memory of any man then engaged in public affairs. Its chief charm for the people was the frankness with which truths were uttered which had commonly been heard only in whispers. The case of Ireland was no longer (to borrow the metaphor of Moore) the lament of a beggar who showed his sores to excite compassion, but the remonstrance of an injured and angry partner, who insisted on fair play or a close of the partnership. The omnipotent landowners who controlled everything in the country, and could count for steadfast support from the courts and the Castle, were brought face to face with the first principles of public polity, and their misconduct habitually exposed. The Irish people amounted to nearly eight millions at that time, and the voice of haughty self-reliance was very welcome to them. The experiment commenced, as we have seen, in the Vindicator, of appealing to an old bardic people in passionate popular verse, I resolved to carry into the Nation; I invited my new friends to help, and set an example of the spirit which I desired to evoke.[1] Davis, who had never published a stanza, John O'Hagan, who had as little practice, even Mangan, who was a genuine poet, but had not yet been kindled into a confident trust in the destiny of Ireland, wrote frequently, and volunteers soon came who matched the pioneers at their own weapons. Williams's "Munster War Song," Ingram's Memory of the Dead," De Jean Fraser's "Gathering of the Nation," Drennan's "Battle of Beal-an-Ath Buidhe," and Denny Lane's "Kate of Araglen," which came from volunteers, are not excelled in the whole circle of Irish song. It was Davis's habit to put his whole strength into any work he undertook; the new faculty he had developed delighted him, chiefly as another serviceable weapon to be employed in the war of deliverance, and for three years he poured out songs and ballads which inflamed and elevated the spirit of the country.[2]
- ↑ "Fag a Bealach," published in the third number, and previously sung at a supper of the contributors, was the first national poem in the new journal.
- ↑ I have published a memoir of Thomas Davis, in which his character and services, his genius and devotion to Ireland are described; these things can only be glanced at in the present volume. It is proper to say that Samuel Ferguson had been at work on Irish literature long before Davis or the other writers of the Nation, but the University Magazine, to which his contributions commonly went, circulated among a class who
