harder far than Ireland presented.

Yet British

faculty found means to solve it. What enchantment had condemned Ireland to be the victim of a constitution of which chicanery, injustice, anarchy, and moral dissolution were the inevitable fruits? Infinitely happier it would have been for Ireland — happier, better, even cheaper in the long run for England, could her ministers have adopted loyally the scheme of government sketched by the King, have dispensed with Parliament, fallen back on the hereditary revenue, and made good the deficiency out of the English exchequer. But even this method, too, it is likely that parliamentary exigencies in England would soon have degraded to the old level.

Reform, at any rate, was not attainable on the honest road which had been traced by the King; nor was Hertford, an absentee nobleman, and one of the unconscious instruments of the worst disorders of the country, a person to be trusted for such a purpose. An attempt was to be made to crush the oligarchy of the Shannons and Ponsonbies. The old vicious circle was to be broken through, but by such means as were available under the constitution. Hertford retreated, after a brief ineffectual rulethe last of the Viceroys whose presence at the Castle was limited to the parliamentary session. Thus much was recognized, that thenceforward the representative of the Crown must be a permanent resident; that the Lords Justices must be dispensed with, except for accidental exigencies, and the patronage be absorbed by the Lord Lieutenant. It was a nice operation, requiring courage, dexterity, discretion, firmness, qualities social and intellectual not often combined. Lord Bristol was first thought of. He accepted the office,

and prepared to enter on it; but the longer he looked at what was expected from him, the less he liked the prospect. Lord Bristol's most important act of authority was to appoint his brother Frederic to the Bishopric of Cloyne-of all misuses of Irish Church patronage the grossest instance. He died soon after, and the bishop succeeded to the earldom, to play a memorable part in the development of the coming drama. The nobleman finally selected to carry out the intended alterations in the Irish Government was Lord Townshend, distinguished hitherto as a soldier, grandson of Walpole's Townshend, and brother of Charles, who was now English Chancellor of the Exchequer.

SECTION V.

A FEW more words of prelude are necessary before we enter on the remarkable administration which was to form an epoch in Irish history. It has been sufficient so far to notice the general drift of the stream on the surface of which individuals are seen occupied in paltry schemes to improve their own fortunes, not one of them as yet, however, with sufficient power to influence materially the policy or the fate of the country. The practical force in the Parliament was in the hands of a few families, who nominated the majority of the representatives. No questions had as yet been stirred on which the people were passionately interested; and minor scandals had been made use of only as a means of embarrassing the Government. On the edge of a great change, we pause for a moment to notice a few persons, some of whom had made themselves felt already as troublesome, and were about to pass to the front of the stage; some still obscure and unheard of, but meditating in the enthusiasm of passionate youth on Ireland's miseries, and dreaming of coming revolutions.

First in rank was the Duke of Leinster, and individually the first in influence. The House of Kildare was the most powerful in Ireland, and the head of it was the natural leader of the Irish people. But the Kildares, at all periods of their history, preferred to rule alone or not at all. Many times the Viceroys

had attempted to draw them into combination with other parties, but always without success. The Duke of Bedford labored hard with the reigning Earl, but the Earl refused to work with the Ponsonbies. Once only, for a few months, he tried the office of Lord Justice, and had retired, leaving the field to his rivals; while his ambition had been gratified, and his mortification soothed, by special distinction in the peerage. In 1761 he was made a marquis. In 1766 he was created duke, being then about fifty-six years old, the one duke of which Ireland could boast. He was married to a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and was the father of seventeen children, one of whom, born in 1763, and thus three years old when Lord Townshend came to Dublin, became known to the world thirty-five years later as Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

Lord Shannon's father, the reader will remember as Henry Boyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, who, after heading the opposition to the Government, sold his patriotism for an earldom and a pension. His son Richard, who succeeded to the title in 1764, was a politician of his father's school, under forty, with his life still before him, married to Speaker Ponsonby's daughter, and aiming steadily with the Ponsonby alliance at controlling the Castle, and dispensing the patronage of ministers. He had enormous wealth, and in private made an honorable use of it. Arthur Young, who visited him at Castle` Martyr in 1771, speaks with unusual enthusiasm of his merit as an Irish landlord.

Next in consequence to Lord Shannon was the Speaker, the Right Honorable John Ponsonby, second brother of the Earl of Bessborough. The Duke of

Devonshire had been twice Viceroy-in 1737 and 1743. Lord Hartington was Viceroy in 1755. The long presence of the Cavendish family at the Castle was favorably to the Ponsonby fortunes. Lord Bessborough married one of the duke's daughters, and was Lord Justice in 1756. John Ponsonby married another, became Speaker when Boyle was raised to the peerage, and was made Lord Justice also. The links of the family compact are easily visible. The virtual sovereigns of Ireland threatened to become hereditary. From this John Ponsonby came George, afterwards friend of his country and Lord Chancellor, who was now a boy of eleven.

Of the House of Commons' orators who had made names must be mentioned

1. Mr. Hely Hutchinson, a barrister of large practice, who had risen in his profession through a seat in Parliament, and had become known as a patriot orator. Speaking and voting against Government, less on principle than as the surest road to advancement, on the appropriation of the surplus, the Pension and the Septennial Bills, Mr. Hutchinson had shown that he could be dangerous. In practical business he had made himself really useful, so far as was compatible with attention to himself.

2. Mr Sexton Pery, a lawyer also, and the son of a Limerick clergyman, represented his native city. He, too, was a patriot, and had earned impatient notice in the letters of Viceroys and Secretaries. He had been tempted with the Solicitor-Generalship, and had refused it. It was assumed that, like others, he was purchasable, but the Government had not yet discovered at what price he could be secured.

3. A third barrister, remarkable in himself, and