were very diminutive, the interior not exceeding twelve feet by twenty-four. An arched chancel, at the east end, supported the cloicteach, or round-tower belfry, scarcely a vestige of which is now discernible, while of the windows the ruins do not present a trace. The doorway, which was unfortunately destroyed some years since, and the materials removed to the mainland, was built more Romano, a semi-circular arch, composed of well-cemented blocks of calpe, springing from square imposts, exactly similar to the ancient Saxon doorways, with the exception of a greater or lesser lateral inclination. It measured upwards of six feet in height, two feet in width below the imposts, and three feet at the base. The depth of the wall exceeded two feet. This was the original prebendal church of Howth, to which the establishment was transferred by Luke, Archbishop of Dublin, in the year 1235. The festival of the founders was celebrated, according to the "Acia Sanctorum Hiberniæ" of Colgan, on the 15th of March.

In the twelfth century the island was granted by Pope Alexander III. to the see of Dublin, an endowment confirmed by the Lord Deputy of Ireland, the Earl of Morton, afterwards King John, and subsequently by Edward III. and Richard II. In the year 1543, during the reign of Henry VIII., it appears from the ancient records in the Rolls' Office, that "matter of Variance was dependyng in the King's most honorable Courte of Chauncery, before the right honorable John Alen, Esquier, Lord Chauncelor," "bitwene the moste Reverent father in God, George, Archbusshop of Dublyn and prymat of Ireland, plaintiff, and Sr. Chrystofer Howthe, knight, lorde of Howthe, Defendant, concernynge the right, title, interest, and possessyon of a certeyne island called Irelandisia, or Ireland's ey." On behalf of the Archbishop "diverse and sundry antyke deeds, evidences, and wrytyngs" were produced before the Lord Chancellor, from which it appeared that "the very right, title, interest, inheritaunce, and possessyon of the said Ireland's ey, or Irelandisia, only did apperteyne unto the saide Archbusshop and his successors, and that the saide lorde of Howthe ne none other of his auncestors were seaside, or possessyde, or had any other right, title, possessyon, or interest but only at wylle and by sufference of the saide Archbusshop and his predecessoures, payinge therefor yearly such rent and profyt as was bitwene them agreed.' The court confirmed the claim of the Archbishop to "hold, occupye, and enjoie" the island "until such time as the saide Sr. Chrystofer, his heires, or assigns should shew better matter for his clayme and title which he pretendyd unto the same island." The litigious knight was further mulcted in “ a hundreth shillings for hys costes, expenses, and charges, susteyned by wrongfull vexacion, sewte and trowble," and received a hint that if he would "avoide further daunger" he would "upon payne of fyve hundreth marks observe, perfourme, and fulfyl the tenor, purporte, and effecte of the decree."

Even in the distant Polar seas the name of this island has been preserved. In the course of the suc

cessful expedition of the "Fox" yacht (1857-8-9) to ascertain the fate of Sir John Franklin, at the termination of a sledge journey of the unparalleled length of fourteen hundred miles, Captain Sir Leopold M'Clintock discovered amid the world of snows an islet north beyond a point ever reached by any Arctic explorers, which in memory of his native land he named "Ireland's Ey.”

Although the botany of the island includes an infinite variety of wild flowers and plants, the simplest amongst which

"More bestows

Than Egypt's lore, on Poesy,"

it is not our intention to take up the subject scientifically, as an enumeration of all would far exceed our limits, but merely to direct attention to the outward forms and characteristics of the more prominent. Shrinking from the breeze and sunshine may be noted the heavy blackstreaked purple flowers of the familiar roast-beef plant (Iris fætidissima), so designated from the circumstance of its leaves when bruised emitting an odour somewhat resembling that of roast beef. Almost in the same neighbourhood, in gravelly places, is the common broom (Spartium scoparium), with its axillary gold-coloured flowers. In more chalky ground we meet the lesser meadow rue (Thalictrum minus) with pale purple flowers, and, where stony and bushy places prevail, the beautiful little early hair-grass (Aria præcox), closely resembling its better-known silvery namesake. In the same vicinity are found bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum), remarkable for its rough leaves, long stalks and large sanguine-hued flowers; and, on the sandy heaths, clustering shrubberies of the Burnet rose (rosa spinosissima), the flowers of which scent the air with a wealth of delicate perfume. At no great distance from the shore are spurry sandwort (Arenaria marina), with large fleshcoloured flowers; Portland spurge (Euphorbia Portlandica), a plant about a foot in height, with glaucous leaves and an acid, milky taste; waterblinks, or chickweed (Montia fontana), noticeable for its dense tufts of small, white flowers and black seeds, and, in striking contrast, marsh ragwort (Senecio aquaticus) with pale green leaves and gold flowers. Upon the rocks are the sea pink (Statice armenia) with deep green leaves and rose-coloured flowers; and the vernal squill (Scilla verna), a sweet plant, with numerous dark green leaves, and a corymb of five or six blue flowers. The more inaccessible cliffs are fringed with sea-fennel or samphire (Crithmum maritimum), said to be a corruption of the French Saint Pierre. It is a low growing plant, having leaflets about an inch in length, with yellowish flowers, and is distinguished by a pungently aromatic flavour. When pickled with vinegar and spice it makes an excellent salad or sauce, and is also frequently employed for medicinal purposes. From the generally precipitous nature of its place of growth, samphiregathering is not unattended with danger. Shakspeare alludes to it in "King Lear :”

That the vending of samphire was common in Shakspeare's time is evident from the fact of its having been hawked through the public thoroughfares. A song in Heywood's "Rape of Lucrece," enumerating the various. cries of London, thus refers to it :

"I ha' rock-samphier, rock-samphier;

Thus go the cries in Rome's faire towne ;

First they go up street and then they go downe," &c. The rocky ascent of the island directly facing Howth is luxuriously clothed with curious ferns and lichens of the most varied hues, interspersed with the tree mallow (Lavatera arborea), the downy, greyish-green leaves of which contrast agreeably with its large dark centred lilac flowers. On the shelving banks, towards the east and south, are found several remarkable medicinal herbs, which in the months of June and July yield a rather oppressive odour.

Around the island, during the summer, the seal may be observed, now and again, oaring its way amongst the rocks, quaint yet graceful specimens of the stormy architecture of the waves, and the curious guttural snore of the porpoise is heard as it rolls lazily along the surface of the water. Multitudes of sea-birds sweep past with a perfect Babel of discordant tongues, while the silent but energetic diver follows its prey through the waves with arrow-like rapidity. The cross-bill (Loxia curvirostra), a somewhat rare visitant to Ireland, has been recognised here occasionally, as also the rockpigeon (Columba rupicola), and in former times the cliffs were the resort of a stately breed of goshawks, generally flown at cranes, wild geese, &c.

Ireland's Ey is pyramidal in shape, and chiefly composed of quartz interstratified with variegated schistose. rocks, exhibiting the phenomena of numerous contortions, which by their dissimilitude clearly define the curvature of the beds. The most noticeable of the silicious formation is a large white and red rock, closely resembling porphyry. It has the shining appearance of marble, but is susceptible of a much finer natural polish, and breaks opaque and purple. If a single ounce of this be kept for the space of ten hours in a reverberatory furnace, it will scarcely lose a grain, but still retain its hardness, and strike fire with steel, acquiring, however, a greater degree of fragility. The crude powder of this stone is susceptible of magnetic influence.

A modern martello tower and the ruins of Cill-macNeasain are the only edifices on the island, which has but an area of fifty-three acres. Many years ago it formed a portion of the dominions of the "King of Dalkey," of facetious memory, who was also "Emperor of the Muglins, Prince of the Holy Island of Magee, and Elector of Lambay and Ireland's Ey." A few years since the island acquired a melancholy celebrity as the scene of a tragedy which, from its atrocious character, has scarcely a parallel amongst those causes celebrès that stain the criminal annals of a country, and the author of which managed to evade the grasp of justice by means which have not been, and probably never will be, explained.

MADELINE'S VOW.

BY ROBERT D. JOYCE.

OUR town is an ancient one. I am not the only inhabitant who takes a pride in it, not, indeed, in consequence of its present prosperity, for that is nothing to boast of, but on account of its former strength and splendour, and for its gallant conduct in the wars and during the many sieges to which it was subjected by those who measured swords so often within the four seas of old Ireland. On the one side, we have a calm, winding, picturesque river, and on the other, a lake, which, according to popular tradition, is destined to overflow its flat, reedy shores, and submerge ourselves or our descendants beneath its glassy waves, a catastrophe which I earnestly hope may not occur until I, for one, am sleeping my last sleep beneath the shadows of the mighty elm trees that shelter our ancient burial-place. River and lake were not, however, considered sufficient defences against intruders by our belligerent ancestors. They, therefore, encircled the town with a tremendous fosse, supplied from the waters of both lake and river; and above and within the fosse constructed a ramparted wall, two-thirds of the ruins of which still remain to attest its former strength and solidity. Four roads, from the four cardinal points, led into the town, over each of which, at the entrance, was built a massive barbican. Two of these formidable gateways may yet be seen, but our principal objects of attraction are the ancient houses that still line the streets, and the magnificent ecclesiastical ruins that throw their fantastic shadows across the river, and carry, even in their decay, the mind back to the far-gone years when the melodious bells tolled from their turrets, the burning censers swung before their altars, and their mighty roofs echoed daily to the solemn songs of monk and friar.

The traveller who passes down our main street will not fail to pause before the ruin of a huge stone mansion that stands some short distance from the Northgate. It is built partly in the Elizabethan style, and partly after a style still more ancient, namely, that strong, massive, Norman mode, examples of which may be still frequently seen in the ruins of those mighty castles that loom up, from their rocky foundations, by many a pass, and hill, and river throughout the land. Its ornate windows and massive doorways are still in good preservation, and upon the figured stone mullions of the former may still be detected the remains of ancient gilding, which, with the fantastic and elaboratelycarved effigies on lintel, window-sill, and archway, picture before the beholder's eye the magnificence that must have once reigned within its now deserted chambers. At its rere, the antique garden that belonged to the mansion, with its flower beds and labyrinths of walks, all now gone to decay, extends backwards to the town wall, the foot of which, at that point, is washed by the waters of the lake.

Within the memory of some of the oldest inhabitants of the town, this mansion, before it went to ruin,

was inhabited by an old gentleman named George Lombard, and his only daughter, Madeline. George Lombard was descended from a long line of ancestors, who had made the mansion their town residence since perhaps the days of the Invasion, that stormy time when the De Courcys, De Rupes, Geraldines, and many other stout Normans, gained their footing in this land by the sword, to become, soon after their settlement, however, in the language of the old historian, "more Irish than the Irish themselves." About a mile outside the town George Lombard possessed another mansion and a goodly estate; but to all his possessions Madeline, his daughter, was sole heiress. The father was a good type of the squire of those days, a proud, hot-tempered, wayward man, sometimes overbearing, exacting, and stern towards his tenantry, and, on other occasions, as the humour swayed him, warm-hearted, indulgent, and humane; a man who kept a pack of fox-hounds at his country mansion, and put his neck in jeopardy on their track several times a week, and who never retired to rest before himself and his friends had emptied an array of wine bottles-good claret and burgundy-that would strike a modern toper with dismay, to the memory of their sylvan achievements on the track of bold reynard, or to the reigning toasts of the country.

Madeline also, who was scarcely twenty years of age at the time of the following events, was a good type of her class. She followed the hounds with her father, and took fence for fence with the best of them, not unfrequently distancing the whole hunt, and coming in at the death. As a natural consequence, she was the great favourite among the young fox-hunting gentlemen of the country, their theme in the song, and their toast at every revel, and in those reckless old times the latter were not few. She knew also all her father's tenants by name, went amongst them frequently, interceded for them in their difficulties with her father, on which occasions she seldom failed in being successful; and thus, if they did not raise her to the dignity of toast at their merrymakings, she had, at least, many an earnest prayer and good wish from them for her welfare and happiness. She was a beauty, too, a dark-haired, haughty-looking, splendid girl; but the proud look of her perfectlychiselled face was relieved by a sweet, mild expression, that ever hovered upon her pretty lips, and by a pair of large, dark eyes, whose kindly glance never failed to win the hearts of rich and poor in her neighbourhood.

From her infancy Madeline had been brought up with her cousin. The latter, whose name was Harry Godsall, was a young man of reckless and dissolute habits, and had gained the hatred of his uncle's tenants, even before he had grown up to man's estate, by many an act of oppression, and by his licentious conduct. Many a royal battle he had fought with his uncle on these occasions; but he always contrived to fight through them tolerably, well until an event occurred which separated them, as all the neighbourhood thought, for ever. Well had it been for both, indeed, had the latter been the case. Old George Lombard's principal tenant was a farmer named Brian Connell, an honest, industri

ous man, well to do in the world, in fact, with an amount of wealth that entitled him to give his children, of whom he had five, three sons and two daughters, a good education, and to expect for them what the country people called a good match, whenever they might take it into their heads to marry. Upon the youngest of Brian Connell's daughters, about two years previous to the events of our story, Hurry Godsall had cast his eye. Harry was then about twenty-one years of age; and when he found his efforts at gaining the heart of Ellen Connell frustrated by the good sense and propriety of the latter, he resolved upon her abduction. With about a dozen accomplices, he attacked the house on a certain night, and carried off the daughter of Brian Connell; but he had scarcely proceeded a mile upon his way to the mountains, when he was overtaken by the brothers of his victim, with several of their neighbours. He fought hard for his prize, but, in the end, was overpowered, and received such a rough handling on the occasion, from Ellen's eldest brother, Dick, that he was confined to his bed for a full week afterwards. Before the end of that time the whole transaction had come to the ears of his uncle, and that irascible old gentleman determined then and there to discard the worthless Harry Godsall for ever. With this resolution, a few days afterwards, he rode out to his country mansion, and, after some search for the delinquent, at lass found him in the stables, looking after a favourite hunter that belonged to him.

"Leave that horse," said the uncle, sternly, "for as sure as my name is George Lombard, you shall never see him again. Leave him, sir, and quit my house, that you have disgraced by your debaucheries and other bad conduct!"

"I reared him myself," answered Harry Godsall, "and he is mine. If I go, he, at least, will go withme !"

"It is not enough that I adopted you"-pursued the old gentleman, taking no notice of the answer of his nephew "yes, adopted you when your parents died, and brought you up on an equality with my own daughter, but you must seek for the rights of a son in your relations towards me! You are my nephew, it is true, the child of my only sister, but I tell you, Harry Godsall, if you were my own son, after your villanous attempt the other night, I would discard you, and send you adrift upon the world, as I am determined to do this day. Begone, sir, and leave me, and never more set foot within my house. Perhaps, when you try to fight your battle with the world, unaided, you will then think of the opportunities you wilfully lost, and upon the uncle, who was willing to set you up like a gentleman, if you had conducted yourself!"

"And I, too, have borne with your tyranny long enough," answered Harry Godsall, with a sinister look, now that he saw his uncle was determined on his expulsion. "Give me some money, and I promise you it will be many a long day ere I set foot within your house."

"I am after tearing up my will this morning," answered his uncle, "and in that parchment which is now consumed to ashes, I had left you a good round sum. You have lost all by your own misconduct, but it will only make Madeline the richer. Here, however,” added he, handing his nephew a purse, here are two hundred guineas. Take the money, and leave my sight at once, or I will be tempted to horsewhip you round the stable !"

66

"I will take it," said Harry, "but I tell you, uncle, I am a man now, and will have none of the other ware, no matter from whom; so you had better put up your whip."

"Ha ha!" retorted his uncle bitterly, "you took a thrashing, however, quietly and meekly enough the other night from young Dick Connell."

It was horrible to gaze upon the vengeful expression that darkened the swarthy face of Harry Godsall, as he heard the name of the farmer's son pronounced.

"I tell you what it is, uncle," he said, as he led his horse, which was ready saddled and bridied, into the yard, "you and that damned young bogtrotter may yet live to rue the day that you have combined against Harry Godsall." With a spring he was into the saddle. 6 Good-bye," he added, with a bitter sneer as he rode away, "you see, after all, that I and the horse I reared are not determined to part company. Good-bye, and remember me to Ellen Connell. Tell her brother also, for his comfort, that I will have his life yet, as sure as there's blood in my body!"

Away he rode, but he was scarcely gone a day when the old foxhunter relented, began to speak of him as kindly as ever, and wish him back. But it was of no avail now, for Harry Godsall was away in the purlieus of the neighbouring city, engaged in the pleasant task of spending his money as fast as possible. It was soon gone. He next sold his horse, the price of which soon followed the two hundred guineas. There was now no alternative for him but the usual one in such cases, and in a moment of desperation Harry Godsall enlisted in a regiment of dragoons, which was then quartered in the city. The troop to which he belonged was ordered in a few days to the East Indies, and from. that burning and unhealthy clime nothing was afterwards heard of him. In fact all supposed that he was dead.

Two years after the departure of Henry Godsall there was a fair held in our stout old town. The latter, I may say it safely with pride, is situated in the midst of the finest and most fertile plain in Ireland, or in Europe, or perhaps I may go so far as to say the whole world. It will easily be conceived, then, what a concourse of people and what a number of cattle of every description were packed into the streets on that day

of business and uproar, fun and mischief. From early morning until noon, every saleable commodity, living and inert, changed hands with astonishing celerity, for it was a prosperous time, and business was consequently brisk and flourishing. There was one part of our main street, and it happened to be that opposite to the mansion. of old George Lombard, that was on fair days specially devoted to the tinkers and their faithful and hardworking companions, the donkeys. Here the noise of traffic was perfectly deafening during the morning, and enenlivened also occasionally by several oratorical encounters between the fair partners of the workers in brass and tin, but by degrees as the noon-day sun smote hot upon the paving stones, even that babel of voices began to subside into a murmuring and quiet roar, that as the immortal Milton says of the rising of the demons in Pandemonium, was "like the sound of thunder heard, remote."

By degrees, as the noon passed the cattle disappeared in a great measure from the street, but the people remained. The great bulk of the latter also disappeared from the street, but they did not leave the town like, cattle. They were, in fact, quietly ensconced within the hostels and hilarious public-houses whose hospitable doors ornament our strects, and invite with their quaint "signs" the weary and thirsty passers-by to come in and refresh themselves. There they were talking over their bargains, laughing, singing, and match-making to their hearts' content, and pouring upon the altar of friendship libations of whiskey punch, plentiful enough to drown all their bickerings and faction grudges for a dozen years. Now, our town seems to be under a pugnacious spell since the day its first stone was laid. Since that never-to-be-forgotten day, it has stood at least a score of sieges, not taking into account the running engagements with sword and gun that took place along its streets and around its well-battered walls. Along with this we have four fairs yearly, and I can say it, both from report and observation, that the sun of each of those fair days never set without beholding a universal scrimmage from end to end of the place between the rival factions of the surrounding country. The day in question, was of course not an exception to this general rule.

The tinkers always seemed to arrogate to themselves the initiative in those belligerent demonstrations. There was a little man amongst them who never failed to be present at each fair, who usually began the fight, and who for the thirty previous years seemed to every one who observed his looks never to grow a day older in appearance, according to the unquestionable authority of Jeremiah Macnamara, Moloney, Philomath, the schoolmaster of the town, who usually celebrated each scrimmage and the prominent heroes therein in Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Irish effusions, but never in English, the worthy professor of dead and dying tongues, according to his own deliberate expression, having a "shuprame and sovereign and immorthial contempt for the latter polyglottiferous and cacophanous language." On the evening of the aforesaid day the little man

alluded to rushed out with a ferocious hurroo! from a public-house, cut a few warlike capers in the street, and then struck his own fair partner above the eye with his clenched fist, to which the incensed amazon replied promptly by a resounding hammer of her own flinty digits upon the little man's chest, that sent him sprawling against the adjacent wall, and doubled him up for the rest of the evening. The victorious matron then attacked her next neighbour, and he, after somewhat disabling her, attacked another, and thus the fight spread, the men and women rushing out into the street and joining in the fray, till the whole tinkers' quarter was in a universal uproar. This was followed by a shout some distance up the street from an excited member of one of the factions, and ere a quarter of an hour had elapsed, a general battle raged supreme from the North to the South Gate of our pugnacious town.

Whilst this state of things lasted, a tall, dark young man, clad in the garb of a tinker, separated himself from the combatants, and without being perceived by any one, glided under an old archway that led to the rere of George Lombard's mansion. He examined every wall and gable at the back of the house, and at length, as his gaze fell upon a long leaden pipe that led by a certain window to the roof, there came an expression of demoniac exultation and malignity into his black eyes, which showed that his purpose was neither good nor honest. After another hasty but careful glance at the entrance to the garden and towards the old townwall beyond, he immediately left the spot, glided out under the hoary arch by which he had entered, and with a loud shout joined the combatants once more.

Meanwhile the fight began to rage fiercer and fiercer up the street between the rival factions. There were then no police, and the few yeomen who lived in the town were, as a matter of course, quite incompetent to put a stop to the tumult. At this juncture an old gentleman rode down the street, and with his horsewhip began to lay about him on the heads and broad shoulders of the combatants. It was old George Lombard, who, as the principal inhabitant of the town, usually adopted that novel method of quieting the frays that took place there, upon each recurring fair day. Nor was he unsuccessful on the present occasion. In fact, like the fabled halcyon on a stormy sea, his presence seemed to quieten down the tumult wonderfully, as he rode along distributing favours indiscriminately from his horsewhip on all sides, until he reached a certain part of the street, namely the border land between the tinkers' quarter and that occupied by the factions. This, like all border lands, was a perfect Maelstrom of contention, for the members of the factions were not only fighting there among themselves, but the tinkers from some cause or other had got mixed up in their fray, and all was in most horrible uproar as George Lombard came to the spot. In the midst of the roaring throng two tall young men were engaged in an encounter with sticks. One of them, by his dress and appearance, looked a gentleman. It was Richard, or as he was more commonly called, Dick Connell, son of

George Lombard's tenant. The other, who wore the usual apparel of a tinker, was the same who had examined so minutely some time before the back premises of the old mansion. Towards this pair, as they fenced and struck fiercely at each other with their sticks, George Lombard rode whip in hand, and flourishing his pacific talisman, struck Dick Connell, who happened to be nearest to him at the moment, a sharp blow across the shoulders. At the same instant Dick floored his antagonist with a blow, and now turned upon George Lombard, his eyes flushing still with the fury of the combat.

"How dare you strike, sir?" he exclaimed, unable to overcome his rage, and catching the bridle of George Lombard's horse. 66 Mark me, Mr. Lombard," he added, as some of his companions caught him and pulled him away—“mark me, sir, you will pay sorely for that blow, or my name is not Richard Connell !"

He was pulled by his companions into a house hard by, and thus the faction fight came to an end. When George Lombard looked out for the other combatant, the latter was nowhere to be seen.

That night a most horrible and atrocious murder was committed in our town, and the victim was George Lombard. He was found upon his bed in the morning with a deep narrow wound, as if from a knife or small dagger, in the region of the heart. Very little blood appeared to have flowed from the wound. He must have bled internally. Of course this created a terrible uproar in our town, and throughout the surrounding country. Every search was made for the murderer, but not eveu a clue to anything connected with the fearful event could be found by the most diligent investigations. The ill-fated old gentleman was in the meantime buried, the inquest that had sat upon his body having given a verdict of wilful murder against some person unknown.

It is not to be wondered at that Madeline grieved sorely for her father's unhappy fate. For a week or two she was unable to understand anything with the excess of her sorrow, but at last she bestirred herself, and soon showed that she had a will and a spirit of her own, that enabled her to accomplish more in the search for her father's murderer than the most active magistrate in the vicinity. But it was all of no avail, and another week passed, scarcely adding a single fact to what was already known. At the end of that time Madeline drove to the house of a magistrate who lived outside the town, and who also had been her father's trusted friend and constant companion.

"I need not say, Madeline," said the old gentleman, who went by the name of Squire Waller, "that I have done everything in my power in this sad case. And yet you see it is all of no avail. The murderer must indeed have laid his plans well, to be able to baffle us in this manner."

"He must, indeed," answered Madaline. "But still I think we will find him out yet. Some one must be tempted by the largeness of the reward we have offered."