to me quite certain that the enthusiasm which he succeeded in exciting through the greater part of Ireland reacted to a marvellous extent upon his own impressionable nature. Having converted the mass of his countrymen, he finally converted himself, not merely to the belief that Repeal was desirable-for so much he perhaps always did believe-but to the conviction that it was attainable. Never, perhaps, has a man engaged in political life been subjected to influences so calculated to excite and to intoxicate. The favorite of a senate will always meet some wholesome opposition, but the "uncrowned monarch of the Irish people was for more than a year carried forward on one constantly rising wave of popular enthusiasm. He was not the cool contriver who could sit down to calculate the forces at his disposal, and the obstacles in his way, but the most Irish of all Irishmen, moved by the like passions and affections with the people whom he swayed, capable at one and the same moment of genuine faith and devotion to a cause, and of resorting to mere artifice and cunning in the means for advancing it; an enigma to all Englishmen, because he was compounded of qualities that among them are absolutely incompatible.

Mr. Lecky has touched with a delicate pen the closing portion of O'Connell's career-the blow struck by his imprisonment; the increasing feebleness, caused more by disappointment than organic disease; the dark shadow of the famine closing over his country, and threatening to engulf all classes in one common ruin; and, bitterest of all, the political organization that he had created and led to victory, to which he trusted for whatever was yet to be achieved for his country, shattered to utter impotence by the revolt of the younger and more energetic portion of his followers, who openly defied his authority, and cast suspicion on his motives.

The man who devotes his life to his country in the career of political conflict too often undertakes a thankless task, and he who is not sustained by the loftiest motives must look for no solid reward; but a sadder ending than this of O'Connell is scarcely to be found on record.

Who can look hardly on the record of a life wherein such mighty energies were devoted to the service of an oppressed nation ? If in his course he sometimes

swerved from the straight path, his faults were severely chastised. The mischief that he did lived after him, and some part, at least, of the good was interred with his bones. His remains were not laid to rest on his native soil before the great lesson of legal and peaceful agitation that he had so steadily inculcated was derided and abjured by the most conspicuous of his followers.

Of the Young Ireland party, as they were generally called, it is impossible to speak without a share of respect. If some amongst their leaders were men of little real ability, whose shallow brains were stirred up by listening to their own or their companions' frothy declamation, others were made up of more solid stuff, and under more fortunate conditions, might have done real service in political life. In so far as it was a revolt against the dishonesty and corruption of a section of O'Connell's followers, it was a righteous movement, and demanded the sympathy of every honest man. But the main principle of the party-the right to seek political changes by physical force-was condemned in advance to ignominious failure whenever the attempt to apply it should be made. Young men who had not yet learned that armed rebellion in a country ruled by public opinion is a criminal anachronism, discovered that the teachings of O'Connell, though seemingly forgotten, had sunk deeply into the popular mind. Treason was, indeed, the fashion. The writings of the Young Ireland chiefs were widely read, their speeches were cheered to the echo, and the noise was so great that even experienced statesmen were led to think that it meant something formi dable. But although a disaffected people wished well to Smith O'Brien and his confederates, as they would have done to any other enemy of British power, they were

It is known that the late Lord Clarendon, then Lord Lieutenant, was so much impressed with the gravity of the situation that he appre hended the insufficiency of the military force at his disposal, and contemplated the probability of recurring to the support of the Orangemen of Ulster. The writer, who had shortly before travelled through many parts of the South and West, cannot forget the look of incredulity with which that able diplomatist listened, a few days before O'Brien's abortive effort, to the confident opinion that a single regiment would be more than sufficient to meet and disperse any insurrec tionary force that could be got together.

very far from that frame of mind that will carry undisciplined men to face the bayonet. Ever since O'Connell showed what might be effected by peaceful agitation, the belief in insurrection as a practical remedy for political and social wrong has gone out of the Irish people.

The Young Irelanders themselves have outlived the errors of their hot youth. They have by this time discovered that corruption and venality flourish under a Republican constitution still more freely than in the mixed political system of the old country. The absurd notion that there is something unbecoming a patriot in the acceptance of office in the public service, and in receiving for honest work remuneration much less than can be gained in professional or commercial pursuits, has not quite disappeared in Ireland, because the very basis of public morality in this relation had been sapped by scandalous appointments of men whose chief claim to preferment was political dishonesty. But since the ablest of the Young Ireland leaders has, in another hemisphere, held conspicuous office which he owed to the merited confidence of his fellow-citizens, and has accepted not only the emoluments of office, but honorary distinction from the Crown, it may be hoped that the confusion of ideas prevailing in Ireland will pass away, and that men will understand the simple proposition that what is discreditable is not the place, but the ladder by which some have reached it-that the fee earned by the skilled practitioner is one thing, and that pocketed by the impudent quack a very different thing.

The condition of Ireland is not yet what men whose patiotism includes the whole empire in its aspirations may have hoped and desired. Disaffection, lying deep, but by no means of a practical character, is still widely spread. This is discouraging; but let rational Englishmen ask themselves whether it is unnatural. For how long a time did English prejudices prevent a fair trial of the Union between the two countries? For the last five-and-twenty years you could find no man of the least pretension to political sagacity who did not own that the retention of the Irish Church establishment was indefensible in principle and mischievous in practice, and yet it stood untouched till 1869. The more excusable prejudices that impeded any change in the legal rela

tions between landlord and tenant yielded only in 1870 to Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill, and for the first time you could say with truth that Irish disaffection must seek its justification in the past. The single difficulty that remains will be easily solved. if you will but remember that whenever you have allowed religious prepossessions or antipathies to guide you in legislating for Ireland, you have invariably committed a blunder, as well as an injustice. Once allow that other men have a right to hold opinions very different from yours, ask yourselves what you would admit to be just treatment if you could change places and opinions with them, and you will not go far wrong in dealing with Ireland.

The cry for Home Rule is not pleasant to our ears. We know well that in the mouths of ninety-nine out of every hundred who use it it means nothing else than disaffection. A few men may mean the very true and simple proposition that the House of Commons has undertaken more work than it can perform efficiently, and that local business could be better transacted in local assemblies. This is no more an Irish grievance than it is a Welsh or a Yorkshire grievance. The agitation, so far as it has real importance, has little or no reference to a practical remedy for a practical evil. It means simply that you have not yet cured the disaffection that you have earned by centuries of misgovernment. It is unreasonable on your part to have expected to do so. Wrongdoing would be made too pleasant and easy in this world if everything were set right by merely ceasing to do wrong. But although it may be long before Irish disaffection will entirely cease, it has become much less formidable since the two great grievances have been removed. The peasant is now enjoying comparative prosperity, and by Mr. Gladstone's Land Act he has acquired that sense of security which, more than anything else, attaches men to the cause of order. The introduction of competitive examinations for appointments in the public service is a still more efficacious means for creating a feeling favorable to union with England. Unlike the old system of appointment through political influence, this elevates instead of degrading the successful candidate, and the large proportion of Irishmen that gain the prizes supplies an argument whose cogency

is felt by all the educated or half-educated

classes in Ireland.

So far as I can see, the agitation for Home Rule, or repeal of the Union, is not likely to give any serious trouble, unless by glaring bad policy a vitality is given to it which it does not inherently possess. When orators whose trade is agitation are allowed to tell the people with truth that measures proposed by men responsible to the country, which would undoubtedly be accepted by an Irish Parliament, cannot be carried out because of the prejudices of English and Scotch representatives, or the reluctance of the House of Peers, a valid argument is supplied-pro tanto, against the Legislative Union.

It is a still more obvious blunder to show favor to those who aid the anti-Union agitation. The Minister who gives pay or preferment to venal sham patriots abets a movement hostile to the welfare of the entire empire, and at the same time does a special wrong to Ireland, by nurturing the worst disease under which she labors utter disbelief in political honesty.

If the younger men amongst us shall live to see complete and cordial union between the people of both islands, there can be no doubt that in the roll of national benefactors to whom that consummation will be due, the foremost name must be that of Daniel O'Connell. It is not only that he was the first to compel the rulers of the empire to commence the era of justice that alone makes Union possible. His work was greater than this: He found his countrymen slaves; he raised them from the dust, and first taught them to assume at least the attitude of freemen. The education of a people is a slow work; but if at no distant time they are fully worthy to take the place that is prepared for themthat of free citizens of a great united empire-sharing the vanward post in the great advance of political and social progress, they must never forget that the first lessons of freedom were received from the lips of O'Connell.

Of O'Connell the man, such as he was known to his contemporaries, the next generation will find it difficult to form a just conception. Nothing could be stronger than the animosity which he excited amongst his opponents, unless it were the enthusiastic attachment felt towards him by his personal friends and followers. His

faults were on the surface, and were exactly those that most surely shock and offend educated Englishmen. His invectives not rarely descended to scurrility, and his disregard of literal truth and probability in his popular addresses was such as, in an Englishman, would have implied utter want of principle. The irrepressible tendency to exaggeration inseparable from the Irish nature will not, however, be severely judged by posterity. It must be noted that, with scarcely an exception, his violence was excited, not by personal, but by national feelings. His vituperation was directed against the enemies of Ireland, not against the enemies of O'Connell.

If his political friends learned to place implicit confidence in his courage, his energy, and the boundless resources of his inventive intelligence, the personal devotion that he awakened was due to qualities of another order. He was a true friend, faithful to all who had ever done him a service, and possessed in the highest degree that personal charm of manner and conversation that people of other countries usually attribute to the typical Irishman. But he proved himself to own virtues of a higher and rarer order. On several important occa sions, and notably in regard to trade combinations and the Poor Law question, he boldly took the unpopular side, and did not shrink from the clearest expression of his opinions. This does not seem difficult to men who depend upon parliamen tary support for political influence. They may reasonably expect that justice will in due time be done to their motives. case is very different with a man who holds power and importance by the fleeting tenure of popular favor; and one such sacrifice made to conscience should outweigh many a blemish in the career of a popular leader.

The

Those who best knew O'Connell are able to cite many an instance of magnanimity that contrasts strongly with the unscrupulousness of which his opponents constantly accused him.*

* An instance, vouched by a person well acquainted with both the parties, has been lately given to me. O'Connell had been on terms of intimacy with P. M., an able and influential man, well known in Dublin. A quarrel, arising from some political difference, broke out between them. O'Connell denounced his opponent in language

Of him, as of nearly all men who have taken an eminent part in public affairs, we may say that, although his aims were lofty, he was not careful in his choice of means. The worst that can with justice be urged against him is that he was too tolerant of baser men, who used low means to compass low ends, so long as they were ready to swell the ranks of his auxiliary forces.

When the future historian is able calmly to survey the miserable history of Ireland up to the end of the last century, he will,

perhaps, regard it as no slight testimony to the qualities of the Irish race that it should at such a time have impersonated. itself in a figure so commanding and so free from base admixture. If it prove the great qualities of the man that he should have acquired such power over his countrymen, it says not a little for them that the man to whom alone they gave their entire hearts was one whom they may present without shame to the scrutiny of succeeding generations.-Macmillan's Magazine.

THE ancient capital of Northern China, three days' journey from the Great Wall, on the Siberian road, uprears itself from a hideous, seemingly boundless plain of dust, strewn with remnants of old buildings, and all kinds of disheartening rubbish There is perhaps no portion of the earth's surface on which the European feels more hopelessly far away from every familiar place and person, than when traversing this great desert plain heaped with the dust of ages. A few crumbling villages break the monotony; and then comes a wall of immense length, brown, crenulated, pierced in the centre by a magnificent portico, the finest 'gate' in all the Celestial Empire. It is like the Scripture picture of the walls of Babylon and the formidable ramparts of Nineveh. A lofty tower is surmounted by a roof, consisting of five stages of green tiles, pierced by five ranges of holes, through which grin huge cannonmouths, very terrible, until one learns that the guns are wooden. Far out of sight on right and left stretches the wall, partly of granite, partly of huge gray bricks, and at its foot opens a deep vaulted passage, through which pour converging tides of Chinese, Mongols, and Tartars, strings of blue carts, files of black mules, caravans of dun-colored, heavily laden camels; for

of extreme violence, and for many years they were on terms of mutual hostility. Long afterwards P. M. told my informant that during the period of their friendship O'Connell had become aware of circumstances of a private nature which, if published, would have been ruinous to the position and credit of his adversary, but, in spite of the violence of their subsequent quarrel, was never led to divulge them or allude to them in any way.

this is the entrance to the Chinese town. The ancient city is divided into three sections-the Chinese, the Tartar, and the Imperial, and each has a perfectly distinct physiognomy.

The majestic beauty of the gate' passes like a dream, and the traveller finds its stateliness utterly reversed by the scense which it incloses. Waste land, tumbledown huts, sinuous ways-half paved with enormous blocks of stone, half left in yawning gaps a couple of feet deep-dirt, poverty, desolation; through these one struggles on until a second wall stops the way. It is still more majestic and Babylonian; it is sixty feet high, and forty feet wide, and it divides the Chinese from the Tartar city. On the other side is a kind of circus without benches, which is formed of gigantic walls protecting the principal gate, and is very like a spacious bear-pit. Nobody is permitted to pass through the central aperture except the emperor; so the traveller passes under the great arch at the side, and is generally instructed by his guide to ascend some steps to the top of the wall, from whence he can command a view of all Pekin. A wonderful sight, grand, melancholy, and suggestive. Three concentric cities, divided from each other by inner walls: first, the Tartar city, which is the largest, and has upon it the warlike stamp of the conquering race; then the Imperial city-with the palaces of the mandarins, each consisting of nearly a hundred kiosks; and finally the forbidden city, with its thousands of roofs in imperial yellow, and its Me-chan, the sacrosanctum of the Celestial Empire.

Forming the vast mysterious inclosure

of the forbidden city are walls, on whose summits four carriages might be driven abreast; the countless roofs of the mandarins' palaces are bright green, the domes of the temples are dark blue; there are great spaces paved with pottery, and there are marble bridges. But all this spendor is set in a framework of crumbling, dusty ruin. Everything is extraordinary in this wonderful place, which is an epitome of decay. Thebes, Memphis, Carthage, Rome, are ruins which tell of violent vicissitude; Pekin is a skeleton dropping into dust. The ravine-like streets are kneedeep in every sort of rubbish; the moats, the canals, and the rivers are all, and always, dry; the formal parks, the once marvellous ponds, are turned to desert places. Triumphal arches stand side by side with wretched tumble-down booths, surmounted by a forest of little poles, whence paper 'signs' dangle in the air, and uniformity is lent to all by the thick layer of evil-smelling dust which lies upon them, the same dust that is always whirling around, hurting the eyes, and offending the nostrils.

This great city, in which nothing is ever repaired, and where it is penal to pull down anything, is dropping to pieces; and it is the opinion of M. de Beauvoir, the French traveller, to whom we owe the best and most picturesque account of Pekin yet given to the western world, that in a century it will have been abandoned and have ceased to exist.

A poetic element reigns at Pekin, with all its dust and quaintness, making one see the soul of that wonderful verification in life, and on a huge scale, of the designs on screens and plates with which every one is familiar. The imperial city is a vast assemblage of the turrets, the belfries, the steep bridges, the balconies, and the kiosks, which we have seen a thousand times in lacquer. But they are reached through the Gates of Virtuous Victory, of Great Purity, of the Temples of Heaven, of Agriculture, of the Genius of the Winds, of the Genius of the Lightning, and of the Bright Mirror of the Mind. Every year the emperor, arrayed in a country costume, with a straw hat a yard in circumference (afterwards hung up in the temple), drives a golden ploughshare through a field, that the tracing of the furrow may call down the blessing of Buddha upon the seedtime and the harvest. Every six months the

emperor burns a number of death-warrants in bronze brasiers, ranged under a roof of dark-blue porcelain, between curule chairs of pink marble, in front of which are dragons and pugs in the rarest china, perched on columns of carved wood. A little beyond the temple where these ceremonies take place, there stands, built upon the wall, a magnificent observatory, 273 years old. The gigantic bronze instruments, curiously wrought, rest upon the outspread wings of flying dragons; a celestial globe eight feet in diameter shows all the stars known in 1650, and visible at Pekin. Such is the dryness of the climate, that the whole apparatus of the observatory, though exposed to the open air, is wholly uninjured, and the instruments act with unerring precision.

Close by the Hall of Examination for the literates, an immense rectangular building which accommodates twelve thousand candidates, are the redfish pond,' in which there is neither water nor fish; two great theatres, the Temple of the Moon, and that of the Lamas. Here, as at Lhassa, a thousand bonzes, clothed in yellow, chant in hollow tones an eternally monotonous rhythm. In the Temple of Confucius, the devotions are not chanted, they are, so to speak, 'ground' in a huge prayer-wheel. In this temple hangs the largest bell which has ever been hung (the famous bell of Moscow has never been lifted off the ground); it is twenty-five feet high, weighs ninety thousand pounds, and is covered with the finest carving.

The private life of the Chinese is, especially at Pekin, so profound a mystery for Europeans, that there is nothing to interest them in the city except its architecture and ornamentation, which, though most curious and ingenious, does not appeal to any of the tastes or sentiments of western peoples. There is always food for the imagination in the contemplation of the outside of objects whose interior is 'forbidden,' and thus the traveller looks longingly at the inclosure of the sacred city, which he must never pass, and dreams of the treasures which it is said to contain

the golden columns, the silver mats, the furniture incrusted with fine pearls; but what he sees is a very rude case for such a jewel. As for the famous Me-chan, a very third-rate pagoda in Siam is more splendid, externally, than the sacred dwelling of the Son of Heaven. At Pekin