several occasions offices of mark in the Republic,* in the class of patricians; and that since the fifteenth century until the present day the Buonapartes have been lords of Baetria. I think that this will suffice to convince you of the identity of the Majorcan and Corsican families. "They are most assuredly one and the same race, if what M. Herarger has told me on your part be true. But he added before my departure for Marseilles that the Majorcan house was become extinct. That of Corsica still subsists, and reckons many members, of whom Hermanno and Carlos Buonaparte are both established in Tuscany. "That God, our Lord, may preserve your life, is the prayer of your Servant and Brother in Jesus Christ, "EUSEBIO CASSAR, "Of the Society of Jesus.' "Do you not see, monsieur,' said the venerable ecclesiastic, 'do you not see in that Charles Buonaparte the husband of Lætita Ramolino, and in both the parents of the First Consul, of the Emperor and King of Italy ?" " JOHN LEIGHTON, F.S.A. • Corsica was at this time a dependency of the Genoese Republic. THE IRISH PRESS. N recent years, whenever the utterances of the Irish press have been brought under the notice of the English people, the attention of the public on this side of the Channel has been directed for the most part to articles which are, in the opinion of the Irish Executive, calculated to foment discontent, or to blow into living flame the slumbering ashes of sedition. Though, however, the titles of the Irishman, and its cheaper edition, the Flag of Ireland; the Nation, and its cheaper edition, the Weekly News, are familiar to the reading public, very few contributors to the daily and weekly papers in London have ever seen copies of the Irish "National" journals. They circulate among the Irish resident in the metropolis; but are rarely read in the houses of any other section of the population. It may be further stated, as a somewhat curious fact, that they are seldom, if ever, seen on the tables of newspaper editors in the metropolis. It may not, therefore, be uninteresting to describe briefly the character of these papers, the widespread and potent influence of which cannot be disregarded; and to indicate the effect they exercise on the state of Irish political feeling in its various phases. No one who remembers the deep respect with which the Roman Catholic clergy were considered some few years ago by the people constituting their flocks could have possibly anticipated the indifference with which their views as political guides are now received. This alteration in sentiment must be attributed in the main to the effect of the writing in the journalistic organs generally known in England as "National." Twenty, indeed a dozen years ago, any one who dared to utter in public a sentence derogatory to a priest in the south or west of Irelandwould probably have been the object of a violent assault; and any one who might have had the hardihood to inflict any bodily injury on one of the spiritual guides of the majority of the people would probably have been the victim of lynch-law as prompt and final as the improvised code under which so many obnoxious persons were done to death in the earlier days of the American Republic. The contrast between the state of feeling indicated and that which now prevails is the most striking which has ever been presented in the recorded history of any country. Within a very few years a priest has been burned in effigy; another has been struck in the face at a public meeting; while the most extreme of the "National" organs employ their bitterest satire and most pungent rhetorical darts to assail men who, like Cardinal Cullen and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kerry, have publicly denounced the Fenian confederacy as being a secret society. The Nation, the oldest of the "National" papers, was started in October, 1842. In a short time it gathered to the ranks of its contributors all the talented young men who advocated the principles of the National party. Among these the best known at this side of the Channel are Maurice O'Connell, M. P., John O'Connell, M. P., Charles Gavan Duffy, and Denis Florence M'Carthy. The articles were characterised by remarkable vigour and beauty of diction, and some of the songs and other poems published in its columns have in a republished form taken a standard position in Anglo-Irish literature. Under the title of "The Spirit of the Nation" these lyrics have attained a wide popularity, and such songs as "The Battle Eve of the Brigade" and "Clare's Dragoons," by Thomas Davis, "The Memory of the Dead," published anonymously, and “O'Domhnall Abu" (commonly written O'Donnell Aboo), by M. J. M'Cann, are known through the length and breadth of the land; and the knowledge of such pieces for recitatation as "The Geraldines" and "My Grave," and "The Lament of Owen Roe O'Neill," by Thomas Davis, is equally broadly diffused. On their first publication, the Quarterly Review described these metrical selections as possessing great beauty of language and imagery, and Fraser's Magazine declared that though they were mischievous it "dared not condemn them, so full were they of beauty." Mr. Isaac Butt, Q.C., now member of Parliament for Limerick, a gentleman who at one time directed the magazine which takes its name from Ireland's olden university, spoke of them as being "inspired;" and the martial tone and spirit of some of the ballads elicited from the Tablet the expression that they were "the music of the battle-field." The following is an extract from the preface to the edition of "The Spirit of the Nation," published in February, 1854: -"A new edition of 'The Spirit of the Nation' has been long called for. It had got so completely out of print that the publishers, after long inquiry, only obtained a copy accidentally at an auction of books. Meantime its reputation has been steadily rising, not only at home, but in England and America." Francis Jeffrey and Miss Mitford in England, and Longfellow in America, have written and spoken of some of the poems with enthusiasm, and a new demand for them has grown up in both countries. Still more recently the great Tory periodical quoted above contained a justly laudatory notice of some of the poets whose names have been more closely connected with the palmy days of the Nation. The importance of these metrical effusions in Irish history will be learned from the following paragraph, taken from the preface to the edition published in 1845: "It (the collected work) was seized on by Ireland's friends as the first bud of a new season, when manhood, mind, and nationality would replace submission, hatred, and provincialism. It was paraded by our foes as the most alarming sign of the decision and confidence of the National party, and accordingly they arraigned it in the press, in the meeting, in Parliament, and finally put it on its trial with O'Connell in 1844." The Irishman, originally started in Belfast by Mr. Denis Holland -a native of Cork, whose death in America has been recently announced—and afterwards transferred to Dublin, has now reached its fifteenth volume. It is not the purpose of this brief paper to express any political opinion. It may, however, be stated that some of the articles published in the Irishman are remarkable for their fervent eloquence and rhetorical beauty. It will be remembered by all who have watched the progress of recorded events for the last few years that Mr. Pigott, the proprietor of the Irishman, was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for inserting an article entitled "The Holocaust," written on the occasion of the execution of Allen, Larkin, and Gould, at Manchester, for the murder of Police-sergeant Brett, in their successful effort to rescue two prisoners accused of Fenianism. At the trial, the judge, as well as the counsel on both sides, referred to the exquisite diction which characterised some of the passages contained in the subject of the indictment. An extract from a number of the Irishman published in the earlier half of last month will give some idea of the influence it endeavours to extend. This is chosen inasmuch as it deals with a subject with which people on both sides of the Channel have recently become familiar. This article, from an American correspondent, refers to the reply of Father Burke, the Dominican Friar, to Mr. Froude, on Irish history: A Roman Catholic priest, we all know, is not a free agent in religious or political matters. If we ignore this fact we are unfit to render a verdict in this case. He may talk as much treason as another man, but nobody but a fool expects him to rise in revolt or to sanction insurrection like other men. This is the key to what seems so difficult to some. We attach too much importance to what a priest says about politics, we seem to doubt the justice of a revolt against tyranny unless we have the approval of the clergy; forgetting that priests are commissioned to preach religion and not politics-that their mission is one of peace, not of war. We would rather have the opinion of Isaac Butt on a question of law than the opinion of Cardinal Cullen; and we would sooner consult Drs. Stokes, Corrigan, M'Donnell, or Lyons (Irish doctors) on the state of our physical health, than Drs. Ullathorne, Manning, or Moriarty. But if it were a question touching our salvation, we (as Catholics) would never think of applying to a Stokes, or a Corrigan, or an Isaac Butt. Why it should be different in politics appears to be entirely due to the fact that when priests were treated as rogues and rapparees, they became the advisers of the people, and shared their fortunes and their fate. Then the clergy were less opposed to resistance and revolt than they are now. They now enjoy all the liberty they can desire, while the people are still oppressed by the same tyranny and the same tyrants that set the same price on the head of a priest and the head of a wolf. All this, however, is fortunately passing away. The people have learned to think and to act for themselves in political matters. The words of the priests are no longer of weight if they are spoken more in the interest of England than of Ireland. This is well exemplified in the cases of Cardinal Cullen, Dr. Moriarty, and other eminent ecclesiastics noted for their saintly and holy zeal for the Catholic Church, but noted also as the enemies of Irish independence. As the priests of God, every Catholic must hold them in the highest esteem, but as Irish patriots the humblest peasant in Ireland abhors the political doctrine they preach. One feature of Irish daily journalism is perhaps more remarkable than that of any other newspaper press in the world. It is that in a country where, even on the returns most favourable to Protestants, the Roman Catholics constitute something like three-fourths of the population, all the daily morning papers in Dublin, and most of the dailies of any importance, are the property of Protestants, and directed by professors of that creed. And here the fact may be noted that amidst a gradually diminishing population and a decaying commerce, there are in Dublin as many daily morning papers as there are in London-if the organ devoted in the English metropolis to the interest of a particular trade be excepted-and that there are more evening papers, if the evening editions of the Dublin morning journals be considered. The oldest paper in Ireland is Saunders's News Letter, the name of which suggests its early date. It professes what may be called constitutional principles. It has been for years the property of the Messrs. Potts, by whom large fortunes have been made through the agency of the journal with which their family name is familiarly associated. Of late, doubtless, owing to the high social position which the family has assumed and the wealth it has accumulated, the interest of the paper as a commercial undertaking has not been advanced with the enterprise which characterises the conduct of its young contemporaries. The Daily Express may be described as representing the clerical phases of Protestant opinion; its tone is always dignified and |