been disturbed, and taken to precipitate flight; for a recently-plucked peach, and some slight articles of female attire, lay on the floor close to the music-stool.

Upon reconnoitring the line of the Belbek, the allied Generals found that the enemy had erected a fortified work which commanded the mouth of the river, so as to prevent the landing of the siege-train and other matériel from the fleet at this place, as had originally been contemplated. This circumstance, probably joined to others of equal moment, induced the allied Generals to alter their plan of operations; and the ability and celerity with which this was done is deserving of the highest admiration. Correctly calculating upon the paralysis and disorganisation of the Russian army, it was resolved that, instead of advancing direct upon Sebastopol by the road which leads to it from the north, they should make a circuitous march to the

left, and, passing wholly round Sebastopol, arrive at and take possession of Balaclava, nine miles to the east of Sebastopol, as a most suitable base for subsequent operations. The plan of the Generals was to steal a march upon the enemy, and, forsaking the highway, take a near cut across the country, and fall in with the road to Balaklava at a place called Mackenzie's Farm. In so critical a flank movement everything, depended upon celerity of advance; and accordingly, the resolution of the Generals was hardly taken ere Lord Raglan had put his army in motion to execute

it.

Leaving the fourth division on the heights above the Belbek, to maintain his communication with the Katscha, the British General began his march at the head of the light, first, second, and third divisions, and the cavalry. The country to be passed through in this flank-march presented great obstacles to the march of our army. "On leaving the high-road from the Belbek to Sebastopol," says Lord Raglan," the army had to traverse a dense wood, in which there was but one road that led in the direction it was necessary to take. That road was left, in the first instance, to the cavalry and artillery; and the divisions were ordered to march by compass, and make a way for themselves as well they could; and indeed the

artillery of the light division pursued the same course as long as it was found to be possible; but as the wood became more impracticable, the batteries could not proceed otherwise than by getting into the road abovementioned." Involved in thick and intricate woods of dwarf oak, all order was for the time impossible. The march was a toilsome one, and the troops suffered much from want of water. At length, about mid-day, Lord Raglan and his staff, preceding the light division, arrived at the outskirts of the wood, in the neighbourhood of Mackenzie's Farm, and, no doubt to the surprise of both parties, found himself on the flank of a Russian division, retreating from Sebastopol to Bakshi-serai. Had the Russians been in sufficient strength and courage to attack us, the consequences to the army, inextricably involved in the woods, might have been very serious. However, the Russians only thought of making good their retreat; and before any of our cavalry and horseartillery could be brought up, the enemy had passed by the critical spot. A few men fell on the side of the Russians, and some were taken prisoners, but the pursuit was discontinued after about a mile and a-half, as it was important to reach the Tchernaya river that evening. A vast quantity of ammunition and much valuable baggage, however, fell into our hands. resting for a while at Mackenzie's Farm, where two wells afforded a scanty supply of water to the thirsty troops, the march was resumed down a steep and difficult defile leading to the valley of the Tchernaya river. The cavalry pushed on in advance, and succeeded in reaching the banks of the river shortly before dark; but the infantry divisions continued to come_straggling in until past midnight. During the night Lieutenant Maxse, of the Admiral's ship, arrived at head-quarters with despatches from the fleet; and as Lord Raglan, quite ignorant of the enemy's strength at Balaklava, attached much importance to having the fleet appear off the mouth of that harbour simultaneously with the approach of the army, the gallant Lieutenant immediately volunteered to retrace his steps through the forest, and communicate the General's wishes to Admiral Lyons—a daring feat, which he accomplished successfully, although the country was of

After

the most intricate description, and infested by Cossacks.

Next morning (the 26th) the army was again on the march, and a few miles more sufficed to bring them to the end of their journey. The enemy did not hold Balaklava in any strength; but as some cannon-shot were fired from an old castle as the head of the British column showed itself on the road leading to the town, the light division and a troop of horse-artillery were sent forward to occupy two heights which rise on either side of the road, and flank the place. After a few shots the little garrison surrendered; and as Sir E. Lyons's ship, the Agamemnon, reached the mouth of the harbour at the very time that the troops appeared on the heights, the British army was once more in full communication with the fleet.

The march of the French army, which followed in the track of the British, was still more prolonged and fatiguing than ours had been. They did not reach the Tchernaya river until the 26th having passed the previous night at Mackenzie's Farm, with hardly a single drop of water in the camp. It was on this day, from the bivouac of Menkendie, that the brave French Marshal, at length succumbing to his fatal malady, issued his last order of the day, in which he took leave formally of his troops, and resigned the command into the hands of General Canrobert. "Soldiers !" said this memorable and touching address, "Providence refuses to your chief the satisfaction of continuing to lead you in the glorious path which is open before you. Overcome by a cruel disease, with which he has vainly struggled, he regards with profound grief, but he will know how to perform, the imperious duty which is imposed on him by circumstances. - that of resigning the command the weight of which a health for ever destroyed will no longer permit him to bear. Soldiers! you will pity me; for the misfortune which falls on me is immense, irreparable, and perhaps unexampled." Next day (the 27th) the Marshal was seen entering

Balaclava, "indulging like every one around him in eating some of the delicious grapes which abound in the vineyards of this country." It is the last note we have of him. His task was done; he could no more lead his army; and he sank at once. He is stated to have embarked on board ship on the morning of the 29th, and in a few hours afterwards expired, in the midst of the officers who accompanied him.

Thus closed the first part of the Expedition. In his bulletin of the battle of the Alma, the brave French Marshal meted a most generous measure of appreciation to all concerned, and especially to Lord Raglan and his brave English allies. To use the words of the Moniteur, in that bulletin the dying hero "spoke of every one but himself." It well becomes us, then, to do justice to his memory, to his energy, to his ability, and, above all, to his sublime death. Many can meet death, numbers can sustain torture; but the power of holding up in action against the depressing and despairing misgiv ings of internal maladies, is a kind of resolution which nature confers upon very few indeed; and amongst these very few Marshal St. Arnaud will be ranked as one of the most distinguished. "There is something far more grand," says an English journal, "in this earnest soldier, worn down by sickness, yet still fulfilling his duty,sitting his horse on the battle-field upheld by a trooper at either side; conscious that his death could not be delayed many days, yet still reluctant to resign the glory of leading the French army into Sebastopol; kept up to the moment when he resigned the command, and then dying because he felt himself useless; in such a death, we think, there is something much more grand than in that of the hero who falls in the arms of victory. For in St. Arnaud's death we recognise the fortitude to suffer as well as the courage to achieve. His last letters and address are truly noble. Never did a dying hero gather his robes around him more gracefully as he fell.”

DEAR MR. POPLAR, On our return to Portarlington from the expedition to Geashil, we found that, owing to some neglect of orders, no dinner had been provided for us. This was the more maladroit, as we were all three extremely hungry and carnivorously inclined, especially Capt. Basil, who had talked most and listened least; and it is an undoubted phenomenon in physiology, that your great talkers, like Dr. Johnson, Sancho Panza, and the Abbé Barthélemy, are ever trenchermen de la premiere force. There was nothing for it but a carrying out of the old Spanish proverb, "Patience, and shuffle the cards;" but having no cards to shuffle, we paced the room like wild animals in a menagerie before feeding hour, looking out in most unsentimental fashion for the advent of the victuals, on which occasion the Captain behaved the best of us all, repeating for our comfort in adversity almost the whole of the "Pot of Basil" of poor Keats, especially the stanzas commencing with

"Oh, melancholy, linger here a while;

Oh, music, music, breathe despondingly;
O, echo, echo, from some lonely isle," &c., &c.

Now, the first of these lines was singularly malapropos, inasmuch as we were all laughing at our own misfortune. The only response to the second was "Cheer, boys, cheer," sounding from a crazy fiddle played by a lame negro in the street; and in regard of the third line, the sole echo which fell upon our ear was a hopeinspiring sound which indubitably arose from the kitchen, where the cook was endeavouring to soften the obdurate heart of the steak with her lignean hammer on the dresser. After we had dined heartily on the aforesaid extemporaneous vivre, we were amused to see Captain Basil, who during our banquet had been much busier with his teeth than with his tongue, fill himself a bumper of sherry, and having emptied it at a pull, throw himself

VOL. XLIV.-NO. CCLXIII.

back sentimentally in a chair, and commence with amazing gusto

"But ever and anon of grief subdued,

There comes a token like a scorpion's sting," &c.

We learned two things before leaving Portarlington. One was, that Sterne's Le Fevre, whom he introduces with features of such pathos and beauty into the pages of his "Tristram Shandy," was son to a Mr. Le Fevre, a descendant of a settler here under the Marquis de Rouvigny. This gentleman was over one of the excellent French schools belonging to Portarlington, and actually had a son in the army, who died in the manner so affectingly related by Sterne.

Our

other piece of information was, that the old Irish name for Portarlington before Charles II. gave it to his minion, was Cooletetoodra-yes, actually Cooletetoodra!-alias, and by corruption, said my informant, Cooletetooder! the meaning or English of this (thanks to my young friend Dryasdust) is, "The corner surrounded by wood" -a sensible and expressive denomination enough; yet one cannot but smile at what might have been the ridicule cast upon Lord Arlington's Irish property with such a ridiculously-sounding name, among the mirth-loving courtiers of Charles II., and the reason for the change of name is now evident. However little this land of Leix and Ossory can boast of that large measure of historical association which invests with a sad interest for sadness is the badge of our country's whole history-many of our Irish counties, such as Galway and its Athenry and its Aughrim-Dublin and its Clontarf Kilkenny with its thricenoble Ormondes and busy Confederates -Kildare and its Geraldines-Kerry and its Desmonds - Armagh and its ecclesiastics-Tipperary and its Cashel and her councils-Derry and its Maiden City, proud in her chaste victoryand Louth, with its Boyne and its battle; however deficient the land of

N

Leix may be in such spirit-stirring associations as these, yet indubitably there are echos along her ancient fields, and under the walls of her gray ruins, and around her green and solitary raths, and beside her flowing rivers, which, if

"Waked by some hand less unworthy than mine,"

could be woven into a native historic melody, replete with traditional wildness, and thrilling with legendary interest. Thus, among her romantic localities is her "Doon of Clophoke," near Stradbally, a wild and isolated rock, perforated with caves, and on the summit ramparted all round with stone, an ancient fort of the O'Mores; and her "Rock of Dunamaes," of which we have already spoken. Then she has her proud castles of the Pale, built by her English invader—such as Leix, and Shean, and Moret; and her battle-field, like Brittas, once snowed over with the white plumes which were shorn by Irish swords from the gilded helmets of the chivalry of the gallant, noble, and unfortunate Essex, whereby the place is still called "the Pluck of Plumes." And many a high and lonely rath has she, among which pre-eminently stands up "The Round Table of Ossory," with its green and brown coronet of beech-trees, an object which is visible for many miles on all sides from its base; and lovely old ruins, like that of Killeshin Church, near Carlow; and solitary round towers, like that of Timahoe, near Stradbally, on whose carving our gifted townsman, Mr. George Petrie, is eloquent-there was a second round tower at Rosenallis, but it was taken down by a Goth of a parson; and she has also the curious Norwegian tower or nidus, lofty and rotund, like Grantstown, near to Ballycolla, on the Ossory estate; and many a ruined abbey or monastery, like Rosstuirc, near the Slieve Bluimh Mountains; or storied Aghmacart, near Durrow, where the princes of Ossory sleep in their tombs; or Aghavoe, once the seat of the see of Ossory till removed to Kilkenny; or other religious structures founded by the munificence of some O'Dempsie, Fitzpatrick, or O'More. And castles infinite has she, erected long before the advent of the English, standing up like gray warders, and reproaching the devastating hand of Time, especially those which stud the green plains

of Ossory, once held by a haughty race, but now

"All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,"

such as Ballagh, near Lisduff; and Clonburrin, which means sloping to the river; and Barrackmore, and Garronmacunly, and Killeany, on the Nore; and Burris-in-Ossory, commanding the pass into Munster; and Gortnaclea, and Ballygihen, and Castletown, near Mountrath, dismantled by Cromwell's cannon-a most noble ruin, standing in a bright, Englishlike village, where are first-rate model farms, constructed and managed by John R. Price, Esq., Mr. Fitzpatrick's much-respected and most intelligent land agent. All the above nine castles were built and possessed by the Fitzpatrick family in the lapse of years, and are now on the property. Then there is the "Cross of Errill," near where this county mears with Tipperary; it rises from a kind of pyramid of masonry, all square and moss-grown, and erected in a spot where four roads meet; and on the cross is an inscription in the Irish character which refers to Fitzpatrick, Prince of Ossory, but which it is said can only be deciphered at midnight, and when the round full moon is striking on the monument, and raining her bright rays on the old cross; and again at Fertagh (though a little "over the border" of the Queen's County, yet still in ancient Ossory), you can see a round tower nearly one hundred feet high, and cracked throughout, or split, as the sailors say, "from stem to stern," probably by the action of lightning. Here is an ancient chapel, with two recumbent stone figures, one a knight in armour and his lady by his side the latter in a state of decapitation; the former representing a Fitzpatrick who was killed by a Dane in the tenth century (so saith the legend), and whose burying-place this was. Another most attractive sepulchral spot, though of a comparatively modern date, is the Grace Monumental Chapel at Arles, on the Carlow road, where is the mausoleum of this family, who derive lineally from a great Norman warrior and follower of Strongbow's, Raymond Le Gros; and in the Roman Catholic chapel of Clogh, near Bally colla, is to be seen the last work of skilful art ever perpetrated by that great medieval architect, Mr. Pugin,

and immediately before his final me lancholy illness and death. It is a splendid and gorgeous sepulchral monument, executed in brass and iron, in the highly ornate middle-age style, with shining metal rods and doves, and gold and purple scrolls on the tomb, which stands on a floor of encaustic tiling, in an arched and gracefully proportioned chapel, and lit by the dim light which falls from stained glass windows. The tomb contains the remains of Richard Fitzpatrick, of Grantstown, a gentleman greatly respected during his life and sojourn in Össory a deputy-lieutenant of the Queen's County, and formerly a captain in the Grenadier Guards, and younger brother to the present Right Hon. John W. Fitzpatrick. The tomb is, I believe, a facsimile of his sister's, Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick, which Pugin also erected at Grafton, near Farming Woods, in Northamptonshire.

Not far from the old Cross of Errill, on the hill of Kyle, which overlooks Borris-in-Ossory, are the remains of a Brehon's chair, where to the whole country side judgment was given in ancient days, and probably, if the truth were told, more judgment than justice. It is amusing to hear Camden's opinion of these Celtic jurisconsuls, whom he calls "Breahans," and irreverently declares to be "an ignorant paltry sort of people." A print of this chair is given in "Ledwich's Antiquities," at page 321. M'Firbis, as quoted by Lynch, had a worthier opinion of such institutes, for he says, in 686, a bishop, a judge, and a poet made laws, and called them Brathamcomhadh (I hope they were more easy to observe than they are to spell), and sums up their contents in two lines, luminous enough

"Quod sit jus cleri satrapæ, vatisque, fabrique Necnon Agricolæ, liber iste docebit abunde."

I wish we had such a volume now-adays, to supersede the "law's delay" in our courts of equity. But furthermore, this Queen's County, which we are traversing, has a large and most respectable resident gentry, many of whose ancestors appear with credit on the page of history, as having played their part in other days as stout captains, or wise castellans, or gentle men of letters. Of a few of these leading families, in connexion with the soil and the sce

for the same thing of the original owners of the soil, such as O'More, O'Dempsie, or O'Connor. The remainder of this paper we shall devote to a Celtic family, who appear to have kept their ground for centuries, and lost nothing, but contrariwise were the recipients of successive and most solid "grants" of land, and honours, and titles from the English Government. I allude to the FitzPatricks of Upper Ossory. They are certainly the most ancient historical family in this county, both as regards high hereditary and long-continued position, and the possession of immense property, as well as from having been blended with the quarrels of the Princes of Ireland from time immemorial; and no less mingled up with the English interests or aggressions, from 1170 downward. Into their territories, lying chiefly between Mountrath and the Tipperary border a rich and prolific region, comprehending the ancient principality of Upper Ossory-I now prepared to wander; and, bidding farewell to my two kind and agreeable friends, whom I agreed to meet in a week at Maryborough, I ran down to Mountrath and Castletown station, having been invited to an agreeable house in the very heart of the land of Ossory, where I purposed staying a week, and "taking notes," that you, dear Mr. Poplar, "may prent them."

On my way to my friend's house I passed through a highly civilised country, the road flanked with ornamental timber, and some beautiful trees, especially in Annebroke Abbey Lawn, which is the property of Mr. Scott. I passed a stern, square, stone castle, standing in a valley, on a brook; it is called Gurtnaclea, which means "the field of the chiefs," or "the wattles ;"