The case for the defence in the Irish State prosecution
has closed, and Mr. O'CONNELL has delivered his great speech. Its nature and its fate are anomalous : in Dublin it seems to have been considered ineffective ; here, it reads in parts like one of his very best speeches, and in parts also the best at the trial. Other parts are heavy and flat—dull in the reading as well as in delivery ; as where he fatigued his auditors with reading lengthy documents in support of his positions. Many seem to forget that corroborative authority of this kind encumbers and interrupts an argument, and prevents instead of compelling conviction : for two conditions are necessary to the process of conviction—vigour in the reasoner, and freshness of attention in the listener. If the reasoner is feeble, or the listener too much exhausted to receive the ideas, the com- muning is fruitless. Conviction is attained by argument rapidly followed up, and based on assertions prima fade credible : it may be revoked on testing the assertions, and to prevent that revocation they may be put in confirmation—as an appendix with a printed argument—as " evidence " in a court of law ; or if neither method was open to Mr. O'CONNELL, he should have made one of the other counsel do the tedious office of an appendix, and recite the corro- borative documents separately. His speech would thus have been relieved of a dead weight. Part of its tameness of effect may per- haps be attributed to the speaker's condition, for it is evident that he is not in his robustest health ; part possibly to his free choice of an unusually measured tone. On that account, those portions which relate less to the technicalities of the law or the specialties of Repeal—which consist in a plain appeal to the sense and honesty of the Jury, or the straightforward pleading of a national leader arraigned before his country—are characterized by frankness, ear- nestness, skill, an imposing array of his own past deeds. O'Cort- NELL has cast aside his pettier tricks, the claptrap and ambiguity of the Conciliation Hall and the hustings, and appeared in his proper dimensions. Had he never spoken otherwise, he never would have been arraigned; and if it procure him not a verdict, his address will at least revive some sympathy that he had lost. After all the legal softenings and attempts to explain away by counsel, he again boldly takes his stand as an uncompromising Repealer, brav- ing consequences.
The verdict remains laid up in the deep minds of the twelve Jurymen. Say that it is for the prisoners, and what a world of work falls upon Ministers to recover the position which they have taken up as prosecutors and would thus lose ! Say that it is for the Crown, and what is done ? The Irish have had a lesson in the law of conspiracy. The agitation has been damped; as already there are signs—the opiate has taken effect. But the real work is not begun—only quiet is procured to begin it in. Calmed in this paroxysm, Ireland must be cured of the disease that has its out- ward symptoms not less in yearly famines than in tamperings with Jury-lists and in Repeal agitations. If a single week's lull be for once attained, the Ministry and the Legislature that can lose the oc- casion to begin the true pacification of Ireland will be unfit to rule this country. That will be no Government which fails to govern where governing is most needed.
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