The Irish University debate of this week was renewed by
Mr. Vernon Harcourt, on Monday, in a speech of apology for the Bill, which was of course not unseasoned with sarcasm. He spoke of Mr. Lowe as " the Philippe Egalite' of academical litera- ture, who went about the country denouncing the arts by which he rose." He declared that Mr. Gathorne Hardy's speech had reminded him, by its unwonted secularism, of a play in which statesmen were supposed to have changed heads, so that advanced Liberals uttered Tory sentiments, and Tories Liberal ;—for Mr. Gathorne Hardy, a strict denominationalist at Oxford, was a secularist across the Channel, and in this debate had talked " pure League." Following Mr. Vernon Harcourt, Dr. Ball talked unconscious Home-Rule, lamenting that the Irish were only a people, '1 no longer a nation," and resisting indignantly the proposal to foist an Irish measure upon Ireland by English and Scotch votes. Mr. Osborne expressed his wish to help a lame dog over the stile if he could, but did not see how to face his constituents at Waterford if he ventured on this bold step,— which he subsequently did,—and thought he should have to go back to his old constituents at Liskeard and contest the seat with Mr. Horsman. Mr. Cardwell declared that nothing was of the principle of the Bill except the separation of the University of Dublin from Trinity College, and its enlargement, so s to deserve the confidence of Catholics ; and if he gained a few Protestant votes, lost several Catholic votes by declaring that the incorporation of the Queen's Univer- sity with the University of Dublin was quite an open question, and by apparently insisting on the new mixed teaching University, as well as the new Examining University. It was a speech which gave the impression that as against the Liberal Protestant objet=
tions, the Government Would make no stand, but would give way, like the atmosphere, wherever pushed.
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