"My dear," said Miss Madge, "what is this story that Miss Golden has been telling me? A secret connexion with Lady Humphrey Secret I must say, since you never said a word of it. And the name of Lady Humphrey is a horror in this house. A horror to Lady Helen. My dear, Lady Helen is in a panic!"

"Lady Helen is often in a panic, Miss Madge," said Hester. My dear, don't grow pert. I never knew you pert. Miss Golden is pert, very. My dear, Lady Helen has some reason to be alarmed. A secret connexion with Lady Humphrey!" Not secret, Miss Madge. Mrs. Hazeldean has known of it!" said Hester, stoutly.

"Margaret. Ah! that is not so bad. Well, my dear, I wonder at Margaret. But you, perhaps, have never known any evil of Lady Humphrey ?"

"No, Miss Madge," said Hester.

Hist, then, my dear! and I will tell you what they say of her."

(To be continued.)

MY PAIN

My lovely lady whose sad name is Pain
All lonely liveth in her mystic bower
Beyond the sun, above the wind and rain;
Her garden fenced is with white-thorn flower.

Beneath the thorny white-flower-laden boughs
She sitteth all day long in gathered shade;
Within the circle of her narrow house

Her pallid face a moon-like light hath made.

Her dusky hair is wove with bud and spine,
Her spirit eyes are dark with mystery,

Her lips that show no rose incarnadine

Are dumb as sculptured lips of martyrs be.

Her brow is white with dreams, and her pale hands
Pray ever palm to palm, and scarcely stir

Against her quiet breast; an angel stands
With eyes of love, and mutely watches her.

VOL. XXXVI.-No. 419.

R. M. G.

19

RELICS OF OLD IRISH MOVEMENTS

FRIEND of mine has a curious little collection of certificates of membership issued by various patriotic and philanthropic associations formed in Ireland within the last seventy or eighty years. The fact that such associations have the knack of breaking up and melting away after a certain number of years is no proof that they were not very useful in themselves, and as a preparation for something better or at least different.

The oldest of these tickets is headed "Precursor Society, to procure from the Imperial Parliament justice for Ireland; and it states that "Mr. N. N. having paid his subscription of one shilling has this day been enrolled a member of the Society. Dated this 17th day of November, 1838. T. M. Ray, Secretary.' On the back of the ticket the following explanations of aims and means are given :

PRECURSOR SOCIETY.

TO PROCURE FROM THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT JUSTICE FOR IRELAND.

Objects of the Society.

I. Entire, cordial, devoted, and immovable loyalty, devotion, and allegiance to her most Gracious Majesty, our beloved Queen, Victoria, and to her Heirs and Successors for ever.

II. To obtain for Ireland all the Parliamentary Franchises and rights of Voting of the British People, by communicating to each of the three divisions of the United Kingdom, all that is valuable and useful in the franchises of such divisions.

III. To obtain for Ireland her due proportion of Members in the United Parliament.

IV. To obtain an entire Reform of our Corporations, identical in every respect with the English Corporate Reform Bill.

V. To obtain for Ireland the total extinction of Tithes, and all other compulsory Ecclesiastical exactions, whether called Rent Charge or by any other name.

VI. To combine in the pursuit of these objects Universal IrelandIrishmen of every class and creed, Repealers, Non-Repealers, Contingent Repealers, Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians and Dissenters.

VII. Should the British Parliament persevere in refusing to grant to the people of Ireland an equalization of civil and religious rights, so that all reasonable hope of obtaining such from that parliament shall be extinguished, then the Precursor Society shall stand dissolved, and the friends of Ireland who advocate a Repeal of the Legislative Union can join in the organization of a National Association, for the restoration to Ireland, by

all legal and constitutional means, of her legislative rights and her domestic parliament.

VIII. To procure for the United Kingdom the necessary protection of Vote by Ballot, so as to encourage Electors to establish their franchise, and afterwards protect them in its exercise.

IX. To give every legal and constitutional aid to obtain for all parts of the empire, the greatest possible extension of the suffrage that can practically be attained, and for shortening the duration of parliaments.

Two years later the society bears a different name but has the same secretary and the same modest subscription. The foregoing number seven seems to have been carried out. A smaller ticket is headed God save the Queen. National Association of Ireland. Mr. N. N. having paid one shilling is enrolled as a Repealer on the books of the Association. Dated this 22nd day of September, 1840. T. M. Ray, Secretary." This ticket is numbered 20,553.

In 1845 the Repeal card is much more dignified in form. The name has become "Loyal National Repeal Association." On the front is a neat map of Ireland, with a scroll on the left God save the Queen, and a scroll on the right Ireland for the Irish. Thomas Matthew Ray signs a statement of enrolment as before, and on the back is given the following account of the

STATISTICS OF IRELAND.

Its greatest length is 306 Statute Miles and its greatest breadth is 182 miles. It contains 32,513 Square Miles, equal to 20,808,271 Statute Acres. It has a Coast of above 2,000 miles, with 14 Harbours adapted for Ships of the line, 17 adapted for frigates and above 60 other harbours. It possesses several navigable rivers, one of which, the Shannon, is the largest in the United Kingdom. Its seas and rivers abound in fish, a fruitful source of national wealth. Its climate is healthy and genial. Its soil is fertile, and beneath it minerals abound. In 2,500,000 acres of bog it possesses an inexhaustible supply of fuel. It contains nearly half a milllion of acres covered with timber. Its live stock is valued at £21,000,000 Its land is estimated to be worth in annual value about £14,000,000. Its Bank Paper circulation amounts to about £5,500,000. Its State Revenue, exclusive of uncredited taxation, averages about £4,500,000 per annum. Its Local Taxation-County Cess, Tithe, Poor Rate and other local taxes, exceed £2,000,000 per annum. It supplies 42,000 men to the British Army. Its Population was in 1841, 8,175,124, of whom 7,039,659 live in the country, and 1,135,465 in towns. Its Population live in about 1,350,000 Houses. It exports Grain, Cattle, Butter, and other descriptions of food to the value of many millions sterling per annum, whilst a large proportion of its population live upon Potatoes alone. It imports, to the value of several millions sterling per annum, manufactures which, if produced at home, would give abundant employment to native industry. It is capable of furnishing a sufficient surplus of exchangeable commodities, after providing for the wants of its own inhabitants, to procure such foreign articles as its own soil does not yield. Its rulers, since the first invasion from England, have sought to govern it by weakening and dividing its population and have reaped the fruits of this policy in the ruin of one

of the fairest portions of the earth. Its landed proprietors and capitalists, its men of genius and of enterprise, are seduced away from the natural sphere of their duties and labours by the fatal influences of the Union. Its natives are excluded from nearly every situation of trust and emolument; and its Government and administration are confided to strangers regardless of their feelings and interests. Its laws are made by a Parliament ignorant of its wants, and imbued with prejudices against its inhabitants. To this Parliament, Ireland sends only 105 members out of 658. Such are the Resources which entitle Ireland to a Parliament. Such are the consequences which result from the absence of a Parliament. Ireland will obtain a Parliament by

THE CESSATION OF RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITIES, BY TEMPERANCE,

KNOWLEDGE, PEACE, COURAGE AND PErseverance.

Another of these cards is issued by the "Merchant's Quay Board of Trade for reviving and protecting Irish Manufacture.' It is No. 1,361, 22nd June, 1841. “I, J. B., pledge myself henceforward to encourage in every legitimate way the Manufactures and Industry of Ireland-by myself and family wearing exclusively Irish Manufacture, and purchasing, as far as practicable, all articles for domestic and household purposes of Irish production." This is signed "Matthew Flanagan, President "-namely, the P.P. of St. Nicholas, Francis Street, who was for many years the Secretary to the Episcopal Board of Maynooth.

The largest and most elaborate of all these cards is quite an ambitious exercise of the engraver's art. Two angels hold a wide-stretched banner bearing the inscription, "Founded by the Very Rev. Theobald Mathew on the 10th of April, 1838." Then an engraving of the Temperance Medal is placed between two clever little vignettes, in which Intemperance is represented by a ragged and dishevelled husband and wife fighting furiously in a squalid room, the woman catching her lord and master by the hair of the head, and the man chastising with a stick the wife of his bosom, while two miserable little girls cling to her skirt, and a little boy tries to drag his father away by the ragged coat-tail. This is Intemperance; but Temperance is symbolized by man and wife taking their tea comfortably together, while the little ones sit at their ease on the floor. This particular pledge is dated March 31st, 1840. I have not described all its artistic embellishments, some of which I do not quite understand.

A SUBURBAN GARDEN

AM wondering what Adam is thinking about for the Garden I think it would be safe to say he is sure to

this year. sow tomatoes. He sowed them the year I had a share in the Garden; yes, sowed them in multitudes, and they did really come up. But by the middle of October they were as far from flowering as the greatest enemy to them could have wished, and even Adam had then to surrender his long-cherished hopes. It was peculiarly trying as well as sad, for Adam had meant to punish Eve's want of faith in the tomato harvest by not giving her any of the fruit. At least, he said so. But how can you withhold what has not come into your hands to give? Perhaps he might have relented, for Adam had not been constructed without some weak spots; but, anyway, he did not have the chance. We took much comfort in the thought that it was an unusually wet summer, and we kept our hope from rusting, until another year.

Our Garden might euphemistically have been described as unambitious, not extensive, of limited size. That year was the very first year Adam had had a garden of his very own. But we never thought of it as Adam's garden; for Adam was not the sort of man to make you think of him as the sole, or even the principal proprietor of a garden, or, indeed, of anything else; so it was everyman's land indeed. When we entered into possession of it, we used to make interesting discoveries of pottery, belonging, apparently, to the end of the nineteenth century, and glass of about the same era. I may say that we never found a perfect specimen of either. As it may be supposed, the soil was not rich, the probability being that many years had elapsed since Art had assisted Nature. There was one long bed-I mean long as compared with very short beds in a garden on the same scale, and a walk, dark with the antiquity of ashes, ran between it and what by courtesy we called a-no, the grass plot. One end of that plot was bald, and the other end, by reason of bonfires for the consumption of rubbish, was, if anything, still balder. Yet there were possibilities for the Garden, and we lived in them.

We were four: Adam and Eve, and the Assistant-gardener, and me. You may read M.E. if you find the grammar painful; "me" is shorter to pronounce, and easier for foggy

if not,