Public opinion was at the time violent but brilliantly directed. Under Mr. Canning the Irish Catholics were careful not to obtrude their claims, as they feared to embarrass, by public alarm, the good will of the government. When they saw the power fall into the hands of the Tories, they at once engaged passionately in the contest: the Catholic associations commenced their popular assemblies, their harangues, their addresses, their pamphlets, their subscriptions, all their ardent and adroit work, as much to excite and to discipline the people in England as to encourage and recruit their partisans in Ireland. O'Connell and Moore, two men of very unequal powers, but both powerful at this time, by diverse means, marched at the head of this crusade for the emancipation of their faith and race. O'Connell, that robust and audacious wrestler, that inventive and strategic legislator, indefatigable in his eloquence, brilliant or vulgar, captivating or diverting, devoted with unscrupulous passion to the cause which made at the same time his glory and his fortune; Moore, patriotic and worldly poet, pathetic and satirical, as popular in the salons of London as O'Connell in the meetings of Ireland; singing his melodies while O'Connell breathed forth his invectives, both constant in their efforts, rallying to the service of the same cause the mass of the people and the elegant world, the impetuous passions and the elevated thoughts, the ambition of men, and the sympathy of women, the Celtic peasants and the Saxon nobles, the Catholic priests and the philosophic Whigs. The grandeur of the purpose responded to the ardor of the effort. O'Connell was elected from the county of Clare, to that House of Commons from which he was excluded by law. Ireland was completely under his control; sometimes precipitating itself to the last limits of legal order, then again docile and prudent. In England, among the different classes of the laity, as well as in the bosom of the Anglican Church, public sentiment favorable to the Catholic Church gained ground day by day. {459} As obstinate in its alarms, as sincere in its faith, Protestant Toryism struggled against the tide, but that struggle became more and more feeble; the Orange societies of Ireland weakly opposed the meetings of the Catholic associations, and in the House of Lords, Lord Eldon himself lost confidence: "We will combat," said he, "but we will be in a miserable minority. That which is most disastrous is that many bishops will be against us."