Mr. Butt. As soon as one bill was squelched, he smilingly sat down to draw up another, and courteously awaited its extinction. It was plain that such a character was badly suited for his place; but the country waited and trusted that 'at the right moment' their chosen leader would rise up in virtuous indignation, and for the sake of Ireland's very manhood utter a statesman's reproof and protest.
"There is no such mettle in Isaac Butt, we are sorry to believe. He has been tried and found wanting. The country is disappointed and sick of him. He has been deposed and supplanted by a younger and bolder man The actual policy of the new leader it is not easy to foreshadow; but it will doubtless be a vigorous one. The young blood of Ireland will assuredly be with him, and the old blood that has not stagnated. The peace policy has been misunderstood by Irish leaders like Butt. To these it means peace at any price—peace in legislative action as well as in arms. They do not see that peace everywhere means decay. If Ireland does not fight in the field, she must fight all the harder in the British Parliament. She has never received anything from England for the humble asking. These young and strong, men, disgusted with the decent humility of Isaac Butt when his face was slapped and his country sneered at, have adopted a more virile course. They know the lesson of Irish history: The best prophet of the Future is the Past."
Never did Ireland need the comfort of a prophet of good more sorely than she does to-day.
On January 5, 1878, a special cable dispatch announced that three of the Irish political prisoners, viz., McCarthy, Chambers, and 0'Brien, who had been confined since 1866, were set at liberty. O'Reilly wrote for this occasion his poem "Released:"
Haggard and broken and seared with pain,
They seek the remembered friends and places;
Men shuddering turn, and gaze again
At the deep-drawn lines on their altered faces.
