MR. ISAAC BUTT.
THERE is a deep feeling of regret at the death of Mr. Butt. It is all the more intense, because he was a man who missed his mark,—a man who, though dying at no very early age, never did one-half of what was plainly within his powers. No Irishman of larger and more varied talents has taken part in public affairs since O'Connell died ; and even O'Connell— though a far more imperious nature, a far greater orator, and "borne high on the wings of blarney" to altitudes which Mr. Isaac Butt never reached—lacked very many qualities which the leader of the Home-rulers possessed. Mr. Butt had plenty of wisdom for every one but himself. He was conciliatory and persuasive. He won the esteem of people who detested Home- rule and all its works. Clients swore by him, and always re- turned to him when he chose to return to his professional work. Learned Judges of the Dry-as-dust species, such as Lord St. Leonards, who, as a rule, dislike and disbelieve in political law- yers, treated him with profound respect. No one met him in the House of Commons or the Four Courts without at once con- ceiving admiration of his talents, and feeling kindly towards him. And yet he failed, more or less, in all things. He might have been Lord Chancellor or Lord Chief Justice of Ireland—in 1818 he seemed more likely to attain these positions than Mr. O'Hagan and Mr. Whiteside—but he never got judicial office of any kind. He might have been a distinguished Parliamentary orator; he was fluent and eloquent, and his oratory was singularly free from the windiness and random gush too characteristic of Irish eloquence ; but his speeches in the House of Commons, when he sat for Youghal and when he sat for Limerick, were not adequate to the high expectations formed of him. He might have been a successful party leader, but some- how or other he failed to preserve discipline, and his bat- talions got clubbed. High success in literature was also within his reach ; but the brilliant sketches contributed to the Dublin University Magazine in old days, and his really learned history of Italy, written in one of his many periods of retirement from practice, are but promises of better things which were never to be realised. The man who wrote the beautiful passage in his lecture on Berkeley, in which he describes with true feeling his initiation by Bishop Brinkley into the Berkeleian theory while walking on the terrace of the garden which was once the Bishop of Cloyne's, had a cunning literary hand which never fully put forth its skill. Mr. Butt's pamphlets on the land question, and his plea for a poor-law for Ireland, were admired by political economists ; but he did not pursue the economical studies which he had begun. In short, his whole life was a jumble of brilliant bits ; a heap of threads, tangled and broken ; an interesting scrap-book, full of odds and ends ; a curiously tesselated mosaic, with pretty pieces of work in it, but sadly lacking in a purpose and a plan. We have no wish to enter into a discussion with those who fancied that Mr. Butt as a politician was knowingly uncon- scientious, and whose uncharitable view of his public life was that, having sold his early convictions, he was always afraid to pocket the price. But it is fair to admit that his career was somewhat sinuous and puzzling. He perplexed and worried his friends. We go back to 1840, when Mr. Butt stood forth as the eloquent champion of Protestantism, and the denouncer of the Roman Catholics; when, in true Orange strains, he warned his "Protestant brethren" that the "arch-demagogue of Ireland" would occupy the seat of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, thus doing violence to "the principles this Corporation has main- tained from the glorious days of William III.;" and when he hinted that O'Connell would be glad "to exchange this more cer- tain income, for the precarious and degrading income he now draws from his pauperised and degraded slaves." It requires a stretch of imagination to connect this fierce denouncer of "Popery and treason," this mouthpiece of heated, acrimonious predictions as to the probable terrible doings of a "Popish town council," with the pamphleteer who, when writing thirty years later on the destiny of Ireland, is enthusiastic about the beauty of holiness exhibited by the Irish people, and the "spirit of liberality and toleration" displayed by the Irish Catholics. The eloquent advocate in 1.840 at the bar of the House of Lords of "the principle of exclusive Protestantism.," the admirer of "the glorious days of William III.," lived to be the ablest advocate of the Roman Catholic clergy in regard to education. The Conservative and virtual Orangeman of 1840 became, in the course of thirty years, the Federalist and the friend and ally of Catholicism. We cannot wonder if lazy or hasty minds, looking at this odd development, noting the jumps, so to speak, which Mr. Butt made, concluded that sinister causes had something to do with it. But the harshest ex- planation was here, as in most cases, not the true one. Mr. Butt drifted about in all things, and in politics especially. He had in his character elements of moral weakness, from which he himself was the chief sufferer, and which were quite enough to account for his circuitous courses.
Mr. Butt never showed his best side in the House of Com- mons. He took little part in the important debates of recent times. His chief speech last year was a defence of the Eastern policy of the Ministry,—a defence the key-note of which was this question, "Let me ask, when has Turkey flogged nuns in their convents, as Russia has done?" This might be all very well for Lord Robert Montagu, but it was hardly worthy of Mr. Butt to be the mouthpiece of vulgar Russophobia. His last Parliamentary fight of any im- portance was made on behalf of the Government measure for intermediate education in Ireland ; and it was evid- ent that the old vigour had somewhat waned. Mr. Butt managed always to put Home-rule in the most conciliatory and sensible form in which it could be put. The ablest plea —we feel inclined to say, the only able plea—ever advanced for it is Mr. Butt's pamphlet on Irish Federalism. Notwithstand- ing his many faults of omission rather than commission the party is never likely to obtain a better leader. The complaint has been that he was a leader who did not lead ; but who, we should like to know, with the same difficulties, will be able to do so ? Driving pigs to market, or ruling a meeting at which Home-rulers_and Nationalists have come, ash-plants in hand, to confer, is no easy matter; but it is child's-play to the task of ruling Home-rulers. Perhaps he was too idle. He certainly lacked the moral force and earnestness which bend men to the will of one. He had not, it may be conceded, the art of making him- self disagreeable without which little good can be done in the House of disagreeable, if not in the world at large. He beheld the late pranks of his followers with amazement and sorrow. He was powerless to quell the mutineers, or to pre- vent the rupture of the party. But, before pronouncing a harsh judgment on his capacity as a leader, let us wait the course of events, and see how far the new leader—whether Mr. Parnell, Mr. Mitchell Henry, or Mr. Shaw—the last named being, we believe, the more probable is successful in preventing the Home-rule party from becoming a mass of warring atoms. With all Mr. Butt's faults, and his still more numerous infirmities, there was a note of greatness in the clever, brilliant, simple-mannered old man. He was the worthy continuer of a great race of Irishmen. He came too late to the Irish Bar to know it in its best days,— the days when politics and law were inextricably entwined ; when every young barrister of ability was sure that he was to tread in the footsteps of Curran, Grattan, Flood, Fitzgibbon, and Burgh ; and when he looked less for success to the favour of attorneys than to the good offices of the patron of a borough, and the admiring plaudits of his countrymen. But Mr. Butt kept alive the old traditions, and preserved the memory of that lost time when talents, wit, and eloquence were indispensable portions of the outfit of an Irish patriot. To-day even oratorical ability is considered unnecessary baggage.
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