But the singing and dinnering life was destined to come to a sudden termination in Buckingham-street. Mr Beresford, though so many resources were open to him, some way or another did not manage his affairs well. He became an insolvent, his name disappeared from the banking firm with which he was connected, his seat in Parliament was left vacant, and his effects, including his valuable library, were brought to the hammer. A grimly fantastic turn was given to this day of distress by the appearance once more upon the scene of Horish's fraternity The sweeps purchased the alderman's carriage, and in their sooty livery drove the elegant equipage up and down the streets of Dublin. It was not, however, to be supposed that a member of so powerful a house could be irretrievably ruined by one stroke of ill-fortune. Though no longer a banker or a county member, he still held his place in the Corporation. He gave up his

* His numerous offices and pursuits were thus burlesqued: "Mr. Beresford has been a banker, a brickmaker, a limeburner, a distiller, miller, and a lamplighter, but became insolvent."

The library contained all the British classics, from Chaucer to Gibbon and Johnson, and a beautiful collection of French books. There were also in it valuable artistic works, foreign galleries, &c. Well chosen as this library was, it still could not compare with that of the Right Hon. John Beresford, which was sold after the death of its owner. The collection of engravings sold with the books was choice indeed, and did honour to the fine taste of the First Commissioner of the Revenue. The catalogues of these two sales are in the library of Trinity College.

town residence, but only to retire to a splendid retreat. He removed with his family to Drumcondra House, a stately mansion in Portland stone, erected about the middle of the last century by the Earl of Charleville, on the estate of his wife, the only daughter and heir of James Coghill, LL.D., of the Yorkshire family of that name.

The new resident's editorial tormentor affected to take a great interest in the Drumcondra establishment, making observations on the way in which the pleasure walks were being laid out, and suggesting that it might suitably be named Mount Horish, in compliment to a friend who had once held a triangle situation under the proprietor in the riding-house. The singing-hall, it was ascertained, had been tried by the vocal powers of Mr. Spray, who declared the echo would be unparalleled as soon as the croppy skulls were inserted in the walls. But stories to the effect that the stucco ornaments of the breakfast and supper rooms were to be designed in triangular and whip-cord patterns, were pronounced to be malicious fabrications, for it was known the proprietor was determined that no visible marks of such materials of Irish history should be introduced, either to gratify the whipping visitors, or frighten the whipped ones.

in

There could hardly be a nicer house for a family to grow up than this. The rooms, not too vast or splendid for comfort, were panelled in brown oak, and opened five en suite; the ceilings were good, and the chimney-pieces of beautiful design; while the large, deeply-recessed windows looked out on well-planted well-kept grounds. A door in the boundary wall, which on one side ran near to the house, gave admission to the enclosure of the parish church, and a pathway across the graveyard* afforded the family easy access to their place of worship. Mr. Beresford's children, treading their way along the path and taking their places in the pew belonging to the owner of Drumcondra House, used to be as familiar a sight to the congregation as was the minister in the pulpit.†

The stables, a remarkable block, with groined roof supported on stone pillars, stood at right angles to the house front, and in very unusual proximity to the dwelling, from which, however, it was screened by a row of trees. More than once it has been asserted that these stables were built for "Beresford's Bloodhounds;" certain

* Drumcondra churchyard is, even to the present day, the burial-place of some Dublin families. It is the last resting-place of the poet, Thomas Furlong. Francis Grose, the antiquary, is buried here; and in the same vault lie the remains of his friend, James Gandon. There appears a very strange inscription on the tablet erected to the memory of the writer, whose unfinished work on the "Antiquities of Ireland" is, perhaps, like a broken column, his best monument on Irish soil. Not a line marks the resting-place of Gandon. His name, indeed, might fitly be inscribed, although he needs no "pompous epitaph upon his marble as long as those noble buildings shall remain, in perfect beauty or in picturesque decay, upon the river

side.

+ Some years later on another troop of children, for whom the public (at least those outside the church) had more welcome, used to trip along the same path and sit in the same pew. These were the grandchildren of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Major-General Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., who was married to the younger Pamela, resided for soine years at Drumcondra House.

spots are indicated as the scene of tragic incidents; and one of the fine old trees is pointed out as the gibbet on which rebels were hanged by order of the master of the house. We are, however, bound to say that we can find no trace in history of any such proceedings. The stables, which are, to all appearance, of an older date than the era of the rebellion, may possibly have sheltered some yeomanry corps at the time when the royal troops were stationed in the village to protect the northern route. It is not impossible that some private hanging may have been accomplished in the neighbourhood while military law was the only law of the land. By the Drumcondra road, no doubt, Lord Roden's Foxhunters brought into town the miserable rebels taken in the affray at Santry, and afterwards hanged on the bridges. One thing, however, is certain, namely, that Mr. Beresford did not live at Drumcondra House until fourteen or fifteen years after the rebellion. Nor do we believe that anything more remarkable occurred in the house and premises during Mr. Beresford's occupancy than the brilliant illumination of the establishment, in rejoicing for some victory won by British arms in the Peninsula-a victory in which we may be sure Marshal Lord Beresford, a greatly distinguished general and a close connection of the Waterford family had had a creditable share.

Alderman Beresford was residing here when, in 1814, he was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin: an office which, by the way, he appears to have filed to the complete satisfaction of the citizens. When his equipage, as newly-installed chief magistrate, appeared in the streets the crowd looked in wonder at the crest painted on the doors, presenting between a stag's horns the image of the crucified Redeemer, with the motto, Nil nisi cruce. Beresford," said a contemporary, wore on his coach more Christianity than he would allow in his parish church."

66

The present condition and character of the fine town house and the handsome country residence of Mr. John Claudius Beresford afford as striking an example of the vicissitudes of fortune as any of the instances already cited. The Buckingham-street mansion, we need hardly repeat, is the locale of the Children's Hospital. In the upper storeys with the beautiful prospects, dwell the Sisters of the community to which the institution belongs. The bright drawingrooms are considered the best possible place for the sick children, who lie there in their pretty white cots to have their temporary ailments cured and their crooked limbs made straight; or, if Death have already cast his shadow across their little span of life, to have the passage smoothed for them to the heaven peopled with the saints of the Isle of Destiny and the martyrs of the Gaelic race. Above the mantelpiece in the front room hangs suspended a large sculptured crucifix, signifying there something very different from the crest of La Poer. The lofty lower rooms that once re-echoed with convivial laughter, the clinking of glasses, and "the glorious, pious, and immortal memory" drunk with three-times-three, are now respectively the reception-room of the convent, and the chapel wherein reigns the reverential silence that befits the sacramental presence of the Saviour of

men.

Drumcondra House and Park became, in 1842, the property of the Missionary College of All Hallows, having been purchased from the Corporation during the mayoralty of Daniel O'Connell. The mansion remains unaltered in external appearance. Over the doorway is still conspicuous the Coghill crest, a cock with wings expanded. Handsome as the house is, with its surmounting balustrade, the originally imposing elevation is considerably dwarfed by the high-pitched roof and the square tower of the new collegiate buildings. The stables, deprived of their leafy screen, fitted with glazed windows and a clock dial, look like nothing so much as just what they are-a distinct, though integral part of the educational establishment, in which are the class rooms and the chapel of the junior students.

From out the postern door no phantom Bloodhound horses issue forth with mailed hoofs to stamp out insurrectionary pride. Through the wicket no one cares now to pass into the pathway to the church. But, year after year, through wide open gates, marches out a chosen army of the Lord, to plant on eastern plains and western shores the standard of the holy cross, and turn upon arid soil the streams of living water from founts that never yet ran dry in the land of faith and sorrow.

* See the Rev. John O'Hanlon's "Lives of the Irish Saints," vol. i., p. 348, for an excellent view of All Hallows, including the old mansion, the chapel, and the new college.

IT had been a successful day--another glorious day for the Parliament of England. Since early morn its guns had been pouring an incessant fire on the walls of the last stronghold of the Irish rebels. The gunners had plied their craft cunningly, and shot and shell had done well the work of ruin for which they had been sent. A huge rent yawned in the black walls of the town; and a mound of loose stones and mortar sloped from the opening down to the green field outside. From a fort, which he had constructed at an early stage of the siege, General Ireton saw the destruction that had been done upon the enemies of the Lord, and poured forth his soul in thanksgiving for the great mercy vouchsafed him. It was a spectacle which he could have continued to contemplate with much inward satisfaction, but, not being able, like Joshua, to keep the sun above the horizon, the pious commander at length closed his glass, and, accompanied by an escort of his officers, retired to his quarters to make arrangements for the storming of the breach on the following. morning.

The house in which the general had established himself was a gaunt, lank building perched on a solitary rock which protrudes from the side. of a pleasant hill overlooking the city of Limerick.* Its lofty gables terminating in weird chimneys, and ornamented with huge stone water-spouts, still stand upon the rock like a skeleton of the former structure. The side walls have yielded to the wind and rain, and are being beaten to the ground; but the stout old gables scornfully defy the storms, and, judging by the way in which the blast roars about them on wild nights, their contempt is deeply felt and fiercely resented. Every inhabitant of Limerick knows that the ruin is the resort of innumerable ghosts, who meet there on dark nights to shriek, and groan, and rattle chains, and burn blue lights, and indulge in other elfish pastimes, to the terror of the midnight wayfarer. The phantom gathering includes representatives of a dozen generations ladies, who in life, talked scandal across ruffs as high as Queen Elizabeth's; gentlemen who, in life, had aped the swagger of the Duke

* Local tradition is our only authority for the statement.