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THE MATHEW TOWER-MRS. NICHOLSON.

Last week, Mrs. Nicholson, now well known by her tour on foot through Ireland, and the very interesting book which she has written descriptive of her wanderings, paid a visit to Mountpatrick. She was accompanied by some friends. She was met by the Very Rev. Mr. Mathew, Mr. O'Connor, the hospitable proprietor, and some other gentlemen. After visiting the Tower, which is now superbly finished, and promises to stand, in firmness and durability, for the next five hundred years, and perambulating the grounds which are laid out in a highly ornamental style, the parties partook of lunch, which consisted principally of fruits and coffee. Mrs. Nicholson, and the friend who accompanied her, are, besides being strict total abstainers, also vegetarians, disciples of a strict dietetic school, in which no animal food is permitted. The object of her visit was then announced; it was to present to Mr. O'Connor, a small but beautiful select library, in testimony of her ardent respect for the cause and the Apostle of Temperance, and in kindly appreciation of the services and worth of Mr. O'Connor, who not only built a testimonial unexampled in the history of such memorials erected by private individuals, but with a hospitality that cannot be over-estimated, throws open his grounds daily to the public. Mrs. Nicholson presented the following short address:

These volumes are presented by a few friends of temperance, in grateful acknowledgment of his generosity in throwing open his tasteful and beautiful place to the public, and for the purpose of affording a profitable recreation to its numerous visitors; with a desire that the lovely spot may be ever sacred to that glorious cause, to whose most successful and untiring advocate it has been dedicated, and to the advancement of universal philanthropy.

The reply was as follows:

Cork, August 28th, 1845.

MADAM,-I receive the books with pride and pleasure. The subject of each volume, and the names of the authors remarkable in our literature for their genius or scientific knowledge, are the best tests of your own pure taste and judgment.

Ten years have elapsed since I found this spot a wilderness -four since a monument, I hope an enduring one, has been erected, to perpetuate, in a small degree, the true greatness and glory of the Christian benefactor of Ireland. As that monument belongs to him and the public, and as those grounds, which you and others have been pleased to eulogise,

are but the abiding place of the Tower of Temperance, so my gates have never been closed, and never shall be, against visitors, whether they be residents of our own favoured but unfortunate land, or citizens of Europe, or of your own great country.

It is a singular spectacle to witness-a lady gently nurtured and brought up, giving up, for a time, home and country and kindred-visiting a land stricken with famine-traversing on foot that land from boundary to boundary-making her way over solitary mountains and treading through remote glens, where scarcely the steps of civilization have reached, sharing the scanty potato of the poor but hospitable people, and lying down after a day of toil, in the miserable but secure cabin of a Kerry or Connaught peasant. All this is unusual. But above it shines, with a steady light, your sympathy, your benevolence, your gentleness of heart, and your warm appreciation of the virtues, rude but sincere, of a people whose condition it is necessary to improve, in order to make them contented and happy.

The first step to raise them socially, to create in them selfrespect, and elevate their shrewdness into the wisdom of morality, has been taken by the MAN whom you revered so much, and to whom and not to me, you have this day paid a grateful and graceful tribute. May he live for ever in the memories of his country.

You are about to depart for your own great country, because you could not witness again the desolation of another famine. But you will carry back from Ireland the heartfelt sense of her people for past kindness, to your Christian countrymen. To them, to the generous people of England, and to the Society of Friends in England, Ireland and America, we are indebted, but utterly unable to discharge the debt. Again, Madam, expressing my deep sense of your kindness and personal worth, and wishing you many happy years in your beloved America,

I beg to subscribe myself your grateful servant,
WILLIAM O'CONNOR.

Mount Patrick, August 31st, 1848.

TO WILLIAM O'CONNOR.

SIR, The unmerited compliment you publicly bestowed on a stranger, in the last week's Examiner, deserves a public acknowledgment, and the more cheerfully given, because it affords an opportunity of saying, that not to me alone is the honour due of the small bestowment of books upon your table. It says, "there are hearts in Cork that do appreciate the Mathew Testimonial, as well as the noble generosity of the

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man who designed it, and though small the offering, it may be the prelude to more liberal demonstrations of a people's gratitude."

These few volumes, it is hoped, are but the alphabet to a well chosen library that shall one day grace a room in the Tower, affording the citizen and the stranger a profitable, as well as a pleasant recreation.

And now, Sir, allow me to say, that in a four years' tour through this beautiful isle, from the Donegal sea to Cape Clear-from the mountains of Wicklow to the Killery Peaks, I have never seen from the top of mansion or castle a flag so gracefully waving a flag on which is inscribed so much love of country-so much just appreciation of worth-and so much that deserves the appellation of "Well done,” as that which is flying in the breeze from the tower of Mount Patrick, and should my eyes ever again look out upon the proud mountains and waters of my own native land, when memory shall revert to the summer of 1848, the brightest, the happiest associations will be the hours passed in the cottage and tower, the garden and walks, dedicated to the man, who lives for humanity. And though I return to my people with a sorrowing heart, that the tear is still on the long wasted cheek of Erin, yet this shall be my joy, that there live among her country-loving sons, hearts that can feel and hands that can act, when worth and virtue make the demand, and to the proud monument of Mount Patrick will I point as a witness, to all who may sail up the green banks of the sweet-flowing Lee.

When the hand of Theobald Mathew shall cease to rest on the head of the pledge-taking postulant, and when he shall have been gathered to the dust of his fathers-when the generous heart that devised the lasting memorial shall have stopped its pulsation for ever-on every health-blowing breeze that fans the flag of Mount Patrick, shall be whispered"Peace to the Apostle of Temperance, who said to the winemaddened brain of the maniac, Peace be still, who wiped the tear from the face of heart-stricken woman, and who 'lifted up him that was ready to fall."

And when from heaven's high battlement his gentle spirit shall look down on this Tower, future generations shall rise in succession and call him "blessed."

And let their long-sounding echo reverberate over mountain and glen, "honour and gratitude to WILLIAM O'CONNOR." ASENATH NICHOLSON.

Ireland "I love thee still."

September 4th, 1848.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Oh! could we from death but recover."

THE GRAVE OF CHARLES WOLFE.

It was in the cottage of Dr. Power that unexpectedly the sweet strains of the "Soldier's Grave" was struck by Mrs. P., and awakened again those sensations which were stirred, when in the city of New York, a few days before sailing for Ireland, I heard them for the first time; and here was told that the author was sleeping in a humble burying-ground but two miles from the spot.

In two days Mrs. P. accompanied me to the strangers' churchyard adjoining an old crumbling ivy-covered ruin of a church, where sleep together in a rank grass-grown spot, the sailor and the soldier who dies from home, in this harbour, and where seldom a foot tramples on the wild weed that grows tall in the uneven enclosure where they sleep. Here and there a coarse monument tells that Captain M., or Lieutenant G. died in this harbour, Anno Domini but Charles Wolfe was not among them, his was a bed detached, and confined within the wall of one corner of the church, with a humble flat stone over his breast. The roof of the church is gone, and the entrance to his grave, when the sexton is not there to unlock it, is over the wall by climbing a ladder. A look through the key-hole showed that luxuriant weeds and stones from the crumbling wall had well-nigh concealed the epitaph, which told his age and death. His short story was easily rehearsed; for like all true merit, he was unostentatious, and asked not that the world should honour him. His birth-place was Dublin, in 1791, a descendant of the military hero Wolfe, who was slain at Quebec. He was sent to Bath, in England, in 1801, to school, where his mother removed at the death of his father, then to Dr. Evans's, then to Winchester, where his amiable disposition made him greatly beloved, and his classical attainments gained him great distinction without flattering his vanity. He never in one instance

received a reprimand from a teacher, and his sister adds, that to her recollection he never acted contrary to his mother's wishes during his life. He cheerfully gave up the idea of a military profession, which he had imbibed, because he found it was unpleasant to his mother. In 1808 the family returned to Ireland, and in 1809 he entered Dublin College. He soon distinguished himself as a poet; his Jugurtha Incoraratus was written in the first year of college, the year when his mother died, an event which left a lasting impression in his heart. He soon after won a prize and became a college tutor, obtained a scholarship, and his talents for prose and verse, as well as oratory, soon manifested themselves.

The poem which gave him such deserved celebrity was published without his knowledge, and it originated in his mind by reading a paragraph, as follows. Sir John Moore had often said, that if he was killed in battle, he wished to be buried where he fell.

"The body was removed at midnight to the citadel of Corunna. A grave was dug for him on the rampart there, by a party of the 9th Regiment, the aide-de-camps attending by turns. No coffin could be procured, and the officers of his staff wrapped the body, dressed as it was, in a military cloak and blankets. The interment was hastened, for about eight in the morning some firing was heard, and the officers feared if a serious attack were made they should be ordered away, and not suffered to pay him the last duty. The officers of his army bore him to the grave-the funeral service was read by the chaplain, and the corpse was covered with earth."

Thus they buried him at dead of night, and—

"He lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak about him."

His biographer says, had he written no other poetry, this poem would have entitled him to the name of poet of poets. He had one peculiarity in reading, he analysed the subject to its origin, and there tarried so long, that he seldom perused it to the end-he digested thoroughly what he did read, but seldom read a book through. He was an enthusiastic admirer of the scenery

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