"The last rose of summer, left blooming alone."
So, when Lord Stanley (now Earl of Derby) separating from the Whigs, started a party of his own, which was lamentably small, O'Connell quoted against him a couplet from a familiar poet--
"Thus down thy side, romantic Ashbourne, glides The Derby dilly, carrying six insides."
And so, pre-eminent over all was his parody on Dryden's celebrated comparison. Three Colonels (Perceval, Verner, and Sibthorpe) represented Sligo, Armagh, and Lincoln. The two first were smooth-faced and whiskerless as a maiden. Sibthorpe is "bearded like a bard." O'Connell, alluding to them in the House, thus hit them off, amid a general roar, in which the victimized trio could not refrain from joining--
"Three Colonels in three distant counties born, Sligo, Armagh, and Lincoln did adorn. The first in matchless impudence surpassed, The next in bigotry--in both the last. The force of nature could no further go, To beard the third she shaved the other two."
Like other politicians, O'Connell did not escape without occasional personal passages at arms. In one of these, with Mr. Doherty, then Irish Solicitor-General, in May, 1830, O'Connell may be said to have come off second-best. He had attacked Doherty for his conduct as Crown lawyer in what was called the Doneraile conspiracy. The whole of the Tory party sided with Doherty, who made a forcible defence, attacking his assailant in turn, and the Whigs did not very warmly support O'Connell, who had then only been a few months in Parliament. This _rencontre_, which took place while "The Duke" was Premier, raised Doherty to the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas in Ireland--and led to Peel's offering him a seat in the Cabinet in 1834, and a Peerage in 1840. O'Connell used to say, and with truth, that _he_ had placed Doherty on the Bench.
On another occasion O'Connell was far more successful. This was the celebrated Breach of Privilege case.
Victoria ascended the throne in June, 1837. Shortly after there was a General Election, and a great many of the members returned were petitioned against. The Tories had raised a large fund to defray the cost of these proceedings, and it was called "The Spottiswoode Subscription," as Spottiswoode, the Queen's printer (a patent life-office of much emolument), acted as its treasurer. Angry debates arose in the House of Commons on this subject, and personalities were so much and so tumultuously bandied to and fro, that Mr. Abercrombie, the Speaker, threatened to resign if they were repeated,--as if, grasping Scotchman as he was, he _could_ ever have brought himself to resign the £6,000 a-year attached to the office!