( 128 ) 

 THE BAWN VONE; OR THE WHITE WOMAN. 



WITHOUT being a positive antiquarian, I must confess that I recur 

 with a peculiar satisfaction to that period which is expressed by the 

 " good old times." In domestic phraseology it is connected with the 

 early recollections of our immediate progenitors. It refers to a 

 happy youth spent under the eye of pleasant old age. It is connected 

 with a cheerful fire-side, a hospitable home, a friendly neighbour- 

 hood. Then may we not share in the sigh which memory offers to 

 the good old times ? 



It would indeed be an idle controversy to enter into the question 

 whether the world is advancing or retrograding in the science of that 

 happiness which is founded upon innocent emjoyment. The old 

 think that manners were more simple in their day. Perhaps such 

 might have been the case ; and yet such an opinion may only 

 be one of those prejudices which are really honourable to our nature. 

 Youth lives for the future. Age indulges in the past ; and both may 

 be allowed to share in an illusion which confers happiness without 

 the compromise of one honest principle. 



There are, it must be confessed, many of those ornaments of their 

 sex whose every hour is a chronicle of good, women who seem to 

 live not for themselves, who are attendants on the sick, servants of the 

 poor, comforters of the criminal, mothers to the orphan, teachers of 

 the neglected child. I know of such. Fame may yet be busy with 

 their names. Whether or not, their reward is in their own bosoms 

 here in an eternity of happiness hereafter. Yet from such do we turn 

 a moment to think of the Lady Bountifuls of the past. A story of 

 female heroism I mean of that moral courage which arises from 

 the magnanimous suppression of fear to the call of simple benevo- 

 lence recurs to my memory. It is of an unusual character, and is 

 connected with the history of a somewhat eccentric being, whose ac- 

 tive goodness caused her to be honoured by one of those expressive 

 titles with which the Irish language so abounds, namely, Bawn Vone, 

 or, as it may simply be translated, The White Woman. 



Mrs. H. was a descendant of one of those families who, flying from 

 persecution for conscience' sake, seem to have left all their animosities 

 with their enemies,, and to have brought with them the best charities 

 of life to the hospitable land in whose green fields they were to find a 

 present shelter and a future home. Never was a national hospitality 

 better expended, never was national kindness more amply repaid. 

 There are many points of resemblance between the French and Irish 

 character; at all events, the latter believe such to be the case. Be 

 that as it may, those Huguenots who settled in Ireland after the re- 

 vocation of the Edict of Nantz met with the most friendly reception; 

 and so grateful have they proved themselves that a name, a wealthy 

 name, with a Gallic termination, is necessarily connected with charity 

 and benevolence. Without mentioning the exact locality of Mrs. H.'s 

 residence, it may just be said that she dwelt among a people whose 



