SPEECH DELIVERED AT A DINNER GIVEN ON DINAS ISLAND, IN THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY, ON MR. PHILLIPS' HEALTH BEING GIVEN, TOGETHER WITH THAT OF MR. PAYNE, A YOUNG AMERICAN. It is not with the vain hope of returning by words the kindnesses which have been literally showered on me during the short period of our acquaintance, that I now interrupt, for a moment, the flow of your festivity. Indeed, it is not necessary; an Irishman needs no requital for his hospitality; its generous impulse is the instinct of his nature, and the very consciousness of the act carries its recompense along with it. But, sir, there are sensations excited by an allusion in your toast, under the influence of which silence would be impossible. To be associated with Mr. Payne must be, to any one who regards private virtues and personal accomplishments, a source of peculiar pride; and that feeling is not a little enhanced in me by a recollection of the country to which we are indebted for his qualifications. Indeed, the mention of America has never failed to fill me with the most lively emotions. In my earliest infancy, that tender season when impressions, at once the most permanent and the most powerful, are likely to be excited, the story of her then recent struggle raised a throb in every heart that loved liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from discomfited oppression. I saw her spurning alike the luxuries that would enervate, and the legions that would intimidate; dashing from her lips the poisoned cup of European servitude; and, through all the vicissitudes of her protracted conflict, displaying a magnanimity that defied misfortuue, and a moderation that gave new grace to victory. It was the first vision of my childhood; it will descend with me to the grave. But if, as a man, I venerate the mention of America, what must be my feelings towards her as an Irishman. Never, oh never, while memory remains, can Ireland forget the home of her emigrant, and the asylum of her exile. No matter whether their sorrows sprung from the errors of enthusiasm, or the realities of suffering, from fancy or infliction; that must be reserved for the scrutiny of those whom the lapse of time shall acquit of partiality. It is for the men of other ages to investigate and record it; but surely it is for the men of every age to hail the hospitality that received the shelterless, and love the feeling that befriended the unfortunate. Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation? What noble institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalisation of every political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious phrenzy, may there find refuge; his industry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated; with no restraint but those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction but that which his merit may originate. Who can deny that the existence of such a country presents a subject for human congratulation! Who can deny that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most rational conjecture! At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say that when, in its follies or its crimes, the old world may have interred all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new! For myself, I have no doubt of it. I have not the least doubt that when our temples and our trophies shall have mouldered into dustwhen the glories of our name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of our achievements only live in song; philosophy will rise again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington. Is this the vision of a romantic fancy? Is it even improbable? Is it half so improbable as the events which for the last twenty years have rolled like successive tides over the surface of the European world, each erasing the impression that preceded it? Thousands upon thousands, sir, I know there are, who will consider this opposition as wild and whimsical; but they have dwelt with little reflection upon the records of the past. They have but ill observed the never-ceasing progress of national rise and national ruin. They form their judg ment on the deceitful stability of the present hour, never considering the innumerable inonar chies and republics, in former days, apparently as permanent, their very existence become now the subjects of speculation, I had almost said of scepticism. I appeal to history! Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of an universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas, Troy thought so once, yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once, yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate! So thought Palmyra-where is she? So thought Persepolis, and now "Yon waste, where roaming lions howl, His power-clad arm controlled each happier clime, So thought the country of Demosthenes and the Spartan, yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman! In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps! The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was! Who shall say, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon, to rule for its time sovereign of the ascendant! Such, sir, is the natural progress of human operations, and such the unsubstantial mockery of human pride. But I should, perhaps, apologize for this digression. The tombs are at best a sad although an instructive subject. At all events, they are ill suited to such an hour as this. I shall endeavour to atone for it, by turning to a theme which tombs cannot inurn or revolution altar. It is the custom of your board, and a noble one it is, to deck the cup of the gay with the garland of the great; and surely, even in the eyes of its deity, his grape is not the less lovely when glowing beneath the foliage of the palm-tree and the myrtle. Allow me to add one flower to the chaplet, which though it sprang in America, is no exotic. Virtue planted it, and it is naturalized every where. I see you anticipate me-I see you concur with me, that it matters very little what immediate spot may be the birth-place of such a man as WASHINGTON. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him; the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm passed, how pure was the climate |