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III.

"Nunquam imprudentibus imber
Obfuit; aut illum surgentem vallibus imis
Aëriæ fugere grues; aut bucula cœlum
Suspiciens patulis captavit naribus auras;
Aut arguta lacus circumvolitavit hirundo ;
Et veterem in limo ranæ cecinere querelam.
Sæpius et tectis penetralibus extulit ova
Angustum formica terens iter; et bibit ingens
Arcus; et e pastu decedens agmine magno
Corvorum increpuit densis exercitus alis.

Jam varias pelagi volucres, et quæ Asia circum
Dulcibus in stagnis rimantur prata Caystri,
Certatim largos humeris infundere rores,

Nunc caput objectare fretis, nunc currere in undas.
Et studio incassum videas gestire lavandi.

Tum cornix plena pluviam vocat improba voce,

Et sola in sicca secum spatiatur arena."

Georgic. I. 373-389.

Thus rendered by Dr. Maginn.

"Those who in weather signs are wise,

Can guard against approaching rain,

They note, as it begins to rise
From vallies low, how upward flies

In airy tour the soaring crane.

The heifer, looking to the sky,

Snuffs the moist air with nostril wide,

The swallow, with its shrilly cry,

Soars round and round the lake's still side;

The frog among the marshes swells

His long-known note of croaking song.
The ants from out their inmost cells
Wearing their narrow path along,
Draw forth their eggs in busier march;~
Then deeper drinks the heavenly arch;
Then as the rooks their food forsake,
In crowding hosts their flight to take,
More clamorous is the cry they make :-
And all the birds that love the deep,

Or those who, by the Asian plain,
Near sweet Cäyster's waters sweep
In search of food, will then in vain
All in the waters fondly lave,

And dip their heads beneath the flood;
Or rapidly across the wave

In sportive rivalry will scud.

And loud the boding raven cries,

As if she would the rains demand,

And stalks along in solemn wise,

All lonely on the thirsty sand."

M.

IV.

THE town of Angers, which appears to have been the native place of Boulaye le Gouz, was not unimportant at this period, and had been a fortified city of some consequence in the wars of Edward III. and Henry VI. and of the Huguenot. The population was about 20,000 souls. Angers possessed, before the Revolution, a military school (école militaire), to which, under the tuition of a certain Monsieur de Pignerol, there came a young Irish gentleman, in his seventeenth year, to study the rudiments of war. The pupil subsequently entered as Ensign in the 41st Regiment of Foot, and is now known by his title of Arthur, Duke of Wellington. Well might Frenchmen say, of their noble vanquisher's military tuition, after the final catastrophe at Waterloo, what Dido is represented to have said apropos of the sword of Æneas, with which she immolated herself:

"Non hos quæsitum munus in usus."-Eneid. 4.

M.

See Note VII. for further observations on M. le Gouz's estimate of the relative population of Irish and French towns.

-R.

V.

BARNABE RYCHE, in the 14th chapter of his "Description of Ireland," printed in 1610, treats " of the superstitious conceit that is holden of the Irish about certaine Wels." He says " "To the northwards from the city of Dublin, they have S. Dolock's well; another sanctified place ceremoniously frequented at certain seasons, foolish and ridiculous to be spoken of; so that let the wind blow which way it list, east, west, north, or south, Dublin is so seated, that a Papist may go from the high crosse, with a blowne sheat right before the wind either to an idolatrous masse within the towne, or to a superstitious well without the towne."

«Near it [the church of St. Doulach's] is a holy well, of great celebrity; it is within an octagon inclosure adorned with emblematic fresco paintings; a bath is supplied from the well."-Grose's Antiquities of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 78. In which work an accurate view of the building erected over the well may be found.

C.

VI.

THIS anecdote is curious from the circumstance of the very nobleman whose vice-regal order our traveller refused to obey, having himself acted a similar part just ten years before. The Lord Deputy Wentworth (Strafford) having summoned a Parliament to meet on the 14th July, 1634, at the Castle of Dublin, published a Proclamation (to prevent any serious consequences from the animosities which existed among the members) that no one should enter with their swords. All obeyed except the young Earl of Ormond, who told the Usher of the Black Rod, he should have no sword of his except through his body. Being the only Peer who sat that day in defiance of the Proclamation, his conduct so fired the Lord Deputy, that the Earl was called upon in the evening to answer for it. Thereupon he produced his Majesty's Writ, calling him to Parlia"Cinctum cum gladio,” or ment, <6 per Cincturam gladii.” Which answer being unexpected, and finding him likely to prove an untractable companion, it was in deliberation that night, between the Lord Deputy and his two friends, Sir George Ratcliffe and Mr. Wandesford, whether to trample under foot, or to oblige, so daring a young man, who was now also grown so very popular; when the more benign extreme being resolved on, he was taken into favour, and by the Lord Deputy, in his letter of the 16th of December, recommended to the King to be called into his Privy Council, to which honour he was accordingly raised in thefollowing month. C.

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