have spread a kind of veil over the enormities perpetrated in that and the other islands, excessive and palpable as they have been and still are. If humanity, however, be a prevailing virtue in the human soul, the name of Wilberforce must be remembered, when those of heroes and statesmen are forgotten.

On Mr. Kirwan's return to Europe at the age of twenty-three, inclination to a life of study, added to the wish of his maternal uncle, who at that time enjoyed the titular dignity of Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland, determined him for the church. He accordingly repaired to the university of Louvain in the then Austrian Netherlands, where after a course of instruction, chiefly under that able and respectable man Dr. Gaffey, now at the head of the Roman Catholic chapel in Soho-square, he received priest's orders. Mr. Kirwan continued his studies with increasing assiduity and reputation; and soon after had his merit acknowledged and rewarded by being ap pointed to succeed his preceptor in the chair of Moral and Natural Philosophy.

At Louvain our professor continued three years, performing the duties of his office in a manner that will long be remembered with delight by his pupils, until invited in the year 1778 to officiate as chaplain to the Neapolitan Ambassador at the British court. In this situation he for the space of seven years discharged the important functions of his station to a small congregation, chiefly composed of

English

English Catholics, in his Excellency's chapel. This period of his life Dean Kirwan considers as particularly interesting; having found among his flock piety the most unaffected and assiduous, adorned with true liberality of sentiment and high moral desert. He also enjoyed, at this epoch of his ministry, the pleasure of receiving personal attentions and obligations that could not be but doubly gratifying to a pastor.

On another account too, his situation in London at this time afforded him peculiar satisfaction: it furnished him with the opportunity of hearing the best preachers of every sect (a circumstance that perhaps contributed not a little to the important alteration that some time after took place in his religious opinions), and the means of listening to men of eminent oratorical talents both at the Bar and in Parliament.

On Mr. Kirwan's first acquaintance with the person and talents of his great countryman Edmund Burke, a circumstance occurred that strongly demonstrates the influence that eloquence possessed over the feelings of our preacher. The illustrious orator just alluded to was on his legs when he was admitted into the gallery of the House of Commons; and notwithstanding in a speech of some hours he made many considerable pauses, yet Mr. Kirwan thought not once of inquiring the name of him who spoke; so invincible was the grasp he had taken of his soul and all its faculties. Although an enthusiastic

Cc 4

siastic admirer of Mr. Burke, he could yet see and acknowledge his imperfections. He has often observed, with that energetic elegance which invariably characterises his expressions, that this orator's great defect originated in an imagination so ungovernable, or rather so insatiable, that it rejected nothing, but mingled on every occasion, and almost in equal profusion, the sublime and the low: at one moment soaring with the bird of Jove; at another sweeping promiscuous filth off the earth with the rapid wing of the ostrich.

We come now to the most important period of Mr. Kirwan's life, and have to record that great change in his religious opinions, on which the future colour of his own fate and the happiness of many thousand human beings perhaps depended. After two years retirement in the bosom of his family, he conformed to the religion of the state. This solemn act took place in the parish church of St. Peter's, in Dublin, under the auspices of Dr. Hastings, the then Archdeacon of the diocese, whose kindness and attention on the occasion he has ever spoken of with gratitude. In canvassing the motives of this act, bigotry will misrepresent, and slander calumniate. We owe it however to ourselves as dispassionate friends to religion, and unprejudiced members of the church of England, to say that if ever truth was embraced, and error renounced from pure and conscientious motives, it was done so by Dean Kirwan. It would be foreign

to

to the nature of this memoir to enter into theological or polemic disquisitions. Suffice it to say, that from his high prospects and estimation in his own church, motives of mercenary interest could have had no influence with him; in any communion to which he belonged, Mr. Kirwan must have occupied a superior station. If, under these circumstances, to be possessed of an understanding vigorous enough to discover truth and resolution to adopt it in the face of obloquy and reproach; if to exhibit a life without stain, and fervently devoted to the service of religion and humanity, be any evidences of a change founded on principle, even his enemies (if any he has) must admit that our convert has not been wanting in these.

Mr. Kirwan felt his powers: as an advocate for charity, he knew he must be irresistible. His own church furnished but a narrow and barren field for the exertion of this god-like talent. The great preponderance of wealth was among the professors of the established religion, and perhaps a proportional degree of misery among its lower classes. This circumstance then we may conjecture, to a mind of such active and energetic philanthropy as Mr. Kirwan possessed, might have in a certain degree co-operated in bringing about the change we have recorded.

The first sermon of a convert of such eminence we may naturally suppose was an object of considerable interest and curiosity. The protestant looked for a studied eulogium of his creed, and a vehement

philippic

popes and

philippic against the hoary abominations of in order to smooth the orator's way to prepopery, ferment in the church he had adopted: the anger of the Roman Catholic was naturally to be expected: both, however, were disappointed. The bigot who looked for invective, and the libertine for sport, departed with very different sentiments from what they brought. On the day of his conforming to the protestant religion Mr. Kirwan preached in St. Peter's church to a crowded audience, and with temperate propriety avoided saying a single syllable on the motives that actuated him, confining his sermon to the grand immutable outlines of christianity. This judicious conduct he has since invariably pursued: and has had the heartfelt satisfaction of continuing his ministry with the increasing affection and respect of every religious class of the community.

From the moment of Mr. Kirwan's first appearance as a protestant preacher it was universally felt that a new æra had taken place in sacred eloquence.

He found that to ensure the perfection of every species of public speaking, a certain graceful motion of the body and limbs, commonly called action, is indispensable. If this is true in other branches of oratory;-in that where threats of infinite punishment and promises of eternal happiness are held forth; where the weight of argument is occasionally relieved by the pathos of feeling, or the diffused graces of narration; where an appeal is made to the most powerful feelings and interests of the human soul;