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south, which he made during his viceregency of Ireland. The present marquis, the eldest of two twin brothers, had early in life suffered his susceptible imagination to dwell on some affecting

and curious relations of the ancient and actual state of Ireland. Impressions thus received, wrought on his mind with an influence proportioned to the unhappy malady which now first betrayed itself in many symptoms, of which his sympathy for Ireland, and his determination to reside in what he perpetually called "his beautiful castle," were.deemed by his mother and friends among the strongest. With the uncalculating impetuosity of his disease, he had ordered immense sums of money to be expended in repairing and fitting what had be come almost a ruin. Furniture, the most sumptuous and appropriate, had been sent from England; and even wine and plate had arrived, and been stowed in the long-unused cellars and buttery of

the castle. Its lord and suit were daily expected, when his disease declared itself so unequivocally, that the promising but unfortunate young nobleman was placed in close confinement. Two years had elapsed since that event, and his mother, the Marchioness Dowager of Dunore, his sole guardian, and in whom centred the whole interest and influence of the Dunore property, had recently proposed visiting the castle, in order to set up her second son, Lord Adelm, who was abroad, to represent the neighbouring borough of Glannacrime; but on some representations from her agent, Mr. Crawley, and her lawyer, counsellor Conway Townsend Crawley, his son, she had suddenly given up the intention. ⠀⠀

The castle, therefore, remained in statu quo, antique, superb, and desolate, such as may be found in every province of Ireland; the ancient residence of Irish chiefs, the quondam possession of

English lords of the pale, the property of more recent patentees, the inheritance of English-Irish absentees, known only by name to the tenants they have never visited. The traveller paused a few moments before its walls, threw his eyes rapidly over the stately edifice, and then proceeded under its once fortified terrace, along the strand, to the monastic retreat of the learned O'Leary.

Monaster-ny-Oriel was one of those ecclesiastical ruins, in which the south of Ireland abounds; it was once of great extent, and was (in the terms of its charter) given to God and to St. John the Evangelist, by one of the chiefs of the Macarthy family. The windows and arches, still in preservation, were of beautiful gothic architecture, the walls of the choir remained, but it was roofless: and in the newly thatched chauntry of the blessed Virgin O'Leary held his academy, literally imaging Shakespear's description of a pedant keep

ing a school in a church. A tower on the verge of the ruins (once a small house for novices), hanging over the coast, was now called the Friary of St. John, where the order of the Dominicans was still kept up:* it was also the tenement now at O'Leary's disposal, through the kindness of its absent proprietor. Every where among the ruins, the tombs of rival chiefs were visible through the wild shrubs and furze that half concealed them. Here a 'GLORIA DEO IN EXCELSIS,' was raised for an English BOYLE or PETTY; there a GISTE ICI.-DIEU DE SON AME AIT MERCI,' for some Norman de Barri, or de Grosse; and above all rose the high grey stone, that in the ancient Irish character pointed to the resting-place of Conal Macarthy More, the swift footed, reposing in the midst of those who had opposed, or those who had betrayed him.

There are many friaries in Ireland, thus preserved by the residence of one or two of the order, among the ruins of their ancient houses.

This scene, so solemn, even when tinged with the cheery lustre of the morning light, was most incongruously disturbed by the hum of confused and nasal murmurings, resembling the discord of an ill-tuned bag-pipe. The ear of the traveller seemed to recognize this sound, once, perhaps, well known to him; and directing his steps to the chauntry of the blessed Virgin, he perceived several students stretched upon the rank grass, before its high arched Saxon door-way: thus refreshing the picture of an Irish School, given by Campion in Queen Elizabeth's day. The ardent, but barefooted, disciple of the muses, now, as then, "grovelling on the earth, their books at their noses, themselves lying prostrate; and so chaunting out their lessons piecemeal."

The breaking up of the academy took place as the Commodore approached it: a bevy of rough-headed students, with books as ragged as their habiliments,

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