miserable hovels, while idle and loafing aristocrats could revel upon the result of others' labours and live in sumptuous mansions." The grand mission of his race was, he explained, to lead the coming social and political revolution which is to sweep away these gross anomalies, but he fails to see that this would, were it successful, also overwhelm the long-matured system of law and social order, of culture, science, and religion, which mark this country out as the home of an ancient, progressive, and civilised nation. But let it be observed that Mr. Davitt agrees with Mr. Topp that the Irish Question is au fond a question of race. Mr. Topp supports this view by a reference to the inimitable description by the great historian Mommsen of the character of the Celts of Gaul, who "on the eve of their conquest by Cæsar resembled the modern Irish." This racial view of the Celts, I may add, has impressed itself on the mind of the greatest maker, as well as of the greatest writer, of history of our times.
"'The Teutonic or Germanic race,' said Bismarck,[1] with his customary point and pungency, 'is, so to speak, the masculine element which goes all over
- ↑ Bismarck in the Franco-German War, by Dr. Busch, vol. ii. p. 285.
