Nor does he hesitate to pour out an honest soul's loathing on the base betrayers of their country's independence.

"Amid a people's curses deep,

Or silent execration,

The men that readiest proved to creep

Were pitchforked into station."

There are Irish patriots, boastful of their lineage, who can learn duty and honor and patriotism from this son of a Cromwellian planter!

The founder of the Irish De Veres was Vere Hunt, who went to Ireland as an officer in the Cromwellian army, and settled in the year 1657 at Currah, Limerick, and Glangoole, Tipperary. He was a grandson of Henry Hunt, who had been high sheriff of Essex County, and Jane de Vere, of the house of Oxford. His heirs intermarried with the families of Sir William Piers, Bart., and Lord Kerry. Vere Hunt was created a baronet of Ireland, December 4th, 1774. He married Elinor, daughter of Lord Glentworth, and sister of the Earl of Limerick. Their son Aubrey was the second baronet, who was returned to the Irish Parliament in 1797. He died in 1818, and was succeeded by his son, Sir Aubrey, who assumed, by letters patent dated March 15th, 1832, the surname and arms of De Vere only. His wife was the daughter of Stephen-Edward Rice, Esq., of Kerry. The poet is their third son, and was born in 1814. Sir Aubrey died in 1846.

It is impossible, for want of space, to take a line from the classic or affectional poems of Mr. De Vere; and it is hard to resist the temptation of the very beautiful and intensely human and realistic Search for Proserpine." I can only hope that an American publisher will feel encouraged to give us a complete edition of the poet's works, in order that his singular merits and genuine beauty may become a part of the enjoyment of our cultivated and sincere people. Earlier in this article I alluded to the shadows which have hid Aubrey de Vere from the general knowledge and just appreciation. They will disappear in time. Wordsworth had to wait more than forty years. Aubrey de Vere may have to wait longer, but his day will come. One of those shadows I have endeavored to make as palpable as possible, for to me it is all luminous,—he is Irish. The other-need it be named? He embraced the Catholic faith in the profound earnestness of his manhood. Wordsworth declared Frederick William Faber a better poet of nature than himself, and he acknowledged no other superior; yet when the amiable Faber became a Catholic, Wordsworth, not always so great a soul as the De Veres deemed him, cast the convert out from the pale of his friendship. Had Aubrey de Vere remained in Heber's

and Keble's company, his name would resound to-day in many a stolen fane. He can wait. And whenever one with poetry and purity in his own breast takes up these poems and reads, no matter what the theme of the many-worded muse, no matter what the humor of the reader or what his lot in life, he will say, when he lays the volume down, anxious soon to take it up again, this is “a true poet soul, for it needs but to be struck and the sound that it yields will be music."

THE RECENT MINISTERIAL CHANGE IN ENGLAND.

THE

HE sudden change in the political character of the British ministry and the House of Commons is one of the surprises of the year. The Tories were not defeated in any great measure deliberately brought before Parliament, but the ministry seemed to think their majority not in good working order, and Lord Beaconsfield in all gayety of heart determined on a dissolution and an appeal to the country, his own self-satisfaction whispering that the new House would be fresh and strong, and better suited to his purpose.

He had been a blind prophet; he had miscalculated the increase of strength in the Irish Home Rulers; he had ignored the discontent of English voters with members who had neglected them and their interests; he had made light of Mr. Gladstone's great popularity in Scotland. All these influences operated in the three kingdoms; the anti-Tory party gained strength in Ireland and Scotland, and the Tories were lukewarm in England.

The Liberal party is an aggregation of dissentients rather than an organized body. As Mr. Gladstone admitted, with the exception of a small minority, "they could not reckon on the aristocracy; they could not reckon on what was called the landed interest; they could not reckon on the clergy of the established Church, either in England or Scotland, subject again in this case to a few honorable exceptions; they could not reckon on the wealth of the country, nor on the rank of the country, nor on the influence which rank and wealth usually brought."

Yet with all these disadvantages to contend with, the Liberals, to the surprise of friend and foe, apparently as much to Mr. Gladstone's surprise as to Lord Beaconsfield's, carried seat after seat, till it was evident that the Tories would sustain a crushing defeat, and be decisively in the minority in the new Parliament. The

ministry might have waited, and opened the new Parliament, and proceeded till its votes distinctly showed its opposition; but the precedent had been established in 1868, followed in 1874, that when a ministry appeals to the country by a dissolution of Parliament, and the nation speaking through the elections declares that a new House unfavorable to the ministry shall legislate for the land, that ministry must resign, just as though the nation had spoken by its representatives in the hall of the Commons of England. The precedent set by Disraeli made the resignation of his ministry inevitable. Only one course was left. The Beaconsfield ministry resigned and a new ministry was formed, after one ineffectual attempt, under Mr. Gladstone.

The acknowledged leader of the Liberals was Mr. Gladstone, who perhaps more than any other had changed the tide of opinion, and made the public censure some of the weightier acts of the Beaconsfield administration, especially its management of the Turkish question and the affairs in South Africa and Afghanistan. He was not personally popular with the Queen, who summoned. Lord Hartington to form a ministry.. A man of recognized ability, he could not undertake the delicate task, and pointed to Mr. Gladstone as the one whom the voice of England really called to the high and responsible position.

Mr. Gladstone thus came into power during a recess, and found it necesary to select a cabinet. The men who had retired from office with him six years before were still all alive and in their mental vigor. He could therefore find men versed in the management of public affairs, and in whom the country could feel confidence from their known ability and experience, and others who, trained in the same school, had evinced a recognized capacity. Earl Granville became Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Hugh Childers, Secretary of War; the Marquis of Hartington, Secretary for India; William E. Forster, Secretary for Ireland; the Earl of Kimberley, once Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Colonial Secretary; Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Secretary of State for the Home Department; Lord Northbrook, First Lord of the Admiralty; John Bright, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; James Stanfield, President of the Local Government Board; Earl Spencer, President of the Council; and the Duke of Argyll, Lord of the Privy Seal.

The Marquis of Ripon, well versed in India matters and of great diplomatic and administrative force, was sent to solve the difficult knot in Asia, and Mr. Goschen dispatched to Constantinople.

There was in the cabinet ability to guide the country well. There had been what to Englishmen generally must have seemed a sudden revolution, but it was one which brought no revolutionary

characters to the helm. The men placed in power had before controlled the destinies of the kingdoms, and not wrecked them.

But evidence was almost instantly forthcoming that some electors at least repented their course. An election in Scotland where the Liberals seemed certain of success resulted in their defeat. With the extension of the suffrage in England they are learning the lesson that we have learned in America and that is, that where, as the normal condition, there are two parties pretty equally balanced, the destinies of the country are after all decided, not by the active party men, but by the sudden decision just before election of a large class, who take little interest in public affairs and politics, who often remain away from the polls, and when they vote do so from no sound reason, but on an impulse created by some momentary influence of pulpit or press.

At the moment of the Liberal accession to power, three great questions called for the ablest and soundest statesmanship,-the condition of Turkey, the state of affairs in Afghanistan, and the relief of Ireland.

The late government had buoyed up Turkey with false hopes of English support as against other European powers, and the false security thus given had enabled the reactionary party at Constantinople to nullify virtually much that had been promised at Berlin in the way of reform. It became evident that Turkey was steadily drifting to her utter ruin. Lord Beaconsfield's government failed to obtain any influence for good over the Turks. Mr. Gladstone pledged himself to put an end to this trifling course, and to bring the Porte under the authority of Europe, and to carry out the parts of the Berlin treaty which were most obnoxious to the Sultan and the Pachas. To carry out his plans he dispatched Mr. Goschen to Constantinople to replace Sir Henry Layard. The Sultan, foreseeing danger, hesitated to receive Mr. Goschen, conscious that every point to be pressed by that envoy touched him vitally, and if he yielded he would be monarch only in name.

Afghanistan was in a state of anarchy; an English army had overthrown the Ameer; no recognized government was yet established. Candahar had, without any authority from England, been set up as an independent state, and the English were in such a position that they dared neither to hold the country by arms nor to retire. The course to be taken by Lord Ripon is, of course, not yet known, but Gladstone entertains no extravagant fears of Russian aggression in Central Asia, and will not continue the military occupation of Afghanistan beyond the moment when he can with honor and with no loss of prestige withdraw the troops, and leave the natives to settle their affairs to their own liking.

During a recess, with no real business going on, no debates in

Parliament to act as a safety-valve for the public opinion which is concentrated at Westminster, there was nothing to be done by the party secretly in power, but to criticise the formation of the ministry, and the acts of the Premier. The apologetic correspondence of Gladstone in the Karolyi matter excited strong disapproval, as no Englishman likes anything that resembles a backdown. Then the appointment of a Catholic, Lord Ripon, to be Viceroy of India, and another Catholic, Lord Kenmare, to be Lord Chamberlain, though perfectly consistent in a party professing to be in fact as well as in name liberal, roused the fanatical spirit of Englishmen. As no Catholic has ever been returned to the House of Commons by any English constituency for the last two centuries, nor will be probably for a century to come, their inherent bigotry received a shock in these appointments. The average British mind could view with serenity the election of Bradlaugh, an atheist, to Parliament, but the conferring of any high dignity on a Catholic was intolerable. Lord Oranmore and Browne, and the British Reformation Society, at once presented to the Prime Minister a protest against these appointments. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was not slow to follow the example, and officially censured the Premier. Neither English nor Scotch bigot adduced any charge that either nobleman was unfitted for the position assigned to him, or hinted that the interest of England or its crown would suffer in the least. Silly and groundless, this protest, nevertheless, weakened Mr. Gladstone's government and lost him some supporters.

Ireland, desolated with famine, with its people fleeing by thousands from its shores, demands an extended franchise, a limitation of landlord power, means to enable the agriculturist to become owner of the soil he tills, and, in fine, Home rule. The wife of the last Viceroy of Ireland had won a respect beyond example by her zealous and noble efforts to relieve the distress of the people, but no change could be made in the growing strength of the Home Rulers, who came into Parliament stronger than ever, and who contributed to the overthrow of the late administration. Mr. Gladstone proposes to extend the franchise, but as to the land question seems, as yet, to have decided definitely on no line of policy. To conciliate the island, however, he proposes to let the Irish Peace Preservation Act lapse.

Parliament met, but many of the ministry had not yet been returned; the speech from the throne was vague; the new ministry seemed groping blindly and almost ineffectually to collect and grasp the reins, and gave signs of weakness and irresolution. Denouncing the Irish members as obstructionists, the Liberals seemed themselves to have been these last few years really obstructionists, opposing, checking, thwarting the projects of the late administra