woman, with pale skin and dark hair, rather tall, imperfectly clad, sitting by a waterfall, and playing on a harp in most mournful fashion. Sometimes the young lady was a widow, sometimes a lovely but sorrowful virgin. In either case ruthless oppressors had burned her modest house to the ground, and butchered all her nearest relatives without any show of justice. Who that had a man’s heart within him would not be willing to take a young lady’s part under these distressing circumstances? Imagine your own wife, your sister, or your daughter, sitting in tears by the waterfall in question, and playing on a little harp a series of airs in minor keys, and surely you would be sorry for her. It is a great pity when a nation selects such a type as this as emblematic of their aspirations and condition. Irishmen have walked about the world with their hands in their pockets in a state of sorrow for this pale young woman; and then voted her to be nothing more nor less than their native land. On the whole it seems probable that if you could induce a people to adopt some bird, beast, or fish, as their national symbol, they would gradually conform their methods of thought and aspirations to what might be supposed to be the thoughts and aspirations of the animal selected as their model or example. An Englishman likes to act in a taurine manner because he is John Bull. A stunted French corporal quivers with emotion under trying circumstances when he reflects that he is bound to emulate the actions of an eagle.
Passing from mere animal to human types, a citizen of the United States will think himself justified in adopting very astute measures for the furtherance of his private fortunes by reference to an imaginary Uncle Jonathan—a sallow, hard-featured man—with an eternal wink. Thus it is with our Irish fellow-subjects. Nothing can knock this pestilent harp and pale young woman out of their heads. Ireland is still a weeping female, and England a cruel husband who, under the improved state of the law, should be committed for six months to prison with hard labour, and be bound over to keep the peace.
How Marshal MacMahon, who, despite of his Irish descent is a Frenchman to the backbone, must have been puzzled with this sword, and still more with the address with which it was accompanied! Never since the days of Brian Boroimhe was there ever such an Irish sword as this. It was made of Irish steel, and ornamented with Irish tracery copied expressly from specimens in the Irish Academy at Dublin. The hilt was of bog-oak, ornamented with Irish amethysts, beryls, and precious stones. On one side is the figure of a harper striking his harp; then there is a round tower, a sunburst, and of course shamrocks in great profusion. On the other side of the scabbard there is the figure of an Irish gallowglass drawing his sword, and a carved cross after the model of the ancient stone crosses of Ireland. Indeed, beyond a shillelagh and a pig—or, as it is called in Ireland, a “slip,”—we know not what other emblem could be selected as illustrative of Irish life. To be sure, there might have been a sample of a waxy potato on one side of the scabbard, and a mealy specimen of the same admirable esculent upon the other, and the sword would have been perfectly well decorated. It would not be fair, however, to omit all mention of the inscription, which is in Irish and French characters. For the convenience of the general reader we confine ourselves to the French version:
L’Irelande opprimée au brave soldat Patrice Maurice de MacMahon, Maréchal de France, Duc de Magenta, descendant de ses anciens Rois.
The slight shown to the English language is so painful to one’s feelings that it is really not to be spoken or thought about. Imagine a French deputation to come over to England for the purpose of presenting a beautifully bound copy of the Chancery Reports to the present Master of the Rolls on the ground that he is a descendant of a refugee family who escaped from the tyranny of Louis XIV. after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes—and on the fly-leaf let the inscription be seen—
Oppressed France to the keen-witted judge, The Right Honourable Sir John Romilly, Knt., Master of the Rolls, the descendant of former French fugitives from former French tyrants.
Only let the experiment be tried, and let the deputation set their feet again for five minutes on French soil, and we should speedily see on which side of the narrow seas Liberty has fixed her abiding place.
MURDER WILL OUT.
