mained friendless and unknown.

Partly perhaps this was the

fault of a shy and sensitive temperament. He says himself:

"I have a heart. I'd live

And die for him whose worth I knew;
But could not clasp his hand, and give
My full heart forth as talkers do.
And they who loved me, the kind few,
Believed me changed in heart and tone
And left me while it burned as true,
To live alone, to live alone."

And so he labored on; working for uncertain remuneration with diminished hope, and with (as we are suffered to perceive) the shadow of an unfortunate attachment dimming the faint sunshine that was left, until little by little his courage seems to have failed him, and in the year 1838, while only thirty-four years of age, he resolved to join the Society of Christian Brethren at Cork. It is an institution half monastic, half educational, consisting no doubt of pious and excellent persons; and fitted to do good service arnong the peasantry of Ireland. But I can not help doubting whether the companionship or the occupation were exactly that best suited to Gerald Griffin. One of the old Benedictine abbeys, where the consolations of religion were blended with the pursuits of learning, where the richly adorned chapel adjoined the richlystored library, would have done better. At Cork, his employment was to teach young children their letters; and one day a mendicant from his own county craving relief, and he moneyless, according to the rule of the order, proposing to bestow his alms in the form of a little gold seal, the only trinket he had retained, the permission to do so was refused. After this it is no surprise to find that the feverish disorders, to which he was constitutionally subject, recurred more frequently. In the year 1840, his kind brother, Dr. Griffin, was sent for to attend his sick-bed, and arrived just in time to receive his last sigh. Then came the triumphant representation of "Gisippus," the only one of his plays that he had not destroyed on entering the Christian Brethren, just to show what a dramatist had been let die.

His lyric sseem to me almost unrivaled for the truth, purity and tenderness of the sentiment. This is high praise, but I subjoin a few specimens which I think will bear it out:

Gilli ma chree,

Sit down by me,

We now are joined and ne'er shall sever, This hearth's our own,

Our hearts are one,

And peace is ours forever.

When I was poor

Your father's door

Was closed against your constant lover, With care and pain

I tried in vain

My fortunes to recover;

I said, To other lands I'll roam

Where Fate may smile on me, love! I said, Farewell, my own old home! And I said farewell to thee, love! Sing Gilli ma chree, &c.

I might have said,

My mountain maid,

Come live with me, your own true lover; I know a spot,

A silent cot,

Your friends can ne'er discover,

Where gently flows the waveless tide

By one small garden only,

Where the heron waves his wings so wide, And the linnet sings so lonely.

Sing Gilli ma chree, &c.

I might have said,

My mountain maid,

A father's right was never given
True hearts to curse

With tyrant force

That have been blest in Heaven!

But then I said, In after-years,

When thoughts of home shall find her,

My love may mourn with secret tears
Her friends thus left behind her.
Sing Gilli ma chree, &c.

Oh, no, I said,

My own dear maid,

For me, though all forlorn forever

That heart of thine

Shall ne'er repine

O'er slighted duty, never!

The sally, waving o'er my head,
Still sweetly shades my frame;
But, ah, those happy days are fled,
And I am not the same.

Old times! old times!

Oh, come again, ye merry times,

Sweet, sunny, fresh and calm,

And let me hear those Easter chimes,
And wear my Sunday palm.

If I could cry away mine eyes,

My tears would flow in vain;
If I could waste my heart in sighs
They'll never come again.

A personal feeling probably dictated the following fine stanzas ; one of Gerald Griffin's sisters having joined the Sisters of Charity in Dublin:

She once was a lady of honor and wealth,
Bright glowed on her features the roses of health,
Her vesture was blended of silk and of gold,
And her motion shook perfume from every fold;
Joy reveled around her, love shone at her side,
And gay was her smile as the glance of a bride,
And light was her step in the mirth-sounding hall,
When she heard of the daughters of Vincent de Paul.

She felt in her spirit the summons of grace,
That called her to live for the suffering race,
And heedless of pleasure, of comfort, of home,
Rose quickly, like Mary, and answered "I come!"
She put from her person the trappings of pride,
And passed from her home with the joy of a bride,
Nor wept at the threshold as onward she moved,

For her heart was on fire in the cause that she loved.

Lost ever to fashion, to vanity lost,

That beauty that once was the song and the toast;
No more in the ball-room that figure we meet,

But gliding at dusk to the wretch's retreat.
Forgot in the halls is that high-sounding name,
For the Sister of Charity blushes at fame;
Forgot are the claims of her riches and birth,
For she barters for Heaven the glory of earth.

Those feet, that to music could gracefully move,
Now bear her alone on the mission of love;