America. It comes as a stern mandate, which must be
obeyed on the instant. The King of England has less power than the
President of the United States. The President can form a definite
policy, select his own Ministry to carry it out, and to some extent
have his own way for four years, whether the people like it or not.
The King cannot do this for a day. His Ministry cannot stand an hour,
with a policy disapproved by the Commons. Not since Anne has a
sovereign refused signature to an Act of Parliament. The Georges, and
William IV., continued to exercise the power of dismissing Ministers at
their {197} pleasure. But since Victoria, an unwritten law forbids it,
and with this vanishes the last _remnant of a personal Government_.
The end long sought is attained.

The history of no other people affords such an illustration of a
steadily progressive national development from seed to blossom,
compelled by one persistent force. Freedom in England has not been
wrought by cataclysm as in France, but has unfolded like a plant from a
life within; impeded and arrested sometimes, but patiently biding its
time, and then steadily and irresistibly pressing outward; one leaf
after another freeing itself from the detaining force. Only a few more
remain to be unclosed, and we shall behold the consummate flower of
fourteen centuries;--centuries in which the most practical nation in
the world has steadily pursued an _ideal_--the ideal of individual
freedom subordinated only to the good of the whole!

{199}

A SHORT HISTORY OF IRELAND.

The history of prehistoric Ireland as told in ancient chronicles,
easily proves the Irish to be the oldest nation in Europe, mingling
their story with those not alone of Egypt, Troy, Greece, and Rome, but
with that of Noah and the antediluvian world. Who was the Lady Caesair,
who fled with her household to Ireland from the coming deluge after
being refused shelter by Noah? and who Nemehd, the next colonist from
the East, who heads the royal procession of one hundred and eighteen
kings? and who, above all, is Milesius, who comes fresh from the
lingual disaster at Shinar, the divinely appointed ruler, bringing with
him his Egyptian wife Scota (Pharaoh's daughter) and her son Gael? and
who that other son Heber, whose name was given to the original _lingua
humana_ (the Hebrew), in honor of his efforts to prevent the
blasphemous building of {200} Babel? For what do these shadowy figures
stand