ion
{239} upon the peasantry, the majority of the people. Intermarriage,
so savagely interdicted for centuries, was the only thing which could
ever have fused two such contrasting races. Such a fusion might have
benefited both, in giving a wholesome solidity to the Irish, while the
stolid English would have been enriched by the fascinating traits and
the native genius of their brilliant neighbors. But the opportunity
had been lost; and enlightened English statesmanship is still seeking
for a plan which will convert an unnatural and artificial union into a
real one.

The delusive promises of the relief which was to come with union were
not fulfilled. Catholics remained under the same monstrous ban as
before, and things were practically unchanged. Young Robert Emmett's
abortive attempt to seize Dublin Castle in 1803 intensified conditions,
but did not alter them. The pathetic story of his capture while
seeking a parting interview with Sarah Curran, to whom he was engaged,
and his death by hanging the following morning, is one of the smaller
tragedies in the greater one; and the death of Sarah {240} from a
broken heart, soon after, is the subject of Moore's well-known lines.

The most colossal figure in the story of Ireland had now appeared.
Daniel O'Connell, unlike the other great leaders, was a Catholic. In
the language of another, "he was the incarnation of the Irish nation."
All that they were, he was, on a majestic scale. His whole tremendous
weight was thrown into the subject of Catholic emancipation; and,
although a giant in eloquence and in power, it took him just
twenty-nine years to accomplish it. In the year 1829, even Wellington,
that incarnation of British conservatism, bent his head before the
storm, and there was a full and unqualified removal of Catholic
disabilities. O'Connell was not content; he did not pause. The
tithe-system, that most odious of oppressions, must go. A starving
nation compelled to support in its own land a Church it considered
blasphemous! A standing army kept in their land to wring this tribute
from them at the point of the bayonet! Think of a people on the brink
of the greatest famine Europe has ever known, being in arrears a
million and a quarter of pounds for tithes {241} for an Established
Church they did not want! Is it strange that Sydney Smith said no
abuse as great could be found in Timbuctoo? Is it a wonder that there
was always disorder and violence from a c