in Ireland. And was he to be disgraced before the face of the congregation? Besides he could assure his grace that, after all, the monument was a great ornament to the cathedral; and, moreover, he solemnly denied that it was placed on the site of the high altar. The assertion that it was so must be false, for the Papists always erected the high altar in the Lady Mary's Chapel, &c. To this appeal the archbishop sent a reply which contains at once a dignified rebuke, a lesson in ecclesiastical architecture, and a terrible snubbing of a rich old earl of sixtyeight by an archbishop of sixty-one years of age. The document is a remarkable one, and as we have never seen it in print, except in the large tomes containing "The Letters and Despatches of Earl Strafford," edited by Knowler, we have no hesitation in now laying it before the reader, and recommending it to his attentive perusal. It is given at p. 222, vol. i., of Strafford's despatches:

"The Archbishop of Canterbury to the Earl of Cork.
"Salutem in Christo.

"My very good Lord,

It is very true that I have taken exception to the monument which you have built in St. Patrick's Church; and I hope your lordship will easily conceive I could not easily prophesy of any such thing; and, therefore, must needs have knowledge of it from thence, as I assure your lordship I had, and from good hands, though I cannot now recall from whom. My lord, the report that the tomb was built where the high altar stood, and the communion-table should now stand, did not come lately to me, as your lordship supposes; for I assure you I heard of it and complained of it to the king, and desired remedy before ever my lord-deputy that now is was ever so much as named to that place. And, therefore, whereas your lordship writes that you built it three years since, and never heard any mouth opened against it, it seems that some mouths that durst not open there, did fully open here; for, I assure you, upon my credit, the information above mentioned came unto me. I had then just cause to doubt, considering the form of all other cathedrals which I have seen, that the east window was darkened by it; but that it is not so I am fully satisfied. For the other exception that it stands where the high altar stood, and the communion-table ought to stand, I must clearly confess to your lordship, I am not satisfied, nor whether it will not take too much room off the choir, when the screen is built as you intend it. Neither can your lordship think that I will make myself judge of these or any other inconveniences, having never been on the place to see it, but shall have it wholly to such view ent consideration as shall then be had of it, yet wishing, with all my heart, that you had erected that monument upon the side of the choir or any other convenient place, rather than where you have now set it. And I must needs tell your lordship such an erection as that would have asked very good deliberation where to have placed it. As for the dean and chapter's consent, if they had understood themselves and the church better, your lordship had been free from these fears.

"I have received, together with your lordship's letter, two other-one from my Lord Primate of Armagh, and the other from the Lord Archbishop of Dublin; but neither of their reports do fully satisfy me, as will appear by the answers I have given their lordships; neither can I give your lordship such an answer as I see you expect; for as yet never did I see that cathedral church where the high altar stood in the Lady Mary's Chapel, and not at the upper end of the choir; which place under favour of better judgments I cannot say is a place fit for any man's monument.

"And whereas your lordship writes at the latter end of your letters that you bestow a great part of your estate and time in charitable works-I am heartily glad to hear it; but withal your lordship will, I hope, give me leave to deal freely with you, and then I must tell your lordship if you have done as you write you have suffered strangely for many years together by the tongues of men, who have often and constantly affirmed

that you have not been a very good friend to the Church in the point of her maintenance. I hope these reports are not true; but if they be, I cannot account your work charitable, having no better foundation than the livelihood of the Church taken away to do them.

"I am sorry I cannot give your lordship any other answer to your letters than what here I have written, and therefore leave the tomb to be viewed and ordered by my lord-deputy and the archbishops there, as they shall find fittest to be done. So I leave you to the grace of God, and rest

"Lambeth, March 21st, 1633,"

"Your lordship's loving, poor friend,

"W. CANT.

The sequel of this episode is soon told. Strafford committed. the inexpiable sin against Boyle of conquering him and compelling him to remove the monument; Boyle retaliated in after years by contributing largely to the decapitation of Strafford.

We shall conclude this portion of our narrative by an extract from a rare and curious tract, republished by Messrs. Thom and Sons in 1860, and entitled "Ireland's Natural History, written by Gerard Boate, late Doctor of Physic to the State in Ireland, and now published by Samuel Harttil, Esq., for the common good of Ireland, and more especially for the benefit of the adventurers and planters therein. Written in 1645." The extract is as

follows:

"One of the little islands situate in Lough Derg hath been famous for the space of some centuries over almost all Christendom; because the world was made to believe that there was the suburbs of purgatory. Which persuasion having been until our time, the matter hath been discovered within these few years and found to be a mere illusion. This discovery was made during the government of Richard Boile, Earl of Cork, and Adam Loftus, Viscount Elie, who being two lords-justices in the last years of King James, and desirous to know the truth of the business, sent some persons of qualitie to the place to enquire. These found, &c. . . . To prevent this delusion the said lordsjustices caused the friars to depart from thence, their dwelling quite to be demolished, and the hole or cell to be broken open and altogether exposed to the open air, in which state it hath byen ever since; whereby that pilgrimage to purgatory is quite come to nothing, and never hath been undertaken since by any."

We have very recently read how a bishop from the Far West travelled some 3,000 miles to visit this same small island in Lough Derg, and how the right rev. pilgrim made a lengthened stay in these same suburbs of purgatory which Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, thought he had utterly demolished. We have also lately viewed, relegated to an obscure corner of St. Patrick's Cathedral, just at the end of the south nave, at the right hand. side as you enter by the great western door, the hideous monument which Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, set up as an object of worship on the site of the high altar.

(To be continued.)

THOMAS GALLWEY.

SAINT FRITHESTAN.

[Frithestan was succeeded in the Bishopric of Winchester by Brynstan about the year 932. For his character and the miraculous incident mentioned below, see the "Chronicle of Florence of Worcester."]

Guiding, reproving, nurturing, defending,

Through nights of care, through days of toil untold,
Wrought Frithestan, a faithful shepherd tending
His Master's fold.

And when the crozier his tired hand departed
In feeble age, and Brynstan in his stead
Pastured his flock, he daily-tender-hearted—
Prayed for the dead.

"Pray for the dead, the helpless dead, my brothers,
The living for themselves can plead," he said;
"These have no hope save in the prayers of others.
Pray for the dead."

Thus said he, and thus wrought he. Daily ringing
Through the great minster his clear voice uprose
In loving requiems for the dead, his singing

For their repose.

Yet in that hour of anguish and sharp trial
Which darkens round us ere the perfect meed
Is gained, fiends crowding round him made denial
Of this his deed.

"Fond fool!" they whispered, "vain was thy endeavour
In idle mockery have thy prayers been said.
Know, nothing may avail the dead forever;

The dead are dead!"

Then in his faint soul rose no wise and ready
Response, but troubled, weeping, he made wail.
Trusting and loving, Lord, I did it," said he,
"Nor yet will fail!"

Thus saying, rose at midnight; did not falter,
But from his sick couch to the minster sped,
There standing, sang before the great high altar
Mass for the dead.

Sang while the long, dim, echoing aisles resounded,
Sang while the thin lamp flickered; did not cease
Nor faint till duly the last words had sounded,
"Rest they in peace!"

From where in hallowed mould they slept their slumber,
From nave and aisle, from garth and cloister near,
Strange, solemn voices, voices beyond number,
Rose to his ear.

As down the long, lone vaults his tones were dying,
A full response came back, for even then
He heard from all their graves the dead replying
One deep "Amen."

Then on the old 'man's spirit peace descended,
Peace, that he knew his loving work was blessed ;
And soon, with joy, from life's disquiet wended
To its great rest.

F. S. P.

THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD.

SEPTEMBER 29TH, 1820, is a memorable date in contemporary history. Early on the morning of that eventful day, big with the fate of the Bourbon dynasty, the booming of cannon from the Invalides, reverberating along the quays and down the Rue Rivoli until it reached the ears of the anxious crowd assembled near the Pavillon de Marsan, announced to expectant Paris that a child was born of the race of the Grande Monarque. The customary salvo of twenty-four guns further proclaimed that the child was a prince-the prince for whose auspicious advent all Catholic and monarchical France had been praying; the heir of sixty kings, and the hope of the elder branch of that long line dating back to Hugues Capet, with which the destinies of "la grande nation" were linked for well-nigh a thousand years; the child who was to be hailed by prophets and pontiffs as the great king whose mission is to restore Christina monarchy on the old theocratic basis, and close forever the cra of revolutions; to be greeted by Victor Hugo in perfervid poetic strains as another Clovis, the new column of the Holy Temple; chaunted by Lamartine as the child of miracle, and unanimously recognised by the Papal nuncio and the Emperor Alexander, representatives of the spiritual and temporal powers and of the two great divi

sions of Christendom, as the child of Europe and the presage and guarantee of the peace and repose it was confidently hoped would follow an epoch of continual agitation. Four years and three months had elapsed since the union of the Duc de Berry, second son of Charles X. (then Count d'Artois), and the Princess Mary Caroline, eldest daughter of the hereditary prince of the Two Sicilies, was accomplished, a union full of promise for France and Europe; and just seven months and fifteen days since the fatal night when the poniard of Louvel found its way to the heart of him who, of all the princes of the blood, was the most exposed to the knife or bullet of the assassin, but who, regardless of the frequent anonymous letters full of secret menaces or counsels of which he was the recipient, and which failed to inspire him with either fear or prudence, paid the penalty of his bravery or rashness as he emerged from the Theatre des Arts in the Rue Richelieu. The Revolution, which, in the intoxication of its first triumph, thought it could abolish the monarchy as well as it had decimated the old aristocracy of France-finely called by De Maistre "the prolongation of sovereignty"-flattered itself that now, at least, it had not missed its aim, and that, by the hand of Louvel, who boasted that he had slain a prince only that he might extinguish in him a whole race of kings at one blow, it had given the House of Bourbon its death-wound. But it was to learn that the prayer of faith is more potent to save than the knife of the guillotine-that blind Fury whose abhorred shears cut the thread of so many noble and ignoble lives-or the poniard of the assassin to destroy; and that the child it hoped would never see the light, the child to whom the Duc de Berry referred in his last words to his courageous wife: “Mon amie, ne vous laissez pas accabler par douleur; menagez vous pour l'enfant que vous portez"was to be providentially preserved, despite the cowardly attempts made to frustrate the princess's hopes of maternity, to gladden the hearts of the legitimists of all ranks and classes who thronged the passages of the Tuileries and the neighbourhood of that antique Louvre, which Shakespeare called "the mistress court of mighty Europe," and Voltaire, "one of the most august monuments of architecture in the world;" including the 500 soldiers admitted to be witnesses to the authenticity of the birth, vainly contested by the wily Duke of Orleans and his intriguing sister, Madame Adelaide, chagrined to see the prospect of the succession reverting to the younger branch thus diverted. Presented successively to the people from the balcony of the Tuileries by the Duchess d'Angoulême, the orphan of the Temple, by Louis XVIII. and by the royal mother herself, who had her bed moved close to the window-an episode perpetuated by a medal struck in honour of the occasion, bearing on one side the effigy of the Duchess presenting the infant to the nation, and on the reverse the Archangel St. Michael, on whose feast he was born-the