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THE 
 
 PRIESTS AND POETS 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 
 BY 
 
 COLONEL JAMES E. McGEE, £\ 
 
 Author of 11 Irish Soldiers in every Land u Celebrated 
 Sons of Irishmen “ The Men of ’48,” etc. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MAiaS, 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 D. O’LOUGHLTN, 
 
 IRISH NATIONAL PUBLISHING HOUSE, 
 680 Washington Street. 
 
Copyright, 1881, 
 
 BY 
 
 D. O’LQUGHLIN. 
 
US 
 
 M 14- 
 
 PRIESTS AND POETS. 
 
 
 
 Ik assuming a title so comprehensive 
 as “ The Priests and Poets of Ireland,” I 
 do not wish to have my motives mis- 
 understood, nor the public to be misled 
 into the supposition that I meant to 
 compensate for paucity of material or 
 deficiency of descriptive ability by adopt- 
 ing a high-sounding name. On the con- 
 trary, I am willing that this book shall 
 be judged by its intrinsic merits as far 
 as it goes into the lives, writings, and 
 actions of some of the more prominent 
 ecclesiastics and poets of this century, 
 born in Ireland. 
 
 It is the design of the publisher, and 
 the ardent wish of myself, to collect and 
 publish in a much larger volume, or in 
 a series of small books, a complete bio- 
 
iv "PRIESTS AND POETS. 
 
 graphical dictionary of every man of 
 the Irish race who has been distinguish- 
 ed for his zeal, eloquence, and good 
 works in the ministry, and of the al- 
 most countless sons of song who have 
 wept over Erin’s woes and wrongs, or 
 incited her gallant children to deeds of 
 daring and chivalry. 
 
 The present volume, though bearing 
 the name which in time will become 
 general to the future collection, is but 
 the av ant- courier, the skirmisher, as it 
 were, of the whole force ; the main body 
 of the grand army of priests and poets 
 has yet to be brought into action. 
 
 J. E. M, 
 
 New York, November, 1876. 
 
FATHER MATHEW. 
 
IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 THE EEV. THEOBALD MATHEW, 
 
 THE APOSTLE OF TEMPER AH CE. 
 
 Eew men of any age or country, con- 
 sidering the means at his disposal and 
 the almost insurmountable obstacles he 
 had to overcome, have performed such 
 great service to humanity and the cause 
 of morality and religion as did this 
 humble Capuchin monk, whose name is 
 even yet never mentioned but with bless- 
 ings in tens of thousands of happy homes 
 on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 The future Apostle of Temperance, fa- 
 miliarly and lovingly kno wn as Rather 
 Mathew, was born on the 10th of October, 
 1790, at Thomastown House, situated 
 
2 
 
 IKISH PEIESTS. 
 
 about five miles from Casbel. His in- 
 fancy was spent amid the terrible scenes 
 which accompanied tlie insurrection of 
 ’98 and preceded the passage of the ne- 
 farious Act of Union, and the horrors 
 of that period, which he was just old 
 enough to remember, made so deep an 
 impression on his mind that in after-life 
 he could never bear to allude to them 
 without a shudder. Having while yet a 
 boy attracted the attention of Lady Eli- 
 zabeth, daughter of the Earl of Llandaff, 
 his father’s friend, by his mild disposi- 
 tion and gentle bearing, that discriminat- 
 ing woman resolved to assume the en- 
 tire charge of his education, and at the 
 age of twelve years he was accordingly 
 sent by her to an excellent private 
 school in Kilkenny. 
 
 The youth remained in that establish- 
 ment some live years, winning the affec- 
 tion of his teachers and schoolmates 
 by patient application and inexhaustible 
 goodnature. One who knew young 
 Mathew well at this ductile period of 
 
THE KEV. THEOBALD MATHEW, 
 
 3 
 
 liis life, and, of course, like all liis ac- 
 quaintances, learned quickly to love 
 liim, afterwards wrote of him in the 
 Dublin Review : 
 
 u Incapable of anger or resentment, 
 utterly free from selfishness, always 
 anxious to share with others whatever 
 he possessed, jealous of the affections of 
 those to whom he was particularly at- 
 tached, remarkably gentle in his man- 
 ners, fond of expressing himself rather 
 in smiles than in language ; averse from 
 the boisterous amusements to which 
 boys in general are prone, and prefer- 
 ring to them quiet walks by the banks 
 of a river or by the side of green hedges, 
 in company with two or three select 
 associates, and yet very far from being 
 of a pensive disposition — on the contrary, 
 so cheerful that the slightest ludicrous 
 occurrence turned the smile he general- 
 ly wore into hearty laughter — he grew up 
 esteemed by everybody who knew him. 
 Even in boyhood he seemed never to 
 live for himself ; and yet, by not seeking 
 
4 
 
 £KIS1I PEIESTS 
 
 it, lie exercised an influence upon those 
 around him which they never thought 
 of questioning.” 
 
 Having evinced a decided preference 
 for an ecclesiastical life, the lad was sent 
 at the age of seventeen to Maynooth Col- 
 lege, where he matriculated in the Hu- 
 manity Class on the 10th of September, 
 1807. He Avas, however, not destined 
 to remain long Avithin the Avails of that 
 venerable and ultra-loyal institution ; for 
 having committed some slight infraction 
 of the college statutes, he left it abruptly, 
 rather than run the risk and disgrace of 
 expulsion. He next resolved to join the 
 Capuchins, the poorest and most hum- 
 ble order in Ireland, and for this pur- 
 pose he put himself under the tuition of 
 the Yery Rev. Celestine Corcoran, of 
 Dublin. Here, on Easter Saturday, 1814, 
 he was ordained by the Most Rev. Dr. 
 Murray, and immediately after assigned 
 to duty in Kilkenny. His stay in Kil- 
 kenny, though short, was long enough to 
 aAvaken a strong religious feeling in the 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 5 
 
 community, and to make tlie good peo- 
 ple of that favored city deeply regret his 
 departure. 
 
 His next sphere of usefulness was the 
 city of Cork, where he occupied the hum- 
 ble little friary erected by the famous 
 Father O’Leary. Here for about a quar- 
 ter of a century the good priest labored 
 with an assiduity and a perseverance 
 that made his name not only a house- 
 hold blessing in the humblest dwellings 
 of the poor and illiterate, but one that 
 was never mentioned without respect 
 and affection in the houses of the wealthy 
 and influential. u His reputation as a 
 spiritual director,” says his biographer, 
 the late Mr. Maguire, “ spread from 
 parish to parish of the city; gradually it 
 reached to its remotest confines, and so 
 travelled far beyond ; until subsequent- 
 ly it was said — with as much of truth as 
 of pleasantry — that if a carman from 
 Kerry brought a firkin of butter into the 
 Cork market, he would not return home 
 till he had gone to confession to Father 
 
6 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 Mathew. It may here he mentioned 
 that, in order to hear the confessions of 
 people from the country, many of whom 
 then spoke no other language than Irish, 
 Father Mathew set himself diligently to 
 learn the native tongue ; and that after 
 a time he became sufficiently conversant 
 with it for the purpose of his ministry.” ' 
 In illustration of the good Capuchin’s 
 method of dealing with incorrigible sin- 
 ners, and leading, or rather forcing, them 
 to repentance and salvation, the same 
 writer relates the following anecdote : 
 
 “ Some years subsequent to the period of 
 which we now treat, a Catholic lady said 
 to a servant in her house : 4 Well, Kitty, 
 how do you like Eather Mathew as a di- 
 rector ’ 4 Wisha, purty well, ma’am.’ 
 
 4 What do you mean by “purty well ” % ’ 
 enquired the mistress. 4 Well, indeed, 
 ma’am, he’s a beautiful director, not a 
 doubt about if, but — ’ Here Kitty 
 paused. 4 What do you mean by your 
 “ but ” ’ persevered the mistress, whose 
 interest was excited by the manner of her 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 7 
 
 servant. ‘Then, ma’am, the way of it is 
 this : the worse yon are in the beginning, 
 the more he’d like yon and the better 
 he’d use yon ; bnt if yon didn’t improve 
 very soon, there is no usage too bad for 
 you,’ The mistress was strongly in fa- 
 vor of Kitty not changing her new di- 
 rector.” 
 
 Bnt the young priest’s labors were not 
 altogether confined to the duties of his 
 sacred calling, and so systematically did 
 he divide his time and regulate his ac- 
 tions that, though constantly employed, 
 he always seemed to have ample lei- 
 sure when his services were demanded. 
 He established an industrial training 
 school and opened another for female 
 children, which, as early as 1824, could 
 boast of five hundred pupils, taught by 
 some of the first ladies of the city. In 
 1819 he founded the Josephian Society, 
 composed of young men whose duty it 
 was to teach the poor children the cate- 
 chism and the rudiments of an English 
 education, as well as to visit the afflicted 
 
IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 and succor the destitute. For himself, 
 his charity was boundless, and his visita- 
 tions of the sick, not only of his own par- 
 ish but of the whole city, unceasing. 
 
 In the pulpit also Father Mathew 
 evinced those remarkable traits of per- 
 suasive and moving eloquence which af- 
 terward swayed the hearts and aroused 
 the emotions of millions. In “ Sketches 
 of the Cork Catholic Pulpit,” by the 
 Very Rev. M. B. O’Shea, of St. Patrick’s, 
 Cork, published in 1826, we find the fol- 
 lowing passage descriptive of the effect 
 produced on an audience by the unas- 
 suming but warm-hearted friar : 
 
 “We have ourselves more than once 
 gone to hear this preacher, with the ex- 
 press intent of duly and fairly estimat- 
 ing his powers as a speaker, and have 
 summoned to our aid as much of our 
 critical bitterness as we conceived suffi- 
 cient to preserve our judgment unin- 
 fluenced by the previous charm of his 
 character. We were not listening to his 
 affectionate, earnest, and pathetic exhor- 
 
THE KEY. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 9 
 
 tation more than ten minutes, when our 
 criticism, onr bitterness, onr self-im- 
 portance, left ns ; all within ns that was 
 unkind and harsh was softened down ; 
 our heart beat only to kindlier emotions ; 
 we sympathized with our fellow-Chris- 
 tians around us. We defy the sternness 
 and severity of criticism to stand un- 
 moved, though it may remain unawak- 
 ened, while Mr. Mathew is preaching; 
 and this surely is no mean criterion of 
 the excellence of his character and the 
 efficiency of his ministry in the pulpit.” 
 From the same eloquent pen, but 
 written many years after, we have a 
 glowing description of Father Mathew’s 
 untiring charity and superhuman exer- 
 tions during the fearful scenes of the 
 cholera year of 1832. “ I have at this 
 
 moment,” says Father O’Shea, writing in 
 1863, u the most vivid and grateful re- 
 collection of the generous and heroic zeal 
 displayed by my revered and beloved 
 friend, Father Mathew, when, with the 
 unselfishness and devotedness of a mar- 
 
10 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 tyr and an apostle, lie threw himself into 
 the midst of the peril when the terrible 
 reality of Asiatic cholera smote my par- 
 ish first of any locality in Ireland, in 
 April, 1832. When the first stunning 
 effect of the Mow had subsided, as it 
 speedily did, a noble spectacle was exhi- 
 bited by the union of all ranks, profes- 
 sions, and creeds, while resolutely and 
 fearlessly confronting the calamity, and 
 aiming at its mitigation by all the re- 
 sources which humanity, religion, and 
 science are sure to bring into play in 
 the presence of a fearful crisis. Among 
 those who at that awful period took a 
 conspicuous part, not only in unwearied 
 attendance by the bedside of the plague- 
 stricken sufferers, but also in suggesting 
 and practically carrying out sanitary and 
 remedial measures for the relief of the 
 sick in private houses and in the public 
 hospitals, Father Mathew was ever fore- 
 most and always indefatigable. What 
 most deeply affected me then , and which 
 the memory even, at the distance of 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 u 
 
 more than thirty years, fills me with 
 mingled emotions of gratitude and of 
 reverential regards, was the visit he 
 paid me in the very early stage of this 
 dire calamity, when my hard-worked 
 curates and myself were overwhelmed 
 with incessant calls by day and night, 
 before there was time for the erection 
 of a temporary hospital, and before the 
 pestilence had spread over other and dis - 
 taut districts of the city and suburbs — 
 the centre and focus of the. disease being 
 a block of narrow, ill- ventilated streets 
 and lanes in the immediate neighbor- 
 hood of my residence, where the cho- 
 lera raged with peculiar virulence. 
 
 “ Two or three days after the first terri- 
 ble outburst of the pest, and as soon as the 
 awful tidings reached Eather Mathew’s 
 ears, he hastened to my house, and, with 
 open heart and arms, embraced me; 
 and, while offering his consolation and 
 sympathy, tendered me his valuable 
 services and the offices of his sacred 
 ministry for the comfort and spiritual 
 
12 
 
 IEXSH PRIESTS. 
 
 aid of my poor afflicted parishioners, at 
 every hour, by night or day, that I should 
 refer to him. This offer, unexpected 
 and unsolicited on my part, was, of 
 course, promptly and gratefully accepted, 
 and nothing could equal the noble, un- 
 tiring efficiency of the support he then 
 gave me until the benefit and blessing 
 of his administrations to the sick were 
 required away from my central district 
 in the southern quarter of the city, 
 which, in less than a fortnight after, 
 was doomed to undergo its own share 
 in the prevailing scourge.” 
 
 A tribute like this, so generously and 
 freely rendered by a brother priest, is an 
 invaluable testimonial of the merits of 
 the gifted friar ; and were nothing else 
 known of him but what is above record - 
 ed, he would be entitled to rank among 
 the foremost Christian heroes of which 
 the Church has been the prolific mother. 
 But Bather Mathew was intended for 
 even greater things. A pestilence worse 
 than Asiatic cholera had long overspread 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 13 
 
 the land, more deadly in its effect than 
 the worst of plagnes ; for it killed the 
 soul as well as the body. The name of 
 this cnrse was Intemperance. Dur- 
 ing his long ministration in Cork the 
 good father had ample opportunity of 
 witnessing its fearful prevalence and 
 destructive tendencies, and many a time 
 did he sighingly pray for its removal or 
 mitigation. At length an occasion 
 arose of which, though with great diffi- 
 dence, he hastened to take advantage. 
 A temperance society was formed, which 
 he at once joined, and with the aid, 
 strange as it may seem, of a Quaker, a 
 Unitarian, and an Episcopal minister, 
 gave it strength, influence, and direction. 
 
 We have heretofore considered Father 
 Mathew as a local preacher and confes- 
 sor whose charity and uniform kind- 
 ness made him a blessing to those im- 
 mediately around him; we must now 
 look upon him as a national benefactor, 
 a philanthropist of the most far-reach- 
 ing benevolence and universal fame. 
 
14 
 
 IEXSH PBIESTS. 
 
 Leaving, no doubt with regret, his hum- 
 ble chapel in Cork, and guided by an 
 influence superior to that of men, he 
 passed to and fro throughout the length 
 and breadth of the country, preaching 
 temperance to all classes, creeds, and 
 conditions of society, and administering 
 the teetotal pledge to millions of men, 
 women, and grown-up children. His- 
 tory records no such grand moral revo- 
 lution as that produced in five or six 
 years by this simple-minded, earnest, and 
 heaven-gifted priest. At his .approach 
 the vice of drunkenness disappeared, fra- 
 ternal quarrels ceased, homes that had 
 long been the abodes of discord and 
 wretchedness were turned into dwellings 
 of peace and comfort ; and agrarian 
 crime, formerly so rife and ghastly, be- 
 came almost unknown. The standard of 
 morality was perceptibly raised among 
 the people, high and low; literature 
 and music took the place of tavern 
 brawls and pot-house discussions; the 
 reading-room was substituted for the 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 15 
 
 bar-room ; while private hospitality, 
 stripped of its grossness, became again 
 one of the national virtues, instead of 
 the curse which it once had been. 
 
 At the time when the Apostle of 
 Temperance, as he has been very pro- 
 perly called, was thns winning over the 
 Irish people to good order, peace, and 
 sobriety, the great O’Connell was every- 
 where arousing his countrymen to the 
 assertion of their rights, civil and politi- 
 cal. These two remarkable men, enter- 
 taining for each other profound respect 
 and personal affection, were constantly 
 associated in their moral and patriotic 
 labors, and, though not working in con- 
 cert, their efforts were always directed 
 to the same end — the regeneration of 
 their native land. The Liberator gath- 
 ered together at the various centres of 
 population hundreds of thousands of 
 stalwart men to listen to the story of 
 their wrongs and to discuss their lawful 
 means of redress ; the teachings of Lather 
 Mathew made such monster assenn 
 
16 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 blages possible. No rude voice disturb- 
 ed the harmony of such meetings ; all 
 was quiet and well conducted, both be- 
 fore the proceedings and at their termi- 
 nation. 
 
 Yielding to repeated solicitations, he 
 visited Scotland in 1842, and England 
 in the following year. His reception in 
 both countries, not only by the masses 
 of the people, but by the most prominent 
 public men, lay and clerical, w ould have 
 been highly complimentary to a mind 
 less absorbed in a great undertaking 
 than his ; but he effected what pleased 
 him far more than praise or flattery — 
 the conversion from intemperance of 
 nearly three-quarters of a million of the 
 laborers and mechanics of the large 
 cities. 
 
 After his second absence his return 
 to Cork was hailed with delight, and his 
 temperance labors among his own peo- 
 ple were resumed with unabated ardor, 
 till checked, and almost entirely sus- 
 pended, by the dire English famine of 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 1 7 
 
 1846-7-8, which desolated the country 
 and drove millions of people into their 
 graves, the poorhouses, or hopeless exile. 
 How Father Mathew acted during those 
 awful years of starvation and pestilence 
 is best told by Mr. Maguire, who was 
 personally cognizant of every fact he 
 thus sets down : 
 
 “ It was a time truly to try the souls 
 of men ; and at no period of his career 
 did the character of Theobald Mathew 
 shine out with a purer and holier lustre 
 than in this terrible crisis. He was the 
 life and soul of every useful and chari- 
 table undertaking; and there were many 
 such at a moment which called into ac- 
 tivity the best feelings of our common 
 nature, and united those who had been 
 previously opposed in fraternal and 
 Christian concord. Industrial schools, 
 clothing societies, relief associations 
 visiting committees — these and similar 
 efforts sprang from the necessity of the 
 time and the compassion of the good; and 
 there were few of these that did not de- 
 
18 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 rive aid and strength from the co-opera- 
 tion or countenance of Eather Mathew. 
 What influence he could employ he 
 brought to bear upon those whose inter- 
 est it was to make a profit of the great 
 necessary of life, upon every ounce of 
 which depended the safety of a fellow- 
 creature; and by his lavish and un- 
 bounded charity — for the excess of 
 which he was afterward to endure 
 many a moment of mental torture — he 
 supplemented the public relief, and 
 thereby rescued thousands from an un- 
 timely grave.” 
 
 The delicate allusion here made to his 
 pecuniary embarrassments may as well 
 be explained. Eor years he had been at 
 great expense in travelling to various 
 places, holding meetings, and not unfre- 
 quently, nor with a miser’s hand, open- 
 ing his purse-string at the call of the in- 
 digent and helpless. The large sale of 
 temperance medals at each gathering 
 led the public into the error of suppos- 
 ing that the fund so created was sufli- 
 
THE EEV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 19 
 
 cient for his needs, and his enemies 
 among the distillers and liquor-dealers 
 were not slow in asserting that he was 
 rapidly becoming wealthy. Both classes 
 were, however, undeceived when on one 
 occasion in Dublin, while in the very 
 act of administering the pledge, he was 
 arrested in an action for debt. Though 
 he was rescued from this dilemma almost 
 as soon as it became known by his pri- 
 vate friends and public admirers, his 
 generosity during the famine days 
 again plunged him into debt, from 
 which he was only extricated, after 
 years of weary suffering, by an annual 
 pension equal to fifteen hundred dollars. 
 
 On the demise of the Bight Kev. Dr. 
 Murphy, Bishop of Cork, the clergy of 
 that diocese, under the presidency of 
 the Archbishop of the province, assem- 
 bled to choose a successor on the 7th of 
 April, 1847. Of the three names passed 
 upon Bather Mathew received the high- 
 est number of votes, and it was generally 
 thought that he would be confirmed as 
 
20 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 bishop by the Holy See, though those 
 who knew him best, and took the great- 
 est interest in his labors, feared that, a 
 mitre once placed upon his head, he 
 would be obliged by the responsibilities 
 of his episcopal office to relinquish the 
 field in which the battle of temperance 
 was still to be fought. The Holy See 
 seems to have shared this apprehension ; 
 for he was not selected for the episco- 
 pate. The correspondence which passed 
 between the priests of Cork (secular and 
 regular) and their illustrious candidate 
 on this occasion was alike creditable to 
 them and to him. The address ran 
 thus : 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 From the Catholic Clergy of the City of Corle to 
 the Very Rev. T. Mathew , Minister' Provin- 
 cial of the Cajpuchin Order in Ireland . 
 
 Very Eey. Dear Sir : We, the un- 
 dersigned clergymen of the city of 
 Cork, hasten to convey to you our 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 21 
 
 warmest congratulations upon the high 
 position in which you have been placed 
 by the choice of the parish priests of 
 this diocese. In so placing you we had 
 not, and, from circumstances, could not 
 have, any part. The decision, however, 
 arrived at by the majority of those with 
 whom the choice rested merits and ob- 
 tains our entire approval. This we 
 deem it right to convey to you in the 
 present form. 
 
 You, very reverend dear sir, have been 
 associated in the ministry with some 
 among us for many years ; to others you 
 are endeared by ties of affection formed 
 in childhood and strengthened by the 
 experience of a riper age ; and you are 
 known and esteemed by all as a most 
 laborious priest, a consistent and ever- 
 active friend of the poor, and a truly 
 zealous promoter of every measure which 
 has for its object the interests and honor 
 of God’s Church and the welfare of 
 God’s people. 
 
 Should the decision of the Supreme 
 
22 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 Pontiff confide to your care the charge of 
 this diocese, the attainment of the high 
 objects of the episcopal office will, in 
 your person, be greatly facilitated by the 
 extensive and well- deserved influence 
 over all classes which your many and 
 exalted virtues, during a long career of 
 unexampled usefulness, have already 
 secured to you. Accept, very reverend 
 and dear sir, the assurances of warm re- 
 gard and sincere respect with which we 
 remain your faithful friends and breth- 
 ren. 
 
 This affectionate and thoroughly sin- 
 cere document, signed by twenty-three 
 clergymen, who, not being parish priests, 
 had no voice in his election, was answered 
 in the following characteristic terms : 
 
 Very Rev. a yd Rev. Brethren, 
 my very dear Prieyds : I receive with 
 the deepest respect and gratitude the ex- 
 pression of your regard for myself, and 
 of your concurrence in the vote by which 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 23 
 
 the venerable parish priests of this dio- 
 cese have conferred on my humble self 
 the highest honor in their power to be- 
 stow. 
 
 I cannot deem myself worthy of so 
 high and responsible a position, neither 
 am I influenced by any feelings of per- 
 sonal ambition ; but I feel deeply at re- 
 ceiving such a testimony from a body 
 of clergymen in talent and virtues dis- 
 tinguished in the Irish Church, and en- 
 deared to me by the closest ties of the 
 friendship of many years. 
 
 Whatever may be the decision of the 
 Holy See, I shall during my life trea- 
 sure up the remembrance of this day, 
 and, in any sphere in which it may 
 please God to place me, I trust I shall 
 never forget how much I owe to the 
 kindness and affection of my brethren in 
 the ministry. 
 
 Theobald Mathew. 
 
 When it became known that Hr. 
 Helany, not Tather Mathew, had been 
 
24 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 selected by His Holiness for tbe episco- 
 pate, a deep feeling of disappointment, 
 shared in by all tlie Catholics of Cork — • 
 except, perhaps, the person who might be 
 considered the most directly interested — 
 pervaded the community. Addresses 
 breathing the warmest attachment, and 
 signed by thousands of intelligent lay- 
 men, poured in on the Apostle of 
 Temperance; but that holy and ever- 
 ineek follower of his divine Lord, so far 
 from experiencing the least chagrin at the 
 preference given another, was the first to 
 congratulate the new bishop and endorse 
 the wisdom and discretion of Lome. 
 
 A.s early as 1847 Lather Mathew con- 
 templated a visit to the United States ; 
 for wherever his countrymen were, and 
 his presence as a temperance advocate 
 required, there, he considered, lay his 
 path and his sphere of duty; but the 
 absolute necessity of his remaining 
 during the famine, and his subsequent 
 stroke of paralysis, delayed him for 
 some time. Many were the pressing 
 
THE BEV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 25 
 
 invitations sent to him from this 
 country ; but none is so well worthy 
 of preservation, or so honorable to this 
 great country and its representative on 
 that special occasion, as the following 
 note from the gallant captain of the 
 frigate Macedonian , one of the United 
 States war vessels sent with provisions 
 to the starving Irish, who had been 
 previously refused the use of one of 
 their own ships by the British Govern- 
 ment : 
 
 U. S. E bigate Macedonian , > 
 ]S t ew Yobk, May 15, 1847. ) 
 
 Eevebexd aed Respected Ea- 
 theb : This frigate will leave for Ire- 
 land and Scotland some time during the 
 present month ; and, having understood 
 that it was the intention of your reve- 
 rence to visit this country during the 
 summer, I take the liberty of respect- 
 fully offering to your consideration the 
 propriety of returning with me. 
 
 It would give me great pleasure to 
 
26 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 have the honor of your company on my 
 homeward voyage ; and I can only as- 
 sure you that, should you determine to 
 accompany me, no pains shall be spared 
 to make your voyage as pleasant to your- 
 self as it is hoped it will be profitable to 
 my fellow-citizens of the United States. 
 
 Accept the assurance of high regard, 
 consideration, and respect from 
 George 0. De Kay, 
 Commander of JJ. 8. F. Macedonian. 
 
 To the Very Kev. Father Mathew, 
 Cork. 
 
 Though obliged to decline this hearty 
 and thoughtful invitation, Father Ma- 
 thew only postponed for a time his 
 visit to this country. In the summer 
 of 1849, having partially recovered from 
 his illness, he left home by the way of 
 Liverpool, and arrived at Kew York on 
 the 2d of July of that year. The inci- 
 dents of his tour through the United 
 States, the sympathy and support which 
 he received from the whole Catholic 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 27 
 
 body, many of tlie sectarian ministers, 
 and not a few of onr most distinguished 
 statesmen, like Henry Olay, William H. 
 Seward, and Lewis Cass, are fresh in the 
 public mind. His career was a perfect 
 ovation, his success as a temperance ad- 
 vocate complete, and the impetus which 
 he then gave to the cause of teetotalism 
 is sensibly felt even to this day. 
 
 Nothing marred the unanimity with 
 which his appearance was greeted, ex- 
 cept the conduct of the extreme aboli- 
 tionists in Boston and the opposition 
 of the pro-slavery fanatics of the South. 
 This was most pronounced in the United 
 States Senate. A resolution having 
 been introduced into that body to ad- 
 mit the distinguished stranger to a seat 
 within the bar, though supported by 
 prominent Democrats and Whigs with 
 equal earnestness, was vehemently op- 
 posed by several Southern members. 
 Prominent among these was Jefferson 
 Davis, of Mississippi, who has since at- 
 tained such bad eminence as the chief 
 
28 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 conspirator against tlie integrity of this 
 republic. That individual took the 
 liberty of saying : 
 
 “ The question resolves itself into this : 
 Whether the Senate, having upon its 
 floor those who represent a slave-holding 
 constituency, shall vote an extraordinary 
 compliment to one known as the ally of 
 O’Connell, and in whose expressed opi- 
 nions he openly coincided. Why, if he 
 came here as a guest to share our hos- 
 pitality, and not to disturb the peace of 
 our country, did he not say that our 
 domestic affairs are our own, and that 
 he did not come here to disprove any 
 portion of them ; that he came here to 
 express no opinions in relation to sla- 
 very 1 ? He comes covertly, a wolf in 
 sheep’s clothing ; and I hold the Senatoi 
 from New York to be the very best au- 
 thority upon that subject.” 
 
 Notwithstanding this and similar 
 outbursts of intolerance, the Senate, by 
 a vote of thirty- three to eighteen, passed 
 the resolution. 
 
THE REV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 29 
 
 Eorewarned by the increasing* symp- 
 toms of declining health, hastened and 
 aggravated by his long journeys through 
 the South and West, Eather Mathew 
 prepared to return to his beloved people, 
 among whom he expected to find his 
 eternal rest. On the 8th of November, 
 1851, he left New York for Ireland. 
 Previous to his departure he issued “ A 
 Earewell Address to the Citizens of the 
 United States,” so full of pathos, sin- 
 cerity, and wisdom that it deserves to be 
 printed in letters of gold, and hung up 
 on the walls of the house of every adopt- 
 ed, ay, and native-born, citizen in the 
 Union. To his own countrymen, in 
 particular, he proffered the following 
 excellent and impressive advice : 
 
 “ You have, my dearly-beloved friends, 
 relinquished the land of your birth, en- 
 deared to you by a thousand fond remi- 
 niscences, to seek on these distant shores 
 that remuneration for industry and toil 
 too often denied you at home. You are 
 presented here with a boundless field of 
 
so 
 
 IKISII PEIESTS. 
 
 profitable employment, and every in- 
 ducement is field out to persevering in- 
 dustry. You are received and welcomed 
 into tfie great American family witfi 
 feelings of sympatfiy, kindness, and 
 friendship. After a few years you be- 
 come citizens of this great republic, 
 whose vast territorial extent abounds in 
 all tfie materials of mineral, agricul- 
 tural, and commercial wealth ; tfie ave- 
 nues to honor and fame are liberally 
 thrown open to you and to your children, 
 and no impediment (save of your own 
 creation) exists to prevent your attaining 
 tfie highest social and civic distinction ; 
 and will you any longer permit those 
 glorious opportunities to pass unim- 
 provedj or rather, will you not, by stu- 
 dying self-respect and acquiring habits 
 suited to your new position, aspire to 
 reflect honor alike on the land of your 
 birth and of your adoption I implore 
 you as I would with my dying breath 
 to discard for ever those foolish divi- 
 sions, those insensate quarrels, those 
 
THE KEV. THEOBALD MATHEW. 
 
 31 
 
 faction broils (too often, alas ! the fruits 
 of intemperance) in wliicb your country 
 is disgraced, tbe peace and order of so- 
 ciety violated, and tbe laws of heaven 
 trampled on and outraged.” 
 
 On liis return to Ireland Father Ma- 
 thew renewed his temperance labors, 
 but his health was so seriously impaired 
 that he was soon compelled to abandon 
 them. In 1852 he was seized with an 
 attack of apoplexy, and on partially re- 
 covering was ordered to Madeira for 
 change of air. His visit, however, was 
 unproductive of any good results, and 
 he soon returned home, where he lin- 
 gered some years longer, surrounded by 
 kind and affectionate friends and skilful 
 medical attendants. On the 3d of De- 
 cember, 1856, he expired, in the forty- 
 second year of his ministry and the 
 sixty- sixth year of his age. His death, 
 though not unexpected, caused a pro- 
 found sensation of regret, not only among 
 his countrymen at home and abroad, 
 but wherever his name was known and 
 
32 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 his virtues appreciated. His mortal re- 
 mains repose in the beautiful cemetery 
 which he established in the vicinity of 
 Cork ; his memory is perpetuated by 
 the people of that city in a noble statue 
 from the chisel of Ifoley — one of the first 
 sculptors of this century — and his soul, 
 we trust, has long since received the re- 
 ward promised to those who fight the 
 good fight and keep the faith even to 
 the end. 
 
FATHER TOM BURKE 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS Y. BURKE, 
 
 O.P. 
 
 There are few persons in tlie United 
 States wlio are not familiar with the 
 name of this distinguished and eloquent 
 Dominican, who a few years ago visited 
 America, and delighted so many thou- 
 sands by his soul-stirring sermons and 
 lectures. Yo speaker, lay or clerical, 
 visitor or to the manor born, has had 
 so enthusiastic a reception, such large 
 and appreciative audiences, and so gen- 
 eral commendation from the press as 
 this Irish monk, who came among us, it 
 would appear, to demonstrate in his own 
 person how easily the fire, eloquence, 
 vigor, and wit for which the Gaels have 
 been celebrated can be concentrated in 
 one individual, and, when wedded to 
 morality and religion, how effectively 
 
 33 
 
34 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 they can be made to subserve the high- 
 est ends of mankind. 
 
 Father Burke was born in Galway, 
 September 8, 1830, and, we believe, was 
 educated in that city till he had reach- 
 ed his seventeenth year. Then, having 
 developed a strong tendency for an ec- 
 clesiastical life, and preferring to join 
 some regular order, he was sent to Pe- 
 rugia, Italy, where he entered upon his 
 novitiate in the house of the Domini- 
 cans, under the religious name of Tho- 
 mas Aquinas. After a short time he 
 was removed to the Eternal City, where 
 he passed live years in acquiring a know- 
 ledge of the duties of the sacred profes- 
 sion for which he was destined, and in 
 storing his mind with a fund of varied 
 and useful information, so apparent in 
 all his public sermons and addresses. 
 
 On being ordained he was first sent to 
 the mission in Gloucestershire and other 
 parts of England, where he spent four 
 years constantly preaching and instruct- 
 ing, before being assigned to the respon- 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS X. BURKE, O.P. 35 
 
 sible position of head of the novitiate of 
 his order at Tallagh, in Ireland. Here 
 his executive abilities, gentleness, and 
 geniality of disposition had full play, 
 and many young and learned Domini- 
 cans of to-day look back with pleasure 
 to the years so profitably and pleasantly 
 spent under his paternal guidance and 
 tuition. Dor over seven years he con- 
 tinued to perform his duties as master of 
 novices and giving missions throughout 
 the country, till called to Rome by the 
 Sovereign Pontiff to take the place of Dr. 
 (now Cardinal) Manning as preacher of 
 Lenten Sermons in the basilica of Santa 
 Maria del Popolo. 
 
 A compliment like this, paid to so 
 modest and young a preacher, will be 
 duly appreciated when we remember 
 that the pulpit of that church had long 
 been selected by the papal authorities 
 for preachers in the English language ; 
 and that the audience, during the Len- 
 ten season, was usually composed of 
 the most intelligent, critical, and sympa- 
 
36 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 tlietic portion of the American, Irish, 
 and English visitors, Protestant and 
 Catholic, to the centre of Christendom. 
 Here the glowing periods, splendid dic- 
 tion, and refined oratory of the late Car- 
 dinal Wiseman for many years delighted 
 and convinced the hearts and minds of 
 thousands ; and here also the pure, clas- 
 sical, and incisive eloquence of the pre- 
 sent Cardinal Manning found full scope, 
 until that august lecturer was called 
 away to take the place of the illustri- 
 ous Archbishop of Westminster. That 
 Eather Burke was deficient neither in 
 the great gifts which distinguished his 
 predecessors, nor in the capacity to carry 
 out the intentions of his Holiness, may 
 be judged from the fact that he was de- 
 tained in Home for five years, and since 
 his departure the Lenten lectures, once 
 so prominent a feature in winter life in 
 that city, have been discontinued. 
 
 On his return to Ireland Eather 
 Burke was assigned to the charge of the 
 church of St. Saviour, in Dublin, and, 
 
VERY REV, THOMAS X. BURKE, O.P. 37 
 
 when not engaged in the ordinary duties 
 of that position, he has been constantly 
 occupied in giving retreats in other dio- 
 ceses, preaching charity sermons — for 
 which his peculiar delicacy of feeling 
 and moving pathos so admirably qualify 
 him — and delivering patriotic addresses 
 before literary anti educational associa- 
 tions. The following extract, taken at 
 random from one of the two large vol- 
 umes containing most of his recent ser- 
 mons and lectures, will convey some idea 
 of the style and manner of these latter 
 efforts : 
 
 “ Eor more than a thousand years the 
 work of St. Patrick was the glory of 
 Christendom. The virgin Church of 
 Ireland, unstained even by one martyr’s 
 blood, became the prolific mother of 
 saints. Strange indeed, and singular in 
 its glory, was the destiny of Innisfail. 
 The Irish Church knew no childhood, 
 no ages of painful and uncertain strug- 
 gle to put on Christian usages and estab- 
 lish Christian traditions. Like the chil- 
 
38 
 
 IKISH PEIESTS. 
 
 dren in the early ages of the Olmrch, 
 who were confirmed in infancy imme- 
 diately after baptism, Ireland was called 
 upon as soon as converted to become at 
 once the mother of saints, the home and 
 refuge of learning, the great instructress 
 of the nations ; and perhaps the history 
 of the world does not exhibit a more 
 striking and glorious sight than Ireland 
 for the three hundred years immediately 
 following her conversion to the Catholic 
 faith. The whole island was covered 
 with schools and monasteries, in which 
 men the most renowned of their age, 
 both for learning and sanctity, received 
 the thousands of students who flocked to 
 them from every land. Whole cities 
 were given up to them ; as we read of 
 Armagh, which was divided into three 
 parts — 1 Trian-more ,’ or the town pro- 
 per ; ‘ Trian-Patrick ,’ or the cathedral 
 close ; ‘ Trian- SassenagliJ or the Latin 
 quarter, the home of the foreign stu- 
 dents. To the students the evening star 
 gave the signal for retirement, and the 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS X. BURKE, 0,P. ^9 
 
 morning sun for awaking. ‘ When, at 
 the sound of the early hell,’ says the 
 historian, 4 two or three thousand of 
 them poured into the silent streets and 
 made their way towards the lighted 
 church, to join in the service of matins, 
 mingling, as they went or returned, the 
 tongues of the Gael, the Cimbri, the 
 Piet, the Saxon, and the Prank, or hail- 
 ing and answering each other in the uni- 
 versal language of the Roman Church, 
 the angels in heaven must have loved to 
 contemplate the union of so much per- 
 severance with so much piety.’ And 
 thus it was not only in St. Patrick’s 
 own city of Armagh, but in Bangor, in 
 Clonard, in Clonmacnoise, in Mayo of 
 the Saxons ; in Tagmahon and Beg-Erin, 
 ol the Slaney; in famed Lismore, on 
 the Blackwater ; in Mungret, on the 
 lordly Shannon ; in the far-off Islands 
 of Arran, on the Western Ocean ; and 
 in many another sainted and heroic 
 spot where the round tower and the 
 group of seven churches still remain, 
 
40 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 silent but eloquent witnesses of tlie sanc- 
 tity and the glory of Ireland’s first 
 Christianity. The nations, beholding 
 and admiring the lustre of learning and 
 sanctity which shone forth in the holy 
 isle, united in conferring upon Ireland 
 the proudest title ewer yet given to a 
 land or a people ; they called her 4 the 
 Island of Saints and Doctors.’ ” 
 
 It is now more than four years ago 
 since Father Burke was induced to visit 
 this country, the fame of his wondrous 
 eloquence and great services in the 
 cause of Catholicity having crossed the 
 Atlantic before him and penetrated into 
 the remotest towns and cities of the 
 interior. Xor were the people disap- 
 pointed when he did arrive, and they 
 had an opportunity of personally judg- 
 ing of those brilliant qualities which 
 astonished alike the unlettered but de- 
 vout peasants of the west of Ireland, 
 and the fastidious denizens of the capi- 
 tal of the Christian world. Everywhere 
 that the demands of patriotism, charity, 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS X. BURKE, O.P. 41 
 
 benevolence, or religion called for Ills 
 presence and voice, tlie gifted son of St. 
 Dominic went, and always to address 
 large and enraptured audiences. The 
 incredible amount of physical labor 
 alone which he must have undergone 
 during the first few months of his visit 
 here would have been too much for any 
 ordinary constitution ; but, fortunately, 
 Eather Burke proved himself to be a 
 man whose bodily strength is equal to 
 his mental energy and indefatigable 
 industrv. 
 
 During his stay he was invited to all 
 the principal cities on the seaboard, and 
 to many of the larger villages and towns 
 in the interior ; and always gathered 
 round him congregations, not exclu- 
 sively Catholic, but very frequently 
 largely made up of non-Catholics of 
 various sects. To those he spoke in his 
 unvarying vein of good-nature, buoy- 
 ant humor, and earnest argument ; illus- 
 trating every proposition with gems of 
 history and a wealth of erudition that 
 
42 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 fascinated the imagination, while carry- 
 ing conviction to the minds of the most 
 obstinate and unreasonable. Though, 
 in or out of the pulpit, he ever preserved 
 the dignity and impartiality of a Catho- 
 lic priest who knew no nationality in 
 religion, hut who looked npon all Chris- 
 tians as brothers and all mankind as of 
 one common family, he delighted, when 
 occasion served, to dwell npon the vir- 
 tues and fidelity of his native land, and 
 to exult in her history and unswerving 
 attachment to the ancient faith. Thus 
 during one of his lectures we find him 
 bursting out into the following glowing 
 words : “ Yes ; if there be one passion 
 that has outlived every other in the 
 heart of the true Irishman, it is the 
 inborn love for Ireland, for Ireland’s 
 greatness, and for Ireland’s glory. Our 
 fathers loved it, and knew how to prize 
 it, to hold it — the glory of the faith that 
 has never been tarnished ; the glory of 
 the national honor that has never bow- 
 ed down to acknowledge itself a slave. 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS X. BURKE, O.P. 43 
 
 And, my friends, tlie burden and tlie 
 responsibility of tbat glory are yours and 
 mine to-nigbt. The glory of Ireland’s 
 priesthood, the glory of St. Columba, 
 the glories of Iona and of Lindisfarne, 
 weigh upon me with a tremendous re- 
 sponsibility, to be of all other men what 
 the Irish priest and monk must be, be- 
 cause of that glorious history ; the glory 
 of the battle that has been so lon g fight- 
 ing and is not yet closed ; the glory of 
 that faith that has been so long and so 
 well defended and guarded ; the glory 
 of that national virtue that has made 
 Ireland’s men the bravest and Ireland’s 
 women the purest in the world — that 
 glory is your inheritance and your re- 
 sponsibility this night. I and you, men, 
 feel as Irishmen and as Catholics that 
 you and I to-night are bound to show 
 the world what Irishmen and Catholics 
 have been in the ages before us, and 
 what they intend to be in the ages to 
 come — a nation and a Church that has 
 never allowed a stain to be fixed upon 
 
44 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 the national banner nor upon the na- 
 tional altar — a nation and a Church 
 who, in spite of its hard fate and its 
 misfortunes, can still look the world in 
 the face ; for on Ireland’s virgin brow 
 no stain of dishonor or of perfidy has 
 ever been placed. In sobriety, in in- 
 dustry, in manly self-respect, in honest 
 pride of everything that an honest man 
 ought to be proud of — in all these, and 
 in respect for the laws of this mighty 
 country, lie the secret of your honor 
 and of your national power and purity. 
 Mark my words ! Let Ireland in Ame- 
 rica be faithful, be Catholic, be prac- 
 tical, be temperate, be industrious, be 
 obedient to the laws ; and the day will 
 dawn, with the blessing of God, yet 
 upon you and me, so that, when return- 
 ing to visit for a time the shores from 
 which we came, we shall land upon the 
 shores of a free and glorious and un- 
 fettered nation.” 
 
 Shortly after Lather Burke’s arrival 
 in this country we were favored by the 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS N. BURKE, O.P. 45 
 
 presence of a distinguished English his- 
 torian — Mr. Anthony Eroude, who had 
 been known on this side of the Atlan- 
 tic principally as an indefatigable colla- 
 tor and discoverer of State Papers, as 
 the maligner of the much-calumniated 
 Mary, Queen of Scots — who had, as the 
 world knows, been judicially murdered 
 by the virgin queen and defender of the 
 faith, Elizabeth — and, as the apologist, if 
 not the eulogist, of her father, the brutal 
 Henry Mill. Said a late distinguished 
 writer,* now, alas ! no more : “In mat- 
 ters of state Mr. Eroude is a pamphleteer ; 
 in personal questions he is an advocate. 
 He holds a brief for Henry. He holds 
 a brief against Mary Stuart. He is 
 the most effective of advocates ; for he 
 fairly throws himself into his case. He 
 is the declared friend or the open ene* 
 my of all the personages in his history. 
 Their failure and their success affect his 
 spirits and his style. He rejoices with 
 
 * Colonel James F. Meline, author of “ Mary, Queen, of 
 Scots.” 
 
46 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 them or weeps with them. There are 
 some whose misfortunes uniformly make 
 him sad. There are others over whose 
 calamities he becomes radiant. He has 
 no standard of justice, no ethical princi- 
 ple which estimates actions as they are 
 in themselves, and not in the light of 
 personal like or dislike of the actors.” 
 This literary partisan, this champion 
 of English conceit and English prejudice, 
 came to America with the insane idea 
 that he could persuade the people of this 
 country that England was justified in 
 her long series of oppressions, spoliations, 
 and murders in Ireland ; that Irishmen 
 as such were incompetent for, and did 
 not deserve the boon of, self-government ; 
 while as Catholics it was not only the 
 duty of Great Britain to persecute them, 
 but that Protestants of every clime 
 should applaud and sustain her acts. In 
 conformity with this scheme Mr. Eroude 
 delivered a course of lectures on Irish 
 and English history in Hew York, Phil- 
 adelphia, Washington, Boston, and other 
 
VERY REY. THOMAS H BURKE, O.P. 47 
 
 places of note, the tone and tendency 
 of which cannot be better described than 
 in the words of distinguished Ameri- 
 can of no Irish or Catholic proclivi- 
 ties : 
 
 u Then, when you turn to Ireland,” 
 said Wendell Phillips before a Boston 
 audience, “ every statement, I think, of 
 the Englishman is false -false in this 
 sense : that it clutched at every idle tale 
 which reflected on Ireland, while it sub- 
 jected to just and merciless scrutiny 
 every story that told against England. 
 He painted the poverty, the anarchy, the 
 demoralization, the degradation of Ire- 
 land for the last three centuries, as if it 
 stood only exceptional in Europe ; as if 
 every other kingdom was bright, and 
 this was the only dark and disgusting 
 spot on that portion of the globe ; where- 
 as he knew, and would not, if question- 
 ed, have denied, that the same poverty, 
 the same reckless immorality, the same 
 incredible ignorance, which he attribut- 
 ed to the population of Ireland, was true 
 
48 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 of France of that day, true of England 
 at the same period, and truer still of 
 Scotland at every date that he named. 
 And then, when he came to the public 
 men of Ireland, he painted them as 
 monsters of corruption, steeped in the 
 utmost subserviency, in the most entire 
 readiness to traffic for votes and princi- 
 ples ; that, all that being granted, these 
 men were only toiling and panting in 
 their narrow capacity to lift themselves 
 up to the level of the corruption of their 
 English brothers.” 
 
 While Fronde’s slanders, from their 
 very virulence, defeated the object they 
 were designed to subserve, there were 
 some of the less informed people among 
 ns inclined to believe them true as long 
 as they remained uncontradicted. Many 
 of Eather Burke’s friends, therefore, re- 
 quested him to answer them from the 
 rostrum, and he, not without reluctance, 
 being averse to all controversy, consent- 
 ed. Accordingly, he prepared, and deliv- 
 ered in Hew York, a course of five lectures 
 
VEEY EEV. THOMAS H. BUEKE, O.P. 49 
 
 on tlie history of Ireland from the 
 Anglo-llorman invasion to the present 
 day. His audience on each occasion 
 was immense, and as his lectures were 
 pretty fully reported in the press, and 
 thus scattered far and wide, they pro- 
 duced a profound impression throughout 
 the entire country. In point of dignity 
 and courtesy the Irish monk had greatly 
 the advantage of the English historian, 
 while it was admitted by all but the 
 most prejudiced that in candor of state- 
 ment, fulness of facts, close analysis, 
 and cogent reasoning he was vastly 
 his superior. 
 
 As an illustration of Father Burke’s 
 portraiture of leading historical charac- 
 ters, we place before the reader the fol- 
 lowing passages : 
 
 1IEXKY II. 
 
 “It is said [Pope] Adrian gave the 
 rescript, and did not know the man he 
 gave it to. But Alexander knew him 
 well ! Henry, in 1159 and 1106, sup- 
 
50 
 
 IKXSH PEIESTS. 
 
 ported the anti-popes against Alexan- 
 der, and, according to Matthew of W est- 
 mi nster, King Henry II. obliged every 
 one in England, from the boy twelve 
 years of age to the old man, to renounce 
 his allegiance to Alexander III. and to 
 go over to the anti-popes. Xow, is it 
 likely that Alexander would give him a 
 rescript, telling him to go to Ireland 
 and settle the ecclesiastical matters 
 there Alexander himself wrote to 
 Henry, and said to him : ‘ Instead of 
 remedying the disorders caused by your 
 predecessors, you have added prevari- 
 cation to prevarication; you have op- 
 pressed the church, and endeavored to 
 destroy the canons of apostolical men.’ 
 
 “ Such is the man that Alexander sent 
 to Ireland to make the Irish people good 
 According to Mr. Xroucle, the Irish 
 never loved the pope till the Xormans 
 taught them! . . . It was this man who 
 was sent over as an apostle of morality 
 to Ireland ; he w r as the man accused of 
 violating the betrothed wife of his own 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS 1ST. BURKE, O.P. 51 
 
 son, Richard I. ; a man the mention 
 of whose crimes will not bear repe- 
 tition ; a man who was believed bv 
 Europe to be possessed by the devil ; 
 a man of whom it is written 4 that 
 when he got into a fit of anger he 
 tore off his clothes, and sat naked, 
 chewing straw like a beast ! ’ Further- 
 more, is it likely that a pope who knew 
 him so well, who suffered so much from 
 him, would have sent him to Ireland — 
 the murderer of bishops, the robber of 
 churches, the destroyer of ecclesiastical 
 liberty, and of every form of liberty 
 that came before him*? Ro, I never 
 will believe that the Pope of Rome was 
 so very short-sighted, so unjust, as, by a 
 stroke of his pen, to abolish and destroy 
 the liberties of the most faithful people 
 who ever bowed down in allegiance to 
 him.” 
 
 HENRY VIII. 
 
 “Was Henry VIII. an upholder of 
 the law % Was he obedient to the law $ 
 
52 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 I deny it, and I have tlie evidence of all 
 history to back me up in that denial ; 
 and I brand Henry VIII. as one of the 
 greatest enemies of freedom and law 
 that ever lived in this world, and conse- 
 quently one of the greatest tyrants. My 
 friends, I shall only give yon one exam- 
 ple out of ten thousand which might 
 be taken from the history of the time. 
 When Henry VIII. broke with the 
 pope, he called up his subjects to ac- 
 knowledge him — bless the mark ! — as 
 spiritual head of the church. There 
 were three abbots of the Charter-houses 
 in and near London who refused to ac- 
 knowledge Henry as the supreme visible 
 head of the church. He had them ar- 
 rested and held for trial, and lie had a 
 jury of twelve citizens of London to sit 
 upon them. Vow, the first principle of 
 English law, the grand palladium of 
 English legislation and freedom, is per- 
 fect liberty of the jury. The jury in 
 any country must be perfectly free, not 
 . only from every form of coercion over 
 
VEBY EEV. THOMAS H. BUBKE, O.P. 53 
 
 them, but even their own prejudice. 
 They must be free from any prejudg- 
 ment of the case ; they must be perfectly 
 impartial and perfectly free to record 
 the verdict at which their impartial 
 judgment has arrived. Those twelve 
 men refused to convict the three abbots 
 of high treason, and they grounded their 
 refusal upon this : ‘if ever,’ they said, 
 ‘has it been uttered in England that it 
 was high treason to deny the spiritual 
 supremacy of the king. It is not law, 
 and therefore we cannot find these men 
 guilty of high treason.’ What did Hen- 
 ry dol He sent word to the jury that 
 if they did not find the three abbots 
 guilty, he would visit them with the 
 same penalties which he had intended 
 for the prisoners. . . . Was this 
 
 man Henry a respecter of conscience ? 
 Again, out of ten thousand instances of 
 his contempt for liberty of conscience, 
 let me select one. He ordered the peo- 
 ple of England to change their religion. 
 He ordered them to give up that grand 
 
5 4 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 system of dogmatic teaching which is 
 in the Catholic Church, where every 
 man knows what to believe and what to 
 do. And what religion did he offer 
 them instead % He did not offer them 
 Protestantism ; for Henry VIII. never 
 was a Protestant, and to the last day of 
 his life, if he had only been able to lay 
 his hands upon Martin Luther, he would 
 have made a toast of him. He heard 
 Mass up to the day of Ms death, and 
 after his death there was a solemn High 
 Mass over his inflated corpse — a solemn 
 High Mass that the Lord might have 
 mercy on his soul. Ah ! my friends, 
 some other poor soul, I suppose, got the 
 benefit of it. What religion did he offer 
 the people of England'? He simply 
 came before them and said : 1 Let every 
 man in this land agree with me ; what- 
 ever I say, that is religion.’ More than 
 this, his Parliament — a slavish Parlia- 
 ment, every man of which was afraid < f 
 his life — passed a law making it high 
 treason not only to disagree with the 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS N. BURKE, O.P. 5E 
 
 king in anything lie believed, but mak- 
 ing it bigli treason for any man to dis- 
 pute anything that the king should ever 
 believe in a future time. He was not 
 only the enemy of conscience ; he was 
 the anniliilator of conscience. ‘ I am 
 your conscience, he said to the nation ; 
 I am your infallible guide in all things 
 that you are to believe, in all things 
 you are to do ; and if any man sets up 
 his own conscience against me, he is 
 guilty of high treason, and I will shed 
 his heart’s blood.’ ” 
 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 u I am not only a Catholic, but a 
 priest ; not only a priest, but a monk ; 
 not only a monk, but a Dominican 
 monk ; and from out the depths of my 
 soul I repel and repudiate the principle 
 of religious persecution for any cause in 
 any land. Oliver, the apostle of bless- 
 ings to Ireland, landed in 1649. He 
 besieged Drogheda, defended by Sir Ar- 
 
56 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 tlrar Asliton and by a brave garrison ; 
 and when lie bad breached the walls, 
 when they found their position no longer 
 tenable, they ashed, in the military lan- 
 guage of the day, that they would be 
 spared and quarter given. That quarter 
 was promised to all the men who ceased 
 fighting and laid down their arms. ‘All 
 the officers and soldiers of Cromwell’s 
 army promised quarter to such as should 
 lay down their arms, and performed it 
 as long as the place held out, which 
 encouraged others to yield ’ ( Carte ) . 
 ‘ The soldiers threw down their arms 
 upon a general offer of quarter ’ ( Clar- 
 endon). ‘ Quarter was offered and 
 accepted’ ( Lingard ). The promise 
 was observed till the town was taken. 
 When the town was in his hands, Oliver 
 Cromwell gave orders to his army for an 
 indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, 
 and of every man, woman, and child of 
 that large city. The people, when they 
 saw the soldiers slain around them, when 
 they saw the men killed on every side, 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS W. BURKE, O.P. 5? 
 
 wlien thev saw the streets of Drogheda 
 flowing with Mood for five days, fled to 
 the number of a thousand, aged men 
 and women, and children and took 
 refuge in the great church of St. Deter 
 in Drogheda. Oliver Cromwell drew 
 his army around that church, and out of 
 that church he never allowed one of 
 these thousand innocent people to escape 
 alive. He then proceeded to Wexford, 
 and there a certain commander of the 
 garrison, named Stafford, admitted him 
 into the city, and he massacred the 
 people there again. Three hundred of 
 the women of Wexford, with their little 
 children, gathered around the great mar- 
 ket-cross in the public square of the 
 city ; for they thought in their hearts, 
 all terrible as he was, he would respect 
 and save those who w ere under the sign 
 of man’s redemption ; that he would 
 spare all who vnre under the image of 
 the rood. Oh ! how vain the thought. 
 Three hundred poor defenceless women 
 screaming for mercy under the cross of 
 
58 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 Jesus Christ, and Cromwell and his 
 barbarous demons around them ! He 
 destroyed them, so as not to let one of 
 those innocents escape, until his men 
 were ankle-deep in the blood of the 
 women of Wexford. He retired from 
 Ireland, after haying glutted himself 
 with the blood of the people. He retired 
 from Ireland, but ho wound up his war 
 by taking 80,000 — and some say 100,000 
 — human beings, and driving them down 
 to the southern ports of Munster. He 
 shipped 80,000, at the lowest calculation, 
 to the sugar plantations of Barbadoes, 
 there to work as slaves ; and in six years’ 
 time, such was the treatment they re- 
 ceived there that out of the 80,000 there 
 were not twenty left. He collected 
 6,000 Irish boys — fair, beautiful, strip- 
 ling y ouths — and put them in ships, and 
 sent them also otf to Barbadoes, there to 
 languish and to die before they ever came 
 to the fulness of their age and of their 
 manhood. O great God! is this the 
 man, is this the man, who has an apolo- 
 
YEIiY REV. THOMAS V. BURKE, O.P. 56 
 
 gist in tlie learned, frank, generous, and 
 gen tlemanly historian who conies in oily 
 words to tell the American people that 
 Cromwell was one of the bravest men 
 that ever lived, and one of the best 
 friends Ireland ever had ” 
 
 Such are some of the pen-and-ink 
 portraits of the persecutors of the Irish 
 people. They are drawn with a bold 
 hand, but with strict historical fidelity. 
 Indeed, it would be hard to distort or 
 exaggerate the features of the originals, 
 so far did the reality of their cruelty, 
 bestiality, and hypocrisy exceed the 
 wildest tales of fiction or the inventions 
 of romance. In closing his lectures on 
 Irish history, Father Burke made some 
 allusions to the probable future of 
 Ireland and America which are well 
 worthy of serious consideration. After 
 alluding to the friendship which has 
 existed so long between his native land 
 and France, he said : 
 
 u But there is another nation that 
 understands Ireland, and has proved 
 
60 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 tliat she understands her ; her states- 
 men have always spoken words of bright 
 encouragement, and tender sympathy, 
 and of manly hope to Ireland in her 
 darkest days ; and that nation is the 
 ■United States of America. That mighty 
 land, placed by Omnipotent hand be- 
 tween the far east on the one side, to 
 which she stretches out her glorious arm 
 over the broad Pacific, while on the 
 other side she sweeps with her left hand 
 over the Atlantic and touches Europe ; 
 the mighty land enclosing in her splen- 
 did bosom untold resources of every 
 form of commercial and other wealth ; 
 the mighty land with room for three 
 hundred millions of men ; with millions 
 of oppressed ones from all the world 
 ever flying to her more than imperial 
 bosom, there to find liberty and the 
 sacred right of civil and religious free- 
 dom. Is there not reason to suppose 
 that in that future which we can- 
 not see to-day, but which lies before 
 us, America will be to the whole 
 
VERY REV. THOMAS 1ST, BURKE, O.P. 61 
 
 world what Rome was in the ancient 
 days, what England was a few years 
 ago : the great storehonse of the world, 
 the great ruler — pacific ruler, by justice — 
 of the whole world ; her manufacturing 
 power dispensing from out her mighty 
 bosom all the necessaries and all the 
 luxuries of life to the whole world 
 around her 0 ! She may be destined, and 
 I believe she is, to rise rapidly into 
 that gigantic power that will over- 
 shadow all other nations. When that 
 conclusion does come to pass, what is 
 more natural than that Ireland — then, 
 I will suppose, mistress of her destinies 
 — should turn and stretch all the arms 
 of her sympathy and love across the 
 intervening waves of the Atlantic, and 
 be received, an independent state, into 
 the mighty confederation of America ! ” 
 It is unnecessary to state that senti- 
 ments such as the above found a ready 
 echo in the hearts of the thousands who 
 listened to the enthusiastic, patriotic 
 monk, and that seeds of reflection not 
 
62 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 lightly or thoughtlessly sown will in 
 good time spring into life and become 
 fruitful. But Bather Burke was not 
 content to vindicate the reputation of 
 his motherland from the foul aspersions 
 east on her, before the huge assemblies 
 who had the good fortune to hear him. 
 Besides the two large volumes of ser- 
 mons and lectures, on various subjects, 
 which were published under his inspec- 
 tion, he has left us a precious souvenir 
 in a smaller work entitled “ Ireland’s 
 Case Stated,” which contains in full his 
 reply to Fronde. We know of no com- 
 pendium of Irish history more ably 
 written, more reliable as an authority, 
 or constructed with greater simplicity of 
 style and artistic arrangement. 
 
 After remaining several months in 
 the United States, the eloquent Domi- 
 nican, worn down by fatigue and ex- 
 hausted from continual speaking, took 
 his departure for his home amid the 
 regrets and good wishes of millions of 
 admirers. His visit here was an unin- 
 
VERY RET. THOMAS N. BE EKE, O.P. 63 
 
 terrupted tour of liard work, travelling 
 night and day to keep bis numerous 
 appointments, and addressing vast audi- 
 ences in great churches or public halls. 
 But when he left our shores, though 
 enfeebled in health, he must have been 
 agreeably conscious that his visit had 
 been useful and his success complete. 
 Since his return to Ireland his health 
 has been thoroughly restored, and his 
 time, as usual, devoted to the objects 
 for which his order was primarily estab- 
 lished, with liis wonted vigor and zeal. 
 His sermon at the dedication of St. 
 Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, some two 
 years ago, in point of ability and power, 
 has given not only assurance to his 
 myriads of friends in the United States 
 that he has lost none of his freshness 
 and force by his western trip, but also 
 that they may hope to see and hear him 
 once again on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
« 
 
 VERY REV. JOHY HUGHES, 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OP NEW YORK. 
 
 Ik future ages, when the early history 
 of the Catholic Church on the continent 
 of America will be referred to ; when 
 the trials, struggles, contumelies, and 
 persecutions wind i every where beset the 
 professors of the ancient faith in the 
 United States in the first half of the 
 nineteenth century are described as 
 things of remote antiquity ; when the 
 names of the minor actors, among the 
 persecutors and the persecuted alike, will 
 have been forgotten, and only the me- 
 mory of the really great figures in the 
 drama will be preserved, foremost among 
 the latter will undoubtedly be that of 
 John Hughes, the zealous, fearless, and 
 combative Archbishop of Yew York. 
 Though, strictly speaking, not one of 
 
 64 
 
VEBY BEY. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 65 
 
 tlie earliest prelates in the infant chnrch 
 in the United States, nor the most re- 
 markable for erudition or accomplish- 
 ments even among his contemporaries, 
 Bishop Hughes was by nature and train- 
 ing so admirably adapted to the sphere 
 in which he was placed and to the times 
 in which he lived, and withal used his 
 opportunities so well and so effectively 
 for the cause of religion, that the im- 
 pression he has made on the history of 
 the whole country will not be effaced for 
 centuries to come. 
 
 This remarkable man, this gallant 
 soldier of the church militant, the son 
 of an humble Irish farmer, was born 
 near Augher, in the County Tyrone, 
 Ireland, June 24, 1797. He was, it 
 seems, early intended for the priesthood, 
 and his youthful education was directed 
 to that effect ; but the melancholy condi- 
 tion of Ireland after the abortive insur- 
 rection of ’98, and the destruction of the 
 native Parliament two years subsequent- 
 ly ; the general apathy and debasement 
 
66 
 
 IEISH PBIESTS. 
 
 of tlie people which followed, as well as 
 the complete stagnation of business, not 
 only prevented the elder Hughes from 
 giving his son proper facilities for quali- 
 fying himself for admission into college, 
 but eventually drove him, like so many 
 others, from home and country for ever. 
 
 In 1816 Mr. Hughes, Sr., landed in 
 this country and settled at Ohambers- 
 burg, Pa., and was shortly after fol- 
 lowed by his family. With a prompt- 
 ness and spirit which ever characterized 
 the future archbishop, the moment of 
 his arrival he entered into the spirit of 
 American life and energy ; and, as the 
 only method of industry with which he 
 was familiar was gardening, he lost no 
 time in seeking that kind of employ- 
 ment, and found it. We are aware that, 
 in after years, when his voice was as po- 
 tent in the national councils as it was in 
 his own congregation of St. Patrick, this 
 fact was more than once brought out in 
 vain attempts to lessen his influence or 
 detract from his grand intellectual 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 61 
 
 qualities ; but we are not informed that 
 Hie great arclibisbop ever paid the least 
 attention to such miserable attacks, iso 
 one knew better than he that most of 
 the great men of our country, native and 
 adopted — those who not only laid broad 
 and deep the foundations of our institu- 
 tions, but who have since reared upon 
 them the greatest republic of ancient or 
 modern times — were in their youth and 
 early manhood devoted to hard, stern, 
 physical toil, sacrificing the leisure which 
 others reserved for pleasure or repose 
 to their insatiable thirst for mental im- 
 provement. 
 
 This was certainly the case with young 
 Mr. Hughes, who, whether delving or 
 digging, pruning or transplanting, had 
 his mind continually fixed on one ob- 
 ject — admission to the sacred ranks of 
 the Catholic priesthood. With this end 
 in view he made arrangements with the 
 authorities of Mount St. Mary’s College, 
 Emmittsburg, by which he was to take 
 care of their garden grounds, and receive 
 
C8 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 in return board, lodging, and private 
 tuition. The president of the college at 
 that time was Rev. John Dubois, after- 
 wards Bishop of New York, the prede- 
 cessor, colaborer, and lifetime friend of 
 the strange young gardener thus so sin- 
 gularly received under his protection. 
 
 This arrangement seems to have worked 
 well. An opportunity once presented, 
 John Hughes was not the person to neg- 
 lect it. He worked at his books with 
 might and main, without neglecting for a 
 moment his part of the contract ; and so 
 diligently did he pursue his studies that, 
 though he only entered in November, 
 1819, at the commencement of the au- 
 tumn course of 1820 he was admitted 
 into one of the regular classes, and 
 embarked oil his long voyage of intel- 
 lectual discovery. 
 
 That it was prosecuted with energy, 
 diligence, and to the satisfaction of his 
 superiors there can be little doubt. In 
 fact, many of those who were contempo- 
 rary students with him spoke, long years 
 
VERY EEV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 69 
 
 ifier, of Mr. Hughes’s college career with 
 the greatest respect, and even admiration. 
 His chief traits of character, it seems, as 
 then exhibited, were untiring application, 
 regularity, cheerfulness, and a fondness 
 for indulging in a certain kind of dry, 
 caustic humor, which, being never per- 
 sonal or ill-natured, was always sure 
 to provoke mirth and laughter, while 
 clinching an argument or confounding 
 an adversary. 
 
 In 1825 he received minor orders, and 
 on the 15th of October of the following 
 year he was ordained a priest in St. 
 Joseph’s Churchy Philadelphia, by the 
 Eight Rev. Bishop Con well of that 
 diocese. After a short stay at St. Au- 
 gustine’s Church, he was appointed to 
 the mission of Bedford, Pa., where, 
 however, he remained but a few weeks 
 before being recalled to Philadelphia 
 and assigned to St. Mary’s. 
 
 A great deal of scandal had been 
 given to the entire Catholic community 
 by the conduct of a degraded priest 
 
70 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 named Hogan, formerly pastor of that 
 church, supported by a small but noisy 
 portion of the congregation ; and it was 
 hoped by the good and venerable bishop 
 that a man of Father Hughes’s zeal and 
 energy might succeed in bringing order 
 out of chaos, and in reducing the rebel- 
 lious to proper obedience. But the evil 
 was too deep-seated and chronic for even 
 his shill. The church had finally to be 
 closed, and the young pastor was re- 
 moved to St. J oseph’s. 
 
 ]STow commenced in earnest the labors 
 of the zealous priest. St. Joseph’s, 
 though not a large building, had an ex- 
 tensive congregation, composed princi- 
 pally of the laborious and hard- worked 
 poor. Many of the adults were unin- 
 structed, save in the essential doctrines 
 of their faith ; not a few were des- 
 titute of the commonest necessaries of 
 life ; while numbers of children were 
 wholly neglected both in a spiritual and 
 temporal sense. To alleviate, if he could 
 not completely cure, this combination of 
 
VEKY REV. JOHH HUGHES. 
 
 71 
 
 evils became tbe duty of Father Hughes. 
 He was incessant in his teaching and 
 visitations; while, as a preacher, so 
 earnest and impressive were his sermons, 
 so clear, warm, and eloquent became his 
 appeal, whether in the cause of charity, 
 the denunciation of sin and vice, or in 
 defence of the doctrines and practices of 
 the church, that his fame as a pulpit 
 orator soon spread not only over the 
 second city in America, but far beyond 
 it. At that time, and long after, Phila- 
 delphia was the hotbed of that miserable 
 faction subsequently known as Kativists 
 and Know-nothings. While the rank and 
 file of that most un-American clique 
 confined their petty persecutions to the 
 workshop and the engine-house, the 
 sectarian preachers thundered forth from 
 their “ desks ” every Sunday the vilest 
 calumnies, the foulest misrepresenta- 
 tions, and the bitterest invectives against 
 everything held holy and sacred by 
 Catholics. Some of the less disreputable 
 of these were taken up and dealt with by 
 
72 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS 
 
 Father Hughes in a manner so thorough 
 and incisive that not only was his own 
 congregation highly delighted, but the 
 better portion of the Protestant commu- 
 nity repeatedly congratulated him on his 
 efforts in the cause of true Christian 
 peace and charity. 
 
 There was no Catholic orphan asylum 
 in Philadelphia at the time of which we 
 write, and great hardship and suffering 
 consequently prevailed among the poor 
 little waifs who, left without parents, 
 were exposed to starvation on one hand 
 and proselytism on the other. In 1829, 
 therefore, Father Hughes established 
 St. John’s Male Orphan Asylum, an in- 
 stitution which was a success from the 
 beginning, and now stands in the fore- 
 most rank of similar charities in Ame- 
 rica. Nearly four hundred poor children, 
 the most helpless portion of any com- 
 munity, find shelter, food, and instruc- 
 tion within its walls ; and doubtless many 
 a fervent prayer often goes up from their 
 young, unpolluted hearts for the soul of 
 
YEEY EEV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 73 
 
 him who first conceived the idea, and put 
 it into practical effect, of thus providing a 
 perpetual home for the little ones whom 
 the world is only too apt to forget. 
 
 The energetic priest’s next step was to 
 build St. John’s Church, a very spacious 
 edifice, situated in what was then a very 
 populous part of the city. It was fin- 
 ished in 1832, and under his charge 
 became the principal Catholic church 
 in Philadelphia. The reputation of the 
 pastor was already so fully established 
 that as soon as it was opened it was 
 filled to overflowing. Still, he was not 
 satisfied. His coreligionists had no 
 newspaper through which to express 
 their views and defend their opinions 
 before the public. All the local jour- 
 nals, big and little, were openly or cov- 
 ertly against them ; so in 1833 he 
 established the Catholic Herald , one of 
 the first Catholic papers published in 
 the United States, and for many years 
 one of the best and most judiciously 
 conducted. The immediate cause of the 
 
74 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 appearance of this publication was a 
 controversy which had sprung np the 
 previous year between a Mr. Breckcn- 
 ridge, an able and respectable Protestant 
 minister, and the pastor of St. John’s. 
 The former wrote in the columns of the 
 Presbyterian , while the latter, who had 
 no organ, with his usual promptitude 
 resolved to make one, and did so. 
 
 The controversy was carried on for a 
 long time with great vigor, ability, and 
 courtesy on both sides, and ended in the 
 complete discomfiture of the champion 
 of dissent. But though vanquished, Mr. 
 Breckenridge did not consider himself 
 completely overthrown ; for a couple of 
 years afterwards we find the controversy 
 renewed in the form of a regular oral 
 discussion, and with a similar result. 
 These exciting episodes in the life of 
 the great archbishop, though not pro- 
 ductive of much good — polemics seldom 
 
 are — had certain beneficial results. They 
 
 «/ 
 
 gave the Catholics more courage and 
 dignity, and a better appreciation of 
 
VERY REY. JOHX HUGHES. 75 
 
 their own strength and importance ; 
 while they placed before the Protestant 
 public a fair, candid, and full explanation 
 of the tenets taught by the church. If 
 they did not produce conviction in the 
 hearts of our dissenting fellow-citizens, 
 they took from them the excuse of igno- 
 rance, and to some extent the power of 
 m ^representation. 
 
 As early as 1829 Father Hughes’s name 
 had been mentioned in connection with 
 the episcopate, and on one or two occa- 
 sions subsequently, but for some special 
 reasons his elevation to the episcopal 
 dignity was delayed. However, in 1837 
 he was appointed coadjutor to Bishop 
 Dubois of Hew York, and in January 
 of the following year he was consecrated 
 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, under the 
 title of Bishop of Basiliopolis, in par- 
 tibus injidelium. 
 
 As his old pastor and professor of St. 
 Mary’s — still his superior, but now his 
 friend — was well advanced in years, and 
 his health, never very robust, was fast 
 
76 
 
 IEISH PEIESTS. 
 
 giving way under tlie accumulation of 
 age and physical sufferings, Dr. Hughes, 
 in 1839, received full powers of admin- 
 istration ; and when, three years after- 
 wards, in December, 1842, the venerable 
 Dr. Dubois was called to his great 
 reward, he became full bishop of the 
 diocese of Yew York, then, as now, the 
 most important ecclesiastical division of 
 the church on this continent. It is a 
 noteworthy fact that the city of Heir 
 York alone, which thirty years ago com- 
 prised a very small portion of the terri- 
 tory known as the diocese of that name, 
 now contains more practical Catholics 
 than any city in the world. 
 
 The diocese of Yew York, when 
 Bishop Hughes assumed the adminis- 
 tration of its affairs, embraced not only 
 the State of Yew York, but Yew Jersey 
 also, thus covering the vast area of 
 territory where so many flourishing 
 dioceses now exist. Its churches were 
 comparatively few and scattered, some- 
 times hundreds of miles apart. The 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 77 
 
 clergy were, of course, also limited in 
 number, and usually overtasked ; those 
 in the rural districts having frequently 
 to attend to missions that necessitated 
 their constant movement in order to 
 enable them to visit their parishioners 
 even once a month to administer the 
 sacraments. In all that extensive region 
 there was neither college nor seminary, 
 free nor charitable school for the chil- 
 dren of the poor. Eew convent schools 
 existed for the daughters of the rich ; and 
 there were only three or four asylums 
 and charitable institutions of all descrip- 
 tions, and those small, cramped, -and 
 languidly supported. Even in the city 
 of New York the churches were gene- 
 rally rude, badly-constructed, and fragile 
 edifices. 
 
 Again, the spirit of the Catholic 
 population was far from being as manly 
 or self-asserting as it lias since become. 
 The Irish, who constituted the bulk of 
 it, belonged to the pre-emancipation 
 generation ; and though they had es- 
 
78 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS 
 
 caped the ferocity of the Orangeman 
 and the stupidity of the tithe-gatherer, 
 they had not been able to leave behind 
 them that innate sense of inferiority and 
 moral timidity which centuries of per- 
 secution had infused into their very 
 marrow. 
 
 To supply those deficiencies, to awaken 
 a new life in the Catholics of his diocese, 
 and to place them in all respects on a 
 footing of equality with their sectarian 
 fellow-citizens, was the herculean task 
 which the new coadjutor and adminis- 
 trator assigned to himself. His first 
 step was to establish St. John’s College, 
 at Eordham, in Westchester County, 
 Y., to which for many years a dio- 
 cesan seminary was also attached. This 
 institution, ever since its foundation, has 
 been of incalculable benefit to the young 
 Catholics not only of the Yortli but of 
 all parts of the United States, Mexico, 
 West Indies, and South America. In 
 addition to the hundreds of its alumni 
 Who now adorn the episcopate and the 
 
VEBY EEY. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 79 
 
 priesthood, it lias sent into the world 
 thousands of young men well and solidly 
 educated, and thoroughly imbued with 
 sound Catholic doctrine and morality, 
 the extent of whose salutary influence 
 on general society is beyond calculation. 
 
 Bishop Hughes next turned his atten- 
 tion to the state of education among the 
 poorer classes in the city of New York, 
 and particularly to the common-school 
 system. As the public free schools were 
 then conducted under what was known 
 as the Public School Society, they were 
 nothing better than proselytizing dens, 
 traps to catch the souls of unwary Cath- 
 olic children. Everything about them 
 was Protestant. The teachers, the books, 
 the prayers, and the exercises were all 
 Protestant. Prom the principals to the 
 janitors, from the “ History of the 
 Universe” to the babes’ primer, sectarian- 
 ism, anti-popery, fanaticism, and big- 
 otry lived, moved, and had their being 
 in, around, and about those so-called 
 free public schools. 
 
80 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 So completely were tliey steeped in 
 exclusiveness that at first Dr. Hughes 
 despaired of reforming them, and, con- 
 ceiving the idea of the establishment of 
 parish free schools for Catholics, made 
 an effort to obtain for his coreligionists 
 a portion of the money devoted to gen- 
 eral educational purposes. A petition 
 was sent to the New York Common 
 Council — who had then the disposition 
 of the school fund — in the autumn of 
 1840, setting forth the manifest injustice 
 of the public-school system as then car- 
 ried out, and a hearing was demanded. 
 This being granted, a memorable debate 
 took place in October, which lasted two 
 days ; but though the arguments and 
 facts adduced on the side of the Catho- 
 lics ought to have been irresistible, the 
 prejudice and moral cowardice of the 
 times were so potent that the city fa- 
 thers, either through bigotry or fear, 
 refused to grant the prayer of the pe 
 titioners. 
 
 That debate, which was not without 
 
VEST REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 81 
 
 its good results, presented a sight never 
 before witnessed in Yew York, or per- 
 haps in any other city. On one side 
 were five Protestant ministers, selected 
 by their respective denominations for 
 their supposed knowledge of education- 
 al matters, eloquence, skill in debate, 
 and logical acumen ; and supporting 
 them were eminent lawyers employed 
 by the Public School Society, whose 
 grasp on the public money it was pro- 
 posed to loosen. Against all this array 
 of clerical talent and legal knowledge 
 the coadjutor bishop of Yew York 
 stood alone, meeting all their points, 
 confounding their arguments, and ex- 
 posing the hollowness and fallacy of 
 their propositions. Each in turn re- 
 ceived due attention at his hands, and 
 one after another went down, metapho- 
 rically at least, before his powerful 
 and well-directed blows. 
 
 The decision of the Common Council 
 having been against the bishop, he 
 determined to appeal to the authority 
 
82 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 of the State ; and as neither of the two 
 great political parties of the day, Whigs 
 nor Democrats, dared endorse his views, 
 he induced the Catholic voters to nom- 
 inate a ticket of their own in the cam- 
 paign of 1841, that, thus holding the 
 balance of power, they might be able 
 to dictate terms to both. In this politi- 
 cal contest he not only organized, ad- 
 vised, and aided the new movement 
 with his pen, but night after night 
 made Carroll Hall (now St. Andrew’s 
 Church, hi. Y.) ring again with his stir- 
 ring appeals and his masterly arguments 
 in favor of free education for his co- 
 religionists, untrammelled by sectarian 
 bigotry and anti-Catholic teaching. 
 It was a bold stroke, deserving of suc- 
 cess ; and it won it. The Public School 
 Society ceased to exist ; from being a 
 matter of local concern free education 
 passed under the control of the State ; 
 nearly all the objectionable features of 
 the old system were effaced; and for 
 whatever is good in the public schools 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 83 
 
 of to-day we are indebted to Bishop 
 Hughes’ gigantic exertions on that 
 occasion. Gratitude requires that we 
 should mention that in his desperate 
 struggles against intolerance and hy- 
 pocrisy the distinguished Catholic pre- 
 late had two most efficient Protestant 
 supporters — William H. Seward, one 
 of the most consistent and distinguish- 
 ed of our modern statesmen, and Horace 
 Greeley, the greatest of American jour- 
 nalists. 
 
 But Bishop Hughes was not content 
 with thus emancipating the public 
 schools from the control of local fanatics 
 and bigots ; he knew well that educa- 
 tion, to be a living, active principle, 
 must include not only mental but moral 
 development, and that that moral de- 
 velopment could only be obtained by 
 associating religious with intellectual 
 daily training. He had succeeded in 
 rendering the state schools negatively 
 harmless by excluding as much as pos- 
 sible anti- Catholic practices and books ; 
 
84 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 he now conceived the design of estab- 
 lishing free schools that would be posi- 
 tively Catholic and moral. He there- 
 fore set to work to have a free school 
 attached to every church in his diocese ; 
 and though he did not live to see the 
 full fruition of his hopes, we of the 
 present day can point with commenda- 
 ble pride to the number, extent, and 
 efficiency of the Catholic parochial 
 schools in which Hew York and its 
 vicinity abound. In 1842 the number 
 of those schools were few indeed ; in 
 1876 Hew York City alone had fifty- 
 live. The pupils in the former year 
 were reported at less than three thou- 
 sand; there are now considerably over 
 thirty thousand boys and girls receiving 
 a sound, moral, gratuitous education in 
 those schools, the creation, and to a 
 great extent the work, of one great and 
 zealous man. 
 
 One of the secrets of Bishop Hughes’ 
 success was the admirable manner with 
 which he adapted the means to the end 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 85 
 
 in view. To supervise Ills colleges and 
 seminary lie introduced the Jesuits, 
 those master trainers of the human 
 mind; to direct his parochial schools and 
 seminaries for hoys, he invited the 
 Christian Brothers to take up their 
 abode among us. Under his guiding 
 hand the Sacred Heart Convent at Man- 
 kattanville became one of the most 
 magnificent homes of female learning 
 not onlv on this continent but through- 
 out Christendom, while the Ursulines, 
 Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of Chari- 
 ty, and other teaching orders of less am- 
 bitious aims were always sure of a hearty 
 welcome and ready, practical encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 When he first assumed the administra- 
 tion of the diocese, he found that its tiro 
 great wants were money and mission- 
 aries. As these could not be obtained 
 here, he went to Europe in 1839-40 to 
 procure them, and was singularly fortu- 
 nate in having his wants supplied. His 
 next trip across the Atlantic was in the 
 
86 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 winter of 1845, and for a different pur- 
 pose. He spent some five months travel- 
 ling through Ireland and England, and 
 on the Continent, and his observations 
 on the moral, social, and political con- 
 dition of those countries at that time 
 show that his acuteness of perception 
 was equal to his soundness of judgment. 
 On his return to Hew York lie deliver- 
 ed a most interesting discourse on the 
 result of his tour, of which an imperfect 
 synopsis alone remains. His remarks on 
 Erencli society prove that he was among 
 the first to recognize the remarkable 
 religious revolution which, about thirty 
 years ago, began to influence all ranks 
 and classes in that noble country, and 
 which has since borne such excellent 
 fruit. Says a contemporary report : 
 
 “ The bishop spoke of the French rev- 
 olution and the peculiar struggles to 
 which Christianity had been subjected 
 to regain a hold upon the hearts of a 
 people who, for two generations, had 
 been educated without any idea of reli- 
 
VEEY EEV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 87 
 
 gion, and taught to ridicule and con- 
 temn it. Yet God seemed to have 
 adapted the spirit in the hearts of his 
 children to the specific wants of the 
 place and time. The young men of 
 Prance, many of them of the highest 
 class and belonging to the learned pro- 
 fessions, were united in societies of con- 
 ference for mutual edification, and they 
 found that Christ, in the persons of the 
 poor, always surrounds the Catholic on 
 every side. They divided the land into 
 districts : they found out and ministered 
 to sufferings, they visited the sick, they 
 sustained the weak, and advised the 
 young, thus saving thousands from the 
 baneful influences of licentiousness and 
 infidelity which are diffused in the se- 
 ductive guise of 4 philosophy.’ He 
 had witnessed with admiration the de- 
 voted zeal which animated great num- 
 bers of the faithful everywhere in Eu- 
 rope ; which impelled thousands of deli- 
 cate and high-born women to dedicate 
 themselves to the service of God wher- 
 
88 
 
 IBE3H PKIESTS. 
 
 ever lie should call them — either m 
 ministering in hospitals and haunts of 
 wretchedness at home, or setting forth 
 joyfully to spend their lives in missions 
 among the savages of the Cape of Good 
 Hope or the more degraded convicts of 
 Australia. There was one association 
 of Catholics, voluntarily consecrated to 
 labor, who pray for the conversion of 
 the world, which now numbers nine or 
 ten millions of members. And the 
 fruits of those extensive and unusual 
 efforts were already visible, not only in 
 the general increase of faith, zeal, and 
 piety, but in numerous and remarkable 
 conversions of the infidel or indifferent, 
 which had in some cases been so sudden 
 and surprising as to give rise to a belief 
 in the direct and special interposition 
 of the invisible Head of the church in 
 their behalf. Whatever may be thought 
 on this subject, the iniluenccs of such 
 efforts cannot be doubted by any sincere 
 Christian. The bishop instanced as one 
 cheering fact a great change in the faith 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 89 
 
 and deportment of tlie laboring classes 
 of Paris, who were formerly almost to 
 a man infected by tiie inlidel philoso- 
 phy, and whose Sundays were conse- 
 quently spent in revelling and sensual 
 indulgence. So great lias been the 
 change among them that eighteen thou- 
 sand had become members of a single 
 church, and many more were preparing 
 to follow their example.” 
 
 Of the celebrated “ Oxford move- 
 ment,” which was the means under 
 Providence of bringing so many dis- 
 tinguished English scholars into the 
 church, he gave the following succinct 
 history : 
 
 “ The bishop spoke of the opportu- 
 nity he had on this visit for the first 
 time enjoyed of making the acquain- 
 tance of some of the Oxford divines, 
 whose writings and conduct in renounc- 
 ing their wealthy and powerful positions 
 as members of the Church of England, 
 and uniting with the Catholic Church, 
 had created a sensation throughout the 
 
90 
 
 IKISH PEIESTS. 
 
 civilized world. He found them emi- 
 nently meek, simple, godly men, who 
 could not appreciate the surprise which 
 had been so widely manifested at their 
 renunciation of worldly honors and 
 luxuries in obedience to the dictates 
 of conscience, and to whose deep hu- 
 mility the interest and admiration they 
 had so generally excited seemed unac- 
 countable. He learned from them in 
 conversation that the movement which 
 had resulted in their conversion had 
 been preceded by no agitation, no dis- 
 cussion of doctrinal difference, but origi- 
 nated rather among the students, former- 
 ly notorious as a body for licentiousness 
 and indifference to religion, but among 
 whom, about twenty years since, arose a 
 spirit of regularity and moral elevation, 
 of devotion and prayer — a pining for 
 thorough consecration of heart and life 
 to Grod. Thence grew naturally the 
 practice of confessing their sins — a 
 practice fast becoming common, if not 
 general, in the English Church — and si- 
 
VEET EEV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 91 
 
 lently, irresistibly there grew np within 
 their souls a consciousness of the great 
 reality of the sacrificial character of the 
 Holy Eucharist and of the real presence 
 of Christ therein — a consciousness found- 
 ed on the necessity of these great truths, 
 their own spiritual satisfaction and well- 
 being. Many of them had never made 
 the acquaintance of a Catholic up to 
 the time that they renounced all world- 
 ly advantages for their souls’ sake, and 
 found that most of their old friends had 
 fallen away from them ; while some of 
 the professors and students had visited 
 the Continent, and were deeply impress- 
 ed with the serenity, sweetness, and tho- 
 rough freedom from earthly passion or 
 care which they witnessed in the houses 
 of the religious orders there, and which 
 they have themselves measurably attain- 
 ed m the bosom of the church.” 
 
 Previous to this transatlantic voy- 
 age Bishop Hughes had to meet and de- 
 feat the most formidable political move- 
 ment that up to that time had been or- 
 
92 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 ganlzed against the rights of Catholics 
 and adopted citizens. This was the 
 “ Nativist” agitation, that made the year 
 1844 disgraceful in the annals of Ame- 
 rica. 
 
 For some months previously the very 
 worst elements of society, ignorant, na- 
 tive Protestants, Irish Orangemen, and 
 infidels of all nationalities, had handed 
 themselves in a secret, sworn society to 
 malign the Catholic priesthood, slander 
 the nuns and religious orders, and to 
 plunder the churches and massacre 
 their protectors. This conglomeration 
 of scoundrels had the audacity to call 
 themselves the “ Native American 
 Party,” and to avow their intention of 
 driving from political power and of 
 depriving of their civic rights all Cath- 
 olics and citizens of foreign birth. 
 
 But bad as were their ostensible aims, 
 their secret purpose was even worse, and 
 this was speedily developed in Newark, 
 Philadelphia, and other places. In the 
 summer of 1844 a fearful riot broke out 
 
YEEY EEY. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 93 
 
 in the latter city, during which two Ca- 
 tholic churches were given to the flames, 
 hundreds of private dwellings were de- 
 stroyed, over twenty Catholic citizens 
 were murdered with fiendish atrocity, 
 and many more maimed or otherwise 
 wounded. The thrill of horror which 
 ran through the entire American com- 
 munity at the news of this heinous 
 crime was intense ; hut the Yativists of 
 Yew York, so far from condemning the 
 acts of their fellows in Philadelphia, 
 called a public meeting to sympathize 
 with them, and even took steps to re- 
 peat on a larger scale in Yew York what 
 had already sunk in infamy the metro- 
 polis of Pennsylvania. 
 
 In the face of this danger the conduct 
 of Bishop Hughes was cool, resolute, 
 and decisive. The Freeman's Journal , 
 at that time edited by Mr. Eugene Cas- 
 serly, was looked upon as the organ of 
 the bishop. When the news from Phi* 
 ladelphia was received, and the designs 
 of the Yew York fanatics became ap- 
 
94 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS 
 
 parent, an article appeared in that news- 
 paper calling on all Catholics to arm 
 and defend their churches, declaring 
 that the first attempt to molest a Ca- 
 tholic house of worship or charitable 
 institution would be considered the sig- 
 nal for the destruction of every Protes- 
 tant edifice in the city. This article, 
 though neither written nor directly sug- 
 gested by Dr. Hughes, reflected, in part 
 at least, his sentiments, and, this becom- 
 ing known, the miscreants paused in 
 their career of intended rapine and sac- 
 rilege. The city authorities also, who 
 had been inclined to truckle to the 
 Nativists, took alarm and proceeded 
 with vigor to take measures to preserve 
 the public peace. The projected meet- 
 ing was not held, the fanatics, cowed, 
 shrank back into their secret lodges, 
 and the fair fame of Yew York was 
 preserved, mainly through the undaunt- 
 ed courage of the brave ecclesiastic. 
 
 Prom the beginning of his episcopate 
 the churches of his diocese and their 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 95 
 
 discipline were objects of special atten- 
 tion with Dr. Hughes. In many of the 
 congregations of New York the mis- 
 chievous and un-Catholic system of lay 
 trusteeship prevailed. There never was 
 a plan devised better calculated to en- 
 sure discord among the laity and hos- 
 tility between the flock and the shep- 
 herd. In most large assemblages of 
 men there are to be found a few, a small 
 clique, who have more vanity than 
 sense, and a greater desire to gratify 
 their own petty wishes than to advance 
 the general good. Give such persons 
 any little authority or influence, parti- 
 cularly in church affairs, and dissensions 
 and heart-burnings are sure to follow. 
 
 Such, certainly, was the case with the 
 lay trustees of St. Patrick’s, St. Peter’s, 
 St. James’s, and other churches when 
 Bishop Hughes came to New York; but 
 by the exercise of his episcopal autho- 
 rity with moderation and firmness, he 
 soon disposed of these quarrelsome co- 
 teries, and placed the church property 
 
96 
 
 IKISH PEIESTS. 
 
 where it ought to be — under the ah, sol ute 
 control of the ordinary of the diocese, 
 and in his name on the public records. 
 
 Many years afterwards this salutary 
 change gave rise to one of the most 
 acrimonious and exciting politico-reli- 
 gious controversies in our history. 
 
 In 1854 the old Kativist faction was re- 
 vived under the more appropriate name of 
 “ Know-nothings.” Though ultimately 
 defeated, it exercised during the first year 
 of its existence considerable political 
 power, and among its other crimes it 
 elected to the State Senate a worth- 
 less, needy adventurer named Erast us 
 Brooks, who, with his brother, was 
 part owner and editor of the Kew York 
 Express. This disreputable newspaper 
 was fast sinking into oblivion when the 
 Know-nothings came to the surface, and 
 by espousing their cause, by daily filling 
 its columns with the most outrageous 
 
 < — j 
 
 falsehoods and calumnies on Catholics 
 and adopted citizens, it succeeded in 
 attracting public attention, and was thus 
 
VERT REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 97 
 
 saved from utter extinction. With one 
 brother in the editorial chair grinding 
 out lies and slanders, and another at 
 Albany giving them official currency, 
 the Brookses not only contrived to resus- 
 citate the Express, but actually to make 
 money and become “ respectable.” 
 
 As might have been expected, Bishop 
 Hughes was a prominent object of at- 
 tack. The Know-nothing editors were 
 ambitious and aimed at high game. 
 “Senator” Brooks discovered that all 
 the church property in New York stood 
 in the name of plain John Hughes, and, 
 in his solicitude for the temporal inte- 
 rests of his Catholic fellow-citizens, he 
 proclaimed from his seat in the Senate 
 that in case the said John Hughes 
 should die intestate, or during his life- 
 time should, by deed or other convey - 
 ance, grant the church property afore- 
 said to any one he chose, then the said 
 property, together with its appurtenan- 
 ces, etc., etc., would irrevocably be lost 
 to the Catholic body of New York. 
 
98 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 But tlie Catholics of Kew York knew 
 very well the object which Senator 
 Brooks had in view in coming un- 
 asked to champion their cause ; they 
 were well aware that the organist of the 
 Know-nothings would see, with as much 
 pleasure as Kero witnessed the burning 
 of Borne, every church, convent, and 
 Catholic school in the city given over 
 to the torch of the incendiary, and to 
 the plunder of his worthy constituents 
 of dark-lantern notoriety. They there- 
 fore gave him little thanks. 
 
 Brooks tried another dodge — we have 
 no other name for his tricks — but with 
 equal want of success. The Catholic 
 Church property, he asserted, was in 
 reality not church but private property, 
 standing in the name of a private indi- 
 vidual, and therefore ought to be taxed. 
 These base attempts to stir up dissen- 
 sions among Catholics, and to excite the 
 cupidity of the civic authorities, natu- 
 rally aroused the ire of Dr. Hughes. 
 Several long, able, and very interesting 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 99 
 
 letters appeared from liis pen in eom- 
 plete refutation of the statements of the 
 Express and its Know-nothing editors. 
 All the documents relating to this affair 
 were collected and published in a vol- 
 ume at the time, which will be found in 
 the future a valuable contribution to 
 contemporary history. 
 
 But while Bishop Hughes was thus 
 protecting the temporal interests of the 
 church in Kew York, he was equally 
 mindful of the buildings in which the 
 Creator was weekly and daily worship- 
 ped. When he came to Yew York the 
 churches were few, and, with the ex- 
 ception of two or three, badly built and 
 heavily in debt. All the means at his 
 disposal he used to pay off those debts ; 
 and as the Catholic population increas- 
 ed, as it did enormously from 1845 to 
 1860, he afforded every encouragement 
 to zealous young priests to enlarge and 
 remodel the old structures, or, where 
 necessary, to build new ones of superior 
 design and materials. In 1858 he laid 
 
100 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 the comer-stone of the new cathedral 
 of St. Patrick, which, when finished, as 
 it soon will be, according to the design 
 which he accepted, will be the most 
 splendid monument ever erected on this 
 continent to commemorate the virtues 
 and wisdom of one great man. 
 
 This grand edifice occupies the entire 
 block between 5th and Madison Aven- 
 ues, Fifty-first and Fifty-second Streets, 
 and the ground whereon it stands is, 
 with the exception of Washington 
 Heights on the northwest, the highest 
 part of the city. Its length is 332 feet, 
 breadth of nave 132 feet, at transepts 174 
 feet, height of towers 328 feet. The 
 singular but thoroughly Catholic im- 
 portance which Bishop Hughes attach- 
 ed, not only to the erection of suitable 
 temples to the Most High, but to the 
 observance of all the ceremonies proper 
 to the occasion, mav best be inferred 
 from the following eloquent passages 
 taken from a dedication sermon preach- 
 ed by him at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 101 
 
 1853, and which will he found new to 
 most of our readers : 
 
 “ It may be to many a subject of 
 curiosity to understand why it is that 
 so much of ceremony is used even in 
 matters which appear to be of but or- 
 dinary import. It may be asked why 
 are those Psalms chanted why are 
 those benedictions pronounced 1 why 
 is the corner-stone sprinkled with holy 
 water % All those things, appearing as 
 a figure before the eye that is unin- 
 structed in their meaning, must seem 
 exceedingly strange, and to some minds 
 either unintelligible or superstitious. 
 Yet all those things have a meaning, 
 and the first that I would suggest is 
 that all those blessings and ceremonies 
 have reference not so much to the rude 
 material, which is utterly incapable of 
 holiness, but to the end for which it 
 is set apart. They have reference far 
 more to the hearts and dispositions with 
 which you and your children, your suc- 
 cessors, shall enter into this house of the 
 
102 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 living God, in holiness of purpose, in 
 simplicity, and in purity ; for God loves 
 purity and abhors what is not pure. 
 We do not, therefore, mean to say that 
 stone or brick can be made holy. 
 
 u They are inanimate ; nevertheless, 
 they are consecrated to holy purposes, 
 and for that reason, as well as to re- 
 mind you that this is not to be a mere 
 earthly-destined edifice, but a place 
 which is to be sacred to the intercourse 
 and communion which God has estab- 
 lished between himself and immortal, 
 living souls. There is still another 
 reason ; and you will not begin to con- 
 ceive what is the meaning of the ritual 
 if you forget that. It is a reason con- 
 necting itself with the very beginning 
 of our race — it is a reason connecting 
 itself with the redemption of our race ; 
 and that is that once, when God had 
 created man in innocence and in per- 
 fection, no special benediction was ne- 
 cessary. This beautiful world — beauti- 
 ful even now in its ruins, but then 
 
VERY REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 103 
 
 much more so — was tlie temple in 
 which God was tlie supreme object of 
 adoration ; and man — that innocent 
 man, Adam — was the liigli-priest to 
 interpret tbe adoration of all created 
 tilings. The sun, the moon, the stars, 
 the green earth, and the bounding 
 ocean, all were dead, because man, 
 innocent man alone, the first creature 
 that God had produced in our form — 
 he was the mystic interpreter, and he 
 wafted back to his God the homage 
 which all those objects rendered, but of 
 which they themselves were utterly un- 
 conscious. But man fell from his inno- 
 cence and purity, and now the holy 
 temple became polluted. It was not 
 that man alone was changed in his na 
 ture, that his intellect was darkened, 
 that his heart became the seat of pas- 
 sion ; but God, because he had been 
 faithless to his trust as liigli-priest of 
 this creation, reflected his guilt even on 
 inanimate things. 
 
 “ The Holy Scriptures tell us that 
 
104 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 not only did tlie dumb animals change 
 in their dispositions from quietness to 
 ferocity, but the very earth itself was 
 cursed in his work ; the sentence was 
 pronounced on him and his posterity, 
 and we witness even to this day the un- 
 ceasing execution of that divine decree. 
 Erom that period, therefore, to some 
 extent, all creation fell — as far as that 
 which is incapable of guilt in itself could 
 fall — from its order and rank in the de- 
 sign of the universe. By the sin of Adam 
 came death to the whole human race ; 
 and then begins to open up the reason 
 why we bless and consecrate things 
 dedicated to divine worship. From 
 that time God, however, did not leave 
 his guilty creatures without a hope or 
 a solace in their sin and degradation. 
 ETo ; he promised a Redeemer to fallen 
 man— a Messias who would open up 
 the way to their reconciliation with 
 God— first in language obscure, but 
 sufficiently distinct to enkindle a hope, 
 as a bright ray on the distant horizon 
 
MOST EEV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 105 
 
 of the future ; and Adam’s posterity 
 cherished the hope and the belief that 
 in one of his race again would be bless- 
 ed this fallen world of ours. By con- 
 necting those two ideas together you 
 behold the reason why, when anything 
 is set apart to be appropriated to the 
 divine Glory, it is as if it were taken 
 from under the dominion, and the force, 
 and consequence of Adam’s sin, and re- 
 stored in the fulness and benediction of 
 the blessing of the Son of God. If you 
 do not conceive that idea, you have 
 little conception of the meaning of rites 
 and ceremonies like these. 
 
 u God would have the homage of 
 man ; he would have it a free homage ; 
 a man would not be free unless he had 
 the power of refusing his homage. This 
 is the mystery ; and this mystery, once 
 admitted, furnishes the key and explana- 
 tion to all the rest of the mysteries of 
 our holy faith. It is easy to compre- 
 hend after this — when we know the in- 
 finite perfection of God— that in his 
 
106 
 
 IHISH PRIESTS. 
 
 love and in liis mercy he stooped to 
 take our nature upon him, and in that 
 nature to repair the injury, so far as 
 regards our eternal inheritance, though 
 not as regards the temporal inheritance 
 of this disorder in the world. Then, 
 connecting these two, you see there is a 
 conformity between the revelation which 
 is given either by the prophets, or which 
 is recorded in the Scriptures, or repeat- 
 ed by the church with her universal 
 voice from age to age — there is a har- 
 mony between this and the actual expe- 
 rience of every-day life ; and it is only 
 in connection with its doctrines that you 
 can understand for a moment the na- 
 ture of the evils with which mankind is 
 afflicted. What is the meaning of the 
 many scourges with which the race is 
 troubled 1 ? — why pestilence, famine, wars, 
 tempests, sickness and disappointments, 
 sorrow and death ? What is the mean- 
 ing of all those things, if it be not an 
 incontrovertible evidence of the conse- 
 quence of sin — a practical revelation. 
 
MOST EEV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 107 
 
 which even the infidel himself dare not 
 deny So when anything is taken from 
 this physical order of the world, and set 
 apart and appropriated to that higher 
 order which Christ established on earth, 
 it is, as it were, taken from under the 
 malediction pronounced upon the world 
 ages ago ; and after it is so set apart, it 
 is, to some extent, sacred. But there is 
 another reason why these foundations 
 should be sacred. It is because they 
 rise by the voluntary offerings of the 
 poor ; it is because each corner-stone is 
 the voluntary offering of those who thus 
 manifest their faith in all the truths of 
 their holy religion; it is because this 
 edifice is to be dedicated to divine truth 
 and holy prayer ; it is, in short, because 
 the whole scope of the Incarnation of 
 the Son of God is to be comprehended 
 within the limits of this edifice which is 
 to be erected for the worship of our 
 Almighty Creator.” 
 
 In the meantime important ecclesias- 
 tical changes were taking place in the 
 
108 
 
 IBISH PRIESTS 
 
 vast diocese of New York. Catholicity 
 was spreading with such gigantic strides 
 that it was found impossible for one 
 prelate, no matter how zealous, to super- 
 vise so extensive a field of labor. In 
 1847 the western part of the State was 
 formed into the diocese of Buffalo un- 
 der the charge of the late lamented Dr. 
 Timon ; and the central portion became 
 the diocese of Albany, and was placed in 
 charge of Bight Bev. John McCloskey, 
 the present Cardinal, who in 1843 had 
 been appointed coadjutor to the Bishop 
 of New York. In 1850 the Holy See 
 was pleased to appoint Hr. Hughes 
 archbishop. In 1853 his immediate ju- 
 risdiction was further curtailed by the 
 erection of the sees of Brooklyn and 
 Newark. 
 
 Those subdivisions, while affording 
 evidence of rapid progress, were in 
 themselves sources of great growth and 
 development. Under the immediate 
 superintendence of the suffragan bishops 
 chinches, colleges, and academies sprang 
 
MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 109 
 
 up as if by magic ; hospitals, asylums, 
 and other charitable institutions in- 
 creased amazingly ; convents and schools 
 multiplied, and new orders of men and 
 women, each having its specific mission 
 of charity and usefulness, were intro- 
 duced. Nowhere in the history of the 
 church since its foundation, except per- 
 haps in the case of Ireland during the 
 lifetime of St. Patrick, do we find such 
 steady, continuous, and enormous growth 
 in so short aperiod as that which mark- 
 ed the administration of Bishop Hughes. 
 It is also a subject of deep congratula- 
 tion that this increase in numbers and 
 institutions, in private charity and pub- 
 lic generosity, did not cease with his 
 demise, but is still going on with even 
 greater rapidity. 
 
 Admirable as was Archbishop Hughes 5 
 career as a soldier of the church and as 
 the defender of his outraged country- 
 men, his conduct as a citizen of the re- 
 public was in its way equally worthy 
 of early praise and imitation. He had 
 
110 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 imbibed the spirit of our institutions, 
 and to the last was a consistent, fearless, 
 and patriotic defender of our laws. He 
 long enjoyed the friendship and confi- 
 dence of many of the leading men of 
 both parties, and the respect of all. He 
 was the first, and we believe the only, 
 Catholic prelate who was ever invited to 
 address either branch of Congress ; and 
 twice — in 1850 and 1862— our Govern- 
 ment, without his knowledge, officially 
 intimated to the court of Home its de- 
 sire to see Hr. Hughes elevated to the 
 cardinalate. 
 
 During the Mexican war President 
 Polk desired to send him as a iieace en- 
 voy to Mexico, but he declined the of- 
 fer, because he believed that the war had 
 been begun without sufficient cause and 
 in the interest of slavery — a system of 
 which, though he never publicly opposed 
 it, he had a decided abhorrence. But 
 when, in 1861, foul Bebellion raised its 
 crest, when the institutions so firmly 
 fixed and so wisely framed by the 
 
MOST KEV. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Revolutionary fathers were endangered, 
 when the republic was threatened with 
 dissolution, and humanity everywhere 
 with an irreparable misfortune ; when 
 it became necessary to counteract the 
 influence of the rebel agents in Eu- 
 rope who were sowing broadcast the 
 most wholesale falsehoods against the 
 Union — then, in that supreme hour of 
 the nation’s peril, when the Secretary of 
 State asked the good offices of the patri- 
 otic archbishop, his reply was no doubt- 
 ful one. In six hours after the receipt 
 of the despatch from Mr. Seward, Bi- 
 shop Hughes was on board the steam- 
 ship and on his way to Europe. 
 
 His mission was as prosperous as his 
 zeal in the undertaking was great. He 
 visited Ireland and England, explaining 
 in private and public the actual condi- 
 tion of American affairs. He passed 
 over to France, and held long private 
 interviews with the emperor and em- 
 press on the same subject, and then 
 journeyed to the Eternal City, where 
 
112 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 his reception by his Holiness was of 
 the most gratifying description. Every- 
 where he went, every word he spoke, 
 carried conviction. His high charac- 
 ter, his complete knowledge of the 
 merits and demerits of the quarrel, 
 and his clear, methodical manner of 
 explaining his views and the objects 
 of oar Government were irresistible. 
 The rebel emissaries were checkmated 
 at all points, and much of the sym- 
 pathy and moral support which the 
 republic afterwards experienced from 
 the people of Europe is due to his 
 timely efforts on that critical occasion. 
 
 Hr. Hughes returned the following 
 year to find the country still hopeless- 
 ly at war. As far as his sacred office 
 would permit, he set about encouraging 
 enlistments and strengthening the hands 
 of the authorities. Like Moses of old, 
 while others fought he held up his 
 hands in prayer. He was the first' in 
 this country, we believe, to enunciate 
 the aphorism that the more men who 
 
MOST KEY. JOHjST HUGHES. 
 
 113 
 
 were sent to fight, the sooner the war 
 would be terminated and the fewer 
 lives would he lost. In 1863, when the 
 draft riots occurred in Yew York, w hen 
 the national authorities were weakened 
 by the necessity of sending all their avail- 
 able forces against Lee, and the Gover- 
 nor of the State, unwilling or unable, 
 failed to protect the lives and proper- 
 ty of the citizens, Archbishop Hughes 
 arose from his sick-bed, and, summon- 
 ing before him such of his spiritual 
 children as had participated in the riots 
 or entertained sympathy for the mal- 
 contents, addressed them from the bal- 
 cony of his residence in Madison Ave- 
 nue with much of his old vehemence 
 and eloquence. He did not put an end 
 to the riots, it is true, for that had al- 
 ready been done by United States 
 troops, but he made the repetition of 
 them impossible. 
 
 This was the last public act of his 
 life. After a lingering illness he calm- 
 ly expired on the 3d day of January, 
 
114 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 1864, surrounded by liis faithful priests 
 and sorrowing relatives. His death 
 was looked upon as a national cala- 
 mity, and the day of his interment was 
 held as a dies non in the courts and 
 public offices of blew York. 
 
 The funeral of the archbishop took 
 place on the 7th of January, the 
 solemn High Mass of Requiem being 
 celebrated in the old St. Patrick’s Ca- 
 thedral. Prom early morning the 
 streets in the neighborhood of that 
 venerable edifice were thronged with 
 tens of thousands of affiicted Catholics 
 — men, women, and children — who had 
 begun to realize that they had lost a 
 father and a protector. Within the 
 spacious building every available space 
 was occupied, a number of pews having 
 been reserved for the civil and military 
 officers of the General Government, the 
 State and municipal authorities, and 
 other distinguished persons. The chan- 
 cel was filled with priests, most of 
 whom had known the deceased arch- 
 
MOST EEY. JOHN HUGHES. 
 
 115 
 
 bishop from boyhood, and had been the 
 recipients of favors from his hands and 
 wise counsel from his lips. The ser- 
 mon was preached by the Bishop of 
 Albany, whom he had long looked 
 upon as his successor, and who now, 
 as a prince of the church, is so zealous- 
 ly and successfully engaged in carrying 
 out the great works which his illustri- 
 ous predecessor commenced. 
 
 The address of Dr. McOloskey was 
 short, but so full of pathos, so replete 
 with delicate allusions to the noble 
 qualities of the departed prelate, so 
 warm and heartfelt, yet withal so sor- 
 rowful, in praise of his services to re- 
 ligion and to humanity, that in all that 
 vast and varied congregation there were 
 few who did not shed tears copiously. 
 Seldom has such an occasion for pulpit 
 eloquence of the highest order been pre- 
 sented to the Catholics of any country, 
 and more seldom still was justice so 
 fully done to such a subject. 
 
 The sermon ended, the sobs of the 
 
116 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 congregation subsided, the Mass was 
 finished, and, borne on tbe shoulders 
 of priests, the cofiin which contained all 
 that was mortal of the great archbi- 
 shop was carried slowly and reverently 
 through the church and deposited in 
 the vaults beneath. 
 
 Archbishop Hughes, though a man 
 of remarkable mental activity, and fond 
 of study, has left to posterity no lite- 
 rary work of any magnitude. The in- 
 cessant demands on his time, the multi- 
 farious duties inseparable from his of- 
 fice, deprived him of the leisure neces- 
 sary to compose even one book worthy 
 of his name ; but since his death his 
 principal sermons, pastoral letters, lec- 
 tures, and speeches have been carefully 
 collected and published in two large 
 volumes. His controversy with Mr. 
 Breckenridge and his discussions with 
 u Kirwan,” Brooks, and others have 
 also been issued in book form. Many 
 of his best sermons and speeches, how- 
 ever, were never written out or reported 
 
MOST REV. JOECsT HUGHES. 
 
 117 
 
 in extenso , and some of them are only to 
 be found in contemporary publications 
 and newspapers. Still, this generation 
 has enough of his intellectual produc- 
 tions in permanent shape to enable 
 them to form a correct idea of the 
 greatness of the man, of the invincible 
 courage that characterized his assaults 
 on ignorance, prejudice, and vice, and 
 of the high resolve and superb dignity 
 with which he upheld his nationality, 
 the rights of his sacred office, and his 
 faith. 
 
MOST EE V. JOHX McHALE, 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OP TUAM. 
 
 John McHale, the oldest priest 
 and bisliop in Ireland, and tlie most 
 distinguished member of the hierarchy 
 of the Catholic Church, both as a pa- 
 triot, a scholar, and a divine, was born 
 at Tubbernavine, county of Mayo, in 
 1790. He was early destined for the 
 priesthood, and, upon his ordination at 
 Maynooth at the age of twenty-four, 
 was appointed professor of dogmatic 
 theology in that college — a tribute to 
 his rare mental gifts and profound 
 knowledge of sacred science very sel- 
 dom rendered to one so young. 
 
 While thus filling the most important 
 chair in the great Catholic seminary, 
 unlike some other ecclesiastics who 
 claim it as their Alma Mater , his atten- 
 
 U8 
 
AKOHBISHOP McHALE. 
 
MOST "REV. Joins' McHALE. 
 
 119 
 
 tion was not withdrawn for a moment 
 from the sufferings of his countrymen, 
 or from the degraded position they 
 occupied in the eyes of Christendom. 
 While O’Connell, Shiel, Lawless, and 
 others were arousing the people to a 
 sense of their strength and duties by 
 speeches and harangues, Lather Mc- 
 Hale, from his study in Maynooth, un- 
 der the nom de plume of “ Hierophilos,” 
 was sowing broadcast through the press 
 the seeds of that grand crop of ideas 
 which grew up and bore fruit in 1829. 
 Bot only was he thoroughly in accord 
 with the leading Catholic laymen of 
 that day, but he went further than the 
 most prominent, particularly on the sa- 
 crifice of the forty -shilling freeholders — • 
 a measure to which he was strenuously 
 opposed. These letters, like those of the 
 illustrious “ J. K. L.” (Bt. Bev. Dr. 
 Doyle), were very generally read and 
 admired, and had a marked effect on 
 public opinion. 
 
 In 1825 Dr. McHale was appointed 
 
120 
 
 IKISH PEIESTS. 
 
 coadjutor of the see of Killala, with the 
 title of Bishop of “ Maronia,” in parti- 
 bus infidelium , and under this latter 
 name, as well as the former, he WTote 
 several controversial letters against the 
 proselytizing and Bible societies, the 
 Church Establishment, and kindred 
 curses, under which Ireland has suffer- 
 ed so long. In two years after his con- 
 secration appeared his “ Evidences and 
 Doctrines of the Catholic Church,” a 
 w r ork of profound merit, which has run 
 through several editions, and has been 
 translated into Erench, German, and 
 other Continental languages. He also 
 found time to build a very tine cathe- 
 dral at Ballina, and to commence what 
 seems to be one of the principal labors 
 of his long and useful life — -the estab- 
 lishment of free schools conducted by 
 Catholics and for Catholics. 
 
 Taking advantage of the lull in pub- 
 lic feeling that followed the passage of 
 the Act of Emancipation, Bishop Mc- 
 Hale passed over to the Continent to 
 
MOST EEY. JOHN McHAiE. 
 
 121 
 
 pay liis homage to the Sovereign Pon- 
 tiff, as well as to study the condition of 
 Christian art, literature, and social poli- 
 ty at the centre of Christendom. While 
 in Pome, in 1831, at the request of his 
 Holiness, he preached a series of ser- 
 mons in English so powerful in argu- 
 ment and so graceful in elocution that 
 immediately on their completion they 
 were translated into Italian and pub- 
 lished by Monsignor Luca. 
 
 He likewise visited the principal Ita- 
 lian cities, such as Turin, Florence, Si- 
 enna, ^Naples, and Yenice, and spent 
 nearly two years in examining their 
 magnificent basilicas, convents, schools 
 of learning, art galleries, and antiqui- 
 ties. His account of this delightful 
 journey, contained in several long and 
 exceedingly interesting letters, shows 
 that not only was lie thoroughly con- 
 versant with all the classic reminis- 
 cences and recollections which hang 
 round every spot, monument, and ruin 
 of the fair and tamo us peninsula, but 
 
122 
 
 IEISH PEIESTS. 
 
 that his views of the modern condition 
 of the country, politically, morally, and 
 intellectually, were those of an acute 
 observer and an artist. Here is a de- 
 scription of St. Peter’s and the Vatican 
 as they appeared to him : 
 
 u I was scarcely an hour arrived 
 when I hastened to St. Peter’s to otfer 
 up my cold and imperfect prayers in 
 unison with the incense of prayer and 
 sacrifice which is daily ascending from 
 that magnificent and holy temple to the 
 throne of the Almighty. Its precincts 
 were worthy of the majesty of the tem- 
 ple. The obelisk in front proclaimed 
 the homage of the conquered arts and 
 wealth of paganism to the spirit of Ca- 
 tholicity ; its refreshing fountains, con- 
 tinually playing in the sunbeams, were 
 an emblem of its pure and perennial 
 doctrine, flowing from the shrine of the 
 apostles ; and its curved colonnades, 
 stretching out on either side, most sig- 
 nificantly represented the ardent and 
 affectionate eagerness with which the 
 
MOST KEY. JOHN McIIALE. 
 
 123 
 
 Catholic Church greets her children 
 and cherishes them in her bosom. No 
 sooner did I cross the threshold of the 
 church than I felt what others are said 
 to feel — the illusions of its folded per- 
 spective. As I advanced it appeared 
 to be gradually unrolled, adjusting the 
 harmonious size and position of the 
 surrounding objects, until I stood under 
 the stupendous dome, of which I had 
 just seen the original model in the Pan- 
 theon : the one reposing on the earth, 
 the masterpiece of pagan temples, and 
 the other resting on lofty pillars pene- 
 trating to the heavens — the wondrous 
 trophy of the Christian artist by whose 
 shill and energy it was raised. 
 
 u Though the capital is rich in works 
 of art, ancient and modern, it is dis- 
 tanced in competition by the splendor 
 of the Vatican. To the church of jSt. 
 Peter was it first indebted for the va- 
 ried aggregate of unrivalled treasures 
 which have been gradually gathered 
 round it. 
 
124 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 u Tlie residence of the popes, trans- 
 ferred from the palace of the Later an, led 
 to the erection of its palaces, galleries, 
 and magnificent saloons, in which were 
 deposited the relics of ancient art disin- 
 terred by the zeal of antiquarians, en- 
 couraged and animated by the munifi- 
 cent patronage of its pontiffs. Poets 
 and sculptors studied with assiduity 
 these elegant models, and labored to 
 rival their excellence by similar crea- 
 tions of their own. The relations 
 which Borne holds to the world, col- 
 lecting within its precincts more of 
 historical and classical monuments than 
 are spread over the earth, the Vatican 
 Museum may be said to hold to Borne, 
 condensing within its sanctuaries such 
 a rare variety of exquisite treasures as 
 might be said to rival, if not in num- 
 ber, at least in value, all the collections 
 of this city. Without neglecting them, 
 
 it is no wonder if mv visits to the Vati- 
 
 «/ 
 
 can were more frequent than to any 
 of the other churches and palaces of 
 
MOST REV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 125 
 
 Rome ; nor is it until after repeated 
 visits that you can find a clue through 
 the labyrinth of their apartments, and 
 become familiar with those master- 
 pieces which must be frequently seen 
 in order to be duly valued. 
 
 “ To the four successive popes bear- 
 ing the names of Clement and Pius the 
 Vatican is justly indebted for its exten- 
 sions, and their names are in a special 
 manner associated with its magnificent 
 museum. Accordingly, the saloons 
 bearing their names, and appropriated 
 to the representation of the chief events 
 of their reigns, stretch out (such is the 
 fate of all history) and occupy a large 
 space as you come down. Still, whether 
 the apartments be small or spacious, 
 •these objects, whether of painting or of 
 sculpture, will always attract particular 
 attention, which have already secured 
 the suffrages of mankind. Such, amidst 
 the monuments of ancient sculpture, are 
 the Mle, with its attendant Vereids; 
 the Paocoon, writhing in inexpressible 
 
1*26 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 agony amidst tlie coiling and venemous 
 embraces of tlie serpent ; and, in tine, 
 the Apollo, that cannot be rivalled, 
 combining all the energy of the one sex 
 with the graces of the other, and appro- 
 priately fixed in one of the furthest 
 niches of the museum, as an object 
 for attracting fresh admiration. Such 
 among the paintings are the immortal 
 frescoes of Raphael, still displaying the 
 chief events of the inspired history on 
 the ceilings of the galleries of the Vati- 
 can. Such are the other chambers 
 appropriated by Julius the Second 
 exclusively to his pencil and known by 
 his name. Such, too, his fanciful Ara- 
 besques, borrowed from the baths of 
 Titus, with which the walls of the gal- 
 leries are decorated ; and such, in fine, 
 the awful picture, or rather group of 
 pictures, of Michael Angelo in the Sis- 
 tine Chapel, portraying a boldness from 
 which a less daring spirit would have 
 shrunk— the terrible scene of the Last 
 Judgment, of the reality of which an 
 
MOST REV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 127 
 
 idea may be formed when its empty 
 and shadowy representation cannot be 
 contemplated without awe.” 
 
 In May, 1834, Dr. McHale was ap- 
 pointed titular Bishop of Kiilala, and in 
 August of the same year was translated 
 to the archiepiscopal diocese of Tuam, 
 one of the most ancient and extensive 
 sees in Ireland. From the time of St. 
 Patrick till the present, Tuam has al- 
 ways been distinguished, not only for 
 the sanctity and ability of its incum- 
 bents, but for the consistent and undy- 
 ing love of country which under all cir- 
 cumstances characterized them. 
 
 Archbishop McHale was no exception 
 to this long line of patriot priests ; but 
 while he took as active a part in national 
 politics as the duties of his sacred pro- 
 fession would permit, he was thoroughly 
 impressed with the fact that before a 
 people can win and wear freedom they 
 must be educated. To promote this 
 great end, to place before the youth — 
 male and female — within his spiritual 
 
128 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 jurisdiction the means of obtaining a 
 good, solid, religious training, he exer- 
 cised all the powers of his high office 
 and all his great personal influence. 
 This has been one of his principal self- 
 imposed tasks for over forty years, and 
 the result is that now every church in 
 the province of Tuarn has a free school 
 attached to it, besides fourteen convents 
 for Franciscan monks, each with its 
 school, and three large houses and 
 schools for Christian Brothers, who count 
 their pupils by thousands. St. Jarlath’s 
 College is also in a flourishing condi- 
 tion, while academies for young ladies 
 and pay-schools for the children of 
 the wealthier classes are not wanting. 
 
 When Archbishop McHale went to 
 Tuam lie found the cathedral com- 
 menced by his immediate predecessor, 
 Archbishop Kelly, altogether incom- 
 plete. This he finished in a style of 
 architectural beauty so as to render it 
 one of the finest church buildings in 
 Ireland. He has also had some of the 
 
MOST REV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 129 
 
 parish churches enlarged, repaired, and 
 beautified, and, where necessary, new 
 ones built ; the latter, it is said, to the 
 number of over one hundred. 
 
 When the Repeal agitation commenced 
 in 1840, Dr. McITale was one of the first 
 of the Irish prelates to join the mo ve- 
 in ent ; and when it sank and withered 
 into nothingness in 1848, he was the last 
 to desert it. His views on national sub- 
 jects, always sound and sensible, were 
 constantly expressed both through the 
 press and at public meetings with great 
 clearness and eloquence. So bold, in- 
 deed, was his advocacy of the right of 
 the Irish people to legislate for them- 
 selves that he was felicitously styled by 
 the Liberator “the Lion of the Eold of 
 Juda.” When, through the intrigues of 
 the English Government in Rome, the 
 Cardinal Prefect was induced to send a 
 rescript to the Irish hierarchy, forbid- 
 ding them and their priests from taking 
 too prominent a part in the Repeal 
 movement, the venerable Archbishop of 
 
130 
 
 IEISH PRIESTS. 
 
 Tuam, wliile lie bowed in all obedienee 
 to the spiritual authority of the Sacred 
 College, was, with other prelates, satis- 
 fied that the document was based on 
 false statements, and that at all events it 
 was not intended to interfere with the 
 political rights of ecclesiastics. A few 
 days after its receipt he appeared at a 
 Repeal banquet in Limerick, and deliv- 
 ered one of his most brilliant and for- 
 cible speeches. Subsequent information 
 from the Papal Court showed the wis- 
 dom of his course. It seems that a 
 British spy named Petrie had been 
 hired by Peel’s ministry to malign the 
 character of the Irish priesthood, and 
 that upon his falsehoods the rescript 
 had been issued. The firm and dignified 
 stand taken by all classes of Catholics 
 in Ireland on that occasion induced the 
 members of the Sacred College to ex- 
 amine more closely into the sources of 
 their information, and to reconsider 
 their hasty action. 
 
 When it became certain that the 
 
MOST EEV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 131 
 
 Tories would have to relinquish tlieir 
 power in favor of tlieir opponents, and 
 it was rumored that an agreement had 
 been secretly formed between the Whigs 
 and certain Repealers hungry for office, 
 the archbishop lost no time in protesting 
 against such an unholy alliance. Under 
 date of December 18, 1845, he wrote to 
 the Dublin Freeman's Journal : 
 
 “ I write to express my heartfelt gra- 
 tification, and, as far as I know, the 
 gratification of the country, at the firm 
 and uncompromising tone of the last 
 Freeman. Now is the time for stern and 
 inflexible virtue, and for keeping the 
 Irish people fixed in that confidence of 
 having their native parliament which 
 passing events promise speedily to rea- 
 lize. The Association, too, did its duty 
 nobly under its great leader, and the 
 Whigs must be taught, as well as the 
 Tories, the Repeal phalanx is not, like 
 one of their own political parties, to be 
 broken up by whims or desertions, and 
 that it is not to be dissolved but by the 
 
132 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 restoration of an Irish Parliament. The 
 least wavering would do irretrievable 
 injury to the cause of Ireland ; hut of 
 that there is no danger. We are all 
 anxious about the result of the negotia- 
 tions about the ministry. If we are all 
 true to our duties , they must terminate 
 favorably for Ireland 
 
 Again in April, 1846, on the occasion 
 of the triumph of the Repeal, Anti- 
 office-begging party, the patriotic bishop 
 wrote to the Independent Club of Iris 
 native county, who had invited him to 
 attend their festival : 
 
 u it will be a cheering festival, and I 
 hope the people of Mayo will look upon 
 the late signal triumph, not as the in- 
 vidious triumph of any one section of 
 the community over another, but as the 
 triumph of all over those bad influ- 
 ences of foreign importation which so 
 long and so successfully sought to array 
 in opposite factions the children of the 
 same soil, whom a community of inte- 
 rests should knit together. Yes, it was 
 
MOST REV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 133 
 
 the triumph of justice over long-estab- 
 lished wrong ; of equity over inveterate 
 monopoly ; of virtuous poverty over 
 despotic wealth — in tine, of Christian 
 freedom from unchristian coercion, striv- 
 ing to vindicate for our own land that 
 inalienable right of self-legislation which 
 is the privilege of every country, and 
 from which the children of Ireland are 
 not so slavish as to sutler themselves to 
 be debarred. In asserting this right to 
 a domestic legislature they are but as- 
 serting the future security of the throne, 
 which never can be so firm as when 
 surrounded by the prosperity and con- 
 tent which would be sure to follow in 
 the train of our exiled senate to the land 
 from which they have been expatriated.” 
 In the same year appeared in Dublin, 
 in two large volumes, the public letters 
 of Bishop McHale, from 1820 to date 
 of publication. The work was very fa- 
 vorably received by the press and pub- 
 lic, and, covering as it does over a quar- 
 ter-century of Irish contemporary his 
 
134 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 tory, it lias become a standard authority 
 oil that subject. The first epistle was dat- 
 ed at Maynooth, January 29, 1820, and 
 from that time till Emancipation Dr. 
 McHale’s communications deal almost 
 exclusively with the wrongs and rights 
 of Catholics, as w r ell as the insidious at- 
 tacks which from time to time were di- 
 rected against the faith itself. Those of 
 1831-2, written when he was on the 
 Continent, are occupied with Italian 
 affairs, political, religious, and artistic. 
 
 Again the eloquent author returns to 
 Irish affairs, and the tithe question, par- 
 liamentary and municipal reform, be- 
 come the leading topics of his fruitful 
 and trenchant pen. When the Repeal 
 agitation was commenced by O’Connell, 
 the Archbishop of Tuam became one of 
 its stanchest and most influential ad- 
 vocates, not only in his public speeches 
 and private conversation, but through 
 the press. In fact, there will be found 
 in this collection able, exhaustive, and 
 forcible letters on every conceivable 
 
MOST KEY. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 135 
 
 topic, and on every prominent move- 
 ment in church or state that could af- 
 fect, for good or evil, the condition and 
 welfare of his persecuted countrymen. 
 We select a few extracts at random, not 
 that they are the most striking, but as 
 fair specimens of the venerable prelate’s 
 style and political foresight. In 1831, 
 alluding to the distress which then 
 generally prevailed in the country, he 
 wrote to Earl Grey, the Prime Minister : 
 “ Often has it been said that the lot 
 of my countrymen is without a parallel 
 in the history of the globe. The very 
 frequency of the assertion has rendered 
 people indifferent to the force of its 
 truth ; and the pictures which were 
 hitherto drawn of our misery have been 
 put, by those who could not witness it, 
 to the account of the fancy or the feel- 
 ings of those who were interested in its 
 exaggeration. No longer, however, is 
 this wretchedness problematical. It is 
 now attested by the confession of all 
 classes. Persons who cannot agree on 
 
136 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 any other topic have been forced to a 
 melancholy coincidence of opinion on 
 the frightful distress of the people, and 
 the multitudes who have lately emi- 
 grated from our shores are spreading 
 among their kindred beyond the Atlan- 
 tic the tale of our misfortunes. 
 
 u Had the late famine sprung solely 
 from those deep, natural causes oyer 
 which human foresight had not control, 
 these letters would have ceased with 
 the calamity in which they originated. 
 
 . . . But, my lord, it is impossible to 
 disguise the fact. There is a marked dif- 
 ference between the famines in Ireland 
 and the similar visitations that come 
 upon other countries. The sugar-plan- 
 ter of the West Indies may behold the 
 labors of a whole year swept away; no 
 one, however, can mistake the workings 
 of the hurricane and the storm. The 
 sirocco may blast the harvests of the 
 south, but the pious cannot repine at a 
 calamity which no government could 
 ward off. / 
 
MOST REV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 137 
 
 “ The east of Europe may be deluged 
 by early rains and the inundation of its 
 rivers ; and, if a famine should follow, 
 the inhabitants have, at least, one com- 
 fort : that the elements were sent thus as 
 precursors to warn them of its approach. 
 But in Ireland, and in Ireland alone, is 
 the evil dissociated from the influence 
 of natural causes. 
 
 “ If Ireland remain vet a wilderness, 
 it is because the Government never ef- 
 fectually willed its cultivation. Let but 
 Government will it, and the remotest 
 of its colonies are speedily improved. 
 Its settlements in the Indies, as well as 
 those in Canada, bear the rigorous im- 
 press of all its institutions, and distance 
 itself is almost annihilated by the rapid- 
 ity with which its mandates are con- 
 veyed. Let but the Government issue 
 its fiat , and Canada is traversed by 
 canals for the circulation of trade, while 
 the Shannon, undisturbed by machinery 
 or commerce, is suffered to roll in silence 
 its unprofitable waters through the land 
 
138 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 — an emblem, as it were, of tbe dull and 
 solemn repose of its inhabitants.” 
 
 Eleven years later Bishop McHale 
 wrote to Sir Bobert Peel, then in the 
 plenitude of his power : 
 
 “ With such rapidly-recurring scenes 
 of death and famine, in a land teeming 
 with exhaustless fertility, with measures 
 totally opposed in their practical opera- 
 tion to the benevolent preamble by 
 which they so often impose on the 
 unthinking, can it be a matter of sur- 
 prise that the Irish people would consti- 
 tutionally exert all the energies with 
 which nature has fitted them to remove 
 such anomalies of perpetual starvation 
 in the midst of plenty, and of perpetual, 
 small, and teasing persecution, under 
 the insulting name of enlightenment 
 and liberality $ Those who are continu- 
 ally reproaching our people with their 
 discontent do them much wrong, while 
 they suppress the cause of their rest- 
 lessness. Is it just to expect that any 
 people would be content who must part 
 
MOST EEY. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 139 
 
 with the produce raised by the labor of 
 their own hands, and often, as just now 
 experienced, at the close of the season, 
 when all the horrors of famine are anti- 
 cipated 1 
 
 “ Affect, therefore, no surprise at the 
 deep-seated anxiety of the Irish people 
 for an Irish parliament under the indi- 
 vidual sway of an imperial crown. In 
 their anomalous condition it would be 
 more surprising if they did not steadily 
 persevere in asserting their rights to 
 their only protection against ever-recur- 
 ring scarcity, in despite of every dis- 
 couragement. Ho honest politician can 
 wish the country to be doomed to 
 perpetual beggary. Were it blessed 
 with ten times its produce, and all the 
 discoveries of chemistry already applied 
 to agriculture to be exhausted on its 
 cultivation, the only effect would be, by 
 increasing our exports, to increase the 
 number of our absentees, who, by coping 
 in luxury with the proud patricians of 
 England, are rendered so needy that no 
 
140 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 increase of rents nor price of produce 
 can satisfy their rapacious demands. 
 Thus, while the dishonest financier 
 would be deducing from the exports 
 of Ireland proofs of its prosperity, the 
 looker-on might, alas ! at this moment, 
 in many parts of this district, liaye to 
 weep in silent pity over the slow but 
 certain starvation of the people.* 
 
 But at length even the Bepeal ques- 
 tion became of secondary consideration. 
 [Famine with all its attendant horrors — 
 death, pestilence, agrarian outrages, and 
 forced emigration — threatened the whole- 
 sale destruction of the Irish race. The 
 premonitory symptoms — the potato rot 
 -—were observed early in the autumn of 
 1846, and winter had not well begun 
 till the worst fears of the people were 
 realized. Hundreds died of famine ; 
 sickness, occasioned by unwholesome or 
 scanty food, became general, and every 
 one who could procure the necessary 
 funds was preparing to flee the doomed 
 country. The British ministry, in full 
 
MOST EEV. JOHN McIIALE. 
 
 141 
 
 possession of all tlie terrible facts, did 
 nothing — worse than nothing, for they 
 held out promises of relief which were 
 never performed ; and thus the stupen- 
 dous evil, that might have been miti- 
 gated, if not altogether suppressed, was 
 allowed to overspread the entire land. 
 Bussell, Macaulay, and their confreres 
 wanted to kill Repeal, and in doing so 
 slaughtered two millions of human be- 
 ings ! 
 
 Bishop Me Hale saw the danger from 
 the beginning, and endeavored, by all 
 means in his power, to avert or arrest it. 
 He wrote long and touching letters to 
 those whose duty it was to protect the 
 people and shield them from famine, but 
 without effect ; he collected subscrip 
 tions, and gave from his own limited 
 means large sums for the relief, not only 
 of his own spiritual children, but of 
 those of other portions of the country ; 
 and wherever his presence was neces- 
 sary, in the national councils or at the 
 bed of death, he was always to be found 
 
142 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 at liis post of duty, no matter how great 
 the labor or how hazardous the task. 
 The amount of good he effected, the 
 number of lives he saved, and the 
 charitable gifts which he bestowed are 
 beyond calculation, and will probably 
 never be known till the great day when 
 the secrets of all hearts shall stand re- 
 vealed. 
 
 As an evidence of how deeply the 
 good prelate was moved by the sights 
 and sufferings which daily surrounded 
 him during the famine years, we may 
 be allowed to quote the following ex- 
 tract from a speech delivered by him at 
 a meeting held in Castlebar, January 
 21,1847: 
 
 “ Had this calamity come with the 
 stealth and suddenness of a thief in the 
 night, ministers might plead some apo- 
 logy for their want of due precaution. 
 It was announced, re-announced, pro- 
 mulgated through the empire before the 
 last Parliament closed its session, and 
 the anticipated bill was made sufficiently 
 
MOST REV. JOHN MORALE. 
 
 143 
 
 intelligible, so tliat they cannot shield 
 themselves behind the subterfuge of sud- 
 denness or surprise. A seasonable in- 
 troduction of food would have averted 
 the calamity without the cost of a single 
 farthing to the imperial exchequer. The 
 doctrine of imperial economy — a novel 
 and pernicious heresy against the rights 
 of God and man, disguising its desolat- 
 ing influence under the specious name 
 of free-trade — took possession of these 
 shallow ministers ; and whilst the mer- 
 chant of London, on a larger scale, and 
 the smaller huxter- traders of our own 
 country, were carrying on their mono- 
 polies at the enormous profit of three 
 hundred per cent., the people of Mayo 
 were doomed to starve, and to be offered 
 up as victims to the Moloch of this 
 wicked political economy. Is it neces- 
 sary for the freedom of trade that mer- 
 chants should enjoy such an enormous 
 profit Is it to be imagined that the 
 activity of commercial enterprise will 
 die away unless it is kept up to the fever- 
 
144 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 heat of famine prices Oil ! no ; such 
 logic is not worth the labor of refuta- 
 tion. 
 
 “ Ireland is, or is thought to be, over- 
 peopled. The thinning of its population 
 lias been long a favorite theme with the 
 political economists. The failure of the 
 potato crop has seasonably come to their 
 aid and to that of exterminating land- 
 lords — the fortunes of merchants are 
 deemed of more value than their lives. 
 The expense, the tediousness, and the 
 trouble of distant colonization are sum- 
 marily got over. The rude agriculture 
 of the native peasantry will soon yield 
 to pasturage and green crops ; and those 
 who despaired of transporting the peo- 
 ple to the distant settlements of America 
 will find all their desire of emigration 
 satisfied in the more sweeping process 
 of the people’s rapid emigration to the 
 grave. It is far from me to arraign the 
 intention of the responsible servants of 
 the crown. I freely and sincerely acquit 
 them of any wish to sacrifice the people 
 
MOST EEV. JOHN MoHALE. 
 
 145 
 
 of Ireland ; but this I say, fliat no 
 means could have been more calculated 
 to sweep away the adoption of these 
 cruel and ruthless theories of political 
 economy, which in an evil hour, and in 
 obedience to inexorable fashion of the 
 times, they have, with such simplicity, 
 adopted. 
 
 “ But it is not enough that the people 
 of Mayo should die of starvation ; they 
 must also be singled out for vitupera- 
 tion and reproach. What wonder, it is 
 said, that the people of a country should 
 now starve which could have hereto- 
 fore supplied Europe with mendicants ! 
 What a glorious attestation to the im- 
 perial legislation for forty-seven years ! 
 If there were so many mendicants, who 
 made them so °! The extinction of our 
 linen manufactures; the creation and 
 then the destruction of the forty-shil- 
 ling freeholders with which Mayo teem- 
 ed beyond any other county — these 
 were the creatures and the offspring 
 of imperial legislation ; so that if the 
 
146 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 English minister quarrels with these re- 
 sults, he quarrels with the work of his 
 own hands. But even in this poverty 
 there is no instance, while they could 
 procure food, of suffering, as now, any 
 one to die of starvation. Ho ; there 
 was a generosity, a Christian charity, 
 about them, which it would be well for 
 their calumniators to imitate ; and now 
 that they are abandoned to starvation, 
 nettles should not be wantonly flung 
 over their graves. 
 
 “ The person to whom these observa- 
 tions are attributed is, I must do him the 
 justice to say, a gentleman of great urban- 
 ity and kindness. But, no doubt, the 
 feelings of the man have merged in the 
 fancied duties of the minister. He can- 
 not, therefore, be surprised, if, in the lash 
 of animadversion, we too should draw a 
 similar distinction, and forget the cour- 
 teous gentleman when he ventures to 
 become sponsor for the misdeeds of the 
 starving ministry. What profound and 
 statesman-like reasoning — and consola- 
 
MOST REV. JOHN Mo HALE. 
 
 / 
 
 147 
 
 tory, no doubt, as it is profound ! Eor 
 centuries former governments were so 
 filling tlie cup of misery in this country, 
 as well as over Ireland, that they forced 
 it to overflow into mendicity ; and be- 
 cause, forsooth, they were not free from 
 crime in inflicting this wretchedness, the 
 present Government must be guiltless in 
 suffering it to close in all the horrors of 
 starvation. 
 
 “It is enough to acquit their incapa- 
 city and official blundering of evil inten- 
 tions for the past ; but should they per- 
 severe in defiance of every duty which 
 they owe to society, for the safety of 
 which they hold their present position, 
 then will they deserve to be dismissed 
 with ignominy and execration. But 
 what are now the proposed remedies for 
 this disastrous series of official misman- 
 agement Belief committees, when the 
 corn, the sinew of relief, is gone, the 
 soup-shops deemed sufficiently nutritious 
 for the poor people ; or a day like this 
 on the public roads, amidst rain and 
 
148 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 storm. You will, forsooth, get a sum 
 equal to that which yon will subscribe 
 at a time when meal is double the price 
 it would have reached if the monopoly 
 of merchants and the political economy 
 of their supporters had not been suffered 
 to run their ruinous career. Had that 
 cupidity been seasonably checked, you 
 would now obtain for your own unaided 
 money the same quantity of meal you 
 could obtain for double the amount. 
 
 “ Whence it follows that this much- 
 vaunted generosity of this public official 
 goes back again to the credit of those 
 merchants who are the cherished ob- 
 jects of ministerial solicitude. Yet for 
 this ambiguous boon they strive to get 
 the control, not only of their own share 
 of the funds, but of all subscriptions, 
 through the medium of committees, 
 some of which are so exclusive in their 
 formation and so odious in their re- 
 striction as to defeat effectually what 
 should be their object — prompt and ex- 
 tensive relief. I need not point out 
 
MOST REV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 149 
 
 their defects. Yon have felt them, as 
 one of your resolutions attests. They 
 are felt in the deaths of numbers whom 
 a more humane system would have 
 saved ; and so harsh do these conditions 
 appear to some generous Englishmen 
 whom the spirit of disinterested charity 
 warms that they have declared that 
 they never would entrust their charities 
 to committees restricted and fettered by 
 such cruel conditions. Hay, more, the 
 spirit of an unrelenting bigotry has, in 
 some places, insinuated itself into those 
 bodies to the injury of those dear in- 
 terests of suffering humanity which all 
 should labor to relieve. Soup-shops are 
 now the only substitute for the subtrac- 
 tion of our corn — soup-shops the only 
 panacea for our miseries ; in short, soup- 
 shops are now the only staff, nay, the 
 very elixir, of life ; and no relief to be 
 diffused through any other gratuitous 
 channel.” 
 
 In 1848 an event occurred which in 
 some measure compensated for the anx- 
 
150 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 iety and agony he had suffered during 
 the famine. We have seen how practi- 
 cally earnest he had hitherto been in 
 the cause of Catholic education, and can 
 easily understand what must have been 
 his alarm when, in 1845, the insidious 
 Tory ministry, always the enemy of Ire- 
 land, proposed and passed an act estab- 
 lishing three Queen’s Colleges, one each 
 in the provinces of Ulster, Munster, 
 and Connaught. The ostensible object 
 of this boon was to afford the young 
 men of Ireland of all creeds an oppor- 
 tunity of obtaining a free collegiate edu- 
 cation ; the real purpose was, first, to 
 throw an apple of discord among the 
 clergy and laity, and, secondly, to per- 
 vert the youth of the country from both 
 faith and nationality. All the profes- 
 sors and teachers were to be appointed 
 by the government, and the books used 
 and the course of study pursued were to 
 be dictated from the same hostile source. 
 Many of the Nation writers, some of 
 those who were afterwards known as 
 
MOST KEY. JOHN MoHALE. 
 
 151 
 
 the u Young Ireland party,” and even 
 O’Connell himself for a short time, 
 without due consideration, accepted this 
 scheme of perversion, hut the bishops of 
 Ireland, to their immortal honor, re- 
 jected it. Foremost among these was 
 the uncompromising Archbishop of 
 Tuam. Yone knew better than he that 
 if the British Government once obtained 
 control of the education of the rising 
 generation, the utter demoralization of 
 the future men of Ireland was only a 
 question of time. He had seen it in the 
 extra loyalists of Trinity, and had wit- 
 nessed it, though in a lesser degree, 
 among some of his fellow-students of 
 Maynooth. 
 
 But the colleges were founded, and, 
 despite the exertions of the hierarchy, 
 many young Catholics, tempted by the 
 facilities held out of a superior training, 
 attended them. It then became neces- 
 sary to invoke the aid of a higher 
 authority. In 1848, therefore, Hr. Mc- 
 Hale went to Home, and the result of 
 
152 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 liis mission will be found in the follow- 
 ing letter addressed to him after his re- 
 turn home : 
 
 “ Most Illustrious aud Most Ee- 
 yeread Lord : It will appear strange, 
 perhaps, that the reply of the Sacred 
 Congregation on the subject of the aca- 
 demical colleges should have been so 
 long delayed ; but the deep importance 
 of the question at issue, as well as the 
 great variety of topics which are to be 
 considered, rendered it necessary that 
 much time should be devoted to the due 
 examination of the documents and rea- 
 sons produced on both sides before a 
 decision could be fairly pronounced. 
 
 u 'First of all, we deem it our duty to 
 declare that it never entered the mind 
 of the Sacred Congregation, that the 
 prelates who appeared to be in favor of 
 establishing the colleges had anything 
 wrong in view, since long experience 
 has convinced us of their probity, and 
 that they were induced to adopt those 
 views solely from the hope of effecting 
 
MOST EEY. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 153 
 
 greater good and consulting tlie inte- 
 rests of religion in Ireland. However, 
 the Sacred Congregation, having con- 
 sidered the matter maturely and in all 
 its bearings, dares not promise itself 
 such fruits from the erection of those 
 colleges ; nay, more, it dreads that the 
 Catholic faith would thereby be placed 
 in imminent danger ; in one word, it is 
 convinced that institutions of this sort 
 prove detrimental to religion. 
 
 u Eor these reasons it has felt it its 
 duty to caution the archbishops and 
 bishops of Ireland against taking any 
 part in establishing them. But as the 
 Sacred Congregation would have wished, 
 before some of the prelates had entered 
 into any negotiation with the Govern- 
 ment for amending the law regarding 
 the aforesaid colleges and procuring 
 other measures in their favor, that they 
 had taken the opinion of the Holy See, 
 so it doubts not but that, from the pro- 
 found obedience which the prelates of 
 Ireland invariably exhibit towards it, 
 
154 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS, 
 
 they will retract those tilings which 
 they liave done to tlie contrary. But 
 notwithstanding all this, should any of 
 you have matters of importance further 
 to be remarked upon, you are at liberty 
 freely to communicate them to the Sa- 
 cred Congregation, in order that it may 
 come to a due decision on them all. 
 
 “ The Sacred Congregation is well 
 aware how important it is that provi- 
 sion should be made for the scientific 
 instruction of the youth, especially of 
 the higher class ; it therefore exhorts 
 your grace and your suffragans to adopt 
 all the legitimate means in your power 
 to promote such instruction. 
 
 “ It will be your duty to take care that 
 the Catholic colleges already established 
 may be rendered still more flourishing 
 by the erection of additional and useful 
 chairs, especially in the philosophical 
 department, in case they should be want- 
 ing ; and that those colleges be so pre- 
 pared as to be open to a greater number 
 of pupils, as the circumstances of the 
 
MOST EEY. JOHN MoHALE. 
 
 155 
 
 several districts may require. Above 
 all things the Sacred Congregation would 
 deem it advantageous that the bishops, 
 uniting their exertions, should procure 
 the erection in Ireland of such a Catho- 
 lic academy as the prelates of Belgian 
 have founded in the city of Louvain. 
 
 “ And that these matters may have 
 the desired happy result, the Sacred 
 Congregation exhorts the bishops to 
 preserve mutual union and the greatest 
 concord ; nor to suffer themselves to be 
 carried away by partisan zeal on matters 
 which do not regard the sacred ministry 
 intrusted to them ; that it may be evi- 
 dent to all that they have nothing in 
 view but the worship of God, the good 
 of religion, and the salvation of souls. 
 
 “ With all these things you will, we 
 are sure, comply with the greater ear- 
 nestness whereas they are in entire con- 
 formity with the judgment of our holy 
 lord Pius IX. ; for after he had ob- 
 tained accurate information on the 
 whole of this case, ho sanctioned with 
 
156 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 his approbation the decision of the Sa- 
 cred Congregation, and gave to it the 
 supreme weight of his authority. 
 
 44 In the meantime we pray to God 
 that he may grant your Grace a long 
 and happy life. — Your Grace’s most obe- 
 dient servants, 
 
 44 J. Phil. Gaud. IYaxsoxi, P.D.P.E. 
 44 Alexaxder Bakxabo, Pro-Sec. 
 
 44 College of the Sacred Congregation for 
 the Propagation of the Eaith, Pome, 
 9 th October, 1847. 
 
 64 To Elis Grace the Most Bev. John 
 McHale, Archbishop of Tuam.” 
 
 This settled the matter as far as the 
 Catholics of Ireland were concerned ; 
 and though the English Government 
 was partially successful in sowing the 
 seeds of dissension among the nation- 
 alists for the time being, it was foiled 
 in its grand scheme of corruption, and 
 mainly through the untiring exertions 
 of the great Archbishop of Tuam. To 
 make the victory more complete, as well 
 
MOST EEV. JOHN McHALE. 
 
 157 
 
 as to remove whatever doubts the public 
 might have of the position of the Irish 
 hierarchy on the question of “ mixed 
 education,” he in 1869 induced that 
 august body, officially and unequivo- 
 cally, to declare against its manifold 
 evils. 
 
 In his long and busy life Dr. McHale 
 found time to devote some spare mo- 
 ments to the indulgence of his literary 
 tastes, especially poetry. The greater part 
 of Moore’s “ Melodies ” have been trans- 
 lated by him into Irish without change 
 of metre, and with the ancient Irish airs 
 preserved intact. In 1861 appeared his 
 Irish translation of the first six books 
 of the “ Iliad,” and two years later an 
 English and Irish version of the Penta- 
 teuch, as a first instalment of a similar 
 translation of the entire Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 Though now at the advanced age of 
 eighty-six, in the sixty-second year of 
 his priesthood, and the fifty-first of 
 his episcopate, Archbishop McHale, like 
 
158 
 
 IKISH PRIESTS. 
 
 the illustrious Pius IX., is yet in full 
 possession of liis mental and physical 
 faculties, and thoroughly competent to 
 perform the duties of his sacred office. 
 He is not only the oldest bishop in Ire- 
 land, but he is unquestionably the great- 
 est Irish prelate living, not only as a 
 general scholar of great knowledge and 
 profound thought, but as an Irishman 
 who knows Ireland, her language, lit- 
 erature, arts, and history, and loves 
 her from the depths of his warm, vig- 
 orous heart. He lias seen three gene- 
 rations of public men pass away, has 
 witnessed his country in the throes of 
 religious excitement, the Repeal agi- 
 tation, the famine desolation, and now 
 Home Rule, and has never had occa- 
 sion to change his views in a single 
 particular. XTo ecclesiastic has been 
 more faithful and obedient to the visible 
 Head of the church, none more consis- 
 tent in his advocacy of free education, 
 and few, if any, more loyal to their coun- 
 try. In Ireland, where he is univer- 
 
MOST REV. JOHJV McHALE. 
 
 159 
 
 sally known, he is beloved and trusted, 
 and in this country his revered name, 
 sterling qualities, and brilliant virtues 
 are themes of praise among millions rf 
 his exiled countrymen. 
 
KEY. D. W. CAHILL. 
 
 Twelve years ago tlie American 
 public suffered an incalculable loss in 
 the death of the Bev. Hr. Cahill, so 
 distinguished as a scientific scholar, a 
 most eloquent lecturer, and a preacher, 
 who, for profundity and Biblical lore, 
 had few equals here or in Europe. 
 
 Bev. H. W. Cahill was bom in Queen’s 
 County, Ireland, at the beginning of the 
 present century, and, as he grew up and 
 exhibited more than usual aptitude for 
 science, his father, a prominent engi- 
 neer, purposed to have him commis- 
 sioned in the British army. But the 
 termination of the Napoleonic wars by 
 the decisive battle of Waterloo, June 18, 
 1815, and the lad’s own inclination to- 
 wards the ministry, altered the deterini- 
 nation of his parent, and he was allowed 
 to go to Carlow College to pursue his 
 studies preparatory to going to May- 
 nooth. 
 
 m 
 
Dr. CAHILL. 
 
' 
 
REV. D. W. CAHILL. 
 
 161 
 
 In the latter college Dr. Cahill so 
 distinguished himself for industry, obe- 
 dience, and aptitude that he was placed 
 in the “ Dunboyne Establishment” — 
 a mark of appreciation which not only 
 confers honor on the recipient, but usu- 
 ally gains him more solid advantages. 
 But more marks of distinction were 
 awaiting the future preacher. Ko soon- 
 er had he graduated at Maynooth and 
 become an ordained priest of the Catho- 
 lic Church than he was offered the po- 
 sition of professor of natural philoso- 
 phy in his old Alma Mater , Carlow Col- 
 lege, by no less a scholar and judge of 
 human nature than the illustrious Dr 
 Doyle, better known, perhaps, as “ J. K. 
 L.,” Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. 
 
 That Bather Cahill executed the trust 
 thus reposed in him, and that he was 
 fully competent, even at that unripe age, 
 to discharge the duties of so onerous a 
 calling, does not admit of a doubt ; for 
 it was while filling the chair of natural 
 philosophy that he received his diploma 
 
102 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 of Doctor of Divinity directly from 
 the Sacred College in Rome. 
 
 Some time after Bishop Doyle’s death 
 Dr. Cahill severed his connection with 
 Carlow College ; hut having imbibed 
 the desire, so general among intelligent 
 Irishmen, not only to acquire knowledge, 
 but to spread it among his countrymen, 
 he resolved to open a school or pre- 
 paratory theological seminary, of which 
 he himself would be the president. The 
 site selected by him was a very romantic 
 and picturesque one at Black Bock, a 
 few miles from Dublin, and the institu- 
 tion was opened with every prospect of 
 success. But Dr. Cahill’s generosity, 
 and even extravagance, not for his own 
 personal comfort, but for that of the 
 students placed under his supervision, 
 eventually ruined the enterprise. The 
 pupils, though excellently instructed 
 mentally, were physically nourished on 
 the most costly dainties, and the result 
 was that in a short time the seminarv 
 had to be abandoned, and its originator 
 
KEY. D. W. OAIIILL. 
 
 163 
 
 found himself several thousand pounds 
 sterling in debt. Part of this debt, 
 however, was incurred in publishing a 
 newspaper which had only an ephe- 
 meral existence. 
 
 But though the heavy weight of debt 
 hung like a millstone round the neck of 
 Dr. Cahill, his was not the spirit to 
 quail before danger or difficulty. Had 
 lie, as his father intended, become a sol- 
 dier, he might easily be found storming 
 a breach or leading a forlorn hope ; as 
 it was, he faced the danger, and, re- 
 lying on his intellectual attainments, 
 assumed the role of lecturer. The sub- 
 ject he selected was astronomy — one of 
 the most sublime studies that have ever 
 engaged the attention of man. In the 
 capital of Ireland, in the principal cities 
 and towns, where perhaps no lecturer 
 had ever been heard, Hr. Cahill made 
 his appearance, always to be received in 
 the warmest manner, listened to with 
 profound attention, and applauded as 
 only an Irish audience can applaud an 
 
1G4 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS 
 
 eloquent speaker who imparts to them 
 either pleasure or instruction. 
 
 Perhaps one of the greatest triumphs 
 of Dr. Cahill’s political correspondence 
 was his letters on what was called the 
 u Ark of Carrigaholt,” a miserable little 
 chapel in which the Key. Pather 
 Meehan officiated for the benefit of the 
 tenantry of one of that peculiarly hard- 
 hearted and unpatriotic class yclept 
 Irish landlords. So strong were the 
 eloquent divine’s words, so broadly were 
 they circulated by the press, that the 
 reluctant owner of the soil at last yield- 
 ed to public opinion, and at his proper 
 cost built a very pretty church for the 
 use of the Catholics of the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 Like most Irishmen of distinction, 
 Dr. Cahill conceived the idea of visiting 
 America, where so many of his coun- 
 trymen had already found hospitable 
 homes ; and so well was he pleased with 
 liis reception, not only by his compa- 
 triots but by the general public, that 
 
REV. D. W. CAHILL. 
 
 165 
 
 he never entertained a notion of leaving 
 it. He arrived here in December, 1859, 
 and, after a short rest in New York, 
 commenced a lecturing tour, principally 
 for the benefit of charitable institutions, 
 which for rapidity, ability, and pecu- 
 niary success has never been equalled. 
 We well recollect how playfully he 
 would remark when asked how many 
 years longer he was going to lecture for 
 charity : “ I am now on my second hun- 
 dred thousand — well, when I reach half 
 a million I will commence to talk for 
 myself.” 
 
 But that time, properly speaking, 
 never arrived. In endeavoring to fulfil 
 an engagement in Massachusetts in the 
 autumn of 1864, he contracted a severe 
 cold, and died of congestion of the lungs 
 in Carney Hospital, Boston, October 28 
 of that year. In person Dr. Cahill was 
 a splendid specimen of the physical 
 man, standing nearly six and a half feet 
 high, and built in proportion ; mentally 
 he was even more remarkable, being 
 
166 
 
 IRISH PRIESTS. 
 
 not only a theologian, a chemist, aiH an 
 astronomer, hut a thorough proficient in 
 the Hebrew, Greek, French, German, 
 and Italian languages. “ Take him for 
 all and all, we ne’er shall look upon Ms 
 like again,” 
 
IRISH POETS 
 
 BEY. EKANOIS MAHONY. 
 
 “ Father Prout.” 
 
 Prakcis Mahohy, better known to 
 tbe lovers of genuine humor and pathos, 
 versatile genius and high scholarly attain- 
 ments, as “Pather Prout,” was born in the 
 city of Cork in the year 1805. Without 
 consulting his wishes on so vitally im- 
 portant a matter, his parents, who were 
 devout Catholics, destined him for the 
 priesthood, and he, in filial obedience, 
 prepared himself for the sacred ministry 
 with all due diligence, and at the proper 
 age was ordained. It was his intention 
 at one time to have joined the Order of 
 Jesuits, but a certain escapade in which 
 
 167 
 
168 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 lie took a prominent part, more credit- 
 able to bis convivial and good-natured 
 spirit than to bis judgment, induced his 
 superiors to extend to him an indefinite 
 leave of absence to visit the Continent. 
 
 On his return he was appointed curate 
 to a simple-hearted, good-natured clergy- 
 man— hath er Prout, parish priest of 
 Grasshill, a place some few miles from 
 Cork. Here the future poet and essayist 
 remained some years, attending prompt- 
 ly enough to the duties of his calling, but 
 far more interested in study, literature, 
 and those intellectual flights of fancy 
 which were afterwards destined to make 
 his name famous. Por a while he con- 
 fined his squibs to the columns of the lo- 
 cal papers, under the nom de plume of 
 “ Eather Prout,” which was first assumed 
 as an innocent joke at the expense of his 
 venerable co-laborer, and afterwards, be- 
 coming popular, was retained by Eather 
 Mahony, we are inclined to believe, with 
 the implied or express permission of the 
 venerable original 
 
REV. FRANCIS MAIIONY. 
 
 169 
 
 In 1830 Dr. Maginn started Fraser’s 
 Magazine , and Eatlier Front, as we will 
 continne to call liim, became one of the 
 earliest and most valued contributors to 
 its sparkling and critical pages. Tired 
 of the monotony of a poor curate’s life 
 in a remote village, and allured by the 
 •ignis-fatuus of literary fame, he soon 
 abandoned his curacy and his sacred pro- 
 fession and launched out into the wide 
 world of letters. 
 
 On reaching London he was warmly 
 received by his townsman Maginn, and 
 installed as a regular contributor to Fra- 
 ser’s^ which at that time was one of the 
 ablest as well as the most audacious of 
 the English Tory magazines. Its repu- 
 tation in both respects lost nothing at 
 the hands of Father Front. Moore, who 
 at that time was the leading literary 
 champion of the Whig or Liberal party, 
 was one of the first to feel the thrust of 
 his lance and the strength of his arm. 
 Under the title of u The Filferings and 
 Plagiarisms of Thomas Moore,” an elabo- 
 
170 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 rate article appeared, boldly charging the 
 Irish bard with stealing bodily most of 
 his best lyrics from Anacreon and other 
 classic writers, and passing them off as 
 his own. In support of this monstrous 
 charge Prout quoted what purported to 
 be the Greek or Latin originals, but 
 which were in reality his own versions 
 of the Melodies done into those lan- 
 guages. The reasoning displayed in the 
 article was so ingenious, and the trans- 
 lations so well executed, that many per- 
 sons of ordinary reading were completely 
 deceived, while those who knew better 
 were intensely amused at the sublime 
 audacity of the writer, and, it is said, 
 none more so than Moore himself. 
 
 But Bather Prout did not confine his 
 efforts to apocryphal translations. He 
 loved the Prench people and their liber- 
 ties, and was one of the first to introduce 
 to the English-speaking public the inim- 
 itable muse of Beranger. While in Paris 
 in 1830 he was an observer of the July 
 revolution which drove out Charles X. 
 
EEV. FEANCIS MAHONY. 
 
 171 
 
 and installed tlie citizen king, Louis 
 Philippe ; and it was doubtless inspired 
 by the scenes he beheld on that occasion 
 that he afterwards produced the follow- 
 ing spirited version of 
 
 The Tri-Colored Flag. 
 
 Comrades around this humble board, 
 
 Here’s to our banner’s bygone splendor ; 
 
 There must be treason in that word — 
 
 All Europe may the proof afford, 
 
 All F ranee be the offender 
 But drink the toast 
 That gladdens most, 
 
 Fires the young heart and cheers the old— 
 
 May France once more 
 Her tri-color, 
 
 Blest with new life, behold ! 
 
 List to my secret. That old flag 
 Under my bed of straw is hidden, 
 
 Sacred to glory. W ar-w'orn rag ! 
 
 Thee no informer thence shall drag, 
 
 Nor dastard spy say ’tis forbidden. 
 
 France, 1 can vouch, 
 
 Will from its couch 
 The dormant symbol yet unfold, 
 
 And wave once more 
 Her tri-color 
 
 Through Europe, uncontrolled ! 
 
 For every drop of blood we spent 
 Did not that flag give value plenty ? 
 
172 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 W ere not our children, as they went 
 Jocund to join the warrior’s tent, 
 
 Soldiers at ten, heroes at twenty? 
 
 France, who were then 
 Your noblemen'? 
 
 Not they of parchment — must and mould 
 But they who bore 
 Your tri-color 
 
 Through Europe, uncontrolled ! 
 
 Leipsic hath seen our eagle fall, 
 
 Drunk with renown, worn out with glory 
 But with the emblem of old Gall 
 Crowning our standard, we’ll recall 
 The brightest days of Valmy’s story. 
 With terror pale 
 Shall despots quail, 
 
 When in their ears the tale is told 
 Of France once more 
 Her tri-color 
 Preparing to unfold. 
 
 Trust not the lawless ruffian chiel — 
 
 Worse than the vilest monarch he ! 
 
 Down with the dungeon and bastile ! 
 
 But let our country never kneel 
 To that grim idol — Anarchy ! 
 
 Strength shall appear 
 On our frontier, 
 
 France shall be liberty’s stronghold! 
 
 Then earth once more 
 The tri-color 
 
 With blessings shall behold ! 
 
 O my old flag ! thou liest hid 
 
 There where my sword and musket lie. 
 
KEY. FRANCIS MAIIONY. 
 
 173 
 
 Banner, come forth ! for tears unbid 
 Are filling fast a warrior's lid 
 Which thou alone canst dry. 
 
 A soldier’s grief 
 Shall find relief, 
 
 A veteran’s heart shall be consoled — 
 France shall once more 
 Her tri-color 
 Triumphantly unfold. 
 
 Father Prout’s connection with Fra- 
 ser’s lasted several years, during which 
 he contributed numerous articles, essays, 
 reviews, and poems, all marked with the 
 same buoyant spirit, exuberance of fancy, 
 and a versatility that seemed to pass 
 without effort from grave to gay, from ab- 
 surd to sublime. A portion of these con- 
 tributions was published in 1860, under 
 the title of “ Reliques of Father Prout,” 
 and the best and the worst of the re- 
 mainder appeared in London last year. 
 In the “ Reliques ” are to be found many 
 short pieces of rare merit ; the following 
 has become the most popular, and the 
 one which seems destined to be remem- 
 bered and sung when his more merito- 
 rious and better- conceived songs are for- 
 
174 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 gotten. It has the advantage also of 
 being wedded to a beautiful old Irish 
 air, full of wild pathos and expression. 
 
 The Bellb of Shandon. 
 
 With deep affection and recollection 
 I often think of those Shandon bells, 
 
 Whose sounds so wild would, in days of childhood, 
 Fling round my cradle their magic spells. 
 
 ( )n this I ponder where’er I wander, 
 
 And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee, 
 
 With thy bells of Shandon, 
 
 That sound so grand on 
 The pleasant waters of the river Lee. 
 
 I’ve heard bells chiming full many a clime in, 
 
 Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine, 
 
 While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate, 
 But all their music spoke naught like thine ; 
 
 For memory, dwelling on each proud swelling 
 Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free, 
 
 Made the bells of Shandon 
 Sound far more grand on 
 The pleasant waters of the river Lee. 
 
 I’ve heard bells tolling “ old Adrian’s Mole ” in, 
 Their thunders rolling from the Vatican, 
 
 And symbols glorious swinging uproarious 
 In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame, 
 
 But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter 
 Flings o’er the Tiber pealing solemnly. 
 
 Oh ! the bells of Shandon 
 Sound far more grand on 
 The pleasant waters of the river Lee. 
 
REV. FRANCIS MAHONY. 
 
 175 
 
 There’s a bell in Moscow, while on tower and kiosco 
 In St. Sophia the Turkman gets, 
 
 And loud in air calls me to prayer 
 
 From the tapering summit of tall minarets. 
 
 Such idle phantom I freely grant them ; 
 
 But there’s an anthem more dear to me : 
 
 ’Tis the bells of Shandon, 
 
 That sound so grand on 
 The pleasant waters of the river Lee, 
 
 Yet with all his success Eather Prout, 
 it would appear, did not like London or 
 its ways. The atmosphere of Paris was 
 more congenial, and there, at the age of 
 forty, he took up his quarters as corres- 
 pondent successively of two leading En- 
 glish daily journals, the News and Globe. 
 Eor about twenty years he labored in 
 this capacity with great industry and 
 undiminished vigor and vivacity; his 
 letters being always replete with poli- 
 tical and social facts and speculations, 
 as well as being models of style and 
 arrangement. 
 
 At length, as age crept on apace, and 
 the futility of earthly happiness became 
 more and more apparent, he relinquished 
 all literary labor, and, quietly stealing 
 
176 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 away from friends and admirers, liid "him- 
 self in a monastery, wliere lie expected to 
 have had time allowed him to repent of 
 his past delinquencies and prepare for 
 the great event that sooner or later 
 comes to us all. It came to him more 
 speedily than anticipated, but not, we 
 trust, to find him unprepared. His death 
 occurred on the 18th of May, 1866. 
 
 His remains were conveyed from Paris 
 to Cork, where all the solemn ceremo- 
 nies of the church were performed over 
 them previous to their being interred in 
 the cemetery of St. Mary, Sliandon, with- 
 in the shadow of the steeple whose bells 
 he has immortalized in song. 
 
 As an evidence that Eather Prout 
 could use his tongue as well as his pen 
 when occasion required, we append the 
 following account of an amusing inci 
 dent, related in the concluding volume 
 of the “Reliques” as having occurred at 
 a social gathering of wits in London, 
 called the “ Hook and Eye Society.” It 
 having been agreed that toasts should 
 
REV. FRANCIS MAHON Y 
 
 177 
 
 be given, one of the members, a bar- 
 rister, gave “ The Gates of the Temple,” 
 and added with mock dignity: “May 
 those glorious portals long protect from 
 profane mobs and despotic governments 
 the ark of the constitution!” Douglas 
 Jerrold, who followed the barrister, gave : 
 “ The next-door neighbor to the Temple 
 gates, more ancient and respectable than 
 either — old Temple Bar.” He added the 
 wish, in which he felt certain all present 
 would heartily join, that the luminous 
 head of their esteemed friend at the 
 other end of the table might never be 
 seen surmounting it, spike-pinned and 
 ghastly, and taking an unenviable posi- 
 tion in the criminal records of the coun- 
 try alongside of the heads of the rebels 
 of 1715 and 1745. Eor he shared the 
 opinion of several mutual friends that 
 any man who sang the “ Heel of Tulli- 
 gorum ” with such verve and gusto as 
 their reverend chaplain must not only be 
 a Jesuit, but a Jacobite as well, of the 
 very first water ! When the uproarious 
 
178 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 laughter which followed Jerrold’s biting 
 bit of badinage had ceased, and the uni- 
 versal call for Proufc had brought him to 
 his legs, the former was to be seen still 
 chuckling at the fun he had produced, 
 though anything but unmindful that he 
 was j ust going to catch it in his turn; 
 and the latter looked round the board 
 with that look of mingled drollery and 
 mischief, over his spectacles, which he 
 always fixed upon you when one of his 
 good things was coming. Looking down 
 at length steadfastly at his antagonist, he 
 said : “The gates of Janus’ temple were 
 only shut three times during the seven 
 hundred years of the Roman common- 
 wealth, from Vurna to Augustus. The 
 gates of Temple Bar were only shut 
 three times during my time, and then 
 only for a moment on each occasion, 
 when they were opened again to wel- 
 come and admit within their civic pre- 
 cincts, on their coming to the throne, 
 their majesties George and Billy IV., 
 and our present young and most gra- 
 
EEY. FRANCIS MAHONY. 
 
 179 
 
 cioiFs Queen Victoria. If tliose illus- 
 trious portals are ever destined to be 
 strut a fourth time in our days, I trust it 
 will be in the face of Douglas Jerrold 
 by that discreet arbiter elegantiarum and 
 master of ceremonies, the city chamber- 
 lain. He would, of course, reopen it, 
 more majorum , to our. royal visitor, the 
 facile princeps of London argot and chaff 
 But, if not recommending him to the re- 
 corder’s court and a gate thereunto adja- 
 cent, which holds a still more unenviable 
 position than Temple Bar in the crim- 
 inal records of the country — and most 
 assuredly if he does not mend his man - 
 ners and moderate the rancor of his 
 tongue — he shall have to appear before 
 the one and pass through the other. I 
 think I see the wise janitor pointing out 
 to our modern Diogenes a gate which 
 stands further on in the heart of the city, 
 where he may breathe freely of a conge- 
 nial atmosphere — an atmosphere which 
 we all know is redolent of ichthyologi • 
 cal sweets * hi other words, pre-eminently 
 
180 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 fisliy! Without dismissing our chair- 
 man, as our venerable deceased friend 
 Anchises did pious iEneas and his gipsy 
 companion the Sibyl through the Gate 
 of Ivory, or the Gate of Humbug, which 
 Virgil, we all know, meant it to be— 
 that particular descent into Hades, like 
 Jerrold’s, being a fable and a joke the 
 whole way through — without further 
 comment of any kind, I’ll give you, gen- 
 tlemen : Billingsgate and Douglas J er- 
 rold ! May the capital of England never 
 miss the time-honored and classic odor 
 of the one, and the literature of England 
 long enjoy the searching and trenchant 
 wit of the other ! ” 
 
TOM MOORE. 
 
THOMAS MOOBE, 
 
 The Baed of Eeh. 
 
 Thomas Mqoee, tlie greatest epic poet 
 whom Ireland has produced since the 
 time of Ossian, and the most accom- 
 plished, ornate, and musical lyric poet 
 in the English or any other modern 
 language, was born in the city of Dublin 
 on the 28th of May, a.d. 1780. His 
 father, a respectable grocer, who occu- 
 pied a house, still standing, on the corner 
 of Aungier and Little Longford Streets, 
 in the southern part of the city, though 
 a man of limited means, was remarkable 
 for great natural intelligence, thrift, and 
 thorough national principles. His mo- 
 ther, of whom the poet invariably spoke 
 with the most unqualified admiration 
 and affection, appears to have been her 
 
 husband’s superior in mental tpiali- 
 
 181 
 
182 
 
 IKISH POETS. 
 
 ties, though less enthusiastic in her pa- 
 triotism. 
 
 Moore’s school boy days were passed 
 under the critical eye of a Mr. Whyte, a 
 gentleman of considerable literary abili- 
 ty, and more pedagogical vanity, who 
 had numbered among his pupils Richard 
 Brinsley Sheridan, the Misses Mont- 
 gomery, and many other male and fe- 
 male scholars who were afterwards des- 
 tined to become distinguished in the 
 world of arts and letters. It was in praise 
 of this philomath that the future bard of 
 Erin first tuned his lyre at the early age 
 of fourteen ; and the publication of his 
 rhymes and one or two equally jejune 
 pieces in the Anthologia , a Dublin maga- 
 zine, doubtless atforded him more real 
 gratification then than the world’s ap- 
 plause which long years afterwards greet- 
 ed his most splendid productions. 
 
 Before 1793 no Catholic could enter 
 the Dublin University, but in that year 
 the rigor of the cruel penal code was 
 so far relaxed as to allow the professors 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 183 
 
 of the ancient faith to study in its col- 
 leges. “I was myself among the first 
 of the young Helots of the land,” says 
 Moore, “who hastened to avail them- 
 selves of the new privilege of being 
 educated in their country’s university, 
 though still excluded from all share in 
 those college honors and emoluments by 
 which the ambition of the voutlis of the 
 ascendant class was stimulated and re- 
 warded. As I well knew that, next to 
 my attaining some of these distinctions, 
 my showing that I deserved to attain 
 them would most gratify my anxious 
 mother, I entered as a candidate for a 
 scholarship, and (as far as the result of 
 the examination went) successfully. But 
 of course the mere barren credit of the 
 effort was all I enjoyed for my pains.” 
 In other words, being a Catholic, he was 
 denied even a scholarship by the domi- 
 nant faction, that represented about an 
 eighth of the population of the country. 
 
 At Trinity he met a young gentleman 
 named Hudson, and became the inti- 
 
184 
 
 IKISH POETS. 
 
 mate friend of the ill-starred Robert 
 Emmet and several of the fiery and 
 gifted spirits who afterwards figured so 
 conspicuously in the tragic events which 
 immediately preceded and followed the 
 annihilation of the legislative independ- 
 ence of Ireland. At their solicitation he 
 joined the college Debating Society, and 
 afterwards the more matured Historical 
 Society ; and whenever the condition of 
 Ireland and the practical remedy for her 
 wrongs could be introduced, or the ab- 
 stract question of human rights was 
 touched upon, Moore was always found 
 an advocate on the side of justice, hu- 
 manity, and liberty. 
 
 Indeed, his training in this regard was 
 early commenced by his patriotic father. 
 At twelve years of age, he tells us, he 
 was brought to a republican meeting by 
 his parent, and, seated on the chairman’s 
 knee, listened to glowing eulogies on 
 Erance, then in the throes of revolution, 
 and on America, which had just obtained 
 her independence. When the burlesque 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 185 
 
 of royalty was initiated by the citizens 
 of Dublin by constituting the little isl- 
 and of Dalkey a liliputian kingdom, and 
 electing u a respectable pawnbroker” its 
 sovereign, young Moore contributed tbe 
 satirical odes and songs to grace tbe 
 mock festivals. Later on, in 1797, when 
 Arthur O’Connor, Thomas Addis Em- 
 met, and some other leaders among the 
 United Irishmen established the Press 
 newspaper, the future poet and pet of 
 the English aristocracy sent for publica- 
 tion in its capacious columns several 
 prose articles remarkable as much for 
 their vehemence and violence as for 
 their literary merits. 
 
 But though thus enlisted on the side 
 of the nationalists, he never could be in- 
 duced to join their sworn secret clubs in 
 or out of college. His religious scruples 
 and the prudent foresight of his fond 
 mother saved him from a course at once 
 dangerous and foolish. But his intimate 
 relations with such men as Emmet placed 
 him under the suspicion of the authori- 
 
186 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 ties of the university, and nearly led to 
 his expulsion. 
 
 Shortly before the rising in ’98, the in- 
 famous Lord Clare as vice-chancellor, 
 and the equally disreputable Dr. I)uige- 
 nan as assessor, held a grand visitation 
 in the university to ascertain how far 
 the love of Ireland and of liberty to all 
 men had penetrated into that gloomy 
 abode of fanaticism and apostasy. Every 
 student in the least suspected of the 
 crime of patriotism was put on oath, 
 questioned and cross-questioned by the 
 veteran inquisitors, for the purpose of 
 making them convict themselves or im- 
 plicate their companions. Among those 
 so mentally tortured was young Moore, 
 who thus modestly reports that part of 
 the proceedings : 
 
 44 The oath was proffered to me. 4 I 
 have an objection, my lord,’ said I, 4 to 
 taking this oath.’ 4 What is your objec- 
 tion ’ he asked sternly. 4 1 have no 
 fears, my lord, that anything I might say 
 would criminate myself; but it might 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 187 
 
 tend to involve others, and I despise the 
 character of the person who could be led, 
 nnder any snch circumstances, to inform 
 against his associates.’ This was aimed 
 at some of the revelations of the pre- 
 ceding day, and, as I learned afterwards, 
 was so understood. ‘ How old are you, 
 sir 1 ?’ he then asked. ‘Between seventeen 
 and eighteen, my lord.’ He then turned 
 to Huigenan, and exchanged a few words 
 with him in an undertone of voice. ‘ We 
 cannot,’ he resumed, again addressing 
 me, ‘ suffer any one to remain in our 
 university who refuses to take this oath.’ 
 ‘ I shall, then, my lord,’ I replied, ‘take 
 the oath, still reserving to myself the 
 power of refusing to answer any such 
 questions as I have just described.’ ‘We 
 do not sit here to argue with you, sir,’ 
 he rejoined sharply; upon which I took 
 
 the oath and seated mvself in the wit- 
 
 «/ 
 
 nesses’ chair. 
 
 “ The following are the questions and 
 answers that then ensued. When ad- 
 verting to the proved existence of the 
 
188 
 
 IKISH POETS. 
 
 United Irish societies in the university, 
 he asked : ‘ Have yon ever belonged to 
 any of these societies ’ 4 No, my lord.’ 
 
 4 Have yon ever known of any of the pro- 
 ceedings that took place in them V 4 No, 
 my lord.’ 4 Hid you ever hear of a pro- 
 posal at any of their meetings for the pur- 
 chase of arms or ammunition V 4 Never, 
 my lord.’ 4 Hid you ever hear of a propo- 
 sition made in one of these societies with 
 respect to the expediency of assassina- 
 tion 1 ’ 4 Oh ! no, my lord.’ He then 
 
 turned to Huigenan, and, after a few 
 words with him, said to me: 4 When 
 such are the answers you are able to 
 give, pray what was the cause of your 
 great repugnance to taking the oath 1 ’ 
 
 4 1 have already told your lordship my 
 chief reason ; in addition to which it was 
 the first oath I ever took, and the hesi- 
 tation was, I think, natural.’ ” 
 
 This terminated the inquest, and Moore 
 was congratulated by his fellow-students 
 on his escape. It had previously been 
 determined in a family council that, if 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 189 
 
 ho were asked a question the answer to 
 which might implicate any of his friends, 
 he was to refuse to reply, and thus, of 
 course, suffer the penalty of expulsion. 
 Another account of this critical passage 
 in the poet’s life is more elaborately and 
 grandiloquently described in Herbert’s 
 “Irish Varieties,” but we prefer his own 
 simpler version. 
 
 In the excitement of politics Moore 
 did not for a moment neglect the culti- 
 vation of his mind. Indeed, industry 
 seems to have been from early youth one 
 of the most prominent elements of his 
 genius, while the desire to please his pa- 
 rents, “ those whom he most loved and 
 most respected,” added wings to his na- 
 tural ambition. He diligently applied 
 himself to the study of music, particu- 
 larly to the Irish airs collected by Bunt- 
 ing ; he wrote a theme in English verse 
 for a quarterly examination, and recei ved 
 a handsome premium from the examin- 
 ing board ; and for his “Ode upon Noth- 
 ing, with Notes, by Trismigistus Rusti- 
 
190 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 fustius, D.D., etc.”— apolitical satire — lie 
 received the gold medal of the Historical 
 Society. 
 
 While he continued to translate de- 
 tached odes of Anacreon, he spent most 
 of his leisure time in Marsh’s Library, 
 adjoining St. Patrick’s venerable cathe- 
 dral. “ Through my acquaintance with 
 the deputy librarian,” says Moore, “ the 
 liev. Mr. Cradock, I enjoyed the privi- 
 lege of constant access to this collection, 
 even at that period of the year when it 
 is always closed to the public. On these 
 occasions I used to be locked in there 
 alone ; and in the many solitary hours 
 which, both at the time I am now speak- 
 ing of and subsequently, I passed in 
 hunting through the dusty tomes of this 
 old library, I owe much of that odd 
 and out-of-the-way sort of reading which 
 may be found scattered through some of 
 my earlier writings.” 
 
 At the age of nineteen Moore left 
 home for London to keep his terms at 
 the Middle Temple ; for he was intended 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 191 
 
 for the legal profession. He had with 
 him his translation of Anacreon, some 
 letters of introduction to the Earl of 
 Moira and other influential parties, and 
 a tolerably well-filled purse. His legal 
 studies, we are inclined to believe, were 
 not very congenial to his tastes, and, 
 consequently, were not pursued with his 
 usual diligence ; but his Anacreontic 
 odes were published, and very favorably 
 received by the discerning portion of the 
 reading public. His “Juvenile Poems” 
 appeared subsequently, under the nom de 
 plume of Thomas Little, and, though 
 somewhat too amatory and irregular in 
 construction, became highly popular. 
 
 Having in 1803 accepted an appoint- 
 ment in Bermuda, he sailed in the 
 Phaeton frigate for the United States, 
 in company with Mr. Merry, Minister 
 to Washington, and suite, and landed 
 in October at Norfolk, Va. Thence he 
 went to Bermuda, but after a short so- 
 journ he returned to Norfolk via Bos- 
 ton. In June, 1804, Moore commenced 
 
192 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 liis tour of tlie United States and Ca- 
 nada, visiting the principal cities and 
 places of interest along liis route. Dur- 
 ing this journey he wrote many beauti- 
 ful epistles in verse to his family and 
 friends at home, and some long descrip- 
 tions of American men and manners, 
 which, though evincing considerable li- 
 terary ability, were sadly deficient in 
 justice and discrimination. He had dur- 
 ing his four years’ residence in London 
 imbibed a portion of that hatred of the 
 United States and her institutions which 
 then pervaded all classes in Britain — 
 the last resource of a beaten and baffled 
 foe — who looked at everything in the 
 young Bepublic with a jaundiced and 
 jealous eye. However, he lived long 
 enough to regret the gross blunder, and 
 to apologize for it. In the preface to 
 the second volume of his works he thus 
 alludes to it : “ In the most formidable 
 of all my censors at that period — the 
 great master of the art of criticism in 
 our day — I have found ever since one 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 193 
 
 of tlie most cordial and highly-valued 
 of my friends ; while the good-will I 
 have experienced from more than one 
 distinguished American sufficiently as- 
 sures me that any injustice I may 
 have done to that land of freemen, if 
 not long since wholly forgotten, is now 
 remembered only to be forgiven.” 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting part of 
 his American poems is the following 
 allusion to George Washington, whose 
 civic and moral greatness were then so 
 well assured that even those who wished 
 to find a flaw in his character were 
 forced to praise him : 
 
 “ How shall we place thee upon glory’s page 1 
 Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage ! 
 
 Of peace too fond to act the conqueror’s part, 
 
 Too long in camps to learn the statesman’s art ; 
 Nature design’d thee for a hero’s mould, 
 
 But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold. 
 
 “ While loftier souls command, nay, make, their fate, 
 Thy fate made thee, and forced thee to be great. 
 Yet fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds 
 Her brightest halo round the weakest heads, 
 
 Found thee undazzled, tranquil as before, 
 
 Proud to be useful, scorning to be more ; 
 
 Less moved by glory’s than by duty’s claim, 
 
194 
 
 IKISH POETS. 
 
 Renown thy meed, but self applause ihy aim! 
 
 All that thou wert reflects less fame on thee, 
 
 Far less, than all thou didst forbear to Toe. 
 
 Nor yet the patriot of one land alone, 
 
 For thine’s a name all nations claim their own , 
 And every shore where breathed the good and brave 
 Echo’d the plaudits thine own country gave.” 
 
 Moore again visited Bermuda, but re- 
 turned to London soon after, tired, no 
 doubt, of the solitude of those vexed 
 islands. Eor some years he did not un- 
 dertake any work of importance except 
 the u Melodies,” which were written at 
 irregular intervals. His muse became 
 political and satirical ; and as he had be- 
 come an ally of the Whigs, he was well 
 received and much courted by the lead- 
 ers of that party. Like most of the 
 writers of that day, he was terribly se- 
 vere on the Prince Begent, afterwards 
 George IV., u the fourth of the fools 
 and oppressors called George.” It was 
 in allusion to the tergiversation of that 
 abandoned character that he wrote the 
 following beautiful song, of which he 
 afterwards said : “ It was little less, I 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 195 
 
 own, than profanation to disturb the 
 
 sentiment of so beautiful an air by any 
 
 connection with such a subject ” ; and 
 
 of which Byron said “I have heard 
 
 from London that you have left Chats- 
 
 worth, and all there are full of ‘ entusy- 
 
 musy,’ . . . and, in particular, that 
 
 4 When first I met Thee’ has been quite 
 
 overwhelming in its effect. I told you 
 
 it was one of the best things you ever 
 
 wrote, though that dog wanted you 
 
 to omit part of it.” 
 
 When First I Met Thee. 
 
 When first I met thee, warm and young, 
 
 There shone such truth about thee, 
 
 And on thy lip such promise hung, 
 
 1 did not dare to doubt thee. 
 
 I saw thee change, yet still relied, 
 
 Still clung to hope the fonder, 
 
 And thought, though lost to all beside, 
 
 From me thou wouldst not wander. 
 
 But go, deceiver ! go. 
 
 The heart whose hopes could make it 
 Trust one so false, so low, 
 
 Deserves that thou shouldst break it. 
 
 When every tongue thy follies named, 
 
 I fled the unwelcomed story, 
 
 Or found in e’en the faults they blamed 
 , Some gleams of future glory. 
 
196 
 
 IKISH POETS. 
 
 1 still was true when nearer friends 
 Conspired to wrong, to slight thee ; 
 
 The heart that now thy falsehood rends 
 Would then have hied to right thee. 
 
 But go, deceiver ! go. 
 
 Some day, perhaps, thou’lt waken 
 Erom pleasure’s dreams to know 
 The grief of hearts forsaken. 
 
 Even now, though youth its bloom has shed, 
 
 No lights of age adorn thee ; 
 
 The few who loved thee once have fled, 
 
 And they who flatter scorn thee. 
 
 Thy midnight cup is pledged to slaves — 
 
 No genial ties enwreath it ; 
 
 The smiling there, like light on graves, 
 
 Has rank, cold hearts beneath it. 
 
 Go ! go ! Though worlds were thine, 
 
 1 would not now surrender 
 One taintless tear of mine 
 Eoc all thy guilty splendor ! 
 
 And days may come, thou false one ! yet, 
 
 When even those ties shall sever ; 
 
 And thou wilt call, with vain regret, 
 
 On her thou’st lost for ever — 
 
 On her who, in thy fortune’s fall, 
 
 With smiles had still received thee, 
 
 And gladly died to prove thee all 
 Her fancy first believed thee. 
 
 Go ! go ! ’Tis vain to curse, 
 
 ’Tis weakness to upbraid thee ; 
 
 Hate cannot wish thee worse 
 
 Than guilt and shame have made thee. 
 
 In 1808 “ Corruption ” and u Intoler- 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 197 
 
 ance,” and in tlie following year u The 
 Sceptic,” appeared. They were clever 
 satirical pieces, directed against the 
 scandals and bigotry of the times, but 
 rather long and heavy to suit the gen- 
 eral taste. His lighter pieces, which he 
 threw off in showers, were more brilliant 
 and much more popular and effective. 
 The following, written some years after 
 this period, is perhaps the best of those 
 jeux iV espr it : 
 
 The Petition of the Orangemen of Ireland. 
 
 To the people of England, the humble petition 
 Of Ireland’s disconsolate Orangemen, showing 
 That sad, very sad, is our present condition — 
 
 Our jobbing all gone, and our noble selves going ; 
 
 That, forming one-seventh, within a few fractions, 
 
 Of Ireland’s seven millions of hot heads and hearts, 
 W e hold it the basest of all base transactions 
 To keep us from murd’ring the other six parts ; 
 
 That as to laws made for the good of the many, 
 
 We humbly suggest there is nothing less true ; 
 
 As all human laws (and our own more than any) 
 
 Are made by and for a particular few ; 
 
 That much it delights every true Orange brother 
 To see you, in England, such ardor evince 
 
198 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 In discussing tohiclt sect most tormented the- other, 
 And burned with most gusto , some hundred years 
 since ; 
 
 That we love to behold, while old England grows 
 faint, 
 
 Messrs. Southey and Butler nigh coming to blows, 
 To decide whether Dunstan, that strong-bodied saint, 
 Ever truly and really pulled the devil’s nose ; 
 
 Whether the other saint, Domnic, burned the devil’s 
 paw ; 
 
 Whether Edwy intrigued with Elgiva’s old moth- 
 er ;* 
 
 And many such points, from which Southey can draw 
 Conclusions most apt for our hating each other ; 
 
 That ’tis very well known this devout Irish nation 
 Has now, for some ages, gone happily on 
 Believing in two kinds of substantiation — 
 
 One party in trans and the other in con; f 
 
 That we, your petitioning cons, have, in right 
 Of the said monosyllable, ravaged the lands, 
 
 And embezzled the goods, and annoy’d, day and night, 
 Both the bodies and souls of the sticklers for trans ; 
 
 That we trust to Peel, Eldon, and other such sages 
 For keeping us still in the same state of mind ; 
 Pretty much as the world used to be in those ages 
 When still smaller syllables madden’d mankind ; 
 
 * To such important discussions as these the greater 
 part of Dr. Southey’s “ Yindiciae Ecclesiae Anglicanse” is 
 devoted. 
 
 f Consubstantiation — the true Reformed belief ; at least, 
 the belief of Luther, and, as Mosheim asserts, of Melancthon 
 also. 
 
THOMAS MOOKE. 
 
 199 
 
 When the words ex and per served as well to annoy 
 One’s neighbors and friends with as con and tram 
 now ; 
 
 And Christians like Southey, who stickled for oi, 
 
 Cut the throats of all Christians who stickled for out ; 
 
 That, relying on England, whose kindness already 
 So often has helped us to play this game o’er, 
 
 We have got our red coats and our carabines ready, 
 And wait but the word to show sport as before ; 
 
 That as to the expense — a few millions or so 
 
 That for all such diversions J ohn Bull has to pay— 
 ’Tis at least a great comfort for John Bull to know 
 That to Orangemen’s pockets ’twill all find its way. 
 For which your petitioners ever will pray. 
 
 Etc., etc., etc. 
 
 It was not, however, till 1812, his 
 thirty-second year, that Moore, feted 
 and applauded for his squibs and satires, 
 hut ambitions of achieving more endur- 
 ing fame, conceived the idea of a grand 
 epic poem, the scene and characters of 
 which were to be exclusively Oriental. 
 After a delay of nearly two years, nego- 
 tiations for the publication of the poem 
 were completed with the house of Long- 
 man, the historv of which is thus related 
 by the party most concerned : 
 
 u On this last occasion an old friend 
 
200 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 of mine, Mr. Perry, kindly offered to 
 lend me the aid of his advice and pre- 
 sence in the interview which I was about 
 to hold with the Messrs. Longman for 
 the arrangement of our mutual terms ; 
 and what with the friendly zeal of my 
 negotiator on the one side, and the 
 prompt and liberal spirit in which he 
 was met on the other, there has seldom 
 occurred any transaction in which Trade 
 and Poesy have shone out so advanta- 
 geously in each other’s eyes. The short 
 discussion that then took place between 
 the two parties may be comprised in a 
 few sentences. 4 I am of opinion,’ said 
 Mr. Perry, enforcing his view of the case 
 by arguments which it is not for me to 
 cite, 4 that Mr. Moore ought to receive 
 for his poem the largest price that has 
 been given in our day for such a work.’ 
 4 That was,’ answered the Messrs. Long- 
 man, ‘ three thousand guineas.’ 4 Ex- 
 actly so,’ replied Mr. Perry, 4 and no less 
 a sum ought he to receive.’ 
 
 44 It was then objected, and very rear 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 201 
 
 sonably, on the part of the firm, that 
 they had never yet seen a line of the 
 poem, and that a perusal of the work 
 ought to be allowed to them before they 
 embarked so large a sum in the purchase. 
 But no ; the romantic view my friend 
 Perry took of the matter was that this 
 price should be given as a tribute to re- 
 putation already acquired, without any 
 condition for a perusal of the new work. 
 This high tone, I must confess, rather 
 startled and alarmed me ; but, to the 
 honor and glory of romance — as well on 
 the publishers’ side as the poet’s — this 
 very generous view of the transaction 
 was without any difficulty acceded to, 
 and the firm agreed, before we separated, 
 that I was to receive three thousand 
 guineas for my poem.” 
 
 Nothing could have been more honor- 
 able nor more politic on the part of the 
 Longmans. A trust so implicitly im- 
 posed, a confidence in his punctuality, 
 industry, and genius so practically mani- 
 fested, worked like magic on the ardent 
 
202 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 and conscientious temperament of tlie 
 poet ; and lie resolved that they should 
 neither be disappointed nor disheartened. 
 Taking with him all the books on East- 
 ern travel, history, theology, geography, 
 etc., that he could collect, he forsook the 
 pleasures of London literary life, and for 
 three years buried himself in the coun- 
 try to master their contents and to pro- 
 duce the most gorgeous and perfect Ori- 
 ental epic in the English language. “ It 
 was,” he tells us, “ indeed to the secluded 
 life I led during the years 1813-1816, in 
 a lone cottage amid the fields in Derby- 
 shire, that I owed the inspiration, what- 
 ever may have been its value, of some 
 of the best and most popular portions of 
 4 Lalla Eookh.’ It was amid the snows 
 of two or three Derbyshire winters that 
 I found myself enabled, by that concen- 
 tration of thought which retirement 
 alone gives, to call up around me some 
 of the sunniest of those Eastern scenes 
 which have since been welcomed in In- 
 dia itself as almost native to its clime.” 
 
THOMAS MOORE- 
 
 203 
 
 Moore worked on Ms poem with suck 
 diligence that in 1815 ke was able to 
 write to kis pnbliskers tkat it was so far 
 advanced tkat ke was in a position to 
 submit it for tkeir inspection. But they, 
 having unlimited confidence in kim, 
 simply replied : “We are certainly im- 
 patient for tke perusal of tke poem, but 
 solely for our gratification. Your senti- 
 ments are always honorable.” In No- 
 vember of tke following year tke work 
 was completed, but tke commercial de- 
 pression whick followed tke long Napo- 
 leonic wars, and the scarcity of money 
 in all branches of industry, led Moore to 
 believe tkat tke time was not auspicious 
 for tke production of so expensive a 
 book as “Lalla Bookh.” He accordingly, 
 with a delicacy highly commendable, 
 wrote to tke Longmans, giving them the 
 power, if they chose to exercise it, of 
 modifying tke engagement made in more 
 prosperous times, and “leaving them 
 free to postpone or even, should suck 
 be tkeir wish, relinquish it altogether.” 
 
204 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 The enterprising publishers, however, 
 who were not to be outdone in courtesy 
 and generosity, even by a poet, sent re- 
 ply : “We shall be most happy in the 
 pleasure of seeing you in February. We 
 agree with you, indeed, that the times 
 are most inauspicious for ‘ poetry and 
 thousands’; but we believe that your 
 poetry would do more than that of any 
 other living poet at the present mo- 
 ment.'’ 
 
 Thus was the great epic of “ Lalla 
 Kookh ” conceived, constructed, and 
 launched into the world, a model of pa- 
 tient research, accuracy, and sparkling 
 poesy, a thing of beauty and a joy for 
 ever. Its success was instantaneous, its 
 popularity unbounded. It was read by 
 all classes in Ireland, England, and 
 America ; foreign savants hastened to 
 translate it into their own languages ; 
 and kings and royal princes and princess- 
 es in the European capitals delighted to 
 select its characters for tableaux vivants 
 and divertissements. Old and intelli- 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 205 
 
 gent travellers in the East, struck with 
 the accurate descriptions of localities, 
 scenery, beasts, birds, and fishes, fauna 
 and flora, could hardly be convinced that 
 the author had never been in Hindos- 
 tan or Persia. Colonel Wilks, who 
 was personally familiar with all Asiatic 
 countries, once asked Sir James Mac- 
 kintosh “ whether it were true that 
 Moore had never been in the East.” 
 “Never,” said Mackintosh. “Well,” 
 said the colonel in astonishment, “ that 
 shows me that reading D’Herblot is as 
 good as riding on the back of a camel.” 
 But Moore did not confine himself to 
 D’Herblot or to any two or three authors, 
 but read them by scores, with such con- 
 centration and recollection that he was 
 always able to portray his characters and 
 their surroundings with admirable fide- 
 lity, as is shown by the testimony of 
 many Oriental scholars. One in parti- 
 cular, who thus wrote many years after 
 the appearance of the great work, says : 
 “ I embrace this opportunity of bear- 
 
200 IRISH POETS. 
 
 ing my individual testimony (if it be of 
 any value) to the extraordinary accuracy 
 of Mr. Moore in his topographical, 
 antiquarian, and characteristic details, 
 whether of costume, manners, or less 
 changing monuments, both in his ‘ Lal- 
 la Rookh and his ‘ Epicurean.’ It has 
 been my fortune to read his Atlan- 
 tic, Berm u dean, and American Odes 
 and Epistles in the countries and among 
 the people to which and to whom they 
 relate ; I enjoyed, also, the exquisite de- 
 light of reading his 4 Lalla Rookh ’ in 
 Persia itself ; and I have perused 4 The 
 Epicurean ’ while all my recollections of 
 Egypt and its still existing wonders were 
 as fresh as when I quitted the banks of 
 the Rile for Arabia. I owe it, there- 
 fore, as a debt of gratitude (though the 
 payment is most inadequate) for the 
 great pleasure I have derived from his 
 productions, to bear my humble testi- 
 mony to their local fidelity.” 
 
 The intrinsic merits of the poem de- 
 lighted even the most fastidious and criti- 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 207 
 
 cal readers, and that in the age of Byron, 
 Scott, and many other writers in English 
 of extraordinary abilities. Some there 
 were at that day, of course, as there still 
 are — the hypercritical and shallow — who 
 affected to depreciate even its greatest 
 attractions. It was too full of imagery 
 and sweetness, flowers, perfumes, and 
 music, for them — forgetting that in all 
 these lay its greatest charm, its highest 
 claim to be called a genuine Eastern 
 poem. The Orient has always been the 
 region of romance as well as of inven- 
 tion ; where the imagination fairly revels 
 in the delights of gorgeous scenery and 
 countless centuries of tradition. “ Then 
 it is deficient in strength,” said, and say, 
 those worthies. A casual glance at the 
 “Veiled Prophet” or the “Eire- Wor- 
 shippers ” is enough to refute this cavil. 
 The battle-scene in the former and the 
 final catastrophe in the latter, especially, 
 are as good specimens of powerful and 
 dramatic description as can be found in 
 the English language. 
 
208 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 It lias often been asserted, and contra- 
 dicted, that Moore, in writing the u Eire- 
 Worshippers,” bad the desolate and op- 
 pressed condition of Ireland constantly 
 in view. We can state positively, on his 
 own authority, that such was the fact. In 
 describing how the various romances in 
 “ Lalla Jtookh ” originated in his brain 
 he says : “ At last, fortunately as it 
 proved, the thought occurred to me of 
 founding a story on the tierce struggle 
 so long maintained between the Ghe- 
 bers or ancient Eire- Worshippers of 
 Persia and their haughty Moslem mas- 
 ters. Eroin that moment a new and 
 deep interest in my whole task took 
 possession of me. The cause of toler- 
 ance was again my inspiring theme ; 
 and the spirit that had spoken in the 
 melodies of Ireland soon found itself 
 at home in the East.” 
 
 Having seen his book safely through 
 the press, Moore took a short, well-earned 
 vacation on the Continent in company 
 with Mr. Sogers, the banker-poet. His 
 
THOMAS MOOBE. 
 
 209 
 
 visit was confined principally to Paris, 
 and the result of his observations shortly 
 after appeared in his “ Fudge Family,” a 
 series of satirical epistles, besprinkled 
 with keen remarks and liberal comments 
 on the then anomalous state of Europe. 
 His next trip to the Continent was with 
 Lord John Bussell, and carried him as far 
 as Italy, where he met Chantrey, Canova, 
 and other great artists in Borne, visited 
 Byron at Venice, and went the rounds 
 of all the art galleries and churches in 
 Florence, Bologna, Modena, Parma, Mi- 
 lan, and Turin. His “Bhymes on the 
 Bead ” were written during this journey, 
 or soon afterwards from notes taken dur- 
 ing the tour. 
 
 Moore did not return immediately to 
 England, but, sending for his family, took 
 up his residence in the suburbs of Paris, 
 where he remained till 1822. This in- 
 voluntary exile grew out of certain legal 
 processes issued against him by some 
 American claimants who had been de- 
 frauded by his deputy in Bermuda, for 
 
210 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 whose conduct Moore was legally, though 
 not equitably, responsible. Though the 
 negotiations between his friends and his 
 creditors extended over several years, 
 they were finally concluded with satis- 
 faction to both parties, the poet paying 
 out of his own slender exchequer all that 
 was justly due to the parties duped by 
 his dishonest representative. While in 
 Erance he wrote several short pieces, 
 songs, and ballads ; “ The Loves of the 
 Angels,” an epic in four parts, founded 
 on Eastern traditions, and “ Babbinical 
 Motions,” which, though savoring of 
 the profane to Christian eyes, lose all 
 malignity when we consider that Moore’s 
 angels are no more our celestial bodies 
 than the gods of Homer or Hesiod were 
 real creations. 
 
 During this absence from home Moore 
 also finished the eighth part of his “Irish 
 Melodies,” but it was not till 1834 that 
 that wonderful collection of songs was 
 finally completed. 
 
 Though faithful as were his transla- 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 211 
 
 tions of Anacreon, sharp and incisive his 
 satire on the passing politics of the hour, 
 splendid his “Lalla Booth, ” witty his 
 “ Budge Family,” and exceedingly grace- 
 ful his “ Loves of the Angels,” the undy- 
 ing fame of Thomas Moore as a true poet 
 must ever rest on his “ Irish Melodies.” 
 Without the least exaggeration, and with 
 the greatest confidence, it can be said 
 that in no age, nation, or language can 
 such a melodious, resonant, pure, natural, 
 and expressive collection of lyrics be 
 found, wedded to such thrilling, plain- 
 tive, or soul-stirring airs. As works of 
 art they are as perfect as it is possible 
 for a human being to make them. Out 
 of the one hundred and twenty-live songs 
 which are included under this title, the 
 most exacting critic may look in vain for 
 a defective line, a harsh word, or a broken 
 metaphor ; yet so judiciously has the art 
 that conceals all art been exercised that 
 the reader is carried along irresistibly, 
 from one to another, by the most apparent 
 natural flow of sentence and sentiment. 
 
212 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 Another merit have those extraordi- 
 nary creations of the poet in a wonderful 
 degree. Though closely wedded to the 
 peculiarities and genius of the ancient 
 Irish airs in sound and measure, as in 
 the case of 44 The Minstrel Boy,” 44 Be- 
 member the Glories,” and so many others, 
 the beauty of the theme, the poetical rhe- 
 toric, as it were, of the song, is never 
 sacrificed to mere sound. Any of the 
 4 4 Melodies ” can be read in the library with 
 almost as much pleasure for the sake of 
 its own individual merits, or declaimed 
 from the rostrum with nearly as much 
 effect, as it can be sung in the drawing- 
 room or concert-hall. While the most 
 fastidious taste is gratified at hearing the 
 44 Last Bose of Summer ” as arranged by 
 Stevenson or Elotow, the scholar and 
 the student can ponder with genuine 
 gratification on the pure poetical beau- 
 ties of such compositions as “Go where 
 Glory waits Thee,” “I saw from the 
 Beech,” etc. 
 
 Where so many excellences abound, 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 213 
 
 where all are perfect in their order, it is 
 nearly impossible to select any parti- 
 cular melody more deserving of praise 
 than the others ; but we have chosen the 
 following, with which a very pretty and 
 characteristic incident is connected, as it 
 is, perhaps, the only one of the collection 
 written in Ireland. It happened that, 
 while on a visit to his native land, the 
 poet was entertained by some of his ad- 
 mirers with a rural festival in Wicklow, 
 in the celebrated vale of Avoca. After 
 luncheon Moore strayed away from his 
 friends, who, alarmed for his safety, soon 
 went in search of him. He was found 
 at the Meeting of the Waters, a most pic- 
 turesque spot, note-book in hand, rapidly 
 writing and apparently perfectly insen- 
 sible to surrounding influences. When 
 his labor of love was completed, he arose, 
 and only then became aware of the pre- 
 sence of his companions, who consider 
 ately had forborne to interrupt him. The 
 following was the result of the inspira- 
 tion of the place : 
 
214 
 
 IKISH POETS. 
 
 The Meeting oe the Waters. 
 
 There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet 
 As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet ; 
 Oh ! the last rays of feeling and life must depart 
 Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. 
 
 Yet it was not that nature had shed o’er the scene 
 Her purest of crystal and brightest of green ; 
 
 ’Twas not the soft magic of streamlet or hill ; 
 
 Oh ! no : it was something more exquisite still. 
 
 ’Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were 
 near, 
 
 Who made every dear scene of enchantment more 
 dear, 
 
 And who felt how the best charms of Nature improve 
 When we see them reflected in looks that we love. 
 
 Sweet vale of Avoca ! how calm could I rest 
 In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best, 
 Where the storms that we feel in this cold world 
 should cease, 
 
 And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace. 
 
 The first and second numbers of the 
 “Irish Melodies” appeared in 1807 ; the 
 tenth and last more than a quarter of 
 a century later. Their popularity was 
 from the beginning unbounded, and still 
 continues, notwithstanding the constant 
 change in public taste. How many edi- 
 tions of them have been published in the 
 
THOMAS MOOEE. 
 
 215 
 
 English language, with and without the 
 music, it is impossible to say, they have 
 been so numerous. They have also been 
 translated into all the modern, cultivated 
 languages, including Irish, Russian, Per- 
 sian, and Arabic, at least once, and in 
 some instances several versions have ap- 
 peared. They have now been sung for 
 two generations with equal effect and 
 pleasure in the wilds of Connaught and 
 the gilded salons of Paris and Vienna; 
 in the streets of Ispahan and on the bar- 
 ren shores of the Baltic ; by the Yara 
 Yara under the Southern Cross, and 
 along the banks of our own noble “ Ba- 
 ther of Waters. 5 ’ 
 
 Some of the ultra nationalists among 
 his own countrymen, we regret to say, 
 have endeavored to cast a shadow on the 
 patriotism and manliness of Ireland’s 
 greatest poet. Those fiery impracti- 
 cables, we apprehend, have rather ob- 
 scure views of what true patriotism really 
 is. To love one’s country is an admir- 
 able idea in the abstract; to serve her 
 
216 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 interests, to defend her character, and, 
 above all, to show in your own person 
 that she can produce good men and great 
 men by every means in your power, is the 
 highest evidence of genuine patriotism. 
 Bow, what was Moore’s power and pro- 
 per sphere of action 1 Clearly his poetic 
 genius, his almost divine gift of song, and 
 song, too, sung in a foreign country to ears 
 that were closed to the sublime rhetoric 
 of Burke, the pathos of Grattan, and the 
 thundering eloquence of O’Connell. In 
 this respect, in awakening the most gifted 
 and the most refined of English society, 
 the Byrons and Bogerses, the Moiras and 
 Eansdownes, to a sense of the cruel 
 wrongs inflicted on the people of the 
 sister island, Moore did more to eflfect 
 a moral revolution in public opinion, 
 and to evoke that liberal uprising which 
 finally culminated in Catholic emancipa- 
 tion, than any other Irishman of this 
 century, save, of course, the great O’Con- 
 nell himself. Even in another sense he 
 did more. Wherever music is loved and 
 
THOMAS MOOBE. 
 
 217 
 
 genius revered Moore’s “ Irish Melo- 
 dies ” are snng and admired ; and no mat- 
 ter in what tongue they are uttered, the 
 name of Ireland, holy Ireland, her woes 
 and sufferings, her virtues and her gal- 
 lantry, are inseparably connected with 
 them. Surely this is something to be 
 proud of, and for which we ought to be 
 grateful. 
 
 In 1837 appeared “The Epicurean.” 
 It was originally designed to appear in 
 verse, and two epistles had been written 
 under the name of the hero, Alciphron, 
 but for sufficient reasons it was recom- 
 menced and continued in prose. Though 
 the least known of Moore’s works, it is 
 a most fascinating tale of the early days 
 when the effete philosophy of Egypt, 
 Greece, and Rome was fast disappearing 
 before the light of Christianity. His 
 other prose works, written at long inter- 
 vals, are not without merit, and, if pro- 
 duced by a person less distinguished in 
 the highest department of literature, 
 would have attracted more attention. 
 
218 
 
 IKISH POETS. 
 
 The principal of those are “The Life 
 and Times of Lord Edward Fitzgerald ” ; 
 “ Captain Bock,” an agrarian romance ; 
 “ An Irish Gentleman in Search of a 
 B ligion,” a very clever polemical dis- 
 quisition ; “ The Life of Lord Byron,” 
 “ Memoirs,” and “ A History of Ire- 
 land.” Of the latter little laudatory can 
 be said ; it is wholly unreliable, and evi- 
 dently composed hastily and without 
 much preliminary investigation. 
 
 Of this“ History ” we remember to have 
 heard the late Professor O Curry tell the 
 following anecdote : While in Dublin, 
 shortly after its publication, the author 
 visited the Boyal Irish Academy, and 
 was shown all the valuable antiquities 
 and historical mementos in which the 
 museum abounds. On leaving the Aca- 
 demy, Moore turned to thank the profes- 
 sor for his elaborate explanations, and 
 added . “I am only sorry that I did not 
 come here before I wrote my history.” 
 “ You probably would have altered it 
 somewhat,’ replied the antiquarian 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 219 
 
 “ Ko” said the poet, with a significant 
 twinkle in his eye — “ no, I never would 
 have written it. I now see how ignorant 
 I am of the history of my own country.” 
 Unlike so many of his contemporaries, 
 Moore’s domestic life was, until some 
 few years before his death, a continued 
 scene of domestic happiness. The gross 
 indulgences and debaucheries which, ori- 
 ginating in the court, spread through all 
 classes of society, had no charms for 
 him. His refined nature, his singular 
 affection for his mother and afterwards 
 for his wife, and, above all, his faith, 
 kept his morals pure and his life stain- 
 less. Early in life he married a Miss 
 Bessy Dyke, a most estimable woman, 
 and in her society and that of their 
 children he found his greatest pleasure. 
 But it was through those very children 
 that he was to receive his greatest afflic- 
 tion. His son, an officer in the English 
 army, died at an untimely age, and his 
 daughter met her death in his presence 
 by falling from a balcony. 
 
220 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 Borne down by these domestic mis- 
 fortunes, though always resigned to the 
 will of Providence, he sank into the 
 grave, full of honors and virtues, at the 
 ripe age of seventy-four 
 
 The following account of a recent visit 
 to the birthplace of Ireland’s great bard, 
 from the pen of J. P. O’Elanagan, 
 LL.D., will be found full of interest to 
 those unacquainted with the topography 
 of his native city : 
 
 The house, outside of which I linger- 
 ed rather long, is situated in a locality 
 which appeared to me so prosaic as to 
 render it difficult to imagine how poetry 
 could have found a way to Moore’s soul 
 with so little to excite the imaginative 
 faculty. Now, I can safely assure my 
 readers Moore is not the only author 
 who had his home in Aungier Street. 
 Genius is not d ad among the “ children 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 221 
 
 of the Gael,” as every day’s experience 
 plainly demonstrates. As I examined 
 the details of the house, I could not 
 help contrasting its appearance with 
 Moore’s refined tastes. The rear is one 
 few Peris would care to see a second 
 time. Here the actual life of the future 
 bard must have waged a fierce war with 
 those glorious pictures with which his 
 brilliant imagination was ever flooding 
 his soul, and it is a singular proof of the 
 power of intellect that in such a dwell- 
 ing poetry reigned supreme. On men- 
 tioning to the proprietor of the establish- 
 ment, who was standing at the entrance 
 to the shop with a bright-eyed little girl 
 by his side, my desire to enter the rooms 
 which once formed the home of our na- 
 tional poet, Mr. Daffron gave me prompt 
 and willing access. He brought me 
 through the shop, up those stairs which 
 Thomas Moore had often trod, into the 
 front drawing-room, where those gay 
 suppers used to be set out of which 
 Moore tells us : “ The entertainments of 
 
222 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 this kind given by my joyous and social 
 father could, for gayety at least, match 
 with the best. Our small front and 
 back drawing-rooms, as well as a little 
 closet attached to the latter, were on 
 such occasions distended to their utmost 
 capacity, and the supper-table in the 
 small closet, where people had least 
 room, was accordingly always the most 
 merry. In the round of singing that 
 followed these repasts, my mother usu- 
 ally took a part, having a clear, soft voice, 
 and singing such songs as ‘ How Sweet 
 is the Woodland,’ which was one of her 
 greatest favorites, in a very pleasing man- 
 ner. I was also myself one of the perfor- 
 mers on such occasions, and gave some 
 of Dibdin’s songs, which were at that 
 time in high vogue, with no small eclat” 
 The rooms of which Moore speaks are 
 now separated by a lobby, and the front 
 drawing room, which faces Aungier 
 Street, lighted by three narrow win- 
 dows, in deep recesses, such as usually 
 exist in old houses. The present owner 
 
THOMAS MOOBE. 
 
 223 
 
 informed me these recesses had been 
 much deeper when he got into posses- 
 sion, when the sashes were on a line 
 with the front wall; but as the house 
 was then in a deplorable state of ruin, 
 he was obliged to have considerable re- 
 pairs. I remarked on the narrowness 
 of the windows, saying : “ No architect 
 nowadays would have three windows 
 when one, or two at most, would suffice.” 
 “ Of course not,” he replied ; “ and while 
 the repairs were going on my builder 
 suggested altering the windows, but I 
 declined to have any change made, as I 
 wished to preserve the place as much as 
 I could in its original form, for the honor 
 of Moore.” “You did very right, Mr. 
 Daffron,” I said, “ and every lover of 
 literature must feel obliged to you.” 
 Leaving the sitting-rooms, we ascend- 
 ed another story, and, turning to the 
 left, Mr. Daffron led me into the room 
 corresponding in size and shape with the 
 drawing-room beneath. “ Here, sir,” he 
 said, “ our poet was born ! ” I took off 
 
224 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 my hat instinctively as he spoke. 1 re- 
 member doing so many years ago from a 
 similar feeling of respect. It was on 
 visiting the statue of Gutenberg, the in- 
 ventor of printing, at Mayence. I was 
 now in the room where a gifted Irish- 
 man was born, and I felt the aspiration 
 of his presence as though I saw him. 
 What a name he left ! How literature 
 ennobles a man ! how great an influence 
 does it exert over the soul ! Trulv, the 
 intellectual man, as compared with the 
 uneducated, has almost as great an ad- 
 vantage as the man who possesses his 
 sight over the blind. Literature confers 
 pleasure not procurable by any amount 
 of riches ; it affords enjoyment the deep- 
 est privations may diminish but not de- 
 prive us of. Here the young bard of 
 Erin felt the first breath of life ; and as a 
 room may be considered the upper gar- 
 ment of a person, I was curious to see 
 how young Moore was habited. It is 
 a tolerably good-sized apartment, with 
 three windows looking upon Aungier 
 
THOMAS MOOKE. 
 
 225 
 
 Street, and the fireplace in an angle, 
 where the young melodist often had his 
 food warmed. Higher yet we clambered, 
 and entered rooms cone-ceiled and board- 
 ed. I tried to make out the rooms he 
 thus describes: “As our house was far 
 from spacious, the bedroom which I oc- 
 cupied was but a corner of that in which 
 the two clerks slept, boarded off, and 
 fitted up with a bed, a table, and a chest 
 of drawers, with a bookcase oyer it ; 
 and here, as long as my mother’s brother 
 continued to be an inmate of our family, 
 he and I slept together. After he left 
 us I had this little nook to myself, and 
 proud enough I was of my own apart- 
 ment. XJpon the door, and upon every 
 other vacant space which my boundaries 
 supplied, I placed inscriptions of my own 
 composition, in the manner, as I flattered 
 myself, of Shenstone’s at the Leasowes.” 
 I carefully examined the rooms, back and 
 front, of this portion of the house, to try 
 and fix upon the corner allotted to Moore, 
 and think it must have been the back 
 
226 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 room which was thus divided, because it 
 has a window looking on the rear. A 
 glazier, who was at work on the pre- 
 mises, told me he possessed a piece of 
 glass from one of the panes with Moore’s 
 name inscribed by himself. I asked him, 
 as also Mr. Daffron, if any traces of the 
 inscriptions Moore mentions existed in 
 his time. He said not ; they had pro- 
 bably been effaced by paint. Moore’s 
 domestic affections were very strong, and 
 it is impossible to read his memoirs with- 
 out being convinced that no matter how 
 high the circle in which he was placed, 
 or how much he appeared engrossed by 
 the flattering attention of the noble and 
 gifted, his heart was ever turning to the 
 quiet scenes of home. He was devot- 
 edly attached to the lovely and engaging 
 wife of his choice, to the mother he loved, 
 to the father he revered, to his sisters and 
 his friends. It is no small tribute to his 
 worth that his earliest friends were his 
 latest, and now those who survive hold 
 his memory in affectionate regard. It is 
 
THOMAS MOOKE. 
 
 227 
 
 not my province to narrate bis life, to 
 review liis writings. This has been done 
 by abler pens than mine ; but ere I leave 
 his “home” I must jot down one or two 
 extracts from his works to show how 
 closely entwined in his heart were his 
 family ties. 
 
 To my Mother. 
 
 They tell us of an Indian tree, 
 
 Which, howsoe’er the sun and sky 
 May tempt its boughs to wander free, 
 
 And shoot and blossom wide and high, 
 
 Far better loves to bend its arms 
 Downward again to that dear earth 
 From which the life that fills and warms 
 Its grateful being first had birth. 
 
 ’Tis thus, though woo’d by flattering friends 
 And fed with fame (if fame it be), 
 
 This heart, my own dear mother, bends, 
 
 With love’s true instinct, back to thee. 
 
 The second was written when he was 
 far away from Ireland. It is so homely 
 a picture of the life he led in this dwell- 
 ing I cannot forbear inserting it. 
 
 To M :ss Moore. 
 
 From Norfolk, in Virginia. 
 
 In days, my Kate, when life was new, 
 
 When, lull’d with innocence and you, 
 
228 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 I heard, in home’s beloved shade, 
 
 The din the world at distance made ; 
 When every night my weary head 
 Sank on its own unthorned bed, 
 
 And, mild as evening’s matron hour 
 Looks on the faintly-shutting flower, 
 
 A mother saw our eyelids close, 
 
 And blessed them into pure repose , 
 
 Then haply, if a week, a day, 
 
 I lingered from that home away, 
 
 How lon<? the little absence seemed ! 
 How bright the look of welcome beam d, 
 As mute you heal’d, with eager smile, 
 
 My tales of all that passed the while ! 
 
 Now eager listener and ardent narra- 
 tor are alike silent. Another family oc- 
 cupies the poet’s home. Another mo- 
 ther watches over her children in the 
 twilight, and blesses them into sleep. 
 If they are absent, she welcomes them 
 back, and listens to the prattling narra- 
 tive of their childish rambles. Thns it is 
 ever with life. Here to-day, and strange 
 feet press our hearths to-morrow I was 
 glad to find Mr. Dafixon fully appreciates 
 the distinguished Irishman who was born 
 in his house, and I tender hnn my thanks 
 for his courtesv and kindness. 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 229 
 
 We shall not linger any longer at the 
 home or haunts of Moore in Dublin. 
 
 Silence is in our festal halls. 
 
 Sweet son of song ! thy course is o’er , 
 
 In vain on thee sad Erin calls ; 
 
 Her minstrel’s voice responds no more. 
 
 Yet at our feasts thy spirit, long 
 
 Awaked by music’s spell, shall rise ; 
 
 For name so linked with deathless song 
 Partakes its fame, and never dies. 
 
THOMAS O DAYIS, 
 
 The Minstrel of Mallow 
 
 lx heartiness, tire, and force of ex- 
 pression the poems of Thomas Davis 
 may he ranked first of all those bril- 
 liant literary efforts which made the col- 
 umns of the old Dublin Nation so at- 
 tractive to the friends and so distaste- 
 ful to the enemies of I reland. Davis was 
 by no means the most polished or the 
 most original versifier of the so-called 
 “ Young Ireland ” school ; we could men- 
 tion at least half a dozen contemporary 
 writers, male and female, who were far 
 superior to him in those qualities ; but 
 his songs and ballads have something so 
 warm and racy in them that from the 
 moment of their appearance they at- 
 tained a wide popularity which continues 
 unabated to the present day. 
 
 Thomas Osborne Davis was born at 
 
 230 
 
THOMAS O. DAYIS. 
 
 231 
 
 Mallow, in Cork County, in the year 
 1814. His parents were rich enough to 
 afford him an excellent primary educa- 
 tion, and, when he had attained a suit- 
 able age, to send him to Trinity College 
 to complete his studies. Though pos- 
 sessing good capacity, a studious dis- 
 position, and great fondness for books, 
 young Davis’s college course was un- 
 marked by any noteworthy incident ; 
 and few, if any, of his associates imagin- 
 ed that under Ins quiet exterior, gentle 
 manners, and kindly temper lay a heart 
 that would one day beat responsive to 
 the wildest throbs of popular passion, 
 and a mind strong and vigorous enough 
 to plan and carry out the most elaborate 
 schemes of social and political amelio- 
 ration. 
 
 Of his life while at Trinity his friend 
 and biographer, Wallis, m an introduc- 
 tion to his poetical works, says : “Until 
 about three years before his death, as I 
 am assured, he had never written a line 
 of poetry. His efforts to acquire know- 
 
232 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 ledge, to make himself useful, to find a 
 suitable sphere of action, were incessant; 
 but lie tried every path and took every 
 direction but this. The warmth of his 
 affections, and his intense enjoyment of 
 the beauties of nature and character, of 
 literature and art, ought early to have 
 marked him out as one destined to soar 
 and sing, as well as to think and act. 
 But the fact is that among his youthful 
 contemporaries;, for many a long year, he 
 got as little credit for any promise this 
 way as he did for any other remarkable 
 qualities beyond extreme good nature, 
 untiring industry, and very varied learn- 
 ing 
 
 u Truth to say, much of this early mis- 
 conception of his character was Davis’s 
 own fault. He learned much, suffered 
 much I have no doubt, felt and sym- 
 pathized much, and hoped and enjoyed 
 abundantly ; but he had not yet learned 
 to rely on himself. His powers were 
 like the nucleus of an embryo star, un- 
 compressed, unpurified, flickering, and 
 
THOMAS O. DAVIS. 
 
 233 
 
 indistinct. He carried about with Mm 
 a huge load of wbat other men, most of 
 them, statists and logicians, bad thought 
 proper to assert; hut what he thought 
 and felt himself he did not think of 
 putting forward. The result was that 
 during his college course and for some 
 years after, while he was very generally 
 liked, he had, unless perhaps with some 
 who knew him intimately, but a mode- 
 rate reputation for high ability of any 
 kind. In his twenty-fifth year, as I re- 
 member — that is, in the spring of 1839 
 — he began first to break out of this. His 
 opinions began to have weight, and his 
 character and infinence to unfold them- 
 selves in a variety of ways. In the fol- 
 lowing year he entered political life.” 
 The establishment of the Nation , how- 
 ever, was the true occasion which evok- 
 ed the latent genius of Davis. The Re- 
 peal agitation, commenced by the great 
 O’Connell in 1840, had infused a new 
 spirit into the Irish people, and created 
 a taste for periodical and serial litera- 
 
234 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 ture wliicli the magazines and news- 
 papers then in existence could not sa- 
 tisfy. Among the young and more 
 intelligent supporters of the Liberator, 
 therefore, it was agreed that a new week- 
 ly paper should be founded, which, col- 
 lecting into one focus all the ability and 
 intelligence of the nationalists, would, as 
 its motto expressed it, “create and foster 
 a sound public opinion, and make it racy 
 of the soil.” In the autumn of 1842 the 
 new organ of public opinion appeared 
 under the direction of three afterwards 
 distinguished men — Charles Gravan Duf- 
 fy, Thomas Davis, and John B. Dillon ; 
 while the number of paid and volunteer 
 contributors could not have been less 
 than fifty or sixty, many of whom had 
 already made an enviable reputation in 
 the world of letters. Duffy, who had 
 the advantage of his associates in his 
 knowledge of practical journalism, be- 
 sides being a writer of remarkable power 
 and earnestness, had a keen insight into 
 human nature, both in the individual 
 
THOMAS O. DAVIS. 
 
 235 
 
 and in the aggregate. He felt that, in 
 order to lift up the popular taste and 
 elevate the standard of national litera- 
 ture, it was necessary to substitute for 
 the vulgar comic songs, street bal- 
 lads, and sickly sentimental ditties of 
 the Haines Bailey order, stirring Irish 
 lyrics, well constructed, adapted to the 
 old airs, healthy m tone, and patriotic 
 in purpose. He saw also that Davis 
 was the proper person to initiate this re- 
 form in the people’s muse, and by great 
 persuasion induced his young associate 
 to undertake the task. Davis, the most 
 modest of men, at first doubted his abi- 
 lity to supply a deficiency which lie also 
 had observed ; but once he set to work 
 his success was marvellous to everybody, 
 and probably to none more than him- 
 self. 
 
 Duffy was right, and before many 
 numbers of the Nation had been issued 
 the signature of “ The Celt ” had be- 
 come a familiar and a welcome one in 
 thousands of Irish households. Though 
 
236 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 on his father’s side the descendant of a 
 Welsh family, Davis always prided him- 
 self on his Celtic blood and feeling ; and 
 it was in response to the remark of a 
 metropolitan journal, attacking, as he 
 supposed, that race, that he wrote this 
 beautiful poem, which, in addition to its 
 other qualities, contains much sound 
 advice : 
 
 Celts and Saxons. 
 
 i. 
 
 W e hate the Saxon and the Dane, 
 
 We hate the Norman men ; 
 
 We cursed their greed for blood and gain, 
 We curse them now again. 
 
 Yet start not, Irish-born man, 
 
 If you’re to Ireland true, 
 
 We heed not blood, nor creed, nor elan— 
 W e have no curse for you. 
 
 n. 
 
 W e have no curse for you or yours, 
 
 But friendship’s steady grasp, 
 
 And faith to stand by you and yours 
 Until our latest gasp — 
 
 To stand by you against all foes, 
 
 Howe’er or whence they come, 
 
 With traitor arts, with bribes or blows, 
 From England, France, or Rome. 
 
THOMAS O. DAVIS. 
 
 23 ? 
 
 hi. 
 
 What matter that at different shrines 
 We pray unto one God 1 
 What matter that at different times 
 Our fathers won this sod % 
 
 In fortune and in name we’re hound 
 By stronger links than steel ; 
 
 And neither can he safe nor sound 
 But in the other’s weal. 
 
 IV. 
 
 As Nubian rocks and Ethiop sands, 
 Long drifting down the Nile, 
 
 Build up old Egypt’s fertile lands 
 Eor many a hundred mile, 
 
 So pagan clans to Ireland came, 
 
 And clans from Christendom, 
 
 Yet joined their wisdom and their fame 
 To build a nation from. 
 
 v. 
 
 Here came the brown Phoenician, 
 The man of trade and toil , 
 Here came the proud Milesian, 
 A-hungering for spoil , 
 
 And the Firbolg and the Cymry, 
 And the hard, enduring Dane, 
 And the iron lords of Normandy 
 With the Saxons in their train. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And oh ! it were a gallant deed 
 To show before mankind 
 How every race and every creed 
 Might be by love combined — > 
 
IKISH POETS. 
 
 Might be combined, yet not forget 
 The fountain whence they rose. 
 
 As, fined by many a rivulet, 
 
 The stately Shannon flows. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Nor would we wreak our ancient feud 
 On Belgian or on Dane, 
 
 Nor visit in a hostile mood 
 
 The hearths of Gaul and Spain ; 
 
 But long as on our country lies 
 The Anglo-Norman yoke, 
 
 Their tyranny we’ll signalize, 
 
 And God’s revenge invoke. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 We do not hate, we never cursed, 
 
 Nor spoke a foeman’s word 
 Ag&mst a man in Ireland nursed, 
 
 Howe’er we thought he erred. 
 
 So start not, Irish-born man , 
 
 If you’re to Ireland true. 
 
 W e heed not race, nor creed, nor clan — 
 
 W e’ve hearts and hands for you. 
 
 Sucli were Davis’s sentiments, carried 
 out in his prose writings and speeches 
 with equal sincerity and fervor ; and his 
 example, as well as his teachings, had a 
 remarkable effect in winning to the na- 
 tional cause many young and talented 
 fellow-Protestants who eventually be- 
 came most efficient laborers in the Ee- 
 
THOMAS O. DAAIS. 
 
 239 
 
 peal movement. Tlie gifted poet, of 
 course, threw himself heart and soul 
 into that agitation, and was soon one of 
 the most valuable and trusted of O’Con- 
 nell’s assistants ; for his voice on the ros- 
 trum or in council was as readily at the 
 service of his country as in the editorial 
 chair or the library. He admired the 
 greatness of the “uncrowned monarch 
 of the Irish people ” ; and perhaps no 
 description of the personal appearance, 
 character, and temperament of the Libe- 
 rator ever was more happily combined 
 than in his metrical delineation of the 
 lineaments of each, with a j ustification of 
 his course as an Irishman and an oppo- 
 nent of foreign domination. It was 
 addressed to the sculptor Hogan, who 
 was preparing the design of a statue of 
 
 O’Connell. 
 
 Chisel the likeness of the Chief 
 Not in gayety or grief- 
 Change not by your art to stone 
 Ireland’s laugh or Ireland’s moan. 
 
 Dark her tale, and none can tell 
 Its fearful chronicle so well. 
 
240 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 Her frame is bent, her wounds are deep 
 Who like him her woes can weep ? 
 
 He can be gentle as a bride, 
 
 While none can rule with kinglier pride 
 Calm to hear and wise to prove, 
 
 Yet gay as a lark in soaring love. 
 
 Well it were posterity 
 
 Should have some image of his glee : 
 
 That easy humor, blossoming 
 
 Like the thousand flowers of spring ! 
 
 Glorious the marble which could show 
 
 His bursting sympathy for woe — 
 
 Could catch the pathos, flowing wild, 
 Like mother’s milk to craving child. 
 
 And oh ! how princely were the art 
 Could mould his mien or tell his heart. 
 When sitting sole on Tara’s Hill, 
 
 While hung a million on his will ! 
 
 Yet not in gayety nor grief 
 Chisel the image of our Chief, 
 
 Nor even in that haughty hour 
 When a nation owned his power. 
 
 But would you by your art unroll 
 His own and Ireland’s secret soul, 
 And give to other times to scan 
 The greatest greatness of the man 1 
 Fierce defiance let him be 
 Hurling at our enemy 
 From a base as fair and sure 
 As our love is true and pure, 
 
 Let his statue rise as tall 
 And firm as a castle wall ; 
 
 On his broad brow let there be 
 
THOMAS 0 . DAVIS. 
 
 241 
 
 A type of Ireland’s history : 
 
 Pious, generous, deep, and warm, 
 
 Strong and changeful as a storm ; 
 
 Let whole centuries of wrong 
 Upon his recollection throng — 
 
 Strongbow’s force and Henry’s wile, 
 
 Tudor’s wrath and Stuart’s guile, 
 
 And iron Strafford’s tiger jaws, 
 
 And brutal Brunswick’s penal laws ; 
 
 Not forgetting Saxon faith, 
 
 Not forgetting Norman scaith, 
 
 Not forgetting William’s word, 
 
 Not forgetting Cromwell’s sword ; 
 
 Let the Union’s fetter vile — 
 
 The shame and ruin of our isle ; 
 
 Let the blood of Ninety-eight 
 And our present blighting fate ; 
 
 Let the poor mechanic’s lot, 
 
 And the peasant’s ruined cot, 
 
 Plundered wealth and glory flown 
 Ancient honors overthrown ; 
 
 Let trampled altar, rifled urn, 
 
 Knit his look to purpose stern. 
 
 Mould all this into one thought, 
 
 Like wizard cloud with thunder fraught 
 Still let our glories through it gleam, 
 
 Like fair flowers through a flooded stream, 
 Or like a flashing wave at night, 
 
 Bright, ’mid the solemn darkness bright. 
 
 Let the memory of old days 
 
 Shine through the statesman’s anxious face— 
 
 Dathi’s power and Brian’s fame, 
 
 And headlong Sarsfield’s sword of flame, 
 And the spirit of Red Hugh, 
 
 And the pride of Eighty-two, 
 
 And the victories he won, 
 
242 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 And the hope that leads him on ! 
 
 Let whole armies seem to fly 
 From his threatening hand and eye ; 
 
 Be the strength of all the land 
 Like a falchion in his hand, 
 
 And be his gestures sternly grand. 
 
 A braggart tyrant swore to smite 
 A people struggling for their right — 
 
 O’Connell dared him to the field, 
 
 Content to die, but never yield. 
 
 Fancy such a soul as his 
 In a moment such as this, 
 
 Like a cataract or foaming tide, 
 
 Or army charging in its pride. 
 
 Thus he spoke and thus he stood, 
 
 Proffering in our cause his blood ; 
 
 Thus his country loves him best — 
 
 To image this is your behest : 
 
 Chisel thus, and thus alone, 
 
 If to man you’d change the stone. 
 
 The affection and esteem which sub- 
 sisted between O’Oonnell and his young 
 colaborer lasted without interruption till 
 the death of the latter, though on some 
 occasions Davis differed openly with his 
 chief. When the news of the poet’s 
 death, on the 16th of September, 1845, 
 reached O’Oonnell m Kerry, he was 
 deeply grieved, not only for the untimely 
 demise of his friend, but for the loss 
 
THOMAS O. DAVIS. 
 
 243 
 
 which Ireland had sustained in being de- 
 prived at so critical a period of her his- 
 tory of the service of so true and reliable 
 a son. Writing to the Repeal Commit- 
 tee in Dublin, he feelingly said : 
 
 “ I know not what to write. My mind 
 is bewildered and my heart afflicted. 
 The loss of my beloved friend — my no- 
 ble-minded friend — is a source of the 
 deepest sorrow to my mind. What a 
 blow — what a cruel blow — to the cause 
 of Irish nationality ! He was a creature 
 of transcendent qualities of mind and 
 heart. His learning was universal ; his 
 knowledge was as minute as it was gene- 
 ral. And then he was a being of such 
 incessant energy and continuous exer- 
 tion. I of course, in the few years — if 
 years they be — still left me, cannot ex- 
 pect to look upon his like again, or to 
 see the place he has* left vacant ade- 
 quately tilled up ; and I solemnly de- 
 clare that I never knew any man who 
 could be so useful to Ireland in the pres- 
 ent stage of her struggles. His loss is 
 
244 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 indeed irreparable. What an example 
 lie was to tlie Protestant youths of Ire- 
 land! What a noble emulation of his 
 virtues ought to be excited in the Catho - 
 lie young men of Ireland ! And his 
 heart, too — it was as gentle, as kind, as 
 loving as a woman’s. Yes, it was as 
 tenderly kind as his judgment was com- 
 prehensive and his genius magnificent. 
 We shall long deplore his loss. As I 
 stand alone in the solitude of my moun- 
 tains, many a tear shall I shed to the 
 memory of the noble youth. Oh ! how 
 vain are words or tears when such a na- 
 tional calamity afflicts the country. Put 
 me down among the foremost contribu- 
 tors to whatever monument or tribute 
 to his memory shall be voted by the Na- 
 tional Association. Never did they per- 
 form a more imperative or, alas ! so sad 
 a duty. I can write no more— my tears 
 blind me ; and after all, Fungar inane 
 munere .” 
 
 What nobler eulogy could any Irish- 
 man desire than these touching words 
 
THOMAS O. DAYI9. 
 
 of O’Connell *? At tlie time lie penned 
 them he had nearly reached threescore 
 and ten — the limit of the lives of ordi- 
 nary men — and they were written of one 
 who was less than half his age, and 
 whose public services did not extend over 
 more than three years. But intense as 
 were these expressions of grief, they only 
 embodied the general feeling of the 
 country All his associates on the Na- 
 tion mourned for him, and recorded their 
 sorrow in pathetic prose or touching 
 verse ; while the thousands who had 
 never known him, save through his 
 writings, scarcely felt less keenly the 
 loss which they, in common with all 
 their countrymen, had sustained. 
 
 Duffy, who had helped to draw out his 
 retiring genius, and whose relations with 
 him must have been of the most inti- 
 mate and confidential nature, thus writes 
 of him shortly after his demise : 
 
 “We are still too near to see his pro- 
 portions truly. The friends to whom his 
 singularly noble and lovable character 
 
246 
 
 IBI^H POETS. 
 
 was familiar, and who knew all the great 
 designs lie was bringing to maturity, are 
 in no tit condition to measure bis intel- 
 lectual force with a calm judgment. 
 The people who knew him imperfectly, 
 or not at all — for it was one of the prac- 
 tical lessons he taught the young men 
 of his generation to be chary of noto- 
 riety — have still to gather from his 
 works whatever famt image of a true 
 great man can ever be collected from 
 his books. Till they have done this they 
 will not be prepared to hear the whole 
 truth of him. 
 
 “ All he was, and might have become, 
 they can never fully know ; as it is, their 
 unconsciousness of what they have lost 
 impresses those who knew him and them 
 with that pitying pain we feel for the 
 indifference of a child to the death of 
 his father. 
 
 “ Students who will be eager to esti- 
 mate him for themselves must take in 
 connection with his works the fact that 
 over the grave of this man, living only 
 
THOMAS O. DAYIS. 
 
 247 
 
 to manhood, and occupying* only a pri- 
 vate station, there gathered a union of 
 parties and a combination of intellect 
 that would have met round that of no 
 other man who lived in our time. No 
 life — not that of Gutenberg, or Eranklin, 
 or Tone — illustrates more strikingly than 
 his how often it is necessary to turn 
 aside from the dais on which stand the 
 great and titled, for the real moving 
 power of the time — the men who are 
 stirring like a soul in the bosom of so- 
 ciety. Such a one they will speedily 
 discover Davis to have been.” 
 
 Samuel Eerguson, also, a brother 
 poet, in his noble verses shortly before 
 Davis’s death, truly and beautifully 
 says : 
 
 O brave young men ! our pride, our joy, our pro- 
 mise ! 
 
 ’Tis on you that my hopes are set , 
 
 In manliness, in courage, and in justice 
 To make of Erin a nation yet, 
 
 Self-instructing, self-relying, self-advancing, 
 
 In union, as in severance, bold and strong. 
 
 And if God grant this, under God to Thomas Davis 
 Does the greater praise belong. 
 
248 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 Another favorite of the muses with 
 gentle and womanly hand laid the fol- 
 lowing graceful garland on the tomb of 
 the departed poet : 
 
 Go, mix with the crowds where his praises are spoken ; 
 Go, watch the wet eyes that hang over each token 
 His genius hath given of his birth ; 
 
 W oulcl millions in one common grief be combined, 
 
 If some spell-word, embracing the heart and the mind 
 Of man in its magical girth, 
 
 Were not left, like a scroll from his spirit, behind 
 To circle and gird up the earth 1 
 Grief, grief! 
 
 The minstrel magician, the patriot chief, 
 
 To praise him is some — oh ! how little — relief. 
 
 Xor was the grief expressed at his 
 death, or his fame as a sweet and hold 
 singer, confined to his own day and gene- 
 ration. On the contrary, it has grown 
 with time, and spread far beyond the 
 limits of the island for which he sang 
 and wrote. Wherever the Irish Gaels 
 are to be found — and in what spot on 
 the surface of the globe are they not to 
 be found 1 ? — the lyrics of Thomas Davis 
 are sung and admired by every true 
 Irish man and woman. Who with Irish 
 
THOMAS 0. DAVIS. 
 
 249 
 
 blood in bis veins could resist tbe ring- 
 ing spirit which breathes in every line 
 of the following ballad when sung to its 
 appropriate air, “'Viva la ” 1 
 
 Clare’s Dragoons. 
 
 i. 
 
 When, on Ramillies’ bloody field, 
 
 The baffled French were forced to yield, 
 
 The victor Saxon backward reeled 
 Before the charge of Clare’s dragoons. 
 
 The flags we conquered in that fray 
 Look lone On Ypres’ choir, they say ; 
 
 We’ll win them company to-day, 
 
 Or bravely die like Clare’s dragoons. 
 
 Chorus . 
 
 Viva la for Ireland’s wrong ! 
 
 Viva la for Ireland’s right ! 
 
 Viva la, in battle throng, 
 
 For a Spanish steed and sabre bright ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 The brave old lord died near the fight, 
 But for each drop he lost that night 
 A Saxon cavalier shall bite 
 
 The dust before Lord Clare’s dragoons. 
 For never when our spurs were set, 
 
 And never when our sabres met, 
 
 Could we the Saxon soldiers get 
 To stand the shock of Clare’s dragoons. 
 
250 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Viva la the new brigade 1 
 Viva la the old one, too ! 
 
 Viva la, the rose shall fade, 
 
 And the shamrock shine for ever new ! 
 
 hi. 
 
 Another Clare is here to lead, 
 
 The worthy son of such a breed , 
 
 The French expect some famous deed 
 When Clare leads on his bold dragoons. 
 Our colonel comes of Brian’s race, 
 
 His wounds are in his breast and face, 
 
 The bearna baoghail * is still his place, 
 
 The foremost of his brave dragoons. 
 
 Chorus . 
 
 Viva la the old brigade ! 
 
 Viva la the new one, too ! 
 
 Viva la, the rose shall fade, 
 
 And the shamrock shine for ever new ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 There’s not a man in squadron here 
 Was ever known to flinch or fear, 
 
 Though first in charge and last in rear, 
 
 Have ever been Lord Clare’s dragoons. 
 
 But, see ! we’ll soon have work to do 
 To shame our boasts or prove them true ; 
 
 For hither comes the English crew 
 
 To sweep away Lord Clare’s dragoons. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Viva la for Ireland’s wrong ! 
 
 Viva la for Ireland’s right ! 
 
 Viva la, in battle throng, 
 
 For a Spanish steed and sabre bright ! 
 
 * Gap of danger. 
 
THOMAS O. DAVIS. 
 
 251 
 
 Y. 
 
 O comrades ! think how Ireland pines 
 Her exiled lords, her rifled shrines, 
 
 Her dearest hope, the ordered lines, 
 
 And bursting charge of Clare’s dragoons. 
 Then fling jour green flag to the skj, 
 
 Let Limerick be your battle-cry, 
 
 And charge till blood flows fetlock high 
 Around the track of Clare’s dragoons. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Viva la the new brigade ! 
 
 Viva la the old one, too ! 
 
 Viva la, the rose shall fade, 
 
 And the shamrock shine for ever new ! 
 
 But the Muse of Davis was capable of 
 even greater things than cheering the 
 social circle and exciting the military 
 ardor of his young countrymen. It has 
 inspired many a brilliant passage of pa- 
 triotic eloquence, and afforded themes of 
 praise and outbursts of enthusiasm to 
 some of our greatest orators and most 
 effective preachers. Take, for instance, 
 the following passage from one of Bather 
 Burke’s lectures : 
 
 “ A hand less unworthy came — a hand 
 less unworthy than Thomas Moore’s ; a 
 hand more loyal and true than even his 
 
252 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 was — wliexi in Ireland’s lays appeared 
 the immortal Thomas Davis. He and 
 the men whose hearts heat with such 
 high hope for young Ireland seized the 
 sad, silent harp of Erin, and sent forth 
 another thrill in the invitation to the 
 men of the North to join hands with 
 their Catholic brethren ; to the men of 
 the South to remember the glories of 
 ‘ Brian the Brave.’ To the men of Con- 
 naught he seemed to call forth Boderick 
 O’Connor from his grave at Clomnac- 
 noise. He rallied Ireland in that year 
 so memorable for its hopes and for the 
 blighting of those hopes. He and the 
 men of the Nation did what this world 
 has never seen in the same space of time, 
 by the sheer power of Irish genius, by 
 the sheer strength of young Ireland’s 
 intellect ; the Nation of 1843 created a 
 national poetry, a national literature, 
 which no other country can equal. 
 Under the magic voices and pens of 
 these men every ancient glory of Ire- 
 land stood forth again. I remember it 
 
THOMAS O. DAVIS. 
 
 253 
 
 well. I was but a boy at the time ; but 
 I remember with wbat startled enthusi- 
 asm I would arise from reading ‘ Davis’s 
 Poems ’ ; and it would seem to me that 
 before my young eyes I saw the dash 
 of the brigade at Eontenoy. It would 
 seem to me as if my young ears were 
 filled with the shout that resounded at 
 the Yellow Eord and Benburb — the war- 
 cry of the Bed Hand — as the English 
 hosts were swept away, and, like snow 
 under the beams of the hot sun, 
 melted away before the Irish onset. 
 The dream of the poet — the aspira- 
 tion of the true Irish heart — is yet un- 
 fulfilled. But remember that^there is 
 something sacred in the poet’s dream. 
 The inspiration of genius is second only 
 to the inspiration of religion. There is 
 something sacred and infallible — with all 
 our human fallibility — in the hope of a 
 nation that has never allowed the hope 
 of freedom to be extinguished.” 
 
 Thomas Davis died in the thirty-se- 
 cond year of his age ; and when we re- 
 
254 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 collect how much lie produced, both iu 
 prose and poetry, in the last three years 
 of his life, we are not only surprised at 
 the variety and importance of his labors, 
 but our regrets at his loss are increased by 
 the reflection that, had he been spared, 
 how capable he would have been of pro- 
 ducing much more that would have sur- 
 passed even his immortal verse. But he 
 was cut off ere he had reached the noon 
 of his life, and his country weepingly en- 
 shrines him in her heart among the long 
 list of her glorious children who spoke 
 and \yrought, sang and perished, for her. 
 When better days dawn on Ireland, 
 when “ many a deed shall wake in praise 
 that now must sleep in blame,” the spot 
 where the mortal remains of the gift- 
 ed, warm-hearted, true-souled young 
 poet reposes, in St. Jerome’s church- 
 yard, will become sacred in the eyes of 
 a regenerated, disenthralled nation. 
 
JAMES CLAKEKCE MANGAtf 
 
 Of all the poets, young and middle- 
 aged, who clustered round the office of 
 the Dublin Nation , and weekly illumi- 
 nated its pages with their wit, pathos, and 
 enthusiasm, the quaintest, most original, 
 and least amenable to social or literary 
 laws was James Clarence Mangan. He 
 was the oldest, also, of his u youth’s 
 compeers,” for he was born some time in 
 the year 1803, and, though not of a dis- 
 position to court friendship or to care for 
 influence, he was always looked upon 
 with great affection by his more fortu- 
 nate fellow-laborers. 
 
 The youth of the poet is shrouded in 
 obscurity. We know that he was a na- 
 tive of Dublin, where his father was a 
 grocer of the humbler sort, and that his 
 early education was both limited in time 
 and extent. When still a lad he was ap- 
 
 355 
 
256 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 prenticed for seven long years, as tlie 
 custom then was, to a scrivener, and, that 
 wretched probation having been passed, 
 be began to earn a scanty subsistence 
 as an attorney’s clerk. 
 
 How he spent his leisure — if he ever 
 had anything that can be called leisure ; 
 who were his associates , how he con- 
 trived, with a training so limited and 
 means so stinted, to acquire so thorough 
 a knowledge of the English language, 
 and so complete a mastery of its most 
 difficult idioms and synonyms, will pro- 
 bably never be known. He has left no 
 intimate friend to describe his private 
 life, and he was too sensitive and proud 
 to reveal his secrets to mere acquaint- 
 ances. We find that, when about twenty- 
 seven years of age, he made his first 
 appearance in print as the author of 
 poetical translations from the Irish 
 and Herman languages. These fugitive 
 pieces were published in the Dublin Pen- 
 ny Journal and Irish Penny Magazine , 
 and at once attracted great attention, be- 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. 
 
 257 
 
 sides winning for the author a scanty 
 subsistence, and, what he prized more, 
 the friendship of such men as Dr An- 
 ster, Dr. Petrie, and Eugene O’Curry. 
 It was, we are informed, through the 
 influence of Petrie that Mangan sub- 
 sequently obtained a subordinate posi- 
 tion in the library of Trinity College ; 
 and to the latter he owed many of the 
 literal translations from the Gaelic 
 which he has put into verse with such 
 astonishing fidelity . Meanwhile, he had 
 become a contributor to the Dublin Uni- 
 versity Magazine , then, as now, one of 
 the best- written periodicals in Europe. 
 
 In 1845 appeared his “ Anthologia 
 Germanica,” two small volumes con- 
 taining his translations, or rather para- 
 phrases, from German poets, forty-four in 
 number. To what extent Mangan was 
 able to carry his knowledge of the Ger- 
 man language it is now impossible to 
 say, but it is probable that if he had any 
 acquaintance at all with the difficult 
 idiom of the Teutonic tongue, it was a 
 
258 
 
 IBISH POETS. 
 
 very sliglit one ; yet Ms rendering of 
 some of tlie most peculiar and elaborate 
 efforts of the modern poets of that na- 
 tionality was, in most instances, fully 
 equal to the originals, and not unfre- 
 quently even superior. Take, for ex- 
 ample, the following from no less a poet 
 than Friedrich Schiller : 
 
 The Maid of Orleans. 
 
 At thee the mocker * sneers in cold derision, 
 Through thee he seeks to desecrate and dim 
 Glory for which he hath no soul or vision , 
 
 For “ God ” and u angel ” are but sounds with him. 
 He makes the jewels of the heart his booty, 
 
 And scoffs at man’s belief and woman’s beauty 
 
 Yet thou, a lowly shepherdess, descended 
 Not from a kingly but a godly race, 
 
 Art crowned by Poesy ! Amid the splendid 
 
 Of heaven’s high stars she builds thy dwelling-place, 
 Garlands thy temples with a wreath of glory, 
 
 And swathes thy memory in eternal story 
 
 The base of this weak world exult as seeing 
 The fair defaced, the lofty in the dust , » 
 
 Yet grieve not ! There are godlike hearts in being 
 Which worship still the beautiful and just. 
 
 Let Momus and his mummers please the crowd ; 
 
 Of nobleness alone a noble mind is proud. 
 
 * Voltaire. 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. 
 
 259 
 
 The following beautiful piece from 
 Uhland has been excellently translated 
 into English by several distinguished 
 writers, and especially by our own Long- 
 fellow, whose version, though the sweet- 
 est of any, is scarcely as accurate in 
 spirit and versification as Mangan’s. 
 Those who have read both will easily 
 perceive the difference : 
 
 Spirits Everywhere. 
 
 A many a summer is dead and buried 
 Since over the flood I last was ferried ; 
 And then, as now, the noon lay bright 
 On strand, and water, and castled height. 
 
 Beside me then in this bark sat nearest 
 Two companions, the best and dearest ; 
 One was a gentle and thoughtful sire, 
 
 The other a youth \\4th a soul of fire. 
 
 One, outworn by care and illness, 
 
 Sought the grave of the just in stillness ; 
 The other’s shroud was the bloody rain 
 And thunder-smoke of the battle plain. 
 
 Yet still, when memory’s necromancy 
 Robes the past in hues of fancy, 
 Medreameth I hear and see the twain, 
 With talk and smiles, at my side again! 
 
260 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 Even the grave is a bond of union : 
 
 Spirit and spirit best hold communion ! 
 
 Seen through faith, by the inward eye, 
 
 It is after life they are truly nigh. 
 
 Then, ferryman, take this coin, I pray thee : 
 Thrice thy fare 1 cheerfully pay thee ; 
 
 For, though thou seest them not, there stand 
 Anear me two from the phantom-land. 
 
 Ereiligrath, who some forty years ago 
 was so great a favorite with his coun- 
 trymen, seems to have captivated the 
 imagination of his Irish translator as 
 much by weird poems of the desert as by 
 his broad, patriotic sympathy Here is 
 a specimen of his style in giving expres- 
 sion to the latter feeling, which, if the 
 term were not hackneyed, might be call- 
 ed, from the depth of sympathy and 
 strength of expression, Byronic : 
 
 Freedom and Right, 
 
 Oh J think not the twain have gone down to their 
 graves ; 
 
 Oh ! say not that mankind should basely despair, 
 Because earth is yet trodden by tyrants and slaves, 
 
 And the sighs of the noble are spent on the air 
 Oh ! no , though the Pole, from the swamps of the 
 North, 
 
 Sees trampled in shreds the bright "banner he bore , 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MAN GAN 
 
 261 
 
 Though Italy’s heroes in frenzy pour forth 
 
 The rich blood of their hearts on the dark dun- 
 
 .geon-floor, 
 
 Still live — 
 Ever live in their might 
 Both Freedom and Right ! 
 
 Who fight in the van of the battle must fall ; 
 
 All honor be theirs — ’tis for us to press on ! 
 
 They have struck the first links from the gyves that 
 enthrall 
 
 Men’s minds ; and the half of our triumph is won — 
 
 The swift-coming triumph of Freedom and Right. 
 
 Yes, tremble, ye despots the hour will have 
 birth 
 
 When as vampires and bats, by the arrows of light, 
 
 Your nature, your names, will be blasted from 
 earth ! 
 
 For still — 
 Still live in their might, 
 Fair Freedom and Right ! 
 
 Gone down to the grave? No ! if ever their breath 
 Gave life to the paralyzed nations, ’tis now, 
 
 When the serf at length wakes, as from torpor or 
 death, 
 
 And the sunshine of hope gleams anew on his 
 brow : 
 
 They traverse the globe in a whirlwind of fire, 
 
 They sound their deep trumpet o’er ocean and 
 land, 
 
 Enkindling in myriads the quenchless desire 
 To arm as one man for the conflict at hand ! 
 
 Oh! still- 
 Still live in their might 
 Both Freedom and Right ! 
 
262 
 
 IBISH POETS. 
 
 Thev rouse even dastards to combat and dare, 
 
 Till the last of oppression’s bastiles be o’erthrown ; 
 When they conquer not here, they are conquering 
 elsewhere, 
 
 And ere long they will conquer all earth for their 
 own. 
 
 Then first will be born the millennium of peace ; 
 And, O God ! what a garland will bloom in the 
 sun 
 
 When the oak -leaf of Deutchland, the olive of Greece, 
 And the trefoil of Ireland be blended in one ! 
 
 As they will — 
 
 For still in their might 
 Live Freedom and Right. 
 
 And what though, before that millennium can dawn, 
 The bones of our bravest must bleach on the plain 1 
 Thank Heaven ! they will feel that the swords they 
 have drawn 
 
 Will be sheathed by the victors, undimmed by a 
 stain ; 
 
 And their names through all times will be shrined in 
 each heart 
 
 As the moral Columbuses — they who unfurled 
 The sunbeamy standard that shone as a chart 
 To illumine our way to the better New World. 
 
 Still live — 
 
 Ever live in their might 
 Both Freedom and Right ! 
 
 When, in 1842, the Dublin Nation was 
 established, Mangan became one of its 
 earliest and most valued contributors, 
 and continued to adorn its pages with 
 
JAMES CLAREXCE MANGAN. 
 
 263 
 
 original poems and Irish, translations 
 for many years. Thongli very eccentric, 
 both in manner and genius, he easily 
 won the respect of such men as Davis 
 and Duffy, and when the former died he 
 found in Mr Duffy a very warm, prac- 
 tical, and considerate friend. Some of 
 his contributions to the Nation are con- 
 sidered his best productions. Take, for 
 example, the following soul-stirring 
 poem, written in 1846, when the spirit 
 of the whole people was aroused to the 
 highest pitch of hopefulness and enthu- 
 siasm : 
 
 The Peal of Another Trumpet. 
 
 “Irlande, Irelande, rejouis-toi ! Pour toi 1’heure de ven- 
 geance est sonn^e. Ton tribun prepare ta dtdivrance ” (from 
 the “Derniers Mots” of Mile. Lenormand, the celebrated 
 French Pythoness). 
 
 I. 
 
 Youths of Ireland, patriots, friends ! 
 
 ^Know ye what shall be your course 
 
 "When the storm that now impends 
 Shall come down in all its force ? 
 
 Glance around you You behold 
 How the horizon of the time 
 Hourly wears a duskier hue. 
 
284 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 From all else await we bold 
 Bearing and resolve sublime — 
 
 Youths of Ireland, what from you 1 
 
 ii. 
 
 Will you bide irresolute % 
 
 Will you stand with folded arms, 
 Purposeless, disheartened, mute, 
 
 As men hopeless of escape, 
 
 Till the wildest, worst alarms 
 Of your souls take giant shape 1 
 Are you dastards ? Are you dolts ? 
 Irishmen shall you be seen 
 W ith white lips and faltering mien, 
 
 When ail earth, when heaven above, 
 Torn by thousand thunderbolts, 
 
 Rocks and reels which way you move ? 
 
 hi. 
 
 Oh ! no, no ! Forfend it, Heaven! 
 
 Such debasement cannot be ! 
 
 Pillaged of your liberty, 
 
 You are not as yet bereaven 
 Of that heritage of bravery 
 
 Which descends to you through ages, 
 
 And ennobles all, save slavery 
 Yours, thank God ! are manhood still, 
 
 And the inborn strength of soul 
 Which naught outward can control, 
 
 And the headlong, chariot-will, 
 
 Ever bounding, never bending, 
 
 Which, alike with sword or song, 
 
 As befits the season, wages 
 
 Unrelenting war with wrong— 
 Unrelenting and unending. 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. 
 
 265 
 
 IV. 
 
 Gentler gifts are yours no less — 
 
 Tolerance of the faults of others ; 
 
 Love of mankind as your brothers ; 
 Generous pity, tenderness, 
 
 Soul-felt sympathy with grief ; 
 
 The warm heart, the winged hand, 
 Whereso suffering craves relief. 
 
 Through all regions hath your fame 
 For such virtues long gone forth ; 
 
 The smart slave of Kaffirland, 
 
 The frore denizen of the North, 
 
 The dusk Indian Mingo chief 
 , In his lone Savannahs green, 
 
 The wild, wandering Bedouin, 
 
 ’Mid his wastes of sand and flame — 
 
 All have heard how, unsubdued 
 By long centuries of sorrow, 
 
 You still cherish in your bosoms 
 The deep love no wrongs can slay, 
 And the hopes which, crushed to-day, 
 Bear their crests afresh, renewed 
 In immortal youth, to-morrow, 
 
 Like the spring’s rejoicing blossom. 
 
 v. 
 
 And ’tis well you thus can blend 
 
 Softest moods of minds with sternest — 
 Well you thus can temper earnest 
 Might with more than feminine meekness, 
 Thus can soar and thus descend , 
 
 For even now the wail of want, 
 
 The despairful cry of weakness, 
 
 Rings throughout a stricken land, 
 
 And blood-blackening plague and gaunt 
 Famine roam it hand in hand ! 
 
266 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 To you now the millions turn 
 With glazed eyes and lips that burn, 
 
 To you lies their last appeal — 
 
 To your hearts, your feelings, reason. 
 Oh! stretch forth your hands in season. 
 Soothe and solace, help and heal ! 
 
 Rich in blessings, bright with beauty, 
 
 Shine their name throughout all aeons : 
 Theirs who nobly consecrate 
 To self-sacrificing duty 
 
 Their best years — the new St. Leons 
 Who thus conquer time and fate ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 But far more, far more than this, 
 
 Youths of Ireland, stand prepared ! 
 Revolution’s red abyss 
 
 Burns beneath us, all but bared ; 
 
 And on high the fire-charged cloud 
 Blackens in the firmament , 
 
 And afar we list the loud 
 
 Sea-voice of the unknown event. 
 
 Youths of Ireland, stand prepared ! 
 
 For all woes the meek have died, 
 
 For all risks the brave have dared, 
 
 As for suffering, so for deed, 
 
 Stand prepared ! 
 
 For contumely and coercion, 
 
 For dark treachery and desertion 
 In the ranks of our own host, 
 
 In the friends you prize the most, 
 
 Stand prepared ! 
 
 For the pestilence that striketh 
 Where it listeth, whom it liketh , 
 
 For the blight whose deadly might 
 D 'solateth day and night , 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. 267 
 
 For a sword that never spared, 
 
 Stand prepared ! 
 
 Though that gory sword be bared, 
 
 Be not scared ! 
 
 Do not blanch and dare not falter ! 
 
 For the axe and for the halter 
 
 Stand prepared ! 
 
 And give God the glory 
 
 If, whene’er the wreath of story 
 
 Swathe your names, the men whose hands 
 
 Brightly twine it 
 May enshrine it 
 
 In one temple with your lands. 
 
 Some of Mangan’s versifications from 
 ancient Gaelic ballads and songs possess 
 wonderful power, pathos, and rhythmi- 
 cal melody. Though altogether unac- 
 quainted with the vernacular tongue, it 
 has been said, by those familiar with the 
 originals, that the modem versions con- 
 tain all the spirit and feeling of the an- 
 cient poems in an improved and more 
 lucid form and measure. “ The Woman 
 of Three Cows,” u The Dream of John 
 MacDonnell,” u Dark Bosaleen,” “ The 
 Will of Oathaeir Mor,” and about a 
 dozen others, are of this character. But 
 perhaps the more truly Irish of all is 
 
268 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 the u Elegy ” on the death of the Prin- 
 ces of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, who, 
 obliged to fly from home in 1607, after 
 the failure of O’Neill’s gallant and pro- 
 tracted struggle against Elizabeth, died 
 at Pome and were buried in one grave. 
 The poem is long, but will well repay 
 perusal ; and, as a fitting introduction to 
 it, we quote the following account of 
 their departure from Ireland from Dr. 
 O’Donovan’s translation of the u Eour 
 Masters ” : 
 
 “ Maguire (Oucon naught) and Don- 
 ogh, son of Mahon, who was son of the 
 Bishop O’Brien, sailed in a ship to Ire- 
 land, and put in at the harbor of S willy. 
 They then took with them from Ireland 
 the Earl O’Neill (Hugh, son of Eedo- 
 ragh), and the Earl O’Donnell (Kory, son 
 of Hugh, who was son of Magnus), and 
 many others of the nobles of the Prov- 
 ince of Ulster. These are the persons 
 Who went with O’Neill — namely, his 
 Countess, Catherina, daughter of Magen- 
 ms, and her three sons ; Hugh the Baron, 
 
JAMES CLABE2TCE MANOAN. 
 
 269 
 
 John, and Brian ; Art Oge, son of Cor- 
 mac, who was son of the baron ; Eer- 
 doragh, son of Oon, who was son of 
 O’Neill ; Hugh Oge, son of Brian, who 
 was son of Art O’Heill ; and many 
 others of Ins most intimate friends. 
 These were they who went with the 
 Earl O’Donnell — namely, Gaffer, his 
 brother, and his sister ^Nuala ; Hugh, 
 the earl’s child, wanting three weeks 
 of being one year old; Bose, daughter 
 of O’Dougherty and wife of Gaffer, with 
 her son Hugh, aged two years and 
 three months ; his (Rory’s) brother’s 
 son, Donnell Oge, son of Donnell ; 
 ETaghtan, son of Oalvagh, who was son 
 of Donogh Cairbreach O’Donnell ; and 
 many others of his intimate friends. 
 They embarked on the festival of the 
 Holy Gross, in autumn. This was a 
 distinguished company ; and it is cer- 
 tain that the sea has not borne and the 
 wind has not wafted, in modern times, 
 a number of persons in one ship more 
 eminent, illustrious, or noble in point 
 
270 
 
 IRISH PORTS. 
 
 of genealogy, heroic deeds, valor, feats 
 of arms, and brave achievements, than 
 they * 
 
 Lament for the Princes of Tyrone and Tyr- 
 
 i 
 
 CONNELL. 
 
 (From the Irish of Owen Roe Mac-au-Bhaird. +) 
 
 O Woman of the Piercing Wail, 
 
 Who mournest o’er yon mound of clay 
 With sigh and groan, 
 
 W ould God thou wert among the Gael ! 
 
 Thou wouldst not then from day to day 
 Weep thus alone. 
 
 ’Twere long before, around a grave 
 In green Tyrconnell, one could find 
 This loneliness , 
 
 Near where Beann-Boirche’s banners wave 
 Such grief as thine could ne’er have pined 
 Companionless. 
 
 Beside the wave, in Donegal, 
 
 In Antrim’s glens, or fair Dromore, 
 
 Or Killilee, 
 
 Or where the sunny waters fall 
 At Assaroe, near Erna’s shore, 
 
 This could not be. 
 
 * For the details of the lives of O’Neill and O’Donnell 
 the reader is referred to Mitchell’s “ Life of Hugh 
 O’Neill,” which has all the charms of a romance blended 
 with strict historical accuracy, and to Rev. C. P. Meehan’s 
 “ Tyrone and Tyrconnell.” 
 
 | Mac-a/u-BJiaird, Anglice McWard. 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. 
 
 271 
 
 On Derry’s plains — in rich Drumciieff- — 
 Throughout Armagh the Great, renowned 
 In olden years, 
 
 No day could pass hut woman’s grief 
 Would rain upon the burial-ground 
 Fresh floods of tears. 
 
 Oh ! no ; from Shannon, Boyne, and Suir, 
 
 From high Dunluce’s castle- walls, 
 
 From Lissadill, 
 
 Would flock alike both rich and poor; 
 
 One wail would rise from Cruachan’s halls 
 To Tara’s hill , 
 
 And some would come from Barrow-side, 
 
 And many a maid would leave her home 
 On Leitrim’s plains, 
 
 And by melodious Banna’s tide. 
 
 And by the Mourne and Erne, to come 
 And swell the strains. 
 
 Oh ! horses’ hoofs would trample down 
 The mount whereon the martyr saint * 
 
 W as crucified ; 
 
 From glen and hill, from plain and town, 
 
 One loud lament, one thrilling plaint, 
 
 W ould echo wide. 
 
 There would not soon be found, I ween, 
 
 One foot of ground among those bands 
 For museful thought, 
 
 So many shriekers of the caoine f 
 
 Would cry aloud and clap their hands, 
 
 All woe-distraught. 
 
 * St. Peter . — This passage is not exactly a blunder, 
 though at first it may seem one ; the poet supposes the 
 grave itself transferred to Ireland, and he naturally in- 
 cludes in the transference the whole of the immediate lo- 
 cality around the grave. — T r. 
 f Caoine — pronounced keen — a funeral wail. 
 
272 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 Two princes of the line of Conn 
 Sleep in their cells of clay beside 
 O’Donnell Roe , 
 
 Three royal youths, alas ! are gone, 
 
 Who lived for Erin’s weal, but died 
 For Erin’s woe ! 
 
 Ah ! could the men of Ireland read 
 The names these noteless burial stones 
 Display to view, 
 
 Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed, 
 Their tears gush forth again, their groans 
 Resound anew 
 
 The youths whose relics moulder here 
 
 Were sprung from Hugh, his prince and lord 
 Of Aileach’s lands — 
 
 Thy noble brothers, justly dear ; 
 
 Thy nephew, long to be deplored 
 By Ulster’s bands. 
 
 Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time 
 Could domicile decay or house 
 Decrepitude ! 
 
 They passed from earth ere manhood’s prime, 
 Ere years had power to dim their brows 
 Or chill their blood. 
 
 And who can marvel o’er thy grief, 
 
 Or who can blame thy flowing tears, 
 That knows their source 1 
 O’Donnell, Dunnasava’s chief, 
 
 Cut off arnid his vernal years, 
 
 Lies here a corse 
 
 Beside his brother Cathbar, whom 
 Tyrconnell of the Helmets mourns 
 In deep despair — 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. 27 
 
 For valor, truth, and comely bloom, 
 
 For all that greatens and adorns, 
 
 A peerless pair. 
 
 Oh ! had these twain, and he, the third, 
 
 The Lord of Mourne, O’Niall’s son, 
 
 Their mate in death — 
 
 A prince in look, in deed, and word — 
 
 Had these three heroes yielded on 
 The field their breath, 
 
 Oh ! had they fallen on Criffan’s plain, 
 
 There would not be a town or clan, 
 
 From shore to sea, 
 
 But would with shrieks bewail the slain, 
 
 Or chant aloud the exulting rann* 
 
 Of jubilee ! 
 
 When high the shout of battle rose, 
 
 On fields where freedom’s torch still burned 
 Through Erin’s gloom, 
 
 If one, if barely one, of those 
 
 W ere slain, all Ulster would have mourned 
 The hero’s doom ! 
 
 If at Athboy, where hosts of brave 
 Ulidian horsemen sank beneath 
 The shock of spears, 
 
 Young Hugh O’Neill had found a grave, 
 
 Long must the North have wept his death 
 W ith heart- wrung tears ! 
 
 If on the day of Ballachmyre 
 The Lord of Mourne had met, thus young, 
 A warrior’s fate, 
 
 * Rann , a song. 
 
274 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 In vain would such as thou desire 
 
 To mourn, alone, the champion sprung 
 From Niall the Great! 
 
 No marvel this ; for all the dead 
 Heaped on the field, pile over pile, 
 
 At Mullach-brack, 
 
 W ere scarce an eric * for his head, 
 
 If death had stayed his footsteps while 
 On victory’s track ! 
 
 If, on the Hay of Hostages, 
 
 The fruit had from the parent hough 
 Been rudely torn 
 
 In sight of Munster’s bands — MacNee’s— 
 Such blow the blood of Conn, I trow. 
 Could ill have borne. 
 
 If, on the day of Balloch-boy, 
 
 Some arm had laid, by foul surprise, 
 The chieftain low, 
 
 Even our victorious shouts of joy 
 
 W ould soon give place to rueful cries 
 And groans of woe ! 
 
 If, on the day the Saxon host 
 
 Were forced to fly — a day so great 
 For Ashanee f 
 
 The chief had been untimely lost, 
 
 Our conquering troops should moderate 
 Their mirthful glee. 
 
 There would not lack on Lifford’s day, 
 From Galway, from the glens of Boyle, 
 From Limerick’s towers, 
 
 A marshalled file, a long array, 
 
 Of mourners to bedew the soil 
 With tears in showers ! 
 
 * Eric, a compensation or fine, 
 f Ashanee, Ballyshannon. 
 
JAMES CLAEENCE MANGAIT. 
 
 275 
 
 If, on the day a sterner fate 
 
 Compelled his flight from Athenree, 
 
 His blood had flowed, 
 
 What numbers all-disconsolate 
 
 Would come unasked, and share with thee 
 Affliction’s load ! 
 
 If Derry’s crimson field had seen 
 
 His life-blood offered up, though ’twere 
 On victory’s shrine, 
 
 A thousand cries would swell the caoine , 
 
 A thousand voices of despair 
 W ould echo thine. 
 
 Oh ! had the fierce Dalcassian swarm 
 That bloody night on Fergus’ banks 
 But slain our chief, 
 
 When rose his camp in wild alarm, 
 
 How would the triumph of his ranks 
 Be dashed with grief ! 
 
 How would the troops of Murbach mourn, 
 If on the Curlew Mountains’ day, 
 
 Which England rued, 
 
 Some Saxon hand had left them lorn 
 By shedding there, amid the fray, 
 
 Their prince’s blood ! 
 
 Red would have been our warriors’ eyes 
 Had Roderick found on Sligo’s field 
 A gory grave ; 
 
 No Northern chief would soon arise 
 So sage to guide, so strong to shield, 
 
 So swift to save. 
 
 Long would Leith-Cuinn have wept if Hugh, 
 Had met the death he oft had dealt 
 Among the foe ; 
 
276 
 
 ISI8II POETS. 
 
 But had our Roderick fallen too, 
 
 All Erin must, alas ! have felt 
 The deadly blow. 
 
 What do 1 say 1 Ah ! woe is me. 
 Already we bewail in vain 
 Their fatal fall , 
 
 And Erin, once the great and free, 
 
 Now vainly mourns her breakless chain 
 And iron thrall ! 
 
 Then, daughter of O’Donnell, dry 
 Thine overflowing eyes, and turn 
 Thy heart aside , 
 
 For Adam’s race is born to die, 
 
 And sternly the sepulchral urn 
 Mocks human pride ! 
 
 Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne, 
 Nor place thy trust in arm of clay, 
 
 But on thy knees 
 
 Uplift thy soul to God alone, 
 
 For all things go their destined way 
 As he decrees. 
 
 Embrace the faithful crucifix, 
 
 And seek the path of pain and prayer 
 Thy Saviour trod ; 
 
 Nor let thy spirit intermix 
 
 With earthly hope and worldly care 
 Its groans to God ! 
 
 And thou, O Mighty Lord ! whose ways 
 Are far above our feeble minds 
 To understand, 
 
 Sustain us in these doleful days, 
 
 And render light the chain that binds 
 Our fallen land ! 
 
JAMES CLAKEXCE MAXGAN. 277 
 
 Look down upon out dreary state, 
 
 And, through the ages that may still 
 Roll sadly on, j 
 
 Watch thou o’er hapless Erin’s fate, 
 
 And shield at least from darker ill 
 The blood of Conn ! 
 
 Much has been said and written about 
 Clarence Mangan’s eccentricities, suf- 
 ferings, and disappointments which will 
 not bear critical examination. We knew 
 him well, and many of the incidents of 
 his life better. ’Tis true he was born 
 poor, and remained poor — occasionally 
 verging on destitution — all his life ; but 
 he never complained, because he at- 
 tached little importance to money or 
 ordinary comforts of life. Had he wish- 
 ed for such pleasures, he had brains 
 enough and friends sufficient to have 
 obtained them. But his genius was es- 
 sentially erratic, and would have been 
 stifled in an atmosphere of common- 
 place quiet and respectability. That he 
 was an opium-eater is possible ; but it is 
 not to the use of that destructive drug, 
 but to an untrained moral conscience, 
 
278 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 to a total misapprehension of the fixed 
 principles of the Christian faith, that 
 his misfortunes and unhappiness are to 
 he mainly attributed. Like everybody 
 else, he loved, and, like the majority of 
 the sons of Adam, his affection was 
 not reciprocated. This disappointment 
 had some effect on his singularly poetic 
 nature, but not at all to the extent at- 
 tributed to it by some of his biographers. 
 
 From 1842 Mangan’s fortunes were 
 linked with the Nation and what was 
 subsequently called the “ Young Ireland 
 party ” When the one was suppressed 
 and the other scattered to the four winds 
 of heaven, his star set in gloom and 
 eternal night. But previous to the ca- 
 tastrophe some brilliant scintillations of 
 poetic genius like the following appear- 
 ed at long intervals : 
 
 The Nameless One. 
 
 Roll forth, my song, like a rushing river 
 That sweeps along to the mighty sea ; 
 
 God will inspire me while I deliver 
 My soul of thee 1 
 
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. 279 
 
 Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening 
 Amid the last homes of youth and eld, 
 
 That there was once one whose veins ran lightning 
 No eye beheld. 
 
 Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour ; 
 
 How shone for him , through his griefs and gloom, 
 No star of all heaven sends to light our 
 Path to the tomb. 
 
 Roll on, my song, and to after-ages 
 
 Tell how, disdaining all earth can give, 
 
 He would have taught men from wisdom’s pages 
 The way to live. 
 
 And tell how, trampled, derided, hated, 
 
 And worn by sickness, disease, and wrong, 
 
 He fled for shelter to God, who mated 
 His soul with song — 
 
 With song which alway, sublime or rapid, 
 
 Flowed like a rill in the morning beam, 
 
 Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid — 
 
 A mountain stream. 
 
 Tell how this Nameless, condemned for years long 
 To herd with demons from hell beneath. 
 
 Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long 
 For even death. 
 
 Go on to tell how, with genius wasted, 
 
 Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love, 
 
 With spirit shipwrecked- and young hopes blasted, £ 
 He still, still strove, 
 
 Till, spent with toil, dreeing death tor others, 
 
 And some whose hands should have wrought for him 
 (If children live not for sires and mothers), 
 
 His mind grew dim, 
 
280 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 And he fell far through that pit abysmal, 
 
 The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns, 
 
 And pawned his soul for the devil’s dismal 
 Stock of returns , 
 
 But yet redeemed it in days of darkness, 
 
 And shapes and signs of the final wrath, 
 When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness, 
 Stood on his path. 
 
 And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow, 
 
 And want, and sickness, and houseless nights, 
 He bides in calmness the silent morrow, 
 
 That no ray lights. 
 
 And lives he still, then'? Yes ! Old and hoary 
 At thirty-nine, from despair and woe, 
 
 He lives, enduring what future story 
 Shall never know 
 
 Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble, 
 
 Deep in your bosoms ! There let him dwell ! 
 He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble, 
 
 Here and in hell. 
 
 This ballad, which may be taken as 
 the outpouring of the poet’s wounded 
 spirit and hapless fate, was one of the 
 last of his productions. His health, 
 never very robust, broke down tinder 
 the weight of poverty and disease, and 
 on the 20th of June, 1849, he expired, in 
 the forty-sixth year of his age. His last 
 
JAMES CLAKEKCE MANGAN. 
 
 281 
 
 days were spent in tlie Meath Hospital, 
 where he was constantly attended by se- 
 veral of his friends yet remaining in 
 Dublin, and by the Rev 0. P. Meehan, 
 of SS. Michael and John’s Church. 
 With him passed away one of the most 
 brilliant and original poetical intellects 
 of this century, wedded unfortunately to 
 an impracticable disposition, and a heart, 
 albeit of great natural goodness and ten- 
 derness, altogether undisciplined and un- 
 instructed. 
 
SAMUEL LOYEE. 
 
 Samuel Lover, though somewhat 
 of an artist, dramatist, actor, composer, 
 and novelist, was best known during his 
 lifetime for the many beautiful poems, 
 ballads, and songs which he contributed 
 to the literature of the last generation. 
 He was bom in Dublin in 1797, in 
 which city he commenced at an early 
 age the occupation of a portrait-painter 
 under the patronage of the Duke of 
 Leinster, Lord Cloncurrv, and other in- 
 fluential residents of the Irish metro- 
 polis. In 1828 he was elected a mem- 
 ber of the Royal Hibernian Society, of 
 which he afterwards became secretary. 
 
 Lover at this time was not so exclu- 
 sively engaged with his art but that he 
 found time to write some prose sketches 
 and songs of considerable merit, one of 
 which was made in praise of the na- 
 tional bard, Moore, and sung by the 
 
 m 
 
SAMUEL LOVER. ? 283 
 
 author at a banquet given to the poet 
 in Dublin. Moore, in acknowledgment 
 of this metrical tribute, took occasion 
 during the evening to pass some com- 
 plimentary remaiks on “ his gifted coun- 
 tryman,” and this incident, slight in it- 
 self, determined Lover’s future course. 
 Abandoning the brush for the pen, he 
 produced a very clever, and generally 
 correct, series of “ Legends and Stories 
 of Irish Character,” which were well 
 received by the public and the press. 
 
 In 1837, finding Dublin too limited 
 for his ambition, Lover removed to 
 London, where he published in succes- 
 sion “ Irish Sketches,” in two volumes, 
 “ Dory O’More,” “ Handy Andy,” 
 “ Treasure Trove ” and other works of 
 fiction of considerable ability. These 
 were followed by a volume of ballads 
 which contained many lyric gems, so 
 full of natural sentiment and pathos 
 that they have easily found a responsive 
 echo in the hearts of those who eared 
 little for his novels or humorous stories. 
 
284 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 Take as a specimen this sweet illustra- 
 tion of a popular belief that when a 
 child smiles in its sleep its angel-guar- 
 dian is whispering to it : 
 
 The Angel’s Whisper. 
 
 A baby was sleeping, its mother was weeping, 
 
 For her husband was far on the wide, raging sea ; 
 
 And the tempest was swelling round the fisherman’s 
 dwelling, 
 
 As she cried, “ Dermot, darling, oh ! come back to 
 me.” 
 
 Her beads as she number’d, her baby still slumber’d, 
 And smiled in her face as she bended her knee. 
 
 “ Oh blest be that warning, my child, thy sleep 
 adorning, 
 
 For I know that the angels are whisp’ring to thee ! 
 
 « And while they are keeping bright watch o’er thy 
 sleeping, 
 
 Oh pray to them softly, my baby, with me ; 
 
 And say thou wouldst rather they’d watch o’er thy 
 father, 
 
 For I know that the angels are whisp’ring to thee ! ” 
 
 The dawn of the morning saw Dermot returning, 
 And the wife wept with joy her babe’s father to see , 
 
 While closely caressing her child, with a blessing, 
 Said, “ I knew that the angels were whisp’ring to 
 thee.” 
 
SAMTTEL LOVER. 
 
 285 
 
 Another very pretty superstition of 
 the Irish peasantry, that whoever finds 
 a four-leaved shamrock can perform all 
 the magical wonders ascribed to the for- 
 tunate holder of Aladdin’s lamp, is thus 
 perpetuated in excellent versification : 
 
 The Four-Leaved Shamrock. 
 
 I’ll seek a four-leaved shamrock 
 In all the fairy dells ; 
 
 And if I find the charm’d leaves, 
 
 Oh ! how I’ll weave my spells. 
 
 I would not waste my magic might 
 On diamond, pearl, or gold , 
 
 Such treasures tire the weary sense — 
 Their triumph is hut cold. 
 
 But I would play the enchanter’s part 
 In casting bliss around, 
 
 Till not a tear nor aching heart 
 Should in the world be found, 
 
 Should in the world be found. 
 
 To worth I would give honor; 
 
 I’d dry the mourner’s tears, 
 
 And to the pallid lip recall 
 The smile of happier years ; 
 
 And hearts that had been long estranged, 
 And joy that had grown cold, 
 
 Should meet again like parted streams, 
 And mingle as of old. 
 
 Oh ! thus I’d play the enchanter’s part, 
 Thus scatter bliss around, 
 
286 
 
 1KISH POETB. 
 
 Till not a tear nor aching heart 
 Should in the world be found, 
 
 Should in the world be found. 
 
 The heart that had been mourning 
 O’er vanished dreams of love 
 Should see them all returning, 
 
 Like No-ah’s faithful dove ; 
 
 And hope should launch her blessed bark 
 On error’s dark’ning sea, 
 
 And mis’ry’s children have an Ark, 
 
 And saved from sinking be. 
 
 Oh ! thus I’d play the enchanter’s part, 
 
 Thus scatter bliss around, 
 
 "fill not a tear nor aching heart 
 Should in the world be found, 
 
 Should in the world be found. 
 
 inuring Ms long residence in the Eng- 
 lish metropolis Lover wrote many things 
 that were more consonant with English 
 taste than gratifying to his well-wishers 
 and countrymen. This defect is more 
 glaring in his early productions than in 
 those of more mature years. However, 
 we have the consolation of knowing that 
 caricatures of the Irish are fast going 
 out of fashion, and that reputations 
 built on such fragile foundations are 
 sure to be ephemeral. But while 
 Lover’s burlesques are becoming things 
 
SAMUEL LOVER. 
 
 287 
 
 of tlie past, to be laid aside and forgot- 
 ten, Ms songs, founded on the purer and 
 better nature of the Irish people, will 
 long be cherished, both at home and 
 abroad, by those who appreciate deli- 
 cacy of sentiment and musical rhythm. 
 We might instance the “ Eairy Temp- 
 ter,” “ Oh ! Come to the West, Love,” 
 “ The Eairy Boy,” “ There is no Girl 
 like Mine,” and a score of others ; but 
 we will content ourselves with the fol- 
 lowing little ballad, which, we fear, has 
 not yet received the public attention its 
 merits deserve : 
 
 The Pilgrim Harper. 
 
 The night was cold and dreary, no star was in the 
 sky, 
 
 When, travel-tired and weary, a harper raised his 
 cry ; 
 
 He raised his cry without the gate, his night’s repose 
 to win, 
 
 And plaintive was the voice that said, “ Ah ! won’t 
 you let me in ? ” 
 
 The portal soon was open’d , for in the land of song 
 
 The minstrel at the outer gate yet never linger’d long, 
 
288 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 And inner doors were seldom closed ’gainst wand- 
 ’rers such as he , 
 
 For locks or hearts to open soon, sweet music is the 
 key. 
 
 But if the gates are ope’d by melody, so grief can 
 close them fast, 
 
 And sorrow o’er that once gay hall its silent spell 
 had cast; 
 
 All undisturb’d the spider there his web might safely 
 spin. 
 
 Formany a day no festive lay, no harper, was let in. 
 
 But when this harper enter’d, and said he came from 
 ’far, 
 
 And bore with him from Palestine the tidings of the 
 war, 
 
 And he could tell of all who fell or glory there did 
 win, 
 
 The warder knew his noble dame would let that 
 harper in. 
 
 They led him to the bower , the lady knelt in prayer. 
 
 The harper raised a well-known lay upon the turret 
 stair , 
 
 The door was ope’d with hasty hand — true love its 
 meed did win ; 
 
 For the lady saw her own true knight when that 
 harper was let in. 
 
 Not content with his laurels as an 
 artist and author, Lover essayed the 
 drama, and even the histrionic art. He 
 dramatized several of his own works, 
 
SAMUEL LOVER. 
 
 289 
 
 and wrote three or four comedies, all 
 of which, with the exception of the 
 “ White Horse of the Peppers,” failed 
 to keep the stage. He then improvised 
 a number of humorous dramatic enter- 
 tainments, in which he took the leading 
 parts, and sang his own songs to his 
 own music. Having made a success- 
 ful tour, in this multifarious capacity, 
 through England and Ireland, Lover 
 came to this country in the winter of 
 1846-7, where his “ Irish Evenings” 
 were very popular. A St. Louis editor, 
 speaking of his appearance at a public 
 entertainment given in his honor in 
 that city, said : “It was such a meeting 
 as is seldom enjoyed — a meeting in 
 honor of one of the most popular au- 
 thors of the day, which his genius, un- 
 aided, would have been capable of mak- 
 ing unusually attractive, but which, 
 with the ready wit and good feeling of 
 others, was exceedingly brilliant. The 
 real worth of Lover, the influence of 
 his genius, the peculiar traits of his 
 
290 
 
 IEISH POETS. 
 
 character, and all the various phases of 
 his mind and heart, were seen and felt 
 in all their force. In the social circle, 
 where his fine feelings and sparkling 
 wit can have unreserved play, he shines 
 with the greatest brilliancy. As a poet, 
 he writes for the heart. His songs speak 
 a language which all can appreciate. 
 This is shown in their unprecedented 
 popularity.” The subjoined verses, sup- 
 posed to have been written by request 
 in a young lady’s album, appeared in 
 the hTew Orleans Delta shortly after 
 Lover’s visit to the South : 
 
 The Flower of Natchez. 
 
 Flower of Natchez, in thy beauty, 
 
 Take, oh ! take the poet’s lay ; 
 
 She may claim the minstrel’s duty 
 Who has charm’d his wand’ring way. 
 She’s so sightly, 
 
 She’s so sprightly. 
 
 With a wit so kind and keen, 
 
 That this flower 
 Of friendship’s hour 
 1 will call sweet Rose clDpine. * 
 
 Rose d’Epine, in love’s sweet season 
 Who would steal one leaf from thee ? 
 
SAMUEL LOVER. 
 
 291 
 
 May the hand that dares the treason 
 'F eel the thorn that guards the tree ! 
 Then safely, Rose, 
 
 Thus soft repose 
 
 Within thy modest, leafy screen, 
 
 Till hand more meet 
 Would cull the sweet, 
 
 And make his own of Rose cVEpvne. 
 
 Other flowers, in beauty, fleetness, 
 
 Court the sense and bloom as fair, 
 
 But the sting beneath the sweetness 
 Makes us touch the rose with care ; 
 
 And may the thorn 
 In life’s young morn 
 Guard well the sweetness which is seen, 
 And gentle be 
 The hand to thee 
 
 That wins and wears sweet Rose d'Epine. 
 
 Lover returned from America con- 
 siderably richer in purse, but in very 
 delicate health . He, however, con- 
 
 tinued to appear in public in some new 
 entertainments founded on his expe- 
 riences while among us ; but his consti- 
 tution at length gave way, his friends 
 forsook him in his adversity, and dur- 
 ing the short term of life that was per- 
 mitted him he depended principally on 
 a small pension granted out of the 
 
292 
 
 IRISH POETS. 
 
 [Literary [Relief Eund. He died in tlie 
 island of Jersey on the 6th day of July, 
 1867, and was buried a few days after at 
 Kensal Green, London. 
 
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