the signature with which he had concluded was written the word, "Farewell." In another handwriting, not unknown to him, he read the sentence, "Be converted and live, for why wilt thou die ?" Poor Clifford ! he had too much integrity, and too fatal a knowledge of the mercy of the Roman missionary, to be insnared into misery and shame. He could not escape suffering, but he was immortal to dishonor; and he did justice to the beautiful sentiment, so true to nature, though from the lips of a spy, "Misfortune might render him unhappy, but could not make him base." He dismissed his servant, and throwing himself, not on his knees, but prostrate on the damp ground, he prayed long, and with the whole out-pouring of the soul-with the full measureless flood of spirit, of anguish, of submission, of hope, which makes prayer a real communion-a perceptible approach to our merciful and holy Father in hea ven. He knelt in that devotion which, if it does not change the lineaments, transfigures the heart, and for a while does, as it were, translate the soul to a nearer view of its own bright, pure, future dwelling; and never did father commend his wife and children, on a death-bed,

to the Protector of the orphan more fervently, more affectionately, than did Edmund Clifford in his agony that night. For himself he could find language, but for them it was a crying which could not be uttered. He was not permitted the attendance of a Protestant minister, nor that cup of blessing with which a dying man commemorates the love of a dying Lord. Yet did he keep the feast.-On the unhewn and unsculptured altar of memory did he represent to himself a Saviour's sufferings, in like manner as aforetime he had solemnized the Eucharist. Though he had now no hallowed symbol for his faith, yet was there a sign given of the inward and spiritual grace. He kept the Sacrament in tears-not with the tears common to the mixed griefs and fears of human life-but he wept as though the fountains of the great deep of his own immortal being were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and every drop of sorrow were to be poured out of his nature to prepare it for incorruption and eternity. He never wept again. There was One who wiped all tears from the eye which, consecrated as the chalice unto heaven, soon closed on earth for ever.

When the prisoner rose from prayer, he felt that the bitterness of death was past. He had acted over the mortal agony of his soul, and almost perceived inwardly its ascension to a purer and holier order of things. He had been warned that when the morrow broke he should be led to the slaughter; and he sunk to repose, in which his body was as still and without pain as though it already rested in the sweet and fragrant bosom of the earth. His spirit was as light, and serene, and happy, as if in a dream it had a vision of angels, and made fellowship with them that dwell in paradise.

The battle of Arklow, on the tenth of June, was fought to the disadvantage of the rebels. The death of one of their bravest leaders in that engagement, and the successive losses at Goresbridge and Kellymount, had proved the utter hopelessness of the insurrection. Twenty had fled at the voice of one; and in the rencontre a few hundreds of the King's troops, brave and devoted men as ever trusted to courage, had defeated a similar number of thousands of the

armed but untrained peasantry. The spirit,

however, of the rebels' devotion showed itself the same in victory and despair. When it be

F

came impossible to retain possession of Wexford, they began to scatter reports of a wild and terrible nature. At first it was whispered, and only whispered-for such a tale seemed treason against the blackest savage that bore the name and lineage of mankind-that the prisoners were to be murdered in cold blood! The insurgents had intended to delay for some memorable holiday the carnival of their executions; but now, though an irresistible army was approaching-though they might have kept their prisoners to procuré pardon and favorable terms -though they might have offered the lives of their captives in substitution of their own lives, forfeited to the laws, yet so great was the thirst for blood, that fear and precaution were as much forgotten as humanity.

On the morning of the twentieth of June the town was crowded at an hour unusually early. The peasantry, who had not been engaged in the overt acts of rebellion, came even from distant villages. Carriages belonging to one or two Roman Catholic families, who had been deeply pledged to the crisis, entered during the morning. The road to the place of death was covered with flowers, strewn by the young girls

of Wexford. A vast multitude of the fiercest and most ruthless of the people were assembled before the prison; and at intervals their screams and wild shrieking laugh echoed against the walls in which their victims were confined; or, piercing through the narrow chinks and orifices of the prison, fell on the ear like a hungry tiger's yell. At length the auto-da-fè was ready. The bridge, lined on each side with a hundred men armed with pikes and knives, afforded a gallant scaffold over eternity. The very river rose for its prey. The banks on either side of this bridge of sighs were black with population. Twelve was the hour; and as the clock-for the sound of which even the hoarse multitude at times paused in their glee-struck over the harbor its deep and heavy intonations, seventy men were brought from the inner cells into the arena on the hill. Joyously sounded the great cry from house to house, as if to welcome them to death and death's suffering; and then-as if something had all at once struck upon the universal heart of the crowd-as if something had whispered to them that they were men-the noise ceased, and the voice of the populace died into