In his letters to his friends at this time, he commented on Irish politics so forcibly as to show that he was a close observer. Alluding to the means used by the Viceroy (Lord Townshend) to corrupt the legislature, he said, "So total an overthrow has Freedom received, that its voice is heard only in the accents of despair." This sentence very probably suggested the concluding part of Moore's beautiful lyric, "The harp that once through Tara's halls,"
"Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks, To show that still she lives."
Early in 1772, Grattan was called to the Irish bar--not from any predilection for the profession, but from the necessity of eking out his limited means by the exercise of his talents. It is recorded that having gone the circuit, and failed to gain a verdict in an important case where he was specially retained, he actually returned to his client half the amount of his fee--fifty guineas. A man who could act thus, was clearly not fitted for the profession, nor destined to arrive at wealth by its means.
At that time the rising talent of Ireland was decidedly liberal, and in favor of progress. Grattan was thrown into familiar intimacy with this society, and his own opinions were influenced, if not determined, by the Catholic spirit of their avowed principles. Lord Charlemont, Hussey Burgh, Robert Day, (afterwards the Judge,) Dennis Daly, and Barry Yelverton--men whose names are familiar to all who have read the history of Ireland's later years of nationality--were his familiar friends.
Grattan wished for the lettered ease of literary retirement, but his narrow means did not permit him to live without labour. He said, "What can a mind do without the exercise of business, or the relaxation of pleasure?" He took to politics as a relief from the demon of _ennui_. He attended the debates in Parliament. He said "they were insipid; every one was speaking; nobody was eloquent." He had become a lawyer, as he sadly confessed, "without knowledge or ambition in his profession." He would fain have gone into retirement, but complained that, in his too hospitable country, "wherever you fly, wherever you secrete yourself, the sociable disposition of the Irish will follow you, and in every barren spot of that kingdom you must submit to a state of dissipation or hostility." He said that his passion was retreat, for "there is certainly repose, and may be a defence, in insignificance."