I cannot repress my astonishment, how Mr. Attorney-General could have _preserved_ this dialect in its native purity; he has been now for nearly thirty years in the class of polished society; he has, for some years, mixed amongst the highest orders in the state; he has had the honor to belong for thirty years to the first profession in the world--to the only profession, with the single exception, perhaps, of the military, to which a high-minded gentleman could condescend to belong--the Irish Bar. To that Bar, at which he has seen and heard a Burgh and a Duquery; at which he must have listened to a Burston, a Ponsonby, and a Curran; to a Bar which still contains a Plunket, a Ball, and, despite of politics, I will add, a Bushe. With this galaxy of glory flinging their light around him, how can he alone have remained in darkness? How has it happened, that the twilight murkiness of his soul, has not been illumined with a single ray shot from their lustre? Devoid of taste and of genius, how can he have had memory enough to preserve this original vulgarity? He is, indeed, an object of compassion, and, from my inmost soul, I bestow on him my forgiveness, and my bounteous pity.[2] But not for him alone should compassion be felt. Recollect, that upon his advice--that with him, as the prime mover and instigator of those rash, and silly, and irritating measures of the last five years which have afflicted and distracted this long-suffering country, have originated--with him they have all originated. Is there not then compassion due to the millions whose destinies are made to depend upon his counsel? Is there no pity to those who, like me, must know that the liberties of the tenderest pledges of their affections, and of that which is dearer still, of their country, depend on this man’s advice? Yet, let not pity for us be unmixed; he has afforded the consolation of hope; his harangue has been heard; it will be reported--I trust faithfully reported; and if it be but read in England, we may venture to hope that there may remain just so much good sense in England as to induce the conviction of the folly and the danger of conducting the government of a brave and long-enduring people by the counsels of so tasteless and talentless an adviser. See what an imitative animal man is! The sound of ruffian--ruffian--ruffian, had scarcely died on the Attorney-General’s lips, when you find the word honored with all the permanency of print, in one of his pensioned and well-paid, but ill-read, newspapers. Here is the first line in the _Dublin Journal_ of this day:--“The ruffian who writes for the _Freeman’s Journal_.” Here is an apt scholar--he profits well of the Attorney-General’s tuition. The pupil is worthy of the master--the master is just suited to the pupil.