O’Connor is an Irishman and a Nationalist, but he has shaken the dust of Ireland from his feet, and he sits for the Scotland division of Liverpool, and has done himself rather well as a promoter of heterogeneous newspapers in London. With Mr. O’Connor, however, we shall deal fully elsewhere. Only for the sake of symmetry, do not let us forget that he is a pathriot of the finest water. The vital defect in the character of the Irish pathriot, looking at him squarely, is that in recent times at any rate he has never been a statesman. A pathriot with the proper statesmanlike qualities might, it is true, have been altogether swamped by the frothy eloquence and wild demands of the main body of pathriots. But such a one, if the Irish could only have managed to find him and keep him going, whether in the House of Commons or on English platforms, would in the long run have made a vast difference to her interests. It may be argued that Ireland did actually find a statesman in Mr. Gladstone. On the other hand it is abundantly evident that however sincere and admirable Mr. Gladstone’s proposals for the betterment of the country may have been, they were not based on anything like an exact, or for that matter even a working, knowledge of its necessities and requirements. As for Mr. Parnell, it is no disrespect to him to say of him, in full view of his amazing career, that he was not a statesman even in a small way. His aloofness, haughtiness and chilliness of temper precluded him from a really effective part or lot in the faction which he led, and ruled with a rod of iron, and, for himself, he had not sufficient spirits and imagination to carve out an independent and statesmanlike policy. Mr. Parnell made a great name and no little dust in the world, yet the verdict of history upon him will be that he was neither an O’Connell nor an Isaac Butt, and that he failed to go anything like so far as might have been expected of him. For the rest of the pathriots, the remnant, as it were, of the National party, they do not matter, and they know it. In the House of Commons they are absolutely without other than adventitious power. The English party system happened to afford them certain mechanical advantages of which they are never tired of boasting. Their sarcasms and humors and occasional displays of temper bring them from time to time a passing notoriety. But taking them as a body they are inept, irresponsible, feeble and negligible; constituting, indeed, a standing monument to the undesirable vagaries which might be looked for in the event of their being granted that much desired “little place of their own” on College Green. In fine, the Irish pathriot of our own times will not wash. He means well by his country, and well enough by himself, but he has no balance, and is entirely blind to the falsehood of extremes. It is curious to note how easily Ireland is satisfied. In pretty well all matters that concern her closely her standard of requirement is barely