he had obtained some important connections and openings to connections in France. The young lady whom he had married, was generally known by the name of Pamela; and it has been frequently supposed that she is the person described by Miss Edgeworth, under the name of Virginia, in the latter part of her 'Belinda.' How that may be, I cannot pretend to say: Pamela was certainly led into some follies in this country; in particular she was said to have gone to a ball without shoes or stockings; which seems to argue the same sort of ignorance, and the same docility to any chance impressions, which characterize the Virginia of Miss Edgeworth. She was a daughter, I believe, of the wretched Philippe Egalité, by the truly disgusting Madame de Genlis, who had been settled in that Prince's family, as governess to his children, especially to the sister of the present French King. Lord Edward's whole course had been marked by generosity and noble feeling of every kind. Far better to have pardoned such. a man, and conciliated his support; but those were not times of conciliation.'

Some days after this event, were arrested the two brothers, named Shearer, men of talent, who eventually suffered for treason. These discoveries were made by a treachery of a peculiar sort; not from a treacherous brother, but a pretended brother, who had succeeded in passing himself off for a United Irishman. Government, without having penetrated to the heart of the mystery, had now discovered enough to guide them in their most energetic precautions; and the conspirators, whose policy had hitherto been to wait for the co-operation of a French army, now began to fear that the ground would be cut from beneath their feet if they waited any longer. More was evidently risked by delay than by dispensing with foreign aid. It was resolved, therefore, to commence the

insurrection on the 23d of May; and, in order to distract the Government, by simultaneous assaults upon all the military posts in the neighborhood of Dublin. This plan was discovered; but scarcely in time to prevent the effects of a surprise. On the 21st, late in the evening, the conspiracy had been announced by the Lord Lieutenant's Secretary to the Lord Mayor; and, on the following day, by a message from his Excellency to both Houses of Parliament.

The insurrection, however, began on the appointed day. The skirmishes were many, and in many places; and, generally speaking, they were unfavorable in their results to the insurgents. The mail-coaches, agreeably to the preconcerted plan, had been all intercepted; their nonarrival being everywhere understood as a negative signal that the war had commenced. Yet this summons to the more distant provinces had not been answered. The communication between the capital and the interior, almost completely interrupted at first, had been at length fully restored; and a few days saw the main strength (as it was supposed) of the insurrection suppressed without much bloodshed.

Just at this moment, when all the world was disposed to think the whole affair quietly composed, the flame burst out with tenfold fury in a part of the country from which Government, with some reason, had turned away their anxieties and their preparations. This was the county of Wexford, which the Earl of Mountnorris had described to the Government as so entirely pacific in purpose, and so well-affected to the loyal cause, that he had pledged himself for its good conduct. On the night before Whitsunday, however, May 27, the standard of revolt was raised by John Murphy, a Catholic priest, well known in the

further progress of this insurrection, under the title of Father Murphy.

The campaign opened inauspiciously for the royalists. The rebels had posted themselves on two eminences, Kilthomas, about ten miles to the westward of Gorey, and the hill of Oulart, half way (i. e. about a dozen miles) be tween Gorey and Wexford. They were attacked at each point on Whitsunday. From the first they were driven easily, and with considerable loss; but at Oulart the suc cess was very different. Father Murphy commanded here in person; and finding that his men gave way in great confusion before a picked body of the North Cork militia, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Foote, he contrived to persuade them that their flight was leading them right upon a body of Royal cavalry posted to intercept the retreat. This fear effectually halted them. The insurgents, from inexperience, had always an unreasonable dread of cavalry. A second time, therefore, facing about to retreat from this imaginary enemy, they came, of necessity, full upon their pursuers, whom the intoxication of victory had by this time brought into the most careless disarray. These, almost to a man, the rebels annihilated: and immediately availing themselves of the universal consternation, Father Murphy led them to Ferns, and thence to the attack of Enniscorthy. The insurgents were now seven or eight thousand strong.

Has the reader witnessed, or has he heard described, the sudden burst, the explosion, one might almost say, -by which a Swedish winter passes into spring, and spring into summer? The sceptre of winter does not then moulder away by just gradations: it is broken, it is shattered, in a day, in an hour; and with a violence brought home to every sense. No second type of resurrection, so mighty or so affecting, is manifested by nature in southern

climates. Such is the headlong tumult, such the torrent rapture,' by which life is let loose amongst the air, the earth, and the waters under the earth, that one might imagine the trumpet of the archangel to have sounded already for the second time, (Par. Lost, book xi, v. 75,) and the final victory to have swallowed up for ever the empire of Death. Not by way of saying something rhetorical, but as an expression barely and poorly corresponding to my strong impressions of this memorable case, I would say, that, what a vernal resurrection in high, latitudes is in manifestations of power and life, by comparison with climates that have no winter, such, and marked with features as distinct, was this Irish insurrection, when suddenly surrendered to the whole contagion of the passions then let loose, and to the frenzy of excitement, which mastered the popular mind at that era, by comparison with common military movements, and the pedantry of mere technical warfare. What a picture must Enniscorthy have presented on the 27th of May! Fugitives crowding in from Ferns, announced the rapid advance of the rebels, now, at least, 7000 strong, elated with victory, and maddened with vindictive fury. Soon after noon their advanced guard, considerably above 1000, and well armed with muskets, (pillaged, by the by, from royal magazines, hastily deserted,) commenced a tumultuous assault. Less than 300 militia and yeomanry formed the garrison of the place, which had no sort of defences, except the natural one of the river Slaney. This, however, was fordable, and that the assailants knew. The slaughter amongst the rebels, from the little caution they exhibited, and their total defect of military skill, was mur derous. Spite of their immense numerical advantages, it is probable they would have been defeated. But in

Enniscorthy, (as where not?) treason from within was emboldened to show itself at the very crisis of suspense. Incendiaries were at work; flames began to issue from many houses at once. Retreat, itself, became suddenly doubtful; depending, as it did, altogether upon the state of the wind. At the right hand of every royalist stood a traitor; in his own house were other traitors; in the front, was the enemy; in the rear, was a line of blazing streets. Three hours the battle had raged; it was now four, P. M.; and, at this moment, the garrison hastily gave way, and fled to Wexford.

Now came a scene hardly matched for its variety of horrors, except in September, 1812, upon the line of the French advance to Moscow, through the blazing villages of Russia. All the loyalists of Enniscorthy, all the gentry for miles around, who had congregated in that town, as a centre of security, were summoned at that moment, not to an orderly retreat, but to instant flight. At one end of the street were seen the rebel pikes and bayonets, and fierce faces, already gleaming through the smoke: at the other end, volumes of fire surging and billowing from the thatched roofs, common in that country, and blazing rafters, beginning to block up the avenues of escape. Then began the agony, in the proper sense of that word,— that is, the strife and uttermost conflict, of what is worst and what is best in human nature. Then was to be seen the very delirium of fear, and the delirium of vindictive malice; private and ignoble hatred, of ancient origin, shrouding itself in the mask of patriotic wrath; the tiger glare of just vengeance, fresh from intolerable wrongs and the neverto-be-forgotten ignominy of stripes and personal degradation; panic, self-palsied by its own excess; flight, eager or stealthy, according to the temper or the means; volleying pursuit; the very frenzy of agitation, under every