the Pope a prince with extensive dominions, and involved in political conflicts, but it was not too much that the head of the Catholics of Europe should have one city where he was master and independent, beyond control or interference. Lord Odo replied that much might be admitted on this head if the people of Rome were not so eager to get rid of him, but it was entirely adverse to the modern spirit, and to one's sense of justice, to impose a government which they distrusted and disliked on a quarter of a million of people on any pretence whatever. After a pause I repeated his axiom, pausing on every clause of it. "It is contrary to the modern spirit, and to one's sense of justice, to impose a government which they dislike on a quarter of a million of people on any pretence. By my faith," I said, "I believe you're right; let us begin by applying the maxim to Dublin."
In Ireland a number of Fenians had been arrested under the Treason Felony Act, and their trial took place in Dublin at this time. Though I was not acquainted with any of them, and thought their means and methods insensate, I was deeply interested in men who had risked their lives in the just quarrel of Ireland. I wrote to Judge O'Hagan repeatedly on the subject. At the beginning of the new year, 1866, I said:—
"I have read the Fenian Trials with mixed feelings of compassion and astonishment. 1848 was unwise enough in many respects, but anything to match the fatuity with which Stephens entrusted treasonable notices to ragged recruits who had joined him a few weeks does not, I think, exist in the history of conspiracies. And Pagan O'Leary, who no sooner met a soldier over a pint of porter than he exclaimed (like the man in the Critic), 'A sudden thought strikes me; let us swear eternal allegiance to the Irish Republic, now virtually established can they be matched anywhere?' Poor fellows, God pity them! they had courage and devotion which rescues them from contempt. … Again, I have been dreaming constantly of the unfortunate Fenian prisoners. Fancy the condition of men of some culture like O'Leary, Kickham, and O'Keefe, utterly without books, and without pen and ink. The circulation is commonly slow and the blood cold in a man who lives by journalism, and fancy them,
