and hopes; and amidst the entrancing seductiveness of their association, was born the generous resolution of rescuing the country’s literature from the darkness in which it had long lain.  The Library of Ireland was proposed as a beginning, and so diffident did its promoters feel, that they deemed it indispensable to engage the recognised genius of William Carleton, whose name and abilities they pledged to the public, as an assurance for the undertaking.  Mr. Carleton promptly undertook his share of the task, and James Duffy, the enterprising bookseller, assumed all the risk and responsibility of the enterprise.

John Mitchel, then known to few, and appreciated only by Thomas Davis, was by him associated with those who were willing to engage in the new and difficult labour.  He pledged himself for him, and selected his subject.  Most nobly was that pledge redeemed; but its fulfilment dawned on the fresh grave of him who made it.  Other men, and first in order, as well as eminent in ability, was Thomas MacNevin, who has also sunk into a too early grave, more than realised the most sanguine hopes of an exulting country.  Death first interrupted this new current of life, even in its day of most sparkling promise.  Disunion haunted the petty jealousies of little and narrow minds; famine, pestilence and defeat have done the rest.  The labourers are dead, exiled, immured in dungeons, or scattered over the face of the earth as fugitives; and how far they had capacity to fulfil their inspiring promise, can never be tested more.  A few, however, remained, and amid greater gloom, and nearer to utter death, they stand out redeeming beacons to the future.

I have not mentioned the name of Mr. O’Brien, as associated with us at this early stage.  He joined the Association in a time of great excitement.  The Nation hailed the accession with the fondest joy.  The consistency of his politics, the purity of his intentions, and the unvarying rectitude of his life gave abundant assurance, not alone that he was deeply sincere, but that his purpose could only be changed by death.  But to those who looked beyond the expediency of the hour, those who had cherished fervently the passionate aspirations for true liberty his name and character became an augury of success:  nor would they intrude for any consideration on the attitude of lofty dignity he assumed.

It has already been stated that elements of antagonism between Mr. O’Connell and the Young Ireland Party had at this time (the period of the State Trials) manifested themselves.  It will be remembered that this period embraced a space of nine months, from the date of Mr. O’Connell’s being held to bail in September, 1843, to that of his sentence the 30th of May, 1844.  As the events of this or the previous year do not, properly speaking, range within the historical scope of my narrative, I have excluded chronological and historical order.  My object has been to group together the great features