TORY ATTACKS ON O'CONNELL.
FROM the meeting of Parliament to the present hour, no subject has filled so large a space in Tory writings and speeches as the abuse of O'CONNELL. Sir ROBERT PEEL set the example on the . first night of the session; since which time, in Parliament, at public dinners, on the hustings, and in the newspapers, the Tories have done little else than ring the changes on this one theme. In no one instance has Mr. O'CONNELL been the aggressor. He bad not opened his lips in the House of Commons when Sir ROBERT PEEL, with well-drilled malice and elaboration, began the war. That attack provoked no ebullition of violence or illtemper. The Agitator was calm and jocular, cautious and courteous, while his vilifiers railed and spit their venom at him. We are not surprised that the Ascendancy gentlemen in Ireland, and their corrupt allies and patrons in England, are mortified and alarmed. They find that O'CONNELL has become discreet ; has acquired the wisdom to avoid what was offensive to the English Reformers ; that the prejudices against him are rapidly wearing away; and that the vast power he possesses, and which has hitherto, except at brief and fitful intervals, been directed against every Administration, is now exerted honestly and strenuously in behalf of the Ministry reconstructed by Lord MELBOURNE. The Tories have discernment enough to see that in time past °VossImes wayward violence has been the drawback upon his influence: it is therefore their policy to irritate and goad him on to indiscretion. For this purpose, they have attacked him unceasingly in Parliament, and commissioned their newspaper organs to pursue the same course. Vigorously have these directions been executed : the Times, the Standard, and the Post, have been at the work, morning and evening, with scaicely a day's zest, for months past. Men who could write with decency and Itemper on other topics absolutely raved in vituperation of O'CowNELL. Never had a public man such an excuse for intemperate. language and violent denunciation of his enemies. But Mr. O'CONNELL saw the drift of the Tories, and steadily pursued his course, till PEEL was expelled and STANLEY'S insignificance stood' confessed.
It was not to be expected, however, that the parties who had. ostentatiously put themselves forward as his assailants would always escape unhurt from the arena. The lion laid his paw upon one or two of them, who will carry the marks it left to their dying-day. We say nothing of the foolhardy Peer, designated " half-idiot,. half maniac," as he seems to have quailed in the contest ; but the other Lord would not allow the public to forget the galling epithet which O'CONNELL has fixed upon him. Lord ALVANLEY should have been more prudent than to play with edge-tools, seeing that he is so thin-skinned. He might have attacked the Minister, from whose party he had ratted, without going out of his way to insinuate a charge of political profligacy against the absent Commoner. He might have put his question to Lotd MELBOURNE in a single and unembellished sentence. But he chose to connect it with an elaborate attack on O'CONNELL; and he now smarts under the consequences. O'CONNELL had never assailed Lord ALVANLEY; Who had no particular call to signalize himself in the war carried on against the chosen champion of the Irish millions. His speech was a gratuitous provocation ; and we are not sorry that it callel down O'CosiNzsis chastisement. Let others take warning by the fate of Lord ALVANLEY, and avoid a collision in which the odds will be so largely against them.
It would be only fair in those who profess to be indignant at the revenge which O'CONNELL took upon his noble assailant, to recollect the circumstances under which the offensive epithets were applied. Colonel SIBTHORPE had just been signalizing himself in his usual style. This gave the immediate provocation, and also the opportunity of retort ; and it was natural that O'CONNELL should clothe his retort in language somewhat corresponding with that of the previous speaker, and the tone of the debate at the moment. This, however, he did in a way so Parliamentary, that the most rigid disciplinarian in the House would have found it difficult to prove him to be out of order. Not so Lord ALVANLEY: he could not more in the affair without committing one of the most heinous breaches of the privileges of the Commons,— for which, if the House values its privileges one rush, it will call the noble violator of them to account.
Lord ALVANLEY had certainly no reason to expect that Mr. O'CONNELL would accept his challenge; but lie was precipitate in taking his next step, which was an attempt to procure Mr. O'CONNELL'S expulsion from Brookes's Club. He might have decorously waited a little at any rate before he inlisted the political prejudices of his brother clubbists against his absent antagonist. This proceeding suggests the suspicion that Lord ALVANLEY lent himself to his Tory associates, whose aim it is to separate O'CoissrEtt from the Whigs. Some of the names to his requisition are those of mortified Trimmers as well as bitter Tories. We never had a very exalted opinion of Lord STANLEY'S magnanimity; yet we should have thought that he would have been ashamed to take revenge for political discomfitures by joining in this paltry combination against his formidable foe. As for Sir JAMES GRAHAM, nobody can be surprised to see his name where it is; but the electors of Finsbury ought to ascertain from Mr. THOMAS DUNCOMBE his reasons for being a party to this Tory plot. It is gratifying to think that Lord AtvAsrtnit and his friends have only shown their teeth without being able to bite. TheManagers at Brookes's saw the affair in its true light—that of a political intrigue. Being lookers on, not parties in the strife, they must also have perceived that even though politics were not mixed up in the affair, Lord ALVANLEY'S conduct had not been such as to entitle him to the interference of the Club in his behalf against a brother member.
Lord ALVANLEY must be heart-sick of this squabble. He certainly has been the loser. He has suffered from the rough hand of O'CONNELL ; been denied the redress he sought at Brookes's; and been dragged into a duel with MORGAN Otostssett, not because he had any quarrel with MORGAN, but &cause he did not choose to be thought afraid of fighting him. Throughout, therefore, his Lordship has failed to obtain satisfaction.
Another assailant of the Agitator has fared no better.. Mr. BENJAMIN DISRAELI chose to commence a war of abuse with the greatest master of abuse; and then, finding himself worsted, pretends that he is an injured person. He reminds us of a puppy yelping under the pain of a kick from some strong-limbed horse, at whose heels be had been snapping and snarling for miles. He has only received his deserts. Assuredly we approve not of the coarse vituperative language in which OtoansEm. sometimes Indulges: our protests against this practice, on the score of policy, as well as taste, stand recorded : but it is too much to expect that any man in possession of a powerful weapon should suffer to all kinds of assaults and not use it in self-defence. This DISRAELI too, with matchless effrontery, accuses O'CONNELL of injustice in assuming the correctness of a newspaper report of his Taunton, speech, while he founds a long letter of vituperation of 0 CorrNELL on the faith of a newspaper report of O'CONNELL's Dublin. speech! It is difficult to believe that the man can be in his right senses. IYI SB AELI confesses that he—he !—endeavoured to makea tool of O'CONNELL, and obtained his assistance under pretence of being a Radical, while all the time he had made up his mind to turn Tory again as soon as it answered his purpose! Was there ever such an unblushing avowal of political profligacy ? But Mr. DISRAF.LI'S conduct has been consistently absurd to the end. Because MORGAN O'CONNELL had called Lord ALVANLEY to account for endeavouring to procure his father's expulsion from BROOKES'S,—because the son claimed satisfaction 011 behalf of the father,—therefore Mr. D'Isitaoot supposes that be was bound to give him satisfaction ' • as if he bad the same claim upon a son of Mr. O'CONNELL that Air. O'CONNELL himself has! Finding that Mr. MORGAN O'CONNELL Will not indulge him, this pugnacious gentleman declares that he intended. to insult Mr. 0-CoNsroso, and "fervently prays" that sonic member of that euntleman's family will "attempt to avenge the inextinguishable hut red with which he shall pursue his existence." And yet Mr. inseam.' conceives himself to be possessed of an astonishing faculty for statesmanship, and talks of contending with the most powerful orator and versatile politician of the day on the Sloes of the House of Commons. Impudence and conceit can certainly go no further than this.
We hope that the Liberals will derive benefit, as well as entertainment, from the onslaught of these. mighty men of valour on the Member for Ireland. It is manifest that the Tory tactic is to create a diversion from the real business of the session by incessant attacks on O'CONNELL. In this they must be disappointed. We have little fear that O'CONNELL will give his enemies any edvanta ge by indiscreet warmth of language. When, however, he is \se:imply assailed, it is not to be expected that he will remain eassive. Let him then deal forth his blows as be is wont, and erush the foe by his unrivalled energies. By uniformly abstaining front aggression, be will preserve his present superiority. We suspect, moreover, that not a few of those who have been in the haloit of taunting him with his " vow," will judge it prudent, after the events of the last few days, to be more circumspect in their language. It would seem that the head of the O'CONNELL family Is the only member of it who has made a vow against fighting.
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