Gillamocholmog (vol. i. p. 230) traced through | London, honorary librarian of the Royal Irish unpublished Gaelic and Anglo-Irish records Academy, and honorary secretary of the Irish from the remote origin of the family to its Archæological and Celtic Society for the pubextinction in the fifteenth century; while, aslication of Materials for the History of Irea specimen of the work in a totally different land.] department, I may refer to the history of Crow Street Theatre, as giving the only accurate details hitherto published of that oncenoted establishment, verified by original documents never before printed, from the autograph of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and other dramatic celebrities."

The History of the Viceroys of Ireland (1865), like its predecessor, contains an enormous amount of fresh information. The work displays a great and even astonishing width of acquaintance with all the sources-whether printed or in MS.-of Irish history, and the author has the tact, which is not always a gift with laborious investigators, of weaving his facts into a connected and readable story. The book, dealing with the chief rulers of Ireland, really comes to be a history of the country since the Anglo-Norman invasion; and thus the work has a large historical sweep, as well as a series of most interesting studies into the characters and careers of some highly picturesque figures in the annals of Ireland.

THE LIMITS OF THE PALE.

(FROM HISTORY OF THE VICEROYS OF IRELAND.")

Before the commencement of the fifteenth century so much of the English settlement had been regained by the Irish, that even in Leinster only the four shires of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Louth partially acknowledged the jurisdiction of the crown of England. The great lords of the Anglo-Norman descent, as the Earls of Kildare, of Desmond, and of Ormonde, absorbed their revenues in their own districts, where they administered justice, jealously excluding the king's officials. Some of the chief branches of the Anglo-Norman families repudiated the authority of England, and confederated with the Irish; but, when it suited their ends, they asserted rights under English law, and seldom failed to obtain charters of pardon through the interest of their influential kinsmen. "These English The other labours in which Mr. Gilbert has rebels," says a viceregal despatch, "style thembeen engaged consist principally of the re- selves men of noble blood and idelmen, publication of old Irish documents. In 1870 whereas, in truth, they are strong marauders." he edited Historic and Municipal Documents The enactments against such secessionists reof Ireland, A.D. 1172-1320, which was pub-mained inoperative, as royal officers would lished in the government series of "Chronicles not incur the perils of essaying to carry them and Memorials." He also superintended the into effect. production of Facsimiles of National MSS. of Ireland—a large folio with coloured plates, which is considered the finest publication of its class ever issued by government. A yet more important work is a Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, 1641-52 (6 vols. 4to). This book brings documents to light which for the first time presents the Irish view of the momentous period of the Roman Catholic rising, and goes far towards superseding the statements hitherto current in English his

tories.

Mr. Gilbert, who is a native of Dublin, was secretary of the Public Record Office of Ireland till that office was abolished, when government awarded him a special pension for his services. He is at present engaged in editing for government the National MSS. of Ireland, and in examining and reporting on the manuscripts in collections in Ireland for the Royal Commission on Historical MS. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of

The "Statute of Kilkenny" was promulgated in several successive parliaments, but the settlers found the strict application of its provisions more prejudicial to themselves than the natives. The King of England was thus fain to accede to petitions in which the commonalties of his towns declared their inability to pay taxes, and that they should be ruined or famished, unless authorized to trade and make purchases from the Irish. Numerous applications were also made by the settlers for permission to send out their children to be fostered among the Irish; and we have on record the official concession to a memorial from some liege English praying that an Irish minstrel might be allowed to sojourn among them, notwithstanding the express prohibition under the "Statute of Kilkenny." Governmental licenses were also frequently issued for holding parleys with the Irish. These negotia

1 By permission of the author.

tions were usually held on the borders, the re- | could tell when he might be indicted or outspective parties coming to the appointed place with a few attendants, while their troops were drawn up within call. The borders formed the resort of bodies of mercenary native lightarmed foot soldiery, styled "kerns" and battleaxe men, called gallocclach, or galloglasses, who, living by war, were ever ready to accept service from either Irish or colonists who secured them payment and maintenance. Beyond the wasted and desolated "marches," or borders, lay the Irish territories, almost inaccessible through woods and narrow defiles, rendered impassable with peculiar art in times of war. Within these and other defences were the habitations, and the cultivated lands which supplied the septs with stores of corn and provender for their large herds of cattle. The rights of the chief, sub-chiefs, and families of each sept were regulated under the Brehon code, which, with minute precision, laid down rules for adjudicating on almost every variety of dispute, encroachment, or breach of law. Although the main attribute of the head of a clan was that of unfailing vigour and prowess in arms, to defend his territory against both foreigners and encroaching Irish, there were other duties deemed scarcely secondary. Such were the improvement of the land, the observance of strict justice, the liberal support of religious establishments, under the patronage of the saints of the tribe; implicit obedience to the decrees of the hereditary Brehons or judges, and the maintenance of the endowments made of old for the support of their learned men and chroniclers. Their intimate relations with Scotland, and frequent pilgrimages to France, Spain, and Italy, rendered the chiefs and their families conversant with the affairs of the Continent, with which constant communication was maintained by their clergy and ecclesiastical students. The internal condition of the settlement, and the manifold injustices perpetrated by the officials of the colonial government on those under their control, tended to repel, rather than attract, the independent Irish towards the English system as then administered. Many of the judges and chief legal officials of the colony were illiterate and ignorant of law, obtained their appointments by purchase, and leased them to deputies, who promoted and encouraged litigation, with the object of accumulating fees. Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer were multiplied, before whom persons were constantly summoned by irresponsible non-residents, to such an extent that no man

lawed, or if a process had issued to eject him from his property. The king's officers often seized lands and appropriated their rents, so long as legal subterfuges enabled them to baffle the claims of the rightful proprietors; and thus agriculture and improvements were impeded. Ecclesiastics, lords, and gentlemen were not unfrequently cast into jail by officers of the crown on unfounded charges, without indictment or process, and detained in durance till compelled by rigorous treatment to purchase their liberation. The agricultural settlers and landholders were harassed by troops of armed "kerns" and mounted "idelmen," who levied distresses, maltreated and chained those who resisted, and held forcible possession of the farmer's goods till redeemed with money. The troops engaged for the defence of the colonists became little less oppressive than enemies. Under the name of "livere," or liverey, the soldiery took, without payment, victuals for themselves and provender for their horses, and exacted weekly money payments,designated “coygnes." It was not unusual for a soldier having a billet for six or more horses to keep only three, but to exact provender for the entire number, and on a single billet the same trooper commonly demanded and took "livery" in several parts of a county. The constables of royal castles, and the purveyors of the households of the viceroys, seldom paid for what they took, and for the purpose of obtaining bribes to release their seizure they made exactions much more frequently than needed. These grievances, wrote the prelates, lords, and commons to the King of England, have reduced your loyal subjects in Ireland to "a state of distraction and impoverishment, and caused them even to hate their lives." Most of the king's manors, customs, and other sources of revenue having been granted or sold to individuals, but little came to the treasury of the fees, fines, and crown profits, which previously had defrayed part of the expenses of the colonial government. These reduced finances were nearly exhausted by pensions and annuities, paid to propitiate the chiefs of the border Irish, and to secure the settlement against their inroads. Various good towns and hamlets of the colony were destroyed, while several royal castles and fortresses became ruinous, as those in charge of them embezzled the rents and profits allocated for their maintenance, repairs, and garrisons.

EARL OF DUNRAVEN.

[The fourth Earl of Dunraven and Mount- | pulse of the crew, the sharp quick beat of the Earl was born in 1841. Before his father's paddles on the water, and the roll of their death, while Viscount Adare, he devoted him- shafts against the gunwale, with the continuous self very considerably to literary pursuits, and hiss and ripple of the stream cleft by the curvgained a good deal of the experience afforded ing prow, combine to make a more soothing by the discharge of the varied and adventur- soporific than all the fabrications of poppy and ous duties of special correspondent. In this mandragora that can be found in the pharmacapacity he served the Daily Telegraph through- copia of civilization. out the Abyssinian campaign and the Franco- Dreamily you lie side by side-you and German war, and his letters contained some of your friend-lazily gazing at the pine-covered the most graphic descriptions that appeared shores and wooded islands of some unknown even in that journal of graphic writing during lake, the open book unheeded on your knee; these exciting periods. He afterwards made the half-smoked pipe drops into your lap; a tour through the less frequented parts of the your head sinks gently back; and you wander United States, and the result of his observa- | into dreamland, to awake presently and find tions was given to the world in a book en-yourself sweeping round the curve of some titled The Great Divide, a work which abounds majestic river, whose shores are blazing with in brilliant descriptions, and which received the rich crimson, brown, and gold of the almost universally favourable criticism. He maple and other hard-wood trees in their succeeded to the title in 1871. During the last autumn dress. few years he has taken a prominent part in the debates in the House of Lords, and he is probably one of those marked out for office in future Liberal administrations.]

CANOE TRAVELLING.

(FROM "THE GREAT DIVIDE.") Among all the modes of progression hitherto invented by restless man, there is not one that can compare in respect of comfort and luxury with travelling in a birch-bark canoe. It is the poetry of progression. Along the bottom of the boat are laid blankets and bedding; a sort of wicker-work screen is sloped against the middle thwart, affording a delicious support to the back; and indolently, in your shirt sleeves if the day be warm, or well covered with a blanket if it is chilly, you sit or lie on this most luxurious of couches, and are propelled at a rapid rate over the smooth surface of a lake or down the swift current of some stream. If you want exercise, you can take a paddle yourself. If you prefer to be inactive, you can lie still and placidly survey the scenery, rising occasionally to have a shot at a wild duck; at intervals reading, smoking, and sleeping. Sleep indeed you will enjoy most luxuriously, for the rapid bounding motion of the canoe as she leaps forward at every im

Presently the current quickens. The best man shifts his place from the stern to the bow, and stands ready with his long-handled paddle to twist the frail boat out of reach of hidden rocks. The men's faces glow with excitement. Quicker and quicker flows the stream, breaking into little rapids, foaming round rocks, and rising in tumbling waves over the shallows. At a word from the bowman the crew redouble their efforts, the paddle-shafts crash against the gunwale, the spray flies beneath the bending blades. The canoe shakes and quivers through all its fibres, leaping bodily at every stroke.

Before you is a seething mass of foam, its whiteness broken by horrid black rocks, one touch against whose jagged sides would rip the canoe into tatters and hurl you into eternity. Your ears are full of the roar of waters; waves leap up in all directions, as the river, maddened at obstruction, hurls itself through some narrow gorge. The bowman stands erect to take one look in silence, noting in that critical instant the line of deepest water; then bending to his work, with sharp, short words of command to the steersman, he directs the boat. The canoe seems to pitch heedlong into space. Whack! comes a great wave over the bow; crash! comes another over the side. The bowman, his figure stooped, and his knees planted firmly against the side, stands, with paddle poised in both hands, screaming to the

crew to paddle hard; and the crew cheer and | tailed. Not a bit of it! Not a sign of Capua

and its narrow ways," and of all and any of the steady wage-getting occupations of life, he braves summer's heat and winter's cold, thirst and starvation, hostile Indians and jealous whites; perhaps paddling a tiny birchbark canoe over unmapped, unheard-of lakes, away to the far and misty North, or driving before him over the plains and prairies of a more genial clime his donkey or Indian pony, laden with the few necessaries that supply all the wants of his precarious life—a little flour, some tea and sugar tied up in a rag, a battered frying-pan and tin cup, a shovel, axe, and rusty gun. Through untrodden wastes he wanders, self-dependent and alone, thinking of the great spree he had the last time he was in "settlements," and dreaming of what a good time he will enjoy when he gets back rich with the value of some lucky find, till chance directs him to the Gulch. After a rapid but keen survey, he thinks it is a likely

he is a great washerwoman is your Chinaman, | passion for excitement, a hatred of "the town equally successful with rotten quartz and dirty shirts. Alder Gulch is about twelve miles in length, and half a mile broad. It is closed at the head by a remarkable limestone ridge, the highest point of which is known as "Old Baldy Mountain," and it leads into the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri. Along the sides of the valley may be seen many patches of black basalt, and the bottom is covered entirely by drift, composed of material weather and water worn out of metamorphic rocks, the fragments varying in size from large boulders to fine sand and gravel. In this drift the float gold is found. In Montana the deposits of the precious metal generally occur in metamorphic rocks, belonging probably to the Huronian or Laurentian series. These are clearly stratified, not unfrequently intercalated with bands of clay or sand, and underlie the whole country, forming beds of great thickness, very massive and close-grained in their lower layers, but grow-looking place, capsizes the pack off his pony, ing softer and looser in texture towards the surface. The superimposed formations, carboniferous limestones and others, appear to have been almost wholly removed by erosion. In this part of Montana, indeed, the forces of erosion must have acted with great vigour for a long period of time. The general character of the country where placer mines exist may be said to be a series of deep gulches, frequently dry in the height of summer, but carrying foaming torrents after heavy rains and in snow-melting time, leading at right angles into a principal valley, and combining to form a little river, or, as it would be locally called, a creek. This principal stream courses in a broad valley through the mountains for perhaps 60, 80, or 100 miles, and at every two or three miles of its progress receives the waters of a little tributary torrent, tearing through the strata in deep cañons for ten or twelve miles, and searching the very vitals of the hills. Down these gulches, cañons, and valleys are carried the yellow specks torn from their quartz and felspar cradles, hurried downward by the melting snow, and battered into powder by falling boulders and grinding rocks, till they sink in beds of worthless sand and mud, there to lie in peace for ages amid the solitudes of primeval forest and eternal snow. Some fine day there comes along a dirty, dishevelled, tobacco-chewing fellowfossicker," as they would say in Australia, "prospector," as he would be called in the States. Impelled by a love of adventure, a

leans lazily upon his shovel, spits, and finally concludes to take a sample of the dirt. Listlessly, but with what delicacy of manipulation he handles the shovel, spilling over its edges the water and lighter mud! See the look of interest that wakens up his emotionless face as the residue of sediment becomes less and less! Still more tenderly he moves the circling pan, stooping anxiously to scan the few remaining grains of fine sand. A minute speck of yellow glitters in the sun; with another dexterous turn of the wrist, two or three more golden grains are exposed to view. He catches his breath; his eyes glisten; his heart beats. Hurrah! He has found the colour! and "a d-d good colour too." It is all over with your primeval forest now; not all the Indians this side of Halifax or the other place could keep men out of that gulch. In a short time claims are staked, tents erected, shanties built, and "Roaring Camp" is in full blast with all its rowdyism, its shooting, gambling, drinking, and blaspheming, and its under-current of charity, which never will be credited by those who value substance less than shadows, and think more of words than deeds.

Although the float gold undoubtedly had its origin in the metamorphic rocks through which the streams have cut their way, yet, strange as it may appear, the exceptions where paying lodes have been found at the head of rich placer mines are extremely rare. No discoveries of any value have been made