An event of mighty augury and most trifling results, which distinguished the year 1845, must not be passed unmentioned. This was the celebrated levee, held in the Round Room of the Rotunda, on the 30th of May, the anniversary of the imprisonment. It was referred to a sub-committee, on which Mr. Davis and Sir Colman O'Loghlen were principals, to devise the most appropriate celebration for that important day. They determined on a public levee, to which were summoned whatever there was of respectability, authority, genius and worth in the island, which recognised the wisdom, justice and holiness of the struggle for Nationhood. All the corporations, every delegation which derived public authority from the popular voice, besides citizens of the unincorporated towns, answered the summons with alacrity. That day witnessed a scene the most extraordinary, imposing and formidable of the kind in modern annals. The Round Room was thronged to excess, but preconcerted arrangements had provided for the convenience of its favoured visitors, while the public streets, abandoned to chance, presented an immovable mass of human beings, swaying to and fro, but governed by a single and omnipotent impulse, which steeled them to the pressure and broil as if they felt themselves in presence of a speedy deliverance and free destiny. [Illustration: Richard O'Gorman, Jun. (1848)] [Illustration: Patrick O'Donohoe (1848)] The preparations engaged the vigilant activity of a large committee for two entire days and nights. Yet these preparations bore an infinite disproportion to the display of wealth of mind, of energy of thought, and national pomp, which ushered in the glorious morning. Those who scoffed at the project when it was first announced came to mock the scene but went away admiring. The spirit of the hour infused itself into the public heart, which appeared to throb but to one impulse and one aim: at all events no one was, no one could be, found obdurate enough to question the significance or importance of the proceeding. Mr. O'Connell's fellow-prisoners shared his state and the homage which was paid to him. But in the outward crowd no one dissociated him personally from the minutest detail of the day's proceedings, or admitted for a moment that any other human being partook of its glory, or directed its end. High above the multitude they saw him receive the nation's homage, which seemed but the expression of the liberty he had already achieved. How he felt the influence of the scene there is no record to tell. His demeanour while exercising the prerogatives of his position was such as became a man conscious that he occupied a throne loftier than ever yet was decked by a kingly crown. But when his official functions were discharged, he addressed the impassioned throng in language too tame for the most ordinary occasion.