A purer soul, a more blameless spirit, than Thomas Russell, never sunk on the battle-field of freedom. Fixed in principles, and resolute in danger, he was nevertheless gentle, courteous, unobstrusive, and humane; with all the modesty and unaffectedness of childhood, he united the zeal of a martyr and the courage of a hero. To the cause of his country he devoted all his energies and all his will; and when he failed to render it prosperous in life, he illumined it by his devotion and steadfastness in death. The noble speech given above, and the passages from his letters which we have quoted, are sufficient in themselves to show how chivalrous was the spirit, how noble the motives of Thomas Russell. The predictions which he uttered with so much confidence have not indeed been fulfilled, and the success which he looked forward to so hopefully has never been won. But his advice, so often repeated in his letters, is still adhered to; his countrymen have not yet learned to abandon the cause in which he suffered, and they still cherish the conviction which he so touchingly expressed--"that liberty will, in the midst of these storms be established, and that God will yet wipe off the tears of the Irish nation." Russell rests in the churchyard of the Protestant church of Downpatrick. A plain slab marks the spot where he is laid, and there is on it this single line-- "THE GRAVE OF RUSSELL." * * * * * We have now closed our reference to the portion of Irish history comprised within the years 1798 and 1803, and as far as concerns the men who suffered for Ireland in those disastrous days our "Speeches from the Dock" are concluded. We leave behind us the struggle of 1798 and the men who organized it; we turn from the records of a period reeking with the gore of Ireland's truest sons, and echoing with the cries and curses of the innocent and oppressed; we pass without notice the butcheries and outrages that filled the land, while our countrymen were being sabred into submission; and we leave behind us, too, the short-lived insurrection of 1803, and the chivalrous young patriot who perished with it. We turn to more recent events, less appalling in their general aspect, but not less important in their consequences, or less interesting to the present generation, and take up the next link in the unbroken chain of protests against British rule in Ireland with the lives and the fortunes of the patriots of 1848. How faithfully the principles of freedom have been handed down--how nobly the men of our own times have imitated the patriots of the past--how thoroughly the sentiments expressed from the Green-street dock nineteen years ago coincide with the declarations of Tone, of Emmet, and of Russell--our readers will shortly have an opportunity of judging. They will see how all the sufferings and all the calamities that darkened the path of the martyrs of '98 were insufficient to deter others, as gifted, as earnest,