where Louis and his domineering minister almost immediately precipitated hostilities with Spain, by supporting the Duke of Nevers in his claim to the Duchy of Mantua. The Spanish Cabinet espoused the cause of the Duke of Savoy, his opponent; and Spinola was dispatched to maintain it. He laid siege to Casal; but Louis arrived with such overpowering odds, that the Spaniards were constrained to abandon it. Yet their leader obtained almost equal honour by the ability with which he defended himself, against the vastly superior forces of the French, on the confines of Montferrat. On the retirement of Louis, who, with an army of forty thousand, accomplished no further result, Spinola again invested the town, and took it. All his efforts, however, failed to subdue the troops in the citadel; and he ultimately allowed them to march out with the honours of war, declaring that "with fifty thousand such men he could conquer Europe." Spinola, at this period, possibly longed for a new career. He was now experiencing the proverbial ingratitude of courts, and with resources diminished, left to oppose the formidable army which the French government was again pouring into the Vateline. "They have robbed me of my honour," he exclaimed, on finding himself abandoned, and constrained to sign a truce with his old opponent, the Marshal de Thoiras; and repairing to Castle Nuovo, he shortly afterwards expired, a victim of disappointment, in the sixtieth year of his age. Such was the sudden dissolution of Spinola, on the 30th of September, 1630, after a career, which, for upwards of a quarter of a century, had filled Europe with the blaze of his name. The Spanish government regretted his death, when regret was unavailing; and assuredly he was the only man then in existence capable of averting its declining fortunes. It were futile to speculate on what might have been the result, had he not been untimely neglected, and hurried to the grave before Gustavus of Sweden, "the Lion of the North," commenced his extraordinary conquests. Protestantism might not have prevailed in Germany, but the country might have escaped from the desolation of the thirty years' war, which it has scarcely yet survived. All such surmises are closed by his death; and he lives now in posterity's recollection only, as a man eulogized by Strada, Grotius, and De Thou, for his virtues, and as a general inferior to none, in an age more productive of great captains than any, till the revolutionary era of recent times. PEDIGREE OF SPENCER'S FAMILY. To the Editor of the Patrician. SIR,-I am sure you will deem the following authentic pedigree of the poet Spencer's family a valuable contribution to genealogical literature. It is the result of minute investigation and considerable labour, and may be confidently relied on. Your constant reader, Edmond Spencer, of Kilcoleman Castle,=.. dau. of Sylvanus Spen--Ellen, eldest cer, of Kilcole- | dau. of David man Castle, co. Nagle, of MonCork, Esq.,1602. | aning, co. Cork, Is said to have Esq., by Ellen, died previous to dau. of Wm. 1638. Called Roche, Esq., of eldest son of Ballyhooly, co. Edmond Spen- Cork, Esq. Mr. cer, Armiger. Nagle died at Poet. Celeb in Dublin Nov. 14, Nagle pedigree. 1637; was bur. Trinity College, at St. James's. Dublin, MSS. MSS. N.F., 4Liby., H. F., 18, Trinity Col. Lib., Dublin. 4-18. Her name is * 27th June, 1586, in the "Life of Spencer," prefixed to his poems, published in 1807—ʻ British Poets." How is it possible that any person could say, as is stated in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of 1842, that she was a peasant; and if so, why say of an obscure family? of what other sort or description are peasant families composed of in general? In all Spencer's poems she was celebrated by hun for every advantage any person could have of the highest rank; and his calling her a shepherdess was only figuratively speaking. Nathaniel Spencer, of Kilcoleman-Rosamond, dau. of- 1 Hugoline Spencer,§ restored t 429 acres of land,co. Cork, by the Act of Settlement, 1663-4. He had a mortgage of £500 upon Rinny (see deed of sale, 1748). He was eventually outlawed, for adherence to Jas. II. Susannah Spencer, named as a sister in the will of her brother, Nathaniel Spencer, in 1718, but of whom nothing further is known. EDMOND Spen-Anne, eldest dau. Nathaniel Spencer, of Strabane, co. Tyrone, gent., named in his father's will of 1718, and as of Strabane in the deeds of sale of Kilcoleman and Rinny in 1748. of Ballinguile, co. Cork, Esq., second brother of of sale register-William Freeman ed at Dublin, of Castle Cor, co. 7th Dec. He Cork, Esq., and also disposed of son of Richard Ballynasloe, co. Freeman of KillGalway. The varic, co. Cork, mortgage of and Judith, his Rinny must wife, dau. of Geo. have been re- Crofts, Esq. (See deemed, or HE Crofts, of Velvetscould not have town and Churchpossessed it. town, in "The Landed Gentry.") 1 Rosamond Spencer, only child, living at=— Burne, Esq., who had a situation under GovernMallow, co. Cork, 1805. Christopher Spencer Burne, Esq., a Captain in the army, died s.p. ment, by some said in the Customs, London. Alicia Burne, sole heiress of her brother,: Sherlock, of near Mrs. Sherlock had issue, and her descendants still exist in the city of Cork, now 1848. How could his wife have made a will, as a widow, if the dates given in the pedigree of the "Gentleman's Magazine" be correct? Query-was he a son of Sylvanus? I think it is more probable he was a son of Peregrine. Query, dau. of Richard Deans, B.D., afterwards Prebendary of Mora, co. Moretown. S.T.B. Collated 10th Nov., 1662, and on the 8th of January, 1663, Archdeacon of Waterford. Thomas Deane, M.A., 158. 20th January, Treasurer of Waterford. § Query, Dorothy Spencer, a dau. of Angeline's. As she undoubtedly was of this family, and married about 150 years ago into the Power family, I think she was most probably a dau. of his, and not of any of the Kilcoleman family, after the intermarriage with Nagle. GENEALOGICAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY.} To the Editor of the Patrician. SIR,-Having long had it in contemplation to attempt the formation of a Society on the plan of the Camden, Parker, and Shakespeare publishing societies, for the purpose of collecting and reprinting works on genealogy, family history, &c., I have seen with great pleasure the letter from your correspondent, "Generosus," and should be most happy to communicate with him, or other gentlemen having similar tastes, for the purpose of arranging the necessary preliminaries for forming a committee to carry out the object in view. E. CHURTON, Publisher, 26, Holles Street. TURNER OF KIRKLEATHAM. A correspondent from Beaumaris writes for information regarding "Nicholas Turner, of Kirkleatham, in Yorkshire," and hopes some learned reader of the Patrician may be able to afford it. In a carefully drawn up pedigree of the Turners, in the Editor's possession, no "Nicholas Turner" occurs; but the sister of John Turner, of Kirkleatham, the Sergeant-at-Law, married Nicholas Johnson of London; and thus that Christian name becomes, in that one instance, associated with the family. A copy of this pedigree is much at the service of our correspondent. FRAGMENTS OF FAMILY HISTORY. "FIGHTING" FITZGERALD. Ar a time when duelling may be considered almost out of date, some account of this extraordinary duellist may not be uninteresting. He is indeed in no degree to be classed amongst honourable men, who have thus stood arrayed against each other in the field, and who, if the practice were often reprehensible, and the cause of quarrel more frequently trivial, are entitled, at least, to the merit of having exposed their own lives in return for the life they took. Fitzgerald, on the contrary, fought under the protection of a cuirass, and was consequently a coward of the basest order; and this, although it may account for his unprecedented success, was not discovered, until at least twenty men had fallen by his hand, and only a short time before he, himself, was to expiate a long career of crime, by falling by those of the hangman. Yet his story, in many respects, is a romantic one--though romance of a sanguinary nature. The son of a respectable Irish gentleman, Fitzgerald, of Rockfield, Castlebar, he was connected with some of the best families in England by birth, his mother, Lady Mary Fitzgerald, being at sister of the Earl of Bristol; and associated with the highest in Ireland, by marriage, having formed an alliance with a cousin of the Duke of Leicester, with whom he received a fortune of ten thousand pounds. He had previously been educated at Eton, and completed his studies at Trinity College, Dublin; and he enjoyed at the time of his marriage, an annuity of £1,000 a-year from his father, as well as held a captain's commission in a crack regiment of horse; but all these advantages were lost by his headstrong passions and ungovernable temper. Yet, originally, it is said, this man was neither ungenerous nor depraved, but first received his ferocious and sanguinary bias, from a wound in one of those encounters in which he afterwards earned a notoriety so infamous. Duelling, during the middle of last century, was common as daily lectures at Trinity College, Dublin; scarcely a day passing without some encounter, generally fought at mid-day, and often in the presence of a large concourse of spectators. It was in one of these encounters that Fitzgerald, having been constrained by the customs of the period, to challenge an Irish gentleman for some trivial offence in a ballroom, was wounded in the head by his adversary's shot, which carried off part of the upper portion of his skull and hair, and immediately, it is said, changed the whole disposition of the man, from the generous, open, fearless temperament, common to many of his countrymen, to that of the cunning, ferocious, cowardice of the Indian savage. Fitzgerald had scarcely recovered from the effects of this meeting, when he narrowly escaped in a collision with a Dublin tradesman. He had offered some insult in the streets to a young woman, to whom this |