364 KIRWAN. circles of London. His ecclesiastical friends too treated him with marked coolness; and he speedily took the resolution of visiting his family in Ireland. But there he found his fame had out-travelled him, and he was received with the most cutting coolness and discountenance. What was to be done in such a dilemma: livelihood was indis pensable;—his own church offered him no flattering prospect. This was too much for the pride of talent to brook. Perhaps he was never a very staunch member of the church to which he belonged; and he was ultimately induced to attempt the recovery of his fame by deserting the Catholić church, and to try his fortunes in another, which opened a new field for exertion, emolument, and pro motion. In pursuance of these views, he obtained an intro duction to Dr. Hastings, the Protestant archdeacon of Dublin; publicly recanted the errors of popery; em braced the priesthood of the established church, and preached his first sermon to a Protestant congregation in St. Peter's church, in Aungier-street, on the 24th June, 1787. From these circumstances, it appears doubtful if a conscientious conviction of religious error was the sole motive for Mr. Kirwan's conversion. But he rapidly attained in his new situation a pitch of celebrity for pulpit eloquence, theretofore unknown in the high church of Ireland. His manner, as well as his matter, was entirely new in the established pulpit. To the force of a polished and persuasive eloquence, he added the powerful alliance of energetic action, which Demosthenes has considered as the first, the second, and the third essential necessary to an accomplished orator. The measured cadence, and solemn monotony, and studied inaction of the privileged pulpit, in the reading of written discourses, however calculated to compose the feelings, lull the passions, and attach the sober reflection of a grave and pious auditory, are, perhaps, not well fitted to rouse the apprehensions, to impress the hearts, to excite the pious ardour, and to unfix the wan dering attentions and volatile levities of a mixed congre gation, composed of a l l ages, sexes, and dispositions. The
