310 MORAL CONDITION OF THE WEST. 



"by his friends on the score of occasional insanity, is not 

 improbable. One circumstance would strengthen this 

 conclusion. He was interred by night, and with so much 

 privacy, in the old churchyard of Turlough, that the place 

 where his remains lay was for a time uncertain. Accident 

 in some degree revealed it. In the confusion attendant 

 upon his hurried sepulture, it is said that a ring was forgotten 

 and left upon the finger. Afterwards, in opening the ground, 

 this relic was discovered ; and what more satisfactorily 

 proved it was that the skull was distinctly fractured ; and it 

 was a matter well known, that Fitzgerald had been dangerously 

 wounded by a pistol-bullet in the head, in one of his numerous 

 and sanguinary duels on the continent. 



Denis Browne, when a young man, is said to have been 

 extremely handsome : but early in life he became corpulent 

 and engrossed in other pursuits, gradually careless and 

 slovenly in his person, and neglected any means to restrain 

 his constitutional obesity. To strong natural abilities, he 

 united decision of character and mental energy. He started 

 in dangerous times ; several influential families disputed 

 political power with him he had a fierce and dangerous 

 aristocracy to overcome men cold to every argument 

 " but the last and worst one," the pistol. Hence in the 

 very outset of his voyage, his vessel all but foundered. It 

 was his first contest for the county, and he was opposed by 

 the late Lord Clanm orris. The Bingham party was bold 

 and powerful, and after a protracted contest, matters 

 looked gloomily enough, and the Brownes were likely to be 

 defeated. 



" In this dilemma," to use his own words, " I have 



applied to Counsellor , my legal adviser. I told 



him how badly things were, and inquired what was to 

 be done? 



" ' My dear Dennis,' said he, with a grave and serious 

 movement of his full-bottomed wig, 'the thing admits 

 but one remedy, and that lies in a nut-shell. You are 

 one-and-twenty years old, and you have never yet been 

 on the sod why that one fact would lose you your election 

 you must fight my dear boy,' 



" ( Fight ! to be sure I will, when I'm insulted.' 



' Of course you would, and so would any body : but 

 you must fight, and that too this very evening.' 



