634 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[Dec. 



proceed towards the guard-room, where, to 

 his utter amazement, he finds the ring, given 

 him by Lady Knocklofty, changed to one 

 with the signet of a death's head, and a warn- 

 ing motto. This is past all explanation. 

 The next day comes an order for his dis- 

 charge ; but, though dismissed by the civil 

 power, the university is not so easily satis- 

 fied. He had been already a marked man. 

 He was a member of the Historical Society, 

 and distinguished there for his eloquence 

 and boldness ; he had written political 

 pamphlets, and given himself great liber- 

 ties of speech everywhere. He was no 

 raw unfledged youth. From the age of six- 

 teen he had been in the Austrian service 

 an aid-de-camp of the Prince de Ligne, and 

 a protege of Marshal de Lacy- a relative, 

 and finally broken for challenging a supe- 

 rior officer. At the age of twenty- five he 

 had returned to Ireland, with the resolution 

 of devoting himself to the service of his 

 country. His father had recovered his 

 title, and he was enabled to enter the uni- 

 versity as filius nobilis. In the row of the 

 evening of the review his clothes had been 

 torn nearly off his back, and Lord Walter 

 had lent him his great coat, and in this coat 

 were certain papers of a seditious charac- 

 ter. The said coat was taken out of his 

 room to be brushed, and the papers found 

 their way to the fellows. He was expelled 

 chiefly on the evidence of these papers. 



After his expulsion he returns home to 

 his father's residence an old tumbling- 

 down house in one of the back streets of 

 Dublin, but can learn nothing of his father. 

 Without, he discovers a sale had taken place 

 that very clay, and within he finds nothing 

 but an old chair and a table ; but on the 

 table were symptoms of some one having 

 recently left the apartment. An illumi- 

 nated MS. lay on the table, with his own 

 portrait not completed the MS. proves to 

 be the fruits of his father's antiquarian 

 labours. While engaged in reading it, he 

 is surprised by the sudden appearance of 

 the tall figure he had seen in the castle be- 

 fore the sedan, who turns out to be his fos- 

 ter-brother, and the person who had fired the 

 shot in his defence. The poor faithful fel- 

 low was in a state of starvation ; and, while 

 O'Brien was pouring a drop of brandy down 

 his throat, in bursts a file of soldiers with 

 an officer at their head, Lord Walter, and 

 others to seize the said tall gaunt figure. 

 Such was the crazy state of the building, 

 that the floor sunk under the accumulated 

 weight, the walls followed, and O'Brien and 

 the whole party narrowly escaped with life. 

 In the midst of the confusion appeared a 

 lady in imminent peril, of whom no one 

 knew any thing, who was rescued, and car- 

 ried off, no body knew whither, by the fos- 

 ter-brother. 



Left now apparently to his own resources, 

 Lord Walter introduces him to his political 

 get, and he is forthwith admitted an United 

 Irishman in full assembly pledging him- 



self to the furtherance of their views with 

 the exertion of all his energy. From the 

 meeting with Lord Walter, he goes, in the 

 guise of a pilgrim, to Lady Knocklofty's 

 masquerade, wltHI^ ftC meets with a nun, 

 who holds him long in animated conversa- 

 tion. She is a mysterious personage, sharp, 

 shrewd, and witty full of French and Ita- 

 lian ; knows all Murrogh's movements ; 

 reminds him of scenes at Florence, gives 

 him sundry hints about his present engage- 

 ments, and on quitting him puts a letter in 

 his hand forbidding him to open it before 

 he leaves the house. Lady Knocklofty cuts 

 him dead ; and he quits the gay and glit- 

 tering scene in a state of agony and morti- 

 fication. 



The letter was from his father, an- 

 nouncing himself to be in a condition of 

 absolute indigence, and then waiting a last 

 interview with him in the burial grounds 

 of an hospital. Shocked at this intelli- 

 gence, he flies to the appointed spot, where 

 he finds him apparently dying with hunger, 

 and half naked. The old man is a little 

 mysterious, obscure in his communications, 

 and solicitous only to obtain a pledge from 

 his son to go with him where he pleases, 

 and as soon as that pledge is given, con- 

 ducts him to a carriage, at a sholrt distance. 

 They travel all night with the utmost speed, 

 and at length arrive at Cong Abbey, a 

 Jesuit institution where a few elderly gen- 

 tlemen appeared to be residing, at the head 

 of whom was his great uncle, the well- 

 known Abbate O'Brien. In the agony of 

 his sensations, O'Brien had thrown open 

 the carriage windows to catch the night 

 breezes, but unluckily caught nothing but 

 a fever. He was for some weeks in a state of 

 delirium, during which his aged father died, 

 and was buried with the honours due to his 

 dignity, and himself attended by a sceur grise 

 the nun of the masquerade. On his reco- 

 very, he finds himself obliged to quit his 

 asylum sooner than he intended his uncle 

 had discovered he was an United Irishman, 

 and his residence could be no longer tole- 

 rated. He now resolves to beat up the 

 quarters of his aunts, tne Miss MacTaafs, 

 two primitive maidens, who had declared 

 him the heir of their property to stir up 

 the natives, and further the views of the 

 society, of which he was a sworn member. 

 Here, at a grand festival, given by his aunts 

 in honour of his arrival, and on the broach- 

 ing of a hogshead of claret, he encounters 

 the nun again ; and Lady Knocklofty once 

 more. Again he rescues her ladyship from 

 impending destruction, and accompanies her 

 home. Explanations take place, and the 

 affair of the ring is partly disclosed. In a 

 tour round the neighbourhood, the Coun- 

 tess and her friends and O'Brien visit a 

 nunnery, under the protection of the Jesuits, 

 the abbess of which proves to be again the 

 veritable nun. The mystery is intolerable 

 to him, and he forces a private interview, 

 and she tells him part of her story. She is 



