lady's chaise, "that that road leads to Thurles ?"

"Shure and sartain, your honor, straight on forenent, and a turn in it to the lift that lades to the nunnery, Sir." "What nunnery? Are there nunneries in this country?"

"Is it nunneries, Sir? There is plinty: there is one there, off to the lift, between Thurles road and Holy-cross, is the convent of our Lady of the Annunciation: they say, your honor, that in th’ ould times there was subterranies under ground, between the nunnery and th' abbey of Holy-cross; and there was a story went about a grey abbot, andtroth it makes myself laugh, its so funny, only Father Murphy, Sir, says there no truth in it, and so I don't believe it, for the church knows best always, Sir."-He now jumped upon the wooden bar, which served him as a seat, and giving his horses the whip, proceeded at a rapid pace.

As the travellers approached the miserable little village of Holy-cross, the sun's last rays had withdrawn from the horizon in all the mild and melancholy gloom of an autumnal evening. The grey tints of the clouded atmosphere were reflected in shadows on the bosom of the Suir, along whose banks arose the stately ruins of the abbey. The inn, recommended by the driver, the only inn, was a small house leading to the village, and bearing the sign of the Mitre and Crosier, as appropriate to its site.

The approach of a chaise was evidently no common event; for the landlord, his wife, a ragged old waiter, with a barefooted girl (the bar-maid, house-maid, and kitchen-maid of the establishment), had stood at the door for some time, eagerly watching its approach. All were instantly in employment, carrying in the portmanteaux, conducting the travellers to their room, and knocking their heads together, in a confusion, increased by

their efforts to do the honours to such unusual guests. The travellers perceived that they were also the only guests; and they were not displeased by a circumstance which not only ensured their quietude, but their accommodation; for in Ireland, inns are good in proportion as they are unfrequented, that is, as they are not patronized by some great man, whose servant or dependant obtains the TONTINE or principal hotel of the town, which his former master rules; and adds to this situation some office under government, which renders him above his business as an innkeeper, and induces him to act with insolence when called upon in the capacity he despises. The humble innkeeper of Holy-cross had recently fitted up a couple of bed-rooms in what had lately been a mere Shebean house, (4) and dignified with the name of inn the little building which had been for half a century a noted baiting-place for foot

and horse travellers, and of such pious pilgrims as still came (and they were not few) to visit the shrine of the holy relic.

A few inquiries, and the ordering of a late dinner, took up a quarter of an hour; after which the travellers proceeded to visit the abbey. The twilight was thickening into darkness, but the air was fresh and balmy; and motion and activity were positive enjoyments to those who had for many hours suffered the cramping restraint and fatiguing dislocation of an Irish post-chaise.

The inn lay half a mile from the abbey, to which they passed over a bridge, thrown across the river Suir, and forming a communication between the village and the abbey grounds. The ruins covered a considerable tract, and were contrasted in their imposing magnitude by a few wretched hovels constructed out of their fragments. This consecrated pile is among the few in

teresting monuments of antiquity now extant in that country, which, according to the statements of the biographer of St. Rumoldi, once contained some of the most magnificent religious edifices of Europe.

Raised by the piety and power of an Irish provincial prince, Donagh Carbraigh O'Brien, for monks of the Cistertian order, and consecrated to the holy cross, St. Mary, and St. Benedict, it owed its principal consequence to the relic of the cross incased in gold and precious stones, and given by Pope Paschal II. to Mac Morragh, the predecessor of Carbragh. The charms of the beautiful architecture must, in days so rude, have contributed not a little to its fame; and the devotion paid to the relic it enshrined has been declared by an English minister* to have been universal throughout the island.

See Sir Henry Sidney's State Papers.