THE GREATEST IRISHMAN ExcEP - r for a brief study by Mr.

Roger McHugh, there has been no Life of Grattan for over 35 years, and much has happened meanwhile to make him of greater topical interest and importance, as well as to provide fresh evidence for

estimating the validity of his ideas. Mr. Gwynn's knowledge of Ireland, experience of politics, insight into character and skill in interpretation combine to give us a satisfying and charming biography.

Grattan became a member of the Irish Parliament in 1775, and died a member of the Imperial Parliament in 182o without ever having held office and without having achieved any of his

main objects. These were the independence of Ireland, a cordial and equal partnership between Ireland and Great Britain under a common Crown, and a fusion of historically hostile elements into an Irish nation. After the delusive triumph of 5782, all of them continually receded from his grasp, and at the time of his death, seemed further off than

ever.

Burke and Grattan between them may be said to have invented this idea of an Irish nation, so different from the narrow colonialism of Swift and Molyneux, for whom the exclusion of Catholics was an axiom, and from the fissiparous, non-political, race-consciousness of the Gael. They were life- long advocates of Catholic emancipation, without which Irish nationality could not be better than a disreputable fraud. That cause was shattered by the war that followed the French Revolution and by the Irish rebellion of 1798. Twice—in December, 1792, and in January, 1795—it had seemed on the point of success, but the vision faded owing to the superior adroitness of the monopolists. After the extinction of even the appearance of independence by the Union, Grattan continued to fight for that justice to Catholics which was not achieved till nine years after his death. His centenary was marked by the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, which provided for two Irish Parliaments—a development he would have abhorred.

It is doubtful, Mr. Gwynn says, whether his eloquence would be popular today in either Assembly:

" He would denounce with equal fervour whatever made for division between the people of Ireland, whether it sought justifica- tion in Gaelic tradition or the principle of Protestant ascendancy. . The race of men which the Grattans and the Parnells repre- sented has, owing to an unfortunate political evolution, been lost almost completely to the service of Ireland, except in Ulster. One of the happiest results to be hoped from a union of North and South would be a gradual return to public life all over Ireland of the class which gave us Charles Stewart Parnell, and, two genera- tions, earlier, had given us Henry Grauan."

Fundamentally, as Mr. Gwynn reminds us, O'Connell's ideal was the same, and both men preached the doctrine that moderation, as distinguished from timidity, is a characteristic of the highest form of patriotism. It remains to be seen

whether the almost incredible stupidity and perversity of man, considered as a political animal, will for ever prevail against what they stood for.

Mr. Gwynn's close study of the Irish newspapers of the period gives his book exceptional vivacity and actuality, although they were scurrilous to a degree that is not only disgusting but tiresome. He prints some hitherto unpublished memoranda by Sir Lawrence Parsons (afterwards Lord Rosse), a friend of Wolfe Tone's and an independent member of the Irish Parliament, whose thoughtful speeches cannot have sounded as well as they read, since O'Connell described him as " below mediocrity." Parsons' notes, however, add nothing to our knowledge of Grattan. We get from Mr. Gwynn a penetrating account of the great Irish statesman, both as an orator and as a human being. He had modelled his speaking on that of Chatham, and it had something of Chatham's theatricality. His was not an art that concealed art ; even his impromptu utterances give an effect of elaborate composition. He revelled in imagery, antithesis, and epigram, and his gestures and delivery were so singular as to be almost grotesque. Mr. Gwynn quotes Byron as saying that Grattan came nearest to being a true orator of all the men he had heard, but that his " harlequin " manner just spoiled him. Others felt that it actually added to the effect of what he said, as for instance the United Irishman, Drennan : "His voice um totally lost at every third or fourth sentence, and his action was vio!ent to a degree of fury. . . . He makes the

other speakers, who are young men, throw about their arms and struggle in their throat in order to seem energetic and to give some sincerity to their declamation. Grattan's face is, I think, one of the finest and most expressive I ever saw, though this would seem joking to some, and there is a genteel awkwardness about him and all that he says and does which, I think, doubles the impression he makes."

At any rate, his personal success was as undoubted in the British Parliament as in the Irish, in spite of the scepticism and political prejudice which faced him upon his first appear- ance at Westminster. Moreover, many distinguished English- men have testified to their delight in his conversation. Mr.

Gwynn quotes Byron, Creevey, John Cam Hobhouse and Sir James Mackintosh ; and there were others. In fact, we get a more vivid impression of him in private life from English sources than from Irish. One of the most convincing tributes is contained in a letter from the son of his old political enemy, Lord Auckland :—

" I am in, I should think, the most beautiful country in the world [Titmehinchl, and with one of the pleasantest families I ever saw. Grattan is himself quite delightful—playful, talkative, full of anecdote, and candid and charitable to all mankind ; and, in consequence, he is beloved by everybody, whether friend or stranger, whether agreeing or disagreeing with him in politics. . . . He has a little levee of beggars at the door every morning, and he comes in now and then and says ' There is a boy who looks hungry,' and he goes off with a plate of toast and an egg. This perhaps multiplies his petitioners a little ; and, in the same good- natured way, he lets everything, animals and trees, &c., overgrow the place; but, as its character is wildness, this does not injure it."

He had been buffeted even more than most men by the rogueries of fortune, and this contributed to his taste for con- genial company, in his later years ; in youth he had been somewhat of a solitary. A happy marriage and love of literature and of the country were his permanent consolations.

Ferociously abused by both kinds of Irish extremists, and struck off the Privy Council as next thing to a traitor by order of George III, he lived long enough to see men's feelings towards him change to an almost universal reverence. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his epitaph, like that of Robert Emmet, remains to be written.

There are a few minor corrections which might be made in

future editions. Thus one quotation from Wolfe Tone's frag- ment of autobiography is mistakenly described as being from his diary, and another as being from his pamphlet on behalf of the Catholics. Furthermore, it is stated that Tone appears to have been offered employment by the Whigs in 5795 as a

propagandist, but there is no evidence of this worth talking of, and the probabilities are all against it. It is not the fact that, as stated on page 243, war was actually declared between England and Spain in 579o, and the Colonel Hutchinson referred to on page 275 was the son, and not the brother,