the evidence in the case, and left no material point untouched. It took four hours and a half in the delivery, having been begun at a quarter before rine, and having ended at a quarter past one. He was followed by the other counsel upon both sides, the general reply being of course left to the lessor of the plaintiff. On the twelfth day of the trial the judges delivered their charges; that of the Chief Baron was cautious, dignified and impartial. Barons Mountney and Dawson took opposite views, the former giving what was almost a direction to the jury to find for the lessor of the plaintiff, while the latter leant strongly in favour of the defendant. At length the jury retired. They were absent for two hours, and at the end of that time returned with a verdict for the plaintiff. We do not know if at the period the public was as much in the habit of giving expression to its feelings on the issue of a trial, as it has been on some occasions of late. Certainly if it was, we should be very much surprised if the walls of the Court of Exchequer were not made to ring with a cheer of applause at the verdict which was handed down. For our own parts, after reading over this strange old trial, we acknowledge that all our sympathies are with the lessor of the plaintiff, and that we have a conviction of the truth of his wild and romantic story. It is curious, however, that notwithstanding his success, he left his uncle in the enjoyment of his title, and to the day of his death never assumed any appellation than that of James Annesley, Esq. Whether any private compromise was entered into, or whether he feared the further investigation which would have preceded his admission to the House of Lords, we know not, but so the fact is. He died in England in 1760.

THE DENTIST'S SPADE.

A TRUE TALE, BY F. T. PORTER, ESQ., J.P. I LIKE a Sunday walk: perhaps I enjoy it more for the marked contrast it presents to a week-day stroll; but a Sunday walk, in any tolerable weather, with any tolerable companion, is a great treat. On you go through the city to the nearest point where you can emerge into the suburbs, and, on your way, you meet not the disagreeable people whom you have to encounter on week days. You may meet with care-worn aspects, you may be importuned by vagrant mendicancy, but you cannot almost read in the faces of those who pass you by, their individual anxieties. On a week day, especially on the fourth day of the month, it is a penance for your sins to mark the countenances of those you meet. The runners of the Banks would lead you to suppose that there were more "Wandering Jews" than ever romance conjured into a fancied existence; and every other being on whom your eye glances, plainly indicates his business of paying, or being paid. But on Sunday, the devotional exercises peculiar to the day seem to leave a visible influence on the countenance: there is peace and rest, perhaps a very short respite from toil and its fatigues— from avarice and its cravings-from poverty and its

responsibilities, but still there is a respite. The current of human existence runs for six days over rocky rapids, or between narrow banks,-its surface is broken, or its velocity is increased; but on the seventh, it glides with noiseless and almost imperceptible movements in a placid channel, deep and expanded. I love, on such a day, to see the face of society assume even a temporary smile, and to mark the occasional indications of enjoyment, in relaxation from toil and relief from the cares of worldly pursuits. I know not whether I have been too poetic, or too prosaic, in attempting to express my love for a Sunday saunter; but, however, I had one on Sunday last, when, with a friend, I betook myself along the splendid line of quays, and emerged from the smoke of Dublin at the noble institution, doomed, I fear, soon to yield to the attacks of a centralizing policy-the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham.

My friend Jack Vickers, when we reached the farther end of the avenue issuing forth on the Circular road, remarked that the door into the grounds so long used as a public cemetery was open, and suggested that we might as well go in and view the present state of that extraordinary place known so long as "Bully's Acre," or the "Hospital Fields," and in which so many Irish worthies were deposited, from the days when Brien Borhoime defeated the Danes, and died victorious, to the period when Daniel Donnelly wrested the palm of pugilistic prowess from an English competitor. It was a most extraordinary place indeed; for, devoted to the interment of the dead, their rest was seldom undisturbed, and it formed an exception to the general rule of the grave being "the bourne from which no traveller returns," as, in most instances, the corpse which was "trenched in" amidst sorrowing friends and moralizing acquaintances in the day, was most unceremoniously pulled out again at the "witching hour of night," and jolted into town for the purpose-as the late Professor Macartney said- of "extending its utility beyond the mere term of life, and affording the means of increased knowledge to those who survived it" or, as the vulgar notion was in my childhood, to be made an "ottamy" of, and have its fat turned into "spermaceti," and its bones"biled into castor oil."

I entered the "Hospital Fields" with Jack: we encountered only an old soldier and a young dog-the former very civil, the latter very snappish. The grass had grown, and withered, and grown again, only to rot like the festering remains of decayed mortality beneath; some shrubs had been planted, but they appeared ill chosen and ill thriven; and, amidst stones partly concealed by the decayed herbage, and holes made for shrubs which had never been planted, we picked our steps to the centre, and sat down on the remains of a monument which, if it had been erected to puzzle posterity, has fully answered the expectation of its architect.

And here we sat for some time in silence, not saddened, not subdued by the memories of the past, but quietly contemplating the prospect that lay before us. Directly below were the splendid buildings appropriated

to the passenger and goods traffic of the Great Southern Railway; and an engine, a fit emblem of human ambition, was fuming, "impatient of delay," and anxious, apparently, to lead the train which would follow o'er the smooth and easy track, but at once leave its leader, or its leader leave it, as soon as rough or difficult obstacles were met; whilst, beyond, we had the varied and undulating surface of the Phoenix Park, and the rich country around it, to behold and admire. I am not about to attempt even a faint description of the scene; but I would suggest that if any of my readers wish to have a fine view of the conjoined effects of Nature and Art, they should seek an opportunity of feasting their eyes from the old cemetery of the Royal Hospital.

After a time I sighed, for I was sentimental; Jack Vickers whistled, for he was careless; the old soldier coughed, for he was asthmatic: and the dog snarled, for he was cross and suspicious. I broke silence and a biscuit, Jack produced a sandwich box and a pint flask of Madeira, and we became suddenly inspired with the utmost good humour. We shared our luncheon with the old veteran, and even the dog was not entirely forgotten, although he seemed inclined to take a bit off my finger along with a morsel which I offered him; and, as we were not disposed to depart very quickly, I commenced questioning the soldier about the former uses to which the place had been applied. From him I received little or no information: his dead had been buried not in "Hospital Fields," but had been hastily inearthed upon the Peninsular fields where they fell; and the place was beginning to become dull and uninteresting, when Jack Vickers exclaimed, "We had a very stirring row in that corner next the gate one evening, when I was apprentice to old Aby Colles, about thirty years ago." Jack had been a medical student in his youth—neither he nor I are boys now--and it needed but slight interrogatives to draw from him the narrative of his adventure.

"At the time," said he, "when I was an apprentice, we had generally to provide our own subjects, or to purchase them, at a very high price, from men who followed the calling of "sack-'em-ups ;" and as money was occasionally scarce, we used to form parties for the purpose of invading this and other burial grounds, and exhuming the bodies. I was then acquainted with a dentist, who was fast getting into a reputation which has since become second to none in Europe; and he had a brother who, with every manly and generous tendency, possessed a very strong inclination for anything that denoted enterprise or promised excitement. The dentist, Mr., had taken a country residence, and for his whim or amusement, he went into a shop in Kennedy's lane, and purchased a small garden spade; and, having given his address, the seller wrote the name and residence on the handle of the implement. The spade was sent home, and upon the same day a party was organized, of which I constituted one, to visit the cemetery and disinter two or three bodies which had been buried that morning. I mentioned to Mr. -'s brother the project we had formed, and he eagerly joined in the

undertaking. All was arranged, and we drove out to this place, left our cars at a little distance, and entered the ground, determined to work silently and quickly. However, our volunteer friend had provided himself with his brother's spade, and certainly used it with wonderful dispatch, although not so noiselessly as might be wished. But we had been watched-we were seen entering the cemetery, and a body of men, armed with every rough weapon that anger could suggest, came suddenly upon us. We had to retreat, and made a running fight until we reached the wall, and there our volunteer associate was attacked by a man who, with fearful imprecations, declared he would have his life.' Blows were quickly interchanged, the combatants closed, an a fierce struggle occurred, which was terminated by our associate urging his antagonist to the wall, and very speedily pitching him over;-the depth at the other side was at least ten feet, although where the encounter occurred, was only a foot or two lower than the wall top. The man fell, exclaiming that he was murdered; he groaned heavily, and we succeeded with great difficulty, and not without some severe bruises from sticks and stones, in effecting an escape from a scene where we felt almost fully convinced we had left a warm corpse in our attempt to obtain a cold one.

"On reaching Dublin I accompanied my associate to the house of his brother, the dentist, who was greatly alarmed at our appearance, and still more at our narration of the adventure. When it was concluded, he eagerly asked where was the spade? and on being apprised that it had been left in the cemetery, he exclaimed that we would all be hung, or at best transported. 'I knew,' said he to his brother, that you would get yourself into an infernal scrape sooner or later, and now your only chance is to set off on foot, and make your way to Naas. I shall have an inside seat taken in the Limerick day-coach for a gentleman who will get in there; make your way to Limerick, and we will try and manage a passage for you to get abroad from some southern port." Arrangements were made with brief despatch, our companion departed, and the dentist retired to an uneasy bed, perplexed by fears of coroner's inquest, wilful murder, hue and cry, apprehension, trial, conviction and execution of his unlucky brother.

Next morning, he had scarcely finished his breakfast when he was apprized that M'Donough, the peaceofficer, required to see him. The dentist admitted the unwelcome visitant, and was informed that Alderman Darley and Major Sirr had directed M'Donough to insist on the immediate presence of the dentist at the head police-office, and also to prevent any communication between him and any other person before he reached the office. There was no further explanation, and indeed the dentist was prudeut enough to refrain from any question beyond asking if he might take a car. This was at once acceded to; and as the peace-officer and his quasi prisoner were getting on the vehicle, a woman rapidly approached and screamed forth the dentist's name. He ascribed this circumstance to the grief or resentment of a bereaved widow or sister, who beheld

in him one of the murderous authors of her misery; but the car rapidly drove off, and the police-office was reached without any further incident or interrup ion.

The office was crowded, and at the table, amongst several other attornies, was seated the late Mr. William Hall. He and the dentist were acquainted, and a salute passed, as the latter took his seat before the bar, very near Mr. Hail. The magistrates were in their private room, engaged in some conference or consultation, and after the lapse of a minute or two, the dentist ventured a word to Mr. Hall.

"This is a very unpleasant business, Billy." "Very annoying indeed," replied the other; "I have not met a more unpleasant affair for some time."

"Billy, would a little money be of any avail?" "Why, my dear fellow, don't you know that thirty pounds would put an end to it altogether."

"Thirty p unds! don't say another word, here's the money. I depend on you that all will be right, but are you sure that thirty pounds will do?"

The magistrates entered, and Billy Hall immediately proceeded to express his great gratification, that it would not be necessary to go any further with the charge then pending before them. "In fact," said the worthy attorney, "it is impossible to prosecute the case further, for the respectable gentleman, whose name was alleged to have been forged, has paid the bill, aud it is now only necessary for me to hand it over to him, in your worships' presence."

With these words he delivered a bill of exchange for thirty pounds to our friend the dentist, who found his name written as drawer upon it, in a manner closely resembling his own signature. Evidently surprised, he exclaimed that he thought he had been sent for on another matter.

"What other matter, Sir ?" enquired Major Sirr. "Oh nothing, nothing Sir," said the enraged but fearful dentist, who felt that an explanation which would relieve him from the liability just incurred, might involve his brother in an accusation of dreadful import.

"Perhaps," said a peace-officer, "the gentleman knows something about a spade which we have below. We stopped a young vagabond pledging it on the Coombe, and it appears quite new. There was a name and direction on the handle, but the fellow scraped it almost entirely out. We have found, however, on enquiry in Kennedy's lane, that this gentleman bought such a spade at Bryan Murphy's the day before yesterday."

"That spade," replied the dentist, "is gone from Dublin. It was bought for a friend, and is forty miles away by this time."

"Then what other business were you thinking of?" resumed the inquisitive major.

"Perhaps," suggested the worthy alderman, "his anxiety refers to the young woman from Dolphin's Barn, who is charged with concealing the birth of her infant, and who so obstinately refuses to tell who is its father." "Alas for the depravity of man," said the Major; "shall we never be free from vice and its consequences, sin and sorrow, crime and punishment!"

"Why Major," said the dentist, taking courage, “I don't think you will be quite free of them in a hurry, and if you were, there would be little use in police-offices, and magistrates, and peace-officers; but I'd like to know who is the acceptor of this darling bill, for by G-, I'll make him pay it if I can."

"Fie sir!" said the major, "it is plain that a mistaken lenity has led you to adopt a forgery, and I only hope that there may be more of them in circulation, for now having paid one, you cannot refuse the others; and as it is, I have a strong inclination to fine you for irreverent and blasphemous swearing."

"Don't mind it, yer worship," said the dentist, "I won't swear any more; but when I get out of this, I think I'll curse a bit."

He departed, having paid his thirty pounds for a forgery of his own name, and had no consolation beyond discovering, which he did very soon, that the fellow who had been thrown over the wall was not dead, nor even materially injured, and had taken his beating without making much noise about it, once it was over. The spade had been found by some poor vagrant, who sought quietly to dispose of it. The brother was brought home again, and the dentist was forced to acknowledge, amongst his bantering associates, that the spade had turned up 66 a trump" for the forger.

NOCTES LOVANIENSES.

O'Neill's letter to James I.-Carr Earl of SomersetCamden's Annals-The Spanish Armada-Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam-Archbishop Loftus-Execution of Hugh Gaveloc-Monastery of Adare.

Two evenings after the obsequies of the young page, Father Mooney and his colleague Purcell were seated in the little library talking over the event which had spread consternation through all Brussels, and hazarding various conjectures anent the motives which might have led to the commission of such a fearful crime.

"For the present," observed the Provincial, "the whole affair is shrouded in darkest mystery, but I trust that Providence will sooner or later overtake the murderer, and hold him up to the execration of all mankind. For my own part I am convinced that the atrocity was instigated by some of those who bore a deadly hatred to the great earl of Tyrone, and who at present have an interest in his plundered domains."

"But father," asked Purcell, "what could the undertakers or planters, as they are styled, have to apprehend from a mere stripling, like poor ill-fated young Bernard? Surely King James, the crowned pedant who now reigns, never entertained a thought of restoring Tyrone even to a portion of his vast estates!"

Strange as it may seem to you," replied the Provincial, "some of the undertakers did fear that King James would reverse the outlawry, and call back Tyrone to Ireland. As you may not be aware of the fact, I may as well

tell you that there was a negociation afoot for Tyrone's recall from Rome, and that James's prime favorite, Somerset, encouraged the noble exile to memorial the king for an act of oblivion and indemnity. Tyrone adopted the minion's suggestions, and just three years ago, wrote to the the King, stating that he had given no other cause of just indignation, than leaving the royal dominions without licence, having been thereunto constrained by unjust vexations, and sundry oppressions of some of his majesty's miuisters."* 'Tis likely enough that such an appeal to mercy might not have altogether failed had Somerset continued in James's favour: but in the following year the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, in which the minion and his countess were accomplices, and for which both of them would have been sent to the block, had they not possessed some secret seriously affecting the royal character, put an end to all correspondence between the king and the Earl of Tyrone. The latter died last year; and, although his brother Cormac is now a prisoner in the Tower of London, 'tis not unlikely that the good offices of our Archdukes, Ferdinand and Isabella, would have been employed in behalf of him and his lamented nephew. Intervention of the sort would not have been slighted, and it is for this reason I conjecture that the young lad's death was compassed by some of those undertakers, as they call themselves, who have an interest in his forfeited estates. Be that as it may, I pray God to avenge the blood of slaughtered innocence."

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Withal, father," resumed Purcel, "'tis difficult to imagine that the king's pardon would ever have been extended to Tyrone; for, apart from the war of ten years which he waged against the English, the greatest of their historians has charged him with an act which lowers him to the level of a vulgar hangman. Accident has just thrown into my hands a Latin work by one William Camden,† entitled 'Aunals of England and Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth,' and I find that this very elegant and erudite author describes Tyrone in the most odious colours. Let me read the passages, for I have no doubt that you will criticise them fairly. Writing of the events of 1589, he says, 'Hugh Gaveloc (so called because he was a long time a chained prisoner), the natural son of Shane O'Neill, accused Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, of holding treasonable parleys with certain Spaniards, who were thrown on the Irish coast in the late wreck of the Armada. The Earl desiring to escape the charge, ordered that Gaveloc should be arrested and strangled; but finding that no one could be had to do the office of executioner-so great was the respect for the family of O'Neill-he himself, it is said, adjusted the rope, and put the unfortunate man to death.' A little further on, Camden gives us a portrait of the great Earl 'His body,' says he, was capable of enduring hardships, long vigils, and want of food; and as for his

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*The original of this letter, dated Rome, 1613 is among the domestic papers in the State Paper Office, London.

† Camden's Annales ad an. Salutis, 1589, were published in 1615.

mind, it was insatiable, equal to any sort of state craft, skilled in warfare, and profoundly versed in dissembling, so much so, that most people regarded him as born either for the great weal or the great woe of his country.'"

As

"You have read quite enough to convince me," interrupted the Provincial, "that Camden, of whom I never heard before, is a plagiarist, or, as the adage has it, a beggar dressed in stolen clothes. Without pretending to a very extensive acquaintance with classics, I remember the same description of Catiline in Sallust, and it seems to me that in this particular instance Camden hath appropriated another man's words. Doubtless the description is fair enough; but anent that power of dissembling, which I do not gainsay, I will merely observe that Tyrone acquired it in the school of Burghley and Cecil, who were masters of the craft; then, again, 'tis said that dissimulation is the art of kings, and that he who does not know how to dissemble is not fit to reign. So thought the great Emperor, Charles V.; and assuredly Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, was for a time a true sovereign in his own principality. for the insinuation that he hanged Gaveloc with his own hands, 'tis absolutely false, and I suspect that Camden was indebted to Sir Nicholas White, Master of the Rolls in Ireland, for the information he has left on record. Indeed the said White wrote to Burghley, the High Treasurer, that Tyrone did hang Gaveloc with his own hands, when he could get no other to do it; nay, and that he refused a ransom of 300 horses and 5,000 cows for the unfortunate man's life. This I had from Tyrone himself; but as you have alluded to the unfortunate Armada, I will premise some facts that may not have come to your knowledge, as you were in Italy when they occurred.-At the time when the Spanish ships were wrecked on the northern and western coast of Ireland, Fitzwilliam, the Lord Deputy, and Adam Loftus, the queen's archbishop of Dublin, distinguished themselves in a manner that I think should not pass unnoticed. The deputy, who was the most sordid man that ever held that high office, lost no opportunity of making a profit of it, and no sooner did he learn that some of the crews of the Spanish vessels had been saved in Galway bay and in Innishowen, than he marched with a considerable force to the antient City of the Tribes, where he caused the unfortunate sailors to be arrested and closely searched, for any valuables they might have on their persons. search however was fruitless, and so sorely disappointed was the avaricious deputy, that he ordered two hundred of those wretched men to be executed on the hill where the Augustin friars had their convent. Pursued by the curses of the people of Galway, who were unable to prevent this cruel butchery, Fitzwilliam hurried on to Innishowen, where, not satisfied with slaying many of the disarmed Spaniards, he carried off all the cattle of the district, burnt the haggards, and made prisoners of Sir Owen O'Toole and O'Doherty, although the former had entertained him sumptuously in his own house. On arriving in Dublin, O'Doherty was set at large, but the

The

aged O'Toole was thrown into the castle dungeon, where he died after a long imprisonment.

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It was precisely at this period that Loftus, the queen's rrehbishop of Dublin, made his celebrated reply to Burghley, the high-treasurer, accounting for what he termed the general backwardness in religion, and showing how it might be remedied. A few extracts from that remarkable document, of which a copy has fallen into my hands, will show you how the Archbishop and the Deputy strove to forward the Reformation. Your Lordship," wrote Loftus, "hath most wisely considered that the sword alone without the word is not sufficient to bring the people of this realm from popery-a thing whereto they are misled over from their cradles. But I assure your Lordship that unless they be forced, they will not ever come to hear the word preached, as by experience we observed at the time appointed by the Lord-deputy, for a general assembly of all the noblemen and gentlemen of every county, after her majesty's good success against the Spaniard, to give God thanks for the same at which time, although the sheriffs of every county did their duties with all diligence, and wained all men to repair to the principal church, where order was taken for public prayers and thanksgivings unto God, together with a sermon to be preached by choice men in every diocese, yet very few or none almost resorted thereto, but even in Dublin itself the lawyers in term time took occasion to leave the town on purpose to absent themselves from that godly exercise. It is bootless labour for any man to preach in the country out of Dublin for want of hearers; but in mine opinion this may be easily remedied, if the ecclesiastical commission be put in force, and if liberty be left to myself to imprison and fine all such as are obstinate in popery-nay, and to send such of them as are able to bear their own expenses to England, for example's sake. The sooner this course of reformation is begun the better it will prosper, and the longer it is deferred, the more dangerous it will be.'"

"A strange device," remarked Father Purcell," and assuredly a most cruel mode of propagating a creed. Fines and imprisonment for what they termed recusancy, were poor arguments for the apostolicity of the new religion. Nevertheless, Loftus's lament over the failure of his mission reflects credit on the Irish Catholies and on the lawyers in particular. "Tis manifest, too, that the Irish did sympathise with the shipwrecked Spaniards."

"Most certainly,” resumed the Provincial, "and be it recorded to the honour of the women of Galway, that they provided shrouds and coffins for the mariners so inhuinly massacred by Fitzwilliam. O'Rourke, of Breffny, afforded protection to many of them, nay, refused to surender them to Bingham, the queen's governor in Connaught; and the MacSwynes, of Tirconnel, treated others of them with their wonted hospitality. As for Tyrone, he entertained some of their most distinguished

*The original of this document, dated Dublin, 22nd September, 1590, is in the S.P.O.

VOL. I.

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In

captains at Dungannon, thus bringing on himself the dark suspicions of the English, and giving Gaveloc a pretext for accusing him of initiating a treasonable correspondence with King Philip of Spain. Touching the manner of Gaveloc's death, however, and the reasons which compelled Tyrone to compass it, Camden is entirely mistaken; and to show you how sedulously his enemies laboured to blacken the character of the greatest Irishman of his age, I will now give you a brief and veritable account of the circumstances which preceded and accompanied the execution. Hugh Gaveloc returned to Strabane early in 1589, after having spent a year and a half in Scotland, where he met some of the survivors of the Armada, whom Tyrone had sheltered in Dungannon. Worming himself into their confidence they unbosomed themselves to him, and gave a glowing description of the hospitality which they had received in the earl's house, at the very moment when Fitzwilliam's soldiers were searching for them along the coast, from Sligo haven to the headlands of Inishowen. What the Spaniards may have said of the earl's devotedness to King Philip, I have not been able to learn, but an intercepted letter dispatched by Gaveloc to the deputy, left no doubt that he intended to impeach Tyrone of high treason, before the privy council. fact he wrote that he "had great matters to reveal, which would be more better for her majesty's commonweal than a thousand pounds," and concluded by craving his honor (the lord deputy) not to pardon any man of great estimation, and specially the man whom the bearer of the letter was to name, as he was forthcoming for matters of great importance,"† till he himself (Gaveloc) had repaired to Dublin Castle. The man to be named by the messenger was the Earl of Tyrone, who, as soon as the letter fell into his hands, resolved to keep close watch on the movements of the writer. Presuming that he had thus secured for himself the support of the English government, Gaveloc committed several murders and robbries on the people in and about Dungannon, till Tyrone, no longer able to endure such wan on atrocity, had him seized and tried according to the ancient custom in Ulster, where, as yet, there was no course of English law, judge, sheriff, or magistrate, and where, from immemorial time, each lord of a sept had unrestrained power to deal summarily with evil doers. The Lord Deputy was in Galway at the time of Gaveloc's arrest, and the Chancellor wrote to Tyrone, entreating him not to put the sentence in execution till his lordship had returned to Dublin. Out of respect to the Chancellor, and yielding to the urgent instances of his brother Cormac, Tyr ne gave the prisoner a respite of fourteen days, on the strict understanding that Bryan, Con, and the re-t of Gaveloc's brothers, should submit themselves to him, and that one of the three should always remain pledge for the other two by turns, and at his choice, stipulating at the same time, that if they failed to perform this within fourteen days, then Gaveloc should be hung without further delay. Gaveloc, confiding in his brother Con, agreed to the arrangement, but the latter, setting no value on + Gaveloc's letter in the S. P. O.

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