21 SEPTEMBER 1844, Page 10

The " National banquet" was given to O'Connell, in Dublin

Music- Ball, on Thprsday. Seven or eight hundred persons were present, in- cluding many ladies in the galleries. Mr. Smith O'Brien was in the chair. Lord Ffrench was there, with two Repeal Prelates. The Morn- ing Chronicle, however, publishes thirty-two letters of excuse from leading Repealers or sympathizers. Estimating political importance by the cold meats and bad wines, one writer pronounces it " a second or third-rate concern." Certain it is, that Mr. O'Connell's great speech was bare of novelty or interest,