The Irish standard., 1902-03-01

wretched attempt with dignity that
its proportions did not deserve. 1t
gave to the Irish cause new hero
and new watchword, and nourished
amid the ashes of defeat the holy
spark of freedom, the indomitable,
eternal protest of the PROSTATE nation
that it would rather perish from the
face of the earth than renounce it's
title to nationality and independence.
The trial of Emmett was like ten
thousand other Irish state trials,
judicial farce, for he was dead within
twenty-fonr hours Of the opening of
the trial. But it remains forever
memorable because Of the eloquent
arrangement Of English injustice to
Ireland. OF him it might truly be
said that nothing in his life became
him like the leaving of it, His dying
words proclaim the gist of Irelands
grievances, the heartlessness, corrup-
ton and prejudice of her conqueror.
Its polished sentences reused his
judges like sword-thrusts, and there
is, perhaps, no such scene in history
where helpless youth, speaking to
time and to eternity so inverted. the
roles of accuser and accused, and lives
forever as the Rhadamanthus Of Eng
fish misrule in Ireland. The large and
dignified movement Of the phrase; the
grave and musical balance Of the long
sentences, fraught with intense feeling:
the loftiness Of thought; the true
Gaelic fervor and picturesqueness of
the style; the splendid dignity and
eloquence with which he reDuts each
peevish sally of his executioners; the
sculpturesque relief in which he ex-
poses the hypocricy of the armed and
bloodthirsty camp that called itself
the government of Ireland; the solemn
prophetic tone, as of one who spoke
over the heads Of the judges and SOL
diers, for none others were present,
and addressed himself to the civilized
world and to the unborn millions Of
the future-will lend forever literary
and an historic interest to this last
speech of Il man who was as true a
hero as ever sprang from the loins of
Mother Ireland. But to Irishmen and
their descendants it has Il deeply
pathetic domestic interest, and it is
no mere within Of fortune that it has
become like &c law and the proph-
ets' of the national idea. For then it
is the justification, the irrefutable
apology of all the wars ever waged
for Ireland, or likely to be waged in
the future. 1t is the voice of the
nation; nay, of the race, debating to
eternity the shame Of England. The
lips of Emmett We're but the channel
for the composite utterance of all the
Irishmen who ever bled or died for
country or religion, or for both. No
man was ever SO surely the spokesman
of oppressed innocence and the herald
of iron Nemesis rs Robert Emmett.
when he paced with emotion that mar
row dock in Dublin, and swaying
slightly, as was his wont in speaking,
pronounced In loud but eXquisitely
modulated voice this sentence against
n nation that had SO long and so sig
nally outraged the dictates Of hui
manity:
1.-THE man dies but his memory
lives. That mine may not perish, that
it may live in the respect of my coun-
trymen, seize this opportunity to
vindicate myself from some Of the
charges alleged against me. When
my spirit shall be waited to some
more friendly port, when my shade
shall have joined the bands of those
martyred heroes who have shed their
blood on the scaffold and in the field
in defense of their country and of
virtue, wish that my name and my
memory may animate those who sur
vive me, while l look down with COM
placency on the destruction of that
perfidious government which upholds
it's domination by blasphemy of the
Most High, which displays its power
over man rs over beasts Of the forest,
which sets man upon his brother and
lifts his hand, In the name of Gcd,
against the throat Of his fellow who
believes or doubts n little more or a
little less than the government stand
ard-a government which is steeled to
barbarity by the cries Of the orphans
and the tears of the widows which it
has made"
The career of Robert Emmett was
now over. Like the dying swan he
sang his own immortal caoine In
sweet but heart-rending numbers that
echo forever in the memories of his
countrymen, and ring like bugle calls
from one generation to another.
my lord! you seem impatient for
the sacrifice. The blood for which
you thirst is not CONCEALED by the arti-
fetal terrors which surround your VIC
tim; it circulates warmly and unruffled
through the channels God created for
nobler purposes, but which you are
bent to destroy for purposes SO griev-
GUS that they cry to Heaven. Be We
yet patient! l have but a few words
to say. am going to my cold and