Constitution of '82 had been believed to be the crest of the mountain till it was achieved. From the brow of the ridge another peak had come into sight. All would not be well, indeed nothing would be well, without a free legislature and a free constitution. The Irish House of Commons was undoubtedly an absurd caricature. If Ireland was to be governed by a Parliament at all, it could not be other than a caricature, so long as the connection with England was maintained. The majority of the Irish people desired entire independence. An assembly which fairly represented them would reflect wishes which could be realized only by separation, and, therefore, any assembly calling itself representative must in a greater or less degree be an unreality so long as the connection with England continued. The privilege asserted and obtained for the Irish Parliament in the late changes made the retention of political power in the hands of those who were amenable to influence more than ever a constitutional necessity. To reform the House of Commons was avowedly to give power to those classes who demanded objects incompatible with dependence on the English Crown, to precipitate internal quarrels, and bring about either total separation or a forced incorporation in the Empire. The House as it stood was formed exclusively of Protestants. The experiment of an assembly composed of representatives of both creeds had been tried and had failed. The House was formed also almost exclusively of Protestants of the Established Church. The Presbyterians were not disfranchised, but their county influence was small, and in the boroughs the members were returned usually by the corporations from which they had been hitherto excluded by the Test Act Two members sat for each of the 32 counties. The boroughs and cities returned 236. The county electors were free, subject only to the influence of the landowners. Sixty borough seats were partially free; i. e. the electors, if careless of consequences, might, by an effort, make an independent choice. A hundred and seventy-six seats out of the whole number of three hundred, were the property of bishops, peers, and commoners. They were bought and sold without disguise. The perpetual advowson (if the phrase may be used) of a borough was worth eight or nine thousand pounds. A single seat in a single Parliament could be had for 2,000l., and the purchaser avowedly intended to recoup himself by the sale of his vote. Under such a system the Volunteers discovered that the victory which they had achieved was valueless. The Castle, with its patronage and its pension list, would always be too much for them. Accident had enabled them to obtain free trade and the free constitution, but the conditions favorable to them might never recur. The net would again close round them and they would be slaves once more. The Volunteers saw the danger to their liberties; experience had painfully taught them that England, if she recovered her authority, might again abuse it. And they were possessed with the flattering illusion which was pervading the air of Europe, that public virtue is not the parent of liberty, but its child; that to emancipate a people from control, and place the power of the State in their hands, was to raise their character to a level with their new duties, and unlock all the gates to them which led to prosperity and happiness. There is no word in human language which so charms the ear as liberty. There is no word which so little pains have been taken to define, or which is used to express ideas more opposite. There is a liberty which is the liberty of a child or a savage, the liberty of animals, the vagrant liberty, which obeys no restraint, for it is conscious of no obligation. There is a liberty which arises from the subjugation of self and the control of circumstances, which consists in knowledge of what ought to be done, and a power to do it obtained by patient labor and discipline. The artisan or the artist learns in an apprenticeship under the guidance of others to conquer the difficulties of his profession. When the conquest is complete he is free. He has liberty-he commands his tools, he commands his own faculties. He has become a master. It is with life as a whole, as with the occupations into which life is divided. Those only are free men who have had patience to learn the conditions of a useful and honorable existence, who have overcome their own ignorance and their own selfishness, who have become masters of themselves. The first liberty is the liberty of anarchy, which to a man should be a supreme object of detestation. The second liberty is the liberty of law, which has made the name the symbol of honor, and has made the thing the supreme object of desire. But the enthusiasm for true liberty has in these modern times been transferred to its opposite. With a singular inversion of cause and effect, men have seen in liberty not the exercise and the reward of virtues which have been acquired under restraint, but some natural fountain, a draught from which is to operate as a spell for the regeneration of our nature. Freedom as they picture it to themselves is like air and light, a condition in which the seeds of excellence are alone able to germinate. Who is free? asked the ancient sage, and he answered his own question. The wise man who is master of himself. Who is free? asks the modern liberal politician, and he answers, the man who has a voice in making the laws which he is expected to obey. Does the freedom of a painter consist in his having himself consented to the laws of perspective, and light and shade? That nation is the most free where the laws, by whomsoever framed, correspond most nearly to the will of the Maker of the universe, by whom, and not by human suffrage, the code of rules is laid down for our obedience. That nation is most a slave which has ceased to believe that such divinely appointed laws exist, and will only be bound by the Acts which it places on its statute book. Considerations like these were too homely for the minds of practical politicians of the eighteenth century. The world was growing weary of its aristocracies. Political reform was the cry of the hour, and it must be allowed for the Irish enthusiasts that there was no country in Europe in which the ruling families had made a worse use of the power committed to them. The further the secrets of Irish administration are looked into the more uniform the spectacle ; noble lords and gentlemen recruiting the fortunes which they had ruined in idle extravagance by selling their political influence, while their special duties as guardians of the law and rulers over their tenantry were not only undischarged, but not so much as known to exist. Pitt was moving with his own ends. teers followed the example for theirs. The Volun Delegates met throughout the summer at Belfast and Lisburn. Schemes were sent out, and outlines of them scattered for approval through the southern provinces. The first convention at Dungannon had succeeded so brilliantly that a second was determined on, to be held at the same place on the 8th of September. As a preparation for this meeting an address was issued to the Volunteer army of Ulster. They were informed “that the Imperial Crown of Ireland had been restored by their efforts to its original splendor, and the nation to its inherent rights as an independent state; "the distracted inhabitants had been united in an indissoluble bond through an unparalleled combination of the civil and military authority:" "it now remained to abolish the courtly mercenaries who preyed on the vitals of public virtue, and prevent the return of venal majorities to support dishonorable measures." When September arrived the delegates came together, representatives of 270 companies; and this time, unprompted by Grattan, they set out of their own accord the symbol or formula of their new faith. 1. "Freedom," these philosophers had discovered "is the indefeasible right of Irishmen and Britons, derived from the Author of their being, of which no power on earth has a right to deprive them." They did not say in what freedom consisted, or where, or in what way, God Almighty had bestowed it on them. They merely insisted on the fact as a preliminary article of faith. 2. "Those only are free," they went on, "who are governed by no laws but those to which they assent either in person or by their representatives freely chosen." If this was true, minorities who protest |