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and so also was the notorious Bully Egan. After dinner he shewed the company the patent of his title of viscount. The honour was an Irish one, as he was never made an English peer; but one of the lawyers present had mooted a point, as to whether the same style of patent could be used by the Crown, now that the Parliaments were united. Curran and Egan read the patent of viscount, and both said that it was legally exact. Keller desired that it should be read aloud. He at once pronounced it to be faulty. The question was eagerly asked, 'How so?' Taking up the patent, Keller read it aloud-George, &c. &c., King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland'-and then, turning to Lord Avonmore, said, 'Don't you see, my lord, the consideration comes too soon?' Volumes might be filled with the shrewd and caustic sayings of old Keller.

"The Munster circuit was always famous for its wits. One of the first of those was a contemporary of Curran 'pleasant Ned Lysaght.' If Ben Jonson had known him, he would have had a fine subject for 'gathering humours." Lysaght might have given the poet a stock subject for seizing all the points of Irish character in its essential features. A man of more varied talents than Lysaght it was impossible to meet. In his personal character he was a thorough Irishman-brave, brilliant, witty, eloquent, and devil-may-care. He was a capital song-writer; his poems are full of that indescribable animal buoyancy which is a chief essence of Irish genius. He had a flow of exuberant spirits; his gaiety was like the laugh of matchless Mrs. Nisbett, an infallible cure for the blue devils, a potent destroyer of spleen. His famous and universally popular 'Sprig of Shillelagh,' his Kate of Garnavilla,' and other still popular songs, will always preserve his name. 'We have but one good Volunteer Song,' says Thomas Davis; it was written by Lysaght, after that illustrious militia was dissolved.'-(Essay on Irish Songs). That song is in praise of Grattan, the man who led the van of Irish Volunteers.' It is spirited, and, what is not always true of complimentary poetry, its sentiments are true. The history of his times, and the private records of his nobly-spent life, confirm the truth of the following stanza :—

'He sows no vile dissensions; good-will to all he bears;
He knows no vain pretensions, no paltry fears or cares;
To Erin's and to Britain's sons his name his worth endears,
They love the man who led the van of Irish volunteers.'"

Mr. Madden's account of Irish pulpit eloquence is equally agreeable. His anecdotes of that great Protestant orator, the Rev. Thomas St. Lawrence, are exquisite in their way. This is one of them:

"On a particular occasion, Mr. St. Lawrence rode in from his country parish, to preach a sermon at Christ Church in Cork. Many went to hear him, expecting a display. He had chanced, while riding in, to have met with a poor widow, who was begging for a wretched child. The case was one of real distress, and at once enlisted the sympathies of St. Lawrence, who was sensitive to a fault; for he was a man who would at any time have taken the coat from his back, if he had no other means of relieving the wretched. St. Lawrence was struck with the details of the widow's story, and resolved to introduce it into the sermon which he was to preach on that day. The poor woman had so delayed his progress, that he was nearly late for the service, and he had to gallop to be in time. Long after prayers had commenced, he entered church, spattered up to his shoulders, his boots encrusted with mud. Hastily casting off his riding-coat, he put on the clerical gown, and ascended the pulpit. He looked around the church, and beheld a crowded congregation; he recog nised many provincial fashionables, and saw that several of the great vulgar' had come to hear him, as to a playhouse. The galleries around rustled with silk and satin, and his quick eye at once discerned many flaunting flirts and scandal-loving dowagers, and over-dressed old maids, addicted to finery, small

talk, and card-playing. Nor were there wanting blooming maidens-the flower of the far-famed beauties of Cork-blushing, as they by chance met the gaze of admirers, who came to church for other purposes than prayer. In truth, a fashionable charity-preacher collects a congregation of a very motley kind, animated with a singular variety of ideas. Seated in his pulpit, St. Lawrence glanced around the crowd; his sense of the ridiculous strove with his feelings of religion, and he arose to preach, half uncertain whether he should pursue the topics he had intended to descant on. He began with a part of what he had originally intended to say, but soon breaking from his notes, he launched into a commentary on the crowd before him, and dissected the aggregate character of the congregation with searching minuteness. From a picture powerfully drawn of the vanities of life, he turned to the case of the widow and orphan, whom he had met that day, and told their story with the pathos of a Sterne. Few were the dry eyes, as St. Lawrence harrowed the hearts of his hearers with the tale of suffering. In the gallery, close to the pulpit, several ladies sobbed audibly, and many sought in vain to stifle the signs of their emotions. The fashionables lost their well-bred retenue, and were surprised into feeling. St. Lawrence suddenly turned round, and addressing himself directly to the gallery, into which the fine ladies were crowded, burst forth-'Ah! you weep; give me but one item of that frippery with which you disfigure yourselves into the fashion, and I will hush the wail of that widow, and dry up the tears of that orphan!"

The author thus concludes his recollections of St. Lawrence :

"St. Lawrence had no ambition; he cared not to labour for fame, and with every requsite for shining as an intellectual divine, he passed his life in deliberate obscurity. His rivate character was that of a man amiable to a fault. With the peasantry of his neighbourhood he was a great favourite; whenever he went fishing, many of the boys' would seek his society, for the privilege of conversing with 'Master Tom,' as he was called. He was a man of great humour and drollery, and the dialogues which on these occasions took place between St. Lawrence and his rustic companions, were incomparable in their way. He was idolized by many of his poor Catholic neighbours; and what greater tribute could be paid to the character of this amiable man, than the fact that he was paid all his tithes during the anti-tithe movement ?"

One memorable event in the anecdote history of Ireland, "Sir John Purcell and the Robbers," is here better detailed than we ever saw it before. We therefore make no apology for extracting the narrative :—

"As you travel from Charleville to Kanturk, in the north-western portion of the East Riding of the county of Cork, a house is pointed out to you, called Highfort. It stands at a considerable elevation over the road., and is not illnamed. There dwelt Sir John Purcell; and within the walls of that house was offered one of the bravest and most successful defences that one man ever inade against a numerous assaulting party.

"In the year 1811, Mr. Purcell lived at Highfort. He was a country gentleman, of respectable family, and widely-spread connexions. He was a thrifty, cautious man; censured by some of his friends as being rather too penurious in his habits. His memory was very remarkable. On a fair-day at Kanturk, he would take rent from between seventy and eighty tenants, and make no note whatever in a book. He used to place all the monies together in a canvas bag, and no charge could ever be brought against him for incorrect accounts. He gave brief memorandums to the various tenants, but never wrote on a stamped receipt, although he always charged the landlord for the stamps. He had been for some years agent to the Earl of Egmont, and managed the Percival estates in Corkshire. In all public matters he was zealous, and was very vigorous in spporting the laws. No oue, from looking at his countenance, would have taken him to be a man of such determination. The expression of his face was

benevolent; but the highest courage is often found in those whose general character is apparently most remarkable for its mildness.

"The household of Sir John Purcell consisted of himself, his daughter-in law, and grandchild, a man-servant, and two maids. The place in which he lived was lonesome and unprotected, but he feared nothing. He had not done anything to make him hateful to the peasantry. On the 11th of March, 1811, he came home one night, tired after country business and a long ride, and took a late supper in his bed-room. About one o'clock, and after he had retired to rest, he heard some noise outside the window of his parlour. He slept on the ground floor, in a room adjoining the parlour. There was a door from one room into the other, but this had been found inconvenient, and there being another passage from the bed-chamber more convenient, it was nailed up, and some of the furniture of the parlour placed against it. Shortly after Sir John heard the noise in the front of his house, the windows of the parlour were pushed in, and the noise occasioned by the feet of the robbers, in leaping from the windows into the parlour, appeared to denote a gang not less than fourteen in number, as it struck him. He immediately got out of bed, and the first determination he took being to make resistance, it was with no small mortification that he reflected upon the unarmed condition in which he was placed, being destitute of a single weapon of the ordinary sort. In this state he spent little time in deliberation, as it almost immediately occurred to him, that having supped in the bedchamber on that night, a knife had been left behind by accident, and he instantly proceeded to grope in the dark for this weapon, which he happily found before the door leading into the parlour from the bed-room had been broken open.

"While he stood in calm but resolute expectation that the progress of the robbers would soon lead them to his bed-chamber, he heard the furniture, which had been placed against the nailed-up door, expeditiously displaced, and immediately after this, the door was burst open. The moon shone with great brightness, and when this door was thrown open, the light streaming through three large windows into the parlour, afforded Sir John a view that might have made an intrepid spirit not a little apprehensive. His bed-room was darkened to excess, in consequence of the shutters of the windows, as well as the curtains, being closed; and thus while he stood enveloped in darkness, he saw standing before him, by the brightness of the moonlight, a body of armed men, and of those who were in the van of the gang, he observed that a few had their faces blackened.

"Armed only with this case-knife, and aided only by a dauntless heart, he took his station by the side of the door, and, in a moment after, one of the gang entered from the parlour into the dark room. Instantly, on advancing, Sir John plunged the knife at him, the point of which entered the right arm, and in a line with the nipple, and so home was the blow sent, that the knife passed into the body, until Sir John stopped its further progress. Upon receiving this thrust the robber reeled back into the parlour, crying out blasphemously that he was killed; and shortly after, another advanced, who was received in a similar manner, and who also staggered back into the parlour, crying out that he was wounded. A voice from the outside gave orders to fire into the dark room, upon which a man stepped forward with a short gun in his hand, which had the butt broken off at the small, and had a piece of cord tied round the barrel and stock, near the swell. As this fellow stood in the act to fire, Sir John had the amazing coolness to look at his intended murderer, and without betraying any audible emotion whatever that might point out the spot which he was standing in, he calmly calculated his own safety from the shot which was preparing for him. He saw that the contents of the piece were likely to pass close to his breast, without menacing him with at least any serious wound; and in this state of firm and manly expectation, he stood, without flinching, until the piece was fired, and its contents harmlessly lodged in the wall. It was loaded with a brace of bullets and three slugs. As soon as the robber fired, Sir John made a pass at him with the knife, and wounded him in the arm, which he re

peated in a moment with similar effect; and, as the others had done, the villain upon being wounded retired, exclaiming that he was wounded.

"The robbers immediately rushed forwards from the parlour into the dark room, and then it was that Sir John's mind recognised the deepest sense of danger, not to be oppressed by it, however, but to surmount it. He thought that all chance of preserving his own life was over, and he resolved to sell that life still dearer to his intended murderers than even what they had already paid for the attempt to deprive him of it. He did not lose a moment after the villains had entered the room, to act with the determination he had so instantaneously adopted. He struck at the fourth fellow vigorously with his knife and wounded him, and, at the same instant, received a blow on the head, and found himself grappled with. He sho tened his hold of the knife, and stabbed repeatedly at the fellow with whom he found himself engaged.

"The floor being slippery from the blood of the wounded men, Sir John and his adversary both fell, and while they were on the ground, Sir John thinking that his thrusts with the knife, though made with all his force, did not seem to produce the decisive effect which they had in the beginning of the conflict, he examined the point of the weapon with his finger, and found that the blade of it had been bent near the point. As he lay struggling on the ground, he endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to straighten the curvature in the knife; but while one hand was employed in this attempt, he perceived that the grasp of his adversary was losing its constraint and pressure, and in a moment or two after, he found himself released from it-the limbs of the robber were, in fact, by this time unnerved by death. Sir John found that this fellow had a sword in his hand, and this he immediately seized, and gave several blows with it, his knife being no longer serviceable. At length the robbers, finding so many of their party had been killed or wounded, retired, and employed themselves in removing the bodies; Sir John took this opportunity of retiring into a place apart from the house, where he remained a short time. They dragged their companions into the parlour, and having placed chairs with the backs upwards, by means of those they lifted the bodies out of the windows, and afterwards took them away. When the robbers retired, Sir John returned to the house, and called up from his bed the man-servant, who, during this long and bloody conflict, had not appeared, aud who, consequently, received from his master warm and loud upbraiding for his cowardice. Sir John then placed his daughter-inlaw and grandchild, who were the only other inmates, in places of safety, and took such precautions as circumstances pointed out, till the daylight appeared. The next day, the alarm having been given, search was made after the robbers, and Sir John having gone to the house of one Maurice Noonan, upon searching, he found, concealed under his bed, the identical short gun with which one of the robbers had fired at him. Noonan was immediately secured and sent to gaol, and upon being visited by Sir John Purcell, he acknowledged that Sir John had like to do for him,' and was proceeding to shew, until Sir John prevented him, the wounds he had received from the knife in his arm.

"It appeared subsequently that the party had consisted of nine in number. They all had arms. Two of the men were killed, and three more severely wounded! Some of the party ran away, thinking that the house was defended by several persons.

"On the 9th of September, in that year, Noonan was hanged at Gallowsgreen. He died resigned and contrite. He stated, that on the morning of the attack he had not the least intention of going to Highfort, but that he was sent for by one of the party, and that he then resolved to accompany them. said that this was the only attack he had ever been concerned in.

He

"I was once present when the question was asked—'Whether there was any thing remarkable about Sir John Purcell's manner or appearance?' I recollect the answer. "There was nothing whatever remarkable about Purcell, except his penuriousness. Had he lived like a man of his station, he would not have escaped; but he eat his cold supper in his bed-room, with a solitary knife, and never rang for the servant to take the things away!'

"The peasantry afterwards were greatly afraid of him, and none of them would dare attack him. On one occasion a desperate murder, in the depth of winter, was committed in his neighbourhood He took an active part in searching for the criminal. One person he strongly suspected, and he visited him at his house. He found the man in bed, ill with colic, it was said. Sir John examined him, and asked him whether he had been out the previous night. The answer was, 'No.' Sir John asked for his shoes. They were gone to be mended. 'Are you sure of that ?' said Sir John, who searched for and found them. Causing the man to be watched, Sir John went with the shoes to the exact spot where the murder had been committed. The ground was thickly covered with snow: he compared the shoes with the tracks made in the snow, and found one set of foot-prints to which the marks exactly tallied. A nail was wanting in the heel of one of the shoes, and the impression on the snow corresponded with the deficiency. This was the first link in a chain of circumstantial evidence against the suspected party, who was afterwards hanged, having been convicted upon the clearest testimony.

"Sir John Purcell received the honor of knighthood, for his exploit in defending his house with so much courage."

Such works as this by Mr. Madden, offer valuable resource to the historian and the politician; for they impartially present to them a mirror where may be viewed and contemplated the conduct and character of the Irish people, calmly and satisfactorily.

PIUS THE NINTH, OR THE FIRST YEAR OF HIS PONTIFICATE. BY COUNT C. A. de Goddes de Liancourt, of the Pontifical Academy of the Lincei, at Rome, and JAMES A. MANNING, ESQ., of the Inner Temple. Vol. II. T. C. Newby, Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square.

1848.

The

THE Sieur de Joinville, the companion in arms and historian of St. Louis, has given to the world a beautifully though quaintly written record of the deeds and sayings of his pious and chivalrous master. history thus presented by him to posterity, has a contemporaneous and truthful character about it which is extremely pleasing, and which is ever sure to fix and captivate the reader. The holy King appears in the volume of Joinville, just as he actually wass-the devoted warrior of the Cross, and the father of his subjects. What the knightly writer thus effected for his sovereign, M. de Liancourt and Mr. Manning are doing for Pius IX.; and their subject bears a striking similarity to his. The ninth Pius, like the ninth Louis, has come, amid the darkness of misgovernment and abuses, to redeem and regenerate his people; the pope resembles the saint in mind and soul-the same too in godliness, charity, disinterestedness, and benevolence. In one respect, however, the difference of the ages in which they have been decreed to live, renders Pius superior to St. Louis. Christianity has cast away the sword, and no longer seeks its object by the mistaken, though piously intended, means of a crusade. The sovereign Pontiff wars not against Turk or infidel; he invites the ambassador of the Sultan to his court, and extends his alms and his protection to the Jews—his is a reform of mildness and mercy; he would save, not slay, mankind. "Viva Pio Nono," is still the fervent aspiration of Italy and Europe, and this second volume of the papal history represents the Pontiff unchanged in conduct and sentiment. The first volume of the work we noticed and praised, when it was published; and we as cordially approve of this con

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