HOME-RULE AND SEPARATION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TER SPECTATOR1
Sia,—The declaration of Grattan, "I never will be satisfied 80 long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags," quoted by Canon MacColl, illus- trates the saying of Curran, " When I cannot talk sense, I talk metaphor." When Grattan's bombastic declaration was reported to Dr. Samuel Johnson, he remarked, " One link cannot clank I" But then, as now, the multitude did not look very critically at the sense of Irish oratory. Grattan is said to have remarked of the probable character of the Irish repre- sentatives in the British Parliament after the Union :—" Yon have swept away our Constitution, you have destroyed our Parliament ; but we will have our revenge. We will send into the ranks of your Parliament a hundred of the greatest scoundrels of the Kingdom." Do Irishmen regard Grattan as a prophet as well as an orator P—I am, Sir, Ac., WILLIAM Johnson.
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