Search -
Speeches of Phillips, Curran, and Grattan, the Celebrated Irish Orators
Speeches of Phillips Curran and Grattan the Celebrated Irish Orators Author:Charles Phillips General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1831 Original Publisher: Key and Mielke Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can ... more »select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: A SPEECH DELIVERED AT A DINNER GIVEN ON DINAS ISLAND, IN THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY, On Mr. Phillips' Health Being Given, Together With That Of Mr. Payne, A Young American. It is not with the vain hope of returning by words the kindnesses which have been literally showered on me during the short period of our acquaintance, that I now interrupt, for a moment, the flow of your festivity. Indeed, it is not necessary ; an Irishman needs no requital for his hospitality; its generous impulse is the instinct of his nature, and the very consciousness of the act carries its recompense along with it. But, Sir, there are sensations excited by an allusion in your toast, under the influence of which, silence would be impossible. To be associated with Mr. Payne must be, to any one who regards private virtues and personal accomplishments, a source of peculiar pride; and that feeling is not a little enhanced in me by a recollection of the country to which we are indebted for his qualifications. Indeed, the mention of America has never failed to fill me with the most lively emotions. In my earliest infancy, that tender season when impressions, at once the most permanent and the most powerful, are likely to be excited, the story of her then recent struggle raised a throb in every heart that loved liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from discomfited oppression. I saw her spurning alike the luxuries that would enervate, and the legions that would intimidate; dashing from her lips the poisoned cup of European servitude, and, through all the vicissitudes of her protracted confl...« less