Jesus Christ, we beg of the Lord who has assisted you, and we solicit in your favour the happy success which your virtues have acquired. We write you this letter that you may lose the remembrance of your hardships and labourshardships and labours worthy of envy, since they have been for you a source of immortal glory. Receive our benediction full of tenderness; and while you have quitted your parents and abandoned your country in obedience to Jesus Christ and to us, be assured on our part that you have not found an exile, but a mother who loves you tenderly. You know, yourself, that the Roman Church bears that name truly; she will cherish you as a well-beloved daughter, who knows how to honour the British Isles, and fills with joy the souls of the just.

"Given at Rome, in St. Peter's, under the ring of the Fisherman, the 13th February, 1627, and in the fourth year of our Pontificate."

This romantic account of the daughter of the Earl Rory O'Donnell would appear to be partly corroborated by her own petition to Cardinal Barberino, dated 9th of February, 1632, of which the following is a literal translation:

"After having fled out of London from the hands of the king of England, and consequently from the danger in which I was of falling away from the Catholic faith, as is known to his Holiness and your Eminence; and after having quitted Flanders for special weighty reasons, and married Don John Edward Ocolehur (O'Gallagher), a distinguished gentleman of Ireland, my country, and of my blood, I now find myself in Rome-the bosom of holy Church, the city in which Christ's vicar resides where I have been domiciled many months with my said husband, a lady who followed me from Flanders, and a wet nurse who cares the son to whom it pleased God that I should give birth in Genoa. I am now in extremest want; indeed in such a state that, were it not for Cardinal Ludovisi, Protector of the Irish, and Cardinal de Bagno (who have shown me all the kindness in their power), I must have perished, like others, of hunger, cold, and other countless hardships. The said Cardinal-Protector excuses himself, stating that he is maintaining the Irish College in Rome at his own expense; that he is continually relieving the wants of others of my nation; that he is bestowing vast amount of alms on almost every pious institution in Rome, and that he cannot provide sufficiently for my requirements. Hence, being reduced to this most pitiable condition, lodging in two poor little apartments, procured for me by the almoner of the said Cardinal, and being some months gone in pregnancy, burdened with the persons already mentioned, and knowing none besides who can so effectually relieve my distress, I cast myself at his Holiness's and your Eminence's feet, beseeching you both by the bowels of the mercy of God our Lord to extend to me, now abased to such direful extreinity, (albeit of kingly biood, as every one knows, and reared in the royal court of the king of England as his daughter,) your immense clemency and commiseration, by granting me some pension till my affairs shall have been adjusted. God will abundantly recompense his Holiness and your Eminence's most illustrious house, and I will not fail to offer to the Divine Majesty my incessant and most ardent supplications that every blessing may be given to you both.

"Your Eminence's most devoted humble Servant, "MARIA STUART O'DONELL. "From my lodgings, Feb. 9, 1632.”

Notwithstanding this, however, it appears from a letter written by her [supposed] brother, Hugh Albert, Earl of Tirconnell, that he did not believe that she was his sister at all. It is quite clear that he knew nothing about her birth or flight, and from this it may perhaps

be inferred, that her father Rory did not continue to correspond with his countess after his flight, and perhaps never heard of Maria Stuart, his daughter. We place the documents in a translated form before the reader, and leave him to draw his own inference. They may lead to discover more evidence in connexion with this remarkable personage among the lovers of Irish history on the Continent.

"To FATHER LUKE WADDING.

"Having heard that a woman is going about those parts dressed in male attire, calling herself my sister, and defaming my house and myself with I know not what impostures, I have thought it right to request your Paternity, as a particular friend and patron of mine, as well as of the welfare and honour of your nation, to do us all a service, by having that person arrested and imprisoned in such manner as your Paternity shall think best, till her lies be exposed and punished as they deserve; by doing which you will infinitely oblige me. That God may preserve your Paternity is the prayer of "Your Son and Servant,

"De Sechem, "July 29, 1631."

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O'DONELL, Earl of TIRCONNELL.

On the flight of Rory, Earl of Tirconnell, his son Hugh was not fully a year old. This Hugh was known on the Continent as Hugh Albert, having, no doubt, received the latter name in confirmation. He was knight commander of the order of Alcantara, a general officer, and colonel of a regiment of Irish infantry in the Spanish service. He was born in the month of August, 1606, in the principality of his forefathers in Ulster. His father Rory, or Roderic O'Donnell, as already stated, was the last chief or prince of Tirconnell, in which dignity he was the successor of the " dauntless Red Hugh," his brother; and had in 1603 received, upon his submission to the crown of England, the title of Earl of Tirconnell in the peerage of Ireland, and a confirmation of the hereditary territories of his family to hold, thenceforth by the usual tenure; but neither of these did he long enjoy. The wife of the Earl Rory, and mother of his only son, was the Lady Bridget Fitzgerald, eldest daughter of Henry, twelfth Earl of Kildare, by his wife the Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the famous Sir Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, who, as Lord Howard of Effingham and Lord High Admiral of England, had borne so large a part in the defence of his country against the "grand Armada." Through this connexion there mingled in the veins of Hugh Albert, along with the blood of the early monarchs of his native land, that also of the royal Plantagenets of England, and with it the noblest and greatest of Britain, which has made the lustre of the name of Пoward proverbial. Through his mother, too, Hugh Albert was related not remotely to the royal foe of his father and his family, Queen Elizabeth; the Lady Frances Howard, Countess of Kildare, his grandmother, being a daughter of the marriage of Lord Howard of Effingham with a daughter of Henry Carey, first Lord Hunsdon, and consequently a granddaughter of the sister of Queen Anne Boleyne.

When Earl Rory died his only son was about two

years old; and his brother Caffar's son was aged about three years and a-half, when death deprived him of his father. For some years we lose all trace of them both; but, in all probability, both were confided to the charge of Caffar's youthful widow, the Lady Rose O'Doherty, who married secondly, Owen Roe O'Neill, the celebrated general of the confederate Catholics of Ulster in the war against the rebel Puritans. It may be presumed that she brought back these children to the archducal court at Brussels. From the "Livre des dispenses de l'Archduc Albert," governor of the Low Countries; preserved in the public archives in Brussels, and which extends over the years from 1612 to 1618, we learn that from 1615 the Earl (Comte) of Tyrconnell and Don Hugo O'Donnell were in the receipt of a modest pension on the civil list of his Imperial Highness.

As both boys were called Hugh, there was added to the name of him who was chief of his house, that of the Archduke his protector, who was in all likelihood his godfather in confirmation; and thenceforward he is generally styled Hugh Albert. About this time he was attached as page to the court of the Infanta Isabella, wife of Archduke Albert. As such he is named in a memoir on the diversity of origin and lustre of the nobility of Ireland, addressed to the king of Spain, about the year 1618, and attributed to Florence Conry, archbishop of Tuam, and Philip O'Sullivan Bearre, the historian. He is likewise mentioned as a page of the Infanta in Bishop Rooth's Hibernia Resurgens, printed at Cologne in 1621. Rooth's words are-" Nobilissimi ephoebi O'Nelli Tironenses et O'Donelli Tirconalliæ comitum lectissimorum stirpium stolones, quorum ille chiliarchæ regimenti hic inter honorarios principis Hispaniarum infantis ephoebos eminet, et Scoto Britannica, Angliæ, atque Hiberniæ nobilitatis sanguine descendit, actus uterque annuæ pensionis dimenso."

That the two young O'Donnells were brought up at the University of Louvain, we learn from Nicholaus Vernulæus, in his Academia Lovaniensis (p. 327) where he enumerates among the men of distinction who had been educated in that celebrated school, Albert Hugh O'Donell, Earl of Tyrconnell, Baron of Lifford, Lord of Lower Connaught, of the ancient stock of the kings of Ireland, and Hugh O'Donell, paternal cousin-german of the aforesaid Albert Hugh, who died a captain during the siege of Breda."

Thus we ascertain too, that Hugh, son of Caffar, embraced the profession of arms, and died when he had reached the rank of captain, at the age of about twentyone, during the famous siege of Breda under Spinola, in 1625-6. A narrative of that siege, translated into English by Captain Gerald Barry, a scion of the house of Barrymore, in the service of Spain, a work now exceedingly rare, was printed in a folio volume under the auspices of Spinola, at Louvain, in 1627. Barry, who does not conceal his own merits at this siege, speaks largely of the daring gallantry of some companies of the Irish regiment of O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who bore themselves truly like heroes; but though he mentions in detail those of his countrymen who fell be

fore the enemy, he makes no allusion to Hugh O'Donnell; and assuredly he would not have failed to do so had this youthful scion of a stock so renowned met his death in any action properly belonging to the events of the siege. It may be concluded thence, that either his health broke down amidst the feverish swamps of a camp in Holland, or else perhaps that he met a soldier's fate in some episode of the campaign, of which the siege of Breda was the great event. However this may be, he was buried far from Breda, in the church of the Irish Franciscans at Louvain, and in the same tomb which received, forty-four years later, the mortal remains of his mother.

To return to the recognised chief of the house of O'Donnell, Hugh Albert, the son of Rory, it is difficult to read certain correspondences of the Papal nuncios in Paris and Brussels, touching the candidates proposed for bishoprics vacant in Ireland, especially in Ulster, and the reports drawn up for the cardinals charged to take informations in these cases without feeling convinced, that the court of Rome continued to attach, between the years 1619 and 1640, a certain importance to the recommendations of the exiled representatives of those O'Neills and O'Donnells, who, in the previous generation, with little intermission, had for fifteen years sustained so gallant a struggle for their faith and fatherland against all the strength of Elizabeth. One cannot glance over these reports, of which several are preserved in the archives of the Irish Franciscan Convent in Rome, without a conviction that in the Roman court there were some who, like the Irish exiles, hoped against hope to see these illustrious heirs of the national and religious struggle, resume, sooner or later, with a better fate, the contest in which fortune had declared against their fathers.

It is surprising to see the almost royal tone which his instructors made this scholar of Louvain adopt in a letter, addressed by him at the age of thirteen, to the Cardinal-protector of Ireland, to exhort the court of Rome not to defer filling up the bishoprics vacant in Ireland. This letter bears date at Louvain, the 7th of October, 1619, and is preserved in the archive chamber of St. Isidore's Convent at Rome. It is quite impossible that a boy of that age could frame the sentences which his pen traced in that singular letter, which was dictated, no doubt, by the ecclesiastics who directed his studies.

Before the year 1631 we find him provided with a commandery of three thousand reals per annum, in the capitular order of Calatrava, of which he was a knight for some years previously. In December, 1634, the king of Spain, in a mandate addressed to his brother, the infant Don Fernando, recites how the Conde de Tyrconnell had complained to him that there were considerable arrears due on account of this commandery; then stating his military services for the space of eight years, five of which as a captain of lancers, and three with the regiment of his own countrymen, of which he was then in command. After acquainting the Infanta that O'Donell is embarrassed by these arrears, and

alluding to "the propriety of keeping him in my protection and service," his majesty further adds: "I hold it to be of much advantage, and desire that great account be made of the person of the said Conde, and that you honour and favour him as his quality and services deserve."

In 1637 we find him still in command of his Irish regiment, of which seventeen companies lay then in garrison at Gemappe, in the Spanish Low Countries.

In 1641, when the Irish rose up in arms, the eyes of many of his compatriots were naturally directed towards a man of his military experience and family renown. The agents of the Irish Catholics abroad communicated to one another concerning his intentions with reference to the national struggle then progressing. In the archive chamber of the Irish Franciscans in Rome is an original letter from Brussels, dated 6th of January, 1642; it is stated that it was rumoured that the Earl of Tyrconnell and Don Constantine O'Neill had set out from Spain for Ireland. Another letter reports that they are about to start thence for Ireland. At this time the Irish abroad were highly elated at the intelligence that their insurgent countrymen had possessed themselves of the greater part of Ireland, and were said to be marching, 60,000 strong, upon Dublin.

In a letter also at Isidore's from Edmond O'Dwyer, who was afterwards Bishop of Limerick, to the celebrated Father Luke Wadding, dated from a port in the west of France, on the 21st of September, 1642, the following rumour is recorded; "Here arrived out of St. Sebastian Colonel Wall's man This

Colonel Wall's man tells me for certane Tyrconnell is not dead, and avows to have seen one of his captaynes at St. Sebastian, who said he was well recovered, though every one said he was a lost man, and that he prepares himself homeward; God give it be true; by reason, beside his own valour, and that the prophesyes doe seem to speak of him, it will hinder the jarrs and Yet dissentions of many pretendours to that place. Constance O'Neill's wife said she was at his funeralls." Father Mathew O'Hartegan, one of the Irish agents in France, writes, a few days later (3rd October, 1642), to Wadding to acquaint him how Colonel Wall's man detained this long while in restraint in St. Sebastian, was of late released by O'Donnell's favour, and is come bither.

That Hugh Albert, son of Earl Rory, was dead at this time, and that the wife of Constance O'Neill was at his "funeralls," as she reported, is highly probable. We possess a contemporaneous notice of his death in Irish, in the handwriting of Michael O'Clery, chief of the Four Masters, in his copy of the Martyrology of Donegal-Bibliothèque de Bourgogne, 4639, at Brussels. We give a literal translation of this obituary.

"The age of Christ 1642, O'Donnell who was usually called Earl of Tircornell; i.e. Hugh, son of Rory, son of Hugh, son of Manus, was drowned in the summer of this year in the sea which is called Mediterranean, in assisting the king of Spain in the war which broke out between him and the king of France. In the month

of October of the preceding year, i.e. 1641, the old Gaels and old English of Erin, for the most part, began to rise up in war against the heretics, to free themselves from every oppression that was upon them. When the Earl O'Donnell, whom we have mentioned, heard of the breaking out of this war, he went in the presence of the king of Spain, and boasted of his own service, and of the death of O'Neill previously to him, and all the obligations that the Spaniards were under of aiding the Irish; and he therefore requested of him to give him aid, or if not, to permit him to go home to his native country. And what appeared to the king and to his council was not to let him go to Erin, but to send him into the sea-war to fight against the French."

That this notice of his death is correct (though wanting that exactness of date, which might be expected from the chief annalist of Tirconnell, of an event which happened in his own time) few will now feel disposed to doubt. At his death, which took place in his thirtysixth year, A.D. 1642, all the race of the celebrated Sir Hugh, son of Manus O'Donnell, prince of Tirconnell, were extinct in the male line, for Hugh, the son of Caffar, was slain, dying without issue in 1625, as we have already stated. All the O'Donnells therefore who, from 1642, figured at home and on the Continent, and are now so illustrious in Spain and Austria, and so respectable at home in Ireland, are the descendants of Con O'Donnell (the rival of Sir Hugh), who died in the year 1583.

The following translations of original documents connected with the history of Hugh Albert, the son of Earl Rory, are now given to the public for the first time, and cannot fail to excite a general interest. They have been copied and given to the writer by his learned and accomplished friend, Charles Count MacDonnell, now private secretary to Marshal Nugent.

"I certify that the V. Rev. Father Roche de la Cruz (Macgeoghegan), provincial of the Order of St Dominic in Ireland, descends from noble progenitors allied to many of the nobility of that kingdom, and that he has done great good by his preaching and example in his country for more than twelve years, during the whole of which he was head of his Order in Ireland. He is worthy of any ecclesiastical dignity in Ireland, and great benefit may be expected from his learning and piety, as also from his long experience in the cure of souls. I have hereunto signed my name at Brussels, Novemb. 3, 1626.

"O'DONELL, Earl of Tyrconnell."

"To CARDINAL LUDOVISI. "The untimely death of Hugh MacCawell, Archbishop of Armagh, compels me to obtrude myself with a new importunity on your most illustrious lordship. And indeed the same objections which I urged against strangers while the See was vacant by the decease of Peter Lombard, and when there was some difficulty about the election of a new bishop, present themselves once more. Wherefore I earnestly beseech you, my most illustrious lord and patron, whose favour and benevolence I have frequently experienced to my great contentment, that, for the sake of the public good, and the peace and tranquillity of the province of Ulster, you will not suffer any one but a native, and one born in the very province of Ulster, to be promoted to the said See. That province does not lack energetic labourers, who are nowise inferior to others in virtue, piety, learning,

and numbers. I therefore earnestly entreat your Lordship to have the goverment of that church committed to John Cullenan, Doctor of Theology, Bishop of Raphoe, a grave, prudent, pious, and learned man, who, according to the general opinion, is fit for every department of the ecclesiastical office. I now earnestly implore that you will effect his promotion: his own deservings entitle him to the dignity, and, as he is the senior of his native suffragans, he seems to have a pre-eminent claim to the appointment. Praying God to bless and preserve your Lordship,

Your devoted Son and client,
"O'DONELL, Earl of Tyrconnell.

"Brussels, 24th Feb. 1627."

"To POPE URBAN VIII.

"Most Holy Father-That singular kindness which your Holiness has always hitherto exhibited to me and my brother, the Earl of Tirone, shall never fade from our memory; and in sooth, the favors already conferred not only place us under everlasting obligations to your holiness, but embolden us to beseech additional ones. Wherefore we humbly prostrate ourselves at your feet, and implore that, of your Apostolic benignity, you will appoint to the See of Armagh, now vacant, some prelate of the province of Ulster, in which that see is situated. And although that province possesses certain persons fit for such a weighty responsibility, some of whom we have heretofore presented to your holiness, in order to close the mouths of adversaries, we venture to say that there is no one in the entire province more fitted for it (the See of Armagh) than Father Bonaventure Magennis, Penitentiary of the Lateran Church at Rome, a member of the most noble and antient family of the Magennises, cousin-german of the Earl of Tyrone, and my nearest kinsman. He is indeed a person full of piety, learning, and zeal, admirably suited to endure hardships and trials, and so venerated by the clergy, people, and nobility of the said province, that they are ready to peril themselves and all they possess for his sake. Wherefore, humbly prostrating ourselves at your IIoliness' feet, we beseech that of your Apostolic benignity you will deign to commit that charge to him. Thus will your Holiness make that See, us, and all ours, your eternally obliged,

"O'DONELL, Earl of Tyrconnell.

"Given at Brussels, 19th March, 1627."

O'Donell, Earl of Tyrconnell, Baron of Lifford, Lord of the province of Lower Connaught and Sligo, Knight of the Order of Alcantara, &c.

"Anxious to bear testimony to real worth, solicitous for the welfare of the province of Ulster, and having before my eyes God, who witnesseth the truth of what is asserted in these presents, signed with my own hand and seal, I certify that the Reverend Father Bonaventure Magennis, of the Order of St. Francis, descends from a most noble family of the province of Ulster-that he is related to me and many of the noblemen of the same province-cousin-german of my

brother the earl of Tirone, and nephew of the carl of Iveagh, knight of Rathfriland, and head of the most antient house of the Magennises. I further declare that he is a man of great promise and piety, well versed in literature, gifted with knowledge of many languages, possessing prudence and capacity for the management of public business, and great zeal for the promoting of Catholicity. Conjointly therefore with others, I deem him not only fit for any ecclesiastical dignity in the foresaid province, but also worthy of being preferred to every one else, and inost deserving of such high honor. And I further declare that the appointment of him will be a subject of congratulation to the people, nobility, and clergy, all of whom will regard it as a special benefit conferred upon themselves, should the foresaid Father be invested with such an august dignity. For my own part I will regard the appointment as a favour granted to myself and country, and will gratefully acknowledge it as such. With most earnest entreaty, therefore, I humbly beg the Apostolic See not to refuse the granting of my prayer. "O'DONELL, Earl of Tyrconnell. "Given at Brussels, Dec. 26, 1626."

O'Donell, Earl of Tyrconnell, Baron of Lifford, Lord of Lower Connaught, Knight of the Order of Alcantara, and Captain of the Spanish Artillery in Belgium, to all who shall inspect these, greeting.

"Whereas high worth deserves commendation, and truth should have its due, we testify by these presents that the Ven. Father N. Lynch, Provincial of the Friars Preachers in Ireland, and Master of Sacred Theology, is a man ranking with the most eminent-religious, learned, and prudent; endowed with the most singular predicates, of exemplary life, and rare erudition; by means of which he rendered considerable service to his compatriots while he was employed preaching the word of God in Connaught, and particularly in its chief town, Galway, where he was born of a most anticnt and potential family. We further declare, that he has great capacity for public affairs, in which he has had large experience, and that he is truly zealous in the spiritual government of souls. Wherefore, we pronounce him worthy of being raised to any episcopal see that may be vacant in his own land; and as the churches of Mayo and Achonry have been for a long time deprived of pastoral consolation, albeit nearly the entire of the diocesans are most sincere Catholics, it seems expedient and useful that he should be promoted to either of the said sees, the more so as he is a native of Connaught, in which these dioceses are situated. His appointment will be acceptable to the people and clergy; nor does he lack any talent befitting such a dignity. Anxious for the progress of the Christian Faith and religion, we earnestly desire that he may be promoted, and we have therefore subscribed these our presents with our own hand and seal, at Brussels, this xii. day of March, 1631.

"O'DONELL, Earl of Tyrconnell."

THE MAN WITH THE BLACK EYE.

BEING A SATIRICAL ALLEGORY UPON LIFE.

BY WILLIAM CARLETON.

THE mysteries of nature are inexplicable, of which I am, or was at least for a great portion of my life, a living proof. My family were well descended, and although sufficiently independent, yet it so happened that most of the male portion of them possessed a strong tendency to vagabondism. My father, for instance, who commenced life with a safe income of about eight or nine hundred a-year, contracted an ugly habit, soon after his marriage, of staggering in the streets as he went along, and it was also observed, that in those casual conversations which he had with such of his acquaintances as he happened to meet, he was generally affected with a desperate hiccup. My mother, who was a linguist, although she spoke only the English language, was very handsome, and exceedingly proud of her beauty. Many logical discussions upon the duties of domestic life took place between my father and her. She was extremely happy in epithets, and so far as my father was concerned, applied them to him with a volubility that excited his indignation very much. If we might venture a guess at that indignation, perhaps we might also take it for granted, that the epithets in question were felt to be too true. Taking my father's character and conduct as one side of a rat-trap, and my mother's epithets as the other, nothing on earth could fit more beautifully when brought together. My father occasionally gave her lessons in pugilism—without the gloves-but not always with either success or victory. Whenever his inability to maintain a perpendicular took place on these occasions, he came off what is termed second best, a fact which he generally discovered the next morning when he went to shave. Ten scores or traces, each score having cleared off the skin of his face in their way, were then visible before him, and defied the razor for the time. One evening, however, he came home able to maintain his perpendicular, although with some difficulty. As it was, he insisted on giving her another lesson in pugilism, which taught her the comfort of a horizontal position. The triumph of skill was his, and my mother came to the prudent resolution of never making any attempt at maintaining an ascendancy in the family-feeling, as she did, that the contest was every day becoming more unequal. The day in question might have passed without a conflict, but it so happened that she had been asked to a party on that evening-on which party she had set her heart. My father, in consequence of his pugilistic dexterity, as exemplified in domestic life, was not included in the invitation-a circumstance which excited his resentment to a high degree.

"Well," said he, "as I am not to be there, neither shall she; I shall put a stop to that move. She shall remain quietly at home. Divil a thing like domestic tranquillity."

VOL. I.

He accordingly went to her dressing-room, and with a tumbler of punch in his hand, made her a low bow, and having drank her health, finished it.

66

"My darling," said he, you are for the party this evening ?"

"Yes," she replied, "I am; I hope you have no objections ?"

"No," said he, "not the slightest-only that you shant go; that's all."

"Oh!" she replied, "thank God I am my own mistress."

"That may be," he returned, "but thank God you are not mine. I have a notion on this subject, and it's like a dream to me that you shall go to no party from which I am excluded."

"On this occasion I shall have my way, sir," she replied; "and so long as I am not excluded, I shall accept every invitation I receive."

We shall not dwell upon the war of words which followed. It is enough to say that my mother did not go to the party, but, on the contrary, went to bed that night with a black eye. This she discovered more fully the next morning at her dressing-glass, although she had certainly suspected it before, and at meeting my father at breakfast she addressed him as follows:-

66

Now, sir, you see the consequences of your own handiwork," she said, pointing to the discoloured eye; “and mark me, I feel a presentiment as sure as existence, that the babe I am carrying, whether male or female, will bear upon it the disgraceful stigma of your cowardice and brutality."

My father laughed at her prediction as a good jest, but when I made my appearance in six weeks afterwards, it was found that the force of imagination had corroborated her prophecy, and I presented as fine a specimen of the black eye as ever was witnessed in a pugilistic contest. My father hung his head for a time on witnessing such an extraordinary phenomenon, aud attempted to console my mother, who was deeply affected, and shed bitter tears on an occasion so mysterious and wonderful.

"Tut," said he, "you alarm yourself unnecessarily ; the matter wont signify; in the course of a short time, when the child begins to grow and arrive at his natural colour, you may rest assured that the mark will disappear, and he will resemble other children of his age. There will be many such interesting ornaments in the world so long as it goes on; so my young customer, let your practice be, when you grow up, to give to others as many of the same kind as you can, if it were only to keep yourself in countenance!"

He then grinned and sniggered at my mother, as if the matter was nothing but a good joke, for, unfortunately, he was one of those hardened and besotted men whom no calamity or visitation, however severe or significant, could lead to reflection or serious

ness.

Before I was a week old he had christened me "Little Black Eye," and was in the habit of assuring my mother,

C