the reigning sovereign, represented his opponent as crooked, wicked, tyrannical, &c. And Shakspeare, like a fawning poet, follows in the cry, that he might please that old, capricious, bloody, and gross-minded coquette, Queen Elizabeth; and indirectly compliment her father, Henry VIII., whose illegitimate daughter she was; and who was himself the most execrable scoundrel that ever sat upon a throne. We know their deeds! There cannot be a doubt that Richard was, in some points, basely calumniated.

The Countess of Desmond, who knew him in his youth, (for every thing in Horace Walpole's book is not romance,) says he was a handsome prince, and a graceful dancer: this, and his formidable prowess as a knight and a warrior, serve pretty well to adjust the fact as to his personal deformity. Popular he unquestionably was-for he found many thousands to fight, and many hundreds to die for him, including several members of the first families in the realm. Some of his laws are admirably good, and are still acted upon in the courts of justice. He encouraged the introduction of printing, and invented the useful and, to the revenue, the lucrative arrangement of transmitting letters by post.

He was distinguished as an able statesman; and for being what is much more a rarity, an accomplished orator. Besides, it should not be forgotten that his time for attainment and display was short, as he was slain when he had lived but thirty-four years, and reigned only two years and two months.

As to Richard's going crowned to the field of Bosworth, it is not to be supposed that he actually wore a silly toy like that of a King in a child's story-book, or like Charles II. in the oak-tree of Boscobel on the sign of a country ale-house! Probably, his martial helmet was surmounted by some ornament resembling a kingly diadem. See page 82 of Hutton's

narrative.

"We know of but two

Page 10. B. of Bosworth. lawful roads to a crown, the choice of the people, and an hereditary claim." Hutton might have surmised a third path to a throne; that pursued by Napoleon; who bribed and corrupted the soldiery of France, and with their assistance-but without being heir to it, and without the choice of the people-took possession of the Gallic sceptre; and this, though a manifest and impudent usurpation, was termed lawful, and admitted to be so, by a majority of the French population, and by several European powers.

Page 92. "He is a traitor; and young Strange shall die;' and ordered Catesby to see it instantly done." See what done? This is as common an expression, as it is slovenly; just as a school-girl scribbles, "I wrote to you, my beloved Emily, but you did not get it." Old Hutton meant to say, "ordered young Strange to be put to death.”

Page 197, note. "To appoint a band of determined men to lay by till they could see where the opposite commanders were."

Mr. Ashby, whom Hutton quotes, writes as all

vulgar English writers do. But, lay is not the verb to be used here. The proper usage is lie. A man may lay a wager, or may lay his head on his pillow; a hen lays an egg, &c.; but soldiers lie in ambush, a sleepy person lies down to rest; and a ship should be said to lie to, not lay to, as seafaring authors, and others who ought to know better, constantly write and print. A boy's Latin theme, in which pono and jaceo were confounded, would get the perpetrator of the fault into trouble.

:

But

Page 198, note. "As Voltaire remarks, every invader of England succeeds: luckily the last proved an exception to the rule. G. Ashby." Voltaire is nearly right almost all invasions have succeeded; for example, the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans established their power in Britain. if, by "the last," Mr. Ashby means that invasion which was said to have been projected by Buonaparte, it is not a case in point: he never did invade the country. Neither did the Spaniards in Elizabeth's time; for the ships of their renowned Armada, in 1588, were defeated, and dispersed by a tempest, before they reached the British shore.

Page 204. Hutton quotes an old manuscript in the British Museum: " Jhesu, that dyed on Good Friday, and Mary his Mother, send me the love of the Lord. Stanley he hath married my Mother." He did not perceive that this passage is erroneously punctuated. It should run-" the love of the Lord Stanley." Lord S. was married to the Earl of Richmond's

mother; and his aid was a matter of the utmost moment to Henry.

I have said, that almost all the invasions of Great Britain, by foreign powers, were successful. But in the number, I do not count some plundering intrusions by the French, towards the close of the 17th century; when they carried off a few scores of cattle, and set fire to a village or two on the coast of Scotland. Nor can I include the landing of a handful of troops, with which Louis XV. assisted Prince Charles Edward in 1745; nor yet the momentary possession of the town of Carrickfergus in the North of Ireland, by Thurot, some years after the Scottish outbreak. But perhaps the arrival of a French force in Ireland, in the year 1798, may be reckoned among the invasions of these nations which, for a time, did succeed.

The term success, indeed, can scarcely attach to what then happened; but it is nearly certain, that had the numbers which effected a landing in favour of the Irish insurgents at that period, been more formidable, the invasion would, in fact, have succeeded in the strictest sense of the word. Having myself witnessed some of the scenes exhibited in Ireland in those times, I am enabled to state a few particulars connected with the transactions referred to, and shall here add them from memorandums preserved by me; trusting that should they prove, even in the slightest degree, interesting, my readers will excuse my being more prolix and diffuse than hereto

fore, or than the plan of my little volume would seem to authorize.

August 26, 1798.-Dublin was in a ferment: the streets glowed with scarlet, and echoed throughout with the clatter of arms; an express having reached the seat of government intimating that a powerful French force had landed in the West, had completely beaten back the volunteers who opposed them, been joined by multitudes of the discontented, and that all were in full march towards the interior of the country.

Orders for the immediate movement of troops were issued by Lord Cornwallis, Lord-Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief; who proceeded to put himself at their head. A night or two after, I left the city in a mail coach, with a view of going to my own place of residence near Galway; but next day, on arriving at Athlone, I found that town thronged with military, and in the utmost confusion. Fugitive gentry were rushing into the place in various machines, on horseback, and on foot, terrified by what had occurred on the 27th, when the French detachments, their numbers yet unknown, and of course magnified, had attacked the garrison of Castlebar, and defeated in action the regiments posted there, and vainly endeavouring to maintain the position. I now discerned that I was awkwardly situated. There was no mode of conveyance back to Dublin for me, had I wished to return; nor was there a chance of my reaching in safety my destination in