they set some houses on fire which happened to be Exactly Opposite the gunpowder that was lodged in the haggard—fortunately the wind blew from it-Otherways we should have been in extreme danger—as it was we were all dreadfully frightened & did not rest in peace all that night-next day our spirrits revived & we enjoyed a very pleasant society among they officers—who were in Crowds; at breakfast, dinner & supper while they remaind at Killala—the daylight exhibited more clearly the slaughter that had taken place—the unfortunate wreches that had fallen were in numbers to be seen lying in the street; Opposite the gate we from the windows saw many dead carcases — every potatoe ·& Corn field about the town bore witness of their Defeat--for days they were collecting them & the unfortunate female relatives trying to inter them in great holes dug for the purpose many of our late companions were recognized, among the rest the leading general who fell early in the action-many worse characters escaped & have not since been heard of. ... The Court Martials commenced but went on so slowly that I dispaired of getting home if I waited for the general to move-From day to day we were induced to stay an Entire week after our captivity endid—with two carrages (which we had sent for to Castlebar) waiting for us at lenght we requested a guard & were escorted by sixty horse ; with eyes overflowing with tears & hearts with gratitude we quit a house where we had experienced Every mark of Friendship tenderness & love from its worthy owners.

On Saturday the 29th September we entered Castlebar our carrages in the centre of sixty horse never can I forget my feelings on that occasion-I thought I should have died with excess of sensibility at seeing the general joy that indeed every description of people expressed there at the doors & windows lifting up their hands & Eyes in token of thankfullness for our deliverance-while the men threw up their hats & rent the air with their huzzas—but what affected me most was the poor falling on their knees in the dirt-I thought I never should reach our own door, when I did the scene that followed was more than I am equal to discribe—I found myself surrounded by all those dear Friends who had suffered so much for me & we mentally returned thanks to our Almighty deliverer—for days the house was crowded with congratulatory Visitants & we felt happiness inexpressible.

What became of our French friends, you have seen in the newspapers—they were treated with marked attention by us allfor the day or two they remeined at Killala after the Battle-on their departure they gave us all the fraternal embrace & seemed thankfull for the civilities they had received—they continud for near a fortnight in Castlebar—& imediately on our arrival came to visit us—we had them to dinner & on their leaving town we again got the fraternal Embrace—on their going to Dublin they were complimented by every friend of the Bishops-& the Primate who is Brother in law to the Bishop waited upon the Lord Lieutenant & represented their conduct to us while we were in their possession-they were received By his Excellency accordingly-last week they sailed for England & are to remein at Litchfield untill they are exchanged-thus ends my History & I hope my Dear Aunt will allow that I deserve her thanks for writing such a long letter I know what a gratification it must be to my friends at Loughrea and in that idea I am amply repaid.

ever your affect niece

B. THOMPSON.

THE ETCHINGHAM LETTERS.

XIII.

From Miss Elizabeth Etchingham, 83 Hans Place, London, S.W.,

to Sir Richard Etchingham, Tolcarne, Much Buckland, Wessex.

DEAR, DEAREST DICKORY,—Trusty and wel beloved, we greet you well.' •Trusty and wel beloved' you are missed. There was more luck about the house when you were here. Tracy too is missed; and his little empty collar, with its inscription, 83 Hans Place, has now something of the sacred relique about it in Cynthia's eyes. But it was cruel to keep him in London. Spaniels are not the dogs for a town, and I always thought that his frolic humour would land him under a wheel. Now, I suppose, he is racing round and round the lawn, fringes and lovelocks flowing in the wind. Does he still pause in his impetuous career to insult Eld in the person of blind old Merlin with belated invitations to play ?

I found your notebook after you were gone yesterday hidden away with my sewing tools. I remember you pushed it under a pyramid of embroidery-silks to screen it from Laura's inquisitorial eyes and then forgot it, careless creature. (No, you are not really careless.) I looked into the book again before sending it after you, and I mean to exchange my derivation of the name Solomon's Seal for Mr. Follett's. His is the prettier as well as the more ancient. The seventeenth-century garden-books explain the name by the circles that show when the root is cut, which do somewhat represent a seal.' The doctrine of signatures has always had a fascination for me. I should like to believe, as I read once upon a time in Cole's ' Adam in Eden,'that the fruit of the Pome-citron tree being like to the heart in form, is a very soveraign cordiall for the same.' That the walnut, having the perfect signature of the head, is the one thing needful for the brain; that viper's bugloss is an especial remedy against the bitings of vipers and all other serpents, 'as is betrayed by both stalk and seed. The author of the book in question is a staunch

6

6

upholder of the doctrine of signatures, yet he condemns fanciful theorising in others, and will not accept the story told by a fellow herbalist, Culpeper, I think, of the Earl of Essex, his horses, which being drawn up in a body lost their shoes upon the downs near Tiverton, because moon-wort-loosener of locks, fetters, and shoes-grows upon heaths. Culpeper was very unable to prove'

, that moon-wort grew upon Tiverton downs, and the tale of the lost shoes must therefore, in his more cautious contemporary's opinion, be taken with a grain of salt.

It was to-day, was it not? that Mr. Follett was to guide your steps to Bratton Leys, there to see the devil's door' in the north wall of the church? I suppose the door is no longer thrown open during the Baptismal service, for the devil to escape at the Renunciation, and carefully bolted and barred on all other occasions ? Mr. Shipley visited us yesterday evening. He seemed very sorry to have come just too late to encounter you.

I told him that I had heard that when Medievalists met, the devil, who ruled their period, had, naturally enough, taken a prominent part in the conversation, and he answered that the conversation was of angels too. Tell Margaret that I commend her for asking, as, according to Mr. Shipley, she did, how Fra Angelico, who began painting with prayer, could have seen the devil at his worst. She seems to have inquired too, à propos of the inferiority of Italian demons to the Flemish variety, if Spinello's devil, who slew the artist that created him by appearing in a dream, and asking the terrified painter where he had seen him looking so hideous as in the fresco, and why he ventured to offer him so humiliating an affront, was not terrific enough. The shock of so unusual an incident naturally killed Spinello, and Mr. Shipley thinks that Margaret has substantiated the claim of the Italian devil to a prominent place in Pandemonium.

Later.-I was sent for by Laura this afternoon, and found the Vivians and Alice Newton in the drawing-room. 'I am not again preventing your finishing a letter to Richard, I hope, as he only left us yesterday,' poor aggrieved Laura said in her huffed tone; the expression of which hope excited Mrs. Vivian's easily roused curiosity, and, as she does not scruple to put questions when her interest is awakened, I found myself under cross-examination, and when asked what I was writing to you about to-day, answered, I am writing to Richard about the devil. I wish words would paint the expression of Laura's face." • The devil,' Mrs. Vivian

6

cried with increased vivacity, that's most interesting. Somebody was telling me about the devil the other evening and amused me very much. A man's devil was just the god of his enemy, was he not ? and did not the devil first of all come out of Persia ? ' Laura murmured something about the devil and the fruit of the tree of knowledge. 'Oh, my dear Lady Etchingham,' exclaimed Mrs. Vivian with her sweetest smile,' after your serpent you have to wait centuries for your devil. For your familiar horned, hoofed, satyr devil I feel pretty sure that you have to wait till the Middle Ages. What is the date of the satyr devil, John ?' Mr. Vivian, to whom, as he mechanically stroked Azore, Alice Newton with admirable patience was trying to talk, had not time to produce, if he knew it, the date of the horned, hoofed apparition's first appearance before Mrs. Vivian's tide of words flowed on again. * And I believe that the further east you go the huger and more hideous the devils become. But Paris was a great place for devils, and Dante went there for his devils, his three-headed devils, as I go for my clothes. And do, Elizabeth, if you are writing, ask Sir Richard if he thinks those dreadful Campo Santo devils--the Campo Santo of Pisa—and those at Mount Athos are cousins? and if they can have flown into Italy from Greece and into Greece from Persia ? It's a bore not to know. I was thinking that Blake and sal volatile would have to be rung for on Laura's behalf, and a copy of the Papal bull that teaches the exorcising of fiends for the benefit of us all, but fortunately at that moment in came Colonel Newton, and to my unspeakable relief I soon heard : ‘You can begin a war without an army, but you can't finish one'; and Laura's response, 'Oh no, of course.'

Mrs. Vivian, however, had by no means talked herself out, and went on to demand sympathy in piteous accents on the count of the 'frightful, horrible, hideous Christian Death' that had supplanted the 'pretty Death' of the Pagans. “Yes,' Alice Newton said, “it would be interesting to trace the twin-brother of Sleep to the stern deity of the tragedians and on to the ghastly personification of Death which had little to separate it from the medieval devil. Elizabeth, do you remember the winged figure girded with a sheathed sword, from the temple, I think, of the Ephesian Artemis ? The face is so dreamy and wistful and the hand lifted as if beckoning. It was thought by some, was it not ? to represent Eros, and by some, Thanatos. The doubt is attractive. Alice then looked as if she had forgotten all of us till VOL. V.-NO. 28, N.S.

21