even before the new bill for its total suppression was passed.

During the progress of the agitation, Sheil often went to England, to help to rouse the people to assist the Catholic cause. He attended a meeting at Penenden Heath, in Kent, but they would not listen to him His speech, however, though not heard, was spoken; and as he gave a copy to the newspapers, it was published at once and attracted much notice. Jeremy Bentham pronounced it a 66 masterly union of logic and rhetoric." A public dinner was given to Sheil at the London Tavern, at which the leading friends of Catholic Emancipation were present.

66

larly brilliant, and, in the opinion of competent judges, has not been surpassed in parliamentary eloquence. The following is an extract; but it is due to truth to premise, that Lord Lyndhurst afterwards told Sir Robert Peel that he did not intend to convey the meaning which had been given to his words:'Aliens! Was Arthur Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty?' The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but, notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that when he heard his Roman Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply-I cannot help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. The battles, sieges, fortunes that he passed, ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered, that from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to the last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable-from Assaye to Waterloothe Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets through the phalanxes that had never reeled in the shock of war before? What desperate valour climbed the steeps and filled the moats at Badajoz? All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory-Vimiera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and last of all the greatest. Tell me-for you were there (I appeal to the gallant soldier before me [Sir Henry Hardinge], from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast)-tell me, for you must needs remember on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in One of these speeches, delivered in the balance-while death fell in showers 1837, attacking Lord Lyndhurst (who-when the artillery of France was was present) for calling the Irish "aliens," created a wonderful sensation in the House. The peroration is singu

Sheil became King's Counsel in 1830, and entered Parliament in 1831. He failed in his first attempt to be returned for the county of Louth; and he became a member of the House as representative for Milbourne Port, a borough in the nomination of the Marquis of Anglesea. He had now married a lady of considerable property (Mrs. Power, who had been a Miss Lalor), so that he was independent of professional income, and therefore resolved on turning his attention to political pursuits. He took part in the first repeal agitation, and spoke on the subject in the debate of 1834; but he did not join the Repeal Association, which was formed in 1840. In 1833 a charge was made against him of privately supporting the Coercion Bill, which he publicly condemned, but he was honourably acquitted by a committee of the House of Commons. During his parliamentary career he sat for Milbourne Port, Louth, Tipperary, and Dungannon; and though not a frequent speaker, he took part in most of the important discussions which arose. His official life commenced when Her Majesty came to the throne-and he held the posts of Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, Vice President of the Board of Trade, Judge-Advocate, Master of the Mint, and Ambassador to Florence. To enter on the history of Sheil's parliamentary life, would be to sketch the rise and fall of the various Administrations from 1831 to 1852. His speeches were always effective, for he learned how to catch the ear of the House.

levelled with a precision of the most deadly science-when her legions, united by the voice and inspired by the example

U

hose may most truly be said to belong
to their age, who either inaugurate a
new order of things or whose death
closes the line of representatives of
some principle that has been before the
world for centuries. Of these last, let
us hope that NICHOLAS, Emperor of
Russia, may one day prove to have been
one. It may yet be seen that at this
point in European history a pure des-
potism has ceased to be possible; that
he who henceforth aspires to rule, even
in Russia, must rule, if not in constitu-
tional forms, at least in the spirit which
all constitutions endeavour more
less successfully to embody; must rule,
that is to say, in some degree, with a
view to the welfare and the will of his
people.

or

IN life, a man belongs first to himself, and only in a secondary sense to his fellows. He has his own sphere of action, of thought, of love, and hate, within which no mortal may intrude unbidden; and of which whoever attempts to speak will, it is likeliest, speak foolishly, if not maliciously. But when the individual has passed off the stage, when censure and praise are alike to him, then all men crowd round the open grave to claim their share of the heritage he has left—to canvass his whole life, his thinkings, sayings, doings, and use them for example or warning without scruple or hindrance. If there be anything in a man's life worth the attention of his fellows, there is no time so fitting for the study of it as the period of his death. Then, if any when, men are disposed to tread softly as they approach the sanctuary of a brother man's life; to judge more lovingly and, perhaps, more truly concerning him. True, the greatest men probably are not known till long after they have lain in the grave-till the tumult which their course aroused has somewhat subsided. But yet there is a fitness in speaking even of them, at the time when we begin to feel what it really is that we have lost. At least most men are ready to hear tidings of those who have just departed, and this alone is call sufficient to those who have anything to communicate respecting them. It will be our aim, in this chronicle, to present some picture of the illustrious men who, as the months roll on, pass away from among us; and, as the lives of those who rule the world come to a close, to save from the wreck of time such memorials as may be a help and guidance for us who remain awhile behind-not forgetting that the same characters may profitably be kept in view, and, perchance, studied again to say here, that we shall record in this chronicle when some haze of time has intervened.

In the sphere of POLITICS two nameson the opposite extremes of the horizon -have been blotted from the list of the living. Of all the men who mark and make epochs in the world's history,

Perhaps, too, the future historian may find in this our half-yearly list one name worthy to rank among the makers of new epochs, the name of JOSEPH HUME. These two men,* whose careers came to an end within so short a period of each other, might well stand as representatives of the opposite tendencies that are now doing stern battle, not with arms only, but wherever men meet together and have dealings one with another. The one, a monarch by questionable "Divine right," ruling seventy millions of human beings, with the modicum of wisdom and goodness allotted to him; the other, an uncrowned king of men, ruling by the unquestionable (not less Divine) right of his own God-given insight and truthfulness. In both there was a force that would not let them be lost sight of by whoever

Notices of both have already appeared among the "Lives of the Illustrious," Vol. II., p. 78, and Vol. IV., p. 273. These sketches were drawn while the subjects of them were yet in the full pursuit of their career; the present notice, partaking rather of the nature of an obituary, will, avoiding repetition as m ch as possible, treat of their lives from this new and altered point of sight. It may be as well

the names of the recently dead, without regard to notices which may have already appeared, and without precluding a more lengthened biography whenever there shall seem to be any sufficient advantage in looking back. We are indebted to the Times and other journals for permission to avail our-elves, in the instances acknowledged in the text, of the valuable memoirs which have already appeared in their columns.

looks out on the affairs of the world; in both, too, were defects which, though different in kind, should not be forgotten. If we were called on to compare the extent of the dominions over which these two men actually ruled, perhaps the untitled one may be found to have held a sway that ceases not with his death, over all the wide dominions of England; the other whose will but yesterday was the sole law for one four teenth of the inhabitants of this planet, ceased to rule from the moment when another will assumed the guidance in the same sphere.

NICHOLAS PAULOVITCH was born the 25th June, Old Style: the 6th July, therefore, according to the modern reckoning, or more properly the 7th, since in the last century one day less separated the two styles. The third son, the seventh of ten children, of the too-famous Emperor Paul, and his Empress Marie Feodorowna (formerly the Princess Mary of Wurtemburg), he was educated with little expectation of his ever ascending the Imperial throne. He was but five years old at the time of the murder of his father (March 23, 1801). The details of this tragic event are too well known. Alexander, the heir to the throne, waited, it is said, in a room below, while his father was being strangled with his own scarf. The Empress, on the first disturbance, snatched the two young Grand Dukes Nicholas and Michael from their beds, and was proceeding to place them in safety, when she was assured by Count Pahlen that for them there was no danger. During the early part of the reign of Alexander, the future Emperor was brought up in as much privacy as was possible in his rank. He was educated, under the care of his mother and the Princess Lieven, by Count Lansdorf, aided by the philologist Adelung, and Stork, who gave him lessons in political economy. Of his youthful days, the records which have transpired are not, perhaps, to be too implicitly relied on; yet from their tone we may draw some inferences which, on the whole, are not very favourable to the subject of them. It does not appear that he ever manifested any peculiar depth or vigour of intellect at this time. The studies to which he seemed most addicted were the science of military evolutions, the modern languages, and music. In the two former branches he attained a proficiency

which, in a prospective Emperor, was not unnaturally extolled as remarkable; in music, we are told that he went so far as to compose-a parade march! More authentic and more sorrowfully important is this fact, that in the spring-time of life he never made a friend. Of all those who surrounded his youth, whether his seniors or equals in age (and among these we might name Adelberg, Benkendorff, Orloff), not one ever received any substantial mark of respect or favour in after life. In truth, if the capability for strong attachment be one of the first qualities of a noble man, we must even refuse altogether the title of great to such a character. As a boy, we are told, he was 'taciturn, melancholy, and given to trifling." He was too young to take any active part in the French invasion, but he was old enough to be an observant spectator of the greatest struggle in which his future subjects or serfs were ever engaged. The recollection of the enthusiasm and devotion then manifested by them may have lured him on to those boundless schemes of aggression which were on the morning of the 2nd of March so suddenly brought to a close. It does not appear that at this period he showed any signs of that almost miraculous energy and strength of will and intellect which hereafter he was to manifest. Even from the follies of youth he seemed exempt; at least from such as are thought to belong especially to that age, and, too readily perhaps, forgiven. But this exemption cannot be said to apply strictly to his later life. As he approached manhood, the probability that he would one day become Emperor increased, and it was thought advisable to pursue his education with this prospect in view. On the proclamation of peace, in 1815, he made the tour of Europe, visiting especially the scenes of the great battles of modern times, and also the Courts of various nations; and among other cities, he came to London, where his youthful and martial appearance gained him the general good will. It was generally supposed that this tour was undertaken chiefly with a view to a matrimonial alliance-certain it is, that while at the Court of Berlin, the young Cazarovitch was betrothed to Charlotte, the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia, Frederick William III. On his return to