I met him, or rather saw him once, seated on the bridge of Tintern-not the Monmouthshire Tintern, but its Irish namesake. they are held. Subscriptions amounting to | by letting go to destruction what we'll never £1500 were quickly raised, and presented to build the like of again?" the veteran writers; as was also an album, containing five hundred letters from persons of all ranks and nations testifying to their worth. Mrs. Hall is in the receipt of £100 a year from the civil list, and the Queen has expressed her esteem for our gifted countrywoman by presenting her with portraits of herself and the Prince Consort. One of the most recent acts of Mr. and Mrs. Hall has been to help in celebrating the centenary of Moore, of whom they were in their early days intimate friends. They also paid further honour to the memory of the national poet by erecting by subscription a window in Bromham Church, where he is buried.] AN IRISH TRAGEDY. (FROM "LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF IRISH LIFE." 1) [This is the story of an old man whom Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall during a tour found wandering about in Ireland.] "The four winds of heaven have been blowing upon my head these sixty years," said an old beggar to me, "until they have hardly left a gray hair to cover it." Clooney Blaney passed his latter years in migrating from parish to parish, and from ruin to ruin; he was fond of the "ould places;" though, unlike the "Old Mortality” of the great master spirit of our age, he had no desire to restore inscriptions or preserve monuments, he took much pleasure in patching up holes in crumbling walls, and spent the long days of summer, bareheaded, as indeed he always was, within their precincts. Of all the ruins in my neighbourhood he seemed most to delight in those of the seven castles of Clomines. Whether it was that they afforded him more extensive wandering room, being scattered some on the very brink of the Scar, some far in the green and beautiful meadow, I know not; but I have often seen Clooney's bald head peeping above the gigantic trees of ivy that waved their sombre shining leaves in the gay sun, and heard the clatter of his trowel in the gray twilight of evening, as he pattered with the mortar or wet clay to "steady," as he used to say, "the stones-poor things!" Clooney could not bear to see the stone of a ruin displaced. "It was weary work for those who put them there, and why should their spirits be bothered 1 By permission of the authoress. "I'm lookin at that fine ould place with a glad heart, lady," said Clooney: "I've been outside every taste of that beautiful abbey this morning, and sorra as much as the paring of your nail out of place: all the stones firm, and the ould ancient mortar as firm as the stones; my eyes never ache looking at a fine even wall, and it's a good thing to see so holy a building so looked after; the pigs and the rooks are the worst enemies I have: the pigs do be always rooting at my walls, and the crows-ah! it's they're the bad stone-masonsit takes all the little thrifle I begs, and all the lime I gathers, to stop up the holes of them big black birds. It's a fine thing to keep a vow." "Is it true, as I have heard, that you have taken an obligation on yourself never to wear a hat, and to wander over Ireland until your death, repairing the ruins of your country?" "It is, ma'am," replied Clooney, "every word of it true: but if you plaze I'd rather not tell it to you here, for the people do be passing: so we'll go across the bohreen and into the meadow by the strame, and there, if you wish, I'll tell you every word of my history: not that there's much in the differ between it and Irish history going, they're too much alike, that's the worst of them." any I followed Clooney, and as the old man trudged on before, I could not avoid registering in my memory the picture he presented; the few hairs which, according to his own observation, "the winds had left to cover his bare head, "when unmoved by the air, fell over his shoulders in two or three long thin tresses, now floating around him like a halo, and then twisting into elfin locks at either side of his bald crown: slung across his shoulder was his begging bag, patched with pieces of blue, red, or gray stuff; and his sturdy staff, from the top of which, suspended by a string, hung his trowel, was a genuine shillala, armed with a ferule, so that it might serve either for climbing or fighting; he was firm and erect in his carriage, and as he wended his way, first removing a car which was turned up upon its wheels to stop a gap, then striking his staff firmly into the ground, as if he delighted to see how deep it would go, as a specimen of the strength of his arm-it was impossible not to see in him the wreck of much bodily and mental power; and I called to mind sundry stories of poor Clooney which represented him at once | take delight in what they're used to. To my eccentric and superior to his associates, if indeed the peasants, among whom he only passed occasionally, deserved to be so called. pea The very air seemed weighed nearer to the earth by sadness. As I looked upon the sky its blue clear canopy grew gray and dim, and the stream murmured hoarsely amongst the sedges. Clooney was seated on a block of red granite, probably one that had not been needed for the completion of the bridge; he had unslung his wallet, and placed it by his side on the ground, his staff and trowel resting on it. I could hardly tell what made old "Gray Jacket," his sobriquet amongst the santry, so interesting to me at that moment: I suppose it was his being so admirably in keeping with the scene-the turrets of Tintern Abbey to the right just peering amid the trees; one arch of the old bridge we had stood upon seen above the swelling hill, and looking more calmly beautiful than ever it had looked before—at least to me-with its fringe of blossoming wall-flowers, and its patches of moss, green, gray, and brown, Nature's own cunning embroidery: then, from far away, the boom of the fearful ocean came upon the ear, and I saw over the cliffs which skirted its shores the wavering and shining wings of the snowy seagulls, as they hovered for a moment in mid air, and then disappeared into the bay. So still, so calmly still was the scene, that I felt startled when Clooney's voice exclaimed, "There's a soft seat for you, lady dear, upon the stump of that ould tree, and you have no occasion to fear toads or sarpints, or anything of that sort; I dare say you know why yourself;" and the old man smiled half in jest, half in earnest, at the allusion the Irish are so fond of making to the powers of Saint Patrick. "Were you ever in Connamara, Dick Martin's kingdom, as I've heard it called lately, though that same gentleman's dead this good while?" "Never." thinking it used to be the joysomest place in the wide world. Well, lady, I was born and bred up just on the borders of Connamara, and had the run of the house of one Terence | O'Toole." "O'Toole of Mount Brandon!" I exclaimed. "Mount Brandon was its English name, to be sure; but the gentleman was beyond your memory, died before your time." "He did; but I have often heard of both his talents and eccentricities. So you were really brought up by Terence O'Toole-by a man whose ancestral property extended to thousands upon thousands of green and fertile acres, whose power was that of a despot over his tenantry, and who died--Do, Clooney, tell me how he died?" "Avich! how fond people are to know how people die, and yet, to my thinking, people's deaths have a sort of relationship with their lives; your quiet careful men die in their beds, while others, great, good, and of high blood, maybe have no bed to die on. Well, lady, I have heard tell that Terence O'Toole was in his youth the handsomest man ever born in Ireland, and that's saying a bould word: he carried everything before him in college with his head, and everything out of it with his sword or pistol, for he had a dead thrust with the one, and a dead bullet with the other; he never put up with an affront, nor ever gave the wall to an inferior-or a superior; he was the devil for making love, which gave him some trouble in Ireland, but in far countries none at all, for there, I heard say, it's the ladies make love to the gentlemen: he was always the finest-bred man in the company, mighty civil and courteous, and Christian-like too, for whenever he shot a man in a jewel1 he would always kneel down by the side of the corpse and ax its forgiveness, which the whole country considered very condescending in the same gentleman: he was also the finest dancer in France, and the best singer in Rome, when he was there--one who knew, said that a French queen, who was afterwards beheaded, was deeply in love with him. In the thick of his young days his father died, and left him a power of land and a power of debts, but he didn't think it behouldin' him to mind either the one or the other, though, like a thrue patriot, he gave up all foreign company-keep "An more's the shame an' the pity," he replied, "for Connamara flogs the Lakes, and the Giant's Causeway, and the caves of Mitchelstown, for bare grandeur; it's a wonderful place entirely; so desolate, so lonely-looking, with nothing to disturb the clouds but an eagle flying through them; and the 'sough' of the wind among the rocks is like the moaning of dead thousands: it's a wonderful distric' intirely-ing, and resolved to spend his money like a and forrinners, to look at it, would think there prince in his own counthry. So fond was he could be but small pleasure in living in such a place: but it's very quare to see how people 1 Duel. of Mount Brandon, that he wouldn't be in Parliament, and was quite satisfied with returning the members without thinking of being a member himself: he made it a boast too that not a member should ever spend a farthing in trating the men, only all at his expense. A six weeks' election was nothing in those times, open house for all comers and goers, whisky on draft for the poor, and claret on draft for the rich; nothing but feasting and fighting. Ah! Ireland will never see such times again!" "I hope not!" I ejaculated, as the vision of duels and shillalas rose before me, "I hope not!" I think Clooney looked at me reproachfully; I am not quite certain, but I think he did. "Those were his young days," he continued, "and I suppose he thought they could never have an end; and, to be sure, every one in the counthry thought it high time for him to marry, but he did not think so himself, for his eye was set on a farmer's daughter on the estate, a young and beautiful girl, who loved him as no one ever loved him before or since. She proved that by bearing shame for his sake; and God knows, the memory of that poor girl's love is tould by the ould people of Connamara to this day, the same as they'd tell of a ghost, to warn their daughters from danger. Her father was a could, proud man, of an ancient family, and she was the only dote, and proud he was of the admiration bestowed upon her by high and low; though little he thought what was to follow: but when it was made plain to him, he said no hard word to her, but he took her hand, and walked her out of their house, and took the key out of the door, and nine straws out of the thatch, and he left her weeping in a neighbour's house, and went up to the Mount, which was thronged with company, and walked straight into the hall, where they were at their wine after dinner; and the masther never saw him till he stood at the foot of his table, white as a sheet, and his teeth chattering. And the ould man laid the key of the farm and the nine straws upon the table without a word; and, having done that, he knelt down upon his bended knees, and he riz his long lean arms above his white head, and he cursed Terence O'Toole, with a curse that came slow and heavy from his lips, and that no one in all that grand company had power to stop; and when he had finished cursing, he turned his back upon them all, and stalked right away without another word or a sign. It struck the masther, that if he acted so, he might ill use the poor girl, upon whom his heart had been set; and as soon as he could he got away to see after her. He heard that she had been taken suddenly in her trouble in the neigbour's house, and that now she had a babby on her bosom. Well, to be sure, he ordered everything for her like a lady, and went home, consoling himself for the sin, with thinking of all the good he would do for her, and for every one else; and how he would get her proud father over. But before the morning broke he was waked by the small cry of a babby under his window, and he called up the ould housekeeper, for his heart mistrusted, and she took it in; and there was a taste of a note from the grandfather pinned on its breast; and when he read the note (no one ever saw that scrap from that day to this) he flew to the cabin she'd been in, and there was the woe of the world; for the ould man had first stole away the babby, coaxed the stupid woman that had charge of it to let him have it to show its father; come back in no time, and, while the nurse slept, rolled his poor, feeble, helpless girl up in the blanket as she lay, and carried her, God knows where. Well, to be sure, O'Toole roused the counthry, and, for that the snow lay deep on the ground, they tracked the old man's steps to the border of a broad lake, and there, lady, the mark of the feet ended; but the ice of the water was broken, and destroyed at the edge, and under it- . !” "Good God!" I exclaimed, petrified with horror. "Ay, sure enough, lady, the proud ould man had buried his own and his child's dishonour under that ice!" He paused, and then continued. "The gentleman took no pains to hide his sorrow; and the monument to her memory was put up of beautiful white marvel; and some talked of her end, but more talked of O'Toole's generosity." The world, I thought to myself, was the same then as it is now. "I have heard tell," recommenced Clooney, "that the masther was never to say like himself afther that day; he took on more than ever with the fighting and the drinking, and seemed for a time to love nothing but the hounds. But a talk of great trouble came over the place, and the great gentleman was afraid to go off his own land for fear of being took; and then came a dissolate of Parliament, and he was advised to go in, and so he did; and promised the gentleman he had got in before, a situation. Well, he went off in great grand style to Dublin, where the Parliament was then; and some English lady at the castle, with thou- | meant me. "The master, when he would come home, was 'He's below,' she said, 'afther hiding some of the plate under the turf-rick, for fear of them vagabonds seeing it.' 'Send him up,' says the master; and though I'd the run of the house all my life, it was the first time I was ever had up before him. He called me to his bedside, he put his hand upon my head, and looked for full five minutes in my face; he then sighed out from the deep of his heart, and turned upon the bed. May I go, your honour?' I said. 'Aye,' he made answer, 'do; why should you not go, poor boy? those I trusted in are all gone.' 'Maybe your honour would let me try to turn the luck, by staying,' I made answer. He held his hand over the side of the bed; I fell on my knees and kissed it; and I never left him from that day to the day of his death." The old man, overcome by the full gush of remembrance, laid his head on his hands, and continued silent for some minutes. "The young gentlemen (he had but the two) were fine, proud, wilful boys; that on the tiptop of an English education had been learnt what faults their father had done; and indeed they did pretty much the same themselves, only in a different way, siding with their mother against him: and she had none of the great love for her husband which makes people cling to the throuble sooner than lave the throubled. I'm not going to set up but what the masther was hard to bear with; he cer tainly was. Yet any way, she soon took herself and her children off to England, to her relations-poor wake lady! The best property that could be sould was sould; and at last, if it wasn't for the tenants who had been made over with the land to the new proprietors, the house of Mount Brandon would have been badly kept; but they were ever and always sending a pig, or a fat sheep, or something on the sly, to the housekeeper, who knew they war for the masther's use, and he none the wiser. Oh! 'tis untold what I've seen him suffer; trying, in his gray-headed years, to swallow the pride: and when at last we found that some, though they knew he had nothing but his body to give, wanted that to rot in a jail, we were night and day on the watch to keep them out; and one night the masther says, in his strange way that there was no gainsaying, 'It's a fine clear night, and I should like to walk to the ruin by the side of the monument.' I couldn't tell you how his health had gone and his strength along with it; everything but his pride. And the ould housekeeper and myself went along with him; and he romanced so much as we went, first | his hat, and fell on his knees upon the grass. about one thing and then about the other, that I thought the throuble had turned his brain. It was a clear, moonshiny night, and the stars were beaming along the sky, now in, now out; and he sat down upon an ancient stone, as this might be, and he says,-I remember the very words 666 "Boy,' says he, 'the time will be, and that not long off, when what little respect belongs to ould families and ould ruins will be done away entirely; and the world will hear tell of ould customs and the like; but they will look round upon the earth for them in vain-they will be clean gone! If I had my life to begin over again I'd take great delight in restoring all them things. It's no wonder I should have sympathy with ruins; I, who have ruined, and am ruined.' "Sir,' said the old housekeeper, who was hard of hearing, and stupid when she did hear, 'Sir,' said she, 'sure Michelawn and the boys might mend the ruins up of this ould chapel, if it's any fancy for it you have.' So he looked at me, and smiled a sort of a smile, could and chilly, without anything happy in it; like the smile you see sometimes upon the lips of a corpse when the mouth falls a little-a gasping smile. 'Sir,' keeps on the ould silly craythur, 'come away home, for it isn't safe for you to be anything like out of the house, which you haven't been for many a long month before.' As he fell, so four men, vagabonds of the law, sprung on him. Whether he felt their hould or not is between him an' Heaven; but this I do know, that when I looked in his face, as they held him up off the grass, he was dead.” "And that was the end of the most beautiful and most accomplished Irishman of the last century!" "It was his end, God help us! And the murdering villians kept possession of the body for debt. The neighbouring gentry would not suffer it, and offered to pay the money; but his ould tenants would not hear of that; they rose to a man over the estates which had once belonged to him and his, battled the limbs of the law out of possession, and gave the masther the finest wake and funeral that the counthry had seen for fifty years. There was a hard fight betwixt them and the constables when the body was moving, but they bet them off. And then-whew!—who would follow them into the Connamara hills!" "What became of his sons?" "They are both dead: nor is there one stone upon another of Mount Brandon." "But about your obligation?" "Ay! didn't you hear that he wished the ould ruins of ould Ireland looked to?" "True; but why do you wear no hat?" AUBREY T. DE VERE. [Poetic genius has, in the case of the De | verse, and the list of his works is lengthy. In Vere family, proved hereditary. In a preceding volume we gave extracts from Sir Aubrey de Vere; in this the same duty devolves with regard to Aubrey T. de Vere, his third son. Aubrey Thomas de Vere was born in 1814 at the paternal mansion, Curragh Chase, county Limerick, and he was educated at Trinity College. He has written both in prose and 1842 appeared The Waldenses, or the Fall of Rora, a lyrical tale; in 1843, The Search after Proserpine, Recollections of Greece, and other Poems; in 1856, Poems, Miscellaneous and Sacred; in 1857, May Carols; in 1861, The Sisters, Inisfail, and other Poems; in 1864, The Infant Bridal, and other Poems; in 1869, Irish Odes, and other Poems; in 1872, |