in the press, not only in Dublin, but throughout Ireland. The
_Nation_ newspaper, conducted by Charles Gavan Duffy, a man of wonderful
energy and courage, of discriminating literary taste and fine talents,
was perhaps the most ably managed newspaper in the British Isles, so
far as literary claims were concerned. The most passionate and exciting
ballads, full of poetical and patriotic fervour, the most elaborate and
elegantly written dissertations on Ireland, her history, music, poetry,
language, and people, and popularly written and able articles on
politics, filled its columns. Their influence upon the mind of the young
men of Ireland who were of the Roman Catholic persuasion, and of many
Protestants who were too liberal in sentiment to suspect their Roman
Catholic fellow-countrymen of desiring religious ascendancy, was great.
When John Mitchell considered that the _Nation_ had too little sympathy
with red republicanism, he set up a paper called the _Irishman_, which
he made the vehicle of the most outrageous doctrines, political and
social. The leading articles of the _Irishman_ were written by Mr.
Mitchell himself, with a nervous power, eloquence, boldness of thought,
and audacity, which were very extraordinary. These articles were amongst
the ablest specimens of newspaper writing which had ever been known in
Ireland. Their effect was electric; they maddened the young men of the
movement with a fierce spirit of nationality. The clubs read them with
ecstasy, and John Mitchell was the idol and hero of all men of extreme
opinions. His defiance of government, his incitements to rebellion,
were so open and intrepid, that they seized upon the imagination of the
people, and much disturbed the government. Pikes and side-arms were
manufactured in every part of the country, and John Mitchell wrote
various articles on the proper pattern of a pike, on the best way
of using that "queen of weapons," as he termed it, and to prove how
hopeless it would be for either cavalry or infantry, disciplined on the
ordinary system, to face corps of Irish pikemen disciplined on his plan.
These military articles were eminently absurd, and excited the ridicule
of military men; but the style in which they were written was so
admirably adapted to the taste and tone of thought of those whom they
were designed to influence, that they told wonderfully, and inspired
confidence in the clubs and in the country, that means were at last
found by which the t