John Mitehell, who was, we suspect, very improperly dragged over
here by the importunities of his friends, only to kill himse/f hi an utterly fruitless Parliamentary contest for which his broken constitution was wholly unfitted, died at Dromalane, near Newry,_ this day week, having survived his second election for Tipperary but a few days. In him there was a curious mixture of force and violence. His English was so strong, simple, and masculine, that if he had but written good sense, he would have had a fair title to the designation of an Irish Cobbett, and a Cobbett, too, of more refined and cultivated tastes than the real- Cobbett. He was the son of a Unitarian minister, and it may have been per- haps in some measure the mild neutrality of his original creed which increased his craving for the enjoyment of strong political passions. No man who was so fierce to public antagonists was ever more passionately loved by his private friends, and it seems not improbable that his death may seriously injure the health of another elect of Irish constituencies, his brother-in-law, Mr. John Martin. 3Ir. Mitchell had a vein that was not entirely healthy in his mental constitution, one which made him rejoice in the act of pressing his heel on somebody,—now it was on criminals and convicts, now on negroes, now on Yankees, now, again, on English- men. Yet he had great qualities, which might have been very beneficent instead of maleficent, as we fear they were, if there had but been a safety-valve in him, by which his passions might have harmlessly exhaled, leaving his energy and simplicity to bear their perfect fruit.
Previous page
