factor in the Irish grievance against the English Crown. The process by which an alien proprietor takes away the whole profit of the soil is so obviously an offense against justice that the wonder is, not that the people have united to resist it, but that the statesmen of England have waited so many years to propose any measure of relief. No possible local warrant can create the right to expose the whole people to the hardships of perpetual poverty. Neither parliaments nor the will of kings can give validity to the claims by which a few enjoy the power to turn the industrious peasantry out of doors. The rights of man are higher than the rights of property-at least of stolen property. The time is at hand when English opinion, brought to its senses by the zeal of one man [Charles Stewart Parnell], whose sudden and mournful end has hidden his human frailties behind the splendor of his public service, will welcome the opportunity to restore to the Irish peasantry their ancient heritage.

With the settlement of the land question must come also the final disposition of the larger and not less restless question of self-government for Ireland. That issue, once the theme of jest and ridicule, has acquired an importance that disturbs the plans of all leaders and breaks the program of every party. The raw and insufficient project of the government, introduced the other day, though worthy only of the laughter with which it was received, is a significant concession to the little band of Irish representatives who have mastered the House of Commons, reversed the decree of English opinion, and prepared the way for ultimate victory of Home Rule. The interest of every free nation turns now to the approaching English elections, with solicitude for the health and strength of the venerable statesman [Gladstone], renowned in all the tongues and dialects of the world's thought, who has dedicated the ripened faculties of his great career to the service of public liberty.

It is true that the sum of these social and political reformseven if they were accomplished-while they were included in the manifestoes on the early Irish rebellions, does not reach the level of that sublime national sentiment which warmed the hearts of the patriots of the past. In those times, dependent communities, overborne with despotism, had no available refuge

except rebellion. The colonies of America, with only a few complaints, all of which would in these days be the subject of speedy consultation and fair adjustment, could hear nothing but insults from the stupid Government of George III. A similar policy, if now applied, would leave the British Empire without the allegiance of a single populous colony.

It is certain that the increasing purpose which runs through the ages has brought kings and parliaments under a new light. Governments can no longer be safely administered for the accommodation of royal families. The palace and the castle become less and less, and the cottages of the people more and more, so that Gladstone may to-day do more for the rights of Ireland, by the persuasion of an unanswerable argument, than poor Robert Emmet could have done, even if the men of Wexford and Wicklow and Kildare had followed his standard through the streets of Dublin.

In all her misfortunes, even in her frenzy of insurrection, Ireland has attracted the unfailing friendship of the United States. We have received her exiled leaders with demonstrations of honor, and given hospitable shelter to her expatriated children. We have shared with her in years of famine the stores of our abundance, and in the years of her persecution have gladdened her prisons with the light of our sympathy. We have contributed our money to save the lives of her robbed and evicted tenants, and have enabled her representatives to sit in a Parliament that shuts its doors in the faces of the poor by refusing to provide a salary for the legislative office. For all these things we have been brought into judgment and have passed through the harmless storm of English disapprobation.

We offer no excuse for our attachment for a people who began their contest against national grievances by hanging up in the banquet hall at the Donegal Arms the portrait of Franklin, with the motto: "Where liberty is, there is my country," and ended the feast with this toast to the New Republic beyond that sea: "Lasting freedom and prosperity to the United States of America!" It is too soon to deny the faith of our fathers by despising the faith of yours, either to conciliate the noise of London criticism or to suit the over-educated taste of persons among

us, who have acquired the capacity of appreciating the merits of every country except their own.

That historical alliance of friendly national interest, shown by the grateful words of Washington and Jefferson, and illustrated by the helpful counsel of James Monroe, our Minister at Paris, preserved in the journal of Theobald Wolfe Tone, has grown with our strength till to-day all factions of all parties unite in a common concern for the welfare of Ireland. Her people came with the emigrants of other nations, who settled the wilderness of America. On every field of every American war her blood has been shed for the national defense. She has given advocates to the American bar who have filled our highest courts with the treasures of professional learning. She has contributed the scattered children of her national genius to enrich our literature. She has sent among us the ministers of her faith to spread the truth of the Gospel and exemplify the lofty precepts of our holy religion. She has kept watch through her tears, while from the plundered hovels of her unnatural poverty millions of her people have set out to find in a land of strangers the fair and equal chance that is denied them in the country in which they were born.

These "fugitives from British justice" have taken upon them the oath of our citizenship, but we have not asked them to renounce their affection for their native land. On the other hand we ask to be counted among the lovers of Ireland, and though neither of your kindred nor of your faith, I bow with you in reverent commemoration of the ideal patriot of Ireland's heroic age.

The traditions that attest the tragedy of Robert Emmet's death relate a weird and pathetic story. It is told by those who saw the ghastly spectacle, that the executioner, having cut off the dead man's head, made this proclamation: "This is the head of a traitor, Robert Emmet." And as the blood fell from the rude scaffold, the dogs were seen lapping it from the pavement, while now and then some timid loiterer about the spot would stop to press his handkerchief upon the hallowed ground and hide it away securely in his bosom. I rejoice with you that long since the dogs of calumny and hatred have been driven from the grave of Robert Emmet; that the

hangman's proclamation has been put to universal scorn, and that the traitor of yesterday who begged in vain for the charity of silence and left his epitaph for other times and other men, has become the favorite hero of popular liberty, his name above the need of eulogy, his motives beyond the reach of malice. [Applause loud and long continued.]

EDWARD EVERETT

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON

Eulogy by Edward Everett, statesman, orator (born in Dorchester, Mass., April 11, 1794; died in Boston, January 15, 1865), delivered at Charlestown, Mass., August 1, 1826, in commemoration of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who died on the fourth of July preceding. Another speech by Mr. Everett is printed in Volume XI.

FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS:-We are assembled beneath the canopy of the weeping heavens, under the influence of feelings in which the whole family of Americans unites with us. We meet to pay a tribute of respect to the revered memory of those to whom the whole country looks up as to its benefactors; to whom it ascribes the merit of unnumbered public services, and especially of the inestimable service of having led in the councils of the Revolution.

It is natural that these feelings, which pervade the whole American people, should rise into peculiar strength and earnestness, in your hearts. In meditating upon these great men, your minds are unavoidably carried back to those scenes of suffering and of sacrifice into which at the opening of their arduous and honored career, this town and its citizens were so deeply plunged. You cannot but remember that your fathers offered their bosoms to the sword, and their dwellings to the flames, from the same spirit which animated the venerable patriarchs whom we now deplore. The cause they espoused was the same which strewed your streets with ashes, and drenched your hilltops with blood. And while Providence, in the astonishing circumstances of their departure, seems to have appointed that the Revolutionary age of America should be closed up by a scene as illustriously affecting as its commencement was disastrous and terrific, you have justly felt it your