Irish Eloquence: The Speeches of the Celebrated Irish Orators, Philips, Curran and Grattan

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A member of the bar
P. Donahoe, 1857 - Speeches, addresses, etc., English - 551 pages

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Page 547 - I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world — it is the charity of its silence! Let no man write my epitaph: for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them.
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 134 - Subsidiary to this, there wa-s no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate ; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent ; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross : the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic : and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism.
Page 85 - The glorious, pious and immortal memory of the great and good King William — not forgetting Oliver Cromwell, who assisted in redeeming us from Popery, slavery, arbitrary power, brass money and wooden shoes.
Page 545 - I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their boats before they had contaminated the soil of my country. If they succeeded in landing, and if forced to retire before superior discipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, burn every blade of grass, and the last entrenchment of liberty should be my grave.
Page 136 - The gaoler of the press, he affected the patronage of letters; the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy; the persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning; the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England.
Page 547 - When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.
Page 134 - With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive...
Page 208 - But to what end, my lords, offer arguments to such men ? A little and a peevish mind may be exasperated, but how shall it be corrected by refutation? How fruitless would it have been to represent to that wretched chancellor, that he was betraying those rights which...
Page 105 - Heaven is saintly chastity, that, when a soul is found sincerely so, a thousand. liveried angels lackey her, driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, and, in clear dream and solemn vision, tell her of things that no gross ear can hear; till oft converse with heavenly habitants begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, the unpolluted temple of the mind, and turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, till all be made immortal.

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