recognised at once his splendid literary
powers, and when the "Library of Ireland" was projected, pressed him to
write one of the volumes, suggesting as his subject the Life of Hugh
O'Neill. How ably he fulfilled the task is known to his countrymen, who
rightly regard the volume as one of the most valuable of the whole
series. When death removed the amiable and gifted Thomas Davis from the
scene of his labours, Mr. Duffy invited John Mitchel, as the man most
worthy of all in Ireland, to take his place. Mr. Mitchel regarded the
invitation as the call of his country. He gave up his professional
business in Banbridge, removed with his wife and family to Dublin, and
there throwing himself heart and soul into the cause, fought it out
boldly and impetuously until the day when, bound in British chains, "the
enemy" bore him off from Ireland.
* * * * *
JOHN MARTIN.
When the law had consummated its crime, and the doom of the felon was
pronounced against John Mitchel, there stood in the group that pressed
round him in the dock and echoed back the assurances which he flung as a
last defiance at his foes, a thoughtful, delicate looking, but resolute
young Irishman, whose voice perhaps was not the loudest of those that
spoke there, but whose heart throbbed responsively to his words, and for
whom the final message of the unconquerable rebel possessed a meaning
and significance that gave it the force of a special revelation.
"Promise for me, Mitchel," they cried out, but he had no need to join in
that request; he had no need to intimate to Mr. Mitchel his willingness
to follow out the enterprise which that fearless patriot had so boldly
commenced. On the previous day, sitting with the prisoner in his gloomy
cell, John Martin of Loughorne had decided on the course which he would
take in the event of the suppression of the _United Irishman_ and the
transportation of its editor. He would start a successor to that
journal, and take the place of his dear friend at the post of danger. It
was a noble resolve, deliberately taken, and resolutely and faithfully
was it carried out. None can read the history of that act of daring, and
of the life of sacrifice by which it has been followed, and not agree
with us that while the memories of Tone, of Emmet, and of Russell, are
cherished in Ireland, the name of John Martin ought not be forgotten.
A few days subsequent to that memorable scene in Greens
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