O’Connell’s character has been traced by many eloquent pens, some friendly, some the reverse, but all are forced to admit that the powers with which he was gifted were of the highest order.  He first became distinguished as a lawyer; soon after being called, he distanced those of his own standing, and in time, his legal opinion was regarded as oracular.  Crown lawyers, and even judges feared him, as well they might, for he never spared them when they were wrong.  In the early part of his career, his admiring countrymen loved to call him, “the counsellor,” and it was their highest delight to hear him cross-examine a witness.  Anecdotes of his wit, humour, and keen penetration whilst so engaged, are very numerous, very amusing, and full of character.  As a cross-examiner he had no rival at all; lawyers of his time there were, who might dispute the palm with him for profound knowledge of the laws and constitution of the country, yet some how or other it came to be admitted, openly or tacitly, that no other lawyer could see so far into an Act of Parliament as Dan, nor drive a coach and six through it so triumphantly.

But it was in the political arena he made his enduring fame.  When he entered public life, the Catholics of Ireland were a despised, enslaved race:  not only were they enslaved, but through custom, or by tradition, they thought, and spoke, and acted, like slaves.  Their leaders were the few Catholic peers that Ireland possessed, and the heads of those old Catholic families, who, by some means, managed to retain a portion of their property.  These were called “the natural leaders of the people.”  They were not remarkable for talents; they were timid; they were prostrate in the dust, and they half accepted the situation.  They had been so long regarding the Protestants as a superior race, that they came to believe it at last, and, hence, in the presence of Protestants, they always bore themselves with the humble downcast manner which became inferiors.  The young counsellor, fresh from the Kerry Mountains—­an athlete in mind and body—­had no notion to submit so such degradation from men who were his inferiors in every respect, and, consequently, his language was full of manly independence.  His high spirit appeared in his whole manner, and as he walked through Dame Street, Parliament Street, and along the quays to the Four Courts, he looked the noblest and proudest man in Dublin—­a very king of men.

In attack and denunciation he was terrible.  What he said of Peel, when Irish Secretary, is an example of this.  At an aggregate meeting in 1815, he alluded to him, as the worthy champion of Orangeism.  At the mention of Mr. Peel’s name, says the report, there was much laughing.  “You mistake me, said Mr. O’Connell.  I do not—­indeed I do not intend, this day, to enter into the merits of that celebrated statesman.  All I shall say of him, by way of parenthesis, is, that I am told he has, in my absence, and in a place where he was privileged