in Ireland. When the cup is full it will flow over;—and the saying, that Ireland "must have a rebellion every forty or fifty years," has a law of nature for its foundation. The grand river that supplies the mighty "Niagara," flows quietly on for many a mile, till it reaches a certain point, when it takes a rapidity, gathering force as it proceeds, till it meets the fearful precipice down which it has roared and tumbled for ages, and down which it will roar and tumble till nature herself shall be dissolved.
The so-called "Rebellion" of 1848, which sadly sealed the fate of Mitchell and O'Brien, was precisely this law. They had waited and suffered, suffered and waited, till they reached the awful chasm—the famine. They had seen it swallow its thousands, and they saw and felt that this chasm might have been closed; they looked on, they agitated, till their philanthropic love of country and deep sense of justice rushed into a temporary madness, rashness, and an insanity which hurled them headlong into their present abyss. The Tipperary men, who congregated on that hill, with their flocks and herds, gave a rational reply to the priest, who exhorted them to disperse, rational—for uncultivated barbarians, as their enemies call them.
The priest pointed them to the absurdity, the rashness of rising against so formidable an enemy as England and her soldiers stationed in the country. "Better suffer than fight, and fight for nothing, too." They added, "It isn't the likes of us, yer riverence, that looks for the right, or the Repale, but the long winter
