Addison, though always read with pleasure, has lost much of his old supremacy. A deeper criticism, a more nervous and stimulating school of political writers have made much that he wrote appear feeble and superficial, and even in his own style it would be possible to produce passages in the writings of Goldsmith and Lamb that might be compared without disadvantage with the best papers of the 'Spectator.' But the position of Swift is unaltered. Gulliver' and the Tale of a Tub' remain isolated productions, unrivalled, unimitated, and inimitable.

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HENRY FLOOD.

THE efforts of Swift had created a public opinion in Ireland, but had not provided for its continuance. splendid example had been given, and the principles of liberty had been triumphantly asserted, but there was no permanent organ to retain and transmit the national sentiment. The Irish Parliament, which seemed specially intended for this purpose, had never been regarded with favour by Swift. He had satirised it bitterly as the Legion Club

Not a bowshot from the college,

Half the world from sense and knowledge;

and its constitution was so defective, and its corruption so great, that satire could scarcely exaggerate its faults. To fire this body with a patriotic enthusiasm, to place it at the head of the national movement, and to make it in a measure the reflex of the national will, was reserved for the subject of the present sketch.

Henry Flood was the son of the Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland. He entered Trinity College as a Fellow-Commoner, but terminated his career, as is still sometimes done, at Oxford. While at the University he applied himself with much energy to the classics, and especially to those studies which are advantageous to an orator in forming a pure and elevated style. For this purpose he learnt considerable portions of Cicero by heart. He wrote out Demosthenes and Æschines on the Crown, two books of the 'Paradise Lost,' a translation of two books of Homer, and

the finest passages from every play of Shakespeare. Like most persons who combine great ambition with great powers of expression, he devoted himself much to poetry; his principal production being an 'Ode to Fame,' which was much admired at the time, and is written in the formal, florid style that was then popular. He was also passionately addicted to private theatricals, which were very fashionable, and which contributed not a little to form his style of elocution.

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Lord

The portraits drawn by his contemporaries are exceedingly attractive. They represent him as genial, frank, and open; endowed with the most brilliant conversational powers, and the happiest manner, the most easy and best-tempered man in the world, as well as the most sensible.'1 His figure was exceedingly graceful, and his countenance, though afterwards soured and distorted by disease, was originally of corresponding beauty. He was of a remarkably social disposition, delighting in witty society and in field-sports, and readily conciliating the affection of all classes. Mountmorres, who knew him chiefly in his later years, and was inclined to judge him with severity, describes him as a preeminently truthful man, and exceedingly averse to flattery. By his marriage he had obtained a large fortune, and was therefore enabled to devote himself exclusively to the service of the country. When we add to this, that he was a man of great eloquence, indomitable courage, and singularly acute judgment, it will be seen that he possessed almost every requisite for a great public leader.

He entered Parliament in 1759 as member for Kilkenny, being then in his 27th year, and took his seat on the benches of the Opposition.

I have said that the Irish Parliament was at this

1 Grattan.

CORRUPTION OF THE PARLIAMENT.

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time subservient and corrupt, and a few facts will show clearly the extent of the evil. The Roman Catholics, who were the vast majority of the population, were excluded from all representation, both direct and indirect. They could not sit in Parliament, and they could not vote for Protestant members. The borough system, which had been chiefly the work of the Stuarts -no less than forty boroughs having been created by James I. alone had been developed to such an extent that out of the 300 members who composed the Parliament, 216 were returned for boroughs or manors. Of these borough members, 200 were elected by 100 individuals, and nearly 50 by 10. According to a secret report drawn up by the Irish Government for Pitt in 1784, Lord Shannon at that time returned no less than 16 members, the Ponsonby family 14, Lord Hillsborough 9, and the Duke of Leinster 7. An enormous pension list, and the entire patronage of the Government, were systematically and steadily employed in corruption, and this was carried to such an extent that in 1784, besides 44 placemen, the House of Commons contained 86 members who represented constituencies which were let out to the Government in consideration of titles, offices, or pensions. Peerages were the especial reward of borough-owners who returned subservient members, and in this way both Houses were simultaneously corrupted: 53 peers are said to have nominated 123 members of the Lower House. Among the Irish nobility, absenteeism was so common that Swift assures us that in his time the bishops usually constituted nearly half of the working members of the House of Lords; 2 and the ecclesiastical,

1 See Grattan's Life; Massey's 'History of England;' Lord Cloncurry's Recollections.'

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2 Swift's Works (Scott's ed.), vol. viii. p. 365.

F

like all other appointments, were made chiefly through political motives. At the same time, the House of Commons was almost entirely free from popular control, for, unless dissolved by the will of the Sovereign, it lasted for the whole reign. The Parliament of George II. in this manner continued for no less than thirty-three years.

Any degree of independence that was shown by a body of this kind must have been due chiefly to a conflict between the selfish interests to which it was subject. Collisions between the landlords and the ecclesiastical authorities on the subject of tithes, and between the great Irish nobles and the Government on the subject of patronage, began the independent spirit which the Irish Parliament ultimately showed, and it also, like all legislative bodies, had a natural tendency to extend the sphere of its authority. By a law called Poyning's Law, passed under Henry VII., it had been provided that the Irish Parliament should not be summoned till the Acts it was called upon to pass had been approved under the Great Seal of England, that Parliament could neither originate nor amend any Acts, and that its sole power was that of rejecting the measures thus submitted to it. Gradually, however, these restrictions were relaxed. Parliament regained in a great measure the right of originating Bills, and it claimed, though for a long time unsuccessfully, the right of complete control over the national purse. Its constitutional position before 1782 was a matter of constant dispute between its members and the English authorities, but the prevailing practice is thus described by Lord Mountmorres : Before a Parliament is summoned, he tells us, it is necessary that the Lord-Lieutenant and Council should send over an important Bill as the reason for summoning