himself in his former elegant attitude, he recommenced his INCANTIC jabberings, he repeated his manipulations in the manner above described. After some time, we observed the cloth gradually rising, rising, rising, and rising again in the centre, until it assumed a form somewhat conical, the apex of which was removed about two feet, or upwards, from the floor; during the whole of this rising or ascending progress, the manipulator remained without moving from the spot where he had originally squatted, but he now assumed the erect posture of the "human form divine," and again, and for the last time, he raised the cloth, when, wonder upon wonders! there were the six dishes, which, twenty or thirty minutes previously, we had seen arranged flat and symmetrically upon the floor, now piled one upon the other in regular order, commencing with the largest at the bottom, and each dish, in ascending order, being of diminished size, until the smallest crowned the top, the food remaining in the dishes, thus forming a pyramid of alternate layers of earthenware and viands. "Well," said a countryman of ours who was present, "if this does not bate Banagher, and sure ye know who he bate, wasn't it ould Nick himself?" Alas! poor — - ! for, shortly after, Death, the presiding genius of Hong-Kong, claimed him as a victim, and there his body rests, in the burial ground upon the hill, far from Erin's green isle, and those he loved so well.

"Alas, poor Yorick, he was a fellow of infinite mirth and merriment !"

Ah! well, it will not do for us to indulge in these melancholy reminis

cences.

With breathless astonishment we gazed upon this necromancer, half believing that it was not quite impossible that, upon more close inspection, we might discover the cloven hoofs, horns, tail, and other peculiarities appertaining to his satanic majesty-true, there was a tail, but that was of hair, and being twined round his head, it could not very conveniently or legitimately be termed a dorsal termination! During the whole of this time, he preserved his imperturbable gravity, whilst we, unsophisticated mortals, were lost in very amazement at the wonders we had

been the witnesses of: but he treated all that he did seemingly as matters of common, ordinary, daily occurrence, which possibly they might have been, or were, with him. Amongst our English exclamations of wonderment, it should not be forgotten that there were mingled in due proportion the YI-YAWS, and other expressions indicative of similar feelings on the part of the head domestics and their friends, who had crowded round the doors and windows to satisfy their not very unnatural curiosity; for we, although not at all times disposed to be good-natured, on this occasion, for very obvious reasons, followed laudably the course pursued by a certain "Mitey Minister," and shut our eyes to avoid seeing what we felt we should have great difficulty in remedying. The emperor of all the conjurors, and we most fully acquiesce in according him the title, now took his leave with a "chin-chin," meaning, in good honest English, farewell; his coolee removing the teakwood box, and some of our own domestics carrying out the flowering shrub, in all its pristine beauty, and the pyramid of viands, of the latter of which we have no doubt they partook, in company with our friend the emperor, and washed them down with sundry cups of their favourite sam-shoo.

We must now conclude, by drawing an analogy between the peformances of the jugglers of the Celestial Empire and their brethren of the British possessions in India. We have not ourselves heard of anything analogous to the bowl of water and the fish; but as regards the growing plant or shrub we have, and believe that it has been previously described by many; but, nevertheless, we will give it here concisely, as we have had it from the lips of an eye-witness, whose veracity is undoubted, and upon whom we can rely, and whose scars bear honourable testimony to the service which he has rendered his country. The performance we allude to is the production of a mangoe-tree. The juggler shews a stone of mangoe fruit, or the young plant, which he places in the earth, covering it with a mat; after a certain time he removes the mat, and the fruit-stone has either become a young plant, or the young plant has become a young tree, with branches clothed with leaves, as the case may

be; it is again covered with the mat, which, after another space of time is removed, and you behold the tree in full blossom. The same process of covering and uncovering with the mat is repeated several times, and the various stages of the blossoms forming, blowing, the fruit forming, the green fruit and the ripened fruit are exhibited, according to their natural order, for inspection and observation. At the conclusion, the fruit is gathered, cut into pieces, and handed to the spectators; and our informant has assured us, that he not only partook of the fruit which was so produced, but that the appearance, smell, and flavour of them were equal to the finest fruit of that description which he had ever previously tasted. This operation of growing mangoe-trees takes several hours, and, to the best of my recollection, five or six-so that, in point of time,

the professors of the Celestial Empire are not inferior to those of British India; and we have not the slightest doubt upon our minds, that they could produce fruit in a shorter time; judging from what we have witnessed, seeing that the flowers were produced upon our shrub in about an hour and ten minutes from the planting of the seed, we may very fairly argue that fruit could have been produced in an hour longer.

We will not here enter into any description of, or dissertation upon, the feats of agility, or gymnastic exercises practised in the Celestial Empire, whatever we may be induced to do hereafter; more particularly as we do not consider that they correctly come under the same class with those performances which we have just been describing.

In a paper, to which Mr. Wills' "Lives of Illustrious Irishmen" gave a title, in our last November number, we took a rapid review of the early history of this country, and the remarkable men connected with that history, concluding with Gerald, sixteenth and last earl of Desmond. Resuming the subject, we shall briefly advert to a few of the distinguished native chieftains of the same period.

The Desmond Fitzgeralds are generally conceded the first place in power and pre-eminence among the Norman settlers, who established themselves in this country. The house of O'NEILL may justly claim the same station among the native inhabitants.

From

the earliest periods to which our records reach, they had possessed territories of immense extent in the north of Ireland; and would appear even beyond the limits of those extensive territories to have established their dominion, though not the right of property; exacting from the surrounding chieftains an acknowledgment of their supremacy. At first they had resisted, afterwards refused to acknowledge, the sovereignty of England; finally, after long resistance, they yielded an apparent submission, cherishing in secret the most inveterate enmity. Hugh O'Niall disturbed the reign of John with frequent insurrections. Con O'Niall, who married a sister of the eighth Earl of Kildare, Tirlogh O'Niall, and Art O'Niall, successively through the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., waged war with the lords deputies. Con Boccagh O'Niall first sought and received a confirmation of his title from the British government; he was made a knight, and for several years continued peaceable, and professed fidelity to the British connexion afterwards he joined in the rebellion of his kinsman Silken Thomas; and being thus once tranged from loyal influences, it became an object with the enemies of King Henry VIII. and the Reformation, to gain his alliance. A letter was addressed to him by the Bishop of Metz and foreign cardinals, in these singular words:

:

es

"MY SON O'NIALL,-Thou and thy fathers were ever faithful to the mother Church of Rome. His holiness, Paul, the present pope, and his council of holy fathers, have lately found an ancient prophecy of our St. Lazerianus, an Irish archbishop of Cashel. It saith, that the Church of Rome shall surely fall when the Catholic faith in Ireland is overthrown. Therefore, for the glory of the mother church, the honor of St. Peter, and your own security, suppress heresy, and oppose the enemies of his holiness. The council of cardinals have, therefore, thought it right to animate the people of the holy island in this sacred cause, being assured, that while the mother church hath sons like you, she shall not fall, but prevail for ever, in some degree at least, in Britain. We commend your princely person to the protection of the Holy Trinity, of the Virgin, of St. Peter, St. Paul, and all the host of heaven. Amen."

Con for some years continued in hostility with various success; at last, wearied of efforts which led to no decisive result, he made terms with the Lord Deputy, surrendered his estates to King Henry-received from him the earldom of Tyrone, and a grant of the country of Tyrone. The patent limited the earldom to him for life, with remainder to his son Matthew. The

legitimacy of this Matthew was denied, and another son, Shane O'Neill, assuming to be heir of the estate, by Irish law, though by the patent excluded from the title, engaged in war against Matthew, in his father's lifetime, and put him to death.

Thus commenced the career of John, better known by his Irish name of SHANE O'NEILL, the great leader of the disaffected in Ulster, during the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, and one of the most remarkable and dangerous of the chiefs, who have at any time rebelled against the English

and intercourse with men and business, supply the defects of education, and conduct their possessor, if not with equal honour, often with greater success, through intricate affairs-quickness of apprehension, foresight, prudence, and the power of dissembling. Thus fitted for the stirring scene on which he was to act, he found the circumstances of the time and the temper of men's minds admirably adapted for his views of independence. The English language and laws had made little progress among the mass beyond the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin. The Norman and Native chiefs were equally unwilling to submit to any yoke, or to be guided by any rule except their own arbitrary wills. The lower classes rather existed than lived; barbarous, beyond any other district in Europe, in their habits, and utterly unenlightened by any knowledge or information whatever, more than was requisite to provide their miserable subsistence from day to day. The Reformation had been introduced within the English pale, and under the preaching of Browne, Archbishop of Dublin, and many of his clergy who embraced its doctrines, had made some progress in Dublin, and to such extent around it as the English language was spoken. Everywhere else the ignorance of the peasantry and clergy, and their natural hostility to any system that came from those masters against whose political predominance they were, however unsuccessfully, still pertinaciously struggling, opposed insurmountable obstacles to its dissemination. Erroneous views, prevalent at that period, and shared in by but too many of the best and ablest statesmen, of the duty of the state to proselytise, and use even force, if necessary, for the purpose, produced measures that were met by obstinate resistance; and the intrigues of foreign ecclesiastics, and the ambition of individual chieftains, perverted and inflamed the antipathies of religious discord.

Of these materials for civil war, Shane O'Neill took that advantage which might have been anticipated. While engaging in an extensive confederacy with the discontented in every part of the island, he had the prudence to veil his designs, and actually pass over to London to pay his homage to the queen. Thence returned, he con

tinued steadily to strengthen his own power, and awaited only the favourable moment to break into rebellion. At length he burst upon Armagh with flame and sword, and advanced southward as far as Dundalk. Receiving there a check, he returned home, only to meet new enemies in the neighbouring chieftains, who had risen against him, and took advantage of his retreat to press him on every side. Abandoned by his old allies, conscious he had offended Elizabeth too deeply and too repeatedly to be again forgiven, he sought refuge with the Scots who had established themselves in Antrim, and whom he had, a few years previously, assailed with his whole force.

A drunken quarrel, eventuating in an armed conflict, between his followers and a party of the Scots, terminated at once his life and his intrigues. Piers, an English captain, who not improbably fomented the dissension, cut off the head of the deceased chief, and carried it to the Lord Deputy to Dublin. His headless trunk was buried near Cushendun, on the coast of Antrim; and tradition still points out the grave of the great Shane O'Neill!

On the death of Shane, there were two claimants for his power and posi tion-Tyrlogh O'Neill, his uncle, and Hugh O'Neill, son of Matthew, who had been slain by Shane. Tyrlogh claimed to be the O'Neill, by virtue of the Irish laws, and also on account of the alleged illegitimacy of Matthew; Hugh derived his claims by the patent from the crown, which limited the estates and earldom, on the death of Con O'Neill, the first earl, to his son Matthew and his issue. Eventually the claims of Hugh prevailed.

HUGH O'NEILL was bred in England; and his first occupation was in the queen's service, as captain of a troop in the war with Desmond. While engaged on that service, he is said to have attained a high reputation for military talent. He was at all times remarkable for dissimulation, whether natural, or acquired by the circumstances in which he was placed. To this, and to his conciliating address, and flattery used unsparingly and dexterously on a visit to Elizabeth, was due his being established in his ancestral possessions, with the reservation merely of two hundred and forty acres

for an English garrison. The Irish parliament, at the same time, declared him entitled to the earldom of Tyrone, which had been granted to his grandfather.

Much controversy has taken place between historians respecting the origin and causes of the subsequent quarrel between O'Neill and the English government. Some lay the blame on him; others on the lord deputy; and Mr. Wills pretty equally on both. O'Neill, unquestionably, had within the English pale a bitter enemy in Sir Henry Bagnall. He had carried off and married the sister of this knight, and, to enable him to do so, had divorced his own wife. And it is not unlikely that the conduct of O'Neill was subject to misrepresentation and suspicion, generated by the vindictive feelings of Bagnall. It seems, however, certain, that he was but too well inclined to seize on any excuse to shake off the yoke; and that during all the period at which he made the loudest professions of fidelity to the government, he carried on secret communications of a very different tendency with the insurgent native and Anglo-Hibernian chiefs, and even with the King of Spain. Some of his insurrectionary tendencies were certainly due to O'Donnell, another northern chieftain, who had been seized by Sir John Perrott, under circumstances of disgraceful treachery, and who, escaping from imprisonment, fled to O'Neill, and infused into the north his own ardent and just indignation. O'Neill, indeed, wrote to the government that he would persuade O'Donnell to loyalty, and in case he were obstinate, serve against him in person; but it was ere long seen that the principles of his guest found from him a ready sympathy and support, not the less dangerous because disguised. Private orders were issued to Sir Wm. Russell, the then deputy, if practicable, to seize O'Neill; and the language of the court became, in the words of Spenser " O'Neill, though lifted by her Majesty out of the dust to that he hath now wrought himself unto, playeth like the frozen snake." Deeming boldness the best defence, he suddenly appeared in Dublin, confronted his accusers, intimidated the viceroy, and, before orders were received from England, or measures were sufficiently pre

pared at home to enable his arrest with safety, returned again to his own country, having, by his courageous conduct, disheartened his enemies, and infused new vigour into his allies and friends. As soon as the queen received information of what had occurred, she expressed, in strong terms, her displeasure at the irresolution of the council, and the error they had committed in permitting so dangerous a person to escape; and, perceiving that the daring of O'Neill gave but too sure indications of the strength he had acquired, and the preparations he was making, determined to check the growth of his influence, and anticipate the hostilities of the insurgent party, by establishing a chain of fortresses, well stored and garrisoned, across the North of Ireland. O'Neill and O'Donnell, foreseeing that were this once accomplished, their designs could never be realised, resolved, if possible, to prevent the measure being effected, and broke into open war. The former suddenly appeared, with a large force, on the Blackwater at Portmore, where an English fort curbed the surrounding district, stormed and seized the fort, expelled the garrison, and driving them before him, advanced through O'Reilly's country with unresisted success. O'Donnell simultaneously invaded Sligo, and devastated a vast extent of country, with fire and sword, sparing no English adherent. The insurrection, with various incidents, and with considerable intervals of truce, continued for a lengthened period without any definite result. A victory of considerable importance was at length gained by O'Neill and the confederates near Clontibret, and subsequently another near Portmore, and lastly one attended with the loss of fifteen hundred English soldiers, and thirteen captains (among them Sir Henry Bagnall), near Armagh, called by some the battle of the Yellow-ford, and by others of the Blackwater.

Contemporaneous with this defeat, the flame of rebellion was kindled in the south by James Fitz Thomas, known as the Sugan Earl of Desmond; and the historians of the period describe the British authority as shaken to its foundation. "The general voice," says Moryson, of Tyrone amongst the English after the defeat of Blackwater, as of Hannibal

❝ was