While the Shelleys were in Dublin, a meeting of the Irish Catholics was announced for the evening of February 28.  It was held in Fishamble Street Theatre; and here Shelley made his debut as an orator.  He spoke for about an hour; and his speech was, on the whole, well received, though it raised some hisses at the beginning by his remarks upon Roman Catholicism.  There is no proof that Shelley, though eloquent in conversation, was a powerful public speaker.  The somewhat conflicting accounts we have received of this, his maiden effort, tend to the impression that he failed to carry his audience with him.  The dissemination of his pamphlets had, however, raised considerable interest in his favour; and he was welcomed by the press as an Englishman of birth and fortune, who wished well to the Irish cause.  His youth told somewhat against him.  It was difficult to take the strong words of the beardless boy at their real value; and as though to aggravate this drawback, his Irish servant, Daniel Hill, an efficient agent in the dissemination of the Address, affirmed that his master was fifteen—­four years less than his real age.

In Dublin Shelley made acquaintance with Curran, whose jokes and dirty stories he could not appreciate, and with a Mr. Lawless, who began a history of the Irish people in concert with the young philosopher.  We also obtain, from one of Harriet’s letters, a somewhat humorous peep at another of their friends, a patriotic Mrs. Nugent, who supported herself by working in a furrier’s shop, and who is described as “sitting in the room now, and talking to Percy about Virtue.”  After less than two months’ experience of his Irish propaganda, Shelley came to the conclusion that he “had done all that he could.”  The population of Dublin had not risen to the appeal of their Laon with the rapidity he hoped for; and accordingly upon the 7th of April he once more embarked with his family for Holyhead.  In after-days he used to hint that the police had given him warning that it would be well for him to leave Dublin; but, though the danger of a prosecution was not wholly visionary, this intimation does not seem to have been made.  Before he quitted Ireland, however, he despatched a box containing the remaining copies of his “Address” and “Proposals”, together with the recently printed edition of another manifesto, called a “Declaration of Rights”, to a friend in Sussex.  This box was delayed at the Holyhead custom-house, and opened.  Its contents gave serious anxiety to the Surveyor of Customs, who communicated the astonishing discovery through the proper official channels to the government.  After some correspondence, the authorities decided to take no steps against Shelley, and the box was forwarded to its destination.