U—­
      niversity of Gottingen.

Like most of the great Anglo-Irishmen of his time, Canning favored Catholic emancipation.  It is interesting to note that it was a letter of Canning’s that led to the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine.

Henry Grattan (1746-1820), the hero of Grattan’s parliament, was born in Dublin and studied at Trinity College.  His history belongs to that of his country.  Suffice it here to say that not only did he by great eloquence and real statesmanship secure a free parliament for Ireland In 1782, but also that he fought energetically, if unavailingly, against the abolition of that parliament in 1800, and that thenceforward he devoted his abilities to promoting the cause of Catholic emancipation.  Dying in London, he was honored by being buried in Westminster Abbey.  In an age of great orators he stands out among the very foremost.  His speeches have become classics, and are constantly quoted.

Another brilliant Irish orator, as well as an eminent wit, of this period, was John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), who, born at Newmarket, Co.  Cork, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, achieved a wonderful success at the Irish bar.  He defended with rare insight, eloquence, and patriotism those who were accused of complicity in the rebellion of 1798.  As a member of Grattan’s parliament, he voiced the most liberal principles, and, though a Protestant himself, he worked hard in the Catholic cause.  He held the great office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland from 1806 to 1814.  The memory of few Irish orators, wits, or patriots is greener today than that of Curran.  His daughter Sarah, whose fate is so inextricably blended with that of the ill-starred Robert Emmet, has been rendered immortal by Moore in his beautiful song, “She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps”.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1759-1797), the first advocate of the rights of women, though born in London, was of Irish extraction.  Into the details of her extraordinary and chequered career it is not possible, or necessary, here to enter.  Her published works include Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787); Answer to Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution (1791); Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792); and an unfinished Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution (Vol.  I., 1794).  Having in August, 1797, borne to her husband, William Godwin, a daughter who afterwards became Shelley’s second wife, Mary Godwin died in the following month.  Whatever her faults—­and they were perhaps not greater than her misfortunes—­she had something of the divine touch of genius, and, in a different environment, might easily have left some great literary memento which the world would not willingly let die.