There are various doughty deeds of this warrior elsewhere narrated, which as foreign to our purpose, we shall omit. Turn with us now, kind reader, to the "Legend of Artegall," contained in the fifth book of the "Faerie Queene." You may read without pause, the thirteen opening stanzas of the first canto; they relate to the hapless condition of the Ladye Irena, her tears and her troubles tears, alas, that have not yet ceased to flow down, and troubles that to the present hour are convulsing her bo

And from the heritage which she did clame,

Did with strong hand withhold; Grantorto was his name.

Wherefore the lady, which Irena hight, Did to the Faerie Queene her way ad

dresse,

To whom complayning her afflicted plight,

Thanks, kind friend!-Your voice is sweet and melodious, and its tones most pleasant to our ears. There is an adventure of Sir Artegall's detailed a little further on, which we shall ask you to read for us also: his single combat with the lusty Pollentè, and victory over him. Pollentè we take, for reasons of our own, to be Gerald, Earl of Desmond; who was in rebellion against Elizabeth at the time of Lord Grey's appointment to the chief authority in Ireland, and perished miserably in consequence. His prodigious wealth and power would amply bear out such an appellation. His lands extended one hundred and fifty miles in the south of the kingdom, stretching from sea to sea, and comprising the greater portion of the counties of Waterford, Cork, Kerry, and Limerick. We read of his being able to bring together, by his summons, six hundred cavalry and two thousand footmen; and of these nearly five hundred were gentlemen, of his own kindred and surname. His castles were numerous, and scattered over this large tract of country in well-chosen places for its defence and protection; and it is curious that attached to one of them is a tale of blood, not unlike what you will find Spenser describing. Hast ever sailed on our Irish Rhine, as Inglis styled the Blackwater in the county of Cork?

Well! if you have

not, the greater your disgrace, for a steamer would have taken you "up" it for a single shilling. A few miles above the sea, on a bold cliff overhanging one of the deepest parts of the river, stand the battered remains of the Earl's castle of Strancally. Attached to this stronghold is a murderous device, which we had often previously heard of, but never till then beheld. The solid rock has been pierced with a large well-like aperture communicating with the river: and the neighbouring peasants will tell you, that the unwary, when decoyed within the castle, were tied, hand and foot, and flung down the Murder Hole-the rapid river burried by, and soon car

ried away their gasping shrieks, and the Dead told no tales. We have every respect for these local traditions, and esteem them in a thousand instances most valuable guides; notwithstanding we place no faith in the present horrible legend, which is wholly at variance with the received character of the Earl of Desmond. It may be that these things were told of him even in Spenser's day; and it is certain that about the close of the year 1579, his castle of Strancally was taken by the Earl of Ormond, the President of Munster-a capture which could be easily transferred to the poet's hero, Sir Artegall. Now for the tale :Artegall has encountered Dony, the attendant dwarf of the Lady Florimell (and sweet honey-flower she was!) who is hastening to his mistress' bridal, but finds the "cruel Sarazin" of the castle

:

holding the passage of the river before him; the chivalrous knight indignantly declares his resolve to join combat with the tyrant:

As he now was uppon the way, He chaunst to meet a dwarf in hasty

course;

Whom he requir'd his forward hast to stay,

Till he of tidings mote with him discourse, Loth was the dwarf, yet did he stay perforce,

And 'gan of sundry newes his store to tell,

As to his memory they had recourse; But chiefly of the fairest Florimell, How she was found againe, and spousde to Marinell.

For this was Dony, Florimell's owne dwarfe,

Whom having lost (as ye have heard whyleare)

And finding in the way the scattered scarfe,

The fortune of her life long time did feare:

But of her health when Artigall did

heare,

And safe return, he was full inly glad, And ask't him where and when her bridal cheare

Should be solemnized; for if time he had,

He would be there, and honor to her spousall add.

"Within three daies," quoth he,

do heare,

66 as

I

It will be at the castle of the strond; What time, if naught me let, I will be

there

To do her service, so as I am bond.
But in my way a little here beyond
A cursed cruell Sarazin doth wonne,
That keeps a bridge's passage by strong
hand,

And many errant knights' hath there fordonne,

That makes all men for feare that passage for to shonne."

"What wister wight," quoth he, "and how far hence

Is he, that doth to travellers such harmes ?"

"He is," said he, "a man of great defence;

Expert in battle and in deedes of armes; And more emboldened by the wicked charmes,

With which his daughter doth him still support;

Having great lordships got and goodly farmes

Through strong oppression of his poure extort;

By which he still them holds, and keepes with strong effort.

"And dayly he his wrongs increaseth

"Now by my life," says he, "and God to guide,

None other way will I this day betake, But by that bridge whereas he doth abide:

Therefore me thither lead."

The conflict is described with great spirit. It straightway followed, and continued long and, for a while, with doubtful issue; at length the bright Chrysaor smote through mail and headpiece, and the Sarazin's decapitated trunk was tumbled into his own river, while his bleeding features Artegall set up on a lofty pole, to terrify mighty men that are given to oppression. We may find the parallel for this also in the history of the unfortunate Geraldine, who was hunted down by his enemies in a small glen in the county of Kerry; his gallowglasses were all slain, and his own head being struck off, was sent over to England, a bloody gift to the queen, by whose order it graced, or disgraced, the old London bridge for many weeks.

The difficulties of Lord Grey's administration in contending against the enemies of his sovereign, were not lessened by his having many enemies at the English court, who sought in every possible way to work out his political ruin. Vague rumours were spread abroad of his cruelty and oppression of the Irish people; he was accused of having put to death several against whom neither treason nor any other offence was proved, and even in

the case of the guilty to have employed treachery and deceit against them rather than the just influence of the laws. The queen was persuaded by these insinuations, and in the summer of 1582 recalled the lord deputy, who had scarcely completed his second year of government. With this event the fifth book of the "Faerie Queene" concludes; and the poet there enters at large into the facts of the case. Arte

gall is summoned away to Faerie Court, and on his way thither meets with two ill-favoured hags ;-" superannuated vipers," as my Lord Brougham would compare them-whom he knows to be Envy and Detraction. These are painted by Spenser in language that makes the grisly creatures live before you; every hue and feature of their vile countenances is preserved their slavering lips, their tireless tongue, their foul and claw-like hands. We remember nothing in Dante or Milton, that surpasses in power this masterly personification of these abstract qualities; our limits alone forbid our extracting the fifteen or twenty stanzas of which it is composed. In the two following the poet speaks of Artegall's procedure in the land of his sojourn, and his going away with his task unfinished:

During which time that he did there

remayne,

His study was true iustice how to deale, And day and night employ'd his busy paine,

How to reform that ragged commonweale :

And that same yron man, which could reveale

All hidden crimes, through all that realme he sent

To search out those that us'd to rob and steale,

Or did rebell 'gainst lawful government;

On whom he did inflict most grievous punishment.

But, ere he could reforme it thoroughly,
He through occasion called was away
To Faerie Court, that of necessity
His course of iustice he was forced to stay,
And Talus to revoke from the right

Spenser accompanied Lord Grey, on that nobleman's return to England, and arrived to benefit by a great political scheme, then devised for attaching Ireland more securely to the British crown. This was, what has been called the Plantation of Munster. On the attainture of the Earl of Desmond, his vast possessions were, by act of parlia ment, vested in the queen and her heirs; and the project now set on foot was the partition of these forfeitures into manors and seigniories, to be given to English Protestants, who would at once colonize and garrison the country. The wisdom of this counsel is apparent, and after the lapse of two centuries and a half, its efficacy is still visible. Another woman is seated on England's throne, and if the hour of need should ever steal upon her gracious majesty, VICTORIA-which God avert!-she has no more stalwart defenders of her crown and dignity than the descendants of those very men her royal predecessor introduced. The conditions of the grants of land were very carefully drawn up, and as well from their political importance, as from our poet's having come under their operation, we deem the following abstract interesting. We take it from Smith, the historian of Cork :—

All forfeited lands to be divided into manors and seigniories, containing12,000, 8,000, 6,000, and 4,000 acres each, according to a plot laid down. The undertakers to have an estate in fee-farm, yielding for each seigniory, of 12,000, for the first three years, £33 6s. Sd. sterling, viz., from 1590 to 1593, and from Michaelmas, 1593, £66 13s. 4d. sterling, and rateably for every inferior seigniory, yielding upon the death of the undertaker, the best beast as an heriot. To be discharged of all taxes whatsoever, except subsidies levied by parlia ment. Bogs, mountains, &c., not to be included, till improved, and then to pay one halfpenny for each English acre. Licence to the undertakers to transport all commodities, duty free, into England for five years. That none be admitted to have more than 12,000 acres. English planter to be permitted to convey to any mere Irish. The head of each plantation to be English, and the heirs female to marry none but of English birth; and none of the mere Irish to be maintained in any family there.

No

Each freeholder, from the year 1590, to furnish one horse and horseman, armed. Each principal undertaker for