1850.]

Young Ireland-The Felon's Track.

the Convention." Meagher, "too generous to avail himself of the enthusiasm he excited, withdrew, as also did O'Brien, Mitchel, Devin Reilly, and the others of the party, with the greater portion of the persons present. The Irish Confederation was formed by the seceders in the January following. The bases were "freedom, tolerance, and truth. There was no avowal of war, and no pledge of peace." A visible change seemed to take possession of Mr. O'Connell, and he made overtures of reconcilia"His mission was unfortunate, and led tion through Rev. Dr. Wiley. Several skirmishes took place in the to greater misunderstanding." streets of Dublin, between the followers of the opposite parties, with little more damage than a few broken heads, and the peace-men were the But this could At first, the confederates were jeered at, called "infidels," aggressors. spies," ," "communists," in fact were shunned for a time. not last. The men whose genius was the only light that illuminated the "Hall," certainly could not have got so wicked all of a sudden? The men who wrote the "Young Ireland Library" surely meant well? People got calmer, and the Confederation prospered. O'Connell died this year at Genoa, on the 15th May. Immediately young O'Connell began to make capital of the dust of his father. Young Ireland was denounced as the murderers of the "Liberator," and were forbid to attend his funeral procession. A slight reaction ensued on the appearance of the body in the city. An election was in being at the time. The procession served as a canvasser for the liberal member, and the dead body of O'Connell sent into Parliament a man who had his greatest opposition while alive. Such was the end of O'Connell. The Confederation rapidly progressed. Now we come to the soul and sinew of the Irish movement-JoHN MITCHEL. We are in '48. The Catholic hierarchy look coolly on. Confederation shines like the morning-star. Its genius commands the respect of all men of mind in the country. Its crowded ranks are still increasing. A new soul spoke. The brightness of a constellation centred in one spirit, and it rose grand and prophetic above the ConfederaHe saw the futility of wasting time in trying to tion. MITChel arose. conciliate the landlords, and devoted himself to the tenant-right question. He dedelivering lectures on the land-tenure and poor-law which startled all, but displayed the truth and nobleness of his principles and motives. voted his entire energies to the people, and continued to spread his ideas through the leading columns of the "Nation," "of which he was at the time editor-in-chief-writing the greatest portion of the leading articles." Mr. Duffy, the "responsible owner and editor," differed with some of Mitchel's ideas. The flame was fanned by certain parasites, and the two great journalists separated. This disagreement suggested "the necessity of drawing up a programme of guidance for the Confederation." It was drawn up. Mitchel objected to A committee was appointed. it on principle, and in the council it gave rise to a long, earnest, It is needMitchel proposed, as the only resource of the and angry debate. Men, not principles, country, an appeal to arms, and a preparation therefor. less to go through the affair in all its meanness. were visibly swaying the confederates, and Mitchel was defeated. On the division, after the three nights' discussion, the members stood-the Confederation, 31, Mitchel, 183. To teach his own doctrines, "So great was the sale of the United Irishman." Mitchel started the first number, that the press was kept busy for three days and nights.

64

The

When the second was announced, a guard of police was necessary to keep order and peace among the news-readers, around the office door." The perspicuity, clearness, devotion, singleness of purpose, and democratic determination, which characterized the writings of John Mitchel, and the high literary tone of the writings of Reilly, Mangan, "Meany," and others, almost instantaneously raised the "United Irishman" to a standard of eminence. never before obtained by any like production in the land. Matters were coming quickly to a climax. The Government trembled in dismay. Something must be done. O'Brien, Meagher and Mitchel were selected for prosecution; two suits being instituted against the latter, one for an article, the other for a speech. The juries, in the cases of Meagher and O'Brien, disagreed. The Treason-Felony act was passed, and Mitchel was arrested under its powers, for publications in his paper. He was lodged in Newgate-the Bastile of Dublin-hallowed as the shrine of patriotism by the blood of the martyrs of '98. The mockery of a trial was given him. His appearance at the bar of the court is thus described:

"Ascending the steps to the front of the dock, and lifting, as he advanced, the glazed dark cap he wore during his imprisonment, as gracefully as if he entered a drawing-room, he took his stand in a firm but easy attitude. His appearance was equally removed from bravado and fear. His features, usually placid and pale, had a rigid clearness about them that day, we can never forget. They seemed, from their transparency and firmness, like some wondrous imagination of the artist's chisel, in which the marble fancying itself human, had begun to breathe. The eye was calm and bright-the mouth, the feature round which danger loves to play, though easy, motionless, and with lips apart, had about it an air of immobility and quiet scorn, which was not the effect of muscular action, but of nature in repose. And in his whole appearance, features, attitude and look, there was a conscious pride and superiority over his opponents, which, though unpresuming and urbane, seemed to speak louder than words-'I am the victor here to-day.'

His fate was sealed. The mockery went on he was found guilty, and the next day banished in chains. And the nation looked on in silence. Various rumors of a rising-barricades, and a rescue, were afloat during his imprisonment and trial, and it is believed, that but for some influential members of the confederation, it would have been attempted. That attempt would have lit a page in Irish history which must now remain in darkness, imbecility and gloom. The magnanimity of John Mitchel, and the infernal perfidy which characterized his prosecutors, gained over numbers to the national cause.

Of all men which characterized his stormy period, Mitchel was the grandest, the most elevated, the mildest, but the most determined. He combined the grandeur and simplicity of the prophets of the Old Testament, with the mission of a Moses and the determination of a Gallileo. Like a Jeremiah, Isaiah, or a Samuel, he hurled his prophecies on his people, giving at the same time the properties for their consummation. On the mountain of Justice and Truth, and from the divinity of his soul, as a Moses, he received the tablets of the true faith, and delivered them to his race, that they might be happy. Eppur si muove-" nevertheless it moves," cried Gallileo in defence of his immortal discovery, and in defiance of the Inquisition, on whose racks he was being tortured. Bonds, racks, nor thumb-screws, carry no proof they are the assertion

No! He

of might against truth. "Nevertheless it moves," cried the man of God. "Her victory is mine," cried Mitchel; no one presumes that it is a criminal who stands in this dock." How could the God of the brave save him, and let Gallileo perish ?-how could he raise him, and let Emmet sink?-how could he nourish him and let Tone wither? was worthy to follow them. That worthiness deifies his name. After this the Council was reduced, and affairs began to look stern. The disunion was healed; and, to fulfil Mitchel's prophecies, that he "left hundreds to follow him," two new journals were established by members of his faith. The " FELON,' taking its name from him whose principles it preached, written by Martin, Reilly, Lalor, Brenan, &c.; and the "TRIBUNE," by Williams, O'Doherty, Doheny, Savage, Antisell, and others. "The great object of the first was to follow in the footsteps of the United Irishman, and that of the latter, to urge the same principles upon a more republican basis." Those journals soon acquired a vast and enviable popularity, and the republican principles were preached with daring and ability. They grew too influential to be guarantied long life; and on the 8th of July, by one fell stroke, the registered proprietors of the three national journals, The "Felon," "Tribune," and "Nation," were seized. Three offices were ransacked; autographs became valuable witnesses; types were smashed, for that they smelt of nationality, and the trials proceeded in due course. John Martin was transported for ten years, on the part of the " Felon." Kevin Izod O'Doherty, the young, the promising, and the noble, after three trials, shared his fate. For his connection with the "Tribune," the poet Williams was tried for the same offence and paper, and acquitted, and Duffy, after an imprisonment of some months, and a trial, was set at liberty. Numbers were imprisoned, and many escaped to the mountains. We feel we are outstripping the bounds of our intention in this article; and to follow the leaders who left the city for the mountains of Tipperary and Waterford, after the events just viewed, the reader must refer to the work of Mr. Doheny. It will be found of much, and, at times, absorbing interest. Some critic has justly called it a "romance of history." It contains many of the conferences of the leaders in the mountains, their plans, and frustrations. The incidents which led to, and attended the Ballingarry, Mullinahone, Killenaull, and State Quarry attempts, with much that was inaccurately known, plainly stated, and much that was unknown brought to light. A large, and by no means uninteresting portion of the work, is taken up with Mr. Doheny's personal narrative his wanderings in the hills, his escape to England, thence to France-and concludes with the rising in September, and the attempts at Portlaw, Glenbour, Slievenamon, &c., in Waterford and Tipperary, by O'Mahony and Savage.

Mr. Doheny has a clear, forcible style of writing-often ascending to eloquence, and never falling below the tenor due to works of this class. At times he is compressed to admiration, at others scattered to carelessness. There are some beautiful bursts of poetic prose, as in the eulogy of Davis; and we feel confident that the author is equal to a much higher composition than that which this book, taken generally, presents. There are some poems in the book, which possess merit, for their melody, chasteness, spirit, and resignation-especially those "To my Wife," "The Outlaw's Wife," and "Cuisla gal ma Croidhe." Our space precludes us giving more than one view of the latter :

"I've given the manhood's early prime,
And manhood's waning years;
I've blest thee in thy sunniest time,
And shed with thee my tears;
And mother, though thou'st cast away
The child who'd die for thee,
My latest accents still shall pray
For Cuisla gal ma croidhe.”

The descriptions of his adventures, and the scenery through which he passed, are told with much passion and feeling. The book is also recommended, by having lithographic portraits of the author, Davis, Mitchel, Meagher, O'Brien, Reilly, Dillon, O'Gorman, McManus, O'Donohoe, Duffy and Savage. They are well executed, and many of them excellent likenesses. The work, altogether, is a valuable contribution to the history of the democracy of the times, if it were for nothing more than the facts it records.

Young Ireland is not extinguished in the banishment of one portion of it, or in the exile of the other. Its spirit and essence lives with the prestige of its sincerity and greatness, among the people, and may yet write a page in history, whose brightness shall so shine, that recent events will only be seen, as through a mist or the halo of a dream.

THE SONG OF THE EJECTED TENANT.

I LEAVE thee on the morrow,
My old accustomed home,
In sadness and in sorrow
The hollow world to roam.
Too old to be a ranger,
With heart too full of pride
To crouch unto the stranger,
Whom I have oft defied.
"Tis hard links should be riven,
That time and friendship wove-
'Tis hard power should be given
To hearts that know not love.
'Tis hard, when death is near me,
With certain step, though slow-
When nought is left to cheer me,
'Tis hard from home to go.
I leave the chimney corner,
The old familiar chair,
To lay before the scorner
My aged bosom bare-
To stand at every dwelling,
To catch the rich man's eye,
And with a heart high-swelling,
For some small pittance sigh.
My hope of joy is broken,
My happiness is o'er,

The words of fate are spoken

With eye and heart delighted,
My only child beside,

I heard her young vow plighted-
I saw her made a bride'

In joy we knelt around her,

But ere a year went by,

The demon Sickness found her

She sought her bed to die.

When Spring's night-stars were paling,
Our ululu was loud;

With woman's bitter wailing,
We wound her in her shroud.
She left a child behind her,
I reared him on my knee ;
Alas! if man were kinder,
He need not beg with me.
Over the mighty mountain,
And by the lone sea-shore,
By ice-bound stream and fount in,
We'll wander evermore.
To us, like lamb that ranges
Along a bleak hill-side,

From all the season's changes,
A shelter is denied.

I will not wish disaster

To him who did me wrong,

I leave him to a master
That's merciful as strong;
And when the dawn is breaking
Upon the land and sea,
I'll say, with bosom aching,
"Farewell, old home, to thee."

THE CEDAR GLADES.

CHAPTER II.

OLD HANNAH returned with an uneasy tread to her master's residence, and in a short time after the two figures first mentioned approached. One of them was a tall, gaunt, square-shouldered individual, dressed in linsey-woolsey clothes, that never fitted, and which were of a villainous color, composed of green and brown--wore a soiled Mackinaw overcoat, and a cap made of the hide of a wild cat. On his feet were an immense pair of cow-hide shoes. He held in his hand, at "a trail arms," an enormous rifle, carrying a half ounce ball. A shot pouch and powder-horn hung from his right and left. A cold grimace, a devil would have envied, played over his features-his eye, lit up with a flashing lustre, indicating emotions fiendish, marked everything around him with a scrutiny searching in the extreme-while his aspect and demeanor were not only forbidding, but hideously revolting. His tread was quick yet firm, his gestures few but emphatic. The other individual was dressed in similar clothes, but of a russet hue, was not of medium heighth, had on a blanket overcoat-carried a rifle, running sixty-four to the pound, with shot-pouch and powder-horn to match-and had in his left bosom a large buck-horn handled knife. His features were swarthy, and rendered more than usually disgusting from possessing a beard of several days growth. He had a small, restless, gray eye,-from under his raccoon cap hung, in rat-tail tags, his uncombed hair-his whole appearance giving the unmistakable signs of a ruffian. They halted under the cedar, from which, as before mentioned, swung the gate. It was the lonesome, solemn, spiritual hour of one o'clock-a half-melted snow spotting the ground, on which glittered countless spangles of fresh fallen frost-the heavens smiling above with a beauty unearthly-the moon shooting forth enchanting brightness from her half-hid disc-the starry radiance of the more distant orbs sparkling through space-all animated nature in the deepest repose-nothing being heard save the splashing waves of the stream below, giving forth the monotonous, yet distant roar, of its many diminutive cascades, with which, from time to time, mingled with the far-off howl of the wandering wolf, and the sigh of the winter's winds, sweeping over the cliffs and through the trees, standing, like sentinels, around the house. The two figures moved from under the tree, and stood near a window, at the end of the house, near the chimney. In the chamber, near which they stood, flickered a waving light, shed from the expiring embers of what, a few hours before, had been a huge log fire. In that room reposed old Arthur and his son, on opposite beds, their faces uncovered, a rifle standing near the head of each, and from under their pillows protruded the handles of a brace of pistols-while dozed away, at his feet, the old man's family The two looked on the scene for five, ten, twenty seconds-but it was no time for thought-action was the relief they sought from the horrid spell around them. In two seconds two panes of glass were shat

cats.