rick O'Donnell, Lord of Tyrconnell, both fled to the Continent, whether to seek foreign aid, or to escape the malice of their enemies, is not very clearly ascertained. Be this as it may, from the Continent they never returned, and the future destiny of O'Neill is involved in uncertainty. The more generally received account represents him as dying in Rome, at the age of eighty, and assigns to the same place the graves of his two sons, and of O'Donnell.

Of the same era with the chieftain whose fortunes we have just recorded, united to him by sympathy of sentitiment, and the companion of the most important portion of his career, was HUGH ROE O'DONNELL. The house of O'Donnell was only less celebrated and powerful than that of O'Neill. Hugh was the eldest son of Sir Hugh O'Donnell, chief of Tirconnell, and succeeding early to an inheritance of vast power and extent, it became an object to every party to secure his adhesion. His fosterage, that strange custom of the Irish which, separating the child from the parent, entrusted the direction of the first years to a stranger, had been passed with Cahir O'Dogherty, a chief connected with O'Neill. Knowing the position this youth would fill, and hearing fresh stories every day of his youthful popularity, Sir John Perrott and his council formed a design, as infamous and as extraordinary as any in history, to seize him while yet a lad; and a ship laden with sack, of which the Irish were extravagantly fond, was sent to Lough Swilly. Thither flocked the neighbouring chiefs and people, and among these Hugh. Unsuspecting any design, he and his friends went on board; were at once seized; the vessel stood out to sea, reached Dublin, and delivered Hugh to the council. He was thrown into a dungeon, and for three years held fast in prison. At length, in company with Henry and Art O'Neill, sons of Shane, who had also, on another occasion, been seized, he escaped from his gaolers, eluded their pursuit, and, after three days of unparalelled suffering from the most inclement weather, during which Art O'Neill perished, arrived, with scarcely life remaining, at Glendalough, the fastness of the O'Byrnes, then in alliance with O'Neill. By their aid, and under the guidance of a confidential servant of O'Neill, he contrived to elude VOL. XXXII.-NO. CXCI.

the vigilance of the English garrisons, and crossing the Liffey at a ford above Dublin, passed through Meath and Louth, and so on to Dungannon, where Hugh O'Neill himself, in person, received him.

To relate the career of O'Donnell, down to the period of the defeat of the Spaniards, at Kinsale, were but to repeat the story of O'Neill. After that fatal blow to the rebel struggle, he appears to have abandoned the hope of prolonging the contest with such troops as he and O'Neill could then bring into the field: and, accordingly, he embarked with Don Juan and the Spaniards for Spain. He was kindly received by Philip, and promised ample assistance of men and money; but, after waiting nine months at Corunna, in expectation that the king would fulfil his promise, his impatient spirit could rest no longer, and he started for Valladolid, where the king then On the journey, he was seized with a fever, of which he died, the 10th of September, 1602, at the early age of twenty-nine years, leaving behind him a reputation for valour, military talent, and political foresight, second only to O'Neill-and for independence, disinterested and straightforward truthfulness of conduct, incomparably the first of his country

was.

men.

Of the queen's captains opposed to these chiefs, the most celebrated, and the most successful, was Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy. To the energy, prudence, military skill, and determination of character of this general, more than to any other cause, the complete extension of the dominion of England over this island may be ascribed. He was of noble birth, being the second son of Lord Mountjoy; was originally intended for the bar; and had studied at Oxford, with the highest distinction. A singular instance of his early aspiring and selfconfidence is narrated by Moryson: "While yet a child, his parents having had his picture taken, he insisted on being drawn with a trowel in his hand, and the motto, Ad re-edificandam antiquam domum.' In 1594, his elder brother died, and he succeeded to an inheritance, embarrassed by the folly of three generations. His grandfather had accompanied Henry VIII. to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and shared

"

2 T

in all the extravagance of his reign; whatever property survived his expenditure had been either lost by the neglect of a father, who, indulging the expensive dreams of alchemy, had no leisure to bestow on the ordinary affairs of life-or dissipated by the profligate career of a brother, who, in a few years, effectually ran through his life and his means. Aspiring, taught in the discipline of adverse fortune, self-denial, and study, Lord Mountjoy became the architect of his own greatness. In his domestic affairs unhappy for his ardent attachment to the daughter of Essex had been rejected by her father, and the lady coerced to marry Lord Rich-his whole mind was bent on action. Sparing in his confidence, reserved, selfrelying and self-possessed, slow of anger, and determined in his purpose, he steered his way successfully through the currents of faction and intrigue, and over the obstacles of a narrow fortune, and unprosperous circumstances; and having at length obtained in Ireland an adequate field for the exercise of his great qualities, acquired an eminence of fame and station, inferior to no general or statesman of the age. James, among whose faults illiberality in rewarding those who served him cannot be reckoned, created him Earl of Devonshire, and bestowed on him a considerable grant of lands.

After his return from Ireland, he, unfortunately for his own fame and her honor, met Lady Rich, the object of his early affection. Her divorce from Lord Rich ensued, and was followed by her marriage with Mountjoy. Their youthful attachment, the unjustifiable cruelty of Lord Essex in severing them, and, if we credit the annalists, much to condemn in Lord Rich's own conduct, unquestionably

soften the culpability of this error, but cannot wholly excuse it, or remove the shade it throws on Mountjoy's character and reputation-a character and reputation otherwise of unblemished lustre.

On the stormy period of which we have treated, one only name of those connected in any degree with Ireland, sheds the soft and humanizing light of literature the name of SPENSER. At Kilcoleman, in the county of Cork, his great poem was penned; and from the beautiful country which surrounded his dwelling he derived no little of its scenery. It was there, too, that Raleigh paid him that visit, which has been celebrated in his own immortal verse, where the earlier books of the "Faëry Queen" were read, and the praises of his guest stimulated its completion. That meeting would, indeed, be a scene and subject for Mr. Landor's next imaginary conversation. The two worlds of reality and of imagination, of action and of contemplation, rise in their whole extent before us, as we pronounce the names of the discoverer of Virginia and the author of the "Faery Queen." Kindred in their genius, kindred in their fates-what did they not accomplish? The hero, from whose energy the spirit of British enterprise received the impulse which has extended its supremacy to the remotest extremities of the globe; the poet, whose genius gave the first inspiration to a literature the noblest in the world. What, too, did they not suffer? Raleigh perishing on the scaffold, after years of imprisonment, the victim of calumny and injustice; Spenser terminating a life which experienced every variety of human vicissitudes, by a death of want and

sorrow.

B.

THE trials for high treason have just closed the special commission at Clonmel has been adjourned to the 5th of December, at which time, if it be resumed, it will be but for the trial of some few misguided countrymen who were taken in arms in the late abortive insurrection. The advanced period of the month at which these proceedings terminated, leaves us no time for entering on the vast field of commentary which the trials themselves, the incidents connected with them, and the traitorous purposes which they disclosed, would naturally present to us. In a very few hours these pages must be in the press, and we can only avail ourselves of the present opportunity to glance at some few of the most prominent considerations which these all-important proceedings suggest.

In the first place, then, we cannot but express our heartfelt satisfaction, and in this we are convinced that we have the concurrence of every rightminded and loyal subject of the realm, that these trials have resulted in the entire vindication of the law. The language of defiance is heard no longer; earnest entreaty and respectful supplication is now substituted in the place of insolent and audacious menace. But a few months ago, one of the rebel leaders wrote thus to her Majesty's representative in this country:

"Whichever field of battle you prefer the Queen's Bench, or the streets and fields; whichsoever weapon-packed juries or whetted sabres; 1 trust, I believe, you will now be stoutly met. One party or the other must absolutely yield: you must put us down, or we will put you down.'

This was the language of Mr. Mitchel in March last, and he is now undergoing the well-merited penalty for his crimes in Bermuda-the leaders with whom he was associated are lying under the heaviest sentence of that law which was so defied, and the followers who were goaded on by their vile counsel to array themselves for battle,

in the city or in the field, have been utterly broken up; and this, thank God, with but comparatively little amount of human suffering, not more than about twenty of the unhappy peasantry having to lay the loss of their lives to this wicked attempt at insurrection, and some few hundreds undergoing a temporary imprisonment under the extraordinary powers with which it became necessary to invest the Lord Lieutenant. From our hearts we rejoice at this result, and feel it to be matter of most devout gratitude. We feel that in the midst of all the horrors with which Europe has been devastated-the carnage which has polluted her fairest cities-the savage barbarity which has deformed her population the bankruptcy and ruin which has invaded every class—and all the wild commotion and unbridled passion which universal anarchy has diffused, these countries have been preserved, we may say, unscathed, and that we have got a fresh assurance of a long continuance of that well-regulated liberty which no other country of the world enjoys in so great a degree, and which no other state of things could so effectually

secure to us.

We cannot but feel that it is among the very worst consequences of party connexions that some persons are found almost to lament the issue of these trials, because they have been conducted by a Whig government. A more melancholy feature in the history of faction could not well be disclosed. We will not be suspected of any partiality towards the present ministry, whose tampering with sedition and truckling to intimidation we have never ceased to denounce. Had it not been for the encouragement which they ever extended to the late Mr. O'Connell, the patronage with which they invested him, and the honours which they conferred on him in return for his parliamentary support while he still continued his seditious career, we would not now be writing on state trials, nor would we be living under a suspended habeas corpus. If it be