. Carlyle
described him as "a fine elastic-spirited young fellow, whom I
grieved to see rushing on destruction palpable, by attack of
windmills." Destruction came surely, but coupled with immortality. He
was transported as a felon before the insurrection, while his
writings sprang up in angry but unarmed men.

Mitchel and O'Connell both sought the liberation of Ireland, but
their viewpoint differed. Mitchel thought only of Liberty; O'Connell
not unnaturally considered the "Liberator." His refusal to allow a
drop of blood to be shed caused Young Ireland to secede. Only when
death removed his influence could the pent-up feelings of the country
break out under Smith O'Brien. If Mitchel was an Irish Robespierre,
O'Brien was their Lafayette. His advance from the level of dead
aristocracy had been rapid. From defending Whigs in Parliament he
passed to opposition and "contempt of the House." He resigned from
the Bench from which O'Connell had been dismissed, became a Repealer,
adding the words "no compromise," and finally gloried in his treason
before the House. His next step brought a price upon his head.

Grave and frigid, but inwardly warmhearted and passionate, O'Brien
had little aptitude for rebellion. But the death penalty (commuted to
transportation) which he incurred went far to redeem his forlorn
failure. Mitchel, who shared his Australian imprisonment, left a fine
picture of "this noblest of Irishmen, thrust in among the
off-scourings of England's gaols, with his home desolated and his
hopes ruined, and defeated life falling into the sere and yellow
leaf. A man, who cannot be crushed, or bowed, or broken; anchored
immovably upon his own brave heart within; his clear eye and soul
open as ever to all the melodies and splendors of heaven and earth,
and calmly waiting for the angel, Death."

The Irish cause was not revived until the Fenian movement. Disgust
with the politicians drove the noblest into their ranks. In Stephens
they found an organizing chief, in Boyle O'Reilly a poet, and in John
O'Leary a political thinker, men who under other conditions had
achieved mundane success. The Fenians were defended by Isaac Butt, a
big-hearted, broad-minded lawyer, who afterwards organized a party to
convince Englishmen that Repeal was innocuous, when called "Home
Rule." The people stood his patient ways patiently, but when a more
desperate leader arrived they transferred allegiance, and Butt died
of a broken heart.

Parne