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the town is found inhabited by a number of | testants whose integrity to the state should families, all of French and English blood, who entitle them to be trusted in a place of such refused to intermarry with the Irish. Their importance; and Sir Charles Coote on the 7th relations with the native race may best be November received the thanks of the governunderstood by one of the corporation by-laws, ment for clearing the town, with a request that which enacts (A.D. 1518) that none of the in- he would remove the sick and bedrid as soon habitants should admit any of the Burkes, as the season might permit, and take care that M'Williams, Kellys, or any other sept into the houses while empty were not spoiled by their houses, to the end "that neither O ne the soldiery. Among the sick and bedrid was Mac should strutte ne swagger throughe the not counted Robert French, a cripple, though streets of Gallway." In 1641 the townsmen not able to stand or sit without the assistance were all English. Richard Martin, one of the of another. He was helped out of the town principal inhabitants, in announcing from by George French, and they betook themselves Galway the outbreak of the Irish in the neigh- to a village in the country. They had conbourhood to Lord Ormond, informs him (De- verted all their little substance into money, in cember, 1641) that the town is disfurnished hopes to bestow the same in some bargain of with arms and munitions, so that to defend advantage to them. But their banishment those maiden walls they had but naked bodies; was peculiarly unfortunate. On the 10th June, and in allusion to a rumour current that they 1664, in the dead time of the night, they were would be allowed none, he says, God forbid plundered of £44, 12s. in money, and of gold it should be true. "If it be (said he) we are rings, spoons, and other things to the value of very unfortunate to be hated by some power- £20, and of their evidences, and writings of ful neighbours for being all English; and to great value, by four unknown and disguised have our four hundred years' constant and horsemen, who, upon fresh pursuit, could not unsuspected loyalty without the help of a gar- be discovered in the country-only of late one rison (until the last year, when there was no of them was hanged in Galway. Ever since need for it) forgotten and buried." 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

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 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 For it is a comparatively easy thing to unplanting of it with English Protestants. To settle a nation or ruin a town, but not so easy induce them to accept the proposal, the com- to resettle the one, or to restore the other to missioners enlarged upon the advantages of prosperity, when ruined; and Galway, once Galway. It lay open for trade with Spain, frequented by ships with cargoes of French the Straits, the West Indies, and other places; and Spanish wines, to supply the wassailings no town or port in the three nations, London of the O'Neils and O'Donels, the O'Garas and excepted, was more considerable. It had the O'Kanes, her marble palaces handed over many noble uniform buildings of marble, to strangers, and her gallant sons and darkthough many of the houses had become ruin-eyed daughters banished, remains for 200 ous by reason of the war, and the waste done years a ruin; her splendid port empty, while by the impoverished English dwelling there. her "hungry air" in 1862 becomes the mock No Irish were permitted to live in the city, of the official stranger.

HON. MRS. CAROLINE NORTON.

BORN 1807-DIED 1877.

designs; but it is certain she had published by 1829 the Sorrows of Rosalie-that is to say at a time when she was but twenty-two years of age. Before she had passed from the years of tutelage she had entered into an engagement rather more serious, and destined to influence her much more calamitously than the writing of premature poems.

[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 summed up by giving the date of their birth, their marriage, and their death, and whose fortunes are only concerned with the publication of their works and their reception by the public. The biographer of the Hon. Mrs. Norton must tell an interesting and checkered but sad story. She was the grand-daughter 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

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.

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 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 The list of Mrs. Norton's works is a long had also the similar gifts of high conversational one. The Sorrows of Rosalie, which we have powers, amiability of manner, geniality of already mentioned, was praised enthusiastitemper, and the other qualities which consti- cally by Christopher North in the Noctes Amtute social talent. Mrs. Norton, it should be brosianæ, and found an eulogist also in James added, was, like her two sisters, very beautiful. Hogg; and Miss E. Owens Blackburne has Mr. Norton took advantage of the admira- declared in her Illustrious Irishwomen, that tion and respect which the minister manifested Mrs. Norton never produced, "even in more towards his wife, and obtained a situation as matured literary career," "anything fuller of police-magistrate in London. He is said to the blended fire and pathos with which all have greatly neglected his duties, to have her poetry is characterized, than this her first quarrelled with his colleagues, and to have important poem." The Undying One followed indulged in undignified correspondence with in 1830. This is a version of the legend of the newspapers; and the result was that his the Wandering Jew, and was received with official superior was obliged to express dissatis- somewhat contradictory critical Judgment. faction with his conduct. He was, besides, The London Monthly Review was cuttingly exasperated against Lord Melbourne by his severe; while the New Monthly Magazine derefusal to lend him money. He took his re-clared that if one or two poems of equal grace venge by bringing an action for divorce against and originality were produced, the public the minister and Mrs. Norton, laying the dam- would be roused from the apathy into which ages at £10,000; but the jury found the charge 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.

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But with such passionate tenderness of tone, As shows how much those lips that name adore,

She dreams of one who shall her loss deplore With the unbridled anguish of despair!

Whose forest-wanderings by her side are o'er, But to whose heart one braid of her black hair Were worth the world's best throne, and all its treasures rare.

The shadow of his eyes is on her soul

His passionate eyes, that held her in such love! Which love she answered, scorning all control Of reasoning thoughts, which tranquil bosoms move,

No lengthened courtship it was his to prove, (Gleaning capricious smiles by fits and starts)

Nor feared her simple faith lest he should rove: Rapid and subtle as the flame that darts To meet its fellow flame, shot passion through their hearts.

And though no holy priest that union blessed, By gipsy laws and customs made his bride; The love her looks avowed, in words confessed, She shared his tent, she wandered by his side,

His glance her morning-star, his will her guide. Animal beauty and intelligence

Were her sole gifts-his heart they satisfied, Himself could claim no higher, better sense, So loved her with a love, wild, passionate, intense!

And oft, where flowers lay spangled round about, And to the dying twilight incense shed, They sat to watch heaven's glittering stars come out,

Her cheek down-leaning on his cherished head

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.

Look! her brows darken with a sudden frownShe dreams of Rescue by his angry aid

She dreams he strikes the Law's vile minions down,

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!

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?

The frenzy of her mood begins to cease;

Her varying pulse with fluttering stroke expires,

And the sick weariness that is not peace Creeps slowly through her blood, and promises release.

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

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 sakeOh, save her! No! Death stands prepared his prey to take.

But, because youth and health are very strong, And all her veins were full of freshest life, The deadly struggle must continue long

Ere the freed heart lie still, that was so rife With passion's mad excess. The jailer's wife Bends, with revolted pity on her brow,

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.

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,

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?

Oh, pity her, all sinful though she be,

While thus the transient dreams of freedom rise,

Contrasted with her waking destiny!

Scorn is for devils; soft compassion lies In angel hearts, and beams from angel eyes. Pity her! Never more, with wild embrace,

Those flexile arms shall clasp him ere she dies; Never the fierce sad beauty of her face Be lit with gentler hope, or love's triumphant grace!

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:

"I am content to die, but oh! not now! Not while the blossoms of the joyous spring

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! I am content to die-but, oh! not now!"

The spring hath ripened into summer time,
The season's viewless boundary is past;
The glorious sun hath reached his burning prime-
Oh! must this glimpse of beauty be the last!
"Let me not perish while o'er land and lea,
With silent steps the lord of light moves on;
Nor while the murmur of the mountain bee

Greets my dull ear with music in its tone!
Pale sickness dims my eye, and clouds my brow;
I am content to die-but, oh! not now!"

Summer is gone, and autumn's soberer hues
Tint the ripe fruits, and gild the waving corn;

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