trees, in the azure expense of the blue creolean firmament above." From the book before us, we extract the following passage-it is in the speech for O'Mullan against M'Korkill, and exhibits, in compendious form, many of Mr. Phillips's besetting faults; his love of allitera tion, and antithesis, and that kind of paradoxical use of epithets, of which we have before spoken; his passion for metaphor and simile; his hyperbolical extravagance; and his general inflation and eternal strut. "Who shall estimate the cost of priceless reputation-that impress which gives this human dross its currency, without which we stand despised, debased, depreciated? Who shall repair it injured? Who can redeem it lost? Oh! well and truly does the great philosopher of poetry esteem the world's wealth as "trash" in the comparison. Without it, gold has no value, birth no distinction, station no dignity, beauty no charm, age no reverence; or, should I not rather say, without it every treasure impoverishes, every grace deforms, every dignity degrades, and all the arts, the decorations, and accomplishments of life, stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a rock, warning the world that its approach is danger-that its contact is death. The wretch without it is under AN ETERNAL QUARANTINE;-no friend to greeton home to harbour him. The voyage of his life becomes a joyless peril; and in the midst of all ambition can achieve, or avarice amass, or rapacity plunder, he tosses on the surge-a BUOYANT PESTILENCE! But, Gentlemen, let me not degrade into the selfishness of individual safety, or individual exposure, this universal principle: it testifies an higher, a more ennobling origin. It is this which, consecrating the humble circle of the hearth, will at times extend itself to the circumference of the horizon; which nerves the arm of the patriot to save his country; which lights the lamp of the philosopher to amend man; which, if it does not inspire, will yet invigorate the martyr to merit immortality; which, when one world's agony is passed, and the glory of another is dawning, will prompt the prophet, even in his ehariot of fire, and in his vision of heaven, to bequeath to mankind the mantle of his memory! Oh divine, oh delightful legacy of a spotless reputation! Rich is the inheritance it leaves; pious the example it testifies; pure, precious, and imperisha ble, the hope which it inspires! Can you conceive a more atrocious injury than to filch from its possessor this inestimable benefit-to rob society of its charm, and solitude of its solace; not only to outlaw life, but to attaint death, converting the very grave, the refuge of the sufferer, into the gate of infamy and of shame! I can conceive few crimes beyond it." Besides the faults of this passage which have been already noticed, we cannot but remark, that “ eternal quarantine," and "buoyant pestilence," appear to us ludierous, and that, after the superlative style in which it is all felt and uttered, the conclusion strikes us as a very sad falling off: "I can conceive few crimes beyond it." Oh! most lame and impotent conclusion, after an "eternal quarantine," and "a buoyant pestilence." Mr. O'Mullan is compared to "the rock of Scripture before the face of infidelity." "The rain of the deluge" (or the deluge of rain?) "had 66 fallen-it only smoothered his asperities :" (i.e. Mr. O'Muilan's asperities,) "the wind of the tempest beat-it only blanched his brow: the rod, not of prophecy, but of persecution, smote him; and the desert, glittering with the gospel dew, became" (i. e. the desert became) "a miracle of the faith it" (what?) "would have tempted." Mr. Phillips in another place, speaks of a divine vanity that exaggerates every trifle" (in the eye of a parent)" into some mysterious omen, which shall smooth his aged wrinkles, and make his grave a monument of honour." We never knew before that omens were used as cosmetics. In many cases, sense is obviously sacrificed or forgotten in the fondness of the orator for some pretty word, especially if it can be used in the way of trope. Thus we have the Roman catholic clergy "rearing their mitres in the van of misery;" Mr. Phillips, doubtless by this, intended to speak in praise of the reverend clergy, but, with his military metaphor, he has made them the very field-marshals of calamity, and contradicted all the rest of the passage. Mr. Phillips speaks of the hovels of the Irish peasants, as the "wretched bazars of mud and misery" that is, according to the meaning of bazar, places where they sell mud and misery. A very glowing character of the Irish peasantry, by which it would appear, that they are nearly perfect, is wound off in the following language: "In short, God seems to have formed our country like our people :" (here is another totally wrong arrangement of words; it should be, our people like our country)" he has thrown round the one its wild, magnificent, decorated rudeness; he has infused into the other, the simplicity of genius and the seeds of virtue:" he says audibly to us, "give them cultivation." How a people marked by the simplicity of genius, can resemble a country, the features of which are wild, magnificent, and ornately rude, we cannot understand; nor do we see how a people can with propriety, be described as simple, of whom it has just before been said, “their look is eloquence, their smile is love, their retort is wit, their remark is wisdom—not a wisdom borrowed from the dead, but that with which nature has inspired them; an acute observance of the passing scene, and a deep insight into the motives of its agents. Try to deceive them, and see with what shrewdness they will detect; try to outwit them, and see with what humour they will elude; attack them with argument, and you will stand amazed at the strength of their expression, the rapidity of their ideas, and the energy of their gesture! What a simple people!-What a consistent character!-What just discrimination! There are in the course of these speeches, some sentences parallel to passages in Curran, both in their strain of sentiment and in their style; but we do not think Mr. Phillips ought to be considered as an imitator, either of Curran or Grattan; for these resemblances are only occasional, and always point to the worst specimens of those illustrious men.There is, also, one passage in which Mr. Phillips seems to have had Erskine in view, and to have designed not only to imitate, but to surpass him. We refer to the passage in which an "Eastern Bramin" is supposed to address a Christian Missionary, and make the schisms and crimes and follies of Christendom, particularly the persecution of the Irish Catholics, his reason for declining to become a convert. This is a plain imitation of the celebrated speech put by Erskine into the mouth of a savage chief, when he makes him remonstrate with the governor of a British province against the encroachments of "the restless foot of English adventure." We think, how ever, Mr. Phillips has by no means equalled his prototype. Personification is a figure of speech, that, in order to be successful, requires, more than any other, severe and quick-sighted judgment, that it may be appositely introduced;-extensive and accurate knowledge, that no important circumstances connected with the subject of it may escape;-the most rapid exercise of the imagination, that all these circumstances may be seasonably brought together and embodied:-and a nice and discriminating taste, with a supreme control of language, that the most characteristic circumstances may be seJected to give individuality to the picture, and round it into life and beauty. Mr. Phillips has introduced his prosopopeia in a very appropriate place, but he has dwelt on it too long, he has weakened it by expanding it, and has given no further individuality, than by making the subject of it appeal to Brama. Into Erskine's speech are introduced all the circumstanees necessary to mark the condition and the manners of the rude chief, and his language is energetic and compendious. Comparing Mr. Phillips with himself, we think he has exhibited most talent, offended less against taste, uttered more just thoughts, said more good things, and made less parade of common-place ideas, in his speeches on public occasions than in his speeches at the Bar. The latter abound in worn-out ideas, mawkish sentiments, inflated style, and extravagant passion, to a degree we have never seen equalled. His clients are all painted alike, and all his pictures are most extravagantly overcharged. His wives and daughters are all divine, all breathing paradise around them, splendid as three or four suns, and as fragrant as a whole flower-garden. And then, his seducers and adulterers are as much worse than count Manfred as count Manfred is worse than the Evil One. He regales us, too, with such exquisite and chaste and delicate pictures of connubial happiness, that if it were not for the occasion on which these pictures are exhibited, we should think Ireland not only had no snakes, but that she was exempt from every smut of vice, and every wrinkle of calamity. But, alack for human frailty and human wo, these are only pictures, sketched and coloured by the fancy of Mr. Phillips, a fancy that flies like the messenger of Juno; Mille trahens varios adverso sole colores; and the unfortunate, youthless, husbandless, and peradventure toothless, Mrs. Wilkins comes in to tarnish the perfection of Irish_beauty, and furnish an opportunity for a great advocate to ridicule an aged female client. We agree generally with Mr. Finlay as it regards the object of oratory, and the manner in which its purposes are to be answered, but when he makes success, without any qualification, the evidence of merit, we think he goes entirely too far. There are many circumstances, which may operate to give efficacy to the words of an orator, altogether extraneous to the style of his eloquence, and which may give him success, even though skill in selecting and arranging his topics be notoriously wanting, and though his arrangement may be inconclusive, and his language grossly inelegant. The subject on which he addresses his audience may be so connected with their sympathies, that there will be need only to touch the train, to produce the most brilliant and astounding effect; and in such case it surely can make little difference whether the match be applied with the left hand or the right. The person, voice, and action, also, of the orator, may be so persuasive of themselves, as to stand instead both of argument and illustration; and if these quali fications are united to tolerable skill in selecting topics, and any zeal in urging conclusions, and above all if there be superadded an imagination fertile in ima ges, no matter whether they are pertinent and illustrative or not, the temporary success may be great, and yet the speech actually delivered, when examined coolly and without bias, appear deficient in all, or most of the qualities which give value to composition, whether it be read for the wisdom of its thoughts or resorted to as a model of style. And this we believe, from Mr. Finlay's account, as well as from the evidence of his speeches, to have been exactly Mr. Phillips's case. Surely it will not be sought by any one, even of Mr. Phillips's most unhesitating admirers, to set him above all his countrymen as an orator, to heap on his temples the palms and the laurels which have shaded the brows of Grattan and Curran; and yet his success, according to Mr. Finlay's mode of estimating it, has far exceeded theirs. The speech of Grattan on the subject of tithes, in the Irish Parliament, is a magnificent monument of knowledge, argument, pathos, fancy and wit, that Mr. Phillips can never hope to equal, and yet this noble effort of genius and patriotism was heard without conviction. And why? Because prejudice or self-interest had blunted the perceptions of the mind and closed the avenues of the understanding. Curran's speeches in behalf of those who were tried for treason, the speeches, for instance, in behalf of Rowan and Finerty, for purity of style,-variety of knowledge, strength and ingenuity of argument,-depth of thought,-felicity of allusion,-unaffected fervour of emotion, and splendour and pertinency of illustration, are as far above any thing Mr. Phillips has ever produced as "from the centre, thrice to the utmost pole;" and yet, powerful as they were, they could not procure a verdict of acquittal. And why could they not? The deep-seated prejudices of an alarmed and jealous govern ment forbade. The eloquence of Curran and Grattan, (we mention these names because they are Irishmen, and have made their greatest efforts in Ireland,)-compared with that of Mr. Phillips, is like a deep broad river, moving its vast volume of water against the base of an everlasting hill, compared with the noisy torrent pouring down its side. If the hill be not borne from its foundation by the one, and if the soil be washed away by the other, is it because the latter has more power than the former? Truly, no: and when Mr. Phillips's Speeches have got in their whole harvest of applause, and are no longer remembered except as proofs of that temporary cor ruption of taste, which in these effervescing times, has wrought as many strange metamorphoses as the cup of Circe or the horn of Oberon, the speeches of Grattan and Curran will be descending through generation after generation with accumulating honours. Mr. Finlay says, that "the dictate of the imagination is the inspiration of oratory, which imparts to matter animation and soul," and that "without it, the speaker sinks into the mere dry arguer, the matter-of-fact man," &c. This is an erroneous sentiment inelegantly expressed. The dictate of imagination, is not the inspiration of oratory, and very few of those men, who have most distinguished themselves by their eloquence, have displayed, or even possessed much imagination, in the sense in which Mr. Finlay uses the word. Demosthenes, for example, was so far from owing his efficacy to his imagination, that scarcely has there ever been an orator of any eminence, who has manifested so little. No-his orations derived their power from the manner in which he felt his subject, and the energy of his feelings was imparted to his words. The liberty of Greece depended on his tongue, and full of the grandeur of this theme, and feeling all his soul moved within him, he could not stop the strong current of his argument, and wait for fancy to weave garlands. The imagination, of which Mr. Finlay speaks, belongs almost exclusively to the poet; the inspiration of the orator, is pas sion, it is that divine warmth of soul, which gives to the lips of the orator, an energy as if they had been touched with a live coal from off the altar. Or if great orators have sometimes been distinguished for the richness of their fancy, they have been cautious of indulging it, and in fact, even their eloquence has been most powerful, when it has been most direct and simple. Though we think Mr. Phillips's speeches on public occasions, his best speeches, yet. they are too often deformed by the extravagance of a totally undisciplined faney, and are too uniformly inflated. Still however, they contain striking passages, many just sentiments, and a tone of feeling somewhat proportionate to the subject, We will quote one passage, which furnishes we believe one of the least exceptionable specimens of Mr. Phillips's style, and which, at the same time, contains an interesting detail of the names of those Irishmen, who have figured so conspicuously in the service of the British govern ment. The extract is from the speech at Dublin, at an aggregate meeting of the Catholics of the city and county of Dublin. "The code, against which you petition, is a vile compound of impiety and impolicy: impiety, because it debases in the name of God; impolicy, because it disqualifies under pretence of government. If we are to argue from the services of Protestant Ireland, to the losses sustained by the bondage of Catholic Ireland, and I do not see why we should not, the state which continues such a system is guilty of little less than a political suicide. It matters little where the Protestant Irishman has been employed; whether with Burke wielding the senate with his eloquence, with Castlereagh guiding the cabinet by his counsels, with Barry enriching the arts by his pencil, with Swift adorning literature by his genius, with Goldsmith or with Moore softening the heart by their melody, or with Wellington chaining victory to his car, he may boldly challenge the competition of the world. Oppressed and impoverished as our country is, every muse has cheered, and every art adorned, and every conquest crowned her. Plundered, she was not poor, for her character enriched; attainted, she was not titleless, for her services ennobled; literally outlawed into eminence and fettered into fame, the fields of her exile were immortalized by her deeds, and the links of her chain became decorated by her laurels. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Is there a department in the state in which Irish genius does not possess a predominance? Is there a conquest which it does not achieve, or a dignity which it does not adorn? At this instant, is there a country in the world to which England has not deputed an Irishman as her representative? She has sent Lord Moira to India, Sir Gore Ouseley to Ispahan, Lord Stuart to Vienna, Lord Castlereagh to Congress, Sir Henry Wellesley to Madrid, Mr. Canning to Lisbon, Lord Strangford to the Brazils, Lord Clancarty to Holland, Lord Wellington to Paris-all Irishmen! Whether it results from accident or from merit, can there be a more cutting sarcasm on the policy of England! Is it not directly saying to her, "Here is a country from onefifth of whose people you depute the agents of your most august delegation, the remaining four-fifths of which, by your odious bigotry, you incapacitate from any station of office or of trust!" It is adding all that is weak in impolicy to all that is wicked in ingratitude. What is her apology? Will she pretend that the Deity imitates her injustice, and incapa citates the intellett as she has done the creed? After making Providence a pretence for her code, will she also make it a party to her crime, and arraign the universal spirit of partiality in his dispensations? Is she not content with Him as a Protestant God, unless He also consents to become a Catholic demon? But, if the charge were true, if the Irish Catholics were imbruted and debased, Ireland's conviction would be England's crime, and your answer to the bigot's charge should be the bigot's conduct. What, then! is this the result of six centuries of your government? Is this the connexion which you call a benefit to Ireland? Have your protecting laws so debased them, that the very privilege of reason is worthless in their possession? Shame! oh, Shame! to the government where the people are barbarous! The day is not distant when they made the education of a Catholic a crime, and yet they arraign the Catholic for ignorance! The day is not distant when they proclained the celebration of the Catholic worship a felony, and yet they complain that the Catholic is not moral! What folly! Is it to be expect ed that the people are to emerge in a moment from the stupor of a protracted degradation? There is not perhaps to be traced upon the map of national misfortune a spot so truly and so tediously deplorable as Ireland. Other lands, no doubt, have had their calamities. To the horrors of revolution, the miseries of despotism, the scourges of anarchy, they have in their turns been subject. But it has been only in their turns; the visitations of wo, though severe, have not been eternal; the hour of probation, or of punishment, has passed away; and the tempest, after having emptied the vial of its wrath, has given place to the serenity of the calm and of the sunshine. Has this been the case with respect to our misera ble country? Is there, save in the visionary world of tradition-is there in the progress, either of record or recollection. one verdant spot in the desert of our annals where patriotism can find repose or philanthropy refreshment? Oh, indeed, posterity will pause with wonder on the melancholy page which shall portray the story of a people amongst whom the policy of man has waged an eternal warfare with the providence of God, blighting into deformity all that was beauteous, and into famine all that was abundant.” The facts detailed in the above passage do certainly convey a most 66 cutting sarcasm upon the policy of England,” and though we think that to form a |