Fenians talk of an Irish Republic, and the brave and honest men who led the rising of '98 undoubtedly heartily desired to establish one on the American model. But to any one really acquainted with Irish character, to dream of such institutions for ages to come seems utterly vain. All the qualities which go to make a republican, in the true sense of the term, are wanting in the Irish nature; and, on the other hand, there is a superabundance of all the opposite qualities which go to make a loyal subject of a king,--not _too_ despotic, but still a strong-handed, visible, audible, tangible ruler of men. Devotion to an idea, to a constitution, to a flag; respect for law _as_ law; sturdy independence and self-reliance; regard for others' rights and jealousy of a man's own,--all these true republican characteristics are most rarely to be found in Irishmen. Nay, the most important of all--the reverence for law--is almost, we might say, reversed in his nature. The true Irishman detests law. He loves, indeed, mercy, retribution, many fine things which law may or may not produce. But the simple fact that a certain proceeding has been by proper authorities constituted a law or rule of any kind, in public matters or private, is reason enough, in high or low, to make it secretly distasteful. As Coleridge used to say, that, "when anything was presented to him as a duty, he instantly felt himself seized by a sense of inability to perform it," so, to the Celtic mind, when anything comes in the guise of a law, there is an accompanying seizure of moral paralysis. Even if the law or rule be made by the offender himself, it is all the same. Having given it utterance, it is a law, and he hates it accordingly. On the other hand, nothing can exceed the generous, chivalrous personal and family loyalty of the Irish nature. But it is a person he wants, not a constitution or a flag.