TOMBS IN THE CHURCH OF MONTORIO, ON THE JANICULUM. [Heic jacent O'Nealivs, Baro de Dvngannon, Magni Hugonis Filivs, et O'Donnel, Comes De Tyrconnel, qvi contra hæreticos in Hybernia multos annos certervnt.MDCVIII.] All natural things in balance lie, And their belongings. Thunders bring That comes with harvest, when each field, Crimsoned with weeds, like fiery rain, Flames like a newly forgèd shield. Around, above, this glittering dome, On some wild bluff of Donegal, The sea below in mutiny, The terrible Heaven over all. The sob, the penitential groan; The lurid light, the dripping stone- Sleep on, stern souls, 'twere wrong to shake Dwindled to fragments, band by band. It came not, and in regal Rome His heart, his passions satisfied; So hoping, doubting went the days, And thou, O'Neill, Lord of Revolt, The bronzed cheeks of the Pale turned white, We need thy smiting arm once more. GUESSES. I know a maiden; she is dark and fair, And all her tresses winking like brown elves; What does she think of, as the daylight floats And marged with lilies like a bank of fire? Ah, sweet conception! enviable guest, Lodged in the pleasant palace of her brain, Summoned a minute, at her rich behest, To wander fugitive the world again, What does she think of? Of the dusty bridge, Spanning the mallow shadows in the heat, And porching in its hollow the cool wind; Or of the poplar on the naked ridge: Or of the bee that, clogged with nectared feet, Hums in the gorgeous tulip-bell confined? At times, her gentle brows are archly knit And watching the great clouds in silence pass? I know not; myriad are the phantasies That trouble the still dreams of maidenhood, Shaped in the passion of her brain and blood. ISAAC BUTT. BORN 1813- DIED 1879. [In dealing with the late Chief-justice | was called to the bar. The reputation he had Whiteside we made the trite remark that the gained as a speaker in the mimic debates of greatest part of the orator dies with himself. the university followed him to the outside The words appear cold, formless, and prosaic world, and, before he was long in his profeswhich thrilled thousands to wild enthusiasm sion he was called to take part in important when they had the accessories of a fine pre- public proceedings. He made in the Mansion sence, a sonorous voice, appropriate gesture, House, Dublin, in February, 1840, a very hot and extraneous but exciting circumstances. and strong Conservative speech-for Mr. Butt Of Isaac Butt this fact is truer than of the then belonged to the extreme Tory section— majority of orators; more true, especially, which created great enthusiasm; and, in the than of Whiteside. Whiteside's orations, same year, he defended the old Dublin corapart from the force given to them by his poration before the House of Lords with such great histrionic powers, smelt of the lamp; dexterity as to draw down the applause of and thus in his spoken utterances we come several peers, and even to move the usually across sentences which have all the polish of impassive Duke of Wellington. His profesthe careful writer in the closet. But the sional advancement under such circumstances reader will look in vain through the speeches was naturally rapid; in six years after he of Isaac Butt for passages of sustained beauty | was called to the bar he was made a Q.C., or of well-balanced sentences; and that default teaches us Butt's great merit. He was emphatically a man of ideas, not of words; filled with his subject, he forgot mere form; many of his sentences were unfinished, all of them rugged; and yet since O'Connell there was perhaps no Irish political orator who could so thoroughly convince and so deeply thrill Irish audiences. The secret was that the hearer could see every link as it was added to the chain of reasoning, and because the bursts of Isaac Butt came from a great heart and passionate conviction. Isaac Butt was the son of a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. Robert Butt, and was born in Stranorlar, in the county of Donegal, in 1813. He entered Trinity College in 1832, and his course, both in his studies and in the College Historical Society, was brilliant. Of the famous debating body he was twice auditor and a gold medallist. Almost immediately after he had graduated he was elected Whately professor of political economy. In 1838 he and for many years subsequently he was engaged in every important trial, political or otherwise, which took place in Ireland. Besides the political triumphs already mentioned, the young barrister had the honour of meeting the redoubtable O'Connell himself in a pitched battle on the question of Repeal of the Union, in the Dublin Corporation, and the great Agitator paid a high compliment to the talents and the good feeling of his youthful opponent. It was inevitable under such circumstances that Butt should be drawn into politics, and in 1852 he was elected in the Conservative interest for Harwich. He next sought a constituency in his native country, and from 1852 to 1865 sate for Youghal. During this period his views had undergone some modification, and towards the close, he was little removed from a Liberal of the Palmerstonian school. In 1865 he was rejected by his old constituents, and for a while he was unheard of in politics; while at the Four |