out the risk he was running,--even
describing the desolate condition of the unsuccessful literary
adventurer in the dreary peopled wilderness, in which the friendless may
lie down and die alone, as the starved animal lies down and perishes in
the ravine in the desert. I showed him how impossible it was for me or
anybody to help him, except with a little money, till he had shown what
he could do; and I entreated him to wait two years,--one year,--six
months, before rushing on such a fate. Here, and here alone, he was
self-willed. At first he explained to me that he had one piece of
employment to rely on. He was to be the London correspondent of the
Repeal organ in Dublin,--the "Nation" newspaper. The pay was next to
nothing. He could not live, ever so frugally, on four times the amount:
but it was an engagement; and it would enable him to serve his country.
So, as there was nothing else to be done, Mr. H. started him for London,
with just money enough to carry him there. Once there, he was sure he
should do very well.

I doubted this; and he was met, at the address he gave, (at an Irish
greengrocer's, the only person he knew in London,) by an order for money
enough to carry him over two or three weeks,--money given by two or
three friends to whom I ventured to open the case. I have seldom read
a happier letter than Patrick's first from London; but it was not even
then, nor for some time after, that he told me the main reason of his
horror at remaining in Dublin.

He had hoped to support himself as a tutor while studying and practising
for the literary profession; and he had been engaged to teach the
children of a rich citizen,--not only the boys, but the daughter. He, an
engaging youth of three-and-twenty, with blue eyes and golden hair, an
innocent and noble expression of countenance, an open heart, a glowing
imagination, and an eloquent tongue, was set to teach Latin and literary
composition to a pretty, warm-hearted, romantic girl of twenty; and when
they were in love and engaged, the father considered himself the victim
of the basest treachery that ever man suffered under. In vain the young
people pleaded for leave to love and wait till Patrick could provide a
home for his wife. They asked no favor but to be let alone. Patrick's
family was as good as hers; and he had the education and manners of a
gentleman, without any objectionable habits or tastes, but with every
possible desire to win an honorable home for his b