s the sale of the first number that the press was kept busy for three
days and nights. When the second was announced, a guard of police was
necessary to keep order and peace among the newsvendors around the
office door. In every corner of the island the influence of the _United
Irishman_ was instant and simultaneous. The letters to the Ulster
farmers caused a sensation as universal and profound as the letters to
Lord Clarendon excited sentiments of wonder and alarm. Thomas Devin
Reilly's powers, too, never before tested in this range of literature,
astonished even the warmest admirers of his genius. The journal at once
attained a standard of eminence, political, literary and poetical, never
accorded to a production of the kind, published in Ireland. For the days
in which they were written, the songs and essays of Thomas Davis
contained greater depth, and a holier purpose. They seemed to flow, too,
from a diviner inspiration; were of a wider, calmer and more generous
scope. But the times were different; and it was as if the spirit of
fire, burning at the bases of man's social hopes throughout Europe,
breathed its prophetic glow on the heart of John Mitchel, conscious that
he, of all men, in a prostrate land, could find it befitting utterance.
It must not be omitted that the muse of "Mary," of "Eva," and of poor
Clarence Mangan, considerably enhanced the high estimate of the _United
Irishman_.

In the presence of such an oracle of defiance and vengeance, the
Government for a while stood aghast. But the urgency of the times
admitted of no temporising policy. Messrs. O'Brien, Meagher and
Mitchel, were selected for prosecution; but the latter was honoured with
a double suit--one for an article, and the other for a speech. The
morning they were called upon to enter into security, all Dublin was
startled as if by a spell. The streets were crowded by a dense and
anxious mass of men. The police-office in a short time became
inaccessible. Mr. O'Connell's two sons, and the staff of the old
Association, anticipated the crowd, and occupied the seats around the
bench. When Mr. O'Brien was called on, the O'Connells offered to become
his security. The fact was trumpeted by the journals, yet living on the
garbage of Conciliation Hall. But the offer, if sincere, might then be
productive of important consequences. It was not sincere; a fact
sufficiently attested by the Messrs. O'Connell's necessary consciousness
that Mr. O'Brien would not