any of its denominations, or Protestant ascendency in any of its forms, as it has been given for centuries past, with exceptions, few and far between, like those of the rule of Wellesley, Anglesey, and Normanby, it is positively a calamity for an intellectual, high-minded Roman Catholic, firmly believing in his religion, and sensible of the wanton and outrageous insults offered to it, to live in his own land without having his feelings exasperated. I therefore confess to you I am not sorry to leave it. There is nothing in this world so galling as the endurance of an asserted superiority, moral, intellectual, and religious, on the part of an overbearing and besotted spirit of intolerance, pretending to be enlightened and religious.

66

The fact of England lending its countenance to Irish Orangeism was always inexplicable to me on any ground of policy having for its ultimate object and its aim the promotion of British imperial interests. But I have no expectation that she will alter her course, though I am most firmly convinced that course will ultimately prove one of the main agencies that will contribute toward the decline and fall of her influence in the affairs of Europe.

"In the long run, however, all kinds of oppression are broken down; the laws of justice are not violated forever with impunity; whether the day of retribution come slow or fast, it will come surely. All history, ancient and modern, has this teaching for injustice and intolerance. The cry that is now 've victis,' will become, in due time, 'væ victoribus,' and perhaps the day is not far distant when the cry will come.

"But, in the mean time, of what avail is it to them to hear our brawling patriots-our newspaper Tells and Hofers—praising the fertility of our soil, the multiplicity of our havens, the loveliness of our rivers, valleys, and mountain scenery, the magnificence of our bays and estuaries, the beauty of the shores of Ireland! Would to heaven she were less beautiful, less fertile, less admirable for her havens and her shores, and more distant from all who will not be at peace with her religion or its professors! Would that she were more independent, better educated, more familiar with the history of other nations, and the evils in them of all connection between Church and state, and of all interference of the ministers of religion in temporal and political affairs! Would that she had more food for her people, and more force and union to employ against her foes! Ireland has its analogies with Italy, and the sighs of her children have their similitude with the aspirations of the poets and the people of Italy.

"You have written against Roman Catholic demagogues and agitators, but you never wrote a line against Orangeism and Protestant ascendency; you never wrote a line against the persecutors of your religion, who brought your grandfather to the scaffold.

"Do now, dear Lady Blessington-you to whom Nature has given noble gifts, use them for a new account in literary labor, for a better one than fashion, for the advantage of the country that gave you birth, and against those pernicious interests that have been so long inimical to its peace.

"By the influence of your opinions, the distinguished people you draw around you may be made serviceable to Ireland; and pardon me, Lady Blessington, if I remind you that Ireland has a claim on your pen, and a controversy with it. Your country is now entitled to other services at your hands than the production of political novels, pleasing to her enemies and painful to her friends to read. Employ some portion of your leisure in the reprobation of a system of government which administers its powers against the great bulk of the people of a country on account of their religion, and with a special view to the promotion of selfish purposes, pursued under the name and guise of Protestant zeal for the interests of true religion. R. R. MADDEN."

CHAPTER XVII.

B. SIMMONDS, ESQ.

THIS gentleman possessed talents of a higher order than are frequently found belonging to those who are known only in literature as contributors to Annuals. He was a man of considerable talent, refined taste, and cultivated mind; one of Lady Blessington's contributors, for some years, to the periodicals edited by her, and the author of several tales and sketches, and short poetical pieces, of a great deal of merit. Some of his stories, illustrative of Irish character, are extremely clever, and his descriptions graphic. Mr. Simmonds never pursued literature as a career. He held a lucrative appointment in the Inland Revenue department in London. In society, his quiet and reserved manners gave the impression of a man fond of retirement-peu demonstratif. But when he felt at ease in company, and found himself in the midst of those he knew and esteemed, and was drawn out by his friends, he was highly agreeable and effective in conversation, and exhibited talent and intelligence of a high order. Mr. Simmonds was certainly a man of more than ordinary ability, and deserving of being better known in the literary world than it was his fortune to have been hitherto.

A writer in the "Notes and Queries" (for April, 1854, page 397) thus refers to the subject of this notice: "Will you allow me to ask for a little information respecting B. Simmonds? I believe he was born in the county of Cork, for he has sung in most bewitching strains his return to his native home on the

banks of the Funcheon. He was the writer of that great poem on the Disinterment of Napoleon' which appeared in ‘Blackwood' some years ago." The writer adds, "I believe he died in London, in July, 1852." But he is mistaken in the date. The public will be indebted to the inquiry for a search after information on the subject of it that has not been fruitless.

The following details are the result of extensive inquiries made of the early associates and townspeople of Bartholomew Simmonds: He was a native of the small town of Kilworth, in the county of Cork. His ancestry had connection with the aristocracy, but no relations save those of servant and master. His grandfather, Bartholomew Simmonds, had been the butler of the Earl of Mountcashel, whose seat of Moore Park lies near the town of Kilworth (which place gave the title to the eldest son of Lord Mountcashel). After Bartholomew Simmonds had retired from the service of the earl, he became proprietor of an inn in the town, which was the theatre of a frightful tragedy some thirty years ago-the death of Colonel Fitzgerald by the hand of the late Earl of Kingston. His lordship's sister had been the victim of an unhappy passion, and the person who was supposed to have wronged her was Colonel Fitzgerald, a cousin of the lady. He had gone down to Kilworth with the expectation of seeing her, and the Earl of Kingston, then staying at Moore Park, hearing of his arrival, proceeded immediately to Simmonds's hotel, where the colonel lodged. He rushed to the bedroom of Colonel Fitzgerald with a loaded pistol in his hand, burst into the room, and took deliberate aim at the colonel, who was in bed reading. Fitzgerald had only time to exclaim, "Fair play, at all events," and was in the act of springing on his feet, when Lord Kingston fired, and the unfortunate man fell dead on the floor.

The inn of Simmonds was patronized by the Kingston and Mountcashel families, and prospered accordingly. Old Bartholomew Simmonds left two sons; one succeeded his father in the business, the other was made a gauger. The latter married a Miss Cuddy, sister of a Dr. Stephen Cuddy, of the Royal Artillery. From that union there were three children, two sons and

a daughter; the elder son, Bartholomew Bootle Simmonds, the subject of this notice. His father died while he was young, but his widow and children were not lost sight of by the Earl of Mountcashel. They were located in a small but comfortable house near the entrance to the Moore Park demesne. The boys, Bartholomew and Stephen, were sent to a school kept in Kilworth by a Mr. Birmingham, an excellent English teacher. The Simmondses were delicate boys Bartholomew was a quiet, studious lad, devoting to books and pictures all the leisure time which his classfellows gave to play. He wrote a beautiful hand, and was very proud of that accomplishment. He was not fond of the society of his schoolmates; few of them were, however, of a respectable station in life. Young Simmonds's taste for poetry was then forming, and manifesting indications of the passion which it proved a few years later. From Birmingham's school he was sent to a classical one kept by a gentleman of the name of Quigley, where he acquired a knowledge of Greek and Latin, a general proficiency in learning, and a love of literature, that made him ambitious of a wider sphere for the exercise of his talents than Kilworth afforded.

Simmonds's family, in the parlance of Kilworth people of the old faith, "ought to be Catholic ;" but Irish inn-keepers have more confidence in the patronage of lords on earth than in that of saints in heaven. The Lords Mountcashel carried the day with them against the whole calendar, including the martyr whose name was given to the young Simmonds. So Bartholomew was brought up in the way a child should go in Kilworth, who might possibly one day or other become a gauger, like his uncle. Some of the Kilworthians of ancient days are skeptical on this point, but there is evidence of the fact in his poems. In one of them, entitled "Columbus," a stanza thus begins, apostrophizing the great discoverer:

"Thou Luther of the darken'd deep!

Nor less intrepid too than he

Whose courage broke earth's bigot sleep,

While thine unbarr'd the sea."

Through the interest of the old patrons of his family, the

Mountcashels, he obtained an appointment in London in the correspondence office of the Excise department.

He had become a contributor to "Blackwood" before he quitted his native place; and it does great credit to the editors of that ably-conducted magazine that they encouraged the very earliest productions of this unknown young contributor of theirs, writing from a small provincial town in Ireland, appreciated his talent, and never paused to inquire whether he was an aristocrat or a plebeian, a Tory or a Whig, an Orangeman or a Roman Catholic, leaving those considerations for the miserable provincial politics that creep into the control of the periodical literature of his own land. It was sufficient for the large-hearted Christopher North that his young Irish contributor was a man of talent and of worth, and we find him introducing one of the early poems of Simmonds to his readers with these words: "Here are verses by one who writes after our own heart."

Mr. Windele, of Cork, a celebrated antiquary and litterateur, informs me that "Simmonds and himself, many years ago, were contributors to Bolster's Magazine,' which was published in Cork, and that Simmonds at that period resided at Kilworth. Simmonds's first effusions were published in that magazine (one of considerable literary merit), which made its appearance in February, 1826." In the introductory observations to this periodical, which, for an Irish magazine, had rather a long existence of six years, and reached its fourth and final volume in the year 1852, the following passages occur, the sentiment of which are very analogous to thoughts expressed in several of his poems, and which would apply to the early separation of Simmonds from his native land, and from those literary pursuits in it which find so little encouragement:

"While political economists contend that the system of absenteeism produces no ill effects on the prosperity of a country, it will not, we think, be denied by the most desperate theorist that the expatriation of native talent causes a positive decrease in the great fund of national intellect." . . . "The ills attendant on the emigration of a lackland man of genius are balanced by no such comfortable compensations (as those attendant on