Irish Eloquence: The Speeches of the Celebrated Irish Orators, Philips, Curran and Grattan, to which is Added the Powerful Appeal of Robert Emmett, at the Close of His Trial for High Treason

Front Cover
E.C. Biddle, 1840 - Ireland - 537 pages

From inside the book

Contents

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 370 - When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth — then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.
Page 369 - Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence...
Page 15 - It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance \ which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.
Page 77 - AH ! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar; Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star, And waged with Fortune an eternal war; Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, And Poverty's unconquerable bar, In life's low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown...
Page 35 - If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him : whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers — her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created...
Page 111 - I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.
Page 364 - What have I to say, why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law ? — I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must abide by.
Page 364 - I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur ; but the sentence of the law which delivers my body to the executioner will...
Page 370 - My Lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice - the blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous, that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient!
Page 136 - The victorious veteran glittered with his gains; and the capital, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the miniature metropolis of the universe.

Bibliographic information