of his arrival in Ireland.

SCOTSPRIG, August 29, 1846.

In the autumn he wrote from Scotsbrig, | that, too, has generally to make itself indiffer. where he was on a visit to his mother, that ent. But if such were the case, I might very his arrangements were nearly completed, pleasantly stay two or three days beside you, and again a little later to announce the day and bathe in the Irish Sea, before I went further. In any case I mean to see you there, to have a considerable colloquy with you, if I can. My next address will be Dumfries (Mrs. Aitken, Assembly Street), but after Wednesday I shall not be sure of getting it at once. Pray let the Nation henceforth be sent to Chelsea as heretofore, where my wife will now in two days be. I wish I were there myself, and my travels well over. Yours, ever truly,

I am still here, lounging about, with occasional excursions, in a very idle manner, for some weeks past; one of the saddest, most mournfully interesting scenes for me in all this world. The moors are still silent, green, and sunny, and the great blue vault is still a kind of temple for one then; almost the only kind of temple one can try to worship in these T. CARLYLE. days. Otherwise, the country is greatly in a DUMFRIES, Sept. 2, 1846. state of degravement, the harvest, with its black potatoe-fields, no great things; and all On Friday, the day after to-morrow, I proroads and lanes overrun with drunken navvies; pose to set out for Ayr; and ten miles beyond for our great Caledonian railway passes in this that, at Ardrossan, expect to find a steamer direction, two railways, and all the world here, which will land me at Belfast early next mornas elsewhere, calculates on getting to Heavening, some time between 4 and 6 A.M., of by steam! I have not in my travels seen any-swiftly out of the smoke of it again. So far Saturday. I hope to see Belfast, and get very thing uglier than that disorganic mass of laborers, sunk theefold deeper in brutality by the threefold wages they are getting. The Yorkshire and Lancashire men, I hear, are reckoned the worst, and, not without glad surprise, I find that the Irish are the best in point of behavior. The postmaster tells me several of the poor Irish do regularly apply to him for money drafts, and send their earnings home. The English, who eat "twice " much beef, consume the residue in whiskey, and do not trouble the postmaster. If there were any legislator in this country, he would swiftly and somewhat sternly, I think, inter

as

is clear prediction, if the Fates will; after that

am somewhat in the vague; but do confidently expect to find some coach that will carry me to Drogheda that same day, and calculate accordingly on passing the Saturday night at Drogheda, sleeping or not as the Desaid of railways, &c., I think there cannot be tinies appoint. From Drogheda to you, by above two hours: some time on Sunday, at some place or other, I flatter myself, we shall have met. My ulterior movements shall remain undecided till I have rested for a day. Drogheda, as Cromwell's city, and twice besieged in that war, is a place I could look at "National Palaver for some hours with proper interest, especially 99 cannot interfere. "Parliament in College Green!" O Heaven, you if I had an intelligent monitor to tell me what ought daily to thank Heaven, that that is for- to look at, but that I fear is far too great a ever an impossibility for you! I would like luxury to hope for; I must try to do the best also to show Exeter Hall and the Anti-Slavery the Post Office, and if a letter from you lie I can without that. In any case I will call at Convention a glimpse of these free and independent navvies on the evening of monthly there waiting me with any indication as to pay-day, and for a fortnight after. But enough Drogheda, and more especially as to yourself, and how I can best see you, it is like to be very welcome indeed. No more in such a hurry as this.

fere in the matter: a poor self-cancelling

of them and their affairs.

I am now looking homewards; but have not yet by any means given up my purpose to have a glance at Ireland first. On the contrary, I am now busy making out an eligible route. One or two on closer investigation have been renounced; my view at present is towards Ayrshire, towards some of the Western Scotch ports. Glasgow, at any rate, will not fail to offer a steamer, but I do not, except on necessity, care to see Glasgow at present. One way or other I think it likely I may be in Ireland, on some point or other, in a week hence. You shall hear from me again, with more minute specifications, in not many

days.

If Dundrum be, as I fancy, a clean sea village, it might be possible to procure, what I find for most part very unattainable away from home, a lodging with a quiet bedroom, in which the wretched traveller might hope for natural sleep. All else is indifferent but that; and

Dundrum was not, as Carlyle supposed, a watering-place on the coast, but a village on a slope of the Dublin mountains, where I was then spending the summer. It contented him, however, and he met there, among other notabilities, most of the writers and orators on whom their contemporaries bestowed the soubriquet of Young Ireland. He was evidently pleased with some of them, and he won their respect and sympathy in no limited measure. where he saw O'Connell, and to as many We brought him to Conciliation Hall, of the lions of Dublin as it was possible to interest him in, and after a brief visit he sailed away to England, leaving many enthusiastic friends behind. The relation

W. E. FORSTER.

THE year after his visit the famine which sprang from the potato blight of 1846 was raging in Ireland. He sent me the report of a young Quaker intrusted with the distribution of a relief fund contributed chiefly by the Society of Friends. It exhibited such practical sense and generous sympathy that I read it with much interest, little foreseeing that the young man would, in a few years, become a stern ruler of the country to which he was a benevolent visitor.

"Irish

of these young Irishmen to Carlyle was wisest among us cannot guess what the end of somewhat different from the relation ex- these things is to be. For it is not Ireland isting between him and thoughtful young alone; starving Ireland will become starving Englishmen. He did not teach them to Scotland and starving England in a little think as he thought, but he confirmed their while; if this despicable root will but continue determination to think for themselves. As dead, we may at last all say that we have they were not idlers nor fops, but serious into a swift fierce crisis of death or the beginchanged our sordid chronic pestilential atrophy students, they welcomed his dictum that ning of cure; and all "revolutions" are but work done was the best evidence of life small to this-if the potato will but stay and manhood, and that any toleration of away! Your Irish governing class are now shams or false pretences was fatal to self-actually brought to the Bar; arraigned before respect. I can confidently affirm that his Heaven and Earth of misgoverning this Irewritings were often a cordial to their land, and no Lord John Russell or hearts in doubt and difficulty, and that party" in Palace Yard, and no man or comtheir lives were more sincere, simple, and bination of men can save them from their sentence, to govern it better, or to disappear steadfast because they knew him. and die. The sins of the fathers fall heavy on the children, if after ten generationssurely, I think, of all the trades in the world that of Irish landlord at this moment is the frightfullest; the Skibbereen peasant dies at once in a few days; but his landlord will have to perish by inches, through long years of distion under yet undeveloped forms; and him, quieting tumult, dark violence, and infatuaif God take not pity on him, nobody else will pity! Either this, it seems to me, is inevitable for the Irish landlord, or else a degree of manfulness and generous wisdom, such as one hardly dares to hope from him--from him, or from those about him. It is really a tremendous epoch we have come to, if the potato will not return! And then, as I said, our Scotch landlords, and then also our EnDEAR DUFFY, - Here is a paper which has glish, come in their turn to the Bar-not come to me to-day from the writer of it, a very much less guilty, if much more fortunateworthy acquaintance of mine, which as a small and they now will have a ravelled account to memorial of me for the moment, a small drop settle! But England and they are fortunate of oil on huge waters of bitterness and tumult, in this, that we have already another aristocI send you to read. Forster is a young wealthy racy (that of wealth, nay, in some measure manufacturer, who migrated some years ago that of wisdom, piety, courage) an aristocfrom Devonshire or Cornwall to Yorkshire racy not at all of the "chimerical" or "do for taking up that trade, and was recom- nothing" sort, though not yet recognized in mended to me by John Sterling; I have ever the Heralds' books, or elsewhere well; but an since liked him very well. A Quaker-or aristocracy which does actually guide and rather the son of a Quaker, for he himself govern the people, to such extent at least as has little to do with what is obsolete, a that they do not by wholesale die of hunger. most cheery, frank-hearted, courageous, clear-That you in Ireland, except in some fractions sighted young fellow: -the Quakers, some months ago, made a special subscription for Ireland, and decided, like prudent people, on seeing with their own eyes their money laid out. Forster's father and self were of the deputation to that end, or, for aught I know, were the sole deputation; and this is the report they have given in. Read it, I say, and enjoy five minutes of a Sabbath-feeling-not too frequent with any of us in these times.

CHELSEA, March 1, 1847.

It is long since I heard anything direct from you; nay, in the Nation itself I now find but little of you; only here and there, in some genial, honest, patient human word (as in the paper on "Emigration" last week) do I trace your hand, and with all my heart wish it speed. The aspect of Ireland is beyond words at present. The most thoughtless here is struck into momentary silence in looking at it; the

of Ulster, altogether want this, and have nothing but landlords, seems to me the fearful peculiarity of Ireland. To relieve Ireland from this; to at least render Ireland habitable for capitalists, if not for heroes; to invite capital, and industrial governors and guidance (from Lancashire, from Scotland, from the moon, and from the Ring of Saturn); what other salvation can one see for Ireland? The end and aim of all true patriotism is surely thitherward at present! Alas! you must tell Mitchel that I read with ever greater pain those wild articles of his, which, so much do I love in them otherwise, often make me very sad. Daniel O'Connell, poor old man now nearly done with his noisy unveracities, has played a sad part in this earth! All Ireland cries out, "You have saved us." But the fact is very far otherwise. Good Heavens,

even in these dark times! A man in all "times" makes his own world; this in the darkest condition of the elements is a gospel that should never forsake us.

when I think what pestilent distraction, lead- | noble years together in this world. If it be ing direct to revolt and grape-shot, and yet the will of the Fates I shall be right glad to unsounded depths of misery he has cast into make farther acquaintance with this lady, perall the young heroic hearts of Ireland, I could haps under better auspices, some time by wish the man never had been born! Mitchel and-by. The site of your new house (for we may depend on it, it is not repeal from En- went by so many routes to Dundrum) is not at gland, but repeal from the Devil, that will save present very clear to me; may I know it bet Ireland. England, too, I can very honestly ter, one day, and see with satisfaction what a tell him, is heartily desirous of Repeal, temple of the Muses, and stronghold of the would welcome repeal with both hands if En-heroisms and veracities, you have made of it, gland did not see that repeal had been forbidden by the laws of Nature, and could in the least believe in repeal! Ireland, I think, cannot lift anchor and sail away with itself. We are married to Ireland by the ground plan of this world-a thick-skinned laboring man to a drunken ill-tongued wife; and dreadful family quarrels have ensued! Mitchel I reckon to be a noble, chivalrous fellow, full of talent and manful temper of every kind. In fact, I love him very much, and must infinitely regret to see the like of him enveloped in such poor delusions, partisanships, and narrow violences, very unworthy of him. "Young Ireland," furthermore, ought to understand that it is to them that the sense and veracity of England looks mainly for help in a better administering of Ireland; to them (and not to the O'Connell party, who are well seen for what they are), to them, in spite of all their violence, for it is believed that there are among them true men. This I can testify as a fact on rather good evidence. Adieu, dear Duffy; I meant but a word, and here is an essay !

Ever yours,

T. CARLYLE.

The Chapmans were to send you a book they had been reprinting of mine. I suppose it arrived safe. Read the Tablet of yesterday, and forgive the editor for some nonsense that now and then falls from him; this is sense. These poor priests in Cloyne: weeks ago when I read the report of their meeting I said to myself, "Thank God for it. This is the first rational utterance of the human voice I have yet heard in that wide howl of misery and folly which makes the heart sick!" May all the priests in Ireland with one accord do the like, and all true Irishmen join with them.

Adieu.

A little later he sent felicitations on an event of high personal importance to me.

CHELSEA, March 15, 1847. DEAR DUFFY, I am delighted to hear of your good fortune! From a phrase in your former letter I had been anticipating something of this kind, which now it seems has happily arrived. I noticed the young beauty, among the others, that day in Bagot Street; but had I then known what was coming should have taken a much closer survey. Pray give her my best regards; my true wishes that this new union may be blessed to you both, that you may have many happy, and, what is much more, many brave and

I am very idle here at present; but surely, if I live, shall not always be idle." The world, mainly a wretched world of imposture from zenith to nadir, seems as if threatening to fall rapidly to pieces in huge ruin about one's ears; it seems as if in this loss of the poor Irish potato the last beggarly film that hid the abyss from us were snatched away, and now its black throat lay yawning, visible even to fools! How to demean oneself in these new circumstances is rather a question. We shall see Bocca stretta, occhi sciolti.

I will say no more about "Repeal at present. The "Coxcombs in London " are a dreadful sorrow to us all, and every honest soul of us is straining as he can to get rid of them in some good way- -to change them and their windy spouting establishment into some real council of Amphictyons. But we know also that already they are not "the Government," except in name merely; that already the real Government, and even the Acts of Parliament, for every locality, rest truly with those that have power in that locality- in Ireland with the Irish aristocracy, for example; the more is your woe! Do you think they are precious to any good man here? T. CARLYLE.

Adieu.

HIS SECOND VISIT TO IRELAND.

THREE years later, Carlyle paid a second visit to Ireland. To make the conditions and circumstances of this new journey intelligible some brief explanation may be convenient. In the interval the political and personal fortunes of his Irish friends had undergone a tragical reverse. The generous young men who surrounded him in 1846 were for the most part State prisoners or political refugees in 1849. A famine, which had twice decimated the agricultural population in a country which produced a superabundance of food for all its people, drove men to abandon further reliance on petitions and remonstrances to a deaf oracle. The European revolutions of 1848 indicated another possible remedy for intolerable wrongs, and in the midsummer of that year a national insurrec tion was attempted. In the forlorn and dispirited condition of the people it failed utterly, and the men responsible for the

attempt, some of the very men, indeed, | nay, often enough, in the midst of those mad who had welcomed Carlyle to Ireland tumults, I had to recognize a voice of clear three years earlier, were convicted of high modest wisdom and courageous veracity, adtreason or treason felony, and were trans- monishing "Repealers "that their true enemy ported beyond the seas. was not England after all, that repeal from the Devil, would and could do nothing for England, except accompanied by repeal from them; and this most welcome true voice, almost the only such I could hear in Ireland, was the same C. G. Duffy's. Courage, my friend, all is not yet lost! A tragic destiny has severed you from that one source of mischief in your life. Let this, though at such a hideous cost to you, be welcome, as instruction dear-bought but indispensable! By Heaven's blessing, this is no finis in your course, but the finis only of a huge mistake, delivered from that. I mean what I say. and the beginning of a much nobler course, The soul of a man can by no agency, of men or of devils, be lost and ruined but by his own only; in all scenes and situations this is true, and if you are the true man I take you to be, you will find it so yet. Courage, I say; courage, patience, and for a time pious silence! If it please God, there is yet a day given us; "all days have not set," no, only some of

For my part, I had been four times arraigned for the same offence as my friends, but it proved impossible to attain a verdict. The curious story of my escape has been already told in detail. It may be stated in a sentence. Lord Clarendon, then lord lieutenant, honored me with his special enmity, and to procure a sure and speedy verdict against me, so overstrained the criminal law that, by the skill of my eminent counsel, the instrument was shattered in his hands. After ten months' close imprisonment, during which the steam was three times kindled in the frigate designed to carry me into penal exile and had to be three times extinguished amid considerable public laughter, which seriously discomposed official and judicial persons, I was admitted to bail, to come up if required for another trial at the next Commission.

During my imprisonment, Carlyle wrote to me with affectionate sympathy. He was far from approving of an Irish Revolution, or believing one possible; but it may be assumed that he was of opinion I had not done anything in furtherance of that object unworthy of a man of honor.

them.

T. CARLYLE.

Dear Duffy, I know not whether you can send me any word of remembrance from the place where you are, but rather understand that you cannot, nor is it material, for I can supply the word. But if now, or henceforth at any time while I live, I could be of any honest service to you, by my resources or connections here or otherwise, surely it would be very welcome news to me. Farewell for the presCHELSEA, October 21, 1848. ent. My wife joins in affectionate salutation DEAR DUFFY, -It was not till last night to you. That autumn evening on the pier at that I could discover for myself any distinct Kingstown, with your kind figure, and Mitchplan of attempting to convey a word of sym-el's in the crowd, yes, it will be memorable to pathy to you, in this the time of your distress; me, while I continue in this world. Adieu. and I know not still for certain whether the Yours ever truly, small enterprise can take effect. If this bit of paper do reach you within your strait walls, let it be an assurance that you are still dear to me; that in this sad crisis which has now arrived, we here at Chelsea do not find new cause for blame superadded to the old, but new cause for pity and respect, and loving candor, and for hope still, in spite of all The one blame I ever had to lay upon you, as you well know, was that, like a young heroic all-trusting Irish soul, you had believed in the prophesying of a plausible son of lies preach- DEAR DUFFY, -There has risen a specuing deliverance to your poor country; and lation in me, which is getting rather lively in believing, had, as you were bound in that these weeks, of coming over to have a delibercase, proceeded to put the same in practice, ate walk in Ireland, and to look at the strange cost what it might cost to you. Even in this doings of the Powers there with my own eyes wild course, often enough denounced by me, for a little. The hot season here- of baked I have to give you this testimony, that your pavements, burning skies, and mad artificialconduct was never other than noble; that ities growing even madder, till in August they whoever might show himself savage, narrow-collapse by sheer exhaustion- is always minded, hateful in his hatred, C. G. Duffy always was humane and dignified and manful;

Four Years of Irish History. By Sir C. Gavan Duffy. London: Cassell & Co.

After my release from prison, I spent a few weeks in London, and saw much of Carlyle, Mrs. Carlyle, and their closest friends. I do not think his second visit to Ireland was projected at that time, but shortly after my return home he mooted it in a letter.

CHELSEA, 29th May, 1849.

frightful to me; and during this season, from various causes, is likely to be frightfuller than common: add to which, that I have fewer real fetters binding me here than usual - nothing express at all but an edition of "Cromwell,"

which the printers, especially after two weeks suddenly took his axe and brained de Lacy hence, may manage for themselves; in short, I should esteem it worth while. The famishall taken together, I incline much to decide ing Unions, I of course want especially to that I ought to give myself the sight of one see; this of itself, I suppose, will take me other country summer, somewhere on this into the "Picturesque" department, which, green earth; and that Ireland, on several ac- on its own strength, I must not profess to recounts, has strong claims of preference on me. gard much. What remarkable men have you I do not expect much pleasure there, or prop-in Ireland? There is a very wide question. erly any "pleasure; "alas! a Book is sticking But, in fact, I am still, as you perceive, in a in my heart, which cannot get itself written dim inquiring condition as to this tour, and at all; and till that be written there is no hope solicit help from any likely quarter. Aubrey de of peace or benefit for me anywhere. Neither Vere has undertaken to put down on paper his do I expect to learn much out of Ireland; Ire- notions of a set of Irish notabiles and notabilia land is, this long while past, pretty satisfac- for me: one of the purposes of this letter was torily intelligible to me-no phenomenon partly to try whether you perhaps would not that comes across from it requiring much ex- contribute a little in the same way, or in any planation; but it seems worth while to look a other way? Write me a word as soon as you little at the unutterable Curtius Gulf of Brit-have leisure, on this and on other things. ish, and indeed of European, things, which has visibly broken forth there: in that respect, if not in another, Ireland seems to me the notablest of all spots in the world at present. "There is your problem, yours, too, my friend." I will say to myself: "Then, see what you will make of that!" In short, why shouldn't I go and look at Ireland, and be my own (Eternity's) Commissioner there? Wm. Edward Forster, the young Quaker whom you have seen, offers to attend me for at least two weeks, from the middle of June onwards; and, in truth, day after day the project is assuming a more practical form. Probably something really may come of it.

[John] Forster was greatly pleased with you both, and perhaps there may be an abatement of nonsense in one small province of things by reason of that visit. What you are deciding on for your own future course will be very interesting to me, so soon as it has got the length of being talked about. We send many kind regards to Mrs. Duffy, last seen as a Naiad, then vanishing in the dust of the Strand, - - Eheu! In Bagot Street there is a beautiful sister, whom I remember well, and always wish to be remembered by.† No more; paper and time are done.

Yours, ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

refers to my conditional promise to accomA second letter on the same subject pany him on his excursion, the condition being that I was not in prison at the time fixed for the journey, for my bail terminated on the 12th of July, little more than a month from the date of his letter.

CHELSEA, June 8, 1849. DEAR DUFFY, - Many thanks for your comfortable, kind, and instructive letter. I like well to fancy you fishing in the clear waters about Bray, in the still valley of the Dargle, in this weather, and do imagine that whatever else you may catch, there is a real chance of your achieving, in such scenes and

My preparations hitherto do not amount to much; yet I am doing, under obstructions, what I can. Yesterday, not till after much groping, I did at last get a tolerable map of Ireland (the Railway Commissioners', in six big pieces). I have examined or re-examined various books; but, unfortunately, find hardly one in the hundred worth examining. Sir James Ware's book (by Harris) is the one good book I have yet seen. Flaherty says Camden saw England with both eyes, Scotland with only one, and Ireland cacus, with none". nevertheless Camden is yet by far my best guide in historical topography; indeed he, the very Apollo of topographers, has rendered all others vile to me, unendurable on any ground that he has touched. 1 have also read the life of St. Patrick - Joce-employments, some addition of health and lyn's absurd legend; the dreary commenta ries of poor Bollandists; and St. Patrick's Own "Confessio" (which I believe to be genuinely his, though unfortunately it is typical, not biographical); and one of the few places where I yet clearly aim to be is on the top of Croagh Patrick, to wish I could gather all the serpents, devils and malefici thither again, and rolling them up into one big mass, fling the whole safely into Clew Bay again! St. Patrick's Purgatory too (but the real one, in Lough Erne, I think); the Hill of Tarah likewise, and if I could find that Castle of Darwasth (or Ardnochar and Horseleap, in W. Meath county) where the native carpenter, when Hugh de Lacy was showing him the mode of chipping and adzing,

composure both to body and mind. Fear nothing for the "12th of July; "there is, I suppose, not the slightest purpose on the part of the official persons to try that operation again; they know too well that if they did, they have not the least chance to succeed. If it pleases Heaven, you shall have passed victoriously through that most dangerous experi ment, dangerous not from Monahan ‡ alone, or even chiefly, as I read it, and a new and clearer course will henceforth open for you,

The Poor Law Unions, where the famine was most aggravated. complishments, to whom Carlyle, as will be seen, sent Mrs. Callan, a woman of remarkable gifts and acfriendly messages for more than forty years. The Irish attorney-general.