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rogating, and, under the notion of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he left his opinions with those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them.... He was indeed a very wise man and of great parts and possessed with the most absolute spirit of popularity, that is, the most absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I ever knew.”

In Clarendon's eyes, John Hampden was a very dangerous man. "He begat many opinions and motions, the education of which he committed to other men." Of one thing we are not left in doubt. He was a very great man, though he fought on the wrong side.

"He was very temperate in diet, and a supreme governor over all his passions and affections, and had thereby a great power over other men. He was of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious; and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle or sharp, and of a personal courage equal to his best parts; so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend." It is after all these qualities have been acknowledged that Clarendon adds: "His death therefore seemed a great deliverance to the nation."

No psychologist by the most painstaking analysis could produce the effect that these words make upon us. We are conscious of John Hampden's personality as a force against which strong men are contending. We not only see the man himself, but we see why some men loved him and others resisted him. He was part of a mighty movement, which he largely directed.

Biography cannot be reduced to a science, but it may rise into the finest of the arts. It is the art of reproducing not merely the incidents of a great man's life, nor the mere elements of his character, but the impression he made on those who knew him best.

LISTENING IN ON THE
IRISH QUESTION

If the Government of the Irish Free State proves permanently satisfactory to its people, it will deprive the English-speaking world of a subject of conversation that has lasted for more than seven hundred years. It has connected the generations together and made them feel as if they belonged to one acrimonious family circle.

When Adrian IV, the only Englishman who ever sat on the papal throne, issued a bull graciously inviting King Henry II to go over and take possession of Ireland, he set the tongues of people on both sides of the channel to wagging. The controversy has not ceased from that day to this. Many things have happened since Strongbow, the valiant Earl of Pembroke, landed in Ireland in accordance with the papal and royal will. One question after another has been asked, discussed for a while, and been forgotten. But the question of the right of the English to rule Ireland has never been dropped.

In a speech in Dublin in 1866, John Bright

called attention to the fact that, five hundred years before, the Parliament of Kilkenny discussed the question, Why is the King of England not a penny the richer for Ireland? We have been debating that question ever since, said Bright, and we are no further on than they were in those days at Kilkenny.

During all that period, not a single new element was introduced into the controversy, with the exception of the religious animosity that came with the sixteenth century. Neither party changed the subject. The debate was without subtleties. It was a sheer conflict of wills. On the one side was Ireland's will to be a nation; and on the other, England's imperturbable refusal to accept this point of view. Here was a subject that could be discussed for generations, because each party had only to repeat its former assertions.

If a group of intelligent persons from different generations who have lived since the days of Strongbow were gathered in a drawing-room, they would find some embarassment in finding a topic which would be familiar to all. A discussion might be started on the Fifth Crusade, or the commercial policy of the Hanseatic League,

or the position of Hampden on ship money, or the claims of the Young Pretender, or the wars. of the Spanish Succession. But the amount of information possessed by the company would not be sufficient to make the conversation general.

"What do you think of the question of investitures?" asks an elderly gentleman of the twelfth century.

"What investitures?" replies a gentleman of the nineteenth century-"or did you say investments?"

The conversation drops.

But let somebody ask, "What do you think of the Irish Question?" and everybody begins to talk. In the first place, everybody knows that there is an Irish Question, and after a few minutes' conversation finds that it is the same old question that everybody else knows about. The company is on the easy footing of contemporaries. No matter what generation a person belongs to, he feels perfectly at home. As they all have about the same degree of knowledge, they divide according to temperament. There are those who have made up their minds that the Irish Question can never be settled, and are

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