irresistible. Tory animosity had pursued the most accomplished
of Tory statesmen and orators to a resting place in Westminster
Abbey. The arrangement which was made after his death lasted but
a very few months: a Tory government was formed; and the right
honourable Baronet became the leading minister of the Crown in
the House of Commons. His adherents hailed his elevation with
clamorous delight, and confidently expected many years of triumph
and dominion. Is it necessary to say in what disappointment, in
what sorrow, in what fury, those expectations ended? The right
honourable Baronet had been raised to power by prejudices and
passions in which he had no share. His followers were bigots.
He was a statesman. He was coolly weighing conveniences against
inconveniences, while they were ready to resort to a proscription
and to hazard a civil war rather than depart from what they
called their principles. For a time he tried to take a middle
course. He imagined that it might be possible for him to stand
well with his old friends, and yet to perform some part of his
duty to the state. But those were not times in which he could
long continue to halt between two opinions. His elevation, as it
had excited the hopes of the oppressors, had excited also the
terror and the rage of the oppressed. Agitation, which had,
during more than a year, slumbered in Ireland, awoke with renewed
vigour, and soon became more formidable than ever. The Roman
Catholic Association began to exercise authority such as the
Irish Parliament, in the days of its independence, had never
possessed. An agitator became more powerful than the Lord
Lieutenant. Violence engendered violence. Every explosion of
feeling on one side of St George's Channel was answered by a
louder explosion on the other. The Clare election, the Penenden
Heath meeting showed that the time for evasion and delay was