O'Connell soon saw that nothing could be effected in the way of popular demonstrations with such unpromising materials. He therefore adopted another and a wiser course. The courts became his fulcrum, and his eloquence the lever, by which he sought to raise the spirit of the nation. Term after term, year after year, his potent voice was heard ringing through the halls of justice by an astonished bar and delighted and electrified audiences, in the defence of the victims of landlord tyranny or official persecution. His arguments to the bench, and his harangues to the jury, were always full of fire, audacity, and logic, and were seldom, even in the face of unmitigated prejudice, unsuccessful. Pathos and humor, wit and vituperation, strong appeals to the patriotism of his hearers, and stern denunciations of the rashness and folly of some of his compatriots, were with him invariably mingled with sound common sense and unerring legal acumen. So great, indeed, was his success as a pleader in criminal cases, so unlimited his resources in difficult motions, and so general his triumphs over ignorance and bigotry, that, before most of his fellow-practitioners had earned their first fees, he found himself in the enjoyment of a lucrative practice, and, what to him was an object of much greater importance, the spokesman of the degraded majority, and the oracle of his people. His forensic efforts were not confined to judges and juries exclusively. He lost no opportunity of throwing into his legal arguments and speeches some remarks for the benefit of the masses who always throng Irish courts--remarks which never failed to elicit the wildest delight and the most hearty applause.