It is the same genius, so exquisitely mournful, tender, and glowing,
too, with the finest enthusiasm, that makes their national music, in
these respects, the finest in the world. It is the music of the harp;
its tones are deep and thrilling. It is the harp so beautifully
described in "The Harp of Tara's Halls," a song whose simple pathos is
unsurpassed. A feeling was never more adequately embodied.
It is the genius which will enable Emmet's appeal to draw tears from
the remotest generations, however much they may be strangers to the
circumstances which called it forth, It is the genius which beamed in
chivalrous loveliness through each act of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,--the
genius which, ripened by English culture, favored by suitable
occasions, has shed such glory on the land which has done all it could
to quench it on the parent hearth.
When we consider all the fire which glows so untamably in Irish veins,
the character of her people, considering the circumstances, almost
miraculous in its goodness, we cannot forbear, notwithstanding all the
temporary ills they aid in here, to give them a welcome to our shores.
Those ills we need not enumerate; they are known to all, and we rank
among them, what others would not, that by their ready service to do
all the hard work, they make it easier for the rest of the population
to grow effeminate, and help the country to grow too fast.
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