Sirr and Swan, with Captain Ryan and a number of soldiers, were assembling at the door of the house in which he lay.

Murphy presently went up to Lord Edward's bedroom with the intention of offering him a cup of tea; but he had hardly begun speaking, when a great commotion was heard below. Then came the sound of hurried footsteps ascending the stairs. The next moment, Major Swan walked in. He told Lord Edward that he had come to arrest him. "You know me, my Lord," were his words, "and I know you: it will be in vain to resist."

Upon this, Lord Edward leaped up from the bed with a wavebladed dagger, which he carried about him, raised ready to strike. The Major, seeing his intention, discharged at him a pocket-pistol, the bullet of which grazed his shoulder. The shock threw FitzGerald backwards; but he was up again in an instant, and aimed a vigorous blow at Swan, who, though he parried it in a measure, was stabbed in the side. Captain Ryan now rushed in armed with a sword-cane, and seizing Lord Edward, threw him on the bed, receiving however, as he did so, a deep and dangerous wound in the stomach. When the struggling men regained their feet, Ryan was bleeding from a number of gaping cuts, but holding on with steady courage to his prisoner. Swan was kept for the moment aloof by the ferocity with which Lord Edward laid about him with his dagger.

In the meantime, Major Sirr was engaged in placing pickets round the house; but on hearing the report of Swan's pistol, he entered and hastened up stairs, with his own pistol on full cock. On reaching the second landing, he found FitzGerald writhing between his captors, both of whom, bleeding and exhausted, clung around his legs. "Without hesitation," writes Sirr, in a letter describing the sanguinary scene, "I fired at Lord Edward's dagger arm (lodging several slugs in his shoulder) and the instrument of death fell to the ground."

FitzGerald staggered back; but, wounded as he was, he continued his efforts to get free. It was not until a guard of soldiers had been called up, who forced him to the ground with the weight of their firelocks, that he became quiescent. He was then carried down to the hall, where he made a final and desperate attempt at escape, during which somebody from behind a drummer, it is said-inflicted a wound in the back of his neck, which added much to his sufferings

its way into the pocket of the former, as well as a pension of £300 a year. The latter obtained £200 a year for his share in the betrayal, and large sums for similar services rendered subsequently.-See The Sham Squire and the Bloodhounds of '98,' by W. J. Fitzpatrick.

at the last. He was removed in a sedan chair to the Castle under a military guard of treble strength, for it was thought that the mob, which had assembled in force along the route, might attempt the rescue of their idol. Indeed so fully was a rising with that object expected, that the Dublin garrison remained under arms throughout the night.

At the Castle, his wounds at first pronounced to be not dangerous -were dressed. While this was being done, a Mr. Watson, the Lord Lieutenant's private secretary, asked him whether he would like any message delivered to Lady Edward.

"No, no," was his reply, "thank you, nothing nothing. Only break it to her tenderly."

From the Castle he was removed to Newgate on the requisition of the magistrates, inasmuch as the frightful injuries he had inflicted on Captain Ryan were declared by the doctors to be mortal.

For some days before this, the friends of the prisoner had been in ignorance of his movements. When a reward for his capture was offered by Government, their hope, and, in several cases, their firm belief, was that he had fled the country. When, therefore, the announcement of his arrest, and of the circumstances attending it, reached them, their astonishment was only equalled by their dismay. His wife, when the first burst of grief had subsided, sought permission to join him in prison. But this was refused, and a few days afterwards, in obedience to an order of the Privy Council, she quitted Ireland.*

At first it was thought that Lord Edward would recover from his wounds. But for this rest was necessary, and with a mind disturbed as his was, rest was out of the question. How terrible a prospect was that which lay before him!-a trial, which could only result in one way, followed by an ignominious death on the scaffold. On the last day of the month, he heard of the death of Captain Ryan. Remorse for a deed committed in a transport of fury, and the thought that, to the other charges against him, there was now added that of murder, affected him deeply. Awaking from a short and troubled sleep on the morning of the 2nd of June, he heard a commotion outside his prison window. Inquiring the cause, he was told that the execution of the rebel Clinch was taking place. The same night he was in a raging fever, and delirious. His frantic exclamations could be heard outside the prison walls.

Most of his near kindred-mother, stepfather, and sisters-were now in England; but an aunt and brother (Lady Louisa Conolly, and Lord Henry FitzGerald) were in Dublin, and urgently appealing to

*

Among the papers seized at Leinster House were some showing that she was as deeply implicated in the conspiracy as her husband.

the clemency of the Viceroy and Chancellor (Lords Camden and Clare) for admission to their suffering relative. Their appeals were sternly rejected, until the surgeon-general, who was attending the prisoner, pronounced his condition to be hopeless. They were then admitted.

Lord Edward FitzGerald was now calm. His wandering senses returned as his strength ebbed, and he recognised the faces of those he loved so well at his bedside. "It is heaven to me to see you!" were his few faint words, as they bent in anguish over him.

"He smiled at me," writes Lady Louisa, in her touching account of the scene, "which I shall never forget, though I saw death in his dear face at the time."

The interview did not last long. The dying man's thoughts were evidently confused, and he spoke but little. His aunt and brother left him, promising to return next day; but they had really bid adieu to him for ever. Three hours after their departure, he breathed

his last.

Such was the end of a man whose honesty of purpose cannot be questioned, whatever may be thought of the national movement which he led. "If," says Dr. Macnevin,

"he had been actuated in political life by dishonourable ambition, he had only to cling to his great family connections, and parliamentary influence. They, unquestionably, would have advanced his fortunes, and gratified his desires. The voluntary sacrifices he made, and the magnanimous manner in which he devoted himself to the independence of Ireland, are incontestable proofs of the purity of his soul."

A Winter's Evening in the Fens.

Now the sun sinks the distant swamp below,
Steals back its golden streamers of the light;
Old Norwich pile has lost its burnished glow,
And all has vanished in the approaching night.

In dusky groups the slender poplars stand,
And far off rear their forms against the sky;
While clustering pollards mark the level strand,
Or frozen brooks that one time rippled by.

The shrill north wind its old-world legend sings,
Forsakes the Arctic fastness of its throne,
And bears the dread Ice Maiden on its wings,
To range the marsh and make the Fens its own.

Again the frost has numbed the leaden clouds;
A myriad snow-shaped forms are flitting past;
The hungry wildfowl wheel in timid crowds,
And scream a piercing burden to the blast.

Pile up the fir-logs, pile, upon the fire!
Our limbs are cold; this evening gloom appals;
That ruddy blaze shall flash its beams yet higher,
And chase the thousand shadows from the walls!

C. K.

Death and Burial in Spain.

"Nunca volverán "-they will never return! The bright days of yore have gone: the friends we loved have gone: and nunca volverán, they will never return to us again.

"Nunca volverán"!—so say all classes in Spain, in their hour of bereavement and desolation: "the fair Primavera, or early spring, will come with its wealth of smiling fields, and painted flowers: the summer heats will come: the tropic, the autumnal rains-all will return; but the hours, days, years, and friends that have passed come no more"!

Even Omnipotence cannot recall the past. Death comes to all: the fever runs its course, the medical man throws up the spongeis all over: tender care and skilful advice are of no avail, and resort must be made to the last offices of the Church.

Children of nature, holding their tenure of life by natural more than artificial right, it is at spring and fall that the Spaniards die; in the summer heats, deaths are very rare; and in the chilly, but little-varying temperature of the winter, still more rare.

But when the sere and yellow leaf is whirling through the gusty air, or floating down in mournful silence, beneath the settled rain, then the aged die in shoals; and when the trees, in March, essay to put on their vernal robe of green, and the strong succeed, and the weak trees stand powerless and naked, unable to put forth their strength, then die the young-the girl of 13, just budding into womanhood, but too delicate to fulfil her task: the little child, essaying to cut its first teeth-these then fail in the race, and are gathered into the great army of the departed.

And so the Spaniard calls Autumn the "Harvest of the aged," and Spring, the "Harvest of the young.'

Almost invariably, it is at night that the Host (su Majestad) is carried to the dying.

You are sitting writing at your table, at 8 or 9 P.M. of autumn eve: suddenly from the old church tower ring out three, then three more, then three more-a trinity of sharp clangs of one bell: the priests assemble in the chapel-(they live hard by, in their clergyhouse, and one always keeps a lamp outside his window, in wakeful slumbers, ready to rise if summoned and carry the Host to any poor man)—and, in five minutes, heralded by a boy in red petticoats, ringing his bell, and preceded by six candle-bearers, the clergy