The whole of that memorable summer was spent carrying out the orders of the Prime Minister.  The Lord-Lieu tenant and the Chief Secretary travelled in person round Ireland to assist in the canvass, and before the Parliament met again the following January, they were able to report that they had succeeded.  Grattan had been suffering from a severe illness, and was still almost too ill to appear.  He came, however, and his wonted eloquence rose to the occasion.  He appealed in the most moving and passionate terms against the destruction of the Parliament.  Even then there were some who hoped against hope that it might be saved.  At the division, however, the Government majority was found to be overwhelming, only a hundred members voting against it.  The assent of the Upper House had already been secured, and was known all along to be a mere formality.  And so the Union was carried.

How far it was or was not desirable at the time; how far it was or was not indispensable to the safety of both countries; to what extent Pitt and in a less degree those who acted under him were or were not blameworthy in the matter—­are points which maybe almost indefinitely discussed.  They were not as blameworthy as they are often assumed to have been, but it is difficult honestly to see how we are to exonerate them from blame altogether.  The theory that the end justifies the means has never been a favourite with honourable men, and some at least of the means by which the Union of Great Britain and Ireland was carried would have left fatal stains upon the noblest cause that ever yet inspired the breast of man.  Early in the last century Ireland through her Parliament had herself proposed a legislative union, and England had rejected her appeal.  Had it been accomplished then, or had it been brought about in the same fashion as that which produced the Union between Scotland and England, it might have been accepted as a boon instead of a curse, and in any case could have left no such bitter and rankling memories behind it.  It is quite possible, and perfectly logical, for a man to hold that a Union between the two countries was and is to the advantage of both, and yet to desire that when it did come about it had been accomplished in almost any other conceivable way.

[Illustration:  CRYPT OF CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL.]

LV.

O’CONNELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.

Another century had now dawned, and, like the last, it was heralded in with great changes in Ireland.  More than change, however, is needed for improvement. “Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose” has been said of French politics, and is at least equally applicable to Irish ones.  The Union had not brought union, and the years which followed it were certainly no great improvement on those that had preceded them.  The growth of political institution is not so naturally stable in Ireland that the lopping