The Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland: Swift--Flood--Grattan--O'Connell

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1889. Presumed first U.S. edition/first printing thus. Hardcover. Good. Signed by previous owner. Cover has some wear and soiling.. xxiv, 320, p. Occasional footnotes. These for sketches were published anonymously prior to their republication with the author acknowledged. From Wikipedia: "Henry Flood (1732 2 December 1791), Irish statesman, son of Warden Flood, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became proficient in the classics. He was a leading Irish politician, and a friend of Henry Grattan, the leader of the Irish Patriot Party. His father was of good birth and fortune, but Henry suffered the stigma of being generally considered to be illegitimate. There is some confusion about the details but it seems that while his father and his mother Isabella Whiteside, lived together as man and wife they were not legally married. Henry himself married Lady Frances Beresford, daughter of Marcus Beresford, 1st Earl of Tyrone, who brought him a large fortune. In his early years he was handsome, witty, good-tempered, and a brilliant conversationalist. He had a natural gift of eloquence which had been cultivated and developed by study of classical oratory and the practice of elocution." From Wikipedia: "Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 6 June 1820) was an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century. He opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain, but later sat as a member of the united Parliament in London." From Wikipedia: "Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 15 May 1847); often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century. He campaigned for Catholic Emancipation including the right for Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament, denied for over 100 years and repeal of the Act of Union which combined Great Britain and Ireland." From Wikipedia: "Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, MB Drapier or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles."