Irish wits and worthies; including Dr. Lanigan, his life and times, with glimpses of stirring scenes since 1770

Front matter

HL.

IRISH WITS AND WORTHIES;

INCLUDING

Preface

A book of gossipping history, of which the scenes are laid as much in Italy as in Ireland, ought, perhaps, to find general readers. The principal figure introduced is the Eev. Dr. Lanigan, the learned ecclesiastical historian. In some earlier chapters he is but indistinctly seen pushing his way through the throng of his times. We see more of him as he comes nearer to us, and when his progress, from advancing years, is more slow.

" The life of a man of letters," says Goldsmith, " is rarely marked by adventure." Dr. Lanigan's career comes somewhat within this rule. "With the exception of half-a-dozen incidents, it was uneventful ; and, encouraged by Gibbon's counsel, I have very frequently "taken refuge in circumjacent history." This swelled so largely beneath my hand that in revising the sheets I cancelled without stint. Some parts may appear rather capriciously put together, but previous works of mine show that a more artistic arrangement could, if desired, be readily followed.

Dr. Lanigan having, from his collegiate and studious pursuits, occupied a much smaller space in the public eye than the patriotic prelate, Dr. Doyle, I had more room on the canvas of the present picture for the drapery of family tradition than I found myself at vi

PREFACE.

liberty to introduce round " J. K. L." In sketching the present portrait I have dwelt longer than I should otherwise have done on a number of small traits, chiefly in illustration of that protracted period of suffering which made so much of his later life a heavy cross. Nor is this, after all, perhaps, much to be regretted. The success of Guido's "Ecce Homo" is not due to the free dashes which largely constitute the strength of an artistic study, but to a multitude of minute touches, each unimportant in itself, yet when viewed collectively impart fidelity, vitality, and value to the picture.

If in the following pages John Lanigan is generally found surrounded by wits and worthies, rather than the isolated figure more in accordance with stereotyped biography, it is right to say that I had before me the encouraging example of a book warmly praised by Brougham, " Curran and his Contemporaries," in which Curran is often lost sight of for half-a-dozen pages at a time. Without some arrangement of this sort their memory would soon become wholly lost ; for, although all noted men, many were not of sufficient mark to claim separate biographies.

If any reader should object to my frequent poetical citations, he would do well to remember that this example has been set by great classical historians, from the entertaining Plutarch to the grave Polybius. The innovating idea of heading historic chapters with apt quotations is, however, entirely my own.

PREFACE.

vii

In the earlier part many foot-notes appear, detracting, probably, from the artistic effect of the page. But it is some consolation that they are far less full than in Mitchelet's life of Luther, which has been pronounced a model of biographic composition. Be this as it may, I gradually relinquished them altogether, or welded their strength into the text.

If Dr. Lanigan had errors — and that he had any has yet to be shown — I disclaim any attempt to justify them. I have no sympathy with his mistakes, if any ; but I have every sympathy with his sufferings, his patriotism, his genius, his achievements, his aspirations.

I believe there is internal evidence in one page only to show that these sheets were printed off several months ago, though, for reasons uninteresting to explain, their publication was deferred. I allude to a passage in which poor Charles Lever is spken of as still alive. The delay in question was at least useful in confirming the accuracy of some anecdotes introduced. For instance, I did not at first know who the two professors were who visited Dr. Crowley after he had left the Catholic Church and become a parson (p. 93) ; but inquiries since instituted at Maynooth show that Dr. Crolly, afterwards Primate, was one, and Dr. Denvir, afterwards Bishop of Down, the other.

75 Pembroke-road, Dublin. 15th December, 1872.

W. J. F,

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page.

Blarney Castle ... A. Nicholl, A.B.H.A. 75

Cahir Castle Rock of Cashel

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

The City of the Kings in Decay

Seven Churches, Glendalough

Clonmacnoise

Old Cross at Finglas

Castle in Ruins

Marble Slab in Finglas Chapel Monument to Dr. Lanigan

G. Du Noyer 76 J. S. Prout 79

F. G. Sargent 83 J. S. Prout 151

G. Bartlett 227 ... A Nicholl 244

H. O'Neill 256

... 280

G. D. Hanlon 301 G* D. Hanlon 346

IRISH WITS AND WORTHIES;

INCLUDING

DR. LAMGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES.

CHAPTEE I.

BIRTH AND BOYHOOD IN CASHEL.

" See the space within yon dwelling, 'Tis the cold blank space of death ; 'Twas the banshee's voice came swelling

Slowly o'er the midnight heath.

Keeners, let your song not falter —

He was as the hawthorn fair.

Lowly at the Virgin's altar

Will his kinsfolk kneel in prayer. "

Crofton Croker.

John Lanisan, the eminent ecclesiastical historian of Ireland, was born in the city of Cashel, two houses from the entrance gate of the Protestant archiepiscopal palace, and within the broad shadow of the Eock of Cashel, a.d. 1758. Mr. Henebry Green, in an interesting pamphlet of fifteen pages, devoted to a sketch of Dr. Lanigan, published at Cincinnati, U.S., ten years ago, incorrectly assigns a house in " antique Chapel-lane' ' as the natal site ; but we have been at some pains to trace and identify the spot. The day or even month of his birth, however, is not known, as the baptismal registries of Cashel do not date back further than the close of the last century, owing to the more than ordinary severity of the penal code in Munster, of the extent of which, at one period, an idea may be formed from the fact that Dr. O'Hurly, Archbishop of Cashel, because he refused to acknowledge the royal supremacv and repudiate the Pope's, was tortured on a gridiron, and finally hanged.* Numerous other instances of greater or less severity could be cited.

The lash had ceased to smart and the bludgeon had ceased to smite, but the marks of both still lay upon the Irish Catholic priest, when John Lanigan first drew breath in the middle of the eighteenth century. The sept from which he sprang wTas an ancient one. According to high authority, the Lanigans of the county Tipperary are the O'Longachains of Hy- Coonagh, near Crotta-cliach — the Galtee Mountains— and of the same race as the O'Dwyers.f

* The late Dr. O'Renehan, President of Mnynooth College, a native of the diocese of Cashel, and an indefatigable collector of rare historic documents, has given a startling account of Dr. O'Hurly's sufferings : " The holy prelate was then bound to the trunk of a large tree, with his hands and feet chained, and his legs forced into long leather boots reaching up to the knees, as they used to be worn then. The boots were filled with salt, butter, oil, hemp, and pitch ; and the martyr's body was stretched on an iron grate over a fire and cruelly tortured for more than an hour. The pitch, oil, and other materials boiled over, the skin was torn off the feet, and even large pieces of flesh, so as to leave the bones quite bare." But the description is too painful to pursue to its climax. Those desirous of learning the most accurate account of the execution will find it supplied by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, M.R.i.A., who unshrouded the harrowing detail from original documents deposited in the State Paper Office.

t Letter from the late John O'Donovan, LL.D., to the author, 13th July, 1860. As every waif and stray of this great Irishman is interesting, a more extended extract from this letter may be given:

" My Dear Friend — With respect to the origin of the family of Lanigan, I had once been of opinion that they are the 0' Flanagans of Kinel-Arga in Ely O'Carroll — that is, I thought that O'Lanigain was put for O'Flanagain by the aspiration of the f, as in O'Lyn for O'Flyn. But I have latterly changed my idea on this subject, for my opinion now is that the Lanig;,ns of the county of Tipperary are the O'Longachains of Hy-Coonagh, near Crotta-cHach — the Galtee Mountains — of the same race as the O'Dwyers. We, of the south of the ancient Ossory, always call the Lanigans by the strange name of O' Luinyeachain, which certainly is not O'Flanagan ; but I can only Speculate on its probable origin. The Rev. Mr. Fitzgerald, P.P. of Ballingarry, is a good Irish scholar, and very fond of Irish historical researches, and will, I feel confident, communicate to you all he knows about the Lanigans of Tipperary."

Our late friend, Dr. Fitzgerald, to whom Dr. O'Donovan referred us, had no information to impart, although diocesan traditions were

DR. LANIGAX, HIS LIFE AXD TIMES.

The name is also occasionally found among our Cambrian neighbours with an extra 1, as in Llewellyn ; and, without going so far as to assert that some trace of the former influence of the sept presents itself in the town of Llanigan, Brecnockshire, South "Wales, the fact may be mentioned at least as a coincidence.* But Tipperary has always been the nursery of their race, and traces of their former possessions in that fine county may be found in " the Cross of Bally - lanigan," near Mullinahone, and the valuable estate adjacent, now owned by Mrs. Pennyfeather, Ballylanigan House.

John Lanigan's father and mother had sixteen children, of whom John was the eldest, and Mrs. Anne Kennedy, who died at Clonmel 30th October, 1860, was the youngest.! Mary Anne Dorkan, of Beakstown, Holycross, the mother of Dr. Lanigan, is traditionally described as a very superior woman, whose mind was as original as her appearance was beautiful. Her brother, a person of good family, possessed such eminently engaging social qualities that he acquired, through the length and breadth of Tipperary, the sobriquet, " Silver-tongue of the Golden Yale." The father of our historian was a native of Dundrum, i. e. the fort on the hill, or as it is sometimes styled, Ballin-

in genera! very full with him. We give his reply, that the suhsequent success of oar r searches may prove the more welcome. Dr. Fitzgerald writes : " 1 cannot say that I have any information that could be of use in Dr. Lanigan's biography. I have often inquired about him, and with little success. Even in Cashel the clergy there know very little of his history. A Mr. Lanigan, the present proprietor of Castle Fogarty, and John Lanigan, M.P. for the borough of Cashel, are the most respectable of the name in this county. Both the P.P. of Kilcummin and his curate are of the name, but they know no facts whatever appertaining t > the ecclesiastical historian'slife."

* Historians record that when the Romans had, after four centuries, relinquished Britain, it became exposed to the inroads of the Picts and the Scots on the north ; while the west — Wales — was invaded by the Irish.

t Dr. Lanigan had four sisters— Mary, Catherine, Hobanna, and Anne. Catherine was considered the belle of Cashel.

temple — a hamlet situated in the heart of the Golden Vale. Sir Thomas Maude, lord of the manor, and uncle of the present Viscount Hawarden, offered to educate John and Hugh, the sons of Thomas Lanigan ; but the latter, fearing that their conversion to Protestantism was the baronet's ulterior object, declined the proposal. The result, it is said, of this independent assertion of principle was the dispossession, by Sir Thomas Maude, of Thomas Lanigan's mother from her holding. Her once comfortable hearth was quenched ; the old woman, bowed by infirmity, was turned adrift on the world, and Lanigan and his family migrated to Cashel. It may be added, that the property held by the Maudes originally belonged to O'Longachain's race.

To this worthy man might be applied the lines of Davis :

" You're free to share his scanty meal, His plighted word he'll never vary ; In vain they tried with gold and steel To shake the faith of Tipperary."

Thomas Lanigan, the father of our hero, had been intended for the suffering church of Ireland, and with that view had received a tolerably good classical education, preparatory to studying theology at Salamanca. But circumstances of a family character needless to enumerate here, led him at first to defer, and finally to relinquish the vocation. Taking prompt advantage of a relaxation of the penal laws, he opened a school in Cashel, where he instructed his son John in the rudiments of general knowledge. " Although Mr. Thomas Lanigan was a very clever man,'' observes a member of the family, " he perceived he could not guide to thorough cultivation the high talents that were developing themselves in his son."*

To perfect, therefore, what had been begun, he placed the boy under the preceptorial care of the Kev.

* Letter of Mrs. Reany, Clonmel, Dr. Lanigan's grand-niece, 1865.

DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES.

Patrick Hare, a Protestant clergyman who for many years kept a seminary of considerable repute in Cashel, and who afterwards filled the office of Vicar- General in that diocese. As Hare was said to have had in early life abandoned the Eoman Catholic Church, to which his ancestry had clung with fidelity throughout a persecuting period, Thomas Lanigan entertained scant respect for his principles, which were extremely illiberal ; but Hare's talents and acquirements, like those of the Eev. "William Phelan, another Tipperary convert to Protestantism, it was impossible not to recognize. There were no Catholic classical schools from which to choose, and the time in question was not one for fastidiousness.

Hare liked Lanigan, and Lanigan was so broadly liberal in his views that, notwithstanding the parson's admitted weaknesses, the future priest made no disguise of a prepossession in his favour, even apart from the hereditary claims of the O'Hehirs to the respect of historic students. Mr. D' Alton, in his 6 ' King James' Irish Army List," notices, on the authority of the Four Masters and other sources, the once potential sept of O'Hehir in Clare, of whom the Lord of Magh-Adhair seems to have been chief. The parson who, in 1770, is found representing his race after having undergone some vicissitudes, was, beyond all question, a man of high attainments : he had distinguished himself in Trinity College, and his flourishing academy formed an oasis in the broad unlettered baronies of Eliocarty and Middlethird. His intellectual intercourse with Lanigan— marred as we confess it was by eccentricity — nevertheless fed that thirst for university education and distinction which our scholar afterwards abundantly obtained in other lands.*

* The Very Rev. Dean Kenny, P.P., V.G., Ennis, addressing us on the 13th July, 1871, writes : " Hare of Cashel, at whose school Ned Lysaght and Dr. Lanigan were educated, was, like Dr. Lucas, a Clare man. The patrimony of the 0 Hare or O'Hehir family was rather

Sir Thomas Maude — whose cruel treatment of Thomas Lanigan is still remembered with a chill by the family of the latter — was what was designated in those sad days an active meritorious magistrate, and earned notoriety in hunting down the unfortunate Father Sheehy, afterwards hung, of whom we are reminded by Dr. Madden, that u his last place of refuge was in the house of a small farmer, a Protestant ramed Griffiths, adjoining the churchyard of Shandrahan, where his remains now lie. The windows of this house opened into the churchyard, and there Father Sheehy was concealed for three days, hid during the day in a vault in the latter place, and during the night in the house, when it was necessary to keep up a large fire, so benumbed with cold he used to be when brought at nightfall from the place that was indeed his living tomb. The last service rendered to him at Clogheen was also by a Protestant."* Sir Thomas Maude was specially thanked for his exertions, but a more practical reward was conferred on him by his creation as Baron Montalt 18th July, 1766. These honours he did not long live to enjoy ; his robes of ermine having, in 1777, given

large in the neighbourhood of Corofin. It passed into the grasping hands of the O'Briens during the penal laws. It was sold some years since at the sale of the property of the Marquis of Thomond. When I was P P. of Kilrush, I knew one of Hare's sisters, a parishioner of mine, for whom I was in the habit of receiving several remittances from her nephew, John Hare, an. attorney. She died in Kilrush, in 1828, at a very great age From the position of her children and of her husband, the O'Hehir family must be wealthy at the time of her marriage. My recollection of her account of her brother is, that he went to Trinity College, which he entered as a sizar. Being a good classical scholar, he in due course, ohta'ned college honours and distinction, and finally became a parson, being probably the first Protestant of his family. He had two valuable livings in the a chdiocese of Cashel, and wns, as you know, principal of the Abbey school in Tipperary. He had a son a Fellow of Trinity."

* " United Irishmen," vol. i., p. 35, first edition. See also Curry's " Civil Wars." The humble Protestants of these days had, strange to say, greatly the advantage in point of worth over their more educated co-religionists. Moore's account of the poor Protestant barber, who honourably held in trust the estates of half the Catholic gentry of his county, will not be forgotten.

DR. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES.

place to the winding-sheet and black pall. Vicissitude in great family descent, as so strikingly exhibited by Sir Bernard Burke, is not more remarkable than the revolution in religious opinion which has marked some of the greatest houses. Thus, an illustration may perhaps be found in the case of the Rev. James Arthur Maude, a zealous Roman Catholic priest now officiating at the Oratory, Brompton.

The persecuted soon followed the persecutor. Thomas Lanigan had not been very long in Cashel when serious illness struck him down ; medical aid was tried in vain— he gradually grew weaker. The banshee (said to follow his family) niqaned, as is stated, beneath his window ; sixteen children knelt beside his bed, swelling the sepulchral chorus of the litany for a soul departing. His spirit, fortified by the rites of the Church, passed into eternity ; and his black coffin, supported on white-scarfed shoulders, was borne to the tomb, followed by troops of kith and kin, whose weird-like keen, or funeral cry, with the deeply-intoned De Profundis of the assembled clergy, enhanced the picturesque effect of the cortege, which — winding its serpentine course up Cashel's Rock, and consigning its burden to the clay — then irregularly dissolved.

An unusually large family were made orphans by this event — which perhaps we have somewhat anticipated ; but John bore up against the bereavement with the vigorous Christian philosophy of his nature.

The anecdotes or traditions appertaining to this period of John Lanigan's life are few and unimportant. Some time after his removal to the school at Cashel, Mrs. Hare presented her husband with a little stranger, which the reverend sire, in the fulness of his delight, after having gratified the pupils of his eyes in admiring, bore into the schoolvoom for the edification of his pupils of another sort. " Young gentlemen," said he, as he dangled the squalling babe in his bony arms, " I have to introduce you to a new scholar, hut I am sorry to say he has not as yet got a name." " Call the young Hare Leveret" exclaimed Lanigan, with a flash of that impulsive humour which in after-life occasionally characterized him. The schoolmaster was held in great awe, and Lanigan's daring joke amused the boys so much that for some time after he enjoyed the alliterative sobriquet of Leveret Lanigan.*

* Mr. Hare subsequently undertook the cure of souls in a lucrative living, and received the ecclesiastical dignity of Vicar-General of the diocese. There are few now living qualified to describe his characteristics ; but in the following unpublished letter, addressed by Richard, first Earl of Donoghmore, to the late John Magee, we find Mr. Hare's idiosyncracies and political views forcibly depicted. The letter is dated 24th December, 1815, and was written in reply to a request from Mr. Magee that Lord Donoghmore, the uncompromising advocate of the Catholic Claims, would exert some influence with a view of inducing the Rev. Patrick Hare to abandon a criminal prosecution against Mr. Magee for having inserted in the Dublin Evening Post an article which had rather adversely criticised the reverend gentleman. " Our walks in politics have been so very different, " writes Lord Donoghmore— " indeed so diametrically in opposition to each other ; he is known to have in his composition so little of the milk of human nature, that I would almost doubt his capability to be moved to do a humane act of any sort. His children — the female part at least — he has turned out of doors ; and he still lives on, in despite of his advanced years, to plague his own family and his unfortunate parishioners a little longer, and to join, I am sorry to say, in the persecution against you." [Mr. Magee was at this time undergoing imprisonment in Newgate for having published an article which severely reviewed the viceregal administration of the Duke of Richmond.] " I am quite sure our feelings have been always so discordant upon all manner of subjects," concludes Lord Donoghmore, " that his vindictive feelings against you would be much more likely to be increased than softened by anything like an interposition on my part." The threatened law proceedings were, however, stayed — not through the intervention of friends, but through the interposition of a higher power. The following epitaph has been copied from his tomb :

" Underneath, in the tomb of his ancestors, is deposited the body of the Rev. Patrick O'Hare, A. M., Rector of the Union of Athassal and Prebendary of Kilbragh, in the Diocese of Cashel, and for many years Vicar-General of said Diocese. He died in the City of Cashel, the 27th day of June, 1816, in the 85th year of his age."

" Mellaghlan oge O'Hehir and More Hagan his wife" is an inscription on an older portion of the monument which is fixed in the wall, and seems to have been erected long anterior to the

DK. LANIGAN, HIS LIFE AND TIMES.

In "pleasant Ned Lysaght," who was a contemporary with him at Mr. Hare's school,* John Lanigan found a kindred spirit so far as inherent talent was concerned, though in moral attributes they differed widely ; and, no doubt, many were the showers of sparks which fell from the clash of their hard hits and brilliant repartees. But Lanigan possessed a solidity of intellect and a steadiness in the pursuit of excellence wThich the more convivial Lysaght, with all his talent, never could attain. It is therefore hardly surprising that Mr. Hare should, after duly testing the rare ability and application of his little pupil, have promoted him to the office of usher. " Indeed at the age of sixteen," observes Mrs. Eeany, " Thomas Lanigan was assured by Mr. Hare that his son's studies were finished."

u All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and with due appreciation of the aphorism, John Lanigan, while yet a stripling, saw no harm in mingling in the guileless sports of the better class of peasantry ; and he has even been said to have treaded with dignified grace the mazes of the Irish reel ; but whether his sisters or other fair friends formed his partners on these occasions, tradition fails to state. A national poet, describing the ideal Tipperary youth, sings :

" Yet meet him in his cottage rude,

Or dancing with the dark-haired Mary, You'd swear they knew no other mood But mirth and love in Tipperary."

But this abandon, however applicable to Lysaght, was not altogether so to Lanigan. A higher and a holier aim now began to animate his heart ; he felt a vocation for the sacred ministry budding within him, and with genial care he fostered its growth, and avoided

monument to the Rev. Patrick O'Hare. The remains of the late Purcell O'Gorman repose close by, and he is stated to have been descended from the O'Hare family.

* Lysaght was educated at the school of the Rev. Patrick Hare, of Cashel. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1779. See Crofton Croker's " Popular Songs of Ireland," pp. 113, 114.

the rock on which his father's vocation had withered and died. " He the more readily embraced the ecclesiastical state," writes his grand-niece, " inasmuch as the penal laws of the period debarred Eoman Catholics from the learned professions, any one of which he could not fail to have adorned."

From the letter of Lord Donoghmore which we have quoted, it may perhaps be inferred that Mr. and Mrs. Hare lived not very happily together ; but Lanigan was acquainted with other couples whose absence of connubial felicity was notoriously owing to the wayward temper of the wife ; and the result was, that with all due reverence for the holy state of matrimony, he failed to derive the most exalted idea of its invariable happiness. From these and other considerations, he seems to have selected a life of clerical celibacy without much struggle; and if, perchance, any witching form strove to beckon him backward during the hard pilgrimage of his sacerdotal studies, he instantly subjugated it not so much by gloomy austerities, or the muscular repulses of a Kevin, as with the pleasant philosophy of Maucroix :

" I would advise a man to pause Before he take a wife; Indeed, I own, I see no cause lie should not pause for life!"

As he continued to act as usher in Mr. Hare's school for some time longer, his studious pursuits became daily more complicated and severe. With the hearty good humour, of which we have given a taste, Lanigan relieved the hard reading incidental to embracing the onerous and ascetic profession to which the was called. His pleasant and joyous disposition had made him a general favourite with both sexes of the circle in which he moved, but henceforth he was constrained to cut the acquaintance of the daughters of Tipperary, and betake himself to the staid companionship of the fathers ; and instead of studying the intricacies of the country dance, as in bygone days, he would perhaps have been found devoting a share of his thoughts to David dancing with all his might before the ark, and to other abstruse passages of the sacred volume.

It is rather to be regretted that more is not known concerning the early school- days of Lanigan and Lysaght— men who subsequently acquired, in different walks, so wide a celebrity. That ' ' pleasant Ned Lysaght" was not studious, but preferred the composition of a poetical squib to a carefully-digested thesis or hypothesis, the character of the man justifies us in assuming ; and it is by no means improbable that while Lysaght was thinking of 66 Lovely Kate of Garnavilla," carousing with the " Bates of Mallow," or marshalling through his brains,

" Oh ! Love is the soul of a neat Irishman, He loves all that's lovely, loves all that he can,

With his sprig of shillelagh and shamrock so green,"*

Lanigan, not less national but more solid, was musing on Bridget of Kildare and the Psalter of Cashel, |* or carolling the Hymn of St. Fechin :

Mr. Bryan Kelly, now of Cashel, the nephew of John Lanigan, has some interesting traditions illustrative of this period of the subsequent Doctor's life. He tells, as an instance of Lanigan's strength of sight when a boy, and of his singularly strong and romantic love for letters, that instead of feeling faagued from

* All songs of Lysaght.

f See Lanigan's " Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," vol. iii., chap, xxii., pp 348 to 361.

X Ibid., chap, xvii., p. 46. During his schoolhoy days, John Lanigan had frequently visited the nohle ruins in and around Cashel. He noted their architectural characteristics with care and acumen; so that he was enabled afterwards to trace resemblances in style between Cormac's Chapel and the Roman or Italian churches in Pavia, that were erected during the seventh, eighth, or ninth century. See Lanigan's "Eccl. Hist." chap, xxii., n. 62, p. 359.

the application of his attention and eyes to books throughout the day, he used to gather them under his arm at night, and seating himself upon the little chapel wall, in sight of the Kock of Cashel, would there resume their perusal by the pale light of the moon. This reminds us of the thirst for lore evinced by Erasmus, who, when studying for the Church, would read his books by the light of the oil-lamps in Amsterdam ; but happily Mr. Lanigan's act was not attributable to the same cause. It is not improbable that the almost utter deprivation of sight which contributed to render the latter years of Dr. Lanigan's life a gloomy night, may be traced to the incautiously severe exercise of his eyes in early life. The anecdote of Lanigan furnished by his grand-nephew would not be a bad one for a national artist to delineate. The boy-student intent on his classical, mathematical, and historic books ; his face and person veiled and relieved in the chiar-osciiro of " pale moonlight, " with the ruinous towers, parapets, and grim tombs looming mistily before him. Or, perhaps, we should depict him placed on his elevated perch, with upturned gaze on the mild lumious orb, or scanning the half-revealed beauties of scenes around in some fitful reverie, stolen from his severer studies, and perchance indulging in a soliloquy like this :