THE PROFESSOR AND HIS CLASS. 251 



worth's sketch of the 'statesman' Michael and his son Luke. One 

 whole lecture was devoted to Shakspere's character of Constance, 

 as exhibiting the workings of maternal affection, and another to 

 Priam's going to ransom the body of Hector from Achilles. The 

 paternal affections and friendship were next dealt with in the same 

 interesting manner, with illustrative references to the writings of Jer- 

 emy Taylor, Lord Bacon, Cicero, Shakspere, Dugald Stewart, Thom- 

 son, and Coleridge. This part of the course was wound up by three 

 very able lectures on Patriotism, during the delivery of the last of 

 which one of the few memorable ' scenes' during the session occurred 

 in the class. The Professor had begun the lecture by a very earnest 

 and powerful defence of nationality or patriotism against the attacks 

 of those who prefer a spirit of cosmopolitanism. In the course of 

 this, he had occasion to refer to the views of Coleridge and Chenevix 

 on the character of fallen nations, and particularly to the very pecu- 

 liar relation in which Scotland had long stood to England; and in 

 dealing with this latter point he was proceeding Avith the remark, 

 that ' the great Demosthenes of Ireland, the ruler of seven millions 

 of the tinest peasantry in the world, had presumed to say at a pub- 

 lic meeting that the reason Scotland had never been conquered was 

 that Scotland had never been worth conquering.' I do not know 

 how the lecture as written would have dealt with this charge, for 

 the remark led to an interruption of its delivery. Some Irish stu- 

 dents, resenting the contemptuous tone in which their great hero 

 was mentioned, and especially taking offence, perhaps justly, at the 

 comical way in which the word ' pizzantrif was pronounced, raised 

 first a hiss, and then a howl, which provoked counter-cheering from 

 the more numerous Conservatives present, till the class-room became 

 for a few minutes something like Babel or a bear-garden. For a 

 little the Professor looked calmly on ; but at last, fairly roused by 

 the unusual uproar, he threw his notes aside, and drowning all noise 

 by the stentorian pitch of voice in which he repeated the sentence 

 that had provoked it all, he on the spur of the moment burst forth 

 in a most eloquent and effective denunciation of all demagogues, and 

 of all Irish demagogues in particular, showing in return for O'Con- 

 nell's contemptuous remark about Scotland, the exact number of 

 English pikemen and archers that had sufficed for the total subju- 

 gation of Ireland ; and in castigation of those of his students that 

 had hissed him, launching all the shafts of his raillery, and these 



