To the
house generally, it was a performance of dumb show, a feeble old man
muttering before a table; but respect for the great parliamentary
personage kept all as orderly as if the fortunes of a party hung upon
his rhetoric; and though not an accent reached the gallery, means were
taken that, next morning, the country should not lose the last, and not
the least interesting of the speeches of one, who had so long occupied
and agitated the mind of nations. This remarkable address was an
abnegation of the whole policy of Mr. O'Connell's career. It proved, by
a mass of authentic evidence, ranging over a long term of years, that
Irish outrage was the consequence of physical misery, and that the
social evils of that country, could not be successfully encountered by
political remedies. To complete the picture, it concluded with a
panegyric of Ulster and a patriotic quotation from Lord Clare."[91]
That the rich and splendid voice, which had so often sounded in the ears
of his countrymen, like the varied and touching music of their native
land, and led them where he would, had lost its finest tones, was true
enough; but it had not so utterly failed as Mr. D'Israeli asserts.
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