ng a worthy scholar of the "Nation"
school, both past and present, and no one recognised this more quickly
than Charles Stewart Parnell. It was no doubt this appreciation that
prompted the new Irish leader to ask Tim Healy to become his private
secretary.

Parnell possessed in a remarkable degree a gift which was of great
service to him during his political career as the successor of Isaac
Butt. This was the faculty of weighing up the special qualities of the
various members of the Irish Party and using them accordingly. Without
attempting for a moment to underrate Parnell as a great leader of men, I
must say that there were members of the Party far abler in many respects
than he was, and, no doubt, in looking around for someone to supply the
qualities in which he, himself, was wanting, he could see that Healy was
the very man for his purpose.

When he was in America he wired to Tim offering him the post, which
offer was at once accepted, and, in the shortest possible time,
Parnell's new secretary had crossed the Atlantic, and was by his side
ready to be put in harness at once. It was an excellent combination, and
there can be no doubt but that, during the time that the connection
existed between them, Parnell owed much towards the successful carrying
on of the national struggle to his young secretary's inspiration.

Michael Davitt, in his "Fall of Feudalism," pays a high tribute to
Healy's splendid service in connection with Gladstone's Land Act.
Undoubtedly his was the credit for what became known as the "Healy
Clause," which provided that no rent should be payable for land on
improvements made by the tenant himself or his immediate predecessor.
Not only was this credit conceded to him of being the author of this
clause by distinguished fellow-countrymen like Michael Davitt and Lord
Russell of Killowen, but by Mr. Gladstone himself.

As I have referred to the opinions expressed on Healy in Michael
Davitt's book, perhaps I may be forgiven if I go out of my way somewhat
in referring to another passage in the same book, in which he pays a
well-deserved tribute to a noble Irishman, Patrick Ford, of the New York
"Irish World," with which, in common with Irish Nationalists the world
over, I cordially agree. There are some men whom you may never have seen
in the flesh, but whom you feel, through correspondence with them and in
other ways, that you know none the less thoroughly all the same. Such a
man is Patrick Ford. It