band's granddaughter; she was pleased to have the child call her "grandmamma; " but she was not fond of her, and, though she had checked Miss Basil, she herself saw so little to admire in Joanna that she could not understand why she should be an obstacle in the way of Arthur's coming to Basilwood. She wished to keep Arthur with her; she hoped to induce him to give up civil-engineering, with which he seemed just now to be infatuated, and devote himself to planting; for, though planting was no longer the otium cum dignitate it had once been, Mrs. Basil found it hard to abjure her hereditary faith in the might of cotton. But, if Miss Basil was going to make a fuss about it on account of the little Joanna, she thought Miss Basil would do better to complain to old Miss Hawkesby, Joanna's great-aunt, who never yet had troubled herself about her young relative; and Mrs Basil was proudly conscious that she had done a good part by her husband's granddaughter.

She did not say any thing of this kind to Miss Basil; it would have sounded too quarrelsome; but, remembering the letter Miss Basil had that morning received, she was moved to ask whether Miss Hawkesby ever

wrote.

"Sometimes, not often," said Miss Basil, reluctantly.

"She does remember Joanna, then? Pray what kind of woman is she? You know I have never seen her ?"

Now, concerning old Miss Hawkesby, Miss Basil thought, and not altogether without reason, that if she would be content to settle down in some quiet place and economize, instead of wasting her time and her money traveling hither and thither, she might be able to do something for the little Joanna, as well as for Anita, Joanna's half-sister, whom the old lady had taken to live with her. Miss Basil, therefore, was not disposed to say any thing particularly flattering about old Miss Hawkesby.

"Heaven forbid that I should judge her!" she answered, with a highly-judicial air. Mrs. Basil smiled faintly.

"Oh, I hope she may yet do something for our little Joanna," she said.

"I don't expect it, and I don't encourage the child to expect it!" Miss Basil answered, hastily, not without bitterness. "Joanna is

very well as she is; I don't wish to be rid of her." An uneasy suspicion that Mrs. Basil meant to banish the child began to creep into her mind.

"Nor do I," said Mrs. Basil, serenely unconscious that any such wish lurked in her heart, and satisfied that she was influenced solely by a desire for Joanna's welfare; "but consider, Pamela, you and I cannot live forever."

Miss Basil turned pale, not at the thought of death, but at the suggestion of Joanna left to struggle alone.

"The Lord will provide," she said, faintly. "I honor your faith,” Mrs. Basil answered, rather coldly; "but in your place I should think it necessary to make some provision for Joanna's future."

"I shall make provision for Joanna's future," said Miss Basil, hastily; then, seeing

Mrs. Basil's surprise, she added, in some confusion, "by teaching her to lay up treasure where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt. And I don't see," she continued, dolefully, "why we need discuss Miss Hawkesby. I am willing to keep Joanna; I've always taken care of her."

"O Pamela, if you disapprove of Joanna's profiting by her own relations," said Mrs. Basil, with an offended air, "it's no affair of mine; but I had only her good at heart, I'm sure."

Then Miss Basil grew penitent.

"You are very kind," she faltered; " and I'll go now and attend to the room."

TEN DAYS WITH THE

THE

SEMINOLES.

II.

HE next day we visited the cornfields again, and staid until the gathering clouds and muttering thunder betokened rain.

Then there was a scampering. Parker's squaw appropriated my guide's marsh pony, and Tiger had mounted my bay stallion.

It was a unique procession that wound through the shady cypress-swamp and over the prairie.

First came Parker's two daughters-young ladies of sixteen and seventeen respectively who had captured one of the old Indian's colts, and, mounted astride its back, led the cavalcade. They seemed to enjoy themselves, and their musical laughter came floating back at every leap and kick of their halfbroken steed. Next came Parker's squaw, astride my guide's pony, with a solemn-looking papoose on her back, holding up her scanty skirts with one hand, while with the other she clung to the bridle. After her came Tiger, with my rubber blanket over his head, a tin kettle on one arm, an iron pot swung from the other, and a lapful of corn.

My guide, a host of pickaninnies, eleven dogs, a colt, and a hog or two, came next.

Parker and myself brought up the rear. The procession started. The girls had stripped, and were clinging to the pony and to each other for dear life. We had gone but a few rods when the pony suddenly elevated his heels, landing the girls-a confused vision of legs and arms-yards away in the marsh. With another flourish, and a snort of defiance, he then scoured away over the plain.

That started all the rest.

Never shall I forget the expression of Tiger's face as he dashed off, clinging desperately to the horse, and shouting broken fragments of Seminole and English:

"Che la ko holawangus; hock to che holawangus; dam!”

The colt then went for the scene, upsetting a whole row of dogs, and extorting profane exclamations from the patient Parker.

After we had reached the shanties, the party came in, one after another, and, removing their garments (such as had any), squatted about the fire.

In my walk with my Indian friend I had

discovered an interesting and valuable plant, au antidote for snake-bites, called by the Indians " pah sah;" by the whites, " rattlesnake master." I am not aware that it is known to the materia medica, and think it is new to toxicologists. It grows in the low prairies and open woods. The Seminole always carries a piece of the root about him.

Examine the contents of a Seminole's medicine-bag-a little square bag woven of palmetto-fibre, which he never is withoutand you will find this root, a piece of irisroot, and perhaps a shred of tobacco.

The mode of operation in case of snakebite is simple. The root is macerated in the mouth and placed upon the wound. As my friend explained to me:

"Chitta (snake) bite um ; kill um. Chitta bite um; pah sah you got; no kill um."

Certain it is that an Indian is never killed by snakes; and equally certain that they are often bitten, as they wade swamps and hammocks with no protection for their legs, and hunt in the most horrible places. Curious is their veneration for a snake.

They believe that if they kill a snake its spirit will incite its surviving relatives to kill them.

We passed a large moccasin snake (a deadly species) right in our path. I was about to kill it, when the Indian stopped me, saying that I had the pah sah; if the snake bit me, I had the cure; if I killed it it would be bad for me.

I killed it nevertheless.

That evening, gathered about the campfire, we entertained one another with stories, though our red brothers did little more than grunt an assent now and then.

The most interesting was told by my guide, who had been present at their annual feast of the harvest, or "busk."

The ceremony is undoubtedly one of purification a propitiatory offering to the Great Spirit. Every year at the ripening of the harvest they gather all the people of their tribes, and hold a grand powwow, lasting several days.

They burn and destroy all the filth and useless utensils of cooking, etc., and burn all condemned old clothes, purify themselves by sweating and washing; after which they elect chiefs, and transact such business as needs attention.

As my guide was at their feast last year, let him relate the story as he told it to me that night, by the smouldering camp-fire, with listening Indians:

"Twas about the first of July; and me and Aleck thought we'd go out and kind of celebrate the Fourth among the Indians, seeing's we'd been invited. Well, we got out here; 'twas over the same trail we took the other day, but the flats was full of water, and 'twas just awful getting here.

"The Injuns give us a shanty, and we turned loose our horses, and the next day the performance commenced. You see that cleared place there, about a hundred feet across? Well, that was all smooth, and was used to dance on, about that pole in the centre, which was all hung with leaves and one thing and another.

"This house here, to one side, was a sort

of sweat-house, and they had it stopped up tight, and a big kettle of water-two or three of them-in one end.

"The women, they went round and collected all the old stuff and made a big heap of it, and then set it afire. Then they went out and got some kind of a root and made a strong drink, and that physicked them, you bet.

"This took about all day.

"Next day they got together on that level place, and danced about the pole. They didn't like it because we was there, and some of the Big Cypress fellows threatened to kill us, but Aleck, had brought out a keg of real good whiskey, and the promise of that, when they was through, made every thing all right.

"The women had them turtle-shells strapped around their ankles, and they'd clap 'em together and make a noise you could hear a mile. First they'd dance kind of slow, then gradually quicken their steps till they would fairly wake things, and sing and howl fit to wake the dead. All these two days they hadn't had nothing to eat, and wouldn't give us any thing, and, if we hadn't brought something, we should have starved.

"Every once in a while, one of the chiefs would get up and make a speech, and then dive into the sweat-house, where they had got up steam by chucking red-hot rocks into them kettles of water. There he would stay till nigh about dead-for the house was all full of steam-and then he'd rush out and jump into that pond, there, stark naked, and yelling like sixty!

"All this time the old doctor seemed to be the master of ceremonies, and he was amumbling over big words, hard enough to choke a white man, and pretended he was conversing with the Great Spirit. Toward night of the second day they seemed to think they'd got things about clean enough, with their sweating, and physicking, and dancing,. and all the girls went off and got corn, and melons, and pertaters, and they had a reg'lar feast, and they eat and eat, till everybody had enough to make up for a two months' fast.

"This is all the ceremony these heathen have, and they don't care no more for religion than a cat. If they are good when they are on this earth, they will go to a land of plenty where things is cheap and whiskey and game is plenty. If they don't be good here they will go to the land of the Bad Spirit, who is half starved, and has no bears'-oil or whiskey. After the ceremonies was all over, they elected old Tustenuggu, chief, instead of Tiger-Tail, who has been chief so long, and that came near making a fight; but it was proved that Tustenuggu was descended from old Micanopy, and had ought to have been chief long ago."

Giving a last look to our horses we retired to sleep upon the hard logs, awoke early the next morning, bade adieu to our kind friends, and departed, intending to return in a few days.

deserted. Not a living being within sight or sound.

Carefully stowed away beneath the thatch were deer-skins, tortoise-shells, and small household articles. In one shanty we found a rifle and a spelling-book.

We were out of provisions, and must find some Indians, or starve. Starting for their plantations, darkness gathered about us be fore we could find the trail through the swamps. Wheeling the horses about, we galloped over broad stretches of prairie, toward the trail through the Black Cypress, for that way the trail led, and we felt sure we should eventually overtake them. The moon came up and flooded the prairies. We passed a group of deserted dwellings, and were greeted by the hoot of "oopah," the owl, from their bare ridge-poles.

Soon we entered the gloom of the Cypress, where scarcely a moonbeam could penetrate, and struggled for an hour in the horrible blackness, with the terrors of our previous passage increased tenfold by the darkness. Exhausted, we led our horses out into the moonlight, mounted and rode on, soon striking the prairie upon the other side. The trail of the Indians was fresh, and my guide followed it without difficulty. On and on we rode, the outlines of the cypress, curved and beautiful, melting away in the distance. Halting to give our jaded beasts a bite of grass, we mounted again, anon falling in with herds of cattle, and giving chase.

The monotonous, long-drawn cry of wolves wailed out faintly on the air. My guide assured me that there was nothing to be feared from them, as well I knew; yet that cry caused me to grasp my rifle tighter and look back over my shoulder more than once. Another wail, nearer now, and another answering, gave promise of good watchmen, in case we had to camp alone. Our horses pricked up their ears at the sound, and pressed forward with renewed speed. A long spell of silence, broken only by the thud of hoofs, ensued, worse in its suspense than the noise of the wolves.

They are on our track!" said my guide, "but I don't know what it means. I ain't seen a wolf on this prairie this year, and there's either a big pack after us, or a starved one." We entered the shadow of a palmettogrove, and dashed over the cracking fans as though we heard the wolves on our track. At the farther end we halted, just a minutepatter, patter-I seemed to hear the noise of many feet, and urged my horse on, while a cold thrill ran down my back.

In the midst of a heavy canter, we saw the gleam of lights at our right, heard the barking of dogs, and, wheeling about, soon found ourselves in the midst of friends.

A host of dogs came forth to meet us, and leaped about and frolicked just as white men's dogs would do. A sleepy Indian greeted us as we crashed into the hammock, over dead and brittle limbs and leaves, who assigned a place for us to sleep, and roused a drowsy squaw, who set out various vessels of food, and then retired.

Kicking the embers of their camp-fire together a blaze leaps up that brings out the weird features of the scene: lofty palmettoes,

with imbricated trunks, stand out gray and ghastly, supporting an arching roof of broad leaves, beneath which, singly and in groups, are stretched the sleeping Seminoles. Many strange objects loom up, and familiar things take unfamiliar shapes, but we are too tired to analyze the picture, and only too grateful to stretch our weary limbs beneath the palms, safe in the company of friends.

It was long past midnight when we had finished our attack upon the meat, sausage, and thin drink, and the sun looked in upon us several hours before we awoke next morning.

An Indian camp is this village, moved into the forest, minus the houses. Nearly all their personal property is carried with them. Hogs, dogs, hens, cooking-utensils, and every thing movable, is taken with them when they set out on a grand hunt. This party was destined for the prairies of the St. John's, intending to be gone a month, and procure hundreds of deer-skins. They marched by easy stages, and hunted as they went. They were to stop here a few days to kill a couple of bears in the cypress-swamps near, then would move on.

Tied to a tree near my head is a halfgrown bear, who lunges at me fearfully as I arose and threw off my blanket. Two small pigs are tied by the middle to another tree, and through all the day they raise their pitiful voices to heaven for deliverance. A litter of puppies, with eyes yet unopened, snarl and whine beneath the shade of a palmetto. Upon poles, stretched from tree to tree, are piles of deer-skins, and large bear-hides curiously stretched with sticks and thongs. From the trees hang pots and kettles, spoons, dippers, blankets, bladders, bottles, fawn-skins of honey, deers' brains wrapped in moss, leggings, saddles, saddle-bags, bear-meat in huge flakes, axes, knives, and thongs, and as miscellaneous and varied a wardrobe of feminine garments as ever adorned an Indian camp. After breakfast, the squaws and girls busy themselves with the various employments left them by their husbands and fathers. One dresses skins, another prepares bread from the powdered" contikatke," coontee, or breadroot; while the little ones run about stark naked, save their beads, gleaning the frag ments left from breakfast, inverting themselves in the huge kettles in search of some choice morsel, or licking the bowl of some huge spoon.

I never tired of watching their antics. They were as cheerful and as jolly as white children, and carried on their games with as much gusto. They never cry. There was a babe there but three weeks old, laid out on the palmetto-fans, which never even whimpered. They made curious little shelters for the children of palmetto-leaves. The stalks of some of these leaves are three feet long, and the leaves as much in diameter, and these would be thrust into the ground, the leaves joined at the top, forming a charming little tent, turning rain and dew, and allowing free play for the wind between the stalk-supports.

The process of dressing the deer-skins is interesting. The skins a re fleshed, thrown into water until the hair peels off readily;

then thrown over a post sunken into the ground at an angle of about 45°, rubbed till perfectly smooth with a piece of wood, and then smoked. This smoking process colors them, in shades varying from yellow to brown, makes them comparatively waterproof, and gives them a villainous odor of smoke, which is retained as long as the skin exists.

To smoke them, they dig a small pit, build a fire at the bottom, place upon the fire pieces of rotten wood, and over the pit place the skins, which have been previously softened with a mixture of deers' brains in water. After smoking, the skins are hung up to dry, and are ready for market.

Toward noon one of the girls led the surly bear-cub to a neighboring pond to drink. He walked by her side peaceably enough until he got opposite us, when he darted so fiercely in our direction that the thong that held him parted. Forgetting the peculiarly ursine predisposition to climb, so inherent in a bear, I started up the nearest tree. It was smooth. A dozen feet from the ground I hung, unable to proceed. It was a desperate situation. Below was a raging bear, sharpening his claws in bloody anticipation; above, the smooth bole of the tree, slippery and smooth as glass. I ask the reader, What would you have done? Verily, you could have done no different from what I was doing-digging toes and finger-nails into that miserable tree. But there is a limit to human endurance. My arms weakened, legs shook, muscles quivered, one desperate effort-I was gone!

So was the bear! After playfully scratching at the root of the tree a while, he allowed himself to be caught and led away. Not being aware of that, I had hung to that tree fall fifteen minutes after his departure. never did love bears.

I

Late in the afternoon a handsome squaw came in from the swamps with a huge load of brier-roots. Without vouchsafing a word to any one, she deposited her load on the ground, procured water, washed a kettleful carefully, and then placed them in another kettle half filled with water. This she hung over the fire, packed a thick layer of Spanish moss over the top, and placed over this a strip of the inner fibre of the palmetto; all this was done to keep in the steam.

A few hours' steaming over a slow fire was sufficient; they were taken from the kettle, mashed to a pulp, strained in several waters, dried, and then reduced to a fine flour. This was the "ah-há," or China brier, by some called the wild-potato. This and the coontee furnish the Seminoles with an abundance of farinaceous food. It is of a brick-red color; the powder of the coontee-root is of the color and appearance of rye - flour. The squaws baked thin cakes of it, and gave them to us, served up in honey. The honey found in these woods is delicious, made mostly from the wild-penny-royal. The Indians are exeeedingly fond of it, and spot a bee-tree a long way off. They carry it in fawn-skins, said skins being stripped from the animals nearly whole, stretched out till dried, when, with the nose tied up, they make water-tight bags.

The Indian fire is a peculiar institution with them. They can produce a flame when it seems impossible, no matter how strong the wind, or how wet the wood. They go about it systematically; place the ends of the wood together, radiating from a common centre like the spokes of a wheel.

These ends, once aflame, will slumber and smoulder a long while. Should the flame die out in the night, you have but to kick a few sticks into the centre, when they burst into a blaze. One can always distinguish an Indian camping-place by the disposition of the charred brands.

At an hour before sunset we heard the report of a gun, then another; that was all, but the squaws looked at one another, and said, "No ko-sé" (bear), and busied themselves in preparing a repast for the hunters and putting the kettles in order for trying out the oil.

A little after dusk the braves came in.

First came villainous-looking but honest and pleasant Parker and his son, each loaded down with bear-meat, and behind them Parker's son-in-law, bearing a quantum of meat and a huge hide.

Old Billy came next, the most perfect specimen of an old Indian I have met with. He was tall, with brawny limbs, a large Roman nose, and large eyes. Tommy Tiger, a Spanish Indian, followed after him, threw his meat at the feet of his squaw, and stood upright, with folded arms, eying us savagely. Tommy Tiger was a son of old Tiger. He was over six feet in height, large and muscular. His eyes were black and fierce; his mouth, firm, but not cruel, was shaded by a small black mustache. We soon made friends with him, and found him gentle and pleasantvoiced.

Every thing was now full of activity; the squaws took the bear-meat and venison, cut the former into small slices, which they strung upon sticks to smoke, and trimmed the hams of the latter.

The brave's work for the day was done. He had procured the meat and skins; the squaw was to prepare and preserve them.

Though wet, weary, and hungry, they were very kind and courteous, answering quietly the questions of the children as they clung to their legs and hands, while at the same time conversing with us.

And this has been my experience with the Seminole. I have found him ever kind, hospitable, generous, and brave; worthy a better fate than is before him. So long, however, as he is left alone, he asks nothing more. He is happy. The forests and rivers furnish food in abundance; and if the native Floridian does not extend his encroachments further, the Seminole will continue to live in peace and harmony with mankind, asking nothing, needing nothing.

We remained with them several days; and, were this but a tale of adventure, I might prolong it many a page; but my only aim has been to represent the Seminole as he is in these pictures of camp and village | life, and enough has been written to show the manner in which he lives.

A few words in regard to his intellectual status. He is supposed to be ignorant, and

in many things he is; yet he has a system of numeration as perfect as and much simpler than ours, and some of the warriors have a rude system of signs in writing which no one but they can understand. Glance for a moment at their numeral system:

Hum-kin, one; hokolin, two; totschanen, three; orstain, four; sha-ka-bin, five; epahken, six; kolopahken, seven; kenapahken, eight; orstapahken, nine; pahlen, ten. The beauty of their system lies in its simplicity.

Twelve is ten and two, thus: pahlen-hokolin; twenty is two tens, thus, pah-le-hokolin; thirty, pah-le-totschanen, etc.

Undoubtedly this system may have its defects. The principal one lies in the necessary length of such a string of words as results from hitching together so many numerals.

I easily acquired the necessary information for reading this multiplication-table up to a thousand, which was "chopkacholehumkin," but I respectfully submit that no mortal man, without an impediment in his speech, could successfully give utterance to their denomination for a million. How appalling would the United States debt appear expressed in Seminole !

FREDERICK A. OBER.

DANIEL O'CONNELL.

IN

AN IRISH CENTENNIAL.

N a remote and rugged corner of the Irish county of Kerry, in the midst of wilds so desolate and crags so barren that they form one spot in Ireland, at least, that is sparsely settled, and on a wooded promontory which overlooks the most gloomy and forlorn of all Atlantic shores, stands the gray pile of Derrynane.

It is an ancient, spacious house, with its court and wings, its chapel and lookout, its stables and shrubberies. To reach it from the fair land of Killarney requires a day or two of rough jolting over uncouth roads: one goes by roaring cataracts, by wonderful precipices, through gorges, across the breezy Kenmare; rocky ranges rise rough and grand at intervals before you; the eye sometimes, but rarely, lights on meadows of the richest, greenest green; Turk Lake lies imbedded in profusest foliage; Eagle's Nest rises boldly in the midst of bald eminences; black cliffs confront you; Nature here wears her sternest and most forbidding aspect.

Yet, when an Irishman wishes to make a patriotic pilgrimage, his thoughts turn to the desolation of Derrynane. Derrynane is the Irish Mount Vernon, the Irish St. Paul's, the Irish Potsdam. For at Derrynane lived the kingliest of modern Irishmen - Ireland's would-be Washington; who towered above all others of his race and time in intellectual greatness and in country-loving ardor, as he towered, in a drawing-room, in physical stature, above the men about him; he whom Irishmen loved to call “the glorious counselor "-Daniel O'Connell.

Ireland has her centennial this year as well as America. DANIEL O'CONNELL was born on the 6th of August, 1775. On the 6th of

August, a century has gone since he saw the light. Nor can we doubt that Ireland will celebrate the event as lustily and lovingly as we celebrate the birth of our own Revolution. O'Connell, the patrician heir of Derrynane, with a descent more ancient than the Howards and the Talbots, may be said to have almost been himself a revolution personified. It is nearly thirty years since the "glorious counselor," while on a pious pilgrimage to Italy, died in that distant land-a prey to age, to disappointment, and to despair. But time has blotted out the remembrance of the neglect and chagrins of his later years the ingratitude of his countrymen killed his body, but not his fame; and to-day no name is held in such reverence, honor, and love, as his, from one end of Erin to the other..

There never lived a conspicuous public man concerning whom more diverse judgments have been passed. The bitterest vituperations and the most extravagant eulogies were lavished upon him for twenty years. The English Tories denied his high birth, refused to admit his eloquence, scoffed at the purity of his patriotism, called him a ruffian, a brawler, and a peculator. The Irish really believed him to be a sort of demi-god. In their eyes there was no talent or excellence that he had not. We may, however, at this distance from the period of his stormy, fitful, but brilliant career, form perhaps a juster estimate than either his enemies, blinded by their fury, or his lovers, dazzled and delighted by his undoubted triumphs, could make.

O'Connell, though of good descent, was not of a rich family. At first he was destined for the Church, and studied at Douay and St.Omars. But just at that time the disabilities of the Catholics were so far relaxed that they were admitted to practise at the Irish bar. O'Connell saw that his forte was not in celebrating masses and hearing confessions, but in politics and the law. He set to work with a giant will "bottled up" more law, says Sir Jonah Barrington, than any student of the day. His rise at the bar was very rapid. This century had scarcely got well on its way before he was acknowledged to be the first advocate in Ireland. He bore down juries with an impetuous eloquence which paled the fame of Curran, and fairly eclipsed Shiel. He used the law, in arguing to the judges, as a familiar and readily-wielded weapon. Then he began to be drawn into the maelstrom of politics. Soon he had the long and dreary tale of Ireland's wrongs at his fingers' ends. It began to be seen that O'Connell's sonorous voice and vehement gestures, his impetuous declamation and burning words, fired the Irish heart as none had done before. He became a patriot and an agitator. In 1809 he proposed in Dublin the formation of a patriotic committee. This soon grew to be that "Catholic Association" which afterward became the dread and terror of England, of king, lords, and commons, for many a year. O'Connell labored with all his Herculean might to make this body at once representative and irresistible. He drew within its fold peasants, peers, and priests; he extended its ramifications throughout Ireland; he established branches in every city

and town; he traveled from county to county, holding monster meetings, to win the warm support of the masses to his project; and, finally, by 1823, we find the Catholic Association meeting annually as a representative assembly in Dublin, assuming to be a sort of voluntary Parliament, and to express the demands of the Irish people upon English justice. It went so far, under O'Connell's vigorous lead and inspiration, as to receive petitions to have a census taken and to levy what was called the "patriotic rent," in every parish throughout the land; and its decrees were read by the priests from the altars of the churches, and even by bishops from their cathedral thrones. It had its organs among the newspapers, and the speeches of O'Connell and Shiel were scattered broadcast by the medium of these and of pamphilets. The immediate object aimed at by O'Connell and his "Parliament" was Catholic emancipation.

So powerful had the Catholic Association become in 1825, that George IV. and his ministers were fully aroused to the dangers it threatened. To grant its demands was, in their eyes, absolutely impossible; George could not foresee that in four short years they would be forced upon his most unwilling acceptance by so stout and stubborn a Tory as the Duke of Wellington. The Liverpool | cabinet resolved to suppress the Association. An act was passed prohibiting it for three years; but O'Connell had not forgotten his law. A new society was formed in such a manner as to evade the act. It was ostensibly devoted to the cause of education. "Every week," says Sir Erskine May, "a separate meeting was convened, purporting to be unconnected with the society. Fourteen days' meetings and aggregate meetings were also held; and at all these assemblies the same violent language was used, and the same measures adopted, as in the time of the original society."

in Clarence." When at last he was forced to yield, with the terror of revolution before his eyes, he took care to vent his ill-nature upon every one who supported the measure, cutting bishops and lords at his levees. Wellington, having first carried a bill suppressing the Catholic Association, pushed through another relieving the Catholics of their disabilities. This opened the doors of Parliament to members of that faith-not only Parliament, but all corporate, civil, political, and judicial offices, excepting those of the ecclesiastical courts, and the offices of regent, lord-chancellor, and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.

This great measure passed on the 10th of April, 1829. O'Connell at once claimed his seat for Clare under the new law; but as it only applied to elections had subsequent to its passage, he was excluded from its benefit. Declaring this to be an outlawry against himself, he hastened to Ireland to become again a candidate for Clare; and so great was the enthusiasm for him in a county which contained many Tories and Protestants, that he was reëlected without opposition. His return to London was a series of triumphs. Everywhere the Irish demonstrated their joy by the wildest acclamations. He hurried on to the new arena of his ambition, sped by the most sanguine hopes of his people. Everywhere, in the bogs of Ireland, and the clubs of Pall Mall, men wondered what this big, broadshouldered, loud-voiced, heavy-bodied Irishman would say and do. He had succeeded at the bar, and on the "stump; " he was the idol of the Irish; he could deal with them in their own rough, ardent way, and with their own extravagance of language. But on the forum of English gentlemen, in a body comprising illustrious statesmen like Peel and Russell, Oxford champions like Gladstone, scions of great houses like Althorp and Bentinck, lawyers like Denman and Sugden, how would he demean himself? Would he prove a brawler, or mayhap a buffoon? Would he be listened to, or coughed and hooted down?

The act expired, and straightway O'Connell revived the old Catholic Association. The same agitation and strategy were resorted to as before. This time it had its effect. The Liverpool cabinet had vanished, and Canning's; the Duke of Wellington guided the helm of state. In 1828, he carried through a bill abolishing the test and corporation oaths which had excluded Dissenters from office. He gave indications of yielding to the Irish clamor. Meanwhile the parliamentary seat for Clare became vacant. O'Connell, backed by the Association, put himself into the field as a candidate. He was not yet eligible to the House of Commons; his shrewd object was to give point and stress to the agitation, to swell the storm he had raised into a tempest, about the ears of Wellington and his colleagues. The priests led the peasants to the polls, and O'Connell was triumphantly chosen over Vesey Fitz-city to hold his own. The Tories obstinately gerald, one of the ministers. Worse than this, it was found that the Catholic soldiers stationed in Ireland could not be trusted to resist the mob. The Duke of Wellington, and Sir Robert Peel, his ablest and most powerful lieutenant, were now convinced that to grant Catholic emancipation had become a necessity. O'Connell demanded his seat in Parliament as

O'Connell at least had courage and selfconfidence. The whole Irish nation was at his back. A word from him would light the fire of insurrection. He held in his palm the alternative of peace or war. He felt that, when he spoke to the House of Commons, his words would have the weight of authority. From the moment that he opened his lips, there was no longer any question of his capa

refused him the palm of eloquence; but the Whigs, who did not like him, were forced to concede it, and all England felt that he was an orator of no ordinary power. He was a chief and leader in the House. He compelled the reformers to consult him. He made and unmade cabinets. When it suited his purpose, he could bring legislation to a dead

lock; and this he did, whenever he saw that the interests of Ireland demanded it.

Emancipation did not satisfy his political digestion. His life was in agitation. Aware of his power alike in Ireland and at Westminster, he resolved to advance a long step farther. He now began to clamor for a repeal of the legislative union between Ireland and England. Finding that it was useless to draw the Whigs further in the advocacy of Irish relief, he dissolved his alliance with them, and started forth in a design to make Ireland so hot for the English that repeal would have to be conceded. He was now in the prime of his manhood, the maturity of his eloquence, and at the acme of his power over the Irish heart. He organized meetings, at which he appeared and spoke to thousands of his excited countrymen in the rich, rugged, and vehement style of which he was so complete a master. In the House of Commons he fearlessly braved the foremost English parliamentary orators; nor could his forensic battles with men like Palmerston, Stanley, Disraeli, and Peel, ever be forgotten by those who heard them. O'Connell had a powerful argument in favor of repeal, which he did not fail to use with great effect. The union had been effected by bribery, wholesale corruption, and utterly against the will of nine-tenths of the Irish people. Yet his crusade for repeal was a visionary and hopeless one. If it could not be accomplished under Liberal cabinets like those of Grey and Melbourne, there was little hope of forcing the Tories under Peel to listen to reason. To the threatening multitudes who flocked in town and country in Ireland to hear "the glorious counselor" speak, and to catch inspira. tion from his lips, the British Government had but one response-the army. For O'Connell himself were reserved criminal prosecutions and the threat of imprisonment. He fought gallantly, sturdily, for a while hopefally; but he saw at last that the battle was a losing one, and it produced despair. Even the potato-rot did not help him; and, when he found that the result of his struggles was only to rivet the chains of national servitude the more rigidly upon Ireland, he threw up his mission, left Parliament, and wandered away to Italy to do penance for his sins, and to die!

O'Connell was a many-sided man. The idea that he was a rude and vulgar demagogue is entirely refuted, even from the mouths of English aristocrats, who knew, saw, and hated him. There are as many contradictory descriptions of him as there are of the first Napoleon, whom, by-the-way, he in certain qualities strikingly resembled. Crabb Robinson, speaking of him as he appeared in 1830, says he was "thick-set, broadfaced, and good-humored, and talked with an air of conscious superiority." In arguing before the Irish courts he usually betrayed "mildness of manner, address, and discretion;" and alike with judges, bar, and people, be seemed a sort of elephantine pet. He had a large, heavy, but by no means ungainly figure; a large, square face, illumined by great and expressive blue eyes; his nose was rather thin, with wide, sensitive nostrils; his lips thick, his smile genial and very winning.

was charmed to see "the eagerness with which O'Connell sprang from his horse, and kissed a toothless old woman, his nurse.'

Greville, a patrician cynic who rarely praises | the court-yard of hospitable Derrynane, he anybody, and who, in certain parts of his journal, is extremely severe on O'Connell, acknowledges that he was learned in historical and constitutional lore, and "a man of high moral character and great probity in private life." It must be confessed that another picture by Greville indicates the reverse of this; for in it O'Connell appears shameless and perfidious, cowardly and without conscience; yet even here Greville says that "nobody can deny him the praise of inimitable dexterity, versatility, and prudence," or that he is "a highly-active and imaginative being." In society the same chronicler describes O'Connell as "lively, well-bred, and at his ease."

Whatever the political vices and insincerities of O'Connell-and those who study his career without bias cannot but suspect that there was a great deal of the demagogue in him-in private life and in personal qualities there can be no doubt that he was generous, amiable, hospitable, and hearty. There was a time when he was revered and loved by nearly all Irishmen, Orangemen of the north included; when the Irish pride in him almost reached the height of idolatry. But yet Ireland at large did not know him as did the folk, especially the humble folk, of his own county, Kerry. There, indeed, he was a demigod. They, beyond all others, knew of his kindnesses and the genial warmth of his nature; not less confident were they in the vastness of his wisdom, and charmed by the vivacity and exuberance of his humor. Crabb Robinson once upon a time journeyed with O'Connell from Killarney to Derrynane. At one of the post-inns the car in which they were was approached by a very old woman indeed, who began to beg of the "glorious counselor."

"Why," said O'Connell, "you are an old cheat. Did you not ask me for a sixpence last time to buy a nail for your coffin?"

it."

"I believe I did, your honor, and I thought

"Well, then, there's a shilling for you, but only on condition that you are dead before I come this way again."

The home-life of O'Connell at Derrynane was that of a well-to-do Irish gentleman "of the real old stock." Some of his habits there are well worth recalling. William Howitt represents him as appearing at breakfast hab-ited in a reddish, well-padded dressing-gown, and a "repeal" cap of green velvet, with a narrow gold band. He had a table to him-self at breakfast, and sat long at it, reading his newspapers and letters. At dinner, the company, whether of guests or only comprising the family, were entertained by the traditional piper, who stood apart in an alcove. O'Connell, as a good and zealous Catholic, had his own father-confessor, attached permanently to Derrynane on a comfortable salarya jolly-looking priest, named Father O'Sullivan. "It somewhat startles you," says Howitt, "to hear, during the day, the sound of merry children's voices from the drawing-room, and, on entering, to behold, amid all the noise and childish laughter, the holy father walking to and fro, as if totally unconscious of the juvenile racket around him, with his breviary in his hand, muttering his prayers." At nine each morning the bell rang for mass, and family and servants gathered in the chapel. The round of amusements were not unlike those of an English squire's house. There were music and games within-doors, hunting, driving, and water-excursions without. "C "Nowhere," says Howitt, "does O'Connell appear to more advantage than in the midst of his own family. He seems to be particularly happy in his family relations; children, grandchildren, guests, and domestics, appear animated by one spirit of affection and respect toward him. It speaks volumes that, within doors and without in his own neighborhood, the enthusiastic attachment to him is greater than anywhere else."

As an orator, O'Connell undoubtedly ranked among the foremost of his time. He had all the exuberance and imagination of the Irish temperament, toned by a fine edu

The old woman began to caper about, cation, and yet tinged with an exaggeration crying:

"I'll buy a new cloak!"

"You foolish old woman," said O'Connell, "nobody will give you a shilling if you have a new cloak on."

"At

The journey of O'Connell toward his domain was almost like a royal progress. several places," says Robinson, "parties of men were standing in lanes. Some of these joined us, and accompanied us several miles. Some of the men ran along by O'Connell's horse, and were vehement in their gesticulations and loud in their talk. First one spoke, then another. O'Connell seemed desirous of shortening their clamor by whispering me to trot a little faster. Asking, afterward, what all this meant, I learned from him that all these men were his tenants, and that one of the conditions of their hold under him was that they should never go to law, but submit all their disputes to him. In fact, he was trying causes all the morning."

When at last the English guest arrived in

which often made it more effective. It is true that he did not display himself at his best in the House of Commons. "There," says Sir Erskine May, "he stood at a disadvantage with a cause to uphold which all but a small band of followers condemned as base and unpatriotic, and with strong feelings against him, which his own conduct had provoked; yet even there the massive powers of the man were not unfrequently displayed. A perfect master of every form of argument; potent in ridicule, sarcasm, and invective, rich in imagination and humor, bold and impassioned, or gentle, persuasive, and pathetic, he combined all the powers of a consummate orator. His language was simple and forcible, as became his thoughts; his voice extraordinary for compass and flexibility. But his great powers were disfigured by coarseness, by violence, by cunning, and audacious license. At the bar and on the platform he exhibited the greatest but most opposite endowments." It was well said of his