The "gentle, childlike, poetic soul of Kickharu," as the Member
for Dungarvan—Mr. Henry Matthews—described, in the canvas which preceded his election for that borough, the spiritual principle of one of the Fenian leaders, seems to be still very actively engaged in the "gentle and childlike" work of furious sedition. In a work called "Liberty or Destruction," which he has just been publishing, he says, "Accept the rule of England ! accept confiscation and robbery, insult, torture, and contempt ! No human being who knows anything of Ireland believes that her people regard, or ever regarded, that rule, but as a thing to be hated and cursed—to be trampled upon and got rid of, whenever God in His mercy would send a fair chance to grapple with it." If Mr. Matthews could only persuade Mr. Kickham to chasten his soul into an attitude a little more "gentle and childlike," he might, perhaps, discover that the opportunity for which he prays, so far, at least, as ridding himself of the rule of England goes,—as for tramp- ling upon it, that is only the superfluity of naughtiness,—really came when Mr. Gladstone proposed to govern Ireland on Irish principles, —on the same principles on which England would wish to be governed were she the inferior power in the Union, and Ireland the superior power. We do not know how there can be otherwise a completer riddance of external authority than by morally constraining that authority, not only to carry out your own wishes, but to lend them the full sanction and support of a power- ful alliance. But Mr. Kickham's soul appears to us to be child- like only in its fury of impatience, and neither gentle nor poetic at all.
