side few men were more interesting or more entertaining: interesting not only because he talked well himself, but because, like all good talkers, he drew from his companion the best he could give to the common discussion. Americans and others anxious to meet the famous author often travelled to Doneraile to see him, but I fear many went away without ever meeting the real Canon Sheehan that his friends knew so well.

His house spoke of the man. Books everywhere: on the drawing-room table, in broad, compact book-cases around the dining-room, in marshalled ranks lining the little study upstairs, where he read and wrote. And all methodically neat. As he wrote somewhere himself, he was a precisian, and this neatness and order was reflected in his writings and in his life. But in that house there was no luxury, no ostentation, no display.

The following day was Sunday, and I had the privilege of attending his Mass and listening to his simple, beautiful little sermon, in the fine old parish church, which he had done so much to beautify and repair. In the afternoon we went up together to the splendid field beyond the river where, every Sunday, the young Gaelic athletes of the surrounding parishes contended for supremacy. There was a hurling match in progress, a fine exciting match well played. It was delightful to see him there amongst his people, quiet and unpretentious, the gentle parish priest beloved by all, sharing the pleasures and sports of the crowd with all the enthusiasm and interest of a boy. Those who wish to read of one of the best descriptions ever written of a hurling match should turn to the first chapter in his novel Glenanaar, and they will find there a description of such a scene as we saw that afternoon. And in Parerga also there is another description of a similar scene. Young Irish manhood playing splendidly a great old Irish game-probably one of the finest and most exciting games in the world. He was so proud of his young men, of their skill, their self-control, their good temper. And he would point out to you the change from the old days when many a hurling match ended in a riot or a faction fight. But, indeed, it was not a mere matter of parochial interest with him. He was keenly interested in the Irish language and in Irish games, and he seldom missed an important match or a local feis. I remember him saying to me once what far greater work the Irish would have done for the faith in America if they had gone there like the Germans, with the bond of a national language and a fully-developed national

life to consolidate them against outside and evil influences. Sometimes of recent years I found him pessimistic as to the future of the language-the dark waves of Anglicisation seemed to be submerging everything, and he could see but little light ahead-but he never doubted the essential truths and principles of self-reliance and national cohesion upon which the language movement is based. I shall always like to think of him as I remember him that Sunday, a genial smile lighting up his keen intellectual face as he pointed out to me the celebrated players and the points of the game; one likes to remember a dear friend at his best, and he was at his best then.

III

And now I turn from this happy memory to write something, feeble and unworthy though it be, about his life. Patrick Augustine Sheehan was born in New Street, Mallow, on March 17, 1852. It was probably the day of his birth that determined his baptismal name; while his own choice, at a later epoch, fell on the glorious son of St. Monica, whose praises he was afterwards to sound with fervent eloquence. He did not play a noisy part amongst the juvenile "rakes of Mallow," but grew up a reserved, solitary boy. My uncle, who was then curate at Mallow, often told me of how he gave Canon Sheehan his first musical lessons in the church choir. Readers of My New Curate will remember the village choir over which Father Letheby presided, and how he "brought clear to the front the sweet trebles of the schoolboys on whom he said all his hopes depended." It was a picture of his own schoolboy triumphs in the Mallow choir.

Very early he showed a singular aptitude for Mathematics, and his last two years at the Mallow National School were devoted exclusively to Geometry and Algebra. His classical education was not begun until 1866, when he entered St. Colman's College, Fermoy. In 1868 he took fourth place in the concursus, and was anxious to go to Rome for his ecclesiastical studies. He was dissuaded, however, and returned to the diocesan seminary. He never lost his affection for St. Colman's, and in after years he devoted a considerable part of the profits from his books to renovating the College chapel and also to its general advancement. Gaining the first place at the next concursus he went to Maynooth in September, entering for the class of logic. Strange to say, he escaped distinction

during his Maynooth course so completely that, after he became famous, many who were almost his contemporaries at college have been slow to believe that he was ever a student of Maynooth.

The explanation is, chiefly, that he was in very delicate health during the whole of his Maynooth career, from 1869 to 1874. All his family died at an early age, except a younger brother, who survives him and who holds a high position under the Local Government Board. So unsatisfactory was his health at this period that he was obliged to interrupt his theological studies in the academical year 1872-1873, remaining at home to rest for those twelve months. Meanwhile, however, he was not losing his time or letting his mind lie fallow. He was an omnivorous but desultory reader in the sectional libraries of the College. Carlyle and Tennyson were his teachers during this period. From the former he learned the gospel of work, which had a marked influence on all his after life. He was fascinated by Tennyson's dreaminess, mysticism, and music, and learned by heart a great many of his poems. You will find apt quotations from Tennyson in nearly all his books and in most of his addresses. Later on he was repelled by Carlyle's hatred of the Church and by his unchristian doctrine of brute force; and Tennyson he exchanged for the more robust thought of Dante and Browning. Such reading was not without its influence on his professional work. Father Tom Burke once said that he read poetry every day in order to gain as much vividness and sweetness as he could for his language in the pulpit.

Canon Sheehan received the Holy Order of Priesthood at the earliest legal age. He was ordained in the Cathedral of Cork, on the Feast of St. Joseph's Patronage, 1875, which is kept on the third Sunday after Easter, and was therefore, in that year, the 18th of April. The diocese of Cloyne being at that time sufficiently supplied with priests, he was lent to a less fortunate English diocese. The Bishop of Plymouth placed him on the staff of his cathedral, and in Plymouth he preached his first sermon on the first Sunday of May, the subject being the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. One of his earliest sermons was on the Sanctity of the Church, and a remarkable circumstance is connected with it. A very famous clergyman of the Established Church, the Rev. Robert Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow in Cornwall, broke down in health that year, gave up his vicarage, and came to his native town, Plymouth. On the evening that the young Irish priest preached on the Sanctity of the Church, the retired Vicar sat under the

pulpit with his wife and three daughters. This fact was brought out strongly in the local newspaper by angry Protestants, when Mr. Hawker's conversion was announced a few days later. But the convert was beyond the reach of abuse, for he had been received into the Church upon his death-bed. This was Canon Sheehan's last sermon at Plymouth, as he was soon afterwards moved to Exeter, where the remainder of his time in England was spent. Here he officiated for two years under the saintly Canon Hobson, for whom he ever afterwards retained the most grateful and affectionate regard. During these years, amid all the occupations and distractions of active life, Canon Sheehan read and studied far more theology than during all the years of college life set apart exclusively for such studies. In the midst of heretical surroundings and addressing, Sunday after Sunday, congregations largely composed of actual or probable converts, his profound sense of responsibility towards the souls with whom he came in contact urged him to exert his powers to the utmost, and he felt himself obliged to master every subject of controversy that might help souls on to the light. It was an experience gained during this period of his life that he afterwards drew on largely for some of the most interesting chapters in The Triumph of Failure, Luke Delmege, and others of his books. He was probably more reluctant to be taken from such congenial and fruitful work when the Bishop of Cloyne called him back to Ireland than he had been to leave home originally and go into exile.

Of the thirty-eight years that have elapsed since he returned to Ireland, the first four were spent in his native parish of Mallow. One of the first works he undertook in this new sphere of action was the formation of a Young Men's Society. This interest in the work of the young Catholic laity was one of his leading characteristics, as all who have read his works are aware. An inaugural lecture which he delivered to this Society in 1880 was one of his earliest publications. In 1881 he was transferred to Queenstown, where he laboured for eight years. Here it was that his literary career fairly began with a simple little story called "Topsy," written for a children's magazine. Some other short stories of this period have been reprinted by the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland amongst their penny publications. His first long story, however, Geoffrey Austin, Student, was not attempted till his second curacy in the place of his birth; for in 1899 he returned from Queenstown to Mallow. He had previously contributed many articles to the Irish Ecclesiastical Record; and an essay of his in the IRISH MONTHLY, on “The

Two Civilisations," excited the warm admiration of Judge O'Hagan. The friendship which was thus early formed between him and Father Matthew Russell continued to the end, and many of his most beautiful poems and short articles first saw the light in the IRISH MONTHLY. The first work of his I ever read was a poem on the sea which appeared in its pages. Before he left Queenstown, however, his health completely broke down from overwork. Besides ordinary exercises of voice and pen, he was, on special occasions, pressed into the pulpits of Cork and Limerick, and too often found it impossible to escape. He fell into such a state of nervous prostration that he had to be relieved from all duty for a year (1888), which he spent at Glengarriff and Youghal. Like the similar interruption of his Maynooth life, this year was by no means intellectually blank. At any rate it gave him leisure for a most interesting correspondence with Dr. James Field Spalding, of Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and no doubt he had a share in leading that fine mind into the Church. But this year of rest gave him ample opportunity for thought and meditation on life, literature, and religion. It would be hard in Ireland, or indeed in Europe, to match the beauties of Glengarriff's wooded hills and blue mountains shrouded in the soft mists which sweep in from the Atlantic, and where, as Sir Aubrey de Vere beautifully describes it,

From rock and headland proud

The wild wood spreads its arms around the bay
The manifold mountain comes, now dark, now bright,
Now seen, now lost, alternate from rich light

To spectral shade; and each dissolving cloud
Reveals new mountains while it floats away.

It was amidst scenes such as these that Canon Sheehan loved to wander and commune alone with Nature. His old friend, Dean Keller of Youghal, tells how in those days Canon Sheehan would sometimes be absent for hours, and when the Dean went to look for him he would find him standing like one in a trance looking out upon the wild waste of the winter sea.

In 1895 he was appointed parish priest of Doneraile. Here the aid of two curates left him sufficient leisure to achieve the literary work which has laid Catholic readers in every country in the world under a heavy debt of gratitude. Geoffrey Austin was followed by The Triumph of Failure (1899), in which some of the same characters appear and which was his favourite work. He used to tell an amusing anecdote about this book.