upon Mr.
Taylor, the replies made by himself and his friends, and the comments
made upon those replies by the journal which assailed him. They all tell
their own story.

(_UNITED IRELAND_, JUNE 16.)

Mr. John F. Taylor owes everything he has or is to the Irish
National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the
acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are
all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential
valet in _The Rivals_, "it hurts his conscience to be found out."
There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are
the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty
morality is a cloak for unscrupulous self-seeking. He has always
shown himself ready to say anything or do anything that may serve
his own interests. In the general election of 1885 he made frantic
efforts to get into Parliament as a member of the Irish Party. He
ghosted every member of the party whose influence he thought might
help him--notably the two men, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien, at whom
he now sneers, as he fondly believes, in the safe seclusion of an
anonymous letter of an English newspaper. During the period of
probation his hand was incessant on Mr. Dillon's door-knocker. The
most earnest supplications were not spared. All in vain. Either his
character or his ability failed to satisfy the Irish leader, and
his claim was summarily rejected. Since then his wounded vanity has
found vent in spiteful calumny of almost every member of the Irish
Party--whenever he found malice a luxury that could be safely
indulged in.

"His next step was a startling one. We have absolute reason to
know, when the last Coercion Act was in full swing, this
pure-souled and disinterested patriot begged for, received, and
accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorship under a Coercion
Government. As was wittily said at the time, he sold his
principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick that
stirred the mess. Strong pressure was brought to bear on him, and
he was induced for his own sake, after many protests and with much
reluctance, to publicly refuse the office he had already privately
accepted. Mr. Taylor professes to model himself on Robert Emmet and
Thomas Davis; it is hard to realise Thomas Davis or Robert Emmet as
a Coercion Crown Prosecutor in the pay of Du