From The Freeman's Journal, Dublin, 29 February, 1812, and other papers.

On the fifth resolution being proposed, Mr. Shelley, an English gentleman (very young), the son of a Member of Parliament, rose to address the meeting. He was received with great kindness, and declared that the greatest misery this country endured was the Union Law, the Penal Code, and the state of the representation. He drew a lively picture of the misery of the country, which he attributed to the unfortunate Act of Legislative Union.

1 Mr. MacCarthy (Shelley's Early Life, p. 226) records that on the 28th of February, 1812, the poet attended an Aggregate Meeting of the Catholics of Ireland, at the Theatre in Fishamble Street, Dublin, and spoke for an hour. The precise words of the speech we shall probably never recover; but in their absence we cannot do better than repeat the three reports of it which Mr. MacCarthy's indefatigable industry has disinterred from the contemporary newspaper press. Of the first, Mr. MacCarthy says:

"This brief report appeared on the morning after the meeting in The Freeman's Journal of Saturday,

Feb. 29th, 1812. It was repeated in The Hibernian Journal, or Daily Chronicle of Liberty, Dublin, Monday, March 2nd, 1812. And again in a more accessible shape in Walker's Hibernian Magazine for February, 1812, p. 83."

2 Mr. MacCarthy says we should read sixth. The resolution was as follows:

"RESOLVED, That the grateful thanks of this Meeting are due, and hereby returned to Lord Glentworth, the Right Hon. Maurice Fitzgerald, and the other DISTINGUISHED PROTESTANTS who have this day honoured us with their presence."

From The Dublin Evening Post, Saturday, 29 February, 1812.

Mr. Shelley requested a hearing. He was an Englishman, and when he reflected on the crimes committed by his nation on Ireland, he could not but blush for his countrymen, did he not know that arbitrary power never failed to corrupt the heart of man. (Loud applause for several minutes.)

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He had come to Ireland for the sole purpose interesting himself in her misfortunes. He was deeply impressed with a sense of the evils which Ireland endured, and he considered them to be truly ascribed to the fatal effects of the legislative union with Great Britain.

He walked through the streets, and he saw the fane of liberty converted into a temple of Mammon. (Loud applause.) He beheld beggary and famine in the country, and he could lay his hand on his heart and say that the cause of such sights was the union with Great Britain. (Hear, hear.) He was resolved to do his utmost to promote a Repeal of the Union. Catholic Emancipation would do a great deal towards the amelioration of the condition of the people, but he was convinced that the Repeal of the Union was of more importance. He considered that the victims whose members were vibrating on gibbets were driven to the commission of the crimes which they expiated by their lives by the effects of the Union.

From Saunders's News Letter, Saturday, 29 February, 1812, and The Patriot, 2 March, 1812.

Mr. Shelley then addressed the Chair. He hoped he should not be accounted a transgressor on the time of

the meeting. He felt inadequate to the task he had undertaken, but he hoped the feelings which urged him forward would plead his pardon. He was an Englishman; when he reflected on the outrages that his countrymen had committed here for the last twenty years he confessed that he blushed for them. He had come to Ireland for the sole purpose of interesting himself in the misfortunes of this country, and impressed with a full conviction of the necessity of Catholic Emancipation, and of the baneful effects which the union with Great Britain had entailed upon Ireland. He had walked through the fields of the country and the streets of the city, and he had in both seen the miserable effects of that fatal step. He had seen that edifice which ought to have been the fane of their liberties converted to a temple of Mammon. Many of the crimes which are daily committed he could not avoid attributing to the effect of that measure, which had thrown numbers of people out of the employment they had in manufacture, and induced them to commit acts of the greatest desperation for the support of their existence.

He could not imagine that the religious opinion of a man should exclude him from the rights of society. The original founder of our religion taught no such doctrine. Equality in this respect was general in the American States, and why not here? Did a change of place change the nature of man? He would beg those in power to recollect the French Revolution : the suddenness, the violence with which it burst forth, and the causes which gave rise to it.

Both the measures of Emancipation and a Repeal of the Union should meet his decided support, but he hoped many years would not pass over his head when he

would make himself conspicuous at least by his zeal for them.'

III.

ARTICLE FROM "THE WEEKLY MESSENGER," DUBLIN, SATURDAY, 7 MARCH, 1812, RELATING TO SHELLEY'S SPEECH, AND HEADED "PIERCE BYSHE SHELLY, ESQ."* The highly interesting appearance of this young gentleman at the late Aggregate Meeting of the Catholics. of Ireland, has naturally excited a spirit of enquiry, as to his objects and views, in coming forward at such a meeting; and the publications which he has circulated with such uncommon industry, through the Metropolis, has set curiosity on the wing to ascertain who he is, from whence he comes, and what his pretensions are to the confidence he solicits, and the character he assumes. Το those who have read the productions we have alluded to, we need bring forward no evidence of the cultivation of his mind-the benignity of his principles-or the peculiar fascination with which he seems able to recommend them.

Of this gentleman's family we can say but little, but we can set down what we have heard from respectable authority. That his father is a member of the Imperial Parliament, and that this young gentleman, whom we

1 Mr. MacCarthy says that in an unpublished letter, dated 17, Grafton Street, Dublin, March 14, 1812." Shelley writes thus :

"My speech was misinterpreted. I spoke for more than an hour. The hisses with which they greeted me when I spoke of religion,

though in terms of respect, were mixed with applause when I avowed my mission. The newspapers have only noted that which did not excite disapprobation."

2 Given by Mr. MacCarthy as "the first public notice of Shelley."

have seen, is the immediate heir of one of the first fortunes in England. Of his principles and his manners we can say more, because we can collect from conversation, as well as from reading, that he seems devoted to the propagation of those divine and Christian feelings which purify the human heart, give shelter to the poor, and consolation to the unfortunate. That he is the bold and intrepid advocate of those principles which are calculated to give energy to truth, and to depose from their guilty eminence the bad and vicious passions of a corrupt community;—that a universality of charity is his object, and a perfectibility of human society his end, which cannot be attained by the conflicting dogmas of religious sects, each priding itself on the extinction of the other, and all existing by the mutual misfortunes which flow from polemical warfare. The principles of this young gentleman embrace all sects and all persuasions. His doctrines, political and religious, may be accommodated to all; every friend to true Christianity will be his religious friend, and every enemy to the liberties of Ireland will be his political enemy. The weapons he wields are those of reason, and the most social benevolence. He deprecates violence in the accomplishment of his views, and relies upon the mild and merciful spirit of toleration for the completion of all his designs, and the consummation of all his wishes. To the religious bigot such a missionary of truth is a formidable opponent, by the political monopolist he will be considered the child of Chimera, the creature of fancy, an imaginary legislator who presumes to make laws without reflecting upon his materials, and despises those considerations which have baffled the hopes of the most philanthropic and the efforts of the most wise. It is true. human nature may be too depraved for such a hand as

PROSE. VOL. III.

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