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whether, the character of the man being taken into account, the price exacted was disproportionate to the gift?

It is necessary, however, to distinguish. If he was essentially a man with a cause, he was in no wise a fanatic. To some men it chances to possess their cause, to others to be possessed by it; to some it is, so far as choice can be said to be a factor at all in the lives of men, the result of free election; while there are others to whom it might almost appear that no alternative has been offered, and in whose case the attempt to elude the destiny prepared for them would be as vain as the endeavour to escape from some doom which, pronounced upon them at birth, would be found, like Azrael, the angel of death in the Eastern legend, awaiting them wherever they might fly.

It was to this last class that Lord Edward belonged. Singlehearted and loyal as was his devotion to his country, it would be a mistake to confuse him with those comrades to whom her enfranchisement had been from youth up their one absorbing preoccupation. Between such men and himself, in spite of the cordiality of their relations, there remained a gulf which, though bridged over by a common aim and a common political faith, could not but leave them in a measure apart. To the former, their one supreme object removed, life would have held but little meaning; to Lord Edward that object, dedicated to it as were the closing years of his brief manhood, was, taking his life as a whole, but one aim out of many, and only by the gradual elimination of rival, if not conflicting, interests was its ultimate domination secured. Lover, soldier, and patriot by turns, he brought almost equal enthusiasm to bear upon each pursuit ; and the enterprise in which he met his death was embraced in precisely that gallant and irresponsible spirit of adventure, combined with an invincible faith in the justice of his cause, which sent the knighterrant of chivalry riding forth on his quest.

Amongst those best qualified to judge there is found, in friends and foes alike, a singular consonance of opinion with regard to his character. There was a simplicity and a transparent directness about it which forced upon men of the most opposite views the recognition of its main features. On his courage, his loyalty to the cause he had made his own, his unblemished integrity, the sincerity of his political ardour, and the rare and sunny sweetness of his disposition, scarcely a doubt has been cast; so that even the author of an account, published in 1799, of the foul and sanguinary conspiracy' which had just been crushed has nothing but praise for the young commander of that conspiracy, whom he describes as the delight and pride of all who knew him (this truly unfortunate circumstance of his life excepted).'

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But while few were found to cast a stone at his personal character, there is, except among those pledged to allow no failing or deficiency

to mar their portrait, scarcely less unanimity with respect to his absolute unfitness for the part he was set to play. Thus an authority quoted by Madden as perhaps better acquainted with him than any other of his associates, emphatically denied his capacity to conduct a revolution; Reinhard, the French minister to the Hanseatic towns, and a most friendly critic of the envoy who had been sent to open negotiations with his Government, though declaring himself ready to answer for the young man's sincerity with his head, added that he was wholly unqualified to be leader of an enterprise or chief of a party; and an observer in a different sphere, the informer Cox, characterised him as unfit to command a sergeant's guard.

Such would, in fact, seem to have been the general verdict-a verdict borne out by the issue of the struggle, and his entire failure to conduct it to a successful end, and one which, in all probabilityfor neither arrogance nor vanity was among his failings-would have been indorsed by the subject of it himself. It was part of the chivalry of his nature not to evade the responsibility thrust upon him; but it was his misfortune, and, according as it is regarded, the misfortune or the salvation of his country, that he was forced into a position which he was in no way competent to fill. The incongruity of the man and the situation lends half its tragedy to the melancholy story.

The earlier years of Lord Edward's life contain little worth recording. The son of the first Duke of Leinster by Lady Emilia Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, he was born in 1764, received his education chiefly abroad, at the hands of his mother's second husband, her son's former tutor; and entering the army at the age of sixteen, served his apprenticeship to active service some two years later in the war carried on by England against her revolted colonies, distinguishing himself in America by a harebrained and reckless daring which in some sort foreshadowed his future career. Fifteen years later, when dying in prison of wounds received in what he held to be the defence of the liberties of his countrymen, the comparison of the two objects for which his blood had been shed would seem to have been present with him; and, reminded by some chance visitor of those old days, he replied-was it with the sense of a debt wiped out?—that it was in a different cause that he had been wounded at that time, since then he had been fighting against liberty, now for it.

An enthusiastic soldier, there is no doubt that, left to himself, his choice would have lain in the direction of a purely military life, but shortly after the conclusion of the war he found himself returned to Parliament by his brother, the Duke, as member for Athy, and the political career which was to lead to so calamitous an end was thus inaugurated. From the date of his entrance into Parliament the web of destiny, in spite of his occasional efforts to

free himself, was drawn more and more tightly around him, and there is something strange and relentless, as one follows the story, about the fashion in which his doom-the doom of a cause-hunted him down. There was no escape, the Angel of the Lord-or of Fate-barring every path save that appointed for him to tread.

Men do not, however, at once recognise the summons of their destiny. For the present his new duties, with the residence in Dublin they demanded, were merely irksome; nor did he for some years take any more active part in politics than was implied in a consistent and steady adherence to the popular party in the House.

There was other business on hand of greater interest in his eyes. For a considerable portion of Lord Edward's short life it would not be unsafe to say that when not engaged in soldiering he was sure to be making love; and the story of his love affairs reads like the gay and graceful prelude, touched here and there with pathos, which precedes the tragedy. Now it is Lady Catherine Meade 'pretty dear Kate'-who is the object of his boyish devotion; then a Lennox cousin, who, proving faithless, is replaced in turn by other attractions; until at last, less than six years before the end, his fugitive affections are fixed by the fair little foster-daughter of Madame de Genlis, who after three weeks' acquaintance became his wife. But, in spite of all temporary and passing attachments, it is the devoted and passionate love for his mother, more like that of a daughter than a son in its clinging tenderness, which strikes the deepest note. To her he comes back after each disappointment: 'I love nothing in comparison with you, my dearest mother, after all! Being absent from you is very terrible at times.' And again: 'You are after all what I love best in the world. I always return to you and find it is the only love I do not deceive myself in. In thinking over with myself what misfortunes I could bear, I found there was one I could not ;-but God bless you!'

There is, alas! no making terms with Fate, but the misfortune which Lord Edward felt would have been intolerable was spared him. His mother outlived him, to mourn his loss.

In the year 1788 he was once more at the other side of the Atlantic, having rejoined his regiment, and seeking in adventurous journeys across unexplored country and association with the native tribes distraction from troubles at home. It was on his return to England a year later that an offer was made to him through his uncle, the Duke of Richmond, which might have gone far to change the character of his future. A dissolution of Parliament had taken place, leaving him, as he imagined, a free man, at liberty to devote himself to his chosen profession; and when it was suggested that he should take the command of an expedition to be sent against Cadiz, pledging himself in return to be no longer found in the ranks of the Opposition, he closed eagerly with the offer.

VOL. XLIII-No. 252

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That he felt no difficulty in giving this negative engagement is a proof of how fully he believed himself to be withdrawn from political life, and had he been permitted to carry out his purpose the history of 1798 might have lacked one of its most tragic chapters. But an unexpected obstacle intervened. The Duke of Leinster, without consulting the person chiefly concerned, had nominated his brother member for Kildare in the new Parliament. It was impossible for a man of Lord Edward's opinions to take his seat as a supporter of the Government, and the alternative of refusing it does not seem to have suggested itself. Withdrawing, therefore, the quasi-pledge which had been obtained from him, he relinquished the opportunity of military advancement, and resigned himself to a return to the treadmill from which he had imagined himself released. The die was finally cast, and he passed from the ranks of the soldiers into those of the politicians.

Life at home, no doubt, as time went on, presented compensations to a man of tastes so eminently social. Both as Fitzgerald and as Lennox, the doors of London society were open to him. Nor did his political education stand still; for while at the great Whig houses he enjoyed ample opportunities of intercourse with the most eminent members of the party to which, by sympathy and conviction, he had always belonged, his name likewise occurs, somewhat incongruously, amongst those of the disciples accustomed to sit at the feet of Thomas Paine, author of the Rights of Man-a teacher eminently qualified to carry on the training of a neophyte from the point to which it had been conducted by more responsible statesmen, by pointing out the connexion between revolution as a theoretical principle and as a practical force.

As late, however, as the end of the year 1792, no step had been taken by the future rebel in any way pledging him to an active revolutionary course. A year earlier the most important development of the agitation then rising to fever-heat in Ireland had taken place, in the formation of the Society of United Irishmen; but even at this date Lord Edward would seem to have had little to do with the party by which it had been organised, and it was only in November 1792 that an event occurred which practically decided his future.

Sharing to the full the extravagant enthusiasm evoked among certain classes by the progress of the French Revolution, and keenly interested in its development, he was by the end of October making an inspection of French affairs at headquarters, and lodging under the same roof as his teacher and oracle, Paine.

To a man of his views and nationality the proceedings then going forward in the Convention were likely to appeal with special force. The people that sat in darkness had seen a great light, and nowhere was the gloom deeper than in Ireland. When, on the 19th of

November, the celebrated decree was passed tendering fraternity and aid to all nations desirous of regaining their liberty, it was no wonder that the menace to tyranny should have sounded significantly in the ears of an Irishman. But even before that decree was passed Lord Edward had come forward, reckless of consequences, to make open confession of his faith, and at a public meeting at which revolutionary speeches were made, and corresponding toasts were drunk, had renounced his title and burnt his boats behind him.

The retort of the British Government was sharp and decisive. Lord Edward was, without a hearing, dismissed from the army.

It is difficult to trace with accuracy cause and effect. In after days Lord Edward's mother, sorrowfully reviewing the past, was accustomed to date his misfortunes to the step thus taken by Government, asserting that, to a man of his spirit, a sentence of death would have been, in comparison, merciful. But, holding this as her own view, she was just enough to add that he had never himself admitted that the action of the authorities had influenced his conduct. It is possible that both were in a measure right; that his cashierment, while in no way affecting his convictions, may have burnt in upon him the importance of principles of which the logical significance might otherwise have escaped him, and that the creed which might under other circumstances have remained-as how many creeds do!—a sleeping partner in the business of life, was thus transformed into a working faith. Men are apt to prize a possession by what it has cost them. He had been proud of his profession, and to find himself suddenly deprived of it would naturally accentuate the importance of the cause for which it had been forfeited. From thenceforward his identification with the party of revolution proceeded rapidly.

The condition of Ireland at the time is too well known to require more than a passing glance. It was one calculated to cause uneasiness to all parties alike, save that which looked to revolution as the sole cure for her ills. Lawlessness, prevailing throughout the length and breadth of the land, was met by measures of unexampled severity, which in their turn drove the peasantry to retaliation wheresoever retaliation was possible. A fresh military movement had been likewise set on foot, and it was upon a motion in Parliament approving the action taken by the Lord-Lieutenant in forbidding a parade of the new National Battalion 'that the well-known scene took place in which Lord Edward, having characterised the Lord-Lieutenant and the majority of the House as the worse subjects the King possessed, framed the apology demanded by the offended dignity of the House in terms so ambiguous as to emphasise rather than extenuate the offence. 'I am accused,' he said, 'of having declared that I think the Lord-Lieutenant and the majority of this House the worst subjects the King has. I said so―'tis true—and I'm sorry for it.'

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