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rity for it . And this mischief is done to stop the mouths of an agriculturist or two for a single night ! The agriculturists were present ; the public were absent : and it was with Ministers as it is with most persons of infirm character—the small immediate motive prevailed over the greater but more distant one ; to be out of sight , was to be out of mind . 22 a ? February . Mr . O' Connells Declaration for the Pillage of the National Creditor . —Mr . O'Connell is almost the only public man now living , who
is , in himself , something ; who has influence of his own , and is not one of those whose influence is only that of the places they fill , or the class or party of which , for the time , they may happen to be the representatives . Almost alone among his contemporaries , he individually weighs something in the balance of events , and though far inferior to Mirabeau , may yet say with him * Ma t € te est aussi une puissance' No man ever exercised a great ascendancy by personal qualities , in whose character there was not much to admire : and in times like these Mr . O'Connell commands a far larger share
of our respect than many of whose honesty we think far more highly . It is very true that a perfect character is the same in all ages ; but our estimation of imperfect ones must vary exceedingly , according as their good qualities are merely those of their age , or are those which raise them above their age . Mr . O'Connell lives in an age in which to have a character at all is already a considerable distinction , and to have courage to act up to it , an extraordinary one ; an age in ' which the rarest of all men is he * qui bene
est ausus vana contemnere ; in which even a man of no very scrupulous conscience , who dares to will great things , or at least things on a large scale , and finds in himself and his own qualities the means of accomplishing them , extorts from us more admiration by the contempt which he thus manifests for a thousand paltry respectabilities and responsibilities which chain up the hands of the ' weak , the vacillating inconsistent Good , ' * than he forfeits by not having sufficient greatness of mind to choose worthier objects or worthier means . In Mr . O'Conneirs case we felt the more inclined to overlook much in the
* Words wo rth's _ Excursion . We subjoin tho entire passage . It will be lonjr ere its moral shall become obsolete ; though so much of it as ascribes to "the Bad any exemption from the enervating influences of the age , is less true at present than in the times to which the poet refers . The Bad , fortunately for the destinies of the race , have mostly become as spiritless and nerveless as the well-intentioned : ' At this clay When a Tartarian darkness overspreads The groaning nations ; when the Impious rule By will or by established ordinance ,
Their own dire agents , and constrain the Good To acts which they abhor ; though I bewail This triumph , yet the pity of my heart Prevents me not from owning , that the law By which Mankind now suffers , is most just . For by superior energies ; more strict Alliance in each other ; faith more firm In their unhallowed principles ; the Bad Have fairly earned a victory o ' er the weak , The vacillating inconsistent Good .
Therefore , not unconsoled , I wait—in hope To see the moment , when the righteous Cause Shall gain Defenders zealous and devout As They who have opposed her ; in which Virtue Will , to her efforts , tolerate no bounds That are not lofty as her rights ; aspiring B y impulse of her own ethereal zeal . That Spirit only can redeem Mankind ; And when that sacred Spirit shall appear , Then shall our triumph be complete as theirs .
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 236, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/4/
