At the open-air meetings, the speeches of O’Connell were characterised by his most effective style of popular oratory. The unapproachable excellence of Ireland, the unexampled baseness and cruelty of England, were the themes on which he principally dwelt. All the miseries of his native land would be removed as soon as an Irish Parliament was once more sitting on College Green. That event would be brought about in not more than a year; and then the golden age of Ireland would begin. A good many picturesque but rather theatrical accessories were introduced on these occasions. Banners, showy decorations, and exciting music, accompanied the march of the peasantry, and at an unusually large meeting on the hill of Tara--a spot where the ancient kings of Ireland used to be elected--O’Connell himself was crowned with a species of semi-regal cap. This was on the 15th of August: on the 8th of October, an immense meeting was to be held at Clontarf, three miles from Dublin. But the Government now thought that matters were proceeding to a dangerous length. They had already passed an Arms Act for Ireland, by which great restrictions were laid on the possession of deadly weapons; they had concentrated large bodies of troops in the disaffected country; and, by a proclamation issued on the 7th of October, they forbade the contemplated assemblage. It was certainly a wise resolution. In spite of his repeated declarations that nothing was to be done of an illegal nature, O’Connell had of late used several expressions well calculated to stir up an excitable people like the Irish to rebellion and civil war. There was unquestionably no slight danger of an outbreak, and it was high time for the “base, brutal, and bloody Saxon” to show that his patience had a limit.