14 SEPTEMBER 1867, Page 19

THE LIFE AND SPEECHES OF LORD PLUNKET.*

[FIRST NOTICE.] THE history of Ireland has yet to be written, not what may be called the prehistoric history of that unhappy land, but the I' The Ltfe, Letters, and Speech's of Lord Piunket. By his Grandson, the Hon. David Plunket. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. tag. political history of the last two centuries. The materials for such a history accumulate year by year. Public records are being carefully arranged, indexed, and rendered easy of access. Biogra- phies are being multiplied, " correspondences," speeches, and memoirs are edited. We must hope for the time to come when some competent historian will devote himself to the task, one who, diving into the records of Irish facts without stirring up the mud of Irish grievances and studying the lives of " Irishmen and men of genius " regardless of whether " the curse of Swift " be on them or not, will give us what we sorely lack, a philosophical narrative that will enable us to judge how Ireland became what Ireland is, instead of speculating upon what Ireland wants. Meanwhile, we must be thankful for every addition to the heap of materials, and in the Life and Speeches of Lord Plunket we have a valuable con- tribution. Here is the life of " an Irishman and a man of genius who used his talents for his country's good," but upon whom assuredly no " curse of Swift" ever lighted.

William ConynghamPlunket, the son of a Presbyterian clergy- man of some local eminence, was born at Enniskillen in 1764. His father, who died when the lad was but fourteen years of age, left a widow and several children in somewhat straitened circumstances. William was sent to a Dublin day-school, where it does not appear that his career was marked by much promise of future distinction. He is described by one who then knew him as a " clever, hard- headed boy, very attentive to his books and very negligent of his person." At fifteen he became a student at the University of Dublin, where he speedily distinguished himself.

In his third year he obtained a 'scholarship on very high marks, and about the same time joined the College Historical Society. Plunket's after life was largely influenced by tho experience and successes he gained and by the friendships he formed whilst a member of this famous debating club, which contains upon its muster-rolls almost every name that for a century has become illustrious in the learned pro- fessions or in the literature of Ireland.

This society, which corresponds in some respect with the " Union" at Oxford and Cambridge, the members of each being reciprocally honorary members of the others, was founded in 1747 by Edmund Burke, and still exists in full vigour within the walls of Trinity College, Dublin. Between the Historical Society and the Irish House of Commons there existed in the latter part of the last century a close relation. Many Irish representatives availed themselves of membership of the society for the purpose of practice in debate ; whilst in the gallery of the House a place was specially reserved for University students.

In 1782, when Plunket was admitted into the Society many causes combined to make its meetings peculiarly brilliant and its prizes pecu- liarly popular. In that year the patriotic party in Ireland, with whom nearly all the youth of the University sympathized, had achieved their short-lived triumph. From their places in the House of Commons the members of the Historical Society listened night after night to the eloquence and shared the enthusiasm with which Henry Grattan and his associates stirred the Irish people to assert their independent nationality. They saw an army of nearly 90,000 volunteers assemble and line the streets of Dublin through which the patriot members walked to their regenerated assembly; and whilst every Irishman of ardent imagination regarded these events as the beginning of a meridian age of indepen- dence and prosperity, none foresaw the future of humiliation and die- aster which closed the history of the last century in Ireland.

Plunket's career in the Historical Society was successful. " In his second year of membership he was twice elected president, opened the following session with an address from the chair, and obtained successively the medals for oratory, history, and composition." There was no lack of genius in the brilliant little band of com- panions by whom Plunket was surrounded in his college days. Charles Kendal Bushe (afterwards Lord Chief Justice), of whOm Lord Brougham has said that " his merits as a speaker were of the highest description, and that his power of narrative has not, perhaps, been equalled." Magee (afterwards Archbishop of Dub- lin), Theobald Wolf Tone, and Thomas Addis Emmett were among his contemporaries and intimate friends.

Choosing the Bar as his future profession, Plunket entered at Lincoln's Inn in 1784, having previously kept terms in Ireland. For a year and a half he resided in or near London.

During these cheerless days of struggle, privation, and study . . he was in the painful position of one who, whilst the pensioner upon the bounty of his equals, could look forward to bat a distant and uncertain prospect of repaying their generosity.

Some letters written by Plunket at this time to old college friends abound with playful humour. We cannot forbear giving an extract or two :—

July 23, 1785.

DEAR ICtiox,—As soon as we were sufficiently composed after your departure from London, which was not until we had traced you in our mind's eye from stage to stage, had landed you in safety in Paris, and even got you through the exordium of your oration to the Ambassador, we began to prepare for quitting the melancholy scene, and after spend-

ing above a week in resolving what we should do, and almost another in not doing what we had resolved on, we settled on the Plains of Ham Common, from whence I now write to you. The situation is a very tempting one, and might lead a man of an enterprising temper and reduced circumstances into some desperate exertion ; if my courage continues as high and my purse as low during the summer as I feel them at present I must begin to study a course of Crown law, in order to preserve my honesty by raising some wholesome apprehensions for my safety I am at present falling into a state very little superior to that of the ungifted vulgar, feeding on the rust of Coke's

Reports and talking metaphysics with the curate I really feel strong forebodings that I shall at last degenerate into a man of down- right common sense. You will probably observe no one could draw such an inference from this epistle, but to know how to descend occa- sionally as time, and place, and person require it, is a quality of which

no man of sense should be destitute None of our plans of eloquence have been carried into execution. Neither C— nor N— seem inclined to it, and I have no appetite for an argument with myself. I once or twice, indeed, assailed the trees in Richmond Park, and though I did not expect the success of Orpheus (be was an ancient orator who made the trees dance after him) was so much dis- appointed in my solitary exertions that I very soon desisted ; a man, you know, can take no pleasure in throwing out elegant personalities against himself, and, besides, to own the truth to you in confidence, I always found my first arguments so unanswerable that I never could produce a reply. My only resource is to practise shooting at a mark, and if I succeed in that and cultivate whist assiduously during the ensuing winter, I hope, notwithstanding my failures in oratory, to bo

tolerably qualified for the circuit After a laborious examina- tion of the natives of this part of the country, I have been able to collect little else towards a sketch of their natural history than that the highest orders of people seem to have a very unaccountable dread of strangers, however elegant their appearance ; and that the lower classes, such as butchers, bakers, dm., are strongly attached to ready money. You know me, my manners, my person, dress, and so forth, and yet I assure you not a gentleman or even lady in the neighbourhood has invited me to their house, or so much as sainted me when they met me.

Having completed his terms and course of study in London, Plunket returned to Dublin, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession. His University fame had not been forgotten, and was now his passport to success. A University reputation means a different thing in England and in Ireland. In Dublin the University is one of the chief institutions in a capital which is, or was in Plunket's time, just large enough to make a public reputation, and small enough for everybody to know everybody else. The fellows, professors, and distinguished students of. Trinity College are (in Dublin) public characters. To become " a fellow" is to earn a life-long renown (in Dublin) for un- fathomable learning. The meetings of the Historical Society held weekly in the dining-hall of Trinity College are announced, together with the names of the speakers, in the daily newspapers, and are largely attended by the outside public. Students who display eloquence or skill in debate leave the University for the Bar or the Bhurch with the germ of a reputation already formed. It was so in Plunket's case. His progress in his profession was from the first rapid and steady, chiefly as a consequence of his University career. For eleven years after his call to the Bar he devoted himself exclusively to his profession,

—keeping aloof from the busy politics which then distracted every grade of Irish society. On the one hand, he was not connected by family ties with any of the great houses whose members formed the ruling class in Ireland, and all his feelings and opinions were opposed to their narrow and corrupt system of government, while, on the other hand, he was utterly hostile to the extreme section of the Liberal party, which was then hurrying the country into rebellion.

In the beginning of the eventful year 1798 Plunket at last entered the Irish House of Commons, through the influence—

almost indeed as the nominee—of the Earl of Charlemont, un- fettered, however, by any obligation or pledge, although concur- ring with his patron on every point save one :-

What that one point was there can now be no doubt. Lord Charlemont, although in every other respect the fearless champion of the liberties of the people as well as of the independence of Ireland, entertained very strong prejudices against grantinglarge•political concessions to the Roman Catholics, and throughout the greater part of his life actively opposed their claims. But in his last years he greatly modified his views on this subject, and on one occasion, in 1799, after a long interview with Plulket, he exclaimed, on meeting his son, " Plunket has prevailed over an old prejudice."

This we must regard as Plunket's first political triumph. On one point, however, they were entirely agreed, namely, that it was their duty to oppose and thwart by every constitutional means the system by which the English Government were preparing the Irish Parliament and people for the Union :-

That measure could be carried only by the assistance of those persons who commanded the votes of the majority of the [Irish] House of Com- mons, and in fact was not carried until every one of them was satisfied in one way or another. The members of this party were therefore called and treated, as if they were the friends of Government. Their notion of ruling Ireland had come to them from evil times, and in it the bitterness of a hatred at once hereditary and religions was added to a feeling of profound distrust in the loyalty of the masses of their

fellow-countrymen. Accordingly, so soon as the organization of United Irishmen began to assume an aspect of physical resistance, the Govern- ment at once adopted the established precedent of making one section of the people the executioners of the law against the rest.

Thus to look on without interference while the one party goaded the other into rebellion became a supposed political necessity of the English Government,—

It was an old-established principle of Government in Ireland, that had come down from the days of Cromwell and of the soldiers of William. To baulk the loyalist of the revenge he indulged would have, been to smite heavily upon his allegiance, for hatred of the Papist was a hereditary principle, as much a part of his nature as attachment to the House of Hanover. The English Government had nearly abandoned the sham of treating the Irish Parliament as an independent legislature. The Treasury benches were filled with placemen and pensioners. All efforts tending to reform of Parliament or concession to the Catholics had been given up as hopeless. Grattan and some of his immediate followers had seceded from an assembly too degraded to appre- ciate their motives, or to be influenced by their example, and what- ever remained of independence in the House, Ministers sought to bring. under their control.

Such was the condition of the Irish Parliament when Plunket took his seat for the first time. Sixteen years had elapsed since as a college lad he listened to the eloquence of Grattan and others. of the patriotic party, as they proclaimed the achievement of Irish independence. All was changed now. The shortlived splendour that had seemed to Grattan the brightness of the dawn proved to be the herald of the sunset. From this time the public life of Plunket begins, henceforward his name is associated with those of the greatest men, and with the most important measures of his time. In a future paper we shall notice some of the great events of Lord Plunket's career, as well as the memorials of his genius. and eloquence, as we find them recorded in the biography before us, which his grandson, in the fullness of affectionate pride, has edited so gracefully and so well