unwarped by personal ambition, unseduced by sectionality, and unblemished by bigotry, the Author will feel happy that he has made that man either a better friend to his family or his fatherland. Fayal Cottage, Long Island. March 14th, 1856. J. S. 'NINETY-EIGHT AND 'FORTY-EIGHT. WOLFE TONE AND HENRY GRATTAN. Ir is to the latter half of the last century that the student of Irish history must look for the causes which, carrying their effects into, principally inspired the political movements that have agitated the middle of the century in which we live. To that period we must look for the first distinctive manifestation of those ideas which divide that portion of the Irish race claiming to be national at present. National ideas, by which I mean those principles which are at once the ready resource, as well as fundamental reliance of great national parties, are never impromptu. They are the accumulation of years, the united offspring of many parents, the combination of the best of the good, even as the attractive juxtaposition of many stars forms a constellation. The discoverer of a great idea or a continent, a star or a stream, has a pride, and is accorded by his fellow men a glory only less than that attached to the Power that created them; because the discovery leads to the full appreciation of such creation. After the creation, the discovery of this continent of America is the proudest date in its history. After the beginning, when the heavens and the earth were created, "and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," the next date is 1492. After Genesis, the Genoese. After God, Columbus. The very act of delivering it from the misty womb of ages, and its consequent acknowledgment by the world, paid the solemn debt due Nature for its conception, and indicated a path to those stupendous reforms and benefits, robed in the majesty of which we of this day and hour have a being, a manhood, and a purpose. National ideas are the growth of time, and do not belong in reality to one period any more than the earth would bear fruits this year if there were not seeds placed on her bosom to suckle themselves into richness from the growth of the last. Nothing comes from nothing. And when great originality is attributed to one individual, who produces startling theories or profound practical plans, it accrues purely from the originality, the daring, or the subtlety of his combinations, the power with which he accumulates and purifies; the practical energy with which he applies his reproductions to the wants of those whom he aspires to teach, and the capacity he there |