een said that Shelley was unsuccessful in his
self-imposed task, but he was simply before his time, and no wonder,
when we remember the condition of Ireland at the time of his visit.

We know to-day that much of what he demanded has been conceded to
Ireland by liberal English governments. An alien Church has been
disestablished; public education, Catholic emancipation, and a good
deal more, has been given. In the late repeal movement, the young
Ireland party, the Fenian organization, and the present Home Rule
agitation, we find, as Shelley wished, Catholic and Protestant working
arm in arm, their colors being an admixture of orange and green--a
healthy sign.

Those who dislike this noble people--for the name is legion of those
who are fond of shouting "No Irish need apply"--I would recommend to
think calmly over Irish history, to remember the frightful outrages
put upon this generous, warm-hearted, and impulsive race for
centuries, and read up Froude, Mitchell, Goldwin-Smith, McGee, Moran,
and other Irish historians.

We know what the Irish are capable of, and that in Ireland, as here,
after a generation or two of education, the old theological belief
becomes by a gradual process less and less strong.

On September 6th, 1819, a red letter day was added to the English
calendar, through the slaughter by cavalry of a number of unarmed men,
who were agitating, peaceably, for the rights of labor. This is known
to posterity as the "Peterloo Massacre," and happened in Manchester,
on the site of the present superb Free Trade Hall, erected by the Free
Traders to commemorate the ultimate triumph of their cause over the
capitalists, who, in the manufacturing districts, were, until a few
years back, always aided by the military in putting down strikes or
demands for increase of wages.

At the time of this outrage Shelley was in Italy; in consequence of it
his attention was concentrated more than previously on the labor
question, and he immediately composed half a dozen in spiriting poems,
full of the fire of genius; in one of which he calls, with a voice of
thunder, to the

I.

"Men of England! wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave, with toil and care,
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

II.

Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat--nay, drink