detect contradictions in form, seeing that he knows of this, that he justifies this, glories in this, vehemently demands praise for this contradiction, as all discord is harmony not understood, planned in the letter and overruled in the spirit; so may O'Connell say, 'Gentlemen, grubs, reptiles, vermin, trouble not yourselves to find out contradictions or discords in my conduct; vex not your slender faculties by arraying hosts of promises that defeat promises, or principles that destroy principles--you shall not need to labour; I will make you a present of three huge canisters laden and running over with the flattest denials in one breath of that which I affirmed in another. But, like Edmund Burke, I register my conduct by another table and by its final result. On the dial which you see, the hands point thus and thus; but upon a higher and transcendent dial these fingers do but precipitate or retard one gigantic hand, pointing always and monotonously to the unity of a perfect selfishness. The everlasting tacking in my course gives me often the air of retrograding and losing; but, in fact, these retrogressions are momentary, these losings of my object are no more than seeming, are still but the same stealthy creeping up under cover of frequent compliances with the breeze that happens to thwart me, towards the one eternal pole of my own self-interest; that is the pole-star which only never sets, and I flatter myself that amidst vast apparent wanderings or multiplied divergences there will be detected by the eye of the philosopher a consistency in family objects which is absolute, a divine unity of selfishness.' This we do not question. But to will is not to do; and Mr. O'Connell, with a true loyalty to his one object of private aims, has _not_ maintained the consistency of his policy. All men know that he has adventured within the limits of conspiracy; that could not be for his benefit. He has touched even the dark penumbra of treason; that could not but risk the sum of his other strivings. But he who has failed for himself in a strife so absolute, for that only must be distrusted by his countrymen. FOOTNOTES: [19] 'To horsewhip,' etc. Let it not be said that this is any slander of ours; would that we could pronounce it a slander! But those who (like ourselves) have visited Ireland extensively know that the parish priest uses a horsewhip, in many circumstances, as his professional _insigne_. [20] Look at Lord Waterford's case, in the very month of November, 1843. Is there a county in all England that would have tamely witnessed his expulsion from amongst them by fire, and by sword and by poison?