"The Druid" as a Politician. 305 



a life of foreign bondage, in which no holiday- 

 ever comes round. He had triumphed over 

 Nelson's despatches from the Nile and Tra- 

 falgar; had tempered his joy with deep sorrow, 

 when the black-edged Gazette told how his 

 brother, ' young, gallant Howard,' had, ere 

 the cannon of Waterloo ceased to roar, fallen 

 on the battle field with a bullet through his 

 heart ; and he had lived to see the crown of 

 Indian victories won by Gough and Hardinge 

 at Sobraon. In the worst of times when the 

 bigot Eldon and the Toryism that revered 

 Gatton and old Sarum were triumphant, and 

 Reform a mere jest and bye-word, he had 

 dared to be honest ; and under the banner of 

 Earl Grey, who at last took off the bearing 

 rein from the English people, had beheld 

 the death throes of the haters of civil and 

 religious freedom, as embodied in the Reform 

 and Catholic Emancipation Acts. Knowing, 

 too, from his parent's lips how in the very 

 year of his birth the hardy sons of America, 

 tortured to madness by tyranny and Stamp 

 Acts, had first meditated renouncing the 

 sovereignty of their forefathers, he did not 

 hesitate in the very evening of life to record 

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