MR. SMITH O'BRIEN.

"THE bath a marvellous fertility of wit; insomuch that he shall, as it were, bring within one passage of his life a counterpart of all manner of burlesques, and excel them all. As the excellent Tom Cooke can touch every instrument in the or- chestra and make it " discourse most eloquent music," so Mr. Smith O'Brien can play upon every variety of the Irish character and be the occasion of wit in each. The history of his expedi- tion to Belfast, as head of the deputation of Irish Confederates, is a pocket volume of such wit. If you see a man laughing now, you will say, " He is either reading Don Quixote or Mr. Smith O'Brien's journey to Belfast." Every chapter in it is a new source of entertainment.

It began with a meeting in the Theatre. The idea of continu- ing to our forth the exalted eloquence of Young Ireland amidst Kentish tire, shootings, and explosions of gunpowder, outshines the striking effect of a tableau at the end of a melodrama. Mr. O'Brien should be painted in the act of addressing the mob, like the hero of the play or Mr. Ducrow amid a halo of fireworks. There is something ludicrous in the very success of his heroic perseverance—it is so cunning a device to tire out a crowd as a preliminary to convincing it I But Mr. O'Brien, like Cornelius the father of Martinus Scriblerus, has "a Lyra of his own con- struction, which he touches with a very unusual sort of har- pegiatura "; and, like Cornelius, he succeeded in affecting the mob very sensibly with his strains patriotic and philanthropic, political and statistical-

" The mob laughed, sung, jumped, danced, and used many oddgestures, [very odd indeed, including fisticuffs and the throwing of wooden bars); all which he judged to be caused by the various strains and modulations. 'Mark,' quoth be in this the power of the Ionian; in that you see the effect of the Aolian: But in a little time they began to grow riotous and throw stones. Cornelius withdrew, but with the greatest air of triumph in the world. ' Brother,' said he,' do you observe, I have mixed unawares too much of the Phrygian; 1 might change it to the Lydian, and soften their riotous tempers. But it is enough.'"

No less ingenious was the profound courtesy with which Mr. O'Brien and his colleagues received the warning of the Magis- trates. " Heavenly father! how he keeps his countenance," that O'Brien, receiving the friendly hint of the Magistrate as a great

affair of state, and insisting on his right to go out and be mobbed. Accordingly, we find him, with countenance unmoved, haran- guing the mob at the Theatre-door, like Dibdin in the dog-kennel singing " Old Towler " to the hounds ; whose amazement alone, or perhaps amusement, prevented them from tearing the eccentric intruder to pieces. Next we find the good zealot vindicating his right to walk about the town, and going to Hercules Street, head- quarters of the hostile and tremendous butchers, ever smiling as imperturbably as Don Quixote when he stood to be run down by the wild bulls, undaunted "though they were fierce as the bulls of Xarama." Imagine the dismay and exasperation of his col- leagues, obliged in mere shame to follow their leader, though perchance not sharing. his self-exalted insensibility to danger, as he pursued the smiling tenour of his way. One was heard to say that he would have turned back, but that he must follow Mr. O'Brien: imagine how that unintoxicated gentleman must have ground his clenched teeth with vexation!

Again, in the Theatre, at this second meeting, we find the

O'Brien's eloquence " welling forth alway " to the accompani- ment of gunpowder and watchmen's rattles. Iteration is a source of the ludicrous, well known to wits. Moliere turns even his stage directions to account; as where his hero, anxious for silence, is interrupted at every line by " Les violons." Goldsmith has an oft-quoted passage, in which a convivial party continues the clatter of tongues and glasses, unbroken by the cry " Will nobody listen to the song ?" unmoved by the touching patience with which the songster begins, a hundred times— "As I was a walking upon the highway"—

Smith O'Brien has a parallel morceau, quite as exquisite in its way. The reader is to imagine a hurricane of voices, in the thick storm of which are to he dimly distinguished the elements of coarse jests, sanguinary threats, gibes, Kentish fire, reproaches, gunpowder, tobacco-smoke—all mixed up in a dark hurtling whirlwind, as hail, rain, and lightning, in the driven storm : in the midst flows Mr. O'Brien's gentlemanly voice, "like that of a hidden brook in the leafy month of June."

Mr. O'Brien—" Was there not a solemn compact entered into with England in 1782 ?—a compact by which the Irish Parliament was constituted? Now, I say, that that solemn compact "—(Uproar and noise of rattles.)

The Mob—" Where's the watchmen now ? "

Mr. O'Brien—"I contend that that is a compact which should never have been broken."

A Voice—" Do honour to the Chairman." (Cheers, and renewed creaking of the rattles.) Mr. O'Brien-.-" That compact, solemnly entered into as it was, was perfi- diously violated." (Renewed rattling of the crakes.) A Voice—" Mr. Skene, how does Mr. Doherty's old trousers fit you?" (Loud laughter, rattling of the crakes, great uproar, and a large explosion of gun- powder, which severely burned a boy.)

Here is another morceau, "a still more exquisite song than the other."

Mr. O'Brien—" Before the Union, the debt of Ireland, funded and unfunded, was—" The Mob—" Oh, don't, now ! there will be no hearing for you till IffeiglY - leaves the stage "—(Here an explosion of gunpowder in the pit.) The Manager of the Theatre rushes in with Indignant remonstrance on the want of respect to his house. A Voice—" Three cheers for Mr. Cunningham." Mr. O'Brien—" At the time of the Union, the amount of the funded and un funded debt—" Voices—" By J-1 if you don't quit, we'll all go home. Just go, and we'll all go out. By the light that shines ! a poor manilas as good aright to be heard as a rich one."

Mr. O'Brien—" Well, my friends, I was saying, the funded and unfunded debt—(Noise of rattles.)

A Voice—" Not a word will we hear till you get those two men of the stage." Mr. O'Brien—" Well, my friends, at the time of the Union, the funded and unfunded debt," &c. (Kentish fire.)