Stephen's;
the great and illiberal prejudices against him scarcely abated from what
they were when, as the member from Clare, he was mobbed on his way to
London, for a time opposed a barrier to the influence of his talents and
patriotism. But he triumphed at last: the mob-orator of Clare and Kerry,
the declaimer in the Dublin Rooms of the Political and Trades' Union,
became one of the most attractive and popular speakers of the British
Parliament; one whose aid has been courted and whose rebuke has been
feared by the ablest of England's representatives. Amid the sneers of
derision and the clamor of hate and prejudice he has triumphed,--on that
very arena so fatal to Irish eloquence and Irish fame, where even Grattan
failed to sustain himself, and the impetuous spirit of Flood was stricken
down.
No subject in which Ireland was not directly interested has received a
greater share of O'Connell's attention than that of the abolition of
colonial slavery. Utterly detesting tyranny of all kinds, he poured
forth his eloquent soul in stern reprobation of a system full at once of
pride and misery and oppression, and darkened with blood.
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