BOOKS.

JOHN O'CONNELL'S RECOLLECTIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF A PARLIAMENTARY CAREER.* THE " recollections" of a Member of Parliament, who through his fa- mily position was deeply involved in political affairs and public agitation during the sixteen years from 1833 to 1848, would seem to promise a good deal of amusement and information, if the writer should not be able to reach instruction. The meeting of the first Reformed Parliament-- the instantaneous manner in which the first Reform Ministry contrived to disappoint the nation and shake the confidence of their friends—the ra- pidity with which they disorganized their forces and themselves—the first break-up by the withdrawal of Stanley and Graham, the second by the retirement of Grey—the despicable state to which they were reduced when William the Fourth suddenly sent them adrift—the rally of the Liberal party that immediately followed the Royal trick—the steady struggle to oust Peel, on the faith of Whig pledges which never were ful- filled—and the faithlessness, folly, and insolent incapacity which rendered Liberalism a byword for trickery and deceit, and drove the ramp of the Reform Ministry from office—seem to promise reminiscences of a curiously interesting kind to those who remember the fever of hope, fear, and ex- citement that prevailed during that time of political stir and .conflict. The years that have passed since that epoch are not many; but the fluc- tuations of opinion, and the rapid changes that have taken place in the world, render the decade 1830-1840 almost historical and belonging to another age. Even the Repeal delusion, which arose as the power and prospects of Whiggery declined, is (in its apparent power and threaten- ing aspect) of the bygone past. And if these things, and matters of a more contemporary character, had even less inherent interest than they have, they and the actors engaged in them certainly possess attraction enough to form a series of interesting recollections.

Mr. John O'Connell's book by no means equals his subject. Part of this deficiency is native : though not devoid of fluency and a common- place kind of literary ability, the writer wants acumen, judgment, and that sense of justice which enables one to perceive the truth when it makes against oneself. This deficiency is more especially the case in large questions; it is not so visible in personal sketches, which make a greater approach to fairness and accuracy. The author's mind is sadly de- ficient in closeness : even when just in his view he is diffuse and wordy. The nature of the subject, however, would have borne all this, had Mr. John O'Connell stuck to it : but his book is less a reminiscence of what he saw, heard, and did in Parliament, than a disquisition on a variety of topics that turn np, with tedious accounts of his father's "agitating" doings as far back as Catholic Emancipation. When he comes, which of course he quickly does in the narrative of his first session, to the Aboli- tion Act, instead of an account of the feelings and bearing of the House of Commons, with personal sketches of the speakers, he treats his readers to a poor and stale discussion of the general question of Slavery and com- pensation. When the House was burnt down, he gives St. Stephen's and its site a passing hygienic and historic notice ; besides continual re- marks of a personal or family kind, he tells a story of a rough pas- sage to Calais, without any other point than that the Bedchamber intrigue replaced the Whig Ministry while the steamer was at anchor behind the sands of Margate, and when he.announces the news to a traveller on the road to Paris of their being out, he heard (no doubt delightedly) that they were in again. The besetting sin of the volumes, however, is O'Connell pere and the Repeal. When these recollections furnish the reader with personal sketches of the individual, though neither very striking nor very new, they are passable ; but accounts of monster meetings, of which we were sickened at the time—extracts from Repeal oratory, and from the Attorney-General's speech on the trial of the conspirators, with diatribes against the traitors who " broke the heart" of O'Connell and ruined Ire- land—are tedious and de trop. Had these last, indeed, been so specific as to let out anything, so that we might have got behind the scenes, a small cariosity would have been excited : but there is nothing of the kind, not even names. It is vague declamation—beating the air, with boasts of what might have been, that sound strange with facts staring us in the face. This is a sample. "From the occurrence of this debate [the Repeal talk in the Dublin Corpora- tion] may, indeed, be dated the commencement of the great popular movement of the year 1843. It operated like the connecting of the wires in a voltaic battery; all parts of the country seeming to receive the fiery impulse at the same moment. Indifference, apathy, and suspicion, and all that had hitherto appeared to oppose a sullen impenetrable barrier to the advance and spread of agitation, were flung to the winds; and nearly the whole of Ireland displayed for the time an unpre- cedented and earnest unity of sentiment and of action. Alas! how changed are matters now.

"Tie long to tell and sad to trace

• t lath step from splendour to disgrace. Enough: no foreign foe could quell Our souls till from ourselves we fell! Yes ! our divisions paved the way To villain bonds and despot sway.'

"There is much reason in rhyme sometimes; and never were there more rea- son and applicability than in those lines of Byron, as applied to the unhappy state of things in Ireland. " Never were hopes brighter, never more fair-seeming, than were ours during several months of that to us eventful year 1843. It is vain now to calculate what might have been, under other circumstances than those of the paltry ono- terworking and underworking of some of those who loudest urged their claims to popular confidence, the result of the great movement of that year. This much may be said with confidence, that had not advantages been given to the enemy by the intrusive indiscretions, to use the mildest phrase, of parties to when it is now worse than useless more particularly to refer, it was quite impossale that such a demonstration of the will of a united people, so calm, so grand, so majestic in its peacefulness even more than in its vastness and almost univer- sality, could have failed of making impression on the councils of the empire, and compelling attention to the demands of the Irish nation."

* Recollections and Experiences during a Parliamentary Career, from 1833 to 1848. By John O'Connell, Esq., M.P. In two volumes. Published by Bentley.

The book begins with O'Connell leading his "household brigade," three sons and two sons-in-law, down to the opening of the first Reformed Parliament, on the 5th February 1833. It is not a very striking account of that occasion, but one of the best things in the book.

"In the passages we met and were introduced to Cobbett, who, like some of our- selves, was then for the first time in Parliament, having been just returned for the newly-enfranchised borough of Oldham. Some—at least I may speak for one— of our party felt no little interest at seeing and speaking to that singular man, whom hitherto we had only known by his powerful bat coarse and unscrupulous writings. He was babited, as I recollect, in a kind of pepper-and-salt-coloured garb, in fashion something between that of a Quaker and of pa comfortable farmer; and wore rather a broad-brimmed white hat, a little on one side, and thrown back, so as to give the fullest view of his shrewd though bluff countenance, and his keen, cola-looking eye. "We also fell in with Thomas Attwood, of Birmingham, the Lafayette of the Birmingham movement party; quite as respectable and as politically imbecile as his French prototype. With him and two or three more of the English Reform- ers, who had been recently conspicuous in agitation, we had an interchange of congratulations on the actual assemblage of a Reformed Parliament, and of some large anticipations as to further victories; congratulations and anticipations

speedily to be put an end to by disgust and disappointment. *

"As usual at the assembling of a new Parliament, before what the Americana style the calling to order of the meeting: the floor of the House was covered with Members, either exchanging greetings, intelligence, &c., with old Parliament- tarp acquaintances, i nces, or wandering from group to group in quest of such, and in curious examination of the Reform recruits.

"1 could discern that our household brigade' were the objects of rather par- ticular scrutiny and criticism, and in especial were favoured with rather a long quizzing from Lord Stanley's eye-glass,—an ordeal to which a hot spirit of our party manifested a good deal of disrelish, so that he could hardly be restrained from making an active demonstration on the spot. In our turn, such of us as were new to Parliament were not idle, but took ample revenge in commenting upon the strange herd amongst which we found ourselves, and on the discrepancies between our preconceived notions of the more remarkable persons and the reality."

This is a sketch of a man now gone to "the tomb of all the Capulets," towards whom circumstances at one time directed more attention than his own importance would have secured.

"Manners Sutton acted Speaker very well—perhaps a little overacted it; but certainly looked and filled the part well. His chief faults were an imperiousness and hastiness of temper, and a not entire forgetfulness of the partisan in the dis- charge of his duties as arbiter and president of a political assembly; occasionally allowing too much of the intolerant arrogance which his party affected towards the Radicals to peep out, when he had to do with Members belonging to the latter political denomination. "My father used to say, that for the first two years of his Parliamentary life he repeatedly remarked a deliberate neglect of him by the Speaker, when endeavour- ing to catch the latter's eye. But he always added, that during the subsequent years, until Lord Canterbury's removal to the Upper House, matters were entirely changed in this respect, and there almost seemed, as it were, an anxiety to make a kind of reparation.

"Among the various little things which showed his Lordship's fondness for the externals of his dignity while Speaker, was the manner in which he used to keep in submissive attendance, at either side of his chair, the Members who wanted to get his signature to the tickets of admission for strangers. This custom, fruitful in annoyance to Members, and eminently so in disturbance to the business of the House, was done away with two years later, during the abort Speakership of Mr. Abercrombie, the present Lord Dunfermline."

The great subject of the session to the Irish Liberals, and as it turned out to the Ministers also, was the Irish Coercion Bill ; on which Mr. John O'Connell first heard Sir Robert Peel.

"I do not remember at what exact period of the discussions upon that bill Sir Robert Peel addressed the House; but I well remember my anxiety to hear him, and the impression which he then made upon me, and which has not varied during the nineteen sessions that have since elapsed.

"There is an elaborateness and an unmistakeable evidence of art about all Sir Robert Peel's great displays, detracting materially from their effect. The obser- vation struck me as very apt which I once heard from a lady on her first visit to the ' Ventilator,' (the 'Ladies' Gallery' of the old house ) that Sir R. Peel's manner and delivery were those of a clever schoolboy speaking a prize oration,— fluently, stiffly, and grandiloquently.

"After getting accustomed to these peculiarities,—and you require to be accus- tomed to them,—real admiration begins. The thorough knowledge and manage- ment of his audience, playing with the hand of a master upon their passions and prejudices, (for, strange to say, passions and prejudices do prevail even in the Rouse of Commons,) the skill, a little too evident, but yet very superior of its kind, with which he manages, when his purpose requires it, to wrap up a heap of nothings in a cloud of Sue words, while at another moment he expresses in a sen- tence what it would cost an inferior man a whole speech to convey ; the closeness and vigour of his reasoning, however defective the premises may be; his intimate and profound acquaintance with every department, and with the most intricate matters of public business; all these striking qualities command for him the riveted attention of the House, and make even his opponents forget, for the time the artifices, the plausibilities, and the commonplaces, which must ever keep him below the first rank among orators."

Feargus O'Connor is not a favourite with the O'Connell clan, and John tells some queer stories of him, though rather jocose than otherwise.

" Perhaps the queerest election that occurred in the Three Kingdoms was that of Feargus 0 Connor as a Member for the important county of Cork. Without money and without previous influence personal or political, an unknown and not over- wealthy squire of an obscure part of the county set out to attack and overturn the influence and sway of the most powerful and richest landed aristocracy in Ire- land ; and, thanks to his indomitable energy and audacity, and to the ready and ardent patriotism of the people, which only required to be called into action, he succeeded.

" One little incident will be enough to give an idea of his campaign. It was thought advisable by himself and others that his candidateship should not appear to be altogether of his own devising, but that something like an invitation to him, or at least a sanction to his coming forward, should emanate from some portion of the constituency.

"How this was to be brought about was the difficulty. A prophet is said never to be in honour in his own country ; and Feargus had at least so much in common with the prophets. To use an ungainly but expressive word, which seems tho- roughly adopted from the French, his antecedents had brought him as little re- gard and respect with any party, as his subsequent history up to the present mo- ment.

"Done, however, this was; and no matter by what manceavering it was effected, the public announcement of it was creditable enough. Not only an invitation to come forward as a Parliamentary candidate was addressed to Feargus O'Connor, but some thirty or forty of the stout yeomen farmers of the county requested the honour of his gracious company to a public entertainment. " The dinner took place. There was plenty of mutton, plenty of good hot punch, and more than a plenty of speechifying. Feargus outlearguud himself in his acknowledgments to the large and enlightened body of the electors of the county by whom he had the pleasure to see himself surrounded, and who had proved their wisdom and judgment by naming as their future Member so devoted, disin- terested, and talented a gentleman as himself. The orator rattled on—the auditory shouted on (moistening their throats abundantly the while)—the night wore on till long past the witching hour, when all who were capable of motion went off in one fashion or other; and Feargus himself took his departure, fall of glory, to his own domicile—unconscious of the amare aliquid which awaited him there in the shape of a bill for the entire cost of the dinner, and (according to some versions of the story) for the stabling of the farmers' horses, while their owners were enter- taining him!

"In this canvass he was assisted by, and in his tarn rendered back the same assistance to, his cousin O'Neill Daunt, then standing and afterwards elected for the borough of Mallow. Between them both, the plan of taking country and bo- rough aristocrats simultaneously by surprise had been concocted, and carried oat by both with infinite cleverness; but Daunt, although very far superior to O'Connor in information, tastes, habits of life, and general ability, was no match for him in dexterity ; and had a lamentable proof of it on one occasion in particular, when as both stood on the hustings Daunt, to his dismay and horror, had to listen while Feargus delivered, ore rotundo, and greatly to the admiration of the multitude, the very speech that Daunt himself had most carefully prepared for that particular occasion; Feargus having during their journey to the place of meeting most in- dustriously and successfully pumped his unsuspecting companion of his tropes and topics, and, in short, all his treasured eloquence !"

The once celebrated " Lichfield House compact" O'Connell junior stoutly denies. The denial is not worth much, for such things are never put into form or distinctly avowed; but here it is. " The 'Lichfield House' meetings of the early part of the session of 1835 have been a fertile source of misrepresentation and calumnies. An unfortunate and in- considerate phrase of Mr. Shed's, in a speech with reference to them iu the course of one of the great party debates of the session, gave colour and some consistency to the charges.

" It was alleged, that in those meetings a ' compact,' to use the chance phrase of Mr. Sheil, was entered into between the Whig Ministry and my father, to the effect that support of the former in the House should be bartered against patron- age given to the latter out of the House ; and that Repeal should be abandoned if some minor measures of relief were passed for Ireland.

" This calumny served amply and most efficiently the purposes of the Tadpoles end Tapers' of the day. • • •

"It was an utter and unredeemed calumny! No such compact ever was made. No engagement, no stipulation, no barter, no compromise of any kind, species, or description, took place then, or at any time. My father said there publicly .what he had publicly said elsewhere—what he had proclaimed over and over again in Ireland—that he would give the English Legislature a trial, full time to redeem its solemn pledges of the past year' and to show (if it were disposed so to do) to the Irish people, that the benefits which they expected from Repeal could be ob- tained, and should be granted, without any necessity arising for the reconstruction

of an Irish Parliament • * • " This is the true history of what has been improperly by some, nncandidly by others, and most dishonestly by yet a third set of persons, denominated the Lich- field House compact 1

"Stupid affairs enough were those meetings, in the dusty unfurnished drawing- rooms of that dingy-fronted mansion. We at lectures on propriety and modera- tion, and vague assurances, and promises of great things to be done at some panto- post-futurum period; and not a few glimpses of the want of cordial feeling to- wards us of our English associates. International aversion was so thinly disguised, that some of the English Reformers actually proposed, that, in the consultations which the progress and various incidents of the campaign against Peel might ne- cessitate, the Irish Members should deliberate apart, and send up the result a, their deliberations to the quasi Upper House of the English Reformers ; who (to use the proper Parliamentary formula) would send an answer by messengers of their own.'"

The following story of O'Connell's reception by "the first gentleman in Europe" is from the section relating to Catholic Emancipation.

"Up to the month of April 1829, he had forborne, upon good advice, the making of any effort to assert his claim; and he was now recommended to come forward, in the idea that a Parliament which had just distinguished itself by so grand an act of liberality would not consent to 'throw away the mead of its • large honours' for the sake of inflicting a petty personal disqualification. The expectation was by no means idle. There is now little question that he would have been permitted to take his seat but for the personal antipathy and special opposition of George the Fourth. " This personal antipathy. was shown in a ludicrous and on every account in- decent manner, on an occasion which presented itself about this time.

"From the period of George the Fourth's visit to Ireland, in 1820, when the fairest hopes were entertained, and deliberately and specially encouraged from Ministerial quarters, as to concessions to be made to the Catholics, wrongs to be redressed, wants attended to, &c. &c., Mr. O'Connell, disgusted and disheartened at the total breach and disregard of the Royal pledges then understood to be given, had not attended a Royal levee until the bringing forward of the measure of Catholic Emancipation in 1829. "When, after the usual amount of pushing and struggling and squeezing, and inconvenience of all sorts, that is to be undergone on such occasions, he reached the door of the Presence Chamber, and had his name announced, he saw the King's lips moving as he advanced, and for a moment thought the words, what- ever they might be, were addressed to bim; the King looking intently at him while speaking. However, their sound not having reached him, and no farther sign being made, Mr. O'Connell made his bow and backed out, thinking no more of the occurrence for the time.

"But some weeks afterwards, he saw in a Scotch paper a statement, which on making particular and close inquiry he found to be literally true, that the words uttered by the King, as he approached, had been nothing more nor less than the elegant and Christian ejaculation of D— the fellow .