maiden grace of Imogen and Miranda, Ariel the dainty sprite, Oberon and his elphin court, the memories which people the glades of the Ardennes, the Rialto of Venice, the garden of Verona, giving to each glorious scene and sunny shore a stronger lien upon our associations than is possessed even by their own native land. It is time that I should call upon you, in the right of all the recollections which must throng in your own breasts far more copiously and vividly than I could hope to present them to you-by the thrill you have felt in the crowded theatre, amid all the splendour of dramatic pageantry-by the calmer enjoyment of your closet leisure-by the rising of your soul when the lines which breathe and warm have led you to recognise and adore the Giver of such gifts to men, to join me in drinking, not with the solemn silence which a more recent death might have enjoined, but with the reverential love and the admiring fervour due to the day and the man-- "THE MEMORY OF SHAKSPEARE." THE GREAT NATIONAL CRIMEAN BANQUET, DUBLIN. [OCTOBER 22ND, 1856.] SOLDIERS OF THE CRIMEA, MY wish now is not to speak long, but loud. I wish that every man I see before me could hear me say how proud I feel to be one of them this day. In the place I fill I have the right to tell you, in the name of the good Queen I serve, that her fine troops are welcome. I have the right to tell you, in the name of the Irish people, that they love brave men-that they know that you, one and all, have fought and toiled, and bled, and would have died at your posts; and so they have wished this day to fill your cups to the brim, and to give you the fat of the land. Not for the worth of the thing, not for the sake of gorging you with food, not for the stir of one short hour; but to show you and those who will come after you, and who, some day, will march under the same flags-that your countrymen, and your country women, too, all wish to thank you for what you have done, and to show you that they remember you still in peace, when the din of war is over, and that they will toast you at their feasts, and bless you in their prayers. We are thrown upon Irish ground, and Ireland has a right to give a welcome to heroes, because she has sent forth many to every grade in your ranks. But Irish hospitality is not stinted to her own children—as it was not asked, when the cheer rose loudest in your charge, whether it had most of the English, Scotch, or Irish accent-as it was not asked, when the red blood flowed in the field or in the trench, whether it gushed from English, Scotch, or Irish veins; and here to-day you are seated side by side at the same board, and you need no other passport but the bright medal which glows upon your manly breasts. It is indeed a deep cause of thankfulness to see you thus-you, who have breasted the steep slopes of the Alma-you, who have dashed along the fatal pass of Balaklava-you, who have held the blood-red heights of Inkerman-you, who have survived the midnight trench, the thundering rampart, and the deadly hospital-it is a matter of deep gratitude to see you thus under a roof of peace, and before a board of plenty. I know well, my friends, that your strength and your blood would be again given to your country, if your country should require them of you again. But I humbly trust that it will be so ordered that those faces I now see lighted up with such an honest glow will never again be darkened by a frown upon an enemy, but may ever beam with good will towards your fellow-men, and gratitude towards your God. I have now only to add that, in my belief, neither a Lord Lieutenant nor any other person ever had his health drunk by such a body of men; and I have only now to say, which I do from my very heart, to one and all of you, May God bless you. K PRESENTATION OF COLOURS TO THE EIGHTEENTH ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT, PHOENIX PARK. [AUGUST 24TH, 1856.] I OFFICERS, NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, AND PRIVATES OF THE BELIEVE that at almost the first moment of your arrival from foreign lands your fine regiment had the honour of being inspected by our beloved Queen, and that she directed to be conveyed to you her gracious approval of your gallant services. It is only, of course, in the character of her representative that I have now the extreme honour of delivering these new colours to a body of men thus distinguished both by Royal approbation, and still more by their own brave deeds. In addressing the Regiment of the Royal Irish upon so interesting and happy an occasion, the first of the kind that has occurred in the ancient capital of Ireland since the close of the late memorable war, I almost feel that I might carry my view even beyond your own well-filled ranks, and include all your countrymen who, by the side of their intrepid brethren of England and Scotland, and of our brave allies, have maintained the honour of their Sovereign and their race, alike by their brilliant valour and their heroic endurance throughout every turn and period of the desperate struggle. The ridges and dales of the fair Crimea, the deadly trench and bloody parapet, all are crowded with their thousand proofs that the heroic courage of Ireland has exhibited no falling off in the very newest of her sons. Confining myself, however, on this occasion, as is my proper business, to your Regiment alone, and to the services attested by those old colours now about to be replaced, and not, it must be acknowledged, before the necessity for doing so has become tolerably obvious to all who look upon those honoured shreds, I find certainly quite a sufficient abundance of glorious and stirring recollections to make a selection, within such limits as my time and my voice place at my disposal, no easy matter. In the earliest annals of this Regiment, under the immediate eye and guidance of a new King, it planted its colours on the breach of Namur; and accordingly those colours to this day bear the name of Namur, and quartered, with the Lions of Nassau, and the Harp and Crown of your own native Ireland. From that they follow a yet more consummate General-the great Duke of Marlborough-through all his campaigns and all his victories; at the sieges of Venloo, Liege, Menin, Lisle, and Tournay-over the battle-fields of Blenheim, Ramillies, Outenard, and Malplaquet. Perhaps I may record with less pleasure that your Regiment crossed swords with our American kinsmen at Bunker's Hill; but there, as elsewhere, they nobly did their duty. I have alluded to their services under Marlborough; we have had in our own day a chieftain more illustrious than even Marlborough, but the duties of distant service prevented the Royal Irish Regiment from actually fighting under Wellington. I speak, however, almost within the shadow of the monument raised by his countrymen on his own native soil, to that great warrior. I speak-more touching association still-in the presence of those whose hoary hairs still recall the bright career of glory which they pursued-may I say learned ?-under that great commander; and I call upon that grey pillar-I call upon their timeworn and honoured forms, as my witnesses that the great Duke himself would have approved and sanctioned the ceremony of to-day. But I have not even yet exhausted the trophies of the Royal Irish Regiment. I find them serving, for the most part under Irish commanders, at Alexandria under Cradock, still in Egypt under Hutchinson, in China under Gough that revered Irish veteran, now happily here to witness your array in peace as he swayed your energies in war. The Sphinx of your flag speaks for Egypt, the Dragon for China. Further, your impetuous onset carried the Pagod of Martiban in the last Burmese war; and, latest of all, the memorable day, the 18th of June saw you actually housed within Sevastopol; and the name of that great Russian stronghold, now just added to your victorious colours closes, up to this day at least, the long list of your glories. Such are the colours I may now deliver to* your faithful keeping-your Regiment has won these honourable emblems in every quarter of the globe. In addition to the duties as soldiers, you are now called upon to exhibit your virtues as citizens; and let me remind you that one of those is to live in brotherly union, and not to think hardly of each other, though you may worship your Common Father in different houses of prayer. I feel sure, however, that no such lesson is needed under your present excellent officers. Receive, then, your new colours, men of the Royal Irish Regiment, at my unworthy hands; and it can scarcely be unsuitable for me at such a moment to put up a fervent prayer to the God of Armies, that they may still, as even heretofore, be the rallying point of victory during war, and float above you in blameless honour during peace. INSTALLATION OF LORD GOUGH AS KNIGHT OF ST. PATRICK. THE BANQUET AT DUBLIN CASTLE. [JANUARY 30TH, 1857.] WITH ITH respect to our newest Knight, I feel, on the one hand, that the only point on which I cannot congratulate him is extreme youth. At this, however, he cannot repine, when every year that has gathered round that comely and revered head has been marked by a series of services and of glories. To present an accurate record of so illustrious a life would far exceed the limits of the present occasion. Under the greatest of our commanders, Irishborn like himself, he learned the ways of heroes; he had the happy art of inspiring the ardour which he feltfor which I might refer to that 87th Regiment which he led through a succession of triumphs; and even his recent achievements on a wider theatre have not effaced the renown of the stand he made at Tariffa. When he had emerged to supreme command, he did not find even the enormous empires of China and India fields either too remote or too extensive for the flash of his onset or the laurels of his victories. I might appeal to the soldiers whom he led, and to the family which loves him, whether his heart is not as warm and tender as it is resolute and daring. Now that he is restored to the peaceful bosom of his own Ireland, I own I feel pride in thus having the opportunity, in the presence of his brother Knights, of so many of his countrywomen, whom I am confident he will think no disparagement even to that high company, of his brave companion in arms, himself a foremost ornament of that military service which they both have elevated, the present Commander of the Forces in Ireland, now to bid welcome and God speed to this |