PREFACE.

THE name of one Irish Dominican Father was mentioned as likely to write the life of Fr. Burke, and it was only on finding that he had relinquished the idea that I determined to apply myself to the task. Although the good friar would have been in some respects better qualified, it is certain that no priest could spare from graver duties the time and labour I deemed it my duty to bestow upon the work.

To verify a few facts I have travelled from Dublin to Gloucester and from thence to Northumberland, not to speak of various other journeys. And here let me thank the Provincial of the English Dominicans for the facilities of access and cordial reception which he ensured to me in every Dominican convent in England. Some of my informants-Dr. Utili, amongst others—are since dead, and probably if I had delayed these personal inquiries, a few years more would have rendered this part of my task impossible.

I also beg to thank the Very Rev. J. T. Towers, Provincial of the Irish Dominicans. He promised help in the first instance, and that promise has since been amply fulfilled. If everybody who assisted me were to be named in detail, the list would be a long one. The contributions of Major Haverty however demand, perhaps, distinct mention because he wishes it to be known that they have been entered by him, for copyright, in America.

I took up the subject with diffidence, but it was encouraging to receive the assurance of one of the ablest Dominican fathers in Ireland, that the life of Fr. Burke could be best written by a layman, especially if that layman had been already the biographer of an ecclesiastic.' It was probably this view of Fr. Burke's character that led the Bishop of Galway to say, when unable to take the chairOctober, 1883-in furtherance of the then contemplated memorial, that'as Fr. Burke's mission was primarily with the laity, there was a special fitness in a lay gentleman taking the lead to perpetuate his memory.'

There may be some persons so strait-laced or so impervious to all sense of humour as to deprecate its existence in a priest. But, as Fr. Burke himself says, writing to Miss Rowe, 'There is no law that good people should be stupid. They may be Sankeymonious without being Moody'

To suppress evidence of his irrepressible humour would be to destroy the individuality of the man quite as much as if one were to ignore his great attribute of humility. The reader, therefore, must be prepared to see ample illustrations of both interwoven with the records of his more public career. But there was another life, of which the world knew nothing --the wonderful inner life of Fr. Burke-in attempting to depict which I have been aided by the men who knew him best.

Some may think that this book ought to be a grand panegyric-that too much of Fr. Burke as a humourist is shown and not enough of the great preacher whose appeals earned for him so high a reputation. But Fr. Burke's sermons are already familiar to all, while this pleasant side of his character will be new to many. At a public meeting in Dublin, convened to commemorate his fame and name, Judge O'Hagan spoke of the image of Fr. Burke himself rising

before him 'with his native laugh of playful scorn mocking at the idea of doing honour to him the poor, suffering, painstruck friar. In no man whom I have ever known,' he added, 'was a contempt of this world and its honours more deeply rooted. He had it by nature as the concomitant of that priceless gift of humour with which he was largely endowed, and which led him with a keen and discerning vision to see through and rate at their proper value the objects of the vain desires of men. But he had it also from a far different source, from that grace of humility which his prayers had won for him, and which he felt to be the root and basis of all real good that man can achieve.'

It will be found that Fr. Burke, as far as possible, is made to tell his own life. Some things, of small import, no doubt, he sometimes mentions, but I was unwilling to exclude any personal reminiscence which Fr. Burke thought fit to record, the more so as his remarks are invariably permeated by a vein of that original humour which was so salient a characteristic of him.

I once thought that perhaps the better title for this book would have been 'Recollections of Fr. Burke by Himself and His Friends.' Until a year ago my part in it was little more than the laborious one of gathering illustrative ana from various sources both in America and nearer home. course I sought to prepare myself for the task by revisiting the various convents in which he had lived and laboured, and where the traditions of his inner life are tenderly enshrined.

Of

Sometimes the fear has occurred to me that my details have been too full; but then it must be remembered that they largely describe traits and customs hitherto veiled from secular eyes, and therefore have their interest. Nor ought the words of Goethe to be forgotten, that 'On the lives of

remarkable men ink and paper should least be spared.' My ink, it is well to say at the outset, has not been expended in chronicling any very eventful career. Great as Fr. Burke was as an orator, he would have stood higher as a thinker had circumstances arisen to reveal the depth and resources of his mind. But it was not his lot to be mixed up with any great public questions; his history is little more than a personal one.

Readers who expect to find in this book any ambitious composition will be disappointed. The testimony of successive witnesses in an interesting inquiry makes no pretension to artistic style; but the evidence thus marshalled has its value nevertheless. If my purpose was to produce a full biographic essay like that of Sir J. Stephen on St. Francis, no doubt it could be done, though not so well. Still I think it might be more easily accomplished than to have done, from so many sundered sources, the testimony of men whose knowledge on the subject had been previously confined to themselves.

gather, as I

After what I have said about the consumption of ink, it would be justly regarded as indefensible if I omitted any fact of personal importance. It ought, therefore, to have been mentioned at p. 166 of the first volume, had the matter then been communicated to me, that Thomas Burke, not having yet attained the canonical age at the date indicated in the text, it became necessary to obtain a dispensation from Rome before he could receive Priest's Orders.

May I also add-touching a passage in the book-that there is some conflicting testimony as to whether an ancestor of Fr. Burke was called MacAndrew or MacAuley.

49 FITZWILLIAM SQUARE, DUBLIN,

W. J. F.