and that was sure to follow soon. The patriots of Ireland hast ened from the hated halls of the parliament of the Pale with deep disgust, and, rushing to the altars of Liberty, applied - nselves to wake again its sleeping fires. The revolution was once more set in motion, but the ball had nearly spent its force. The men of '98, brave and truc, attempted under circumstances of extreme difficulty to prepare a doubtful war. The Irish people were again dissevered by the same everlasting cause of factionthe foreign aristocracy in their bosom. Although the gallant leaders were Protestants, yet the mass of Protestants supported the parliament. The Catholic clergy saw the helplessness of conflict, and shuddered at the calamities it portended to a faithful and already deeply-wretched people. England had recovered her giant energies. The thunders of the American Revolution slept. An ambitious, licentious, and ferocious faction, reigned in Paris; and Blasphemy, claiming the name of Liberty, was threatening to involve the world in anarchy. Nevertheless, there was no hope for Ireland but in aid from France, and in the arms of her own people. The insurrection was planned with skill and secrecy, but Treason gained access to its councils and fomented it to a precocious maturity. Then it broke forth only to betray its heroic leaders to the scaffold, and their patriotic associates throughout the island to massacre indiscriminate and merciless. Yet the rebellion of '98 was not altogether unavailing. Every drop that streams from the veins of a martyr in the cause of liberty is gathered again by Him who wills that all his children shall be free, and is poured into the heart of some new-born champion, imparting more than human vigor to the arm of the avenger. The British government now asserted that Ireland had tried the responsibilities of government, and had proved herself incompetent. They disarmed the people, established martial law, falsely promised specious favors to the Catholics, and showered gold and power on the Protestants: and thus, in 1800, the eighteenth year of Irish independence, obtained from the parliament of the Pale the surrender of its infamous existence. Ireland, fettered and manacled more than ever before, was annexed to Great Britain by the act of union. A gloomy period of twenty years succeeded. Tyranny scarcely feared resistance. Penury had taken up her home in the land. Turbulence was abroad, but only to reconcile the people to any government that would suppress disorder. Wealth and learning, warme the root with the unnatural heat of royal favor, lcst their independent attitude, and, putting forth parasitic tendrils, twined in sickly growth around the pillars of the state. The peasantry took on the habit and gait of slaves. The voice of orators was heard only in subdued complaints. The clang of arms had ceased. Even the national harp, that still retained its ancient sweetness, though trodden under foot by tyrants, forgot the wild inspiration of Freedom, and only gave forth plaintive notes when struck by the hand of Despair: "Alas for our country! her pride has gone by, And the spirit is broken that never would bend; For 't is treason to love her, and death to defend." If a hope could have arisen in the patriot's heart, it would have been dispelled by a glance at the condition of England. She had made ample reprisals in the West Indies, in North America, in Asia, in Africa, and in the South seas, for the loss of the thirteen rebellious colonies; Waterloo had prostrated at her feet her great natural enemy; Spain had entered on her dotage; Holland had relinquished her ambition. The British navy held almost undisputed sway over the seas, and British garrisons encircled the globe. How mysterious and inscrutable are the ways of Providence in conducting the affairs of nations! That season of gloom so intense, was the hour that preceded the dawn of Irish liberty. It was no matter how wide the empire, or how vast the armies or navies of Britain, Ireland was to be delivered by opinion, not by the sword-by the statesman, not by the soldier. That statesman was the first fruit of the cautious concessions concerning property and education, made by England in 1778, and 1782. Daniel O'Connell, a Roman Catholic, heir-apparent of Darrynane, had been instructed in the faith of his forefathers and trained for the forum. The force which he was to employ for the redemption of his country was the fruit of concession made in 1792, in order to secure the act of union. The right of suffrage was then conferred on catholics in Ireland having freeholds of the annual value of forty shillings. Then, and long afterward, the right was indeed useless, and suffrage was yielded with the rents due to the superior lords. But the right was there. The political education of the Liberator was that history of Ireland whose spirit we have endeavored, perhaps vainly, to recall. He had witnessed with horror the desecration of liberty and religion in France, and thus, while he was imbued with the purest sentiments of patriotism, he was not less firmly established in religious principles. He was never for a moment tempted to divide what he thought God had indissolubly combined, religion and freedom. He first appeared before his countrymen at the age of twenty-five, at a meeting of Catholics in 1800, in the midst of an intimidating police, to consider the act of union, then before the parliament in College Green. His speech, which was "a great beginning in so green an age," revealed the principles on which, near thirty years afterward, he worked out catholic emancipation, and brought the independence of Ireland to the verge of triumph. These principles were the combination of those two measures and the union of the people of Ireland by conciliation. "Let us show," said he, "to every friend of Ireland, that Catholics are incapable of selling their country; that if their emancipation was offered for their consent to the act of union (even if emancipation were a benefit after the union), they would reject it with prompt indignation. Let us show to Ireland that we have nothing in view but her good, nothing in our hearts but the desire of mutual forgiveness and mutual reconciliation. Let every man who agrees with me proclaim that if the alternative were offered him of the union, or the re-enactment of the penal code in all its pristine horrors, he would prefer the latter as the lesser or more sufferable evil; that he would confide in the justice of his brethren, the Protestants of Ireland, rather than lay his country at the feet of foreigners." We know not when the great scheme of delivering his country first occurred to O'Connell, but his life was a continual preparation for the enterprise. "He wandered through the wrecks of days departed, And dwellings of a race of mightier men, And monuments of less ungentle creeds, Tell their own tale to Him who rightly heeds The language which they speak." On such occasions the patriot would exclaim, with a heart beating loud and fast, The new revolution began in no popular excitement, for the people were roused, not without long, vehement and incessant agitation. It had no foreign impulse. America was at rest, and France, and even all Europe, were slumbering in the arms of egitimate monarchy. It was not a military insurrection; for sedition had been tried for the last time. It depended not on the Irish people alone, for they were nearly powerless. It must be effected by the British king and parliament, and they could be moved only by moral force, or opinion. The objects of the revolution must be divided. Liberty of conscience, or Catholic emancipation, must be demanded first. The independence of Ireland, or civil liberty, must be attained afterward. If both were demanded at once, neither would be granted. Daniel O'Connell knew that such a revolution was possible, and in this knowledge excelled his country and his age. When that knowledge was acquired, he stood confessed to himself, the statesman of the revolution. From that hour he expanded, and "Bore aloft the fame and fortunes of his race." But how should opinion be directed with effect? Burke and Fox, Canning and Brougham and Byron, had pleaded for Catholic emancipation in the British senate; had shown the absurdity, the unrighteousness and the inhumanity of the penal religious code, and had demonstrated that it was only less ruinous to Protestants and to England than to Catholics and to Ireland. The British parliament was already convinced. Reason, argument, and conviction, would not be enough. The British government must be made to fear and tremble. But how should opinion be made so potential? It must begin with Ireland, a country divided by faction and sunk in despair. And if Ireland should become unanimous, what then? She had only twenty-seven barons in the house of lords, while Great Britain had nearly four hundred. Ireland had only one hundred delegates in the house of commons, and not one true representative. Great Britain had five hundred representatives there. The church of England, standing on the ruins that were to be restored, was one of the great estates of the empire. Even if all these obstacles should be surmounted, there stood the king, pledged and bound, as he thought, by his coronation oath, to reject the bill for the liberty of conscience. But even the Catholic church and clergy were not yet reliable. Britain was continually temporizing, and Rome seemed not unwilling to compromise, and so divide the Irish people. The agitator needed, therefore, character and position which would enable him to speak with some show of authority to the people of Ireland. Catholics and Protestants, clergy and laity — to the king, lords, commons, and people of England-to Rome herself, and to an impartial world. What then were O'Connell's character and position? He was a British subject, a member of the Catholic church, and a lawyer in the four courts of Dublin-merely a lawyer, a Catholic, and a subject; and while Catholics remained disqualified he could be no more than this. He determined to invest that humble and obscure character and that position with power and strength; and this power and strength were to be obtained from the consent of the clergy and of his countrymen. So bold a reformer needed rare powers and qualities, and needed them in extraordinary combination. He must have transcendent genius to conceive so great an action-courage to dare the attempt-energy to pursue it-moderation to conciliate -pacific temper to avoid irritations to force-prudence and sagacity to circumvent the strategy of the adversary-sympathy with Catholic Ireland to be its organ- reverence for the clergy to gain their influence-loyalty to the British constitution to disarm those who converted it into an engine of oppression-ardent and impulsive eloquence to rouse illiterate and unreflecting masseslogical acumen and rhetorical power to confute sophistry, and convince the learned-tact and address to gain coadjutors, and hold them in their proper spheres-patience in bearing the insolence of offended power, and the timidity, waywardne ́s, and |