of her.*

THE DUCHESS OF LEINSTER.

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Few persons are more esteemed and loved than she is. There is a charm in her kind and good-hearted manners, which engages the partiality of those about her, and converts that respect which is due to her station into regard. I have never seen any lady of her distinction in society so wholly free from assumption. There is the enchantment of sincerity in her sweet demeanor, which, in the manners of the great, is above every other charm. She is not beautiful; but there is about her

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Something than beauty dearer,

That for a face not beautiful does more

Than beauty for the fairest face can do."

A look of benignity, united with a pleasant and vivacious smile, makes you forget a certain want of regularity in her features. I do not quite like her deportment and gait. There seems to be a weakness in her limbs, which prevents a steadiness and measure of movement, necessary for a perfect gracefulness of head. But it is only after a minute observation, made in the spirit which is "nothing if not critical,” that any such imperfections are discerned, and they are speedily forgotten in the feeling of kindness which her noble gentleness can not fail to produce.

It was amusing to observe the contrast between the unostentatious affability of her Grace, and the factitious loftiness of the other titled patronesses of the ball. Lady Wellesley had nominated a certain number of vice-presidents of the dance, who were directed to appear with a head-dress of ostrichfeathers, by way of distinguishing them from the ladies to whom that high function had not been confided. Accordingly, about a dozen heads, stuck with a profusion of waving plumage, lifting their nodding honors above the crowd. These

*Lady Morgan, whose maiden name was Sydney Owenson, was daughter of an actor, who anglicized his patronimic Mac-Owen, and was a good performer of Irish characters. Her novel, "The Wild Irish Girl," brought her into notice, and her works, principally travels and fiction, have obtained her much reputation. She wrote the well-known song of "Kate Kearney.' She married Sir Charles Morgan, a medical man in Dublin. The British Government has given her a pension of three hundred pounds sterling a year. She lives in London, but her failing sight and the weight of nearly eighty years, have compelled her to relinquish her literary pursuits.-M.

reminded me of the Mexican princesses in prints of Montezuma's court, which I have seen in the History of New Spain. The absence of any superfluity of attire did not make the resemblance less striking. It was pleasant to observe the authoritative simper with which they discharged their highplumed office, and intimated the important part which they were appointed to play in this fantastic scene. Upon the vulgar in the crowd, such as the wives of rich burghers, of opulent attorneys, and of stuff-gown lawyers, they looked with ineffable disdain; and even to the fat consorts of the aldermen, they scarcely extended a smile of supercilious recognition.

Busily engaged among the latter, I observed Mr. Henry Grattan, who was then a candidate, and is now a representative of the city of Dublin. This gentleman was not a little strenuous at the Tabinet Ball, in his attentions to the ladies, both young and elderly, of the Corporation. He had, upon a former occasion, been defeated by Master Ellis, through the influence of the civic authorities, and was determined to conciliate the leading members of the powerful body by which he had been successfully opposed. He is a singular example of perseverance, and, I rejoice to add, of success, in the steadfast pursuit of an honorable object. His name, the veneration in which his father's memory is so justly held by every true lover of his country, and the earnest which he has himself already given of eminent abilities and of public virtue, gather much of the popular solicitude about him, and render his career in parliament a matter of interesting speculation. Some mention of this young senator, whose foot is yet upon the threshold of the House, may not be inappropriate. "How widely," the reader may say, "do you deviate from the Tabinet Ball!" Be it so. I set down my thoughts as they flow carelessly from my pen. A word or two, then, of Mr. Henry Grattan.* He is the * Mr. Henry Grattan continued to sit in Parliament for a long series of years and was uniformly constant in his attendance, and liberal in his principles.. He usually voted with O'Connell. He is not a member of the present Parliament. Although pains-taking and industrious, as a business-man, his public course has not been very distinguished. He has published a very reliable and interesting work, his father's "Life and Times," which is indispensable t the student of Irish history.-M.

THE YOUNGER GRATTAN.

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second son of the great Irishman, of whom it may be so justly said:

"Magnum et venerabile nomen,

Gentibus, et nostræ multùm quod prodeat urbi."

His father took, from the earliest period, the most anxious care of his mind, upon which he set a high value. I have been assured by a gentleman, whose authority I could not for a moment question, that the late Mr. Grattan, in presenting his son to his tutor at Trinity College, expressed his conviction of his superior qualifications, and said that he hoped to leave "his Henry" as a noble bequest to his country. The great patriot saw in the mind of his son what Doctor Johnson calls "the latent possibilities of excellence;" and he was anxious, as well from a national as from a parental feeling, to bring them forth. Mr. Henry Grattan, while in college, enjoyed the double advantage of an excellent system of public education, and of having a domestic pattern of the admirable in eloquence and in patriotism perpetually before his eyes. His career in the University was highly honorable; and in the Historical Society, which, if it were not a school of genuine oratory, was at all events a useful nursery of declamation, obtained universal plaudits. Having taken his degrees with credit, he entered the Temple, and went through the usual masticating process, by which the British youth are initiated into the mysteries of the law. He became, while in London, a member of the society called "The Academic,” which holds debates upon all the entities, and distinguished himself by a force and strenuousness of elocution to which that debating assocation was little accustomed. Upon his return to Dublin, after having gone through his two years' novitiate, and eaten his way to the Bar, he dedicated himself to political rather than to forensic pursuits. His illustrious father had been unkindly, and, in my judgment, ungratefully treated by the Irish Catholics. Mr. Henry Grattan resented these injuries with more asperity than it was, perhaps, judicious to have expressed, and involved himself in some personal altercations, which are now happily forgotten. Having a turn for composition, but not being suf ficiently versed in the arts of vituperative insinuation, he pub

lished one or two articles in the "Evening Post," of too undisguised a kind, against the Duke of Richmond, which produced a prosecution.* He had a narrow escape from the fangs of Mr. Saurin, and was, I believe, obliged to remunerate the proprietor of the newspaper at no little cost. The great aggravation of his satire was its truth. His celebrated father was, it is understood, a good deal annoyed by the results of these first essays in invective, which obliged him to pay to the King a portion of what he had received from the people.

Until his death, his son did not come directly forward upon the political stage; but when that great man had been deposited in Westminster Abbey (neither Grattan nor Curran is buried in Irish earth), his son offered himself as a candidate for the representation of the city of Dublin. It ought to have descended to him as an inheritance. He appeared on the hustings with the incomparable services of his illustrious father as his advocate. He combined with the legitimate claims derived from so illustrious a name great personal merit. Yet so high ran the prejudices of party, that Master Ellis, whose only title arose from his hostility to the Catholics, was preferred to him, and the services of the best and most loftyminded Irishman that ever lived were shamefully forgotten. Painful as such a defeat unquestionably was, he did not relinquish the object on which his heart was set; and having

* The Dublin Evening Post, one of the most respectable journals of Ireland, was long an advocate of the Catholic party. After the passing of the Emancipation Bill, in 1829, it became the organ of the Government. For the last thirty years it was edited by a liberal and able Protestant, Frederick William Conway; who died in 1853.-M.

The ashes of Curran now repose in the land which he loved so well, and in which his genius and patriotism are reverenced as they deserve. He died on the 14th of October, 1817, and was buried in Paddington Church, London. In 1834, it was determined to remove his remains to Ireland, and a Committee, sitting in Dublin, managed the details. The coffin was received on its arrival by Curran's son and another, was deposited temporarily in the mausoleum at Lyons, the seat of Curran's friend, Lord Cloncurry, and was thence taken to Glasnevin Cemetery, where it lies beneath a magnificent monument of granite, on the model of the tomb of Scipio, on which is carved the one word CURRAN which is sufficient for such a man.- Grattan was buried in Westminister Abbey, where rests all that was mortal of many illustrious men.— -M.

ascertained that a number of Roman Catholics had omitted to register their freeholds, by his own personal exertions, and by individual application, he created such a counteraction to the suffrages of the freemen, that, at the last election, he was returned for the city. He did not, at the same time, omit any effort to disarm the corporators of their prejudices, and by every species of legitimate assiduity endeavored to charm their antipathies away. He accordingly paid to the Orange potentates of the Corporation a diligent and obsequious attention.

was

I observed him actively engaged in this part of his vocation at the Tabinet Ball. No man laughed more loudly at certain reminiscences from "Joe Miller," which Alderman pouring, as original anecdotes, into his ear. The new and graceful pleasantry of the worthy corporator appeared to throw Mr. Grattan into convulsions of merriment, though now and then, in the intervals of laughter, I could perceive an expression of weariness coming over his face, and that effort over the oscitating organs, with which an incipient yawn is smothered and kept in.

My attention was suddenly diverted from this political téte-a-tête, by an ejaculation of ennui, which was uttered by a young English officer, who was lounging, with two of his

*

* In 1823-24, a cavalry regiment called the Tenth Hussars, formed part of the garrison of Dublin. Its officers were chiefly, if not wholly members of aristocratic families in England, and looked down with unconcealed contempt upon every grade of society in the Irish Metropolis. They condescended, sometimes, merely pour passer le temps-to partake of dinners and appear at balls given by the "natives" in Dublin. Here they usually conducted themselves on the "Nil admirari" principle, and showed what magnificent ideas of their own importance were entertained-by themselves. On one occasion, the lady of the house at which there was a rout, good-naturedly asked one of these officers whether she should introduce him to a charming partner for a quadrille? The reply, delivered with a pause between each word, was, "Thank you, but, the Tenth don't daunce!" Another time, an Irish peeress told one of these carpetknights that a lovely young woman near him was heiress to an immense fortune, and asked if he would not like to make her acquaintance, and try to win the prize? "I'm not a marrying man, myself," was the reply, "but, I shall mention her at mess!"-The excellent comedy (by Croly, the poet and divine), called, "Pride shall have a Fall," in which a party of puppy-officers are introduced and ridiculed, owed some of its success to its presumed intention of satirizing "The Tenth."-M.