the future Gräfin, but the period arrived for the announcement. One evening he asked them if they could guess who the lady was. At once their tongues broke loose. "It is our little Lenchen!" roared out the cousin Franz. "Our little Lenchen!" reiterated the other three stalwart cousins; and they actually pummelled each other in accompaniment to their laughter, as expressive of their mutual congratulations. And the Aunt Caroline smiled and bowed her head, while the Uncle Hubert distended his eyes and let his jaw fall in real astonishment. And so it was the little Lenchen. Soon after, the Uncle Hubert, the Aunt Caroline, and the four cousins, were invited up to the wedding. And before winter came round again, the little Lenchen was established as lady GRAFIN von Grünthals, the lady of a fine manor, where she rules with as absolute a power as the despotic "Feenkönigin" herself. Having been accustomed to be petted and indulged, and, at the same time, loved by every being that came in contact with her, it is to be hoped that even the enthralled Herr Graf, the most absolutely metamorphosed being on earth, who watches with intense anxiety the slightest quiver of his little lady's eyelid, or the slightest curve in her eyebrow, will not succeed in making her one whit less loveable. This is a true tale we have told and brought to a close; but let us wind it up in the old fairy-tale style, by wishing they may be happy together to the end. MARIANA IN THE NORTH. BY CAVIARE. THE poplar trees were vague and blank, The world swung in a waking swood, She turned her eyes unto the morrow, She had arisen in the night, And, trembling in the north star's cold, Knelt in the sconces' flickering light, Before a crucifix of gold; Time plucked the darkness from her hair, Still, as the dark east held the morrow, The cracked, old-fashioned looking-glass, A wizard brightness-shot a mass, But looking wistful to the morrow. Her nun-like vesture reached the floor; Of suffering met her gaze, until Pity me, pity me, God!" she said. At times, when down the chimney's throat, And fashioned spectres from the dust; A smiting branch across the pane, And longing, praying for the morrow Mysterious noises gathered birth, Swam to the roof-top dull and slow, And wandered out upon the earth; Between the beatings of the clock The death watch trebled; underneath And with it came the stormy morrow; At last the eastern mist was riven, The brown lark rose with clamours loud; She cried, "He comes; I see him stand He walks upon the golden morrow, DR. MORAN'S MEMOIRS OF ARCHBISHOP PLUNKET.* A CAREFUL perusal of this volume convinces us that the author has not done justice to himself or his work by styling it a memoir. Such a designation, if we mistake not, is applicable to a summary or epitome of the most remarkable events in the life of an individual, compiled familiarly, and treating, as we have already implied, of the most salient features in the character, as well as the most singular passages in the career of the person whose name and fame the writer is anxious to eternize. A memoir is to a history what a faint sketchy outline is to a finished picture, with its effective colouring, admirable grouping, and all those other accessories by which the true son of genius almost imparts life and motion to the canvas. In short, a memoir bears the same relation to a history, that a pale photograph bears to a vivid portrait instinct with life, every feature and visible emotion so faithfully reproduced, that we only feel the limited power of the painter, when we would fin have the creature of his pencil respond to our greeting, or address us in well-remembered tones. We will not, therefore, be charged with hypercriticism for remarking that Dr. Moran has made a mistake at the very outset of his work; for in reality it is not a memoir, but one of the most perfect pieces of biography, as well as one of the most valuable contributions to the ecclesiastical and general history of Ireland in the seventeenth century, that has yet, or probably ever will, appear. The notices of Dr. Plunket's life which have preceded the work now before us might fairly be called so many memoirs; for not withstanding the laudable zeal of their authors, who had not access to the vast collections of original documents preserved in the archives of Propa. ganda, and the other depositories at Rome, and now for the first time brought to light, and admirably arranged by Dr. Moran, their efforts had only one result, namely, to keep us from forgetting that in the year 1681, the said Oliver, Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland, was brought to trial in London, where a jury of twelve men, affecting to believe the evidence of certain renegade friars and laymen, returned a verdict of high treason, and had him sentenced to die at Tyburn, with all the barbarous ceremonial of unlowelling, burning, and quartering. Let us, however, do them all the justice to which they are entitled, and acknowledge that their notices of the Primate, meagre and unsatisfactory in every other respect (and necessarily so for the reasons we have already assigned,) familiarized us with the Trial, if such a mockery of justice deserve the name, and taught us to believe and hold as a fact, which impartial history never can gainsay, that Oliver Plunket was doomed to a cruel death, not for treason to the crown of a worthless king, but for his Memoirs of the Most Rev. Dr. Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland, who suffered death for the Catholic Faith in the year 1681. Compiled from Original Documents by the Rev. P. F. MORAN, D.D., ViceRector of the Irish College, Rome. Dublin: J. DUFFY, 7, Wellington-quay, and 22, Paternoster-row, London VOL. II. fidelity to God, and to that religion of which he was a pontiff, and for which he laid down his life with a joyful resignation that finds no parallel, except among those who won the martyr's palm in the worst days of Nero or Diocletian. Far from undervaluing the labours of those who have hitherto endeavoured to give us a faithful narrative of the Life and Times of Oliver Plunket, we are fully prepared to give them credit for the very best intentions, while at the same time, we must confess that they had to contend with difficulties which rendered their undertaking anything but satisfactory to themselves or to their readers. The very meagre memoir appended to Arsdekin's Theology, the desultory notices of the Primate in the "Hibernia Dominicana," some letters among the Rawdon Papers, the correspondence in Carte's Life of Ormond, a few passages from the pen of Burnet, a mere sketch in Ware's Writers, and the very circumstantial report of the Trial, supplied the whole and sole materials, out of which they strove (how inadequately the work before us will shew), to elaborate a biography of this illustrious martyr. Hence, as an inevitable consequence, those writers to whom we allude, not only mistook and confounded dates, so much so that none of them was able to tell us with whom Dr. Plunket went to Rome, or at what precise period he returned to Ireland. But what is worse; they all left us in comparative ignorance of the state of Catholicity in this island during the Primate's episcopate; exhausting time and ink in a vain attempt to elucidate that dismal period by the baleful light of penal enactments, viceregal proclamations against those who clung to the old faith, and the questionable testimony of bigots and fanatics, high and low, literate and illiterate, who were as regardless of truth in all that concerned mere papists as they were uninfluenced by the commonest sentiments of humanity in their intercourse with that portion of the population, robbed of everything but their faith by the iron hand of might, and the specious fraud of parliamentary enactments. The materials, therefore, for a biography of Dr. Plunket, lacking nothing that was required to make it intensely interesting, complete, nay perfect, in its minutest details, circumstantial in all that concerned his public and private career, illustrative of the times in which he lived, and seasoned with ample notices of the eminent men among whom it was his destiny to move at home and abroad; the materials, we repeat, for such a biography, comprising all these essentials, were only to be sought in Rome, where Dr. Plunket's earliest days and the best portion of his maturer years passed tranquilly and honorably, and where his volumin us correspondence has been religiously preserved, till at last one was found possessing genius and industry to present to us all those most invaluable documents, in their chronological series, translating the Latin and Italian letters into English, giving us the latter in a'l the freshness of their quaint orthography, imparing to the entire an arrangement in every respect orderly, and a grouping that may be justly styled artistic. Had Dr. Moran done nothing more than what we have U MEMOIRS OF ARCHBISHOP PLUNKET. here attempted to describe, he would certainly have established strong claims to our gratitude and respect, -claims which we are satisfied will not be overlooked in Rome, where ecclesiastical learning is sure to meet, as it has ever met, its due reward. But he has besides heightened the value of his work with preface, appendices, and notes judiciously collected from contemporary writers, all of which contribute to form a faultless picture of the epoch on which he has thrown such a strong and new light. The novelty, if we may use such an epithet, combined with the minuteness of detail that absorbs our sympathies at every page of this volume, causing us to pause and ask ourselves as we proceed, "Is it possible that such things really were?" will in all likelihood secure for it popularity among a few by whom such lore has always been appreciated. But we would most respectfully suggest that even such a work as this, so replete with all that is calculated to render it charming, never can be popularized among the masses of our Catholic readers, unless the hierarchy and clerzy commend it to their perusal. For hierarchy as well as clergy it possesses all the characteristics that should enlist the interests of both; for as to the former, no matter how eminent their position and attributes may be, they will find in the pages before us, detached episodes relating to their sees and predecessors of which they must have remained ignorant, were it not for the zeal, ability and industry of Dr. Moran; and as for the second order of the clergy, this Life of Dr. Plunket will, or at all events should, excite them to a generous emulation in the same path, so seldom trodden since the days of Colgan, the O'Clerys, Wadding, Fleming, and Dr. Lanigan; and inspire them with sentiments of sincere complacency that one of their own rank has set them the example, Columbus-like adventuring into regions of history hitherto little known, or but partly explored, thus disclosing to our view scenes and events for a knowledge of which we must hold ourselves exclusively indebted to the learned author's research. Dark and terrible, in nearly all its phases, is the social aspect that has thus been presented to our view, but its gloom, we are proud to say, was irradiated by one grand luminary that shone upon it serenely for a season, and then went down gloriously, like an autumn evening's sun, in clouds of flame and b'ood. Surely then, we are guilty of no exaggeration when we state, that Dr. Moran's learned labours justly entitle him to the respect and gratitude of Irishmen, not only at home but abroad, wherever nomadic tendencies or hard necessity may have cast their lot, and at the same time we feel that we are only doing simple justice to his deserts when we assert, that he deserves to be regarded as an exemplar by the Catholic clergy of his native land. Let us not, however, be accused of striving after an impossibility, or meaning to insinuate that every priest should become a writer. We are well aware that such a state of things could not be realized among a class of men whose energies are sorely tried, and frequently overtasked, by stern and all important duties. Nevertheless, we would respectfully submit to the clergy of [May, this island, that they, as men intellectually in advance of their age, should be thoroughly familiar not only with the general history of their country, whose grandest feature is the heroic struggle made by their fathers for the preservation and transmission of the faith; but still more so, if possible, with the history of those particular eras which have been so persistently misrepresented by bigots and fanatics, or but feebly clucidated by apologists of our religion and national fame, who, doubtless, would have rendered us far greater services had they had access to original authentic vindications. Surely no one will charge us with presumption or a desire to dictate, when we assert that the people who have always regarded the priesthood as their best friends and surest guides, have a right to expect from their lips ample stores of that knowledge without which men are like aliens in their own soil, lost to all those grand remembrances which are so well calculated to purify and exalt, nay, and to attach them more fondly to the land of their birth. What sources of inspiration meet the priest wherever his lot is cast in this island! In the solitude of the country, the cromleach at which his fathers worshipped for many an age, before Celestine sent Patrick to overthrow the idol, and abolish the ritual of the Druids-the well in whose waters they were regenerated to the new life-the shingled oratory whose cyclopean masonry marks an era when faith was stronger than the arms that raised it-the -rich in symbolism, on which the devoted sculptor grey old cross exhausted all the resources of his art-the mouldering abbey where saint and sage prayed, taught, wrote their annals, and penned those magnificent copies of the sacred books which even now challenge the admiration of our greatest artists in this age of boasted civilization !—Living among so many hallowed memorials of the past,martyrs of time, and still more so, of man's barbarity— the priest, if he only avails himself of the works which throw such light on their foundation, uses, and vicissitudes, will be strongly armed with proofs of the antiquity and divinity of his faith, proofs indeed, all the more incontestible, because based upon that erudition which he has acquired in the schools. powerfully can a priest, well informed on all these subHow jects, influence the destinies of the people committed to his charge, and surely it were easier to imagine than describe the devotedness to the old faith which his words must keep alive in the souls of his flock, while they listen to him describing, either from the pulpit or in their social intercourse, the splen lour with which it was environed in the earliest ages, and the fidelity with which their fathers clung to it when, banned and driven from its grand old sanctuaries, it had to seek shelter on the hill tops, or in the recesses of our glens. As for the clergy residing in large towns and cities, they, too, are in daily contact with grand memorials of the past, for there is hardly a city or town in Ireland without its venerable cathedral, or some other architectural development to remind them of an era when the religion for whose uses these gorgeous temples were reared, was that which civilized and sanctified our island throughout its whole length and breadth. They are iu 1861.1 deed so many adamantine evidences of the antiquity of our religion, and surely it would be well to familiarise the people with the history of their foundation and vicissitudes. How delightful would it be to hear, from time to time, some preacher edifying and enlightening his auditors with historical allusions to those grand old monuments, the piety and genius that erected them, the great ones who knelt and prayed at their altars, and who happily found a last resting-place in their crypts, ages before that period when sacrilegious innovation pillaged, desecrated, and wrested them from their rightful owners! Need we add that the pages of Dr. Moran's work are sown thick with facts memorable and suggestive as any that we meet in the lives of the earliest confessors and martyrs of the Christian religion? Sermons of this character, we have no doubt, would tend to the improvement of every class of the people; and if any one objects to us that the Holy Scriptures, Fathers, and writings of the saints, should supply the sole matter of the preacher's discourse, we might easily sweep away such an assertion by referring to the Jesuit Segneri, the most celebrated of all the Italian pulpit orators, whose sermons teem with passages from Seneca, Cicero, Tacitus, Plutarch, and other profane writers. It would be almost superfluous to dwell on the opportunities which are within the reach of the clergy of this metropolis, for the promotion of the study of Irish history, for they now have easy access to libraries (hitherto closed against them,) abounding in the richest treasures of such lore, and also to a Museum of which crosses, croziers, bells, shrines, and reliquaries constitute he chiefest objects of attraction. The labours of the Archæological Society, too, should stimulate them, for assuredly we Catholics should not allow that field to be almost exclusively occupied by eminent men, who do Another, and in our opinion, a not profess our faith. still stronger reason for impressing this subject on the attention of the clergy might be adduced from the present system of miscalled "National Education," a single book of which disposes of the whole history of Ireland in a few paltry paragraphs, hardly worth remembering, while many pages, verse and prose, are devoted to the glorification of England, Scotland, and Wales. None but a slavish Irishman affecting an English accentthat invariably sounds like the ring of counterfeit metal, "National" if he -would presume to call this system knows anything beyond the drill serjeant routine that raises him to the grade of inspector. None know better than our clergy, that the people of this country are passionately fond of their history, and indeed we believe that it rests with them to enlighten the rising generation on this ever-important subject-to teach them that this is an island of glorious memories, a land of historic deeds, famed for piety, learning, and civilization, from the earliest ages, and the most devoted of all others to that great central sun of unity whose beams have never ceased to cheer us since the days of Celestine and Patrick. As to the schools established for the training of the opulent classes, we hold that they fail in their duty to parents and pupils, so long as they do not make Irish thus denying history an essential element in their course, Having devoted so much space to these remarks, which cannot be deemed inconsiderate, we will now return to Dr. Moran's invaluable work, and give our readers some idea of its most prominent features. When Father Scarampi, the minister accredited by Urban VIII. to the Confe lerated Catholics of Ireland, sailed from Waterford for Rome, he took with him five youths, of whom the most distinguished were Oliver: Plunket, and one named Brennan, subsequently Archbishop of Cashel. Plunket, as we learn from Dr, Moran's work, was a scion of the illustrious house of Fingall, and nearly related to the no less noble family of the Talbots. de Malahide. The five striplings confided to Scarampi were destined for the priesthood, and it would appear that they left the Irish shores, about nine months after the battle of Benburb, in which Owen O'Neill defeated the Scotch and English Puritans commanded by Georgo and Robert Munro. This we collect from a letter addressed by Rinuccini to Cardinal Panfilio, dated 30th December 1646, in which he informs his Eminence that he had commissioned Father Scarampi to present to him, along with other trophies captured by O'Neill's troops, the standard-general (cornetta generale) of the Puritan cavalry, taken in the foresaid memorable victory.‡ A second letter from Rinuccini seems to determine the exact time of Scarampi's departure, for he writes to the same Cardinal, (Feb. 5, 1617,) thus-"I seize the present opportunity-namely, Scarampi's departure-to send you three despatches and one cipher, detailing all that has transpired in the General Assembly, together with an account of a signal success which O'Neill has recently achieved in the Marquess's (Ormond's) quarters." The last allusion made in Rinuccini's correspondence to Scarampi's departure occurs in a letter addressed to Panfilio, Feb. 15, 1647, in which he states that "Wilfred Baron returned from France to Ireland, the very day on which Father Scarampi set sail, bringing with him two despatches, dated Ro.ne, 10th and 17th of December, 1647.§ The incidents of the journey, and the escape of Scarampi and his companions from the Parliamentary cruisers in the English Channel, as also from bandits in the Low Countries, are graphically described by Dr. Moran, and assuredly they offer a strange contrast to our modern mode of travelling, when steam-boats and *Haverty's School History of Ireland. Duffy, Dublin. Nunziatura in Irlanda, p. 185. + June 5, 1646. § Ibid. p. 198. railways render a visit to Rome as expeditious as it has been ruinous to freebooters, whether Flemings or Italians. On his arrival in the Eternal City, Pluuket—then in his sixteenth year-applied himself for a while to the study of rhetoric, and so netime later he and three of his companious entered the Irish College. The history of this establishment is exceedingly interesting; and although Dr. Moran has done much to make us familiar with many of the distinguished ecclesiastics who were educated there, (the greatest of whom unquestionably was Oliver Flunket,) we will not be deemed presumptuous for stating that many of its latest alumni,Dr. MacMahon, author of the "Jus Primatiale," Dr. Lanigan, the ecclesiastical historian, the two O'Conors, Mathew and Charles, (for no matter how lamentable some passages in the career of the latter, his "Rerum Hib. Scriptores" will always stamp him as a most learned man), Clinch, author of "Church Government," and others, including the actual learned Vice-Rector, have given it a celebrity unsurpassed by any similar institution at home or abroad. Dr. Moran's notice of this establishment will be acceptable to our readers. "The Irish College for the secular clergy in Rome, as most of the other Irish Continental institutions, dates its origin from the times of persecution. Gregory XIII. (1572-85) had more than once contemplated the establishment of such an asylum for our nation, but the demands for arms and supplies made on him by the Irish princes then combating for their lives and religion, consumed the various sums set aside by him for this purpose. The bishops of Ireland, however, were persevering in their solicitations, and in a Relatio status of the Irish Church presented to Rome in 1625, the foundation of an Irish College is insisted on as a necessary means for supplying our suffering island with virtuous and learned pastors, and maintaining its connexion with the centre of Catholic unity." 66 Notwithstanding the repeated solicitations of the Irish bishops, it was only in the year 1627 that the college was at length established through the munificence of Cardinal Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV., and through the untiring exertions of the illustrious ornament of the Franciscan Order in the seventeenth century, Father Luke Wadding. An occasion soon presented itself, and, indeed a truly propitious one. Urban VIII. had on his accession to the Papal throne, nominated Cardinal Ludovisi Protector of Ireland. It was his desire, in which he was confirmed by his friend, Luke Wadding, to render to the Irish Church some important service calculated to perpetuate the memory of his protectorate. Without delay this idea was carried into effect; and we learn from many scurces, that it was the intention of his Eminence not merely to found the college, but to endow it with sufficient funds for the maintenance of a large number of students; death, however, cut short bis beneficent designs, and the sum which he was able to bequeath for its endowment being comparatively small, during the 170 years which the college lasted till its suppression by the French usurpers of Rome, in 1798, it was scarcely ever able to receive more than eight students within its walls. "At the period of which we now treat it was under the direction of the Jesuit Fathers, and it sent forth so many learned and distinguished missionaries who shed lustre on the Irish hierarchy, to which many of them were raised, that it won for itself in Rome the title of nursery of Bishops-"seminarium episcoporum." Indeed the 17th century may be justly considered a glorious era in the history of the Irish College.” In this seminary Piunket spent eight years, studying Mathematics, Philosophy, and Theology, and attending Lectures on Canon Law in the halls of the Sapienza, till at the termination of his academic course he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity, and was ordained priest in the year 1654. Meanwhile, the hopes of the Confederates in Ireland were utterly blasted; for owing to their own dissensions, fomented by the crafty doubledealing viceroy Ormond, Cromwell had trodden down. all resistance, commencing his bloody work in Drogheda, and pursuing his sanguinary triumph till every town in the whole island lay prostrate at his feet. The horrors perpetrated by Cromwell and his deputy Ireton, are amply and vividly described in the Introduction to the work before us, and we may add that Dr. Moran throws a new and strong light on that dismal epoch, by quoting a host of authorities hitherto unknown to the most studious investigators of our history. To return to Ireland at such a period, when hanging bishops and priests, and transporting thousands of the population to the West India islands was the order of the day, would have been sheer madness, and sensible of this, Dr. Plunket applied for permission to remain in Rome till some political change might enable him to revisit his native land. His request was granted, and in 1657 he was appointed a Professor in the College de Propaganda, "where for twelve years he lectured on Theology, speculative and moral," filling at the same time other offices of importance in that far-famed establishment, During this protracted residence in Rome he was the intimate friend of all the great men who figure in contemporary history at that court, and particularly of Odescalchi, who at a subsequent period ascended the Pontifical throne under the name of Innocent XI. The condition of the Irish church at this period was truly lamentable, and the Pope, commiserating the spiritual destitution of the people, resolved to appoint bishops to some of the sees so long vacant by the death or exile of their former pastors. "At the close of the year 1668," says Dr. Moran, "there were only two Catholic Bishops in Ireland, Dr. Patrick Plunket, Bishop of Ardagh, and Dr. Owen M'Sweeny, Bishop of Kilmore. On the continent three other members of our Hierarchy, the Bishop of Kilfenora, the Bishop of Ferns, and the Archbishop of Armagh, lived in exile. No wonder, then, that the widowed churches of Ireland should have hailed with joy the 21st of January, 1669, the day on which the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda nominated four new bishops to vacant sees, i.e., Dr. Peter Talbot to the Archiepiscopal See of Dublin, Dr. William Burgatt to Cashel, Dr. James Lynch to Tuam, and Dr. Phelan to Ossory." Immediately after the nomination of the new bishops, Dr. Plunket was unanimously chosen to act as their representative at the Roman Court, an office of great importance, and the numerous congratulatory letters addressed to him on his appointment are full of interest, but none more so than that of his kinsman, Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin. "The Bishop of Ferns," writes the latter, "has requested me to unite with him in constituting you our agent in the Roman Court for the province of Dublin, to which request I have most readily assented. |