ruptness with which he was hurried from the sphere of his mortal labours, forbade him the opportunity of making an adequate provision for those most dear to him. We are sure it will be heard with extreme sorrow that the circumstances of his wife and children are such as to threaten the necessity of parting with his library, the accumulation of years of literary labour and study; his paintings, the numismatic and archæological collections, which he toiled to amass, in order to illustrate Irish history, and that even the honourable testimony to his worth and talents the service of plate presented to him by his fellowcitizens of all creeds and classes, at the conclusion of his year of office of Mayor of his native city, runs the risk of being brought under the hammer of the auctioneer. An effort has been made, however, to arrest a spoliation, which for the honour of our country, we hope would be looked upon with shame. Some generous men have come forward-many of them widely separated in religion and politics from Dr. Cane, but admirers simply of his high character and the genuineness of his national feelings and inaugurated a subscription intended to prevent the sacrifice. Men of true hearts and honest love of fatherland are not so numerous amongst us that we can afford to slight the memory of one who was emphatically a true and an able patriot. Let us in the case of Dr. Cane, at least, not have to bear the reproach of ingratitude, which so often dims the lustre that the country ought, but for its own neglect, derive from the memory of its great men. Let all who desire to show that Irish patriotism is not a dead thing, but a spirit which can wake a sympathetic chord in Irish bosoms, cooperate with those who have cominenced a national tribute to the fame and the virtues of Robert Cane of Kilkenny. The subscription, unfortunately, was not organized in time to save Dr. Cane's splendid library. Three weeks ago it was dispersed by the auctioneer's hammer through the length and breadth of the land. RESOLUTIONS OF THE CORPORATION OF KILKENNY. "Resolved that it is our duty, our painful duty, to take this early opportunity, to express our heartfelt sorrow, as one unanimous body, for the untimely death of Dr. Robert Cane. "We regret him as one as the dearest and best beloved of our council, pure, straightforward, and honorable in his advocacy of every measure calculated to reflect credit upon us as a liberal corporate community, and possessed of a rare and zealous talent which he always used with the greatest modesty and best effect. 66 That we regret him and will ever preserve his memory with warm regard, because he ever and always exhibited the most anxious jealousy to protect and defend the honour of this Corporation both civilly and politically, and because of his own great personal worth as a Councillor and a citizen. "That we regret him because he always aimed to sway our deliberations and differences with gentleness and wisdom, aud because his friendship was a boon that any of his fellow-citizens and every member of this corporation must ever feel proud of having once possessed. "That we regret him, because that in and out of this council, though he may have had some who differed from him in politics or religion, no man was his actual foe-no man was his private enemy. "That we regret him because rich and poor regret him, and because that both ardently join with us in this expression of condolence, firstly, on our own parts, then on the part of Ireland, on the part of his native city which his bright genius adorned, and on the part of his afflicted family whose irreparable loss nothing can supply." Mr. Potter rose to second the adoption of the resolution, and paid a handsome tribute to the memory of the deceased. Passed unanimously. The Mayor-It is unnecessary for me to say that I also fully agree with it. Even the poet's pen has been at work in praise of poor Cane. Mr. John O'Donnell, of Limerick, has published a monody, from which we select a stanza or two : THE GRAVE OF DR. CANE. Pace we along the brown old road Take down thine olden elder stave, And while we journey slowly on Let our still hearts rich utterance give Live and for aye the blast and storm Which shake earth's battlements sublime Is but the trumpet voice which tells Their names to time. Holy it is to sleep beneath The cloister's melancholy walls, And sunshine falls. Emblems of resurrection they, One from the wells of ether driven To fountain up the wastes of earth, Most musical the beechen trees Wail for the dead in voiceless sighs, And worst of griefs, and bitter, bitter woe, In charnel gloom, had made my poor heart wild; Of English foes had power to strike our chieftain down! O'ershadowing all. To-day our glory lies Whilst Echos bear our wailings to the skies, In the cold grave, oh no! oh no! Justice would murmur long if this were so. Our wisest and our bravest. As the admirers of Dr. Cane will ever regard any of his unpublished letters, as so many interesting relics, we place in the appendix one which has just reached us-not of importance certainly, but interesting as exhibiting his anxiety for the welfare of the Celtic Union, at an incipient stage of its progress. "Kilkenny, April 24th, 1854. MY DEAR MR. HENNESSY-I return the design for a member's card. It is chaste and beautiful, and of course the committee will adopt it. I send a plan with it, which if the committee approve of, would make it a receipt as well as card, and so save trouble. I should like the blocks to be about the size of the paper on which I have suggested the alteration of the card, and get Mr. Hanlon to send me three of them. I will have one speedily drawn for my book, and send it up for his estimate that it may be engraved; and if the price be fair and reasonable, I will want some eight or ten of them. With reference to Mr. Duffy's desire to have one of the covers smaller than the other, so as to suit small octavoes or twelves, I have no argument to urge against such a plan-save that I fear either may be damaged in bringing it down to a smaller size, and perhaps Mr. Watson, who draws minutely with great elegance, could reduce, without injuring his chaste design. I do not think Mr. Fitzpatrick could do so with his: but Mr Duffy, who is on the spot, will use his judgment in the matter, and decide and direct it before he goes to London. When sending me down the block for Fitzpatrick to draw his sketch on, send me Mr. Duffy's hints, and also Mr. O'Keefe's for changes of figures of Irish soldiers at top of it. THE SEPT OF CANE, KANE, OR O'CANE. (See p. 1009 ante.) A document preserved in the State paper office, dated Sept. 23rd, 1612, enumerates the names of certain prisoners unfavourable to the Protestant regime of James the First, who were then detained in the Tower of London. SIR DONAL O'CANE appears in "good companie," viz:-The lady Arabella Stuart, Sir Cormack O'Neile, brother to Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, Sir Neal Garvey, Nectan O'Donnell, William Baldwin Jesuite, Lord Sobhame, Sir Walter Raleigh, Earl of Northumberland, Countess of Shrewsbury, and Lord Grey. The Canes are repeatedly mentioned in the Rotuli Hundre dorum drawn up so far back as the Reign of Henry II. THE JACOBITE AND WILLIAMITE WARS. We cull one passage from the critique of the Athenæum. Dr. Cane is more liberal and less insular in his appreciation of the English politics of that time than the Young Irelanders, while his sympathies as a Catholic are also more active. He wishes to tell the truth; and he has the generosity to appreciate the heroism and virtue in the cause to which his traditional prejudices are opposed. In his style he is clear and eloquent. Dr. Cane's literary labours seem to have been very cordially appreciated in England. The clever Editor of the Hull Ad vertiser writing to Willian J. Fitzpatrick on June 25, 1856, observes Is there no man in Ireland to edit a popular edition of the works of Sir Jonah Barrington, including his history of the Irish Union? We are yet without a standard history of Ireland with the names of all the old chiefs and kings translated, and a key to the proper pronunciation of them. A series of the old divines of Ireland after the form of the Parker Society, would be most useful. Try and put life into some Irish publisher. As to Irish subjects not being popu lar that is all mere moonshine. Let the man of genius and of enterprise appear, and all the world will attend to him. Dr. Cane of Kilkenny is the only person I can refer to whom, judging from his history of the Williamite Wars in Ireland, I regard as gifted with the requisite ability to produce a really good history of Ireland. My bookseller here sent me four numbers, and I am highly charmed and delighted with them. I only wish that be would write a comprehensive history of Ireland in ten or twelve monthly volumes. We want also a series of good county histories of Ireland, such as abound in this country. Let me suggest a grand subject the history of the Established Church in Ireland, with all the suffering which it inflicted upon the plundered priesthood and people. ART. VIII.-THE IRISH INTERMEDIATE CONVICT PRISONS. Notes on Colonel Jebb's Report on Intermediate Prisons, August, 1858. By Captain Walter Crofton, C.B., Chairman of Directors of Irish Convict Prisons. Dublin: Thom and Sons. Colonel Jebb reminds us very strongly of Brigham Young and the Ordinary of Newgate, immortalized by Fielding in The Life of Jonathan Wild. Whatever the Colonel declares to be right is right because it is written in his Reports, and because it suits him to have it so considered, and herein his Reports are to him as the book of Mormon to Brigham. If nothing appears against a system of Prison discipline in these Reports, the Colonel does not object, and here he reminds us of the Ordinary, who will not drink wine, but will drink punch "because the Scripture no where forbids punch." We are free to acknowledge that when we read Colonel Jebb's Report, a grave public document, to which was appended the Colonel's name as Surveyor-General of Government Prisons in England, we felt considerable regret that he, an old public servant, should have so far forgotten justice, common sense, and common honesty, as to mistate, pervert, ignore, misquote, and misrepresent a system, because it enabled the Directors of Convict Prisons in Ireland to accomplish that which Colonel Jebb had declared to be impossible, although must desirable, namely, the successful employment of Intermediate Prisons, and the careful, but unobtrusive police surveillance of the ticket-of-leave men. Colonel Jebb attributes the success of the Irish Directors to what he calls the fact, that in Ireland criminals are not held in so great abhorrence as in England. So that Colonel Jebb believes in truth, that Mullowney the grocer or Delany the apothecary will look with friendly eyes, and meet with fostering hands, and take to their employment, Murphy the repentant burglar, or Casey the sorrowing pickpocket, after he shall have obtained his discharge either free or on ticketof-leave, more readily than Smith or Jones would engage |