seem to have deserved a better fate than to be left to rot on the damp walls when all things else were removed. There are two, however, in the recess of the window, by Rembrandt which are of great merit, and in a tolerable state of preservation; and also one by Holbein, which is exceedingly fine. Let us now take an abrupt leave of this spot, lest the condition in which we find it should tempt us into a train of reflections unsuited to the feelings which should alone occupy the mind, when thinking of the illustrious person whose fame has attracted us hither. If the descendants of the Sydney (who are still in possession of this domain) think fit to cherish the memory of their ancestor elsewhere than on the spot which he has illustrated by his works and beautified with his actual presence, who has any right to complain of them? Perchance they think that, in thus abandoning the spot to the mercy of Time, and leaving it free to the visits of poor pilgrims like myself, who go to it once in their lives as they would to the shrine of a patron-saint,-they better evince their sense of the self-preserving qualities of their ancestor's name and fame, than if they made it the scene of modern "Christmas festivities," shooting-parties, and the like. And I do not know but they are in the right. His memory had better be left to itself than cherished unworthily. And, to say the truth, I scarcely know by what outward manifestations that memory could be worthily cherished, in times like these, in which he himself could not have existed, and in which he would not if he could. I have not thought it necessary to lengthen this paper by recalling the details of Sir Philip Sydney's life, as the records of it are accessible to most. But still the reader may like to have a brief note of it at hand, instead of being compelled to trace such a one for himself out of the various extraneous matters that are usually connected with memoirs of persons of whom so few facts are known. He was born at Penshurst in the year 1554, and before the age of twelve years he had shown so extraordinary a precocity of talent that in 1569 he was entered at Christ church college, Oxford. His tutor here, Dr. Thomas Thornton, afterwards considered it so great an honour to have had him for a pupil, that he caused it to be mentioned on his tomb, now in the church of Ledbury in Herefordshire. It is not known exactly at what period he quitted Oxford for Cambridge, or at what college he belonged in the latter university; but he was certainly there" probably at Trinity," Zouch says; and Fuller speaks of his parts and learning in the loftiest terms. Certain it is, however, that in 1572-that is, when he was only eighteen years of age-he had completed his studies; for in that year he went abroad on his travels, and was at Paris during the dreadful massacre of the Huegonots, and very narrowly escaped their fate himself-having been evidently marked out as a sharer of it. Here he became acquainted with Henry the Fourth, then Henry Bourbon, King of Navarre. During 1572 and the two following years, he pursued his travels through France, Italy, &c. becoming acquainted, among other distinguished persons, with Tasso ; and in 1575 he returned to England, and became the delight and glory of the court and council of Elizabeth-being universally hailed and acknowledged as "the president of noblenesse and chevalrie."* See Spenser's Dedication to him of the Shepherd's Callender. Another notice of him by that exquisite poet, written after his death, when the imputation of flattery or the hope of patronage were out of the question, will convey a striking idea of the estimation in which he was held. "Remembrance of that most heroicke spirit, Little is known with certainty of the detail of his life, from the time he returned to England in 1575 till he left it finally in 1585; except that he was sent on an important mission to Vienna, and that while at home he held the office of Cup-bearer to the Queen. It was, however, during this latter period that he wrote his works, the principal of which (the Arcadia) was not published till after his death, and was not intended by him to have been published at all-being merely written for the amusement of his beloved and accomplished sister, the Countess of Pembroke. In 1585 he was appointed governor of Flushing; and almost immediately after this, being also general of horse under his uncle the Earl of Leicester, he received a wound in the thigh at the battle of Zutphen, of which, after remaining some time in a precarious state, he died. The story of his having given to a common soldier, who lay dying near him on the field of battle, a cup of water which had been brought to him to quench the feverish thirst arising from his wound,-saying, "This man's necessity is greater than mine," is well known. There are two circumstances worth mentioning in conclusion: while lying on his death-bed he composed an ode referring to his feelings and situation (which, however, is not extant); and on his death there was a general mourning in England among the gentry, and I believe it was extended to several other courts of Europe. Z. THE EMIGRANT. WHEN fire sets the forests on blaze, I must go to the Huron's wild grounds, Whilst thou bloom'st to thine own native sun; Can the eagle fly home to his mate? And are we interdicted by fate From a spot of the world for our home? Thou art lost to me ev'n as the dead, And our tears unavailingly flow; Would be worse than this burden of woe. STATE OF PARTIES IN DUBLIN. In a Second Letter to a Friend. My last letter concluded with the trial of the Orange rioters. While the public mind was agitated by the forensic contest, a new and more abundant source of bitterness was unsealed. The death of Mr. Hans Hamilton (of whom I know nothing except that I have seen him read his speeches from his hat) occasioned a vacancy in the representation of the county of Dublin. Sir Compton Domville, who always voted against the Catholics, but of whom it was said that he was ready to pledge himself that he would never speak against them, was persuaded to leave the retirement of private life, for the silent tranquillity of which he seems to be eminently fitted, and upon the strength of the Orange party, backed with twenty thousand pounds a year, to offer himself as an appropriate successor, which he certainly was calculated to be, to the "late lamented member." Circumstances appeared to have combined for his success. The Catholic interest which centered among the middle-men, had seemingly been annihilated by the peace, and Protestant ascendancy was seized in fee-simple of the whole county. The political epidemic, which had broken out like a moral typhus, raged through all classes, and almost every landed proprietor had caught the infection. Calculating upon the entire subserviency of their tenantry, the gentry of the county entered into an apparently invincible combination in favour of Sir Compton, who started as the champion of Orangeism. The certainty of a triumph produced a premature intoxication, and the anticipated election of Sir Compton was held out as a test of their supremacy as unequivocal as if he were already seated in the House. This preposterous vaunt wounded the pride of the opposite party to the quick, and Luke Whyte was not slow to perceive that the moment had at last arrived for the achievement of the darling object of his ambition, in the advancement of his son to the representation of the county. You have not, perhaps, heard of Luke Whyte, but he is well worth a glance, and in this desultory outline, I propose to give you rather a sketch of the individuals engaged in the passing incidents, than a grave and formal detail of the events in which they were involved. Luke Whyte is in Ireland a person of considerable importance, although in England he would in all likelihood have been almost unknown. So many strange and sudden productions of fortune are thrown up by the rich commercial soil of England, that they seldom attract a very peculiar notice; while in Ireland the means of acquisition are so limited, that the wealth of Luke Whyte is regarded as prodigious. The pouch and paunch of the hugest alderman of Cheapside are not beyond the emulation of the humblest tenant of a desk, who, in the nipping of his pen, casts through a dusky window an aspiring glance at the ponderous citizen, and cheered by the golden model, bends with alacrity to his work again; but when the spare figure of Luke Whyte glides like the ghost of Croesus through College-green, where is the Hibernian shopboy who ever dreamed of compassing his portentous treasures? In truth, the amazing fortune of this singularly prosperous man defeats all conjecture of the means by which it could have been VOL. VI. No. 36.-1823. 70 accumulated. Some forty years ago he would have furnished matter for the ecstasies of Mr. Wordsworth. If the profound author of the Excursion had seen him in one of the peregrinations incidental to his itinerant profession, he might have derived many valuable hints from so interesting a prototype, and added to the sublime beauties of that admirable poem. Its hero and Mr. Whyte were of the same craft, or, to speak more appropriately both with respect to Mr. Whyte and Mr. Wordsworth, of the same mystery. To avoid the use of an ignoble word from which the poet has studiously abstained, and express the fact with circumlocutory dignity, Mr. Whyte was no more or less than A wandering merchant, bent beneath his load. The latter consisted of books which he carried through various parts of the country; and I have heard old men say that they remember to have seen him with his cargo of portable literature upon his back, toiling upon a blustering day along the road, and driving a hard bargain for Cordery or Cornelius Nepos at the door of a village-school. When he had acquired a sufficient sum, through dint of his vagrant industry, to dispense with the necessity of travelling, he fixed himself in more permanent importance at a stall in a small alley called Cramptoncourt, and soon afterwards purchased a shop. Book-piracy was at that time legal in Ireland, and the buccaneers of literature drove a profitable trade. Luke Whyte accordingly became a publisher. He next engaged in speculations in the lottery, from the lottery he plunged into the funds, and turned the rebellion to good account. Farther I am unable to trace his progress to the golden summit on which he stands; but it is enough to say that he is now worth a million of money. He is largely endowed with good sense; and so far from blushing at the former inferiority of his station, he looks back from his elevation with a sentiment of honourable pride upon the road which has conducted him to such an eminence. It is not a little remarkable that his manners are wholly free from vulgarity, and not only unaffected, but highly polished, and not without a cast of the court. Strongly as he is attached to gold, he is still more fond of power, and never allows his avarice to interfere with his ambition. Previous to the Dublin election he had already secured the representation of the county of Leitrim for himself. He next aimed at putting his son in parliament for Dublin. He had failed on two occasions in a contest with Colonel Talbot, and expended an immense sum of money in the adventure. The popular feelings had been enlisted by Colonel Talbot, and bore down the thousands of his competitor, who now perceived that in opposing Sir Compton Domville, he might marshal the very means upon his side, to which his former defeat might have been attributed. Accordingly he proposed his son at the hustings-threw his coffers open, and announced himself the champion of the Papists. The popish party, seeing the treasures of Luke Whyte unclosed, took heart at the sight, and their leaders formed themselves into a committee for his support. The most efficient amongst the latter was a gentleman of the name of Murphy, commonly called Billy Murphy, in the mercantile parlance of Dublin. His history may be told in three words:he started in life without a guinea-was in the secret in 98—fled the country-came back when all his associates had been hanged-engaged in the trade of a salesmaster, and is now worth 10,000l. a-year. Billy is one of the shrewdest and most energetic men in Dublin. He has been turned into an aristocrat by circumstance, but is by nature a republican, and looks so shrewd, so bold, and dark, that he may be regarded as a kind of beau ideal of Captain Rock. Among the Catholics he affects moderation, from a certain affectation of gentility, but the old leaven of 98 occasionally breaks out. He felt a just indignation at the insolence of the ascendancy faction, and embarked with honourable ardour in the cause of Popery and Whyte. With a bag of gold in one hand, and with the cross in the other, Billy Murphy was irresistible. His eloquence was of a tangible sort, and was immediately felt through the whole county. The patriotic rhetorick of Mr. O'Connel was blended with the more palpable logic of the great potentate of Smithfield. The great popular orator, not contented with an harangue to the multitude upon the hustings, went a kind of circuit through the chapels upon the sea-coast. Great numbers of the freeholders of Dublin are fishermen, who, even near the metropolis, exhibit the wildness, and almost the mood of the tempestuous element from which their livelihood is obtained. They of course had heard of the renowned O'Connel, but the real presence of the orator had never before been presented to them. He addressed them in their native tongue, and infused all the artifice of a long-practised pleader into its rude and barbarous strength. To these efforts the co-operation of the Catholic clergy was united. It was urged as a matter of reproach to them that they interfered; but it was forgotten that every Protestant clergyman in the county was enthusiastically devoted to Sir Compton Domville, with the single and signal exception of Sir Harcourt Lees, who, true to his nature, if not to his opinions, gave his vote to the Popish candidate. This union of gold, patriotism, and religion, was attended with its legitimate results; nor is it to be much wondered at, and still less perhaps is it to be deplored, that the Irish peasant should, under these combined incentives, have been debauched from that subserviency to his landlord, which, in the estimate of every petty squire, should be as uncalculating as the allegiance of the ox to the driver who goads him to the stall. So highly wrought was the enthusiasm of the people, that in the space of a few days the opulent, and hitherto absolute proprietors of the county, were left destitute of all influence, and without the power of commanding a single vote. The frieze-coated patriots, who were sent in droves to the election-booths in order to vote for Sir Compton, under the very eye and to the beard of their astounded masters, flourished their shillelahs and shouted for whiskey, religion, and Colonel Whyte. The scenes exhibited at the hustings were full of ferocious drollery. The moment a freeholder appeared at them, who intimated an intention to support Sir Compton, he was assailed upon all sides with a strange confusion of appeal. A tremendous cry was sent up by the multitude -O'Connel, with a stentorian voice and brandished arms, bade him remember Ireland: Father M'Farland exclaimed, "Will you sell your religion?" while Billy Murphy, seizing him with his brawney hand, and whispering "five guineas" in his ear, completed the seduction, and set him down in triumph upon the tallies of Colonel Whyte. Vainly did the ominous landlord, a prophet who accomplishes his own predictions, |