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thinking that the whole of them together would be as valuable as the worst of the mighty Athenian's. Mr. Burke did wisely in printing what he chose to call speeches, that is, elaborate, and thoughtful and splendid essays. We can only say in praise of his oratory, that he was the wisest man who ever mistook the nature of one of the great objects of his life. He was the only Englishman of his time in whose mind politics approached to being a science. What business had he in the House of Commons? Could he think that Adam Smith would be the best champion of free trade at St. Stephen's? Or was he unaware that the man has never lived who excelled, at the same time, in working out general truths, and in applying them oratorically to particular cases? Burke, of all men, perhaps, was the best fitted to have written a general history of England; as it is, he has earned for himself a brilliant place on a particular page of it, to the miseries recorded on which it may be feared that his authority in some degree added. To Burke's intellect, the matter in hand usually appeared of very little importance, compared with the principles which bore upon it. To his feelings, the thing in which he was engaged at the moment, presented itself as above every thing important. His philosophical understanding thus taught him the laws which related to the French Revolution; while his temper betrayed him into falsifying the facts from which he professed to deduce those general rules. With regard to India and America both, he knew more, and more wisely, than any other man in England; but he did not know how to avail himself of his means against predominating power; and the consequence was a signal failure. With regard to France, his statements are full of misrepresentation, and were, nevertheless, successful. How strange is the fate of a man of genius, who lets himself be lured into an unsuitable position !*

The character of Sheridan as an orator is very ably, and, we believe, justly given by the writer of a late article in "Blackwood's Magazine," (on Whately's Rhetoric), to which we have before alluded. There needs no stronger proof how unfit a sphere is the House of Commons for first-rate oratory, than the effect said to have been produced by the mountebank nonsense of that transcendant quack. Of later speakers, Mr. Canning, Lord Grey, Lord Plunkett, and Mr. Brougham, are by far the most conspicuous. Of these, Mr. Canning was the most showy, and Lord Plunkett is undoubtedly the least so. The former was early spoiled by admiration of Pitt, and only began in after life to work off the outward slough of worthless glitter. He became quieter and more argumentative, graceful and clear he always was; but he retained to the last the habit of labouring merely collateral points, and settling the real question at issue by silence or a jest. Lord Plunkett is the fullest in matter, and most severe in style, of modern public speakers; and there is sometimes in the more important parts of his finer discourses, a tone of suppress

Let it not be supposed that we differ from Mr. Burke as to the principles by which he judges the Revolution,

ed emotion, more striking, perhaps, and more effective, than the finest exhibition of feeling. His orations, and the effect they produce, are a splendid example of the superiority of thought in a public assembly over every other quality. He is universally recognised as the ablest advocate the Roman Catholics ever had in Parliament; and this, with no conspicuous accomplishment, except that which supersedes the necessity of almost any other, knowledge, namely, and earnestness. He is the nearest approach to a great political philosopher that is likely to be effective in the House of Commons. Lord Grey is chiefly remarkable for dignity of manner, and for the even balance of a great number of powers, none of them existing by themselves in the highest degree, but, when combined, of rare and extreme value. He has almost uniformly fought on the losing side; and in oratory, as in every thing else, it is success which commonly decides the popular judgment. Mr. Brougham, take him all in all, is the most celebrated among the living public men of England. This is, in a great degree, owing to his having linked himself almost exclusively with great principles, or what have now the force of such. But his speaking is in itself excellent, and still more peculiar than admirable. He deals not in sportive elegance, nor brilliant description, nor lofty declamation. His brightest waves are as bitter with sarcasm and invective as the waters of Meribah. His fairest images come forth hard and weighty, rough with the marks of the ponderous sledge he wields, and black with the smoke of the furnace in which he forges them. He never tilts but with the sharps. His fireworks are loaded cartridges. And wherein he delights to dwell, are fortresses of rock and iron. In his direct invectives, a want is sometimes felt of that straight-forward strength in which Lord Chatham and Mr. Cobbett are first-rate masters. But his side blows are big with annihilation. Place yourself full before him, and you may chance to escape. But flatter yourself that you are safe in his rear; and, like the African serpent which can spring no way but backwards, he will make you feel how deadly is that power which he who skuiks from it never can avoid. His oratory is the true force for attack; and we should deeply lament, as mere lovers of eloquence, to see him on the Treasury bench.

From the Monthly Magazine.

NARRATIVE OF SOME EVENTS IN THE IRISH REBELLION.

BY AN EYE-WITNESS.*

"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil."

My father's name was Samuel Barbour; he held a small farm within two miles of Ennis

* This narrative is taken, almost without the alteration of a word, from the lips of a plain respectable woman, the daughter of a County Wexford farmer; and though unpretending in its style, it possesses the merit of strict fidelity, and is so far curious, that few females in her rank, placed in such fearful circumstances,

corthy, called Clevass. It contained but twenty-two acres, but it was rich ground, and the rent was low; it had been in our family since the battle of the Boyne, for both my father's people and my mother's were Williamites. It lay in a pleasant valley between two hills, one called Coolnahorna, and the other the Mine. On the former, an old tradition said, that King James, when flying, stopped to take breath; and an old prophecy said, that before an hun dred years should have elapsed from that flight, the Irish should yet gather on that hill, strong, and victorious. The truth of this I myself saw but too clearly confirmed.

Our farm, though very productive, would not have supported us in the comfort and respectability we enjoyed, but that my father was also a clothier; he bought the fleece from the sheep's back, and manufactured it into middling fine cloths and friezes, which he sold at the neighbouring fairs. He thus gave employment to eight men and six women, and no one, rich or poor, had ever reason to complain of Sam Barbour. Though all our neighbours of the better class were Protestants (for we lived in the midst of twenty-two families of our own persuasion), yet all the people he employed were Roman Catholics, and we met with as much honesty and gratitude from them as we could have desired.

My father was advanced in life when he married, and I was his second child. He had five more; the eldest, William, was at this time a fine well-grown boy, little more than sixteen. I was not much above fifteen, but tall and strong for my age. I had two sisters, of eleven and six, a little brother of four years old, and my mother had an infant only six weeks before the fearful times which I am endeavouring to describe.

During the entire winter of 1797, when my father returned from Enniscorthy, he would mention the rumours he had heard of the discontents of the Roman Catholics, and the hopes they entertained that the French would assist them; but we never had time to think of such things, much less to grieve about them. We never imagined that any one on earth would injure us, for we had never done the least hurt to any one, and we relied on the strength of the government, and, in particular, on the bravery of the Enniscorthy Yeomanry, for putting down any disturbances. My brother William was one of these.

could have been capable of collecting their ideas into a continued narrative, and still fewer have ever met one to record it for them. It will, at all events, give to the tenderly-guarded of the sex who read it some knowledge of what was once suffered by hundreds, with as kind hearts, and as soft feelings, as their own; and it will cause them to pray fervently against the miseries of civil war, which always fall heaviest on the most unoffending, on the widow and the orphan, the helpless woman, and the unconscious babe.

• Williamites were the soldiers of William the Third, who most of them, after the final expulsion of James the Second from Ireland, grants of land; Clevass was one of these. Le Battle of the Boyne was in 1690

me.

On Saturday, the 26th of May, Whitsun-eve, Martin, our labourer, was shovelling oats, and my father went to the field to look at him. When he saw my father drawing near, he laid down his shovel, and, looking earnestly and sorrowfully at him, he said, Master, if you would promise me not to betray me, I would tell you something that might serve you and yours. My father answered, "You ought to know me well enough by this time, Martin, to be certain that I would not betray any one, much less you."-"But, master," rejoined he, "I'm sworn never to tell any one that won't take the same oath that I did to be true to the cause." You unfortunate man," said my father, "I had rather see all belonging to me dead, and die myself with them, than prove false to the government that has sheltered On this, Martin, with a heavy sigh, resumed his shovel, and continued his work. My father had but little time to think on this, for he was obliged to leave two cart-loads of oats at the mill of Moinart, to be ground into meal for the use of the family. Moinart is about two miles from Clevass, and Mr. Grimes, the miller, was a Protestant, and much respected in the county. As soon as my father cast his eyes on him, he saw that he too knew of something bad going on; yet he hardly exchanged a word with him but on business, for his heart, as he told us, was too full; and, leaving the oats to be ground, he turned back with the empty cars, anxious to rejoin us as soon as possible. When he had gone nearly half the road, he saw imperfectly (for it was now almost dusk) a great dust on the road before him, and heard a confused murmur of voices-a moment after he thought a body of troops were advancing, for he fancied he saw their bayonets; but the next instant he was surrounded by a party of more than two hundred rebels, armed with pikes, who stopped him, and dragged him off the car he was sitting on. My father was no coward, as he fully showed two days afterwards; but he said, that, at that moment, the thoughts of all he had left at home rushed into his mind, his knees failed him, and if he had not clung to the head of his horse, he would have fallen to the earth. They asked all together who he was, and where he came from, and he was unable to answer; but one of them happening to know him, cried out, "Oh, let him go, that is Sam Barbour, of Clevass, he is an honest man;" and they did set him at liberty. He came home, and, turning the horses over to Martin's care, he walked in amongst us, and his face told us the ruin that was coming upon us, before we learned it from his words.

We cared little for eating the supper we had prepared for him and ourselves; and after hearing his story, we stepped to the door to listen whether any of the armed ruffians were coming towards us; we heard nothing, but we saw in the distance eleven distinct blazes, every one from its situation marking out to us where the house and the property of each friend and neighbour were consuming. In immediate expectation of a similar fate, we instantly began to load our cars with whatever furniture and provisions were portable, that as

early as possibla the next day we might fu

with them to Enniscorthy; what we could not pack up we carried out to the fields, and concealed in the ridges of standing corn; and it was but little of it we ever saw again.

We passed the whole night thus; but the poor children, hungry and sleepy, lay down in the nearest corner, for we had placed the beds on the cars. On Whit-Sunday morning we set off for Enniscorthy, with heavy hearts, just about the same hour we thought to have gone to its church. My mother, yet weak, leaned on my father, I carried the infant, and the other children followed us, the little one clinging to my gown. My brother William had already been in Enniscorthy for more than a week with his corps; the female servant went with us, but Martin, who, with his mother, lived in a small cottage on our ground, staid behind us: and when we again saw him he was an armed rebel. Yet, from his humanity to us, I cannot think that he ever was guilty of the same cruelties that were committed by his comrades.

with blood carried into the house, and were called to lay down our beds for them to lie on; these were yeomen, who had been skirmishing in the neighbourhood, and who, full as the house was, were brought into it for present relief. I now began to see, for the first time, some of the miseries that threatened us; and thus passed a few anxious hours, when it suddenly struck me that our cows would be injured if they were not milked again, and the servant girl and I set out about six in the evening, and without meeting any thing to injure us, we got safe to Clevass; we found all as we had left it, with the poor cows standing lowing to be milked; we brought home a large pitcher each, and, on our road home, met several Roman Catholic neighbours, with whom we had lived on the most friendly terms; we spoke to them as usual, but they looked in our faces as if they had never seen us before, and passed on. I have since thought they either looked on us with abhorrence, as those devoted to destruction in this world and in the next, or, that knowing our doom, and pitying our fate, they were afraid to trust themselves to speak to us. We could not at least accuse them of hypocrisy.

It was late when we returned to the town, and, even in the midst of his anxiety, I could see joy lighten in the looks of my father at our safety, for even during our short absence, the reports of the rapid advance of the rebels had been so frequent, that he feared we might have been intercepted on our return. The milk was gratefully received by our own children, as well as all the other poor little creatures sheltered in that crowded house. We prayed, and endeavoured to rest on the bare boards, though worn out in mind and body; but I slept but little that night, with the moans of a wounded man in the very room with us, and the heat and closeness of the air, so different from our own pleasant airy little bed-rooms.

When we entered the town, we went to the house of a relation, whose name was Willis, who instantly received us, but when we entered, we had hardly room to sit down, it was so full of the Protestant inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who had fled into the town for protection. Few of these had had time to save any thing, and those who, like us, had brought food, immediately gave it to be shared in common. My father, on seeing us safe in the house, immediately went and enrolled himself amongst the Supplementary Yeomanry, and was provided with a musket and cross belts, to wear over his coloured clothes. There were more than two hundred of the neighbouring gentry and farmers armed hastily in the same manner. Our regular yeomen, who were clothed and disciplined, amounted to about as many more; we had one company of the North Cork Militia, ninety-one in number; and it was this handful of men, not much ex- At the very dawn I arose, and my father ceeding five hundred in number, that, in our seeing me preparing to venture once more to simplicity, we had imagined could conquer all see our cows, and that I was seeking in vain the disaffected in the county. Excepting the for our servant (whom it was many weeks befew militia-men, all our little garrison were fore I saw again) said he would go with me, neighbours, or friends, or near relations, who for he hoped there would not be any immedinow knowing the immense force of the rebels, ate want of him in the town. We arrived at which was well known to exceed ten thousand, the little farm, and found, as yet, all was safe. and their barbarity, for they gave no quarter, The cows waiting for us, and the poor poultry knew they had no choice between dying like and pigs looking for food that we had not to men with their arms in their hands, or stand-give them. After attending to the cows, I ing tamely like sheep to be butchered. Scarce ly one of these men but had every one that was dearest to him sheltered in the town he was about defending; and yet it is this very circumstance that was one of the causes of their losing possession of it, as I shall explain shortly.

When my father left us, and we had unpacked our furniture, my sisters and I were at first so unconscious of any immediate danger, that we were rather gratified by the novelty of our situation, and passed some time leaning out of a window, looking at the horse yeomen passing hurriedly back and forwards, and disputing between ourselves which man looked best in his uniform, or sat best on his horse. A very short time, however, changed our feelings, when we saw seven or eight men covered

thought of some brown griddle-cakes we had left behind us on a shelf, and went to break some to the fowls, when my father followed me into our desolate kitchen, and, taking a piece of the bread, asked me for a mug of the warm milk. I gave it to him, and turning to the door, and casting my eyes up to Coolnahorna Hill, which was not a quarter of a mile distant from us, I saw the top ridge of it filled with men, armed with pikes, the heads of them glistening brightly in the morning sun. Much troubled, I called to my father, and hardly knowing what I did, I took up the large vessel of milk I had intended to carry into the town for the children; but my father, looking at me as if he never thought to see me again, said. Lay that down, Jane, it is most probable we shall none of us ever want it "

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and we returned back to Enniscorthy, where we arrived breathless about ten in the forenoon. As we advanced towards it, we heard the drum beating to arms, and on entering, we heard that the enemy were closing in on all sides of the town in vast force. We saw our friends hurrying through the streets to the different posts assigned to them; the North Cork were placed on the bridge over the Slaney, which ran on the east side of the town; our own horse yeomanry filled the street leading from that bridge; our infantry, amongst whom were the supplementaries, were placed at the Duffrey Gate Hill; at the opposite extremity of the town to the west, a guard of yeomen was placed over the Market-house, where there was a great store of arms and ammunition, and where a few prisoners were confined; some more mounted guard over the castle, an ancient building, in which some of the most dangerous rebels were lodged; and my father, after leaving me with my mother, put on his belts, took up his musket, and joined my brother (whom we had never seen all this time though he was on duty in the town), at the Duffrey Gate, the post they were ordered to occupy.

In the course of this morning, Willis, whose house we were sheltered in, put his wife and his two infants on a horse, and mounting another, fled with them to Wexford; he never told any one he was leaving thein, nor could we blame him, for such a calamity as we were all involved in would have made the most generous man selfish. And he was a friendly man, but he could not save us all, so, as was but reasonable, he took with him those that were nearest to him.

At eleven in the forenoon, the videttes brought word from the Duffrey Gate, that the rebels were advancing towards the town from the north-east, in a column that completely filled the road, and was more than a mile in length; they were calculated, by some of our garrison who had served abroad, to exceed six thousand men. They soon closed with our Enniscorthy Yeomen, and the shots, and the shouting, fell sharply on our ears. I was at first greatly frightened, and the children hid their faces in my lap, but in a few minutes I became used to the noise, and could speak to my mother, and try to give her some comfort, but she seemed stupified, and could say nothing in answer, but now and then to lament that her fine boy was in the midst of the danger. She seemed not to comprehend that my father was equally exposed, more especially as he (seeing that the disaffected inhabitants had now actually begun to set their own houses on fire) had twice or thrice quitted his post, on the enemy being partially repulsed, and ran down to see if we were yet safe, and to tell us that William was well, and behaving like a man and a soldier; he then, on again hearing the advancing shouts of the rebels, would rush back to the fight. This imprudence, in which he did but imitate the rest of his comrades, gave dreadful advantage to the enemy, yet it was not cowardice that caused them to act thus, for they gave proofs of even desperate courage, but from their painful anxiety for all that was dearest to them, and from their being totally

unacquainted with the duties of a soldier, for, until the preceding day, the greater part of the Supplementary Yeomen had never before carried arms.

The fearful firing had now continued nearly three hours. Our men were forced to fall back into the town, for our little garrison was now reduced to less than two hundred, and though upwards of five hundred of the enemy were killed, they were so numerous that they never felt the loss. The North Cork were now obliged to provide for their own safety; and I have since heard it said, that they neglected to sound a retreat, which, if done, might have enabled many of the Enniscorthy men to make a more regular one. As it was, some of them dispersed through the fields, and gained Duncannon Fort in safety, amongst whom was 'my brother, and the rest retreated fighting through the burning streets, and more than once repulsed the enemy; these would again return on them in thousands, till at last, though they disputed every inch of ground, they were forced to retreat to the Market-house, and join their comrades who kept it. The house that sheltered us was directly opposite, and though none within dared venture to the windows, yet we knew, froin the increased uproar, that destruction had come nearer to us. At last the fire reached us, and we rushed from the flames into the midst of the fight, leaving all we had so anxiously saved the day before to be consumed, without bestowing a thought upon it. I know not what became of the wounded, but if they even perished in the flames, it was a more merciful death than they would have met from the rebels. We fled across the square to the Market-house, and I, who had never before seen a corpse, had now to step over, and even upon, the bodies of those rebels who had fallen by the fire of our men, whilst, which ever way I turned my eyes, I saw dozens strewed around. I do not know by what means we were admitted, but it was owing to the courage and humanity of Mr. Grimes, the miller, and here we once more met my father; we now sank exhausted with terror amongst barrels of gunpowder, arms, furniture, and provisions confusedly heaped up together; but in less than an hour (during which time our defenders fired often and effectually) the fire reached the Market-house also, and all within it, women, children, and yeomen, were forced to leave it, and throw themselves into the midst of the enemy, who now surrounded it in thousands, or they would have been destroyed by the explosion of the gunpowder, which shortly after took place. As we were going to unbar the doors, Grimes determined on a desperate effort for our safety, he stretched out his hand, and seized the pikes of two men who lay dead across the door-way, he turned then to my father, and said, "Throw aside that mus ket, Sam, take this pike, put a piece of the child's green frock on it for a banner, and per haps you may save the lives of your family." But my father answered," Never! I will never quit the King's cause whilst I have life." Grimes then raised a flitch of bacon on his pike, and bidding us follow, he rushed out of the Market-house cheering, and appearing " if he were joining the pikemen.

provisions to them; my father, still holding the musket, followed. I snatched up the child of four years old, my little sisters hung on my skirts, and my mother, with the infant, came after me. My father now turned to me, and said, "Jane, my dear child, take care of your mother, and the children!" They were the last words he ever spoke to me.

Grimes stopped now to parley with the pikemen, who completely surrounded us, when a fine infant of five years of age, the son of Joseph Fitzgerald, a near neighbour of ours, ran out to join us; at this moment one of the rebels, who had some particular hatred to his father, unfortunately knew the child, and exclaiming, "That's an Orange brat!" pushed him down with his pike (as I thought) on his back; the child gave a faint cry, and I was stooping to raise him, when I saw the pike drawn back covered with its blood! It shivered in every limb, and then lay perfectly still it was dead. I had strength given me to suppress a shriek, and I hid my face in my little brother's bosom, whilst my sisters never uttered a cry, but pressed still closer to me; and my mother, who never took her eyes off my father, did not see it.

We were allowed to pass over the square without any injury, and were following Grimes towards the river, when I noticed a pikeman following us closely, and at last pushing between my father and me. In my fear and confusion I did not know the man; but I was told afterwards it was a man named Malone, whom I had many times seen, and who of all other men we should have thought we had least reason to fear. His mother had been of a decent Protestant family, but had married a profligate of the Roman Catholic persuasion, he deserted her and one infant, when she was with child of another, and my father's mother took her home, and on her dying in childbirth of this an, my kind grandmother then nursing her own child, put the deserted infant to her breast, and prolonged his life for some days till a nurse was provided for him, whom she paid; he was reared by our family, and was at this time a leather-cutter. I could not then recollect him, however, for his face was covered with dust and blood, a terrific looking figure, and his action was suspicious; so, as if I could protect my father, I determined not to lose sight of him, and, with his three young children, kept close to them. Concealed in a chimney, at the corner of the lane, we were now about to enter, there was a yeoman, who, it was said, fired away more than an hundred ball cartridges at the rebels in the square below, and made every shot take effect. He at this moment took aim at a pikeman within a few paces of us, who staggered some steps, and fell dead across my mother's feet; she dropped in a dead swoon beside the corpse. I turned to raise her, and to lift the infant from the ground it had fallen on, and I thus lost sight of my father, and the fearful pikeman who followed him: I never more saw him alive. But Providence thus kindly spared me the sight of his murder by the very man that drew his first nourish ment from the same breast with himself. He followed him, as I afterwards heard, into Barrack-lane, and killed him at the door of a

brewery; a man, named Byrne, who had the care of it, saw him, through a crevice in the door, commit the act, and saw him, too, with his leather-cutter's knife disfigure the face of the dead, after plundering him, and stripping him of the new coat he wore.

In a few minutes my mother came to herself; she arose, and we both, unconscious of our loss, went with the children towards the river, thinking that perhaps we might rejoin my father there. My mother was now quite bewildered, and unable to speak to, much less to advise me; and I, though born so near the town, had never been in it, but to church or to market, and was totally ignorant whither to direct my steps. We asked at many doors would they admit us, but were constantly driven away, and, for the most part, with threats and curses. At last we came by chance to the house of one Walsh, a baker, who knew my mother, and spoke compassionately to her, but we had hardly entered, when five or six pikemen followed, and ordered him to turn us out, or they would burn the house over our heads. He dismissed us unwillingly; and we then followed some other desolate beings like ourselves, who led us into the garden of one Barker, that held a high command among the rebels. His family seemed not to notice us, and we here sat down, with many more, on the bare ground under the bushes. All were women and children, some, from their appearance, seemed to be of a rank far superior to us; and I have since heard that forty-two widows passed the night in that garden. Many of these knew their loss, yet fear had overpowered grief so completely, that not one dared to weep aloud. The children were as silent as their mothers, and whenever a footstep going to or from the house, was heard to pass along, we dared not even look towards it, but hid our face against the earth. The moon shone brightly, and I at one time saw a man led along, pinioned, but Barker, who was then in the house, was so humane as not to put him to death amongst us, but ordered him off for execution to Vinegar Hill.

As the night advanced, a rebel, named Lacy, observing my mother to shiver violently, went out, and, soon returning, threw over her shoulders about three or four yards of coarse blue cloth, speaking at the same time some words of pity to her. She, in her frantic terror, endeavoured to cast it away, lest, as she said, she should be killed for having what was not her own, but I, with some difficulty, made her keep it, and, except the clothes we wore, it was the only covering by night or day we had for ten weeks.

In the dead of the night I began to take somewhat more courage, and hearing a strange noise in a lane, which was divided from the garden only by a low wall, I crept to it, and saw a sight that soon drove me back to my mother's side. Some wounded men had been dragged to die in that lane, and some boys of the rebel's side, were mounted on horses, and gallopping up and down many times across their bodies, whilst the only signs of life they showed were deep groans. But Barker, when he heard of this cruelty, put a stop to it, and allowed them to die in peace.

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