now rapidly drawing to a close. In the following year he made another effort to induce the Parliament to reform its constitution; but, as he was doubtless wel. aware, such an attempt, when opposed by the Government and unsupported by the Volunteers, was at that time almost hopeless. The Reform Bill, notwithstanding the petitions in its favour, was rejected, and Flood shortly after put into execution a design that he had conceived many years before, of entering the Parliament of England. His failure there is well known. His habits had been already formed for an Irish audience, and, as Grattan said of him, he was an oak of the forest too great and too old to be transplanted at fifty.' He was also guilty of much imprudence. Desiring to act in the most independent manner, he proclaimed openly that he would not identify himself with either of the great parties in Parliament. He thus prejudiced both sides of the House against him, and deprived himself of that support which is of such great consequence to a debater. He spoke first on the India Bill, which ultimately led to the downfall of the Coalition Ministry. It was a subject about which he knew very little; but he rose, as a practised speaker often does, to make a few remarks in a conversational tone, to detect some flaw in a preceding speaker's argument, or to throw light upon some particular section of the subject, without intending to make an elaborate speech, or to review the entire question. Immediately from the lobbies and the coffee-room the members came crowding in, anxious to hear a speaker of whom such great expectations were entertained. He seems to have thought that it would be disrespectful to those members to sit down at once, so he continued extempore, and soon showed his little knowledge of the subject.

When he concluded, there was a

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A member

universal feeling of disappointment. named Courtenay rose, and completed his discomfiture by a most virulent and satirical attack, which the rules of the House prevented him from answering. It is hardly necessary to say that Courtenay was an Irishman. He confessed afterwards to Lord Byron that he had been actuated by a personal motive.'

After this failure, Flood scarcely ever spoke again. Once, however, in 1790, his genius shone out with something of its old brilliancy in bringing forward a Reform Bill. His proposition was that 100 members, chosen by county household suffrage, should be added to the House; and the speech in which he defended it was much admired by all parties. Burke said that he had retrieved his reputation. Fox declared that his proposition was the best that had been proposed, and Pitt based his opposition to it almost exclusively upon the disturbed state of public affairs. It is to be hoped that these praises in some degree soothed his mind, which must have been bitterly mortified by his previous disappointment. In his reply upon this question, when answering some charge that had been brought against him, he alluded in a very touching manner to the isolation of his position. I appeal to you,' he said, 'whether my conduct has been that of an advocate or an agitator; whether I have often trespassed upon your attention; whether ever, except on a question of importance; and whether I then wearied you with ostentation or prolixity. I am as independent

1 Wraxall, speaking of Flood's failure, says: 'The slow, measured, and sententious style of enunciation which characterised his eloquence, however calculated to excite admiration it might be in the senate of the sister kingdom, appeared to English ears cold, stiff, and deficient in some of the best recommendations to attention.' This passage is very curious, as showing how little the present popular conception of Irish eloquence prevailed in the last century.

in fortune and nature as the honourable member himself. I have no fear but that of doing wrong, nor have I a hope on the subject but that of doing some service before I die. The accident of my situation has not made me a partisan; and I never lamented that situation till now that I find myself as unprotected as I fear the people of England will be on this occasion.' After this he only made one other speech -on the French treaty of any importance. He is said in his last years to have retired much from society, and his temper became gloomy and morose. He died in 1791.

When he felt death approaching he requested his attendant to leave the room, and he drew his last breath alone. Faithful to the end to the interests of his country, he left a large property to the Dublin University, chiefly for the encouragement of the study of Irish, and for the purchase of Irish manuscripts.

There is something inexpressibly melancholy in the life of this man. From his earliest youth his ambition seems to have been to identify himself with the freedom of his country. But though he attained to a position which, before him, had been unknown in Ireland; though the unanimous verdict of his contemporaries pronounced him to be one of the greatest intellects that ever adorned the Irish Parliament; and, though there is not a single act of his life which may not be construed in a sense perfectly in harmony with honour and with patriotism, yet his career presents one long series of disappointments and reverses. At an age

when most statesmen are in the zenith of their influence he sank into political impotence. The party he had formed discarded him as its leader. The reputation he so dearly prized was clouded and assailed; the principles he had sown germinated and fructified indeed, but others reaped their fruit, and he is now scarcely

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remembered except as the object of a powerful invective in Ireland, and as an example of a deplorable failure in England. A few pages of oratory, which probably at best only represent the substance of his speeches, a few youthful poems, a few laboured letters, and a biography so meagre and so unsatisfactory that it scarcely gives us any insight into his character, are all that remain of Henry Flood. The period in which he lived, a jealous and uncertain temper, and two or three lamentable mistakes of judgment, were fatal to his reputation; and he laboured for a people who have usually been peculiarly indifferent to the reputation of their great men. We may say of him as Grattan said of Kirwan: The curse of Swift was upon him, to have been born an Irishman and a man of genius, and to have used his talents for his country's good.'

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HENRY GRATTAN.

A PAPER was found in Swift's desk after his death, containing a list of his friends, classified as grateful, ungrateful, and indifferent. In this list the name of Grattan occurs three times, and each time it is marked as grateful. The family was one of some weight in the country, and the father of the subject of the present sketch was Recorder and Member for Dublin. As I have already had occasion to observe, Dr. Lucas was his colleague and his opponent, and a bitter animosity, both personal and political, subsisted between them. The Recorder seems to have been a man of a violent and overbearing temper, firmly wedded to his own opinions, and exceedingly intolerant of contradiction. He was greatly exasperated with his son for adopting Liberal politics, and he carried his resentment so far as to mark his displeasure in his will. Henry Grattan was born in the year 1746. From his earliest youth he manifested the activity of his intellect, and the force and energy of his character. Some foolish nursery tales having produced in his mind those superstitious fears that are so common among children, he determined, when a mere boy, to emancipate himself from their control, and was accustomed to go at midnight into a churchyard near his father's house, where he remained till every qualm of terror had subsided. At the University he distinguished himself greatly, and acquired a passion for the classics, and especially for the great orators of antiquity, that never deserted him through life. Long before he obtained a seat in Parliament he