long before the play of Greek fancy had overlaid them with an embroidery of poetical fiction. Their main outlines were too well and widely known to permit, without protest, any grave departure from them on the part of public chroniclers. The buildings and monuments associated with their memory served as the visible and tangible evidence of the basis of truth on which they rested, and transmitted from one generation to another the names of the chief actors in these stories, and the victories or defeats which the monuments themselves were intended to

commemorate.

But the city did not long remain within the limits marked out for it by its first founders. It soon widened out, and began to occupy the slopes and summits of the surrounding hills. The Palatine ceased to be the whole of Rome, though it always remained one of the principal sections of the growing city, and the site of its most famous temples and monuments. Some of Rome's greatest citizens, among the number Cicero, built their residences on the Palatine. From its summit they could look down on the Forum, and watch the great tides of human existence which surged round the temples and basilicas of that historic place. It was the boast of Cicero that his house stood on the most beautiful site in Rome, in pulcherrimo urbis loco. That house recalled some of the most memorable vicissitudes of his career. During his exile, his inveterate foe, Clodius, had a decree passed that it should be pulled down and a temple erected in honor of Minerva on the ground which it occupied. After his triumphant return the senate decreed to rebuild it at the public expense, and Cicero obtained for the purpose a grant of eighty thousand dollars.

In treating of the buildings and monuments erected on the Palatine, under the empire, we emerge from the twilight of legend and tradition into the clear sunlight of authentic history.

J. C.

Mr. Parnell and O'Connell.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT in his speech at Shoreditch has reminded us that the course now being pursued by the Times was an old device, and that the adjectives now thrown at Mr. Parnell were in like manner thrown at Daniel O'Connell. In connection with this parallel it may be interesting to recall how Mr. Spencer Walpole, almost the last of the old-fashioned, fair-minded Conservatives, writes of the events of his youth: "The conduct of the English to the Irish, moreover, was emphasized by the conduct of the foremost men in England to the foremost Irishman. It is difficult now to read unmoved the story of the treatment which O'Connell habitually received in England! O'Connell was not merely the foremost Irishman alive, he was, perhaps, the greatest Irishman Ireland had ever known. He represented Ireland as no one ever represented Ireland before. The issues of peace or war depended on his single voice. From 1835 the life of the Whig ministry rested

on his favor" (as did a Tory ministry in 1885 on the favor of Parnell), "and yet this man was habitually insulted by the English people and slighted by the English ministry! The Emancipation Act was accompanied by the pitiable condition that the great victor should not receive the reward of his victory" (as the adoption of half the National League land programme is to be accompanied by its suppression). "His sovereign, the 'first gentleman in Europe,' chose in his own house to turn his back with studied insult on his distinguished subject. The Whigs left their choice club by scores at a time because O'Connell became a member of it; and the great Whig houses closed their doors to the first orator of his generation."

Musings from Foreign Poets.

THE INNER SPARK.

From the German.

How fair soe'er the outer show
Of life, Death lurks in every vein :
To-day thou dwell'st in Pleasure's glow,-
To-morrow in a night of Pain.

Then cease, O Man! thy vain pursuit
Of dreams that but allure to flee;
Be wise in time-see how the fruit
Oft falls unripened from the tree.

Call forth thy Spirit from the deep
And gloomy prison where it lies;
Sunder the fetters of its sleep,
That to salvation it may rise.

From out the flinty stone will start
A flash that lightens all the dark;
O Man! tho' cold and hard thou art,
Within thee dwells a godlike spark.

Ere breaks the fire from out the stone
Must thou upon it sharply smite;
So, strife with Nature will alone
Bring out that flash of heavenly light.

REV. JOHN COSTELLO.

HAPPENING lately to pick up the Nineteenth Century, I found in its pages an article by R. Barry O'Brien, under the above caption. These "three honest and earnest attempts" were made, according to Mr. O'Brien, the first by William III. "on the surrender of Limerick ; the second by Lord Melbourne in 1835; the third by Mr. Gladstone in 1868." I shall confine myself, for the present at least, and as briefly as possible, to the first "attempt" cited by Mr. O'Brien, that of

WILLIAM III.

Much has been said and written of William's right to the English throne, but, as long as James was living, it is quite evident that his claim to that throne was a very flimsy and shadowy one. He was at

best but a usurper. Ireland felt this, and remained true to James. Sir Jonah Barrington, one of Ireland's most gifted sons, thus disposes of William's claim to the throne: "James, a monarch de jure and de facto, expelled from one portion of his empire, threw himself for protection upon the loyalty and faith of another; and Ireland did not shrink from affording that protection. She defended her legitimate monarch against the usurpation of a foreigner; and whilst a Dutch guard possessed themselves of the British capital, the Irish people remained faithful to their king, and fought against the invader. In strict matter of fact, therefore, England became a nation of decided rebels, and Ireland remained a country of decided royalists. Historic records leave that point beyond the power of refutation. James was the ereditary king of both countries, jointly and severally. The third constitutional estate only, of one of them (England). had deposed him by their own simple vote; but Ireland had never been consulted on that subject, and the deposition of the king of Ireland by the commons of England could have no paramount authority in Ireland, or supersede the rights and dispense with the loyalty of the Irish parliament. The Irish people had held no treasonable intercourse with William; they knew him not; they only knew that he was a foreigner, and not their legal prince; that he was supported by a foreign power, and had succeeded by foreign mercenaries. But even if there was a doubt, they conceived that the most commend. able conduct was that of preserving their allegiance to the king, to whom, in conjunction with England, they had sworn fealty. The British peers showed them an example, and on that principle they fought William as they had fought Cromwell; and again they bled, and again were ruined, by their adherence to legitimate monarchy."

Cobbett speaks even more pointedly: "James II. wished to put an end to the Penal Code; he wished for general toleration; he issued a proclamation suspending all penal laws relating to religion, and GRANTING A GENERAL LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE TO ALL HIS SUBJECTS. This was his OFFENCE. For this he and his family were SET ASIDE forEVER! No man can deny this. The clergy of the Church set themselves against him. Six of the bishops presented to him an insolent petition against his prerogative, enjoyed and exercised by all his predecessors. They led the way in that opposition which produced the 'glorious revolution,' and were the most active and the most bitter of

all the foes of that unfortunate king, whose only real offence was his wishing to give liberty of conscience to all his subjects." Though William had been invited by a portion of the commons and nobles to take the throne of a sovereign who had neither abdicated nor been deposed, the peers did not coincide with them, and when asked to decide "whether James had broken the original compact, and thereby made the throne vacant" - they decided by a vote of fifty-one to forty-nine that he had Now it is well known that according to the British constitution it requires king, lords, and commons to make any change in that constitution; therefore, those who supported William at that juncture were not acting in accordance with law and right. We might multiply proofs of this, but the foregoing are sufficient support to our contention.

not.

It is evident, then, that William, while James or his heirs lived, had no claim to the domination of Ireland, and that the people of Ireland were not morally bound to submit to his rule, Having, however, gained possession of the country by force of arms, it would have been only natural that he should, after the fashion of usurpers, have striven to conciliate the conquered people by a mild and paternal government. Mr. O'Brien endeavors to show that he made such an attempt. Such a premise we challenge, and claim that he inaugurated in Ireland a reign of terror, confiscation, and slaughter. The effects of the desolation of Ireland during Cromwell's time, should have been the moving cause in carrying on the reaction that set in during the short reign of James. Had William followed this turn of the tide, he might have gained the hearts of the Irish, but he was too much blinded by bigotry to accept any homage, the price of which would be liberty of conscience to a Catholic nation. However glorious his name may have been in England, in Ireland it was but the synonyme for iron cruelty. "For nearly

a century after the capitulation of Limerick had been signed," says Sir Jonah Barrington, "and violated by William, Ireland exhibited a scene of oppression, suffering, and patience, which excited the wonder and commiseration of every people of Europe."

This "humane and sagacious Dutch warrior and statesman believed that the work of conquest done, reparation should commence," so he began this work by penal laws the most cruel and galling in the world's history, laws which James had annulled, and William revived, the remembrance of which has been indelibly seared into the hearts of the Irish people, which died a lingering death amid their execrations, which were enshrouded with the bitter tears and agonized misery of millions, and which were finally buried deep amid the curses of those who, in themselves and through their ancestors, had felt the iron in their souls. "The loss of national independence," says Mr. O'Brien, "should be counterbalanced by the full enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of a common citizenship. Political incorporation, not national extirpation, was the basis of the Irish policy of William III." The principles of this policy were embodied in the treaty of Limerick, by which the Irish people were granted "freedom of worship, allowed the use of, the possession of, their estates, the right to sit in parliament, to vote at elections, to practise law and medicine, to engage in trade and commerce," not one of which privileges, however, was actually enjoyed by

those people. The mental obtuseness of any man who would pen such assertions as the above quoted must be something extraordinary. Does he forget that William was the first to violate the treaty of Limerick,— signed, in apparent good faith, by his own hand, which was intended, or at least worded, to secure "civil and religious liberty" to the people of Ireland; that, weary of disputing with his cabinet, he weakly gave way to them and to the English colonists, "who resolved to destroy or reduce to a condition of abject serfdom the whole of the native population;" that commissioners, acting under his authority, seized upon and confiscated over two million acres of the finest estates in Ireland, although their Irish occupiers, having no parchment deeds, had yet the best titles in the world in the eyes of the law, - undisturbed family inheritance for scores of generations,-the very estates the continued possession of which had been guaranteed to them by the treaty of Limerick; that the English "assumed supreme power over Ireland,” and introduced frequent legislation against the faith of her people; that Catholic peers were stripped of their right to sit in parliament, Catholic gentlemen of their right to be chosen members of parliament, and all Catholics of their right to vote; and that they were rendered ineligible for even the most insignificant offices of power or trust in any governmental department; and that Catholics were rendered incapable of purchasing land, or entering into any contracts? Thus were accorded to the long-suffering Irish people "the rights and privileges of a common citizenship!"

"Mr. Froude seems to think," says Justin Huntley McCarthy, "that the Irish ought to have been aware that the English could not be expected to keep faith with them over such a treaty. To such sorry justification for such a breach of faith there is nothing to say. The treason shows worse when it is remembered that after the treaty was signed an army of reinforcements arrived in the Shannon. Had these come some days earlier, the siege of Limerick must inevitably have been raised. Even as it was Ginckel greatly feared that Sarsfield might seize the opportunity to renew the war. But Sarsfield honorably abided by his word. The treaty was violated; all the forfeited lands were reconfiscated and sold by auction as before, for the benefit of the state, to English corporations and Dublin merchants. William determined to make all Ireland Protestant by penal laws. was laid down from the bench by Lord Chancellor Bowes and Chief Justice Robinson 'that the law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic.' ... It was well said that the Penal Code could not have been practised in hell, or it would have overturned the kingdom of Beelzebub."

It

Mr. McCarthy quotes the memorable words of Burke on the "vicious perfection of the code." "For," said Burke, "I must do it justice: it was a complete system, full of coherence and consistency, well digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”