This period of self-government, which might be called "the golden age" of Ireland, lasted nineteen years, when "Grattan's parliament" fell, as so many other good things have fallen, because it became "vain of its own conceit." It is not expedient, it is not wholesome, for the same party to remain in control of affairs too long. Its members become corrupt, extravagant, selfish, intolerant, and indifferent to the public welfare, and Grattan's parliament acquired all of these faults. The great leader--and he was one of the ablest political leaders that ever came upon the theater of public affairs--was unable to control his followers. They became restless, they favored measures that he could not approve, and advocated a radical policy toward the British government that he opposed with all his energy and eloquence. He was soon displaced from leadership by the extremists, who demanded absolute separation from England and encouraged the revolutions of 1798 and 1803. These movements were undoubtedly encouraged by the example of the French Revolution, when the hot heads came into control. Ireland burst into rebellion, which was put down with the utmost severity, and William Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, introduced the act of union which was adopted by the Irish house through bribery, bulldozing, and other disreputable measures. Grattan was very ill, but, leaning on the shoulders of two friends, and dressed in his old volunteer uniform, he entered the Irish house of parliament, now the cash-room of the Bank of Ireland, and made the greatest speech of his life. But he failed to change the destiny of his country. He did not change a vote, and the bond which now binds Ireland to Great Britain, and which the Irish people have been trying to dissolve ever since, was passed against his vehement protests. If his advice had been followed by the Irish parliament, if its members had listened to his pleadings, the disturbances, the distress, the bloodshed of a century would have been spared. William Pitt bought a majority of the votes and paid for them with pensions, official positions, titles of nobility, and other forms of reward. The debate provoked a duel between Grattan and Correy, chancellor of the exchequer. Shots were exchanged and Correy was wounded in the hand. Grattan pronounced the funeral oration of the Irish parliament in the words that are immortal: "I do not give up my country," he said. "I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless there is upon her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beauty-- "'Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there.'"