bull as the chief ground of their usurpation. It was remembered, no doubt, that the Romish priests had taught that an Irishman might be killed like a dog, and that Franciscan friars had urged the extirpation of the Irish race. It is possible, it is almost certain, that the native chiefs, until the opening of modern history, owed no allegiance to Rome, and that the Irish church, endeared to the native Celts by ages of persecution, still ministered by its primitive bishops, and, with Colman and Columba, traced its authority to Ephesus and St. John. But all this was now to change. A reformation had passed over Europe, and the chief leaders of the religious movement were Henry and Elizabeth, the persecutors of the Irish name. The English within the pale had become Protestants, but they showed no disposition to abandon the island which they had received from St. Peter's patrimony, and in the vigorous reign of Elizabeth the English armies, renewed by the fresh impulses of progress, began to press once more upon the limits of Celtic independence. The conquest, begun nearly four centuries before, was now slowly advancing. Laws of unusual severity were enacted; tanistry and other Irish usages were abolished. It was plainly the design of the English queen to reduce the island to a passive subjection to her power. The cause of this fresh assault upon the liberties of Ireland was the restless intrigues of the Jesuits. In that gallant struggle which Elizabeth was destined to wage for the safety of her crown and her life against the pope, the Spaniards, the adherents of Mary of Scotland, and all Romish Europe, the most active and most dangerous of her foes were ever the disciples of Loyola. To ruin and break down every Protestant government, to cover with discord and slaughter every Protestant land, and from the wreck of nations to build up a spiritual empire as tyrannical and as severe as was that of Tiberius or Nero, was then, as now, the secret or open aim of every Jesuit. To wound or to destroy Elizabeth the society began its disastrous labors in Ireland. The Jesuits, in various disguises, penetrated to the courts of the native chiefs. They roused the fires of national antipathy; they scoffed at the Saxons as heretics; they allured the Irish to abandon forever the usages of St. Patrick and to ally themselves with the Italian church; they promised the natives the protection of St. Peter, the shield of Mary, the blessing of the pope, and the military aid of all Catholic Europe if they would rise once more in a grand crusade against the English of the pale and drive the Saxons from their soil. touch of the unsparing Jesuits drew on the Celtic chieftains to their ruin. Not satisfied with the possession of three-fourths of the island, with the enjoyment of their own laws and their own faith, with the prospect of a gradual improvement and a peaceful union with their English masters of the pale, the impulsive people accepted the offers of Rome, threw themselves at the pontiff's feet, and became, for the first time, the willing instruments of the Jesuits and the popes. They may be excused, if not forgiven. Their schools had long been swept away; their people had sunk into ignorance; history, poetry, and music had given place to the ceaseless turmoil of a border war. Rome stretched forth its cunning hand to extirpate the Irish church, and, after four centuries of violence, succeeded at last by a fatal fraud. From Ulster and Munster, from the banks of the Shannon and the glens of Wicklow, the wild Irish, inspired by the savage teachings of their Italian masters, fell bravely upon the English pale. But the whole scheme of the crusade proved soon the desperate vision of deluded priests. The pope could give little aid to his new converts (1560-1600); the Spanish were too far off to be of service; and Elizabeth, resolute and bold, sent, one by one, the bravest or the most renowned of her courtiers, to secure her dominion over the fertile isle. Here Raleigh cut down the Irish kerns, and Grey massacred the hopeless rebels; here the Norrises and the Blounts were heard of in many a fray; here Essex, brave but inexperienced, wasted his fine army, and returned to perish on the block; and here, at length, the prudent Mountjoy broke the strength of the Irish league. Tyrone, the great O'Neil, once master of half Ireland, the terror of Elizabeth and of the English pale, went into exile; the savage chiefs of the West sank into submission; and when Elizabeth died Ireland was almost wholly conquered. Happy had the fertile isle submitted peacefully to its inevitable doom! The later sorrows of this unlucky land may still be traced to the mischievous plottings of the society of Loyola. The Jesuits would never suffer Ireland to repose. A Romish faction grew up among its ignorant people pledged to the hopeless task of winning back the island to the dominion of the pope. A colony of Scottish Protestants had settled on the wasted soil of Ulster, and by industry and intelligence were fast restoring the early prosperity of the favored scene of Patrick's labors and Columba's prayers. The Jesuits and the papal chiefs resolved upon their destruction (1640–1644). On a sad and memorable day, the source of The alluring vision painted by the skillful many a bitter woe to Ireland, the Romish forces 1 Sacchinus, iv. 148. Wolfe, a Jesuit and papal nun cio, made his way to Cork in 1561. 2 So Wolfe probably induced some Irish married priests for we can not believe his scandalous account -to put away their wives. Clericos cænobitasque passim omnes cum mulierculis suis. It is plain that in 1561 the priests were married. sprang upon the prosperous colony, and wasted it with fierce malignity. Forty thousand Protestants were massacred without remorse; the fields of Ulster were filled with the dead; the 1 Allen, Archer, and many other Jesuits are noted in the various risings. See Moore, Hist. Ireland, ii. 437, 497. noble perished in his castle, the priest was hang- | reformers. Their valor became conspicuous ed in his garden, and a new St. Bartholo- on the battle-fields of France and Germany, and mew's swept over Ireland.1 But a perpetual the papacy had no more remorseless defenders terror now settled upon all Protestant minds; than that misguided race who had been sold into the Irish massacre shocked all Europe; the slavery by Adrian, and reduced to a more fatal Protestant natives brooded over their venge- bondage by the unscrupulous arts of the Jesuits. ance; the spirits of the dead seemed to their impassioned fancies to float over the terrified isle; spectral illusions filled the air. A group of women, whose husbands had been murdered and their children drowned at Armagh, saw, about twilight, the vision of a woman rising from the waters; her form was erect, her hair hung long and disheveled, her skin was white as snow, and she cried incessantly to the sad spectators, "Revenge! revenge!" A ghost was seen constantly from December to spring-time, stretching out its spectral hands over the scene of death." The devotion of the Irish to the Italian prelate grew into an insane passion. They gave their lives freely for the priest who had destroyed them. The Italians smiled at their sincerity, and employed them in their bloodiest deeds. A band of Irishmen, a Butler and a Devereux, were selected to assassinate Wallenstein; an Irishman defended the murder;' an Irish legion committed fearful crimes in the Vaudois valleys; the brutal cruelty of the O'Neils and the O'Connors shocked the moral sense of an unscrupulous age. At length James II. set up a Catholic kingdom in Ireland, and the barbarities of Tyrone were renewed at the siege of Derry and the pillage of Ulster. But the abject race which lay sunk in superstitious decay was no match for the vigorous Protestants who fought under William of Orange. The Irish fell once more into gross degradation. Even Swift, the idol of Dublin, scoffed at his wretched countrymen; and for a century the Celts starved in their miserable hovels, and groveled before their oppressors. The French revolution and the vain ambition of Napoleon roused them to a new insurrection, but the fall of the tyrant left them more wretched than before. Had Ireland retained the liberal faith of Patrick and Columba it might readily have shared in the new impulses of the age, and the colleges of Cashel and Armagh and the monasteries of Iona might once again have imparted a consecrated civilization to Northern Europe; once more the hills of Antrim might have echoed to the tread of seven thousand students, and the saints and scholars of Erin have restored the intellectual glory of the sacred isle. But the fated land was now bound by terrible ties to the see of Rome. The Celtic race had doomed itself to ceaseless ignorance; the popes and the Jesuits ruled the hopeless people with remorse- Then began the remarkable emigration of less skill; and Ireland had allied itself to that the Celts. A free and Protestant land opened cruel and immoral conservatism which was ex-wide its hospitable shores to the hapless race, emplified in the massacres of Ulster or the ravages of Philip of Spain. The name of an Irish Catholic seemed now the symbol of barbarous malignity. The Celts, who had once educated Europe, became, under Romish influences, accursed in the eyes of civilization. and with unbounded generosity offered them liberty, equality, and a peaceful home. They swarmed over the ocean. A ceaseless tide of Celtic bondsmen has poured into the cities of the New World. But unhappily the virtues of Patrick and the modesty of Columba have too often been forgotten by their countrymen. They have brought with them an insane devotion to the Romish see-a strange hostility to the free institutions of their adopted land. They have labored to destroy that wide system of public instruction by which alone they can hope to rise from their mental decay. They have proclaimed their hostility to the Bible, whose pure lessons had once made Ireland the island of the saints. They have chosen to linger in vicious ignorance, and to fill the prisons and the almshouses, instead of rising, by edu Cromwell, the avenger of the massacre of Derry, in 1649 entered Ireland to crush the Romish league; and if retaliation or retribution ever soothed a revengeful spirit, the wraiths that hovered over the rivers of Ulster must now have sunk to rest. The Romish forces melted away before the vigorous soldier; that keen intellect, which had never faltered on the battle-field, cut to pieces, by its bold strategy, the Irish host; no pity moved him as he blotted cities from the earth, or strewed the land with dead. His cruelty was inexcusable; his followers imitated his severity, and Ireland was crush-cation and industry, to the dignity of freemen. ed into submission. From Cromwell's time the English ruled over the subject island, a severe and exacting caste. The bravest and most adventurous of the Celts abandoned their native land. They fought in the armies of the Catholic powers in every crusade against the The English had often intermingled with the Celts and adopted their manners. The contest has from this period been one of religion. 2 These spectral illusions, the creations of minds torn by grief or racked by apprehension, remind one of the oracles of Thucydides, or the apparitions of Livy. They have become the servile tools of corrupt politicians or foreign priests; and when danger hovered over the nation the votes of Irishmen were uniformly aimed against the government, and proved often more fatal to the hopes of freedom than the plots of Davis or the sword of Lee.2 1 Carve, Itinerarium, c. xi., reliqui Hiberni. Carve, an Irish exile, calls Butler, the assassin, an illustrious murderer, and exults over the woes of the enemies of Rome. 2 Of course this rebuke will touch only the guilty; some of the Irish immigrants have been patriots, many industrious and useful; but yet our statement is true. Yet we may trust that a more honorable career awaits the Celts in the future. Gratitude must awaken when knowledge has taught them to reflect; when they compare the generous hospitality of the New World with the bitter persecutions of the Old; when they reflect that here alone they are free from the malice of tyrants and the exactions of the priest; when education shall have aroused them from their blindness, and they have discovered, with remorse and shame, that every Irishman who, at the command of popes or prelates, labors to destroy the free institutions of his adopted home, is a traitor worse than Dermot Macmorrough when he guided the papal legions to the ruin of his native land. On a fair hill, amidst the gentlest scenery of Ulster, stands the venerable cathedral of Armagh, said to have been founded by St. Patrick, and around it, on the sloping declivities, were once gathered the modest buildings where countless students, in the period of Ireland's intellectual glory, were freely educated and maintained. The hills and vales of the beautiful landscape are consecrated in the history of education. Here Patrick founded his first free school. Here grew up the most renowned of European colleges. Along yonder vales the youth of Scotland, Germany, Gaul, and Britain came to study the poetry, the music, the history of Ireland, and to listen to illustrious lecturers whose names were famous in Italy and Spain. Men of profound learning and undoubted piety trod from age to age yonder peaceful plain. The streets of Armagh, it is said, were crowded with students. A scholastic tumult hung over the quiet scene where now the shuttle and the spinning-wheel alone disturb the peace of the rural village; a boundless passion for knowledge filled its early population; the clamor of a bundred lecture-rooms resounded not far from the tall cliffs of Derry, or where the huge pillars of the Giant's Causeway break the waves of the northern sea. Patrick, the apostle of the free school and the Scriptural church, still lives in the memories of Armagh. Disciple of St. John, child of the Bible, the humble missionary early discovered the power of education, and from his free schools or colleges sprang up a cultivated nation and a ceaseless throng of saints and scholars, poets and priests. Touching is it to remember that when, seven centuries later, Dermot, Henry, and the pope were conspiring to let loose upon Ireland the horrors of an inexpiable war, to destroy its freedom, to crush its church, and to blot from existence its colleges and schools, Roderic The Four Masters celebrate a long succession of brilliant lecturers and accomplished rectors of the native colleges. Even in 1170 (ii. 1175) the death of the great lector Cormac is related, almost the last of the sages of his country. 2 Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Beauties of Ireland, describe with enthusiasm the landscape of Armagh, ii, 458-460, the charms of the Bann, the grandeur of Lough Neagh. O'Connor gave a munificent and a last endowment to the master of the University of Armagh. He remembered the heroes and saints who had been educated within its walls; he felt the power of knowledge. An annual donation of ten cows was settled upon the office. The generous prince declared that his gift was designed to educate freely the youth of Ireland and Scotland, and to advance the taste for letters." Soon the tide of war rolled over the island; Armagh was sacked and deserted; Irish literature and learning ceased to adorn the world; and the free system of education established by St. Patrick was blotted from existence by envious Rome. To a still holier shrine of Celtic piety and genius we may turn as we close our retrospect. Across the waves, near the Scottish shore, lie the tombs and ruins of Iona. Two recent and accomplished writers have essayed to paint the landscape that met the eyes of the Irish saint and the waves that murmured to his prayers.❜ The warm fancy of the Southern Celt sees only the cold and misty sky, the barren rocks, the pale sun of the North, the wild and stormy ocean; the Highland chief adorns the scene with richer colors. Red cliffs rise out of an emerald sea; the heavy banks of clouds far out on the western main are lit with dazzling sunshine; the blue outline of the Scottish coast, a throng of islets, bare or verdant, and the endless waste of the dim Atlantic-an unrivaled wealth of sea, cloud, and sky-surround the home of Columba. But, more majestic than nature's grandest aspect, ever hovers over his beloved isle the form of the holy teacher proclaiming its immortal renown, and the rulers and the people of many lands have fulfilled his prophecy, and nations have worshiped at his shrine.* It is possible that from Iona and Armagh, from Patrick and Columba, from the free school and the free church, may come the restoration of the Celtic race; that a fallen but vigorous people, long corrupted and degraded by superstitious ignorance, may submit to a nobler conquest of reason and humanity; and that Irishmen, in every land, may once more learn from their ancient teachers modesty, docility, gentleness-the foundations of mental strength. 1 Four Masters, ii. 1171. See Trias Thaum, p. 310. Rodericus rex summopêre cupiens in academiâ Ardgenerale pro scholaribus, tam ex Hibernia unde quomochana studia promovere-ea conditione ut studium que, quam ex Albania adventantibus. The Four Masters say that Roderic gave it in honor of St. Patrick, and to instruct youth in literature. The Brehon law allows six cows as the price of a 2 Ten cows yearly was a munificent endowment. queen's wardrobe. Vallancey, Col., i. app. By the exam ple of a modern court the income of the rector may be estimated at a very high rate. Compared to his modern successors, he was wealthy; for what professor would not be content with an income nearly twice the value of a queen's wardrobe? 3 Montalembert, Monks of the West, and the Duke of Argyll's Iona, give its different aspects. 4 Columba prophesied that every barbarous and foreign nation would celebrate the renown of his narrow and barren isle. POSTAGE STAMPS AND THEIR ORIGIN. LTHOUGH postage stamps | are among the most familiar objects of daily use, it is probable that very few persons have troubled themselves to consider when and where they originated. In a pamphlet by M. Piron, Sous- Directeur des Postes, published in Paris in 1838, and entitled, "Du Service des Postes, et de la Taxation des Lettres au Moyen d'un Timbre," we find that the idea of post-paid or stamped paper originated, early in the reign of Louis XIV., with M. De Velayer, who, in 1653, established a private penny-post, placing boxes at the corners of streets for the reception of letters wrapped up in envelopes, which were franked by bands or slips of paper tied around them, with the inscription, "Post-paid the day of- 1653 or '54.' These slips were sold for a sou tape, and could be procured at the palace, at the turn-tables of convents, and from the porters of colleges. When Louis XIV. used to quit his habitual residence the personages of his suit were accustomed to procure these labels intended to be placed around letters destined for Paris. M. De Velayer had also caused to be printed certain forms of billets, or notes, applicable to the ordinary business among the inhabitants of great towns, with blanks which 'were to be filled up by the pen with such special matter as might complete the writer's object. One of these billets, filled up by Pélisson, and sent to Mademoiselle Scudéry, is still preserved in Paris, and is one of the oldest of penny-post letters extant, and a curious example of a prepaying envelope. These primitive slips and forms were irregularly used, and soon fell into disuse. In 1758, however, under Louis XV., one M. De Chamouset, a wealthy Parisian, established a modest post for the metropolis, charging two sols for single letters under an ounce, which were prepaid by stamps similar to those now in use. Government, perceiving the gains thus derived from the new enterprise, took it from him, compensating him by an annual pension of twenty thousand francs; but so meagre were the arrangements The next country to issue We have now to introduce to our readers a description of semi-official stamped postal envelopes used in Italy (Sardinia) from 1819 to 1836. On the 7th of November, 1818, the emission of stamped postal paper was announced, and the conditions on which it might be used. This paper was prepared under the immediate supervision of the Directeur des Postes, and could be procured at post-offices, and from vendors of tobacco, who received a commission upon their sales. There were three values: fifteen centesimi, twenty-five centesimi, and fifty centesiWe give an mi, all bearing the same device. illustration of the highest value, by which a clear idea will be gained of their appearance. These covers were but little used, however, and were finally withdrawn by the seventythird article of a royal decree of the 30th of March, 1836, in consequence of a modification being made in the postal regulations by the seventy-second article of the same law. C.50. SARDINIA, 1818. The next attempt at issuing postage stamps the honor of creating the first postage stamps was made by one Treffenberg, of Stockholm, who proposed to the Assembly of Swedish Nobility to issue stamped paper to be made into envelopes for letters. The proposition was warmly supported by Count de Schwerin, on the ground that it would be both convenient to the public and to the post-office, but the proposition was rejected by a large majority. But to Mr. Rowland Hill are we indebted for that postal reform which was introduced by him into the British Parliament in 1837, which, among other reforms, proposed that letters should be prepaid by means of stamped covers, or envelopes. His proposition met with much opposition. Fortunately thousands of petitions poured in for the furtherance of this bold project, and Parliament, moved by such a general manifestation, caused a commission to examine the plan. After many stormy debates it was adopted, and put in operation on the 6th of May, 1840. To Mr. Hill, then, do we owe the adoption of the idea, and its practical development. As soon as the postal scheme was matured in England, and the emission of postal stamps decided on, the authorities issued a prospectus offering a reward of £500 for the best design and plan for a stamp. The conditions, which were widely circulated, stated that the chief desiderata were simplicity and facility in working, combined with such precautions as should prove effectual against forgery. Thousands of designs-many of the most elaborate workmanship-were sent in; but none were so simple as that furnished by Heath, of London, which was subsequently chosen. We give an illustration of this early stamp, which gives a good idea of its complete simplicity. It is, however, in use at the present day, its color only having been changed from black to red. About the same time a prize was offered for the best design for an envelope, which was gained by Mulready, R. A., who produced that peculiar combination of allegories representing England attracting the commerce of the world. It was engraved on brass by John Thompson (the pupil of Branston), who devoted many entire weeks in cutting it in relief. By the stamped envelope and adhesives of the present day it has an almost medieval appearance. England, therefore, has After (those previously mentioned having little in the latter part of 1870 post cards were intro- Brazil 347, England, having taken the first ste path of postal reform, was soon folled by some of the Swiss cantons in 1843-44, in 1843, Russia in 1845, United States in France in 1848, Schleswig-Holstein in Tuscany in 1849, Belgium in 1849, Spain 1850, and the other principal nations and the colonies (with but few exceptions) at interme diate dates, thus generalizing their use throughout the world. In 1843-48 the Swiss cantons of Zurich, Basle, Vaud, Neufchatel, Geneva, and Winterthur issued stamps for use in their several can |