Mr. Bright's great speech in Dublin on Tuesday was delivered,
it is said, under a good deal of difficulty, from both huskiness of voice and general indisposition. Nevertheless it was a very fine one. Its practical suggestions we have criticized elsewhere. Here we will only note two of the finest touches in the speech. In reference to the statement of a Dublin man that the people of Ireland are rather in the country than of it, and are looking more to America than England, Mr. Bright said, "I ao not know how we can wonder at that statement. You will remember that the ancient Hebrew, in his captivity, had his windows open towards Jerusalem when he prayed. You know that the follower of Mohammed when he prays turns his face towards Mecca ; and the Irish peasant, when he asks for food, and freedom, and blessing, follows with his eye the setting sun." Still finer perhaps was his comparison of the grand passage in Dante about the bubbles which agitated the surface of the Stygian lake, and which were nothing but the breath of countless sighs from the multitude that dwelt beneath, to the agitated surface of Irish society, troubled by the sighs and groans of an unhappy peasantry. There was a grave humour as well as pathos in parts of the speech. Formally, it was an attempt to answer the question proposed by the Parliament of Kilkenny some five hundred years ago—" How comes it that the
King has never been the richer for Ireland ?"—a difficult question, to which Mr. Bright of course gave but a partial and imperfect answer.
