For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of Tue Living Agr. 18 cents. CASALE ROTONDO. DEATH UNDISGUISED. [A ruin in the Campagna, about six miles outside Rome, "O DEATH, thou subtle Proteus, that dost on the Appian Way, is called Casale Rotondo.] IF life indeed were ours, Well might the heavenly powers wear Such shifting shapes in human phantasies, Fain would I see thy face without disguise, Smile as they watched Man's fruitless strug. And know thee as thou art, for foul or fair." gle here; We build, and build in vain, Drowns all the work, but yet we persevere. Man's proud achievements fall; Reft arch or mouldering wall, Where solemn temple stood or palace high, Tell the old tale anew Which royal David knew, Then Death appeared, responsive to my prayer, In his own aspect, grandly calm and wise, With a strange light of knowledge in his eyes, But kind and gracious — and he blest me there. And from that day, as friend would walk with friend, We walk the world together, he and I, The works of Man, as Man himself, must die. So that the ways of life through which we wend When Scipio beheld Despairing Carthage, held By his stern leaguer, girdled round by fire, Rise into flame at last, And o'er the dark sea cast Her dying light like Dido's funeral pyre; Deeply he sighed, and said, "Great Babylon is dead, And Tyre is gone, and Carthage now, and then Rome, Rome must fall, and we, The conquerors, conquered be, And taste the doom which tracks the pride of men." Bare the Campagna round Half tomb, half tower, - - a dust-heap,-type of all The once triumphant Rome, Now beneath Peter's dome Crouched yonder, shrunk within her mighty Than that last gleam that old October gave. wall. The Indian summer let my rivals sing, Macmillan's Magazine. LE PAPILLON. "Naître avec le printemps, mourir avec les roses.” DE LAMARTINE. BORN with the spring, and with the rose to die; To shake the dust, in youth's untroubled Off from its wings, and seek th' eternal sky,Behold the butterfly's charmed destiny! So doth Desire, which never is at rest, Tasting, unquenched, of every earthly To Heaven return, that there it may be blest. From The Westminster Review. GRATTAN, AND THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. HENRY GRATTAN - clarum et venerabile nomen-entered the Irish Parlia ment on the 11th of December, 1775. He was returned for the borough of Charle mont, in which a vacancy was caused by the death of its representative, Major Caulfeild, who was drowned on his passage from England. The patron of the borough, Lord Charlemont, was desirous to obtain for the cause of commercial freedom the Parliamentary services of Grattan, whose abilities his lordship had already recognized. In 1779, the public distress had reached a most alarming point. The viceroy at that time was the Earl of Buckinghamshire. On October 12 he met Parliament, and delivered from the throne a speech expressing, by command of his Majesty, the affectionate concern of the king in the interests and distresses of Ireland. His Excellency told the House of Commons that on account of the extraordinary decline of the revenue, the very liberal supplies of the last session had proved inadequate to meet the expenses of ernment; he therefore hoped the commons would make a provision suitable to the exigency of the times. gov. Sir Robert Deane moved for an address to the throne, praising in terms of extravagant eulogy the administration of the viceroy; lavishing thanks for the gracious dispositions of the king; and in general, as is usual in such addresses, slavishly echoing the speech. Sir Robert at the time was trying to obtain a peerage; and accordingly we find the viceroy recommending him to Lord North for a coronet in the following terms: "Sir Robert Deane has uniformly, with four friends, supported his Majesty's measures, and has never suggested a difficulty on any occasion." Just as little difficulty in supporting his Majesty's measures had Mr. Richard Hely Hutchinson, who seconded Sir Robert's motion. He was then, like Sir Robert, on the outlook for a peerage, and he accordingly declared that the interests of Ireland must be well managed by the present administration, as their designs "The veil of were, in his opinion, pure. calumny," he said, "which so long traduced them, would disappear, and the factious calumniators, touched with truth, as with the spear of Ithuriel, would start into shape." He was effusive in expressing his admiration of the government and the gratitude due by the nation to the viceroy.* Grattan moved an amendment to the address. The viceroy's speech, he said, contains nothing explicit, nothing satisfactory. It meant to quiet the minds of the people without any declaration whatever. Having described the wretched condition of the kingdom, he went on: The distresses of this kingdom are twofold, the beggary of the people and the bankruptcy commissioners of the revenue to prove, but he would ask them upon oath whether the restrictions on our trade were not the cause? Whether the prohibitions, laid on by England, against the export of woollen cloth, did not occasion it?... As to the bankruptcies of the State, they are the consequence of a system of boundless prodigality, profligacy, and violence; a boundless prodigality while our means were limited - a profligacy and violence uniformly maintained. . . . The peace establishment of this poor country amounts to onesixth of that of England; what proportion is of the State. The first, he would not ask the there in our means? What is this establish ment? Infamous pensions to infamous men. Grattan continued to denounce the systematic corruption by which the court attempted to deprive the legislature of popular confidence and support. He ended by moving an amendment to the address, reciting the national grievances, and demanding a free export trade. Lord Westport seconded the amendment. A spirited discussion followed, in which the ministerial members, finding the sense of the House decidedly against the address, declared that rather than impair unanimity, they would not oppose the amendment. Hussey Burgh, the prime serjeant, moved in place of Grattan's amendment, "That it is not by temporary expedients, but by a free trade alone, that this nation is now • Deane was created Lord Muskerry. R. H. Hutchinson's mother was created Baroness Donoughmore, October 16, 1783, and on her death he inherited the peerage. to be saved from impending ruin." In done. Its journals show a minute attention to reply to the viceroy's demand for more industrial questions, to the improvement of money, his Excellency was told that the the means of communication, to the execution limited state of our trade and commerce of public works. (Leaders of Public Opinion, must, by narrowing Irish resources, set P. 187.) bounds to Irish liberality. The prime serjeant's amendment was carried without a division; and the address, thus improved, was presented by the speaker to the viceroy; the Dublin Volunteers, un der the command of the Duke of Leinster, lining the streets from the Parliament House to the Castle. The history of this transaction strongly demonstrates the utility of a resident leg islature. Here was a Parliament so badly constructed as to give exceptional encouragemen to venality; the court plied the traffic of place, pension, and peerage with incessant and scandalous profusion; every influence was in full operation to under mine the political integrity of members; yet, in the midst of this dense atmosphere of corruption, the Houses of Parliament stood by their country and against the Why did they so act? Because they legislated at home. Many years court. later Grattan described the effect of this home influence in words which deserve enduring record: How came the Irish Parliament with all its borough members in 1779 to demand a free trade-in 1782 to demand a free constitution? Because they sat in Ireland. Because they sat in their own country, and because at that time they had a country; because, however unin fluenced as many of its members were by pop. ular representation, yet they were influenced by popular sympathy. They did not like to meet every hour faces that looked shame upon them. They did not like to stand in the sphere of their own infamy. Thus they acted as the Irish absentee at the very same time did not act; they saved the country because they lived in it, as the others abandoned the country because they lived out of it. Mr. Lecky observes that during the eighteenth century the Irish Parliament was, on the whole, a vigilant and intelligent guardian of the material interests of the country: During the greater part of the century, indeed, it had little power except that of protesting against laws crushing Irish commerce; but what little it could do it appears to have The reader is probably aware that in the penal laws. The whole penal sys1778 there were important relaxations of He loved Ireland with a devotion, passiontem was thoroughly detested by Grattan. ate, yet regulated and intelligent. He early saw that Irish prosperity and Irish constitutional freedom were impracticable people were cramped, or rather neutralso long as the productive energies of the ized, by the legal fetters that made the wood and drawers of water. A Protesgreat Catholic majority mere hewers of the bigots who desired to monopolize for tant himself, he spurned the baseness of Protestants all the privileges of citizenthe displeasure of his father, who was colship. By his patriotic politics he incurred league with the celebrated Charles Lucas in the representation of Dublin, and who marked his anger by bequeathing away from his son the family mansion of the Grattans. In those days the county of Kilkenny was renowned, as it has been at much later periods, for the extensive hospitality and social amusements of the principal inhabitants. In looking at the records of the time, we are struck with the contrast between the jovial, sometimes riotous, festivity of the wealthier members of the landocracy, and the prevalent penury with which they were surrounded. In Kil kenny, as in Dublin and elsewhere, amateur theatricals were frequently practised. Grave divines occasionally trod the Thespian boards. In a farce called "Bon Ton," performed in 1779, at a theatre in Cuffe Street, we find the part of Lord Minikin represented by the Rev. Peter Lefanu; and in the tragedy of "Jane Shore" the same reverend gentleman personated Gloucester. The Rev. Gilbert Austin appeared as Bardolph in the play of "Henry the Fourth," performed at Drumcree in 1773. Dean Marlay appeared as Locket in the "Beggars' Opera" in a private theatre at Carton, and recited a prologue of his own composition. The theatrical mania even infected the legal profession; for Hotspur was performed by no less a personage than Lord Chief Baron Burgh, at Mr. Connolly's theatre at Castletown. Grattan was drawn into the theatrical vortex. He wrote an epilogue to the "Masque of Comus," which was spoken by Miss Latouche, afterwards Countess of Lanesborough. He had connections in Kilkenny; and when there he entered with spirit into the histrionic exhibitions of the joyous coteries whose refinement and brilliancy yet linger in the local traditions; and among whom a prominent character was Henry Flood, whose career, long continuing in friendly connection with Grattan, and afterwards diverging into embittered rivalry, is inseparably connected with the great public transactions of the time. Grattan and Flood read poetry and acted plays to gether. Flood was fourteen years older than his friend, over whom his talents, his attractive manners, his extensive information, and, above all, his services in asserting Irish legislative independence, neces sarily gave him great influence. He had been in Parliament since 1759, and had greatly distinguished himself by creating a powerful opposition in the House, and eliciting from the country a large display of public opinion in favor of the course he adopted. But while Flood was in most points in accordance with Grattan, there was one vital matter on which their principles were at variance. Flood, whilst strenuously asserting the independence of the Irish legislature, opposed every political concession to the Catholics. He was willing to relieve them from all restrictions as to property or industrial employment, but he would not remove one link of the purely political chain; he would not suffer them to vote at Parliamentary elections. Grattan, with a larger heart and greater sagacity, conceived that the permanence of the Irish constitution was fatally imperilled by excluding the great majority of the people from full participa tion in its benefits. The result has justified his prescient wisdom. He desired to consolidate the national elements of strength by conferring on all classes of religionists perfect equality of political privilege. He could see nothing but national weakness in the policy that made aliens of five sixths of the nation. We return to the Volunteer movement. This national army was officered by men of the first rank, and the Earl of Charlemont accepted the supreme command. The lord lieutenant, in the speech from the throne already referred to, said that the great military preparations of the house of Bourbon seemed only to have roused the courage and called forth the exertions of his Majesty's brave and loyal Irish subjects. "I have only to lament," continued his Excellency, "that the exhausted state of the treasury has hitherto put it out of my power to give those exertions the most extensive and constitutional operation by carrying the militia law into execution." The government, destitute of the means of national defence, could not well forbid the nation to defend itself. Yet it looked with great jealousy at the Volunteer movement. On the 7th of June, 1779, Lord Weymouth, secretary of state for the home department, had written from London to the viceroy, recommending that the proposed additions to the Volunteer companies already raised should be "discouraged by all proper and gentle means." To this recommendation the viceroy replied on the 12th, that ap plications for arms were hourly made to the Castle, "which," he added, “shall in every instance be civilly refused." On the 23rd of July, however, a council held at the Castle advised the viceroy to relax his refusal so far as to deliver a part of the militia arms to the governors of counties. But this concession seems scarcely to have been needed, so great was the zeal with which supplies were poured into the Volunteer treasury to furnish the munitions of war. Free trade had been carried in Parliament; and the patriotic action of the Senate was emphasized by a label attached to the cannon at a Volunteer display in College Green, "Free Trade- or This." The triumph of free trade was indeed important. But the speeches of Grattan, and of the patriots who worked with him in Parliament, produced a strong conviction throughout Ireland that the acquisi |