Strengthen the Apostolic Thrones:
Make strong without, and pure within,
That Temple built with living stones,
With planetary discipline.

Strengthen the thrones of Kings: the State
Encompass with religious awe;

Paternal rule corroborate:

Impart new majesty to Law.
Strengthen the City, and the Orb

Of Earth; till each has reached its term.
Insurgent powers, and impious, curb;
The righteous and the just confirm."

But, in truth, there is hardly a page upon which we should not desire to linger; nor can we terminate our extracts without congratulating our readers upon the acquisition of such a repertory of genuine Catholic poetry. We have already said that the pieces contained in the present collection are all short and of a fugitive character. But we know no writer of the present day so admirably qualified as the writer of these poems for the still higher task which it has been with us the dream-may we not now say the hope?-of years to see accomplished-a poem illustrative of the social and religious life of Mediæval Christendom-such a poem as Goethe's "Faust," or Longfellow's "Golden Legend," but conceived in a truly catholic tone, based upon a thorough knowledge of catholic principles and catholic usages, and, above all, not merely a perfect appreciation of the catholic spirit, but a complete and personal identification with it—a poem, in a word, conceived and written by one within the circle which it describes, not formed upon a few vague and imperfect glimpses obtained from without, and perhaps marred or distorted by the medium through which they had passed. Such a subject for Mr. De Vere would be a matter not of æstheticism but of religion, not a mere exercise of poetical taste, but a solemn office of duty and of love. This, however, is but a small part of his qualifications for the task. His various and extensive learning, his elegant tastes, his highly-cultivated imagination, his profoundly philosophical mind, and his evident familiarity with the religious philosophy of the mediaval schools, all mark him as eminently fitted to render the fullest justice to such a theme. What should we not give for such an ideal as he would be sure to sketch of the sublime yet practi

Richard Lalor Sheil.

cal intellect of St. Thomas, of the tender but solid mys321 ticism of St. Bernard, of the homely but elevated spirituality of à Kempis! How different would be his "Margaret," or "Elsie," from the conceptions, all beautiful as they are, of Goethe or of Longfellow! Shall we not be permitted to hope for an early opportunity of making the comparison?

ART. III.-1. Memoirs of the Right Honourable Richard Lalor Sheil. By W. TORRENS MCCULLAGH, Author of "The Industrial History of Free Nations," &c., &c. 2 vols. London: Colburn, 1855. 2. Sketches Legal and Political. By the late RIGHT HONOURable RICHARD LALOR SHEIL, edited, with Notes, by M. W. Savage, Esq. 2 vols. London: Colburn, 1855.

3. Sketches of the Irish Bar; with other Literary and Political Essays. By WILLIAM HENRY CURRAN, Esq., 2 vols. 8vo. London, Colburn, 1855.

WE

E are beginning to outgrow our history. Many of us find it difficult now-a-days to realize the condition of the unemancipated Irish Catholic. He would be a strange Irishman, nevertheless, who would not feel a deep interest in the history of one who played so distinguished a part in the successful assertion of Catholic claims as Richard Lalor Sheil. It is proper and salutary that we who have been born to the enjoyment of liberties for which our fathers had to struggle, should make ourselves acquainted with the nature and conditions of the contest; as one measure at least of the value of a result is the labour spent in its attainment. But there is another and perhaps a more important moral still to be gathered from the history of constitutional agitation in Ireland prior to 1829, and it is that which teaches us that the means employed in the vindication of our rights are most likely to prove effectual in their defence. It may be very well for a conqueror to secure and cement his conquests by clemency

VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. LXXVI.

and affability, but as long as the enemy keeps the field he must stand to his arms; and we should do ill to shut our eyes upon the state of public opinion in Great Britain, disclosing as it does a growing hostility to everything Catholic, more threatening in aspect, and more formidable in proportions from day to day. We are enabled to estimate the strength of that feeling by a test of sufficient power, and its intensity must be scarcely calculable when it shows under circumstances the most proper to discourage and repress it. The country is at this moment in close alliance with the greatest Catholic power; with a prince who but a few weeks ago had nearly expiated his protection of the Pope in a way that even Mr. Spooner will hardly approve ; with a man whose life or death, a change in whose purpose, or the alienation of whose will, must effect the destinies of the empire in a degree we are scarce disposed to admit to ourselves; with a man, in fine, and a nation to whom we are bound by ties of gratitude as well as interest; and yet the present moment is chosen by the people of England, coarsely, officiously, and ostentatiously, to insult what Englishmen know by experience to be the most tender and sensitive of all susceptibilities, the religious feelings of their ally. The distemper must be very hopeless that can blind the great majority of Englishmen to the untimeliness and ungraciousness of the attack upon Maynooth, which is, after all, an experimental dealing and the preliminary to a bolder and more comprehensive scale of operations. The claims of Ireland in the matter, to consideration, or if that be too lofty a pretension, to forbearance; to the charities of Christianity, or the decencies of debate; are so little likely to have any influence whatever, that we have no desire to insist on them at all. She may well ask, "Quæ utilitas in sanguine meo?" and as far as the chance of mitigating Protestant rancour is concerned, we certainly do not see any. Foremost when the sands of India are to be slaked with our blood, or an enemy's flag to be brought down upon the sea; first and boldest in the struggle for reform; it is perhaps the condition of our place, as inevitable at Westminster as at Waterloo, that those who lead the charge should be trodden upon by those that follow them to victory; and hence it is, we suppose, that the very men whom we aided to enfranchise, whose chains we snapped while we were encumbered with our own, the dissenters of all others,

T

Richard Lalor Sheil.

and the extreme professing liberals, have proved our bit323 terest and most uncompromising enemies. In apportioning the disasters of the present war, if the ratio of Protestant to Catholic in the population and in the service be considered, the blood of the offering will be found upon more Catholic door-posts than their just contribution to the wants of the country would require; but that will procure them no protection, no indemnity from the prevailing fanaticism; what a destroying angel might respect is contemned by a destroying fiend; the same thing may be good in the trenches and valueless in Parliament; it may preserve our dominion, but it cannot mollify our Spooners.

When such is the temper of protestant feeling, the study of our defences is surely natural, and not at all precipitate or premature. men and best counsels, and allowing for difference of We are likely to have need of our best position, for resources increased in some respects and diminished in others since our first political victories, we shall have to look into the past for principles of action, and the life of Sheil, for instance, is ready to our hand. It is needless to say we have no such men, amongst those at least who are in any degree of prominence, as the giants who obtained emancipation, for there were giants in those days. But, although they belonged to the heroic age of Irish politics, we cannot acknowledge ourselves so dwarfed and degenerate that we should be lost in their harness or unable to lift their weapons. They had their faults and were liable to mistakes, like the rest of us; yet who can doubt that theirs is the school in which to learn our art, and theirs the armoury in which to equip ourselves? The difficulties are, in some respects, greater than formerly, but as already observed, the same may be said of the advantages. We have not, as before, a great party in England, whose advocacy of our rights had for a long time past been traditional, and which gave us the benefit of its undivided co-operation in their attainment;-a party too, which included such men as Lord John Russell, Burdett, Denman, and Brougham, in the early maturity of their genius, and fresh impetuosity of their conviction. The first invasion of our rights, since they were supposed to be finally established, came precisely from that party; and it is to be feared, the support they lend us now is a pure matter of convenience, and hardly defended by them on the cold and

naked plea of expediency. On the other hand our enemies eager, resolute, and disciplined, although with different motives, and on principles widely diverse; some because they dislike us, and others because they long for place; some because they are simply wicked, others because they are only dishonest; and a large number, because on this point they are not altogether sane; club their private ends and particular enmities with an obstinate resolution to slight no advantage, however paltry; to improve every occasion, however insignificant; until they shall have reduced us to the level from which we rose so painfully, or possibly, till they have sunk us beneath it. Still, we have a good deal to rely upon. We have a vantage ground now that we had then to conquer; we had then to win our own, we have now only to hold it. We have also had, if we choose to profit by it, the benefit of experience; aided by a facility of organization, and a familiarity with its mechanism that practice alone can confer. We have, what is next in value to a knowledge of our own resources, and the way to use them, a tolerable knowledge of what the enemy can do, of his weak points and embarrassments, as well as of his strength and opportunities. It is plain to us he will fasten upon any pretence, however frivolous or unsubstantial; and it is equally plain that, if stripped of the pretence he will work without it. The peculiar circumstances of the time have placed him rather at a disadvantage, but unless we seize the opportunity to lay up strength for ourselves, to increase our own resources and diminish his-to perfect our discipline, and rally our friends; he will come upon us finally and irresistibly to the entire and lasting ruin of our liberties. Hence it is that the study of these early struggles becomes so necessary, and that we have need to encourage ourselves by the example and successes of the men who have achieved the portion of liberty we enjoy. Along with this we have the not less valuable study of their mistakes, on which we may be permitted to dwell without prejudice to the gratitude and regard we owe to their memory, and but for which mistakes we should not in all probability have to contend now in defence of those hardly-won rights which they bequeathed to us.

On all these grounds we welcome the Memoirs of Richard Sheil as a gift particularly appropriate to the time, and we have reason to feel indebted to Mr.