I suddenly conceived the project of going straight from P—— to his antagonist—to——(H—— will be furious) to Daniel O'Connell. I found him in a small room, sitting at a writing table covered with letters, in his dressing gown. I began with apologies for intruding upon him without any introduction, and pleaded my interest in the history and fate of Ireland, and in his efforts to serve her. When I found he had read my Historical Letters I felt on a better footing. I could not implicitly accept his opinion concerning Elizabeth (which he has borrowed from Lingard) as a good bill. We agreed, however, on the subject of the much disputed and much falsified history of the Catholic conspiracy of 1641.... I am also perfectly of his opinion, that the tenants at will—those serfs—are in a worse condition in Ireland than any where, and that, both with regard to moral and intellectual culture, or physical prosperity, their position is not comparable to that of our thrice happy proprietary peasants. I told him that what he desired for Ireland had long been possessed by the Catholics of Prussia: and that hatred and discontent had expired with persecution.... The English Ministry first made this man a giant: but he is a giant too, by the strength of his own mind and will, in comparison with the Lilliputians cut out of reeds, which we call demagogues; and which are forced to be shut up in the Kopenick hot-house, or put under a Mainz forcing-glass to rear them into any size and consideration.... Thank God, however, the governments of Germany do not prepare the ground for universal discontent. If this prevailed, and prevailed with justice, O'Connells must of necessity arise.... Your dissertation on the greatness or smallness of German demagogues (I hear you say) is quite superfluous: you had much better have described to us what that arch agitator and rebel, O'Connell, looks like—What he looks like? A tall gaunt man, with a thin face, sunken cheeks, a large hooked nose, black piercing eye, malignant smile round the mouth, and, when in full dress, a cock's feather in his hat, and a cloven foot. ‘That is just what I imagined him!’ cries one. But, as it happens, that is just what he is not. On the contrary, he has a round, good-natured face. In Germany he would be taken for a good, hearty, sturdy, shrewd farmer: indeed he distinctly reminded me of the cheerful, sagacious, and witty old bailiff Romanus, in Rotzis.