25 FEBRUARY 1871, Page 2

But the wonder of the night was Sir P. O'Brien's

speech,—a,. speech which outdid all the Celtic achievements of our generation. Very little of it is preserved in the reports, chiefly because the ingenuity even of the ablest reporters could not have extracted ten grammatical propositions out of it. A few, however, are pre- served. He praised our Navy. " United Europe, even if connected' with America, would be unable to meet on favourable terms the British Fleet in arms." But our Army was despicable. " Why should we be scoffed at in the streets of New York, and trampled: on in the streets of Vienna ?"—this apparently to prove that the Duke of Cambridge should no longer be Commander-in-Chief.. The whole speech, even those parts of it quite unconnected by copulas, or marked by predications, was delivered with a rhetorical fervour and a happy brogue of satisfied vanity that you would have thought impossible to one so utterly lost in the toils of syntax ! The House, of course, was in its happiest mood.