We purpose studying them, although we cannot pretend to render
full justice to such a theme. And, returning for a moment to the
considerations with which we started, we can truly say that, in
the whole range of modern history, it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to find a national life to compare with that of poor,
despised Ireland. Neither do we pretend to write the history itself;
our object is more humble: we merely pen some considerations
suggested naturally by the facts which we suppose to be already
known, with the purpose of arriving at a true appreciation of the
character of the people. For it is the people itself we study;
the reader will meet with comparatively few individual names.

We shall find, moreover, that the nation has never varied. Its
history is an unbroken series of the same heroic facts, the same
terrible misfortunes. The actors change continually; the outward
circumstances at every moment present new aspects, so that the
interest never flags; but the spirit of the struggle is ever the
same, and the latest descendants of the first O'Neills and
O'Donnells burn with the same sacred fire, and are inspired by
the same heroic aspirations, as their fathers.

Happily, the gloom is at length lighted up by returning day. The
contest has lost its ferocity, and we are no longer surrounded
by the deadly shade which obscured the sky a hundred years ago.
Then it was hard to believe that the nation could ever rise; her
final success seemed almost an impossibility. We now see that
those who then despaired sinned against Providence, which waited
for its own time to arrive and vindicate its ways. And it is
chiefly on account of the bright hope which begins to dawn that
our subject should possess for all a lively interest, and fill the