allow an opportunity, so tempting to his object, to pass, though he should violate all the observances of good feeling and decorum.  Mr. Davis, on the other hand, felt the blow to be a stunning one.  He was shocked at the same time by Mr. O’Connell’s disregard, not alone of friendship, but of common courtesy, and by the intemperate exultation of the audience.  To his loving nature, both seemed, especially in such a place, utterly unintelligible and grossly unkind.  He was the last living man to offer insult to the belief or even the prejudice of a Catholic, and he felt that this was thoroughly known to Mr. O’Connell, and that it ought to be known to his audience.  The disappointment and the rudeness were too much for his susceptible heart, and he so far yielded to wounded feelings as to shed tears.  Mr. O’Connell, whether gratified by success or influenced by his better impulse, caught him by the hand and exclaimed:  “Davis, I love you.”  Although the first struggle closed amidst cheers, there were carried away from that meeting in the breasts of many, seeds of bitterness and hate which ripened in after times and under gloomier auspices.  I dwell on it as important, although a casual incident, frequent and almost inevitable in political excitement.  There were two parties from whose memory the scene never passed.  These were the blind followers of Mr. O’Connell, to whom it seemed blackest guilt to question his supremacy or infallibility, on the one hand, and on the other, all who sympathised with genuine and lofty emotions, and regarded the attack on Mr. Davis as wanton, brutal and contemptible.  The miserable little faction that existed on the spoils of the Association magnified the difference and fanned the discontent.  That Young Ireland had received its death-blow passed into a watch-word among them.

An event of mighty augury and most trifling results, which distinguished the year 1845, must not be passed unmentioned.  This was the celebrated levee, held in the Round Room of the Rotunda, on the 30th of May, the anniversary of the imprisonment.  It was referred to a sub-committee, on which Mr. Davis and Sir Colman O’Loghlen were principals, to devise the most appropriate celebration for that important day.  They determined on a public levee, to which were summoned whatever there was of respectability, authority, genius and worth in the island, which recognised the wisdom, justice and holiness of the struggle for Nationhood.  All the corporations, every delegation which derived public authority from the popular voice, besides citizens of the unincorporated towns, answered the summons with alacrity.  That day witnessed a scene the most extraordinary, imposing and formidable of the kind in modern annals.  The Round Room was thronged to excess, but preconcerted arrangements had provided for the convenience of its favoured visitors, while the public streets, abandoned to chance, presented an immovable mass of human beings, swaying to and fro, but governed by a single and omnipotent impulse, which steeled them to the pressure and broil as if they felt themselves in presence of a speedy deliverance and free destiny.