“'Of course it was; I fainted before he got to his carriage. He twice
rose to go away, but on each occasion I had something to say that
induced him to sit down again. It was the whole case of Ireland we
reviewed,--that is, I did. I deployed the six millions before him,
and he took the salute. Yes, sir, education, religious animosities,
land-tenure, drainage, emigration, secret societies, the rebel priest
and the intolerant parson, even nationality and mendicant insolence, all
marched past, and he took the salute! “And now, my Lord,” said I, “it is
the man who tells you these things, who has the courage to tell and the
ability to display them, and it is this man for whose retirement your
Ex-lency is so eager, that you have actually deigned to make him a
visit, that he may carry away into the next world, perhaps, a pleasing
memory of this; it is this man, I say, whom you propose to replace--and
by what, my Lord, and by whom? Will a mere lawyer, will any amount of
_nisi prius_ craft or precedent, give you the qualities you need on that
bench, or that you need, sadly need, at this council-board? Go back, my
Lord, and tell your colleagues of the Cabinet that Providence is more
merciful than a Premier, and that the same overruling hand that has
sustained me through this trial will uphold me, I trust, for years to
serve my country, and save it for some time longer from your blundering
legislation.”
“'He stood up, sir, like a prisoner when under sentence; he stood up,
sir, and as he bowed, I waved my adieu to him as though saying, You
have heard me, and you are not to carry away from this place a hope, the
faintest, that any change will come over the determination I have this
day declared.
“'He went away, and I fainted. The exertion was too long sustained,
too much for me. I believe, after all,' added he, with a smile, 'his
Excellency bore it very little better. He told the Archbishop the same
evening that he'd not go through another such morning for “the garter.”
Men in his station hear so little of truth that it revolts them like
coarse diet. They 'd rather abstain altogether till forced by actual
hunger to touch it. When they come to me, however, it is the only fare
they will find before them.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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