person had been paying his addresses, and the man insisted on satisfaction on the spot. In a room to which they retired for the purpose of adjusting the quarrel, there chanced to be only one pistol, and this having fallen to the lot of his adversary, Fitzgerald's fate appeared decided. He evaded it, however, by startling his opponent with an exclamation, when on the point of firing, and forbore discharging his shot in return, on account of the obloquy in which the recontre would involve him.

His next encounter was with an Irish gentleman, whom he shot dead, after having deliberately insulted him at a country assembly: but it would be idle to trace his history throughout the eighteen or twenty meetings that followed-in each of which he killed his opponent, without receiving any material injury himself. The secret of this extraordinary success did not transpire till afterwards, in an encounter with the small sword, which one of his adversaries insisted on using, when challenged by Fitzgerald, for resenting one of the insults, which he was daily in the habit of offering, and often-such was the terror inspired by his name -with perfect impunity. His opponent on this occasion, a Major Cunningham, having broken his weapon in a well-aimed thrust at Fitzgerald s heart, was induced to suspect the existence of a corslet within; and charging him with it, as well as ringing the handle of his sword on it, and afterwards dashing it in the miscreant's face, kicked him from the field. It was then remembered, so soon as this atrocious conduct of Fitzgerald was disclosed, that even in the outset of his career, an almost similar cirumstance had occurred in Dublin, with the celebrated Buck English, who indignantly chased him from the ground, and was with difficulty prevented from plunging his sword into Fitzgerald's back, though the full extent of his cowardice was not then surmised.

In the interval, however, he had destroyed many a gallant man, and, with the exception of one or two inconsiderable wounds in the limbs, had himself invariably escaped uninjured. Even this trifling risk he had ultimately took precautions for avoiding, by wearing padding over iron plates, or chain armour in his sleeves or other garments; so that an opponent possessed no chance unless by striking him on the head with an aim steady and unerring as his own.

England as well as the continent was the scene of his homicides. Before the discovery of his infamy he had attempted to force his way into Brookes's club-house, and such was the terror of his name that he the first night succeeded. Admiral Keith Stuart was the member he solicited to propose him, and this officer, though brave as most men, knew that as Fitzgerald still moved in good society, he had no alternative but to comply with the demand or go out with him. He proceeded to the club and stated his embarrassment, but black-balled Fitzgerald himself by way of an example to the others. Each followed it, and the admiral was now in a dilemma; for Fitzgerald, who was waiting in a room below, if informed that he had been unanimously black-balled, must know that his proposer must have been amongst the excluding number, and the admiral's danger would consequently be greater than ever. The Duke of Devonshire of the day, a man of wit, pointed out the agreeable inference to the admiral, and slyly proposed that he should communicate the result of the ballot to the interesting gentleman below. But the gallant admiral refused. "No, gentlemen," he replied, "I proposed the fellow because I knew you would exclude him; but, by heaven, I will not risk my life against a madman.”

"But, Admiral," persevered the Duke, "you had better inform him of the event; for, as there was no white ball in the box, he must know that you black-balled him too, so he is sure to call you out in any

event."

To escape the difficulty, it was suggested that the waiter should enter the room where Fitzgerald stood chafing below, and inform him that there had been one black-ball, and that his name must be put up again if he wished it.

"Wish it?" exclaimed Fitzgerald, on hearing this, "aye, and that immediately. Proceed up-stairs, and inform the gentlemen that I desire them to begin forthwith."

The members considered it a joke; but the matter soon began to be serious. In a quarter of an hour Fitzgerald violently rang the bell, and sent the trembling waiter with his compliments to inquire whether he had yet been elected.

"D-n the fellow's impudence!" said the Admiral; stairs, and tell him there have been two black-balls this time."

go down Fitzgerald now became furious, and the gentlemen of the club, summoning the manager, desired him to proceed down-stairs, and inform Fitzgerald that he had been unanimously black-balled; with an expression of their hope that he would not persist in thrusting himself upon a company where his presence would be so apparently disagreeable.

This, however, failed to satisfy Fitzgerald. Throwing the terrorstruck manager aside, he violently rushed up-stairs, threatening to throw the interposing waiters over the banister, and, entering the club-room, deliberately took his seat.

The members stood aghast. His proposer, Keith Stuart, instantly quitted the room; and no one liked to volunteer an objection, when to interpose might lead to certain death. Fitzgerald consequently retained his seat during the remainder of the evening; but no member condescended to join him in the libations which he ordered, or to notice the toasts which he proposed; and, after drinking three bottles of champagne, he withdrew, intimating his intention of renewing his visit next night. A few constables, however, were provided in the interval to be prepared for his next reception; and Fitzgerald, obtaining some intimation of this, deemed it imprudent to repeat the attempt.

It was shortly after this that he visited Paris, and the English ambassador, from motives similar to Keith Stuart's, was induced to present him at the Court of the Tuilleries. "He had the honour," he said to the existing king, "to introduce to his majesty, Mr. Fitzgerald, an Irish gentleman of high descent, who had fought no less than eighteen duels, and always killed his men.' But poor Louis XVI., though destitute of decision on most occasions, was not without it on this. "I have heard," said he, in reply, "Mr. Ambassador, of your English history of Jack the Giant Killer, and I think this Irishman's life may be added as an appendix to the work;-let him retire ;" and Fitzgerald had the additional mortification of hearing, as he withdrew, the sovereign announce his intention of ordering him from France in twenty-four hours, if he attempted to engage in quarrel with any of its subjects.

Thus received in France, Fitzgerald speedily returned to London; and an adventure in which he was here engaged, shortly after his arrival, deprived him of the little honourable reputation he yet possessed. Entering

Vauxhall Gardens one night, in company with Mr. (afterwards Lord) Lyttleton, a Captain Croftes, of the Guards, and several others, he grossly insulted some ladies attended by the Rev. Henry Bate, (afterwards Sir H. B. Dudley) the proprietor and editor of the Morning Post. Mr. Bate, though a clergyman, was a boxer of the first order, and, in resentment of some insult to the ladies, knocked Croftes and Fitzgerald down in succession. The former, also a master of the art of pugilism, quickly returned to the encounter, and received a severe mawling at the hands of the parson. The other, however, interrupted them, and proposed that they should settle their differences next day in private. To this Bate agreed; and Croftes, aware how grossly he had committed himself, then made the reverend gentleman an ample apology; but Fitzgerald, instead of demanding satisfaction himself, produced a person whom he termed Captain Miles, and represented as having also been struck by the clergyman. Mr. Bate, though he had no recollection of the individual, offered the satisfaction of a gentleman; but Fitzgerald, in the coarsest terms, replied, that his friend would only have that of a blackguard; and the latter upon this, aiming a blow at the reverend gentleman, another pugilistic encounter ensued, in which the parson again came off triumphant. His opponent, to escape the severity of Bate's punishment, then confessed that he was only the servant of Fitzgerald; and the outraged editor deservedly held up Fitzgerald to opprobrium in his journal-a course in which the public so sympathized, that Fitzgerald shortly afterwards deemed it prudent to quit the metropolis.

Before quitting, however, he had become involved in some quarrel with the Jockey Club, and actually had the audacity to address to the members a letter, in which-amongst other arguments-he described himself as one I never known to miss his mark. In the concoction of this address, he was assisted by one Timothy, or Tim. Brecknock, a disreputable member of the metropolitan press, a ruffian almost as audacious as Fitzgerald himself. This was the celebrated worthy who, in 1762, lodged information against the judges for wearing cambric, in contravention of some obsolete act of Parliament; and who shortly afterwards had the hardihood to tell Lord Shelburne, secretary of state, in his own office, that "he never would leave or lose sight of him till he brought his head to the block." And, extraordinary as it may seem, he obtained employment in consequence; his lordship, though he ordered him to the door at the moment, surmising that the man who had the audacity to make such a speech, possessed boldness for any hazardous work with which he might be entrusted. But Brecknock had now grown old and unemployed, and he consequently accepted with alacrity a proposition by Fitzgerald to accompany him to Dublin for the purpose of instituting an action against Fitzgerald's father. The settlement made upon Fitzgerald on his marriage formed the subject of this dispute; and the old gentleman was not only maltreated, but incarcerated by his son, The gentlemen of the County of Dublin, in consequence, avoided Fitzgerald's society, and this gave rise to one of the extraordinary outrages for which he afterwards forfeited his life. A retired officer named Boulton, having resisted all Fitzgerald's advances, as well as interdicted him from shooting on his grounds, Fitzgerald at mid-day proceeded to his residence with a band of ruffians, and fired into every window in the house. For this outrage, strange to say, he escaped with impunity; but the acquittal only incited

to another still greater, which cost him his life. A legal gentleman, named Macdonald, having, with some others, assisted Fitzgerald's father in opposing the son's importunities, Fitzgerald, with Brecknock and a number of associates equally desperate, waylaid, assailed, and openly murdered them on the highway. Macdonald himself and another were shot under circumstances of revolting cruelty; several others were wounded; and Fitzgerald was not arrested until a company of horse and several pieces of artillery surrounded the house in which he and his gang took shelter. So odious had he become to some of the common people, that these, having rescued, or seized him for a moment, when in custody of the officer, inflicted a punishment which was supposed to be fatal; and for this they were brought to trial the day before Fitzgerald himself. They were acquitted by the grand jury, although the evidence was conclusive; so determined were the gentlemen of the county to, at all hazards, get rid of Fitzgerald.

His own trial proceeded next, and, notwithstanding that he was still suffering severely from the effects of the popular resentment, he spoke for three hours with extraordinary ingenuity and brilliancy in his defence. But spite of all his efforts, he was convicted and ordered for execution in an hour. He in vain supplicated delay, and made a pathetic speech to the bench in arrest of judgment. The judge informed him that the execution of the sentence depended on the sheriffs; and no gentleman in the county considering himself in safety while Fitzgerald lived, these conducted him to the gibbet immediately on the adjournment of the court. The circumstances of his death were exceedingly revolting. No time was taken to erect a scaffold, and he was at once thrown off a ladder, beneath a temporary wooden erection, employed in building or repairing the gaol of Castlebar. The dreadful affair was so mismanaged, that the rope broke; and Fitzgerald rising, with his shoulder dislocated in consequence of falling on it from the height of the drop, exclaimed: "By G-d, Mr. Sheriff, you ought to be ashamed of yourself; this rope is not strong enough to hang a dog, still less a Christian." It is but charitable to believe that the poor wretch was then beyond reason's sway, for he next cursed the officials for their bungling, and ordered another rope to be procured without delay. But the second attempt was almost equally unfortunate; the cord being in this instance so long that his feet reached the ground, and it was not without the interposition of the horrid myrmidon of the law, who strangled him by leaping on his shoulders, that his career at last was terminated.

Such was the fate of "Fighting Fitzgerald." It has been customary to compare him to Lord Camelford, another noted duellist; but there is, in reality, no resemblance. The peer, in every sense of the word, was a gentleman; and if it frequently were his lot to destroy his opponents, it was solely in consequence of his unerring precision and imperturbable coolness. Though of an irritable temper, too, his lordship more frequently received than offered an insult, and he resorted to no unworthy means for his own protection. On the contrary, it is well known he exposed his life as freely, as for many years he contributed to alleviate that of others by his singular habit of arraying himself in an old coat, and dispensing at their humble residences, his munificence to numbers of indigent persons, on whom he annually bestowed thousands, without allowing it to be known who was the donor. It was only on his death

when the supply ceased, that it transpired the money came from a peer of the realm, and that it was his custom to leave a fashionable evening party, to visit and relieve, in this disguise, some poor family in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane or the Strand. With the exception of the solitary feeling of fraternal affection, for which, to the last, he was remarkable—and, strange to say, it was reciprocal on the part of a surviving brother of exemplary character. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, possessed not one redeeming virtue, save, perhaps, the questionable one of profusion, formerly attributed to many of his countrymen. In every other respect, and to every other person, including his wife who outlived him, he seems to have been a miscreant of the blackest dye, whose ferocious temper and unmitigated crimes, form such an exception to the ordinary rule, as to be inexplicable on any other supposition than that the shot which, in the outset of his career, carried away a portion of his brain, also vitiated or deprived him of the due control of his intellect.

Brecknock, it may be added, was executed next day. He was seventy years of age, and there seemed also to have been some singularity about him, as he requested to be hanged in an old brown wig; on receiving which, he dispensed with the services of four clergymen, who were anxious to convert him, and went to the gallows apparently quite contented.

THE CLANS OF SCOTLAND, WILH THEIR BADGES OF DISTINCTIONS.

The Chiefs of Clans to have two Eagle's Feathers, with the Badge of their Clan in their Bonnets.