vere, and to succeed. Let Ireland plant her young shoots henceforth rather in the soil of principle than that of impulse; let her girdle her loins with honourable endeavour; and, above all, casting aside for ever the whine of entreaty and the rags of her mendicancy, let her weave for herself the rough but honest garment of independence-of the true Dargan pattern - the robe of self-respect, warmest near the heart, in which she will walk as a queen and a lady, amidst the applause of nations, and will shine forth more "great, glorious, and free," than ever she could have done had she listened to the voice of agitation, and unsheathed the wild but fruitless sword of rebellion.

Into the Queen's County, in the reign of Elizabeth, came seven families, commonly called "the tribes of England." These were Cosbys, Hartpoles, Bowens, Barringtons, Ruishes, and Ovingtons or Hovendens. The coun

try, like the Thane's Castle, "had a pleasant seat," and the "air sweetly and nimbly did commend itself unto the gentle senses of many a settler from the fair sister isle, who, by right of purchase or royal gift, sat down on the soil in subsequent reigns, and of whom I will speak in the fit place; so that the country became almost Saxonised, and this had its natural influence on the peasantry.

I have said that they were not distinguished by any peculiarity of na. tional character. They have neither the keen acuteness of the northern half-caste Scot, nor the bright and rollicking Celticism of the South, or the Spanish physique of the West. There is nothing among them of the MacShane or the Teague of the ancient comedy; nor could they be recognised as the descendants of the " mere Irish," whom Father Good vilifies, and Edmund Campion paints in such language as this "They have learned to wash their shirts four or five times a-year." But in order to counterbalance this advance in their love for clean linen, he sketches them as utterly nasty in their victuals. "Shamrotes, watercresses, and other yerbes they feed upon, and oatmeal and butter they cram together; flesh they devour without bread, asking no dressing thereto the rest boileth in their stomach with aqua vita, which they swill in by quarts and pottles." Anything approaching to this picture of ancient savage life, could not now be found

in Ireland, especially in the Queen's County, where the continued presence of so large and refined a body of gentry has influenced the manners bearing of the poorer classes; so that, on the whole, they are rather a gentle peasantry, especially in the vicinity of villages or gentlemen's seats. Yet, on one or two occasions, exceptions to this state of things have occurred, and this peasantry have perpetrated deeds of as dark a dye as any committed by their Tipperary neighbours. Of such was the assassination of Mr. Edward White, of Abbeyleix, some years ago, in the open day. I knew him well, and esteemed him much. He was a man of singular benevolence in his aspect as in his actions; rather inclined to Methodism in his religion, liberal in his politics, and of a stainless character. He was unmarried, living with his sister. He kept a large cloth and hardware shop in the village, where he presided, and where he had the character of being an inflexibly honest man, as well to his customer as to himself; so that a child or an idiot purchasing from him, would get just the value of his money, no more and no less. This man had purchased much property, was wealthy, and gave a great deal of employment on his farms. Well, in the broad daylight, and on the public road, and within half a mile of the village where he lived, one of his own labourers, with whom he had some slight difference, fired the contents of a gun into his stomach, as he sat in his gig, which killed him instantly. The body falling forward against the splash-board, the hand still holding the reins, and a well of blood in the bottom of the gig, in this condi tion the horse brought the murdered man back to the door of his own house! This is a dark story. I will relieve it by one of a different hue, illustrating the manners of the people, which, though tragical in its commencement, had a comic termination. It was just after the close of a contested election, and when "the blood of the county was riz," that Peter Burton, a decent, though stolid peasant, was returning home from a fair at Mountrath, where he had supped with a friend. I fear he was a little elated both with pot teen and politics. His young land

lord had been returned for the county, and Peter was talking loud on the road, and shouting " for ever!" when some of the other party came

behind him in the dark, determining to spoil his music, and he received, as his wife told me, "such a crack of a wattle acrass his skull," as effectually to disarrange the harmony of his phrenological development, in the fracture of that organ. He was conveyed home senseless; but the skilful physician of the place lifted the broken bones from off the brain, and successfully trepanned the man; and the fellow, having a constitution like a rhinoceros, recovered; his wife preserving carefully the fragments of her husband's skull, and producing them from her pocket, on all occasions, wrapped in an old cotton handkerchief, for the inspection of a curious public, with a running accompaniment, half-whimper, half-boast, "how the villyains had nigh destroyed poor Peter; but little they thought of his thick head, my dear! and how, of all the f families in the country, the Burtons beat them all entirely in the beautiful thickness of their skulls the Lord be praised for the same for much good it was to poor Peter, although the doctor". here she relapsed into a whine" made him wear a tim-pan (a trepan) under his hat, my dear

Portarlington, at which we were now arrived, is antiphrastical as to its name, lucus a non lucendo. I saw no port there but a decanter of "very old particular" wine of that name on a friend's table. Our national imagination would often seem to bring us in guilty of geographical bulls in this way. Thus, for example, in the neighbourhood of Dublin, we have Monkstown, where is never an anchorite, save a few "monks of the screw" among the rich Quakers. In Kingstown no monarch reigns; no valley smiles at Glenageary. In Bullock is neither flock nor herd, the spot is singularly anti-bucolical; and no dark cliff beetles on the wave which rolls in on Blackrock. In fact, this town was named by Sir Henry Bennet, afterwards Lord Arlington, to whom Charles II. gave the place in 1662, by private signet, and afterwards confirmed the same by granting him, in 1667, a royal charter to enable him to constitute the place as a town and borough. The whole property had been confiscated from Lewis O'Dempsie, second Viscount Clanmalier, who had shortly before been attainted of rebellion. Bennet, finding a small landing-place among the thick hazle-trees which lined the Barrow (which river

now skirts the town), dignified it with the name of a port, and called the whole concern Port Arlington, after his own recently-acquired title. This nobleman was the fourth letter of the cabal, and the confrere of the renegade Clifford, the astute Ashley, the profligate Buckingham, and the savage, learned Lauderdale. Arlington was not a man of low birth, as some pretend; his father was an ambassador, a judge, M.P. for York, and knighted by James I. at Theobald's. His elder brother, created Lord Ossulton, was ancestor of the Earls of Tankerville; while Lord Arlington's only child, a daugter, marrying, at five years old! the Duke of Grafton, the King's son by Barbara Villiers, carried his property to the Fitzroy family. Of Lord Arlington, Burnet speaks cautiously as to character, Hamilton, in his "De Grammont Records," unreservedly; and Sir Walter Scott, rather eulogistically.

In or about 1668, he sold his Portarlington estates to Sir Patrick Trant, of an ancient Danish family, long resident in Ireland, and ancestor of the Trants of Tipperary; but Sir Patrick being a Jacobite, and fighting on the losing side at the Boyne water, was attainted, circiter 1695, and his Queen's County property confiscated-his southern estates barely escaping a similar fate, through the virtue, the fortitude, and the tears of his wife. The year following, William III. took upon himself to grant these lands to his friend and favourite General, Henry de Massue, Marquis de Rouvigny, afterwards created Earl of Galway, which title became extinct in 1720; and the new inheritor lost no time in inviting his faithful French and Dutch followers to come and settle in his recently-acquired borough. Hence the French settlement in Portarlington, the original lines of which remain in strong features to this day. But it appears that William had exceeded his rightful power in making this grant; and his Parliament shortly after reassuming the lands (with the exception of a few of the estates bestowed by Rouvigny, which, on petition, the House confirmed to the holders by special grace), sold them to the London" Hollow Sword-blade Company." These gentlemen, enjoying a monopoly of their craft, were wealthy, and had probably advanced money to the Government; and William, who was generally, as we say, extremely hard up for cash, was glad to pay his

debts by lands which cost him nothing. This company, with a name so oddly fierce, was thus denominated from the weapons they forged, and for which they had a patent. The blades of their broadswords were hollow at the back, and filled with quicksilver; on raising the sword the metal ran down to the hilt, and on delivering the cut rushed to the point, giving additional weight to the stroke. Again these parties subdivided, and sold this uneasy property (which, like a discontented servant, was always changing its place, and fidgeting about in search of a new master), partly to Mr. Ephraim Dawson, the present Lord Portarlington's progenitor, and Mr. Stannus, his kinsman; partly to the Warburton family, who had been, I fancy, a long time in the county; and partly to Edward Smith, Bishop of Down and Connor, and ancestor of the Mounthenry family. In 1712, the Bishop sold the "lordship of Leix" to Hector Graham, a scion of the noble house of Montrose. He was grandson to one of Queen Elizabeth's knights, Sir Richard Graham, who fought with great renown against the Spaniards at Kinsale, in 1599. His brother in arms, Sir George Flower, "another valorous soldier," founded the noble house of Ashbrook, in this county; while Graham was rewarded with large grants of land in Cavan and Monaghan, and was made governor of the Castle of Maryborough, by patent from James I., in 1602.*

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes took place in the year 1685; fully 4000 Protestants escaped to these countries or fled into Holland. It would, perhaps, interest the reader to hear something of the Marquis de Rouvigny, who had so much to do with the plantation of Portarlington. His father was a strict Protestant, and deputy-general of all the French Churches; he was ambassador from Louis XIV. to Charles II., and Bishop Burnet gives us a page and a-half of his folio memoirs detailing the advice, valiant and wise, which he offered to the old bigot, his master, in regard of how he should manage his Protestant subjects. "He gave the king an account of their numbers, their industry, and their wealth; their constant readiness to advance the revenue; and that all the quiet he had with the court of

Rome was owing to them, and if they were rooted out, the court of Rome would govern as absolutely in France as it did in Spain," &c. As "he went through these particulars, the King hearkened very attentively; but the old Marquis perceived that they made no impression' on Louis, who, thanking him for his zeal for his service, said I consider myself so indispensably bound to extirpate heresy, that if the doing of it would require that with one of my hands I should cut off the other, I would cheerfully submit to it.'" Burnet, who at this time was in disgrace with the court at home, resided then in France, and had much intercourse with "old Rouvigny," as he calls him, which he details in his own gossipy, graphic style, reminding one continually, in its egotistical and self-elated detail, of the desk, pulpit, church, choir, and parochial reforms wrought by "P. P., Parish Clerk."

The younger Rouvigny was William's General till the latter's death, and afterwards had a command from Queen Anne in the Spanish war. He preceded the track of Wellington in a slight degree for at Badajos he lost an arm, while, in 1706, he took Ciudad Rodrigo; but losing the battle of Almanza, he underwent a censure from the Peers of Parliament. He was connected with the ducal house of Bedford, and was uncle to Lady Rachel

"That sweet saint who sat at Russell's side."

Portarlington resembles the legs of a pair of compasses rectangularly extended. As you walk up the long, cold, clean strip of a street which forms the northern limb of the town, you see large and even stately houses, which contain broad landing-places inside, and old-fashioned halls, and lofty back drawing-rooms, looking down over spacious quaint pleasuregrounds, garnished with flower-beds and green walks, and dotted with forest timber, under whose quiet shadow sat these true-hearted noble old emigrés in security, "no man making them afraid;" witness the house once occupied by Major Champagné (now Mr. Arthur's school), or that at present held by Mr. Des Voeux - both these gentlemen descendants of refugees from France.

As you proceed, your eye encoun

ters over shop-doors names of undoubted French origin. Champ," and "Le Combre,' and "Blanc," which last is gradually Irishing itself into Blong, and is spelt so by the worthy butcher who rejoices now in the name, and whose ancestor fled from the fierce dragonade, in company with more distinguished emigrés.

I have a little book by me while I write, entitled "Les Plaintes des Protestans cruellement opprimez dans le Royaume de France." Printed at Cologne, chez Pierre Marteau, 1686." It is worn with age and handling; its pages have probably been often moistened with tears. It is marked here and there in places which perhaps awakened memories or associations of sadness in the reader's heart. This little volume belonged to rather a distinguished exile, René de Latablere, of Picardy. The certificate of this gentleman's naturalisation in Ireland, from the courts, is dated 1709, but before that he had entered the army at twenty-eight years of age; his ensign's commission in the regiment of Du Canbon, bearing date 1691, is signed by "Ginkell;" and a very cramp piece of penmanship" it is, all ups and downs, and flourishes at the end, as if his pen was going through its pike exercise as the general wrote his name. If the taking of Athlone was to have been effected by caligraphy, and not by cannon, I am afraid the Irish would have carried the day against the gallant Dutchman. This René de Letablere died in Dublin in 1729, and his immediate descendants are some of our best and most respectable townsmen viz., the families of Litton and of Gabbett.*

66

Vœux also settled in Portarlington; their real name was Vinchon de Bacquencourt; the first emigré was a man of learning, and published a translation and commentary on Ecclesiastes." The Vignolles family sat down here, of which race is the present Dean Vignolles. The pasteur of the emigrés was Antoine Fleury, of an old family in France, who had been for eight successive generations ministers of the Gospel. The family took its rise in the reign of Francis I., at the dawn of the Reformation. In 1686, Fleurie, or Fleury, had to fly to Holland, and lived for some time at Nassau, whence he came to Ireland in 1690, as chaplain to William and Mary. His wife was maid of honour to the Queen; and Fleurie rode with William at the crossing of the Boyne, where he displayed much courage, as his old cassock, riddled with bullet-holes, and preserved by his descendants, can testify. He had a good living from Government Coolbanagher, near Emo, Lord Portarlington's park; and his tomb may be seen in the French churchyard, near the vestry - room door; and his great-grandson is the Rev. Charles Marlay Fleury, our good and gifted townsman, who can reckon up an aurea catena of ten successive forefathers, son succeeding sire, and all of them ministers of the Gospel, beginning in or about the year 1540, and terminating at present in himself, being the eleventh in clerical descent. Vivat valeatque! Around Portarlington are other respectable county families deriving from French ancestry, among whom are the Alloways, the Tibeaudos, the Trenches, the Sabbatiers, &c., &c.

I sat in an humble cottage which stands in the street of Portarlington, on that limb of it which is next to the Queen's County. This poor tenement belonged to two brothers of the name of Foubert; their ancestor had been Equerry to King William, he and his brother having escaped from near Paris in 1685, and crossed the straits of Dover in a fishing-boat. This man was the first settler at Portarlington, and obtained considerable property, and his

descendant now occupies a cabin by the road-side. The second settler was one Mechinette; then came Colonel De la Cour, whose descendants arc in Cork; and Pierre Durant, from Gascony, whose house was where now stands Mrs. Stannus's handsome residence. Then there was a Count Petit Baux; and a Grenier, the latter family extinct. The old Huguenot's eyes sparkled when he spoke of these matters, and grew dim when he told me that there were cleven families of his name and blood now in Bordeaux, of a different faith from his. "The water wears the stone," and all things decay-the old French church has undergone such architectural revisions, under the commendable surveillance of its present pious and hard-working minister, the Rev. John Benn, that it is almost a second edition of the edifice, much enlarged and improved, to suit a growing_congregation. Its registries, which I have never seen, must be deeply interesting; they range from 1694 to 1844, and are full of historic and romantic associations. The church plate was a royal gift from the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, the wise consort of George II. It consists of a massive silver salver, two tall heavy flagons, one cup, and one paten, on all and each of which is engraven the shield, motto, &c., of the Prince of Wales, followed by this Inscription :

"Donné par son Altesse Royale
Madame Wilhelmina Carolina,
Princesse de Galles,

en faveur

de l'Eglise Francoise Conformiste de Portarlington.

Le 1 Mar., 1714-5."

There is likewise the following inscription on the church bell:

"In usum Ecclesiæ Gallica Portarlingtoniensis Campanam hanc dono dedit Serenissima et Piisima Princeps, Wilhelmina Carolina, Serenissimi Georgii Whaliæ Principis Uxor-Dilectissima Serenissimi et Potentissimi Georgii Magnæ Brittaniæ, Fran. Hib. Regis Nurus meritissima. Promovente Illustrissimo Comite Henrico de Galloway, qui dum pro rege Res in Hib. Administraret hoc Templum sumptibus suis ædificari curavit, 1715."

This composition of stupid superlatives is redeemed by the information conveyed in the last few lines; it appears, then, that the French Church of St. Paul, Portarlington, was built at the expense of the younger Rouvig

ny. His was, indeed, a noble character, generous and devoted; and Burnet illustrates these points well and truly, when he tells us that in 1691 "old Rouvigny being dead, his son offered his service to the King, who unwillingly accepted of it, because he knew that an estate which his father had in France, and of which he had still the income, would be immediately confiscated. But he, Rouvigny, had no regard for that, and heartily engag ed in the King's service, &c., and is a man of eminent virtue, capacity, courage, and zeal for religion."

Rouvigny appears in high and merited favour with the old Whig Bishop. Another of his master's generals does not stand quite so well with him-I mean Ginkel; he tells us how he was made Earl of Athlone, and "had noble rewards for the great service he had done;" but he omits to say, that the 26,000 acres which William granted him in 1693 (the forfeited estate of William Dungan, Earl of Limerick), and which grant Parliament confirmed 7th December, 1695, they, i.e., the parlia ment, reversed on the 15th day of the same month! on which the family retired to Holland, where they remained, and no Lord of Athlone sat in liament for fully a hundred years from that time, when Frederick, the sixth earl, took his seat in the Irish House of Lords, A.D. 1795. Truly, William, of glorious memory, appears to have had something like a very stiff-necked House of Commons.

par

As I stood leaning over the stone battlements of the bridge which spans the Barrow, musing and revolving many of the occurrences which are here offered to the public, I could not help devoutly wishing that the stream of my country's history henceforward might more and more resemble the track and passage of the tranquil river below me, no doubt at times to be fretted by rock, or swoln by flood, or shoaled by drought-no doubt at times subjected to windings and to rapids, and exhibiting foam and bubbles; but on the whole, flowing calmly, fertilising its own banks with its own waters, and reflecting their prosperity, their industry, and their peace on its quiet bosom, and performing in the sight of nations its stated and steady course from fount to fall from its rise amidst the rocks of the cycles of time till its flow into the broad main of eternity.

B.