1829.] a Sketch frmn Life. 309 



he denied its truth — of his having offered his professional services on the 

 occasion of the celebrated election against ViUiers Stuart, and of that offer 

 having been indignantly rejected. Had that Lord George Bei'esford Avho 

 has now stooped to employ him, feed him then, we should never have 

 heard one syllable of reproach from his lips. 



Of this damning circumstance Mr. Bellew was either positively 

 aware, or shrewdly suspicious ; or, at all events, he could not see a 

 sufficient pretext, in the history of a family, for such fearful denuncia- 

 tions of its descendants ; and he therefore took every opportunity of 

 resisting the current of Sheil's vituperation, and of separating in the 

 Catholic orgies the demerits of public men from legislative measures. 

 Having a touch of philosophy in his spirit, and being bred up amongst 

 gentlemen ; and, with the other advantages of a liberal education, 

 having imbibed a tendency towai-ds the fair and rational examina- 

 tion of questions, before he came to an irrevocable conclusion upon 

 them, he stood in the front of those individuals who censured and 

 doubted Sheil. That was his crime — there lay the mystery of that 

 animosity, which, ripening into feud, has at length broken out into con- 

 genial vilification. JMr. Bellew is denounced to the freeholders of Louth^ 

 because he dared to question INIr. Sheil's motives, — because he had the 

 honesty to expose his charlatanerie. 



Little as we desire to see either of those persons represent the county 

 of Louth, in the House of Commons, we have no hesitation in prefer- 

 ing the manliness of Bellew to the time-serving chicanery of Sheil. 

 If we are to have a Catholic parliament, give us at least the men who 

 have not yet been prostituted to the dirty work of the mob. Bellew's 

 powers of eloquence, and his general manners, in public and private, 

 afford a strong and instructive contrast to that of the trading coun- 

 sellor, who has so indiscreetly intruded himself upon the suffrages of 

 the freeholders of Louth. 



A pretty extensive course of polite reading has supplied ]Mr. Bellew 

 with a correct and ready phraseology. His language, less ornamental 

 but more appropriate than Shell's, is nervous, frequently figurative, and 

 often powerful. He deals in principles, not dogmas ; he seldom indulges 

 in personality, and cannot command that species of bitter invective and 

 wormwood exaggeration, which form the staple of Shell's rhetorical 

 displays. Although educated as a Catholic, and nurtured in the pre- 

 judices of his creed, he has a dash of protestant high-mindedness that 

 enlivens and redeems the darker portions of his belief. He would never 

 have fulfilled the anticipations that had been formed of liim during the 

 reign of the Association ; he never could have inspired a vulgar audi- 

 tory with tlie frantic theories of revolution; he never could have 

 marshaled their fury, nor acted a diplomatic part in their hill-side nego- 

 ciations ; if he wore the ribbon of the liberators, he despised its emble- 

 matic office, and could not have levelled himself to the pui-poses it was 

 meant to provoke. No doubt he would have been found in the ranks 

 of the disaffected ; but his family's existence, his own life, and tlie 

 safety of his property, were so many motives to force him in self-defence to 

 mingle with aherd to whose views and proceedings he felt himself superior. 

 That superiority consisted less in tlie amount than the sobriety of his 

 merits. His judgment was sufficiently cautious to keep liini on the 

 reflecting side in politics ; he felt it was better to hesitate than to hurry ; 



