the town is found inhabited by a number of | testants whose integrity to the state should families, all of French and English blood, who refused to intermarry with the Irish. Their relations with the native race may best be understood by one of the corporation by-laws, which enacts (A.D. 1518) that none of the inhabitants should admit any of the Burkes, M'Williams, Kellys, or any other sept into their houses, to the end "that neither O ne Mac should strutte ne swagger throughe the streets of Gallway." In 1641 the townsmen were all English. Richard Martin, one of the principal inhabitants, in announcing from Galway the outbreak of the Irish in the neighbourhood to Lord Ormond, informs him (December, 1641) that the town is disfurnished with arms and munitions, so that to defend those maiden walls they had but naked bodies; and in allusion to a rumour current that they would be allowed none, he says, God forbid it should be true. "If it be (said he) we are very unfortunate to be hated by some powerful neighbours for being all English; and to have our four hundred years' constant and unsuspected loyalty without the help of a garrison (until the last year, when there was no need for it) forgotten and buried." entitle them to be trusted in a place of such importance; and Sir Charles Coote on the 7th November received the thanks of the government for clearing the town, with a request that he would remove the sick and bedrid as soon as the season might permit, and take care that the houses while empty were not spoiled by the soldiery. Among the sick and bedrid was not counted Robert French, a cripple, though not able to stand or sit without the assistance of another. He was helped out of the town by George French, and they betook themselves to a village in the country. They had converted all their little substance into money, in hopes to bestow the same in some bargain of advantage to them. But their banishment was peculiarly unfortunate. On the 10th June, 1664, in the dead time of the night, they were plundered of £44, 12s. in money, and of gold rings, spoons, and other things to the value of £20, and of their evidences, and writings of great value, by four unknown and disguised horsemen, who, upon fresh pursuit, could not be discovered in the country-only of late one of them was hanged in Galway. Ever since they were in a miserable condition, living on the charity of friends. They accordingly asked liberty of the lord-lieutenant and council to live again and abide in Galway, out of the danger of further plundering. Galway was the last fortress of the Irish in the war of 1641, and surrendered to Ludlow on the 20th March, 1652, on articles, securing the inhabitants their residences within the town, and the enjoyment of their houses and estates. The taxation was soon so great, that many of the townspeople quitted their habitations, and removed their cattle, unable to endure it. Consequently the contribution fell the heavier on the remaining inhabitants. This tax was collected from them every Saturday by sound of trumpet; and if not instantly paid, the soldiery rushed into the house, and seized what they could lay hands on. The sound of this trumpet every returning Saturday shook their souls with terror like the trumpet of the day of judgment. On the 15th March, 1653, the commissioners for Ireland, remarking upon the disaffection thus exhibited, confiscated the houses of those that had deserted the town. Those that fled were wise in time. On 23d July, 1655, all the Irish were directed to quit the town by the 1st of November following, the owners of houses, however, to receive compensation at eight years' purchase; in default the soldiers were to drive them out. On 30th October this order was executed. All the inhabitants, except the sick and bedrid, were at once banished, to provide accommodation for such English Pro Mathew Quin and Mary Quin (otherwise Butler) his wife, asked liberty of the lordlieutenant to clear the graveyard of Saint Francis's Abbey, without the walls in the north Franchises of the town of Galway, of the stones laid in heaps upon the graves by the late usurped power. It was the burial place of the petitioners and their ancestors since the reign of James I., and of very many inhabiting the town and country near it. The late Abbey was demolished by the usurpers, and the monuments defaced and taken away, and the stones laid down in great heaps upon the graves. So that the inhabitants who ought to be buried there cannot be interred in their ancestral vaults and graves without great charge and trouble. By such desolation the town was made ready for newer English to inhabit. On 22d July, 1656, the commissioners for Ireland moved his highness, the lord-protector, and council of state, that some considerable merchants of London might be urged to occupy it, to revive its trade and repair the town, which was falling into ruin, being almost depopulated, and the houses falling down for want of inhabitants. But the city of London had known enough of Ireland. Starchambered in 1637 for their neglect at Derry, and "censured in” £70,000, and their charter suspended, and their whole plantation effaced by the Irish war in 1641, they would venture no more. The lord-protector and council therefore turned to two less experienced cities. There was a large debt of £10,000 due to Liverpool for their loss and suffering for the good cause. The eminent deservings and losses of the city of Gloucester also had induced the parliament to order them £10,000, to be satisfied in forfeited lands in Ireland. The commissioners for Ireland now offered forfeited houses in Galway, rated at ten years' purchase, to the inhabitants of Liverpool and Gloucester, to satisfy their respective debts, and they were both to arrange about the planting of it with English Protestants. To induce them to accept the proposal, the commissioners enlarged upon the advantages of Galway. It lay open for trade with Spain, the Straits, the West Indies, and other places; no town or port in the three nations, London excepted, was more considerable. It had many noble uniform buildings of marble, though many of the houses had become ruinous by reason of the war, and the waste done by the impoverished English dwelling there. No Irish were permitted to live in the city, nor within three miles of it. If it were only properly inhabited by English, it might have a more hopeful gain by trade than when it was in the hands of the Irish that lived there. There was never a better opportunity of undertaking a plantation and settling manufactures there than the present, and they suggested that it might become another Derry. The bait took. On 17th February, 1657–58, the houses in Flood Street, Key Street, Middle Street, Little Gate Street, south side of High Street, and other parts adjoining, valued to £1518, 8s. 9d. by the year, were set out to the well-affected inhabitants of Gloucester. Others of like value were set out to those of Liverpool. But no new Gloucester or Liverpool arose at Galway. Nor did her ancient crowds of shipping return to her bay. For it is a comparatively easy thing to unsettle a nation or ruin a town, but not so easy to resettle the one, or to restore the other to prosperity, when ruined; and Galway, once frequented by ships with cargoes of Freuch and Spanish wines, to supply the wassailings of the O'Neils and O'Donels, the O'Garas and the O'Kanes, her marble palaces handed over to strangers, and her gallant sons and darkeyed daughters banished, remains for 200 years a ruin; her splendid port empty, while her "hungry air" in 1862 becomes the mock of the official stranger. HON. MRS. CAROLINE NORTON. BORN 1807 DIED 1877. [It is true of literary characters as, perhaps, | junction with her sister, Lady Dufferin-the of countries, that those have been happiest | Dandies' Rout, with illustrations from her own who have had no history-whose lives may be designs; but it is certain she had published summed up by giving the date of their birth, by 1829 the Sorrows of Rosalie-that is to say their marriage, and their death, and whose at a time when she was but twenty-two years fortunes are only concerned with the publica- of age. Before she had passed from the years tion of their works and their reception by the of tutelage she had entered into an engagepublic. The biographer of the Hon. Mrs. ment rather more serious, and destined to Norton must tell an interesting and checkered influence her much more calamitously than but sad story. She was the grand-daughter the writing of premature poems. of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the daugh- The Hon. George Chapple Norton, a brother ter of his son Thomas. She inherited that of Lord Grantley, became a suitor for her wit which is proverbially regarded as the hand; and-probably with the readiness of heritage of the whole Sheridan family. She girls who neither know their own character was born in 1807, and while still in her girl- nor that of others-she consented to be behood she had begun to wield her pen and pencil. trothed, and in 1829 was married. It did We are almost afraid to mention the age at not take long to convince her that the choice which she is said to have produced-in con- | she had made was a most unhappy one. Her husband is described as indolent and conceited, devoid of talent, and devoted to pleasure, and sometimes so brutal as to resort to physical violence. Being a younger son he was almost wholly without means, and in order to gratify his extravagant tastes, he called in the aid of his wife in every case. She was compelled to toil night and day at literary work, so that in one year she claimed to have bestowed on her husband no less a sum than £1400. Next Mr. Norton demanded that his wife should exercise her influence with Lord Melbourne, then a minister, to procure him a situation under the crown. On Lord Melbourne Mrs. Norton had several claims. She could point to the fact that her grandfather had been one of the pillars of the Whigs, and by them been allowed to die in poverty and misery; and she might add that her father had been a contemporary and a friend of the minister himself. It was unfortunate for both Lord Melbourne and Mrs. Norton that they should have ever come together. The circumstances of both were alike in many respects. Of ar an affectionate and ardent nature, they, one and the other, found themselves deprived of home sympathies. Lady Caroline Lamb, the wife of Mr. Lamb, as Lord Melbourne was once called, is known to have been one of the most afflicting wives that ever destroyed domestic happiness. Capricious, uncertain-tempered, and partially insane, she persecuted her husband and all her acquaintances by the wildest freaks-the best known of these being her ostentatiously expressed, and as ostentatiously rejected, love for Lord Byron. Mrs. Norton and Lord Melbourne had also the similar gifts of high conversational powers, amiability of manner, geniality of temper, and the other qualities which constitute social talent. Mrs. Norton, it should be added, was, like her two sisters, very beautiful. Mr. Norton took advantage of the admiration and respect which the minister manifested towards his wife, and obtained a situation as police-magistrate in London. He is said to have greatly neglected his duties, to have quarrelled with his colleagues, and to have indulged in undignified correspondence with the newspapers; and the result was that his official superior was obliged to express dissatisfaction with his conduct. He was, besides, exasperated against Lord Melbourne by his refusal to lend him money. He took his revenge by bringing an action for divorce against the minister and Mrs. Norton, laying the damages at £10,000; but the jury found the charge so entirely unsupported that they gave a verdict for the defendants without leaving the box. This led to the final separation of Mrs. Norton and her husband; but the public was reminded occasionally of the unhappy relations between the two by some disagreeable law case, in which the wife found herself compelled to engage in defence of her rights, and by occasional references from her pen to her hapless lot. During the greater part of her life Mrs. Norton was one of the idols and the chief ornaments of society; for her vivacious intellect, fine powers of repartee, and distinguished and varied talents made her everywhere a welcome guest. Towards the end of her days, however, she lived in retirement, and for a short space before her death she was confined to her room. Her career had a somewhat romantic close. Her first husband's death left her a widow in 1869. Eight years afterwards she was again married, her husband being Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, between whom and her there had existed a friendship of many years. The marriage was purely platonic. Mrs. Norton was married in her own drawing-room in the spring of 1877, and in the June following she was dead. It was a singular coincidence that her sister, the Countess of Gifford, as has been said in her memoir, should have been married for the second time under somewhat similar circumstances. Lady Dufferin married Lord Gifford when he was on his death-bed; Mrs. Norton was united to Sir W. StirlingMaxwell when she had almost entered into the valley of the shadow of death. The list of Mrs. Norton's works is a long one. The Sorrows of Rosalie, which we have already mentioned, was praised enthusiastically by Christopher North in the Noctes Ambrosiana, and found an eulogist also in James Hogg; and Miss E. Owens Blackburne has declared in her Illustrious Irishwomen, that Mrs. Norton never produced, "even in more matured literary career," "anything fuller of the blended fire and pathos with which all her poetry is characterized, than this her first important poem." The Undying One followed in 1830. This is a version of the legend of the Wandering Jew, and was received with somewhat contradictory critical Judgment. The London Monthly Review was cuttingly severe; while the New Monthly Magazine declared that if one or two poems of equal grace and originality were produced, the public would be roused from the apathy into which it had fallen into with regard to poetry. Her next work dealt with a blot on English society, -the condition of the persons employed in factories-the women and children especially. Her feelings found expression in a poem, "A Voice from the Factories," published in 1836; and in 1841 her letters in the Times on the same subject were issued in a collected form. The Dream, published in 1840, is one of the most ambitious and finest of Mrs. Norton's poems. It describes a dialogue between a mother and daughter. The daughter dreams, and when awaked, tells her dream. She "depicts the bliss of a first love and an early union, which is followed by the mother's admonitory comment, imparting the many accidents to which wedded happiness is liable, and exhorting to moderation of hope, and preparation for severer duties." In dealing with such a theme, Mrs. Norton, of course, had to allude to several of the circumstances of her own troubled life; and the consequence is that the poem is remarkable for many passages of splendid passion. The Child of the Islands describes with much vehement eloquence the condition of the poor in England. "The Child of the Islands" is the Prince of Wales, who was then in infancy. The poem is remarkable for a realism in the pictures of our social ills which was then uncommon in our literature. Among her other poems we may mention The Lady of La Garaye, which is considered the most polished and classic of all Mrs. Norton's longer poems. Among her fugitive pieces we may also mention the wellknown "The Arab's Farewell to his Horse," "We have been Friends together,” “The Blind Man to his Bride," and "The Child of the Earth." Mrs. Norton also produced three novels-Stuart of Dunleath, Lost and Saved, and Old Sir Douglas, in most of which the wrongs of women in circumstances similar to her own form a chief theme. On the same subject she also issued pamphlets on several occasions. She is the authoress besides of the Martyr, a tragedy, and of several tales and sketches, and she edited a lively book on society in Sierra Leone. Her prose is inferior to her poetry; and we limit our extracts accordingly to quotations from her poetic works.] THE GIPSY GIRL IN PRISON.1 Wild Nomades of our civilized calm land! Whose Eastern origin is still betrayed 1 From "Summer," in The Child of the Islands. His glance her morning-star, his will her guide. Animal beauty and intelligence Were hersole gifts-his heart they satisfied, — And oft, where flowers lay spangled round about, Her cheek down-leaning on his cherished That head upon her heart's soft pillow laid In fulness of content; and such deep spell Of loving silence, that the word first said With startling sweetness on their senses fell, Like silver coins dropped down a many-fathomed well. And bears her swiftly to the wild-wood shade! There, where their bower of bliss at first was made, Safe in his sheltering arms once more she sleeps: Ah happy dream! She wakes; amazed, afraid, Like a young panther from her couch she leaps, Gazes bewildered round, then madly shrieks and weeps! Each crevice of your ruins! Rise, clear spring, Bubbling from hidden fountain-depths, and bring Water, the death-thirst of her pain to slake! Come from the forest, breeze with wandering wing! There dwelt a heart would perish for her sake Look! her brows darken with a sudden frown Oh, save her! No! Death stands prepared his prey to take. She dreams of Rescue by his angry aid She dreams he strikes the Law's vile minions down, Oh, pity her, all sinful though she be, Those flexile arms shall clasp him ere she dies; The frenzy of her mood begins to cease; And the sick weariness that is not peace Lonely she perishes; like some wild bird That strains its wing against opposing wires; Her heart's tumultuous panting may be heard, While to the thought of rescue she aspires; Then, of its own deep strength it faints and tires: Alas, dark shadows, press not on her so! Stand off, and let her hear the linnet sing! Crumble, ye walls, that sunshine may come through For, far above her head, the prison-bars Mock her with narrow sections of that sky She knew so wide, and blue, and full of stars, When gazing upward through the branches high Of the free forest! Is she then to die? Fainter her slow step falls from day to day, Death's hand is heavy on her darkening brow; Where is he-where-the strong-armed and the Yet doth she fondly cling to earth and say: brave, "I am content to die, but oh! not now! Not while the blossoms of the joyous spring Who in that vision answered her wild cry? Where is he-where-the lover who could save And snatch her from her fate-an ignominious grave? But, because youth and health are very strong, Ere the freed heart lie still, that was so rife To watch the working of that fearful strife, Till the last quivering spark is out. And now All's dark, all's cold, all's lost, that loved and mourned below. THE CHILD OF EARTH. Make the warm air such luxury to breathe; Not while the birds such lays of gladness sing; Not while bright flowers around my footsteps wreathe. Spare me, great God, lift up my drooping brow! The spring hath ripened into summer time, With silent steps the lord of light moves on; Greets my dull ear with music in its tone! Summer is gone, and autumn's soberer hues Tint the ripe fruits, and gild the waving corn; |