His genius found its play in a complete and overwhelming attack of any project: the maxim, μηδὲν ἄγαν, was never its game. As a young man, he forged early to the front of his profession; as he gained freely, so he was always in debt; and when, as one of the leading advocates of Ireland, the ambition of O’Connell looked farther and saw, as one must fancy, a higher art in agitation, he abandoned the certain prosperities of a legal career and left at his death barely £1000. He was a man of emotions, then, subject to moods and aberrations; best at _ex tempore_ effort; poorly read--singular to state--even in Irish history; and if a great orator, surely an orator with something of the actor there. His name will be cherished among his people as one in whom their wrongs found an eloquent and imperative voice; the world will be disposed to regard him as a fine example of the partly ineffectual, partly admirable type Reformer, whose particular programme, as yet but half realized, was, in Mr. Lecky’s words,[A] “to open in Ireland a new era, with a separate and independent Parliament and perfect religious equality.” [A] “Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,” N. Y., 1872, p. 226. DANIEL O’CONNELL. IN DEFENCE OF JOHN MAGEE: COURT OF KING’S BENCH, DUBLIN, JULY 27, 1813. The speeches delivered at Dublin in the summer of 1813 by O’Connell as counsel for John Magee, then on trial for libel, have received the _exequatur_ of Mr. Lecky, who considers them as the “Liberator’s” greatest efforts at the Bar. Magee was the proprietor of the _Evening Post_ newspaper, in which, on the occasion of the Duke of Richmond’s departure from Ireland, there had appeared comments on his conduct as Lord Lieutenant in which the Government, probably with some eagerness, had discovered a libellous tendency. For the _Evening Post_ was notably pro-Catholic; what was more, its circulation and influence were large; and the Government from its own standpoint had good reasons either to repress the sheet or to change its political complexion. Hence the somewhat tenuous charge of libel laid against Magee. The specimen here presented of O’Connell’s eloquence was, after the trial, piously published by Magee, and later included in that badly printed volume, “Select Speeches of O’Connell,” edited by his son, and published by J. Duffy, Dublin, 1865. With some difficulty a probable text has been constructed out of the impressions of worn types and obvious misprints then given to the world.