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 committee to ‘consider and lay down a model of civil government.’ He is said to have been present at the battle of Benburb on 5 June 1646, and, according to Rinuccini (Embassy, p. 175), ‘bore himself most bravely,’ and ‘when asked by the colonels for a list of his prisoners, swore that his regiment had not one, as he had ordered his men to kill them all without distinction.’ He supported Ormonde's endeavours at a pacification in 1646, and received the lord-lieutenant's thanks for his exertions. In September 1648 he was appointed a commissioner to treat for a peace, and for his services it was proposed to reward him with a title and an addition of estate. He was subsequently nominated a commissioner of trust for the government of Ireland, and appointed governor of the fort of Charlemont and commander of a regiment of foot. He still continued his opposition to Owen Roe O'Neill, and did his utmost to prevent an alliance between him and Ormonde.

After Owen's death he was disappointed in his expectation of succeeding to the command of the northern forces. He took part in the battle of Scarriffhollis, and afterwards escaped into Tyrone. He displayed great courage in his defence of Charlemont Castle against the forces of the parliament, but was forced to capitulate on 6 Aug. 1650. He was excepted from benefit of the articles of Kilkenny, and on 23 Aug. 1652 a reward of 300l. was offered for his apprehension. His hiding-place on an island in co. Tyrone was betrayed by Philip Roe MacHugh O'Neill to Lord Caulfeild, ‘who, having brought together a party of horse and foot, entered the island in boats and seized him there’ early in February 1652–3. He was taken to Dublin, and on 5 March placed on his trial before the high court of justice, presided over by Sir Gerard Lowther. A pardon was several times offered him if he would admit the genuineness of the commission said to have been received from Charles I at the beginning of the rebellion, but, refusing to do so, he was executed as a traitor on 10 March 1652–3. According to the impartial estimate of a contemporary calling himself a ‘British officer,’ Sir Phelim ‘was a well-bred gentleman, three years at court, as free and generous as could be desired, and very complaisant; stout in his person, but, not being bred anything of a soldier, wanted the main art, that is, policy in war and good conduct.’ A portrait of him, from a print in the British Museum, will be found in Mr. Gilbert's ‘Contemporary History of Affairs,’ ii. 208.

He was apparently married three times. His first wife is said to have died shortly before the rebellion. His second wife was a daughter of Thomas Preston, a younger brother of Lord Gormanston, by whom he is said to have been influenced in his relations with Owen Roe O'Neill. In 1649 he married Jean Gordon, widow of Claude Hamilton, baron of Strabane, by whom he had a son named Gordon, from his grandfather, the Marquis of Huntly.

(d. 1704), captain of grenadiers in the infantry regiment of William Stewart, lord Mountjoy, was one of those catholic officers greatly favoured by the Earl of Tyrconnel in carrying out his plan for remodelling the government of Ireland in the interests of James II. He was made lord lieutenant of Tyrone, and represented the county in parliament in 1689. When the war of the revolution broke out he raised a regiment of foot for the royal cause, and was actively engaged at the siege of Derry, where he was wounded in the thigh. He was present at the battle of the Boyne, and was severely wounded at the battle of Aughrim, being left for dead on the field. He was discovered by some Scottish officers, relatives of his mother, in William's army, and removed to Dublin. On his recovery he took advantage of the treaty of Limerick to retire to France, where he was made colonel of the Irish infantry regiment of Charlemont. From 1692 to the peace of Ryswick in 1697 the regiment served against the emperor, and in February 1698 was incorporated in the infantry regiment of Galmoy, to which he was attached as a supernumerary or reformed colonel. He married a protestant lady of the city of Derry, and had a daughter Catherine, who became the wife of John Bourke, fourth lord Brittas, and ninth Lord Castle-Connell. He died in 1704. [Carte's Life of Ormonde; Gilbert's Contemporary Hist. of Affairs in Ireland and Hist. of the Irish Confederation; Reid's Hist. of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; Hickson's Ireland in the Seventeenth Century; Gardiner's Hist. of England and Great Civil War; Brodie's Hist. of the British Empire; Engl. Hist. Review, vol. ii.; Borlase's Hist. of the Execrable Irish Rebellion; Cox's Hib. Anglicana; Clarendon's Historical View of the Affairs of Ireland; Bramhall's Works, ed. Haddan; Dean Bernard's The whole Proceedings of the Siege of Drogheda, London, 1642; Milton's Prose Works; The Mysterie of Iniquitie, ascribed to Edward Bowles; Audley Mervyn's An exact Relation of all such Occurrences as have happened in the several counties of Donegal, &c., London, 1642; A Relation of the Proceedings of the English Army in Ulster, from the seventeenth day of June to this


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Rh present, London, 30 July 1642; A True Relation of the taking of Mountjoy … by Col. Clotworthy, London Aug. 4, 1642; Hugh Reilly's Ireland's Case briefly stated, 1695; Benn's Hist. of Belfast; Ulster Journal of Archæology, vol. i.; Journals House of Commons, Irel.; Rinuccini's Embassy, transl. Hutton; Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement; State Papers, Irel. Commonwealth, P. R. O., Dublin; Ludlow's Memoirs, ed. Firth; Hill's MacDonnells of Antrim, and Montgomery MSS.; Lowry's Hamilton MSS.; O'Callaghan's Hist. of the Irish Brigades; O'Kelly's Macariæ Excidium, ed. O'Callaghan; Hart's Index Expurgatorius Anglicanus; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ii. 457, 4th ser. xii. 189, 237; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. p. 413, 8th Rep. p. 497, 10th Rep. pt. i. p. 49, pt. v. pp. 140, 149, 154, 179, 180.]

O'NEILL, SHANE, surnamed an-diomais, or ‘the proud,’ lord of Tyrone (1530?–1567), was the eldest legitimate son of Con O'Neill, first earl of Tyrone [q. v.], by his wife Mary, daughter of Hugh Boy O'Neill, lord of Clandeboye. He was born apparently about 1530. He was fostered among the O'Donnellys, whence his title of ‘the Donnellyan,’ and in 1531, when a mere infant, was carried off by force from Baile-Ui-Dhonnghaile, now Castle Caulfeild, by Niall Og O'Neill. In the settlement of 1542, when his father was created Earl of Tyrone, he was probably, on account of his youth, passed over in favour of his supposed elder brother, Mathew, or Ferdorach O'Neill, or Kelly, created Baron of Dungannon. But being a man of overweening ambition, he refused to submit to his exclusion, and, on reaching manhood, he raised, with his father's connivance, a faction against the Baron of Dungannon. In 1551 government interfered, but Shane nevertheless succeeded in holding his own, though in one of the frequent skirmishes that took place, he narrowly escaped capture by the Baron of Dungannon. Government would have been glad to get hold of him ‘anywise,’ but Shane was too wary to allow himself to be entrapped as his father had been, and an attempt on the part of Sir Thomas Cusack in the spring of 1552 to reduce him by force proved equally unsuccessful. In December the Earl of Tyrone was restored, and things reverted to their old position.

One of the principal motives with the government in consenting to Tyrone's restoration was the expectation of obtaining the assistance of the O'Neills in expelling the Hebridean Scots from their settlements along the Antrim coast. But Shane, whose policy at this time tended to an alliance with the MacDonnells, not only refused when called upon by Sussex in 1556 to assist him, but actually joined his forces with those of James MacDonnell. The allies were defeated, and Shane sued for and obtained pardon. But he continued to intrigue with the Scots, and in the following year he lent underhand assistance to the MacDonnells against Sussex. The same year he expelled his father and the Baron of Dungannon who sought shelter in the English Pale, and at the instigation of Hugh O'Donnell he assembled a large army on the borders of Tyrconnel against Calvagh O'Donnell [q. v.] But he was utterly defeated by O'Donnell in the neighbourhood of Strabane, and Sussex, taking advantage of the opportunity, invaded Tyrone, and restored the earl and the Baron of Dungannon. He was again pardoned, but again in 1558 refused to assist Sussex against the Scots, and ‘dyd cruelly, wylfully, and trayterously murther his brother, the Baron of Dungannon, seke to repossesse himselfe of his father's and brother's estates, and … cause his men to pray and borne dyvers of the possessions of her Majesties true and good subjects in the Englysh pale.’

Notwithstanding his misdeeds, Elizabeth shortly after her accession authorised Sussex to recognise him as his father's legitimate successor. In taking this step she cannot have been unconscious of acting unjustly to the Baron of Dungannon; but her anxiety for peace, and the fact that Shane possessed the suffrages of his clan, and was already in quiet possession, led her to acquiesce in an arrangement which from the standpoint of government was repugnant to decency and honour. At the same time she insisted that Shane should acknowledge her authority, and submit his cause to her deputy, the Earl of Sussex. But Shane flatly refused even to meet Sussex until hostages had been given for his safety, though eventually he repaired to Dundalk, and, ‘after some proud and arrogant wordes spoken,’ consented to refer himself and his cause to her majesty's commissioners. He insisted, however, on the recognition of his claim to dispose of his urraghs or vassal chiefs as he pleased, which was the main point in contention, and Elizabeth, finding after a little time that he was likely to prove unmanageable, in August 1560 revoked her former decision, and authorised Shane's subjugation and the restitution of rights to Mathew's son Brian, the young baron of Dungannon, ‘being ye heyre in right.’ Preparations were accordingly made to invade his country. But he offered to submit, whereupon ‘therle of Kyldare was with others sent to parle with him, who concluded with hym upon artycles, whereunto he subscrybed, and was sworne to observe them, and to repaire with all spede

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 to the Queene's Majestie.’ His demand for a safe-conduct under the queen's own hand, though reflecting on the Earl of Sussex, was conceded, but Shane manifested no inclination to fulfil his promise; on the contrary, he endeavoured ‘by warres and other practicis to drawe O'Donel, O'Raylie, and others … to joyn with him in his damnable and trayterous enterprisys.’ In this he was not very successful, but it was clear that nothing but force would reduce him to submission. Efforts were accordingly made through the Earl of Argyll to detach the MacDonnells from him, while the hostility of O'Donnell and O'Reilly was stimulated by the prospect of a coronet.

The scheme failed, for O'Neill by a cleverly contrived stratagem succeeded in getting hold of O'Donnell, and though Sussex proclaimed him a traitor, and harried his country with fire and sword, he managed not only to avoid capture, but also to keep a tight hold of his prisoner. Feigning an air of injured innocence, he charged Sussex with hindering his approach to the queen by beginning ‘an unjust war’ against him, and swore roundly that until the garrison Sussex had placed in Armagh Cathedral was withdrawn he would not go near Elizabeth. Nor did he confine himself to mere protests, and though never venturing into the open, he succeeded by watching his opportunity in so harassing the army that Sussex was compelled to withdraw to Newry. Fixing the blame entirely on the lord-lieutenant, he expressed himself willing, if the garrison at Armagh was withdrawn, to give hostages to the Earl of Ormonde for his speedy repair into England, and, in order to demonstrate his appreciation of English civilisation, he at the same time preferred a request for the hand of Sussex's sister. Sussex, who must have regarded his request as an insult, was not deluded by his professions, and insisted that his excuses were of ‘the nature of Sir John Gaskon's tales, who devysing them himselfe, beleved by often tellying of them that they were true in dede.’ Thinking himself justified in using every weapon, Sussex, while preparing to take the field once more, tried to bribe O'Neill's messenger to assassinate him. The attempt, if made, failed, and, compelled to resort to more legitimate methods, Sussex inflicted considerable damage on O'Neill's territory, when to his chagrin the Earl of Kildare arrived as the envoy of the government in Dublin with authority to treat. Shane, who was master of the situation, declined to treat unless his demands, which included the evacuation of Armagh, were conceded. The Earl of Kildare, who was blamed for having too little regard for the honour of the crown, yielded, though he subsequently induced Shane to waive his demand for the withdrawal of the garrison, and on 18 Oct. 1561 a treaty was arranged, and Shane, having first obtained good security for his safe return, consented to go to England.

The expenses of his journey were defrayed by government, and accordingly, accompanied by the Earls of Kildare and Ormonde, and with a train suitable to his pretensions, he sailed from Dublin on 3 Dec., arriving in London on 4 Jan. 1562. His appearance at court and in the streets of London, attended by his bareheaded gallowglasses in their saffron-coloured shirts and shaggy frieze mantles, caused an immense sensation. On 6 Jan. he publicly submitted to Elizabeth, prostrating himself before her, and confessing his crime and rebellion ‘with howling,’ as it seemed to the bystanders, who did not understand Irish. Being interrogated as to his claims, he insisted that he was the eldest legitimate son of Con O'Neill, and by joint consent of the nobility and people designated O'Neill. The surrender made by Con he maintained was invalid, ‘forasmuch as Con had no estate in that which he surrendered but for life, nor could surrender it without the consent of the nobility and people by whom he was elected to the honour of O'Neill.’ For the crown it was argued that Mathew, the late baron of Dungannon, and his son Brian claimed by letters patent and not by legitimation, and that the arrangement arrived at was by right of conquest. It was hopeless to attempt to reconcile views so diametrically opposed. But the question that chiefly concerned Elizabeth was whether it was expedient or not under the circumstances to recognise Shane's claims. Her word had been passed for his safety, but nothing had been said about the length of his stay, and accordingly he was under one pretext and another detained in England, in the vain hope that something would turn up to rescue government from its dilemma. But his detention was not without risk. On 3 April de Quadra wrote to Granvelle that Shane and ten or twelve of his principal followers had received the sacrament at the Spanish embassy in secret, and had promised to be perfectly steadfast on the question of religion, and de Quadra, though he looked on him as little better than a savage, was not without hope that Philip when he saw fit to interfere in English affairs would find a useful instrument in him. Something of this seems to have come to Cecil's ears, and the murder of Mathew's son Brian by Turlough Luineach O'Neill [q. v.] on 12 April furnishing a reasonable excuse to get rid of him, he was allowed


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 to return to Ireland about the middle of May. He was acknowledged as actual captain of Tyrone, with a general reservation of the rights of Mathew's younger son Hugh, afterwards earl of Tyrone [q. v.] In return he promised to keep the peace with his neighbours, to submit his grievances to arbitration, and not to molest the garrison at Armagh.

He landed at Dublin on 26 May 1562, but, hearing that ‘not iii dayes before hys landyng’ Turlough Luineach had caused himself to be created O'Neill, he declined to make any stay in the city, and having caused the queen's proclamation in his favour to be published, he departed the same day with a guard into Tyrone. Boasting of the victory he had obtained over Elizabeth, he soon made it apparent what value he attached to the concessions extorted from him in England by breaking them in every single particular. When Sussex landed about the end of July, he had a long story to tell of Shane's lawless behaviour in harrying Maguire and the Scots, and in levying forces against Con O'Donnell. Determined to catch him by fair means or foul, he reminded him of his promise to submit his grievances to arbitration, and sent him an ambiguously worded safe-conduct, appointing a meeting at Dundalk. But Shane was too wary to be entrapped after that fashion, and Sussex was fain to content himself with reminding him of his promise not to go to war without license. For answer Shane attacked O'Reilly, plundered Tyrconnel, and reduced Maguire to the direst extremities. Maguire warned the lord lieutenant that unless O'Neill was effectually subdued, he would be ‘the strongest man of all Erlond.’

Sussex and Fitzwilliam, the latter of whom was despatched to England to report personally on the situation, were convinced that nothing but force would bring Shane to his senses. Meanwhile, until Elizabeth's consent could be obtained to that course, the lord lieutenant was obliged to act on the defensive. He managed to detach Turlough Luineach from Shane, which somewhat crippled him; but, hearing that he was meditating a fresh attack on Con O'Donnell, he determined, if the report proved correct, ‘to drawe downe tharmy to Armaghe agynst the full moone, wch will staie him from goyng into eny other countrie while I wth the Armye shalbe in his countrie.’ Moved by Sussex's representations, Elizabeth reluctantly consented to the employment of force, and preparations were made to take the field against Shane early in April 1563. On 6 April the army encamped at Armagh, but so badly equipped and provisioned that before three weeks had elapsed or a battle had been fought Sussex was obliged to withdraw into the Pale. A fortnight later he again took the field, and, crossing the Blackwater at Braintree, penetrated as far as Clogher. A thousand of Shane's cattle were captured; but they barely sufficed for the needs of the army, and ere long the second expedition ended, like the first, in failure. Orders were given for a general hosting; but the gentry of the Pale showed no willingness to respond to the call, and, obliged to acknowledge himself beaten, Sussex retired to Drogheda.

Force having failed, Ormonde and Kildare were sent to try what could be effected by diplomacy; but Shane stoutly refused to abate one jot of his pretensions as O'Neill, and the negotiations were broken off. But for the shame of it, Elizabeth would have consented to purchase peace even at his own price. She knew that to yield to his demands would touch Sussex to the quick; but she implored him to further Sir Thomas Cusack's proposals for an agreement rather than to force her to grant Shane an unqualified pardon. Accordingly, early in September Cusack and the Earl of Kildare met Shane at Drumcree. Professing his willingness to observe his faithfulness to her majesty, he laid the blame of his recent behaviour on Sussex, whom he charged with persistent attempts to assassinate him. He could not, he declared, omit the statutes and ordinances of his predecessors, as neither he nor his subjects were skilled in the English law; but, understanding that it was not her majesty's intention to deal sharply with him, he was content to consent to a treaty, by which he gained everything and yielded nothing (see the form of peace made at Drumcree 11 Sept. 1563, in Cal. Carew MSS. i. 352). The surrender on the queen's part was complete, and though Sussex contrived to put a good face on it, he felt the disgrace keenly. Even Elizabeth, when she saw the conditions of the treaty, was moved to anger, and with her own hand struck out a clause exempting Shane from attendance on the viceroy ‘antequam intelligat an is est illi amicus et favorabilis an non,’ and referring any differences that might arise between him and the government to arbitration. Shane was of course indignant, and insisted on having the original treaty signed, or none at all. But the queen thought she had yielded enough, and Shane, who had other projects on hand, agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities.

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 demands, submitted about this time, and was liberated, on condition that he surrendered Lifford, together with his claim to the overlordship of Inishowen, and paid a heavy ransom. But O'Donnell, instead of fulfilling his part of the bargain, appealed to the government for assistance, and Shane was obliged to enforce his demands with the sword. He managed to get hold of Con O'Donnell, Calvagh's eldest son, and shortly afterwards captured Lifford. For some time past Shane had regarded the encroachment of the Scottish settlers on the Antrim coast with distrust. The growth of a strong independent power in that quarter would, he felt, prove fatal to his design of extending his dominion over the whole of Ulster, and he was therefore anxious to take advantage of his truce with the government to expel the intruders. A letter from Lord Robert Dudley, urging him to do something to merit the queen's favour, arrived opportunely, and Shane naïvely replied that he knew of no better service he could render than to expel her majesty's enemies the Scots. His intention was applauded by the government, and in September he attacked the Scots under Sorley Boy MacDonnell [q. v.] in the neighbourhood of Coleraine. Neither side could claim the victory, but Shane was able to point to it as an earnest of his good intentions. Shortly after Easter in the following year, 1565, he again invaded Clandeboye, and proceeding from Edenduff Carrick northward by way of Broughshane and Clogh, he destroyed almost every trace of the Scottish settlements along the Antrim coast. On 2 May he encountered the MacDonnells in the neighbourhood of Ballycastle. Outnumbering his enemies by more than two to one, he gained a complete and bloody victory. Among his prisoners were James MacDonnell and his brother, Sorley Boy.

His victory caused a great sensation, and produced a feeling something akin to consternation in government circles, especially when it was known that he had already commenced colonising those parts with his own people. Master of the north, he was less inclined than ever to treat with Elizabeth except on equal terms. It was clear that Sir Nicholas Arnold's policy of setting the Irish by the ears was producing disastrous results, and in June Elizabeth had made up her mind to entrust the government of Ireland to Sir Henry Sidney [q. v.] It was not till January 1566 that he landed at Dublin. Notifying Shane of his arrival, he called on him to appoint a parley at Drogheda or Dundalk. Shane replied by fixing a meeting at Dundalk on 5 Feb. The date was inconvenient to Sidney, and Shane, either knowing it to be so, or because he had thought better of it, refused to meet him at all until the peace concluded with Cusack at Drumcree on 11 Sept. 1563 was confirmed, and his additional petitions, including the hand of Sussex's sister, were granted. He reminded the deputy of Sussex's treacherous behaviour towards him, and of the frequent attempts made to assassinate him. He knew Sidney's ‘sweetness and readiness for all good things,’ but his ‘timorous and distrustful people’ would not, he declared, suffer him to run the risk. He eventually condescended to offer to meet the deputy in the open fields, and Sidney, though he thought proper to decline the proposal as incompatible with the dignity of the crown, promised to send commissioners to the borders to treat for a ratification of Cusack's peace.

But to Leicester, Sidney opened his mind more freely. ‘I believe,’ he wrote, ‘Lucifer was never puft vp wth more pryde nor ambytyon than that Onele ys.’ Far from being sorry for his rebellious behaviour, he had told the commissioners that ‘if yt wear to do agayn I would do yt, for my ancestorys wear kyngys of Vlster, and Vlster was thearys, and Vlster ys myne, and shalbe myne.’ ‘He contynually kepyth 600 armed men, as it wear his Janyzery about hym; he ys able to bring to the field a thousand horsmen and 4,000 footmen; he hath alredy in Dundrum, as I am credybly aduertysed 200 toon of wyne and mutch more he lokyth for; he ys the only strong man of Ireland; hys cuntre was neuer so rytch nor so inhabyted; he armyth and weaponnyth all the peasantes of his cuntre, the fyrst that ever so dyd of an Iryshman; he hath agentys contynually in the coor of Scotland and wth dyuers potentates of the Irysh Scottes.’ ‘Trust me, my lord,’ Sidney concluded, ‘he ys able if he wyll to burn and spoyle to dublyn gates and go away vnfoght.’ Sidney's letter was submitted to the queen, and afterwards laid before the privy council. Every one, Cecil wrote, was inclined to the extirpation of the proud rebel, and the queen, perhaps with a view to minimise the expenditure, proposed to send over Sir Francis Knollys [q. v.] to consult with Sidney as to the best course to pursue. Knollys arrived in April, and confirmed Sidney's proposal for a winter campaign. After some hesitation Elizabeth yielded her consent, and preparations were made for Shane's extirpation.

Meanwhile Shane, thinking, in the insolence of his pride, that Elizabeth, because she hesitated to strike, was really afraid to do so, had been busily intriguing in support of Mary


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Rh Queen of Scots. The reconciliation of Mary and Argyll had greatly encouraged him in the belief that one determined effort would lead to the emancipation of Ireland, and in April he addressed letters to Charles IX and the cardinal of Lorraine, calling on them to assist him in expelling the English, and promising for himself and his successors to become the humble subjects of the crown of France. Elizabeth had rightly conjectured that on hearing of the preparations that were being made against him, he would ‘break his bryckle peace.’ About the middle of July he invaded the Pale with fire and sword, but an attempt to capture Dundalk was repulsed with heavy loss. He was proclaimed a traitor on 3 Aug. 1566, and, probably feeling that the outlook was critical, he burned Armagh, razed most of his castles, entered into negotiations for a reconciliation with Alexander Oge MacDonnell, and sent a pressing message to the Earl of Desmond, urging him to join with him against the English. It was September before Colonel Edward Randolph [q. v.] landed at Derry, and the middle of the month when Sidney entered Tyrone. Pursuing his usual tactics, Shane, though able to muster four thousand foot and seven hundred horse, evaded a battle, contenting himself with hanging on the rear of the enemy and cutting off stragglers. At Lifford Sidney effected a junction with Randolph, and, leaving reinforcements with him, crossed the Foyle into Tyrconnel. Donegal, Ballyshannon, Belleek, and Sligo were captured, and having re-established O'Donnell in his former possessions, the deputy continued his journey into Connaught.

Beyond the loss of some corn and cattle, the usual results of a raid, Shane had suffered comparatively little, and, the death of O'Donnell in the hour of his triumph affording him apparently an opportunity to recover all that he had lost, he invaded Tyrconnel. He was defeated by Randolph, but the death of the English commander speedily gave him all the advantages of a victory. At first being harassed by the attacks of the Scots under Alexander Og MacDonnell, he wrote to the lord deputy and council, expressing his readiness to agree to the articles of Sir Thomas Cusack's peace. But his overtures meeting with no response, he renewed his application for assistance to the court of France, and endeavoured to secure the support of the Earl of Argyll, sending him as a propitiatory offering, among other things, the robes of state given by Henry VIII to his father Con. In May the garrison at Derry was withdrawn, and Shane at once seized the opportunity to invade Tyrconnel. He was defeated, and his army almost annihilated by the O'Donnells in the neighbourhood of Letterkenny. Riding for his very life, he managed, ‘under the guidance of a party of the O'Gallaghers,’ to reach his own country in safety. For a moment he thought of appealing to Sidney for mercy with a rope round his neck, but was ultimately persuaded to appeal to the MacDonnells for assistance.

Taking with him his captive, Sorley Boy, and Catherine MacLean, formerly wife of Calvagh O'Donnell, subsequently O'Neill's mistress, but now his wife, and attended by a few retainers, he made his way to Cushendun. It was a foolhardy step, but possibly, if he could have kept a civil tongue in his head, the MacDonnells might have consented to a reconciliation on his own terms of restoring Sorley Boy, surrendering Clandeboye, and paying a heavy fine. It is doubtful whether his assassination was premeditated, but his injuries to the MacDonnells were too fresh in their memory to be easily forgotten, and it is probable that when heated with wine he may have irritated them by his insolent behaviour beyond endurance. He met his death on the evening of 2 June 1567. He was literally hacked to pieces, and his body, ‘wrapped in a kerne's old shirt,’ was thrown into a pit near the place of his assassination. A reward of 1,000l. had been offered by the state for his body, one thousand marks for his head, and 500l. ‘to him that shall kill him, though he bring neither heade nor bodie.’ Of this his murderers seem not to have been aware; but the governor of Carrickfergus, Captain William Piers, ‘by whose devise the tragedie was practised,’ having managed to get hold of his head, and sent it, ‘pickled in a pipkin,’ to Sidney, obtained the promised reward. It was stuck on a pole over Dublin Castle, where it was seen by Campion in 1571. Shane's body is said to have been privately buried in the Franciscan monastery at Glenarm. A local tradition (, MacDonnells of Antrim, p. 145) states that soon after his burial there a friar from Armagh appeared at the gate of the monastery to claim it. ‘Have you,’ asked the friar, ‘brought with you the remains of James MacDonnell, lord of Antrim and Cantire, who was buried among strangers at Armagh?’ The monk confessed that he had not. ‘Then,’ replied the friar, ‘whilst you continue to tread on the grave of James, lord of Antrim and Cantire, know ye that we here in Glenarm will trample on the dust of your great O'Neill.’ Shane O'Neill was attainted by act of parliament in 1569, and his lands declared forfeit to the crown, but no advantage was taken of the act till after the flight of Hugh, earl of Tyrone, in 1607.

O'Neill married, first, Catherine, daughter


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 of James MacDonnell, lord of Cantire, and by her, whom he divorced, he had two sons, Shane Oge, who was slain in battle by Philip O'Reilly in 1581, and Henry, for some time a prisoner in Dublin Castle, who escaped with Hugh Roe O'Donnell [q. v.] in 1592, and was alive in 1615. By Catherine MacLean, wife of Calvagh O'Donnell, whom he apparently married in 1565, he had at least two sons—Art, sometime a prisoner in Dublin Castle, who, escaping in 1592, was frozen to death among the Wicklow mountains; and Hugh Geimhleach ‘of the fetters,’ who is said to have been hanged by Tyrone with his own hand in 1590. He had also a son Con by a daughter of Shane Oge Maguire, who was alive in 1614. Other sons of doubtful origin attributed to him are Brian, Cormac, Edmund, Niall, and Turlough. Judged even by the lax standard of his age, he was a bad man—a glutton, a drunkard, a coward, a bully, an adulterer, and a murderer. He could speak no language except Irish, and was unable even to sign his own name. His views were limited to the aggrandisement of his power in Ulster, but within those limits he displayed some of those qualities that go to make a great ruler. He was treacherous, vindictive, and cruel, but in these respects he was as much sinned against as sinning. His diplomacy was the diplomacy of the age of Catherine de'Medici, but in that diplomacy he was a past master. Coming at a later time, he might have proved a dangerous enemy to England. As it was, the poverty of the crown and the unwillingness of Elizabeth to fritter away her strength in petty quarrels gave him an importance which he would otherwise not have possessed.

O'NEILL, TURLOUGH LUINEACH (1530?–1595), lord of Tyrone, was styled Luineach from having been fostered by O'Luinigh of Muintir Luinigh in Tyrone; he was son of Niall Conallach O'Neill, a grandson of Art Og O'Neill, a younger brother of Con mor O'Neill, the father of Con, first earl of Tyrone, and was born about 1530. His mother was Rose, daughter of Manus O'Donnell [q. v.] He became tanist when his cousin Shane [q. v.] was elected O'Neill. In 1562, when Shane was detained in England, he tried to supplant him as chief of the clan, and it was probably in pursuit of his aim that on 12 April he waylaid and murdered, between Newry and Carlingford, the young baron of Dungannon, Brian, the son of Mathew or Ferdorach, and brother of Hugh, subsequently second earl of Tyrone [q. v.] His intention to usurp the chieftainship was frustrated by the loyalty of Shane's fosterers, the O'Donnellys, and by the opportune return of Shane himself. His conduct naturally produced a coldness between the two kinsmen, and Sussex took advantage of it to draw Turlough into a combination against Shane. But, finding after a short experience that his alliance with the government was not likely to be productive of much benefit to him, Turlough came to terms with Shane, and after his death in June 1567 was inaugurated O'Neill with the customary ceremonies at Tullaghoge.

Fearing the vengeance of the government, he apologised for his ‘thoughtless’ behaviour, offered to renounce the title of O'Neill, and to prove his loyalty by not entertaining any Scottish mercenaries without license. It was thought best to wink at his misdemeanours, and Turlough, who had not the slightest intention of abandoning either the policy or the pretensions of his predecessor, had time to strengthen his position. To this end he contracted an alliance with O'Donnell, made overtures for a reconciliation with the MacDonnells, offering to marry either the widow or daughter of James MacDonnell, and, in order to mitigate the hostility of the MacQuillins, gave one of his daughters in marriage to Rory Oge MacQuillin. Notwithstanding his protestations of loyalty, there was only one interpretation to be placed upon his conduct, and in June 1568 Sir William Fitzwilliam [q. v.] formed a plan to lay hold of him, which was frustrated by the lord justice's inability to provision his army. Later in the year Turlough met Sir Henry Sidney [q. v.] at the Bann, and created a favourable impression. Rumours were subsequently current of an understanding between him and James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald [q. v.], ‘the arch traitor;’ but Turlough apparently found sufficient to occupy his attention in Ulster. In the summer of the following year (1569) he married Agnes Campbell, widow of James MacDonnell; but the marriage, though it brought him considerable accession of strength from a military point of view, proved in other respects of doubtful advantage. Before long it was reported that he had ‘eaten himself up’ by supporting his new allies, and would gladly be


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 rid of them and his wife at any price. To add to his discomfort, it was said that he had been accidentally shot by his jester while sitting at supper with his wife. But Sir Nicholas Malby, who was inclined to regard him with suspicion, was of opinion that he was merely ‘winning time,’ and that he would never be content with less than the absolute control of his urraghs or feudatory chiefs. To this the government would not consent; but on 20 Jan. 1571, acting, it is said, by the advice of his wife, but more probably by the intervention of Sir Edward Moore [q. v.], he agreed to a temporary peace in order to afford time to enable him to submit his demands to the queen. Meanwhile he promised to dismiss his Scottish mercenaries, but declined to be drawn into a combination against them.

Matters continued in this uncertain state till the rumour of the intended colonisation of Antrim by Sir Thomas Smith in the spring of 1572 drove him into active opposition. Professing his doubts as to Smith's authority for his undertaking, he took measures to render it abortive. But the prospect became more serious when it was known that Smith's project had been taken up by Walter Devereux, earl of Essex [q. v.] Refusing to be deluded by Essex's specious announcement, that the expedition was directed against the Scots, and not against loyal Irishmen, Turlough declined to render him the assistance he demanded; and in February 1574 Essex prepared to carry out his threat of wasting him with fire and sword. But for this his resources proved inadequate, and in March he consented to a truce, promising to transmit his petition to the queen. Elizabeth, who had been inclined, on the first news of Essex's inability to make good his footing in Ulster, ‘to lap up’ matters with Turlough, but could not make up her mind to any consistent policy, now ordered her deputy to give Essex every assistance in order to bring Turlough to his senses. Accordingly, in September Essex invaded Tyrone. Turlough suffered severely. But the expedition was productive of little advantage to Essex; and the eagerness with which Fitzwilliam obeyed Elizabeth's fresh instructions for a disbandment produced a coldness between him and Essex, which Turlough endeavoured to improve to his own advantage by addressing ‘a politic letter’ to the deputy, favourably contrasting his conduct with Essex's. But Elizabeth was annoyed at Fitzwilliam's precipitancy, and Turlough, fearing that the storm had not blown over, sent his wife to the viceroy to sue for peace. He still insisted on having his urraghs, and ten days were given him to reconsider his position. It was deeply mortifying to Essex, just when things seemed to be improving, to learn from Elizabeth herself that his enterprise had proved a failure, and that all that remained to be done was to induce Turlough to consent to reasonable conditions ‘as our honour may best be salved,’ and, if possible, to erect a fort at the Blackwater. Essex obeyed with a heavy heart; but seizing the opportunity of an attempt on Turlough's part to hinder the erection of the new fort, he crossed the Blackwater, captured twelve hundred of his cattle, and pressed him so hard that he was compelled, at no little personal risk, to seek safety in a neighbouring bog. Turlough thereupon submitted, and on 27 June 1575 articles of peace were signed whereby he promised to surrender his urraghs, to keep the peace with O'Donnell, the baron of Dungannon, and others of the queen's loyal subjects, and to assist in expelling the Scots. In return he was to receive a grant of all the lands from Lough Foyle to the Blackwater, and from the Bann to Lough Erne; to be excused from coming to any governor against his will; and to be allowed, ‘for the better security of his person,’ to retain three hundred Scots, so long as they were not of the MacDonnell connection.

The treaty was a victory for Turlough; and to prove that his rebellious behaviour was solely, as he declared, due to Essex's arbitrary conduct, he took the opportunity shortly afterwards to present himself before Sir Henry Sidney at Armagh, ‘without Pleadge, Promis, or Hostage,’ and so won upon the lord deputy that, while refusing to countenance his petition for ‘as ample an Estate and Rule as others of his Surname heretofore have had,’ he recommended that he should be treated leniently so far as his urraghs were concerned, and that he should be ennobled by the title of Clanoneill for life, which Sidney thought could not be long, ‘consideringe his Age, wounded and imperfect Boddye, his ill Diet, and contynuall Surfett’ (, Sidney Papers, i. 78; cf., ‘Image of Ireland,’ in Somers Tracts, i. 611, and the corresponding woodcut illustrating Turlough's submission). Sidney's suggestion was approved; but it was not till May 1578 that a patent creating him Baron of Clogher and Earl of Clanconnell was passed. The retirement of Sidney from the government of Ireland, the outbreak of the rebellion in Munster, the questionable behaviour of Turlough himself in refusing to meet Sir William Drury [q. v.], coupled with the fact that he and the Baron of Dungannon had become fast friends, frustrated the realisation of Sidney's proposal. After Drury's


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 death, on 30 Sept. 1579, he assumed a more menacing attitude. It was reported that the pope had promised him the principality of Ulster; and evidence was forthcoming of an understanding between him and Viscount Baltinglas. All Sir William Gerard's tact, and an offer to confirm the agreement with Essex, failed to pacify him. To Captain Piers, who was sent to remonstrate with him, he insisted on having his urraghs; nothing less would satisfy him. Provided his demand was conceded, he swore not to leave a Scot in Ireland. When the news of the defeat of the deputy, Arthur, lord Grey de Wilton [q. v.], at Glenmalure reached him, he plundered the territory of his recalcitrant urragh Magennis, and threatened to invade the Pale with five thousand men. Only the Baron of Dungannon held out against him, and he, by his own account, was compelled to betake himself to the woods for safety. But with the south of Ireland in a blaze, it was impossible to do other than temporise with him. He petitioned to have the benefit of his letters as Earl of Clanconnell; to be re-established in the rights and privileges of his ancestors; to have one hundred soldiers in the pay of the state, together with the command of the fort on the Blackwater and a grant of lands in the English Pale. Grey promised to transmit his petition, and on these terms peace was concluded at Benburb in September 1580.

But his treaty with the government did not prevent him from refusing to surrender William Nugent [q. v.], who had taken refuge with him, or from retaliating on O'Reilly by ravaging his country far and wide for having in fair and open battle slain Shane Oge, the eldest son of Shane O'Neill, and taken his brother Con a prisoner; or from assisting Con O'Donnell against his uncle, Hugh MacManus O'Donnell, at the bloody battle of Kiltole on 4 July 1581. Grey, who had lost all patience with him, suggested his extirpation; but Elizabeth, who knew too well the cost of such fruitless enterprises, advised conciliation, and on 2 Aug. the peace of September was confirmed, and his controversy with O'Donnell referred to commissioners. But Justice Dowdall and Michael Cusack, who somewhat tardily were appointed for the business, failed to give him satisfaction; and in June 1583 Turlough, who had recovered from a drunken trance, which had lasted two days and given rise to a rumour that he was dead, invaded Tyrconnel, but was defeated by O'Donnell with heavy loss at Drumleen. Early in the following year it was reported that he had made the Baron of Dungannon his tanist, and that they had entered into a close alliance with O'Donnell. The combination appeared a dangerous one to Bagenal, but whatever disloyalty there may have been in it evaporated with the appearance of Sir John Perrot [q. v.] on the borders. Without asking either for pardon or protection, Turlough met the deputy half a mile outside Newry; and, having put in his eldest son Art as a pledge, accompanied him on his expedition against the Scots. He was deserted by O'Cahan and the O'Donnellys, who went over to Sorley Boy MacDonnell [q. v.], and so slenderly accompanied that, according to Captain John Norris, he durst only lie where he might be defended by Norris's troops.

But Turlough, though old, was far from being so insignificant as Norris supposed. He attended the opening of parliament in May 1585, but it seems doubtful if he ever took his seat. Later in the year he was induced by Perrot to consent to surrender the possession of that portion of his territories lying between the Mullaghcarn mountains and the Blackwater to the Earl of Tyrone, at a sort of yearly rent of one thousand marks. The agreement took the form of a seven years' lease, terminable by Turlough at the end of three years. The arrangement, confirmed by Perrot on 10 Aug., worked badly from the first, and in May 1586 Turlough, at the instigation of his wife, demanded restitution of his lands. But the difficulty was smoothed over, and Perrot suggested that he should be created Earl of Omagh, which, besides gratifying him, would effectually serve to extinguish the name of O'Neill. To this fruitful source of discord between Turlough and the Earl of Tyrone was added another, arising from the fact that, whereas the latter supported the faction of Hugh MacManus O'Donnell and his youthful son Hugh Roe [q. v.], Turlough supported that of Hugh Mac Deaganach and Niall Garv. In consequence of this dispute, Tyrone in April 1588 attacked Turlough, and captured some three or four thousand head of cattle belonging to him. Turlough was taken off his guard; but, with the assistance of Hugh MacDeaganach and Niall Garv, he inflicted a terrible defeat on Tyrone at Carricklea on 1 May. At Michaelmas, the three years, according to the agreement between them, having elapsed, Turlough again demanded the restitution of his lands. It was impossible to deny his right to enforce his claim, and the privy council were for persuading Tyrone ‘to surcease his further claim to the rest of the years.’ But Fitzwilliam, who feared that to give back the land to Turlough would throw the balance of power into the hands of the sons of Shane O'Neill, contrived to


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 induce him to withdraw his claim, and to accept an increase of rent for the remaining four years. Neither side was satisfied with the arrangement, and in one of the numerous encounters that took place between them Turlough was shot through the shoulder with a bullet. His power, which had long been waning, began rapidly to decline after the restoration of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, and in May 1593 he resigned in favour of the Earl of Tyrone, who was inaugurated O'Neill. Subsequently, on 28 June, he was awarded a life interest in the Strabane district, while the earl's supremacy was acknowledged over all Tyrone. But the old fighting spirit was not yet extinct in him, and in May 1594 he offered, with three thousand men, armed and paid by the state, to assure Ulster to her majesty. Latterly he was desirous of repairing to Dublin, and in June 1595 the Poppinjay was sent to convey him thither. But Tyrone, who was warned of his intention, razed his castle of Strabane, and he was driven to seek the shelter of a neighbouring ruin, where he died early in September 1595, and was buried at Ardstraw.

There is a pen-and-ink portrait of Turlough Luineach by Barnaby Gooch, ‘rudely drawn but greatly resembling him,’ in ‘State Papers,’ Irel. Eliz. (xlv. 60, ii.).

The name of Turlough's first wife is not known, but he had a son Henry, killed in 1578 in action against the O'Gallaghers. In 1569 he married Agnes Campbell, widow of James MacDonnell, and by her had Sir Art O'Neill, who married a daughter of Cuconnacht Maguire. He had also numerous illegitimate children.

 O'NEILL, WILLIAM CHICHESTER, (1813–1883), musical composer, born on 3 March 1813, at the residence of his father, the Rev. Edward Chichester (d. 1840), rector of Kilmore, Armagh, was educated at Foyle College, Londonderry, and at the High School, Shrewsbury, under Dr. Butler. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin; was ordained in 1837, and was appointed to a prebendal stall in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 1848. By the death of John Bruce O'Neill, third viscount O'Neill, younger son of John O'Neill, first viscount [q. v.], in 1835, he came into possession of the great estates of the O'Neill family, to whom he was related by the marriage of his great-grandfather, the Rev. Arthur Chichester, with Mary, daughter of Henry O'Neill of Shane's Castle, co. Antrim, the first cousin of the first Viscount O'Neill. In 1868 the peerage, originally conferred in 1793, and extinct on the death of the third Viscount O'Neill, was restored to Chichester under the title of ‘Baron O'Neill of Shane's Castle.’ O'Neill exhibited remarkable talent and ability as a performer on the violin and organ, especially the latter instrument; he was also a skilled singer and composer. On the occasion of the visit of Prince Arthur (Duke of Connaught) to Shane's Castle in 1869, Lord O'Neill composed the poetry and music of an ode which he accompanied on the organ at the performance. He frequently officiated as organist in the Dublin cathedrals, and composed church music, glees and songs, all remarkable for purity of style and grammatical accuracy. Some of these pieces have been published. He died on 17 April 1883, at Shane's Castle. He was twice married: first, in 1839, to Henrietta (d. 1857), eldest daughter of Robert Torrens, judge of the common pleas in Ireland, by whom he had three sons and a daughter; secondly, in 1858, to Elizabeth Grace, daughter of John Torrens, D.D., archdeacon of Dublin.

 ONSLOW, ARTHUR (1691–1768), speaker of the House of Commons, born at Chelsea on 1 Oct. 1691, was elder son of Foot Onslow, first commissioner of excise, by Susanna, daughter and heiress of Thomas Anlaby of Etton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and widow of Arnold Colwall of Woodford, Essex. His great-grandfather was Sir Richard Onslow (1601–1664) [q. v.] He was educated at Winchester and matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, as a fellow commoner on 12 Oct. 1708, but took no degree. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1713. He was recorder of Guildford and high steward of Kingston-on-Thames (1737). He became a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1728.

At a by-election in February 1720 Onslow had been returned to the House of Commons in the whig interest for the borough of Guildford, which he continued to represent until the dissolution in July 1727. Only three references to Onslow's speeches during the period he was a private member are known. He took part in the debate in November 1722 on the proposal for raising 100,000l. upon the real and personal estates of the Roman catholics, and ‘declared his abhorrence of persecuting anybody on account of their


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 opinions in religion’ (Parl. Hist. viii. 52). In April 1725 he strenuously opposed the motion for the reversal of Bolingbroke's attainder (ib. viii. 462), and in March 1726 he supported Richard Hampden's petition ‘in consideration of his great-grandfather, who made a most noble and courageous stand against arbitrary power in opposing ship-money, and fell the first victim in the glorious cause of liberty’ (ib. viii. 515). At the general election in August 1727 Onslow was returned both for Guildford and for Surrey. He elected to serve for Surrey, and continued to represent that county until his retirement from the House of Commons at the dissolution in March 1761. At the opening of the new parliament, on 23 Jan. 1728, he was unanimously elected speaker of the House of Commons, an office to which he was re-elected in 1735, 1741, 1747, and 1754 (ib. viii. 629; ix. 634; xii. 214; xiv. 87; xv. 322). Onslow was sworn a member of the privy council at Hampton Court on 25 July 1728 (London Gazette, 1728, No. 6694), and on 13 May 1729 accepted the post of chancellor and keeper of the great seal to Queen Caroline. He was appointed treasurer of the navy on 20 April 1734, an office which he resigned in April 1742 ‘because the opposition said that his attachment to the court arose from interest’ (, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, i. 129). His speech to the king on 2 May 1745, on the occasion of presenting the Money Bills (Journals of the House of Commons, xxv. 8–9), was the last prorogation speech entered at length in the ‘Journals’ of either house (Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester, 1861, ii. 488). In May 1751 he made a ‘noble and affecting speech’ against the Regency Bill (, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, i. 126–8; Parl. Hist. xiv. 1017–23). In consequence of failing health Onslow resolved to retire from parliamentary life, and on 18 March 1761 the thanks of the House of Commons were unanimously voted to him ‘for his constant and unwearied attendance in the chair during the course of above thirty-three years in five successive parliaments.’

In returning thanks Onslow was deeply affected, and confessed that ‘the being within these walls has ever been the chief pleasure of my life.’ A further resolution for an address to the king, that he would be ‘graciously pleased to confer some signal mark of his royal favour’ upon the retiring speaker, was also unanimously carried (ib. xv. 1013–15). Accordingly the king, by letters patent dated 20 April 1761, granted Onslow an annuity of 3,000l. for the lives of himself and his son George, a provision which was further secured to him by an act of parliament passed in the following year (2 Geo. III, c. 33). The freedom of the city was voted to Onslow at a court of common council on 5 May 1761 ‘as a grateful and lasting testimony of the respectful love and veneration which the citizens of London entertain of his person and distinguished virtue.’ He was admitted to the freedom on 11 June following, but declined, ‘on account of his official position,’ to accept the gold box of the value of one hundred guineas which had also been voted by the court (London's Roll of Fame, 1884, p. 42). He died on 17 Feb. 1768, aged 76. ‘His death,’ Walpole records, ‘was long and dreadfully painful, but he supported his agony with great patience, dignity, good humour, and even good breeding’ (Letters of Horace Walpole, v. 86). He was buried at Thames Ditton, Surrey, but his body and that of his wife were afterwards removed to the burial-place of the Onslow family in Merrow Church in the same county. A monument was erected to his memory by his son George in the north aisle of Trinity Church, Guildford, and there is a tablet to him and his wife in Thames Ditton Church.

Onslow was a man of unblemished integrity and much ability. He was the third member of his family who had been speaker of the House of Commons. No speaker has ever supported the privileges of the House with more firmness, or sustained the dignity of his office with greater authority. ‘His knowledge of the constitution equalled his attachment to it. To the crown he behaved with all the decorum of respect, without sacrificing his freedom of speech. Against encroachments of the House of Lords he was an inflexible champion. … Though to conciliate popular favour he affected an impartiality that by turns led him to the borders of insincerity and contradiction; and though he was so minutely attached to forms that it often made him troublesome in affairs of higher moment, it will be difficult,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘to find a subject whom gravity will so well become, whose knowledge will be so useful and so accurate, and whose fidelity to his trust will prove so unshaken’ (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 51–2). He used frequently to declare that ‘the passing of the Septennial Bill formed the era of the emancipation of the British House of Commons from its former dependence on the Crown and the House of Lords’ (, Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, 1798, i. 75). On being asked what would be the consequence of naming a member, he is


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eve it happened when I sate alone, Alone upon the terrace of my tower, A book upon my knees, to counterfeit The reading that I never read at all, While Marian, in the garden down below, Knelt by the fountain (I could just hear thrill The drowsy silence of the exhausted day) And peeled a new fig from that purple heap In the grass beside her,—turning out the red To feed her eager child, who sucked at it With vehement lips across a gap of air As he stood opposite, face and curls a-flame With that last sun-ray, crying, 'give me, give,' And stamping with imperious baby-feet, (We're all born princes)—something startled me,— The laugh of sad and innocent souls, that breaks Abruptly, as if frightened at itself; 'Twas Marian laughed.I saw her glance above In sudden shame that I should hear her laugh, And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book, T2

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Rh And knew, the first time, ’twas Boccaccio’s tales, The Falcon’s,—of the lover who for love Destroyed the best that loved him. Some of us Do it still, and then we sit and laugh no more. Laugh you, sweet Marian! you’ve the right to laugh, Since God himself is for you, and a child! For me there’s somewhat less,—and so, I sigh.

The heavens were making room to hold the night, The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates To let the stars out slowly (prophesied In close-approaching advent, not discerned), While still the cue-owls from the cypresses Of the Poggio called and counted every pulse Of the skyey palpitation. Gradually The purple and transparent shadows slow Had filled up the whole valley to the brim, And flooded all the city, which you saw As some drowned city in some enchanted sea, Cut off from nature,—drawing you who gaze, With passionate desire, to leap and plunge, And find a sea-king with a voice of waves, And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locks You cannot kiss but you shall bring away Their salt upon your lips. The duomo-bell Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down, So deep; and fifty churches answer it The same, with fifty various instances. Some gaslights tremble along squares and streets The Pitti’s palace-front is drawn in fire:

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Rh And, past the quays, Maria Novella’s Place, In which the mystic obelisks stand up Triangular, pyramidal, each based On a single trine of brazen tortoises, To guard that fair church, Buonarroti’s Bride, That stares out from her large blind dial-eyes, Her quadrant and armillary dials, black With rhythms of many suns and moons, in vain Enquiry for so rich a soul as his,— Methinks I have plunged, I see it all so clear. . . And, oh my heart. . .the sea-king!

In my ears The sound of waters. There he stood, my king!

I felt him, rather than beheld him. Up I rose, as if he were my king indeed, And then sate down, in trouble at myself, And struggling for my woman’s empery. ’Tis pitiful; but women are so made: We’ll die for you, perhaps,—’tis probable: But we’ll not spare you an inch of our full height: We’ll have our whole just stature,—five feet four, Though laid out in our coffins: pitiful! —‘You, Romney!——Lady Waldemar is here?’

He answered in a voice which was not his, ‘I have her letter; you shall read it soon: But first, I must be heard a little, I, Who have waited long and travelled far for that,

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Rh Although you thought to have shut a tedious book And farewell. Ah, you dog-eared such a page, And here you find me.’ Did he touch my hand, Or but my sleeve? I trembled, hand and foot,— He must have touched me.—‘Will you sit?’ I asked, And motioned to a chair; but down he sate, A little slowly, as a man in doubt, Upon the couch beside me,—couch and chair Being wheeled upon the terrace. ‘You are come, My cousin Romney?—this is wonderful. But all is wonder on such summer-nights; And nothing should surprise us any more, Who see that miracle of stars. Behold.’

I signed above, where all the stars were out, As if an urgent heat had started there A secret writing from a sombre page, A blank last moment, crowded suddenly With hurrying splendours. ‘Then you do not know— He murmured. ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, ‘I know. I had the news from Vincent Carrington. And yet I did not think you’d leave the work In England, for so much even,—though, of course, You’ll make a work-day of your holiday, And turn it to our Tuscan people’s use,— Who much need helping since the Austrian boar

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Rh (So bold to cross the Alp by Lombardy And dash his brute front unabashed against The steep snow-bosses of that shield of God, Who soon shall rise in wrath and shake it clear Came hither also,—raking up our vines And olive-gardens with his tyrannous tusks, And rolling on our maize with all his swine.’

‘You had the news from Vincent Carrington,’ He echoed,—picking up the phrase beyond, As if he knew the rest was merely talk To fill a gap and keep out a strong wind,— ‘You had, then, Vincent’s personal news?’ ‘His own, I answered, ‘All that ruined world of yours Seems crumbling into marriage. Carrington Has chosen wisely.’ ‘Do you take it so?’ He cried, ‘and is it possible at last’. . He paused there,—and then, inward to himself, ‘Too much at last, too late!—yet certainly’. . (And there his voice swayed as an Alpine plank That feels a passionate torrent underneath) ‘The knowledge, if I had known it, first or last, Had never changed the actual case for me. And best, for her, at this time.’ Nay, I thought, He loves Kate Ward, it seems, now, like a man, Because he has married Lady Waldemar. Ah, Vincent’s letter said how Leigh was moved

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Rh To hear that Vincent was betrothed to Kate. With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells In this world! Then I spoke,—’I did not think, My cousin, you had ever known Kate Ward.’

‘In fact I never knew her. ’Tis enough That Vincent did, before he chose his wife For other reasons than those topaz eyes I’ve heard of. Not to undervalue them, For all that. One takes up the world with eyes.’

—Including Romney Leigh, I thought again, Albeit he knows them only by repute. How vile must all men be, since he’s a man.

His deep pathetic voice, as if he guessed I did not surely love him, took the word; ‘You never got a letter from Lord Howe A month back, dear Aurora?’ ‘None,’ I said. ‘I felt it was so,’ he replied: ‘Yet, strange! Sir Blaise Delorme has passed through Florence?’ ‘Ay, By chance I saw him in Our Lady’s church, (I saw him, mark you, but he saw not me) Clean-washed in holy-water from the count Of things terrestrial,—letters and the rest; He had crossed us out together with his sins.

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Rh Ay, strange; but only strange that good Lord Howe Preferred him to the post because of pauls. For me I’m sworn never to trust a man— At least with letters.’

‘There were facts to tell,— To smooth with eye and accent. Howe supposed. . Well, well, no matter! there was dubious need; You heard the news from Vincent Carrington. And yet perhaps you had been startled less To see me, dear Aurora, if you had read That letter.’ —Now he sets me down as vexed. I think I’ve draped myself in woman’s pride To a perfect purpose. Oh, I’m vexed, it seems! My friend Lord Howe deputes his friend Sir Blaise To break as softly as a sparrow’s egg That lets a bird out tenderly, the news Of Romney’s marriage to a certain saint; To smooth with eye and accent,—indicate His possible presence. Excellently well You’ve played your part, my Lady Waldemar,— As I’ve played mine. ‘Dear Romney,’ I began, ‘You did not use, of old, to be so like A Greek king coming from a taken Troy, ’Twas needful that precursors spread your path With three-piled carpets, to receive your foot And dull the sound of’t. For myself, be sure Although it frankly ground the gravel here

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Rh I still could bear it. Yet I’m sorry, too, To lose this famous letter, which Sir Blaise Has twisted to a lighter absently To fire some holy taper with: Lord Howe Writes letters good for all things but to lose; And many a flower of London gossipry Has dropt wherever such a stem broke off,— Of course I know that, lonely among my vines, Where nothing’s talked of, save the blight again, And no more Chianti! Still the letter’s use As preparation. . . . . Did I start indeed? Last night I started at a cochchafer, And shook a half-hour after. Have you learnt No more of women, ’spite of privilege, Than still to take account too seriously Of such weak flutterings? Why, we like it, sir,— We get our powers and our effects that way. The trees stand stiff and still at time of frost, If no wind tears them; but, let summer come, When trees are happy,—and a breath avails To set them trembling through a million leaves In luxury of emotion. Something less It takes to move a woman: let her start And shake at pleasure,—nor conclude at yours, The winter’s bitter,—but the summer’s green.’

He answered, ‘Be the summer ever green With you, Aurora!—though you sweep your sex With somewhat bitter gusts from where you live Above them,—whirling downward from your heights

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Rh Your very own pine-cones, in a grand disdain Of the lowland burrs with which you scatter them. So high and cold to others and yourself, A little less to Romney, were unjust, And thus, I would not have you. Let it pass: I feel content, so. You can bear indeed My sudden step beside you: but for me, ’Twould move me sore to hear your softened voice,— Aurora’s voice,—if softened unaware In pity of what I am.’ Ah friend, I thought, As husband of the Lady Waldemar You’re granted very sorely pitiable! And yet Aurora Leigh must guard her voice From softening in the pity of your case, As if from lie or licence. Certainly We’ll soak up all the slush and soil of life With softened voices, ere we come to you.

At which I interrupted my own thought And spoke out calmly. ‘Let us ponder, friend, Whate’er our state, we must have made it first; And though the thing displease us, ay, perhaps Displease us warrantably, never doubt That other states, thought possible once, and then Rejected by the instinct of our lives,— If then adopted, had displeased us more Than this, in which the choice, the will, the love, Has stamped the honour of a patent act From henceforth. What we choose, may not be good;

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Rh But, that we choose it, proves it good for us Potentially, fantastically, now Or last year, rather than a thing we saw, And saw no need for choosing. Moths will burn Their wings,—which proves that light is good for moths, Or else they had flown not, where they agonise.’

‘Ay, light is good,’ he echoed, and there paused. And then abruptly,. . ‘Marian. Marian’s well?’

I bowed my head but found no word. ‘Twas hard To speak of her to Lady Waldemar’s New husband. How much did he know, at last? How much? how little?——He would take no sign, But straight repeated,—’Marian. Is she well?’

‘She’s well,’ I answered.

She was there in sight An hour back, but the night had drawn her home; Where still I heard her in an upper room, Her low voice singing to the child in bed, Who restless with the summer-heat and play And slumber snatched at noon, was long sometimes At falling off, and took a score of songs And mother-hushes, ere she saw him sound.

‘She’s well,’ I answered.

‘Here?’ he asked.

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Rh ‘Yes, here.’

He stopped and sighed. ‘That shall be presently, But now this must be. I have words to say, And would be alone to say them, I with you, And no third troubling.’

‘Speak then,’ I returned, ‘She will not vex you.’

At which, suddenly He turned his face upon me with its smile, As if to crush me. ‘I have read your book, Aurora.’ ‘You have read it,’ I replied, ‘And I have writ it,—we have done with it. And now the rest?’ ‘The rest is like the first,’ He answered,—’for the book is in my heart, Lives in me, wakes in me, and dreams in me: My daily bread tastes of it,—and my wine Which has no smack of it, I pour it out; It seems unnatural drinking.’ Bitterly I took the word up; ‘Never waste your wine. The book lived in me ere it lived in you; I know it closer than another does, And that it’s foolish, feeble, and afraid, And all unworthy so much compliment. Beseech you, keep your wine,—and, when you drink,

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Rh Still wish some happier fortune to your friend, Than even to have written a far better book.’

He answered gently, ‘That is consequent: The poet looks beyond the book he has made, Or else he had not made it. If a man Could make a man, he’d henceforth be a god In feeling what a little thing is man: It is not my case. And this special book, I did not make it, to make light of it: It stands above my knowledge, draws me up; ’Tis high to me. It may be that the book Is not so high, but I so low, instead; Still high to me. I mean no compliment: I will not say there are not, young or old, Male writers, ay, or female,—let it pass, Who’ll write us richer and completer books. A man may love a woman perfectly, And yet by no means ignorantly maintain A thousand women have not larger eyes: Enough that she alone has looked at him With eyes that, large or small, have won his soul. And so, this book, Aurora,—so, your book.’

‘Alas,’ I answered, ‘is it so, indeed?’ And then was silent.

‘Is it so, indeed,’ He echoed, ‘that alas is all your word?’

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Rh I said,—’I’m thinking of a far-off June, When you and I, upon my birthday once, Discoursed of life and art, with both untried. I’m thinking, Romney, how ’twas morning then, And now ’tis night.’

‘And now,’ he said, ‘’tis night.’

‘I’m thinking,’ I resumed, ‘’tis somewhat sad That if I had known, that morning in the dew, My cousin Romney would have said such words On such a night, at close of many years, In speaking of a future book of mine, It would have pleased me better as a hope, Than as an actual grace it can at all. That’s sad, I’m thinking.’ ‘Ay,’ he said, ‘’tis night.’

‘And there,’ I added lightly, ‘are the stars! And here, we’ll talk of stars, and not of books.’

‘You have the stars,’ he murmured,—’it is well. Be like them! shine, Aurora, on my dark, Though high and cold and only like star, And for this short night only,—you, who keep The same Aurora of the bright June-day That withered up the flowers before my face, And turned my from the garden evermore Because I was not worthy. Oh, deserved, Deserved! That I, who verily had not learnt

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Rh God’s lesson half, attaining as a dunce To obliterate good words with fractious thumbs And cheat myself of the context,—I should push Aside, with male ferocious impudence, The world’s Aurora who had conned her part On the other side the leaf! ignore her so, Because she was a woman and a queen, And had no beard to bristle through her song,— My teacher, who has taught me with a book, My Miriam, whose sweet mouth, when nearly drowned I still heard singing on the shore! Deserved, That here I should look up unto the stars And miss the glory’. . ‘Can I understand?’ I broke in. ‘You speak wildly, Romney Leigh, Or I hear wildly. In that morning-time We recollect, the roses were too red, The trees too green, reproach too natural If one should see not what the other saw: And now, it’s night, remember; we have shades In place of colours; we are now grown cold, And old, my cousin Romney. Pardon me,— I’m very happy that you like my book, And very sorry that I quoted back A ten years’ birthday; ‘twas so mad a thing In any woman, I scarce marvel much You took it for a venturous piece of spite, Provoking such excuses, as indeed I cannot call you slack in.’ ‘Understand,’

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Rh He answered sadly, ‘something, if but so. This night is softer than an English day, And men may well come hither when they’re sick, To draw in easier breath from larger air. ’Tis thus with me; I’ve come to you,—to you, My Italy of women, just to breathe My soul out once before you, ere I go, As humble as God makes me at the last, (I thank Him) quite out of the way of men, And yours, Aurora,—like a punished child, His cheeks all blurred with tears and naughtiness, To silence in a corner. I am come To speak, beloved’. . ‘Wisely, cousin Leigh, And worthily of us both!’ ‘Yes, worthily; For this time I must speak out and confess That I, so truculent in assumption once, So absolute in dogma, proud in aim, And fierce in expectation,—I, who felt The whole world tugging at my skirts for help, As if no other man than I, could pull, Nor woman, but I led her by the hand, Nor cloth hold, but I had it in my coat,— Do know myself to-night for what I was On that June-day, Aurora. Poor bright day, Which meant the best. . a woman and a rose,. . And which I smote upon the cheek with words, Until it turned and rent me! Young you were, That birthday, poet, but you talked the right:

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Rh While I,. . I built up follies like a wall To intercept the sunshine and your face. Your face! that’s worse.’ ‘Speak wisely, cousin Leigh.’

‘Yes, wisely, dear Aurora, though too late: But then, not wisely. I was heavy then, And stupid, and distracted with the cries Of tortured prisoners in the polished brass Of that Phalarian bull, society,— Which seems to bellow bravely like ten bulls, But, if you listen, moans and cries instead Despairingly, like victims tossed and gored And trampled by their hoofs. I heard the cries Too close: I could not hear the angels lift A fold of rustling air, nor what they said To help my pity. I beheld the world As one great famishing carnivorous mouth,— A huge, deserted, callow, black, bird Thing, With piteous open beak that hurt my heart, Till down upon the filthy ground I dropped, And tore the violets up to get the worms. Worms, worms, was all my cry: an open mouth, A gross want, bread to fill it to the lips, No more! That poor men narrowed their demands To such an end, was virtue, I supposed, Adjudicating that to see it so Was reason. Oh, I did not push the case Up higher, and ponder how it answers, when The rich take up the same cry for themselves,

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Rh Professing equally,—’an open mouth A gross want, food to fill us, and no more!’ Why that’s so far from virtue, only vice Finds reason for it! That makes libertines: That slurs our cruel streets from end to end With eighty thousand women in one smile, Who only smile at night beneath the gas: The body’s satisfaction and no more, Being used for argument against the soul’s, Her too! the want, here too, implying the right. —How dark I stood that morning in the sun, My best Aurora, though I saw your eyes,— When first you told me. . oh, I recollect The words. . and how you lifted your white hand, And how your white dress and your burnished curls Went greatening round you in the still blue air, As if an inspiration from within Had blown them all out when you spoke the same, Even these,—’You will not compass your poor ends ‘Of barley-feeding and material ease, ‘Without the poet’s individualism ‘To work your universal. It takes a soul, ‘To move a body,—it takes a high-souled man, ‘To move the masses. . even to a cleaner stye: ‘It takes the ideal, to blow an inch inside ‘The dust of the actual: and your Fouriers failed ‘Because not poets enough to understand ‘That life develops from within.’ I say Your words,—I could say other words of yours For none of all your words has been more lost

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Rh Than sweet verbena, which, being brushed against, Will hold you three hours after by the smell, In spite of long walks on the windy hills. But these words dealt in sharper perfume,—these Were ever on me, stinging through my dreams, And saying themselves for ever o’er my acts Like some unhappy verdict. That I failed, Is certain. Stye or no stye, to contrive The swine’s propulsion toward the precipice, Proved easy and plain. I subtly organised And ordered, built the cards up higher and higher, Till, some one breathing, all fell flat again! In setting right society’s wide wrong, Mere life’s so fatal! So I failed indeed Once, twice, and oftener,—hearing through the rents Of obstinate purpose, still those words of yours, ‘You will not compass your poor ends, not you!’ But harder than you said them; every time Still farther from your voice, until they came To overcrow me with triumphant scorn Which vexed me to resistance. Set down this For condemnation,—I was guilty here: I stood upon my deed and fought my doubt, As men will,—for I doubted,—till at last My deed gave way beneath me suddenly, And left me what I am. The curtain dropped, My part quite ended, all the footlights quenched. My own soul hissing at me through the dark, I, ready for confession,—I was wrong, I’ve sorely failed; I’ve slipped the ends of life,

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Rh I yield; you have conquered.’ ‘Stay,’ I answered him; ‘I’ve something for your hearing, also. I Have failed too.’ ‘You!’ he said, ‘you’re very great: The sadness of your greatness fits you well: As if the plume upon a hero’s casque Should nod a shadow upon his victor face.’

I took him up austerely,—’You have read My book but not my heart; for recollect, ‘Tis writ in Sanscrit, which you bungle at. I’ve surely failed, I know; if failure means To look back sadly on work gladly done,— To wander on my mountains of Delight, So called, (I can remember a friend’s words As well as you, sir,) weary and in want Of even a sheep-path, thinking bitterly. . Well, well! no matter. I but say so much, To keep you, Romney Leigh, from saying more, And let you feel I am not so high indeed, That I can bear to have you at my foot,— Or safe, that I can help you. That June-day, Too deeply sunk in craterous sunsets now For you or me to dig it up alive; To pluck it out all bleeding with spent flame At the roots, before those moralising stars We have got instead,—that poor lost day, you said Some words as truthful as the thing of mine You care to keep in memory: and I hold

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Rh If I, that day, and, being the girl I was, Had shown a gentler spirit, less arrogance, It had not hurt me. Ah, you’ll not mistake The point here. I but only think, you see, More justly, that’s more humbly, of myself, Than when I tried a crown on and supposed. . . Nay, laugh, sir,—I’ll laugh with you!—pray you, laugh. I’ve had so many birthdays since that day, I’ve learnt to prize mirth’s opportunities, Which come too seldom. Was it you who said I was not changed? the same Aurora? Ah, We could laugh there, too! Why, Ulysses’ dog Knew him, and wagged his tail and died: but if I had owned a dog, I too, before my Troy, And if you brought him here,. . I warrant you He’d look into my face, bark lustily, And live on stoutly, as the creatures will Whose spirits are not troubled by long loves. A dog would never know me, I’m so changed; Much less a friend. . except that you’re misled By the colour of the hair, the trick of the voice, Like that of Aurora Leigh’s.’ ‘Sweet trick of voice I would be a dog for this, to know it at last, And die upon the falls of it. O love, O best Aurora! are you then so sad, You scarcely had been sadder as my wife?’

‘Your wife, sir! I must certainly be changed, If I, Aurora, can have said a thing

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Rh So light, it catches at the knightly spurs Of a noble gentleman like Romney Leigh, And trips him from his honourable sense Of what befits’. . ‘You wholly misconceive,’ He answered. I returned,—’I’m glad of it: But keep from misconception, too, yourself: I am not humbled to so low a point, Nor so far saddened. If I am sad at all, Ten layers of birthdays on a woman’s head, Are apt to fossilise her girlish mirth, Though ne’er so merry: I’m perforce more wise, And that, in truth, means sadder. For the rest, Look here, sir: I was right upon the whole, That birthday morning. ’Tis impossible To get at men excepting through their souls, However open their carnivorous jaws; And poets get directlier at the soul, Than any of you oeconomists:—for which, You must not overlook the poet’s work When scheming for the world’s necessities. The soul’s the way. Not even Christ himself Can save man else than as He hold man’s soul; And therefore did He come into our flesh, As some wise hunter creeping on his knees With a torch, into the blackness of some cave, To face and quell the beast there,—take the soul, And so possess the whole man, body and soul. I said, so far, right, yes; not farther, though:

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Rh We both were wrong that June-day,—both as wrong As an east wind had been. I who talked of art, And you who grieved for all men’s griefs. . . what then? We surely made too small a part for God In these things. What we are, imports us more Than what we eat; and life you’ve granted me, Develops from within. But innermost Of the inmost, most interior of the interne, God claims his own, Divine humanity Renewing nature,—or the piercingest verse, Prest in by subtlest poet, still must keep As much upon the outside of a man, As the very bowl, in which he dips his beard. —And then,. . the rest. I cannot surely speak. Perhaps I doubt more than you doubted then, If I, the poet’s veritable charge, Have borne upon my forehead. If I have, It might feel somewhat liker to a crown, The foolish green one even.—Ah, I think, And chiefly when the sun shines, that I’ve failed. But what then, Romney? Though we fail indeed, You. . I. . a score of such weak workers,. . He Fails never. If He cannot work by us, He will work over us. Does he want a man, Much less a woman, think you? Every time The star winks there, so many souls are born, Who shall work too. Let our own be calm: We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars, Impatient that we’re nothing.’ ‘Could we sit

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Rh Just so for ever, sweetest friend,’ he said, ‘My failure would seem better than success. And yet, indeed, your book has dealt with me More gently, cousin, than you ever will! The book brought down entire the bright June-day, And set me wandering in the garden-walks, And let me watch the garland in a place, You blushed so. . nay, forgive me; do not stir: I only thank the book for what it taught, And what, permitted. Poet, doubt yourself; But never doubt that you’re a poet to me From henceforth. Ah, you’ve written poems, sweet, Which moved me in secret as the sap is moved In still March branches, signless as a stone: But this last book o’ercame me like soft rain Which falls at midnight, when the tightened bark Breaks out into unhesitating buds, And sudden protestations of the spring. In all your other books I saw but you: A man may see the moon so, in a pond, And not the nearer therefore to the moon, Nor use the sight. . except to drown himself And so I forced my heart back from the sigh For what had I, I thought, to do with her,— Aurora. . Romney? But, in this last book, You showed me something separate from yourself, Beyond you; and I bore to take it in, And let it draw me. You have shown me truths, O June-day friend, that help me now at night, When June is over! truths not yours, indeed,

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Rh But set within my reach by means of you: Presented by your voice and verse the way To take them clearest. Verily I was wrong; And verily, many thinkers of this age, Ay, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, Are wrong in just my sense, who understood Our natural world too insularly, as if No spiritual counterpart completed it Consummating its meaning, rounding all To justice and perfection, line by line, Form by form, nothing single, nor alone,— The great below clenched by the great above; Shade here authenticating substance there; The body proving spirit, as the effect The cause: we, meantime, being too grossly apt To hold the natural, as dogs a bone, (Though reason and nature beat us in the face), So obstinately, that we’ll break our teeth Or ever we let go. For everywhere We’re too materialistic,—eating clay, (Like men of the west) instead of Adam’s corn And Noah’s wine; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, Until we’re filled up to the throat with clay, And grow the grimy colour of the ground On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist The age’s name is. God himself, with some, Is apprehended as the bare result Of what his hand materially has made, Expressed in such an algebraic sign, Called God;—that is, to put it otherwise,

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Rh They add up nature to a naught of God And cross the quotient. There are many, even, Whose names are written in the Christian church To no dishonour,—diet still on mud, And splash the altars with it. You might think The clay, Christ laid upon their eyelids when, Still blind, he called them to the use of sight, Remained there to retard its exercise With clogging incrustations. Close to heaven, They see, for mysteries, through the open doors, Vague puffs of smoke from pots of earthenware; And fain would enter, when their time shall come, With quite a different body than St. Paul Has promised,—husk and chaff, the whole barley-corn, Or where’s the resurrection?’ ‘Thus it is,’ I sighed. And he resumed with mournful face. ‘Beginning so, and filling up with clay The wards of this great key, the natural world, And fumbling vainly therefore at the lock Of the spiritual,—we feel ourselves shut in With all the wild-beast roar of struggling life, The terrors and compunctions of our souls, As saints with lions,—we who are not saints, And have no heavenly lordship in our stare To awe them backward! Ay, we are forced so pent To judge the whole too partially,. . confound Conclusions. Is there any common phrase Significant, when the adverb’s heard alone, The verb being absent, and the pronoun out?

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Rh But we distracted in the roar of life, Still insolently at God’s adverb snatch, And bruit against Him that his thought is void, His meaning hopeless;—cry, that everywhere The government is slipping from his hand, Unless some other Christ. . say Romney Leigh. . Come up, and toil and moil, and change the world, For which the First has proved inadequate, However we talk bigly of His work And piously of His person. We blaspheme At last, to finish that doxology, Despairing on the earth for which He died.’

‘So now,’ I asked, ‘you have more hope of men?’

‘I hope,’ he answered: ‘I am come to think That God will have his work done, as you said, And that we need not be disturbed too much For Romney Leigh or others having failed With this or that quack nostrum,—recipes For keeping summits by annulling depths, For learning wrestling with long lounging sleeves, And perfect heroism without a scratch. We fail,—what then? Aurora, if I smiled To see you, in your lovely morning-pride, Try on the poet’s wreath which suits the noon,— (Sweet cousin, walls must get the weather-stain Before they grow the ivy!) certainly I stood myself there worthier of contempt, Self-rated, in disastrous arrogance,

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Rh As competent to sorrow for mankind And even their odds. A man may well despair, Who counts himself so needful to success. I failed. I throw the remedy back on God, And sit down here beside you, in good hope.’ ‘And yet, take heed,’ I answered, ‘lest we lean Too dangerously on the other side, And so fail twice. Be sure, no earnest work Of any honest creature, howbeit weak, Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much, It is not gathered as a grain of sand To enlarge the sum of human action used For carrying out God’s end. No creature works So ill, observe, that therefore he’s cashiered. The honest earnest man must stand and work: The woman also; otherwise she drops At once below the dignity of man, Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work: Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.’

He cried, ‘True. After Adam, work was curse; The natural creature labours, sweats and frets. But, after Christ, work turns to privilege; And henceforth one with our humanity, The Six-day Worker, working still in us, Has called us freely to work on with Him In high companionship. So happiest! I count that Heaven itself is only work To a surer issue. Let us work, indeed,—

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Rh But, no more, work as Adam. . nor as Leigh Erewhile, as if the only man on earth, Responsible for all the thistles blown And tigers couchant,—struggling in amaze Against disease and winter,—snarling on For ever, that the world’s not paradise. Oh cousin, let us be content, in work, To do the thing we can, and not presume To fret because it’s little. ’Twill employ Seven men, they say, to make a perfect pin! Who makes the head, content to miss the point,— Who makes the point, agreed to leave the join: And if a man should cry, ‘I want a pin, ‘And I must make it straightway, head and point,’— His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. Seven men to a pin,—and not a man too much! Seven generations, haply, to this world, To right it visibly, a finger’s breadth, And mend its rents a little. Oh, to storm And say,—’This world here is intolerable; ‘I will not eat this corn, nor drink this wine, ‘Nor love this woman, flinging her my soul ‘Without a bond for’t, as a lover should, ‘Nor use the generous leave of happiness ‘As not too good for using generously’— (Since virtue kindles at the touch of joy, Like a man’s cheek laid on a woman’s hand; And God, who knows it, looks for quick returns From joys)!—to stand and claim to have a life Beyond the bounds of the individual man,

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Rh And raise all personal cloisters of the soul To build up public stores and magazines, As if God’s creatures otherwise were lost, The builder surely saved by any means! To think,—I have a pattern on my nail, And I will carve the world new after it, And solve so, these hard social questions,—nay, Impossible social questions,—since their roots Strike deep in Evil’s own existence here, Which God permits because the question’s hard To abolish evil nor attaint free-will. Ay, hard to God, but not to Romney Leigh! For Romney has a pattern on his nail, (Whatever may be lacking on the Mount) And not being overnice to separate What’s element from what’s convention, hastes By line on line, to draw you out a world, Without your help indeed, unless you take His yoke upon you and will learn of him,— So much he has to teach! so good a world! The same, the whole creation’s groaning for! No rich nor poor, no gain nor loss nor stint, No potage in it able to exclude A brother’s birthright, and no right of birth, The potage,—both secured to every man; And perfect virtue dealt out like the rest, Gratuitously, with the soup at six, To whoso does not seek it.’ ‘Softly, sir,’ I interrupted,—’I had a cousin once

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Rh I held in reverence. If he strained too wide, It was not to take honour, but give help; The gesture was heroic. If his hand Accomplished nothing. . (well, it is not proved) That empty hand thrown impotently out Were sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven, Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in And keeps the scythe’s glow on it. Pray you, then, For my sake merely, use less bitterness In speaking of my cousin.’ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Aurora! when the prophet beats the ass, The angel intercedes.’ He shook his head— ‘And yet to mean so well, and fail so foul, Expresses ne’er another beast than man; The antithesis is human. Harken, dear; There’s too much abstract willing, purposing, In this poor world. We talk by aggregates, And think by systems; and, being used to face Our evils in statistics, are inclined To cap them with unreal remedies Drawn out in haste on the other side the slate.’

‘That’s true,’ I answered, fain to throw up thought And make a game of’t; ‘Oh, we generalise Enough to please you. If we pray at all, We pray no longer for our daily bread, But next centenary’s harvests. If we give, Our cup of water is not tendered till We lay down pipes and found a Company

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Rh With Branches. Ass or angel, ’tis the same: A woman cannot do the thing she ought, Which means whatever perfect thing she can, In life, in art, in science, but she fears To let the perfect action take her part And rest there: she must prove what she can do Before she does it,—prate of woman’s rights, Of woman’s mission, woman’s function, till The men (who are prating, too, on their side) cry, ‘A woman’s function plainly is. . to talk. Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed! They cannot hear each other speak.’ ‘And you, An artist, judge so?’ ‘I, an artist,—yes, Because, precisely, I’m an artist, sir, And woman,—if another sate in sight, I’d whisper,—soft, my sister! not a word! By speaking we prove only we can speak: Which he, the man here, never doubted. What He doubts, is whether we can do the thing With decent grace, we’ve not yet done at all: Now, do it; bring your statue,—you have room! He’ll see it even by the starlight here; And if ’tis e’er so little like the god Who looks out from the marble silently Along the track of his own shining dart Through the dusk of ages,—there’s no need to speak; The universe shall henceforth speak for you, And witness, ‘She who did this thing, was born

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Rh To do it,—claims her license in her work.’ —And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague, Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech: Who rights a land’s finances, is excused For touching coppers, though her hands be white,— But we, we talk!’ ‘It is the age’s mood,’ He said; ‘we boast, and do not. We put up Hostelry signs where’er we lodge a day,— Some red colossal cow, with mighty paps A Cyclops’ fingers could not strain to milk; Then bring out presently our saucer-full of curds. We want more quiet in our works, More knowledge of the bounds in which we work; More knowledge that each individual man Remains an Adam to the general race, Constrained to see, like Adam, that he keep His personal state’s condition honestly, Or vain all thoughts of his to help the world, Which still must be developed from its one, If bettered in its many. We, indeed, Who think to lay it out new like a park, We take a work on us which is not man’s; For God alone sits far enough above, To speculate so largely. None of us (Not Romney Leigh) is mad enough to say, We’ll have a grove of oaks upon that slope And sink the need of acorns. Government, If veritable and lawful, is not given By imposition of the foreign hand,—

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Rh Nor chosen from a pretty pattern-book Of some domestic idealogue, who sits And coldly chooses empire, where as well He might republic. Genuine government Is but the expression of a nation, good Or less good,—even as all society, Howe’er unequal, monstrous, crazed and cursed, Is but the expression of men’s single lives, The loud sum of the silent units. What, We’d change the aggregate and yet retain Each separate figure? Whom do we cheat by that? Now, not even Romney.’ ‘Cousin, you are sad. Did all your social labour at Leigh Hall And elsewhere, come to nought then?’ ‘It was nought,’ He answered mildly. ‘There is room indeed, For statues still, in this large world of God’s, But not for vacuums,—so I am not sad: Not sadder than is good for what I am. My vain phalanstery dissolved itself; My men and women of disordered lives, I brought in orderly to dine and sleep, Broke up those waxen masks I made them wear, With fierce contortions of the natural face; And cursed me for my tyrannous constraint In forcing crooked creatures to live straight; And set the country hounds upon my back To bite and tear me for my wicked deed Of trying to do good without the church

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Rh Or even the squires, Aurora. Do you mind Your ancient neighbours? The great book-club teems With ‘sketches,’ ‘summaries,’ and ‘last tracts’ but twelve, On socialistic troublers of close bonds Betwixt the generous rich and grateful poor. The vicar preached from ‘Revelations,’ (till The doctor woke) and found me with ‘the frogs’ On three successive Sundays; ay, and stopped To weep a little (for he’s getting old) That such perdition should o’ertake a man Of such fair acres,—in the parish, too! He printed his discourses ‘by request;’ And if your book shall sell as his did, then Your verses are less good than I suppose. The women of the neighbourhood subscribed, And sent me a copy bound in scarlet silk, Tooled edges, blazoned with the arms of Leigh: I own that touched me.’ ‘What, the pretty ones? Poor Romney!’ ‘Otherwise the effect was small. I had my windows broken once or twice By liberal peasants, naturally incensed At such a vexer of Arcadian peace, Who would not let men call their wives their own To kick like Britons,—and made obstacles When things went smoothly as a baby drugged, Toward freedom and starvation; bringing down The wicked London tavern-thieves and drabs, To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves

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