All the descendants of Captain Henry Crawford* had invariably received from their progenitors the tradition "that they were descended from the Earls of Crawfurd in Scotland;" but as this family reputation did not particularize the links that connected Captain Crawford with his Scottish forefathers, it was totally useless for the purpose of establishing a claim to the dormant peerage.

One very curious circumstance turned up in the search for evidence.

Miss Catherine Crawford, (sister of the proposed claimant) having heard that there was "an old Crawford tombstone" in the churchyard of Derry brusk, in the county Fermanagh, proceeded to the spot to examine it. There she found a stone bearing the following inscription:

"Here lies the Body of John Lindsay Crawford, 2d son of the Honorable Viscount Garnock of Kilberney, in Scotland, who departed this Life on the 2d of June, in the year 1745, aged 47 years. Also the Body of his Brother James Lindsay Crawford, 3d son of the aforesaid Honorable Viscount Garnock, who departed this life 1st December, 1745, aged 45 years."

Miss Crawford was rejoiced at this discovery. It seemed to her to furnish a presumption that members of Lord Crawford's family must have made a settlement in Ireland. This might, she thought, be inferred from the circumstance of two sons of Lord Garnock being buried at Derrybrusk.

It did not occur to her that the tombstones were a rank forgery. Yet such is the undoubted fact.

The Hon. John Crawford, whose name appears upon its lying surface, died in Edinburgh on the 25th February, 1739, and is interred in the Greyfriars' churchyard in that city. The Hon. James Crawford, who is associated with his brother John in the Derrybrusk inscription, died, as we have already seen, in 1774, in London, and is buried at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

The fabricator of the Derrybrusk tombstone probably intended it to support a line of evidence he meant to invent in behalf of a certain claimant; and with this view he appears to have thought that its apparent authenticity would be strengthened by quietly interring two brothers together beneath it.

The

But the proofs of John Crawford's death in Edinburgh in a different year from that stated on the tombstone, transpired subsequently to the fabrication; which was therefore rendered altogether unavailable as evidence, and withal somewhat perilous to its ingenious contriver. entire case thenceforth required to be recast; and the audacious forgery was left to repose amongst the brushwood and briars of Derrybrusk, where it would have probably lain unnoticed and forgotten, if it had not been accidentally discovered in 1842 by Miss Catherine Crawford, when searching for evidence in her brother's behalf.

Not one of the claimants has, as yet, arrived at anything like legal proof; nor is there any present probability that such will be ever attained.

* His death is thus recorded in the Dublin edition of "The Gentleman's and London Magazine for 1757," p. 496, under the head of "Monthly Chronologer for Ireland :"

66

Died, 5th September, in Dorset Street, Henry Crawford, Esq. He served with reputation as a Captain of Dragoons in the armies of Q. Anne, and K. George I." He was buried at St. Mary's, Dublin, 9th Sept. 1757

But it is unquestionable that they all have ample moral evidence of some species of connection with Lord Crawford's family; although the * irremediable defect of documentary proof, arising from the careless and irregular habits of unsettled times, unfortunately leaves the details of their several claims unascertained.

The descent, vaguely vouched by family tradition, may be both lawful and lineal; and yet the facts, if known, might utterly fail in creating a legal inheritance of honours. For example: Any one of the claimants of the Crawford peerage might descend from the marriage of some daughter of the family with a gentleman named Crawford. Of course this species of descent would create no title to the earldom in question: and might in a few generations be easily confounded by oral tradition with a descent creative of inheritance.

There can, however, be little doubt that the true heir to the Crawford earldom exists amongst the Irish families of the name of Crawford.

There was a Henry Crawford of Easterterm, descended of Kilbirnie. May not Captain Henry Crawford of the 9th Dragoons have been of this line?

It only remains for us to observe that the Crawford estates, on the death of Lady Mary Lindsay Crawford, passed to the late Earl of Glasgow, who descended in the fourth generation from Margaret Crawford, daughter of the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, and his wife Margaret Crawford, of Kilbirnie in Ayrshire, and sister of the first Lord Viscount Garnock.

Since the above was written, the House of Lords have confirmed the claim of the Earl of Balcarras to the Earldom of Crawford. It must be conceded, that when forty years had elapsed after the death of the last Earl, without the appearance of any descendant of the nearer, or Crawford line, of the family, who was able to prove his pedigree, it was high time for the House to fiat the claim of Lord Balcarras; an undoubted descendant of the more remote, or Lindsay line of the ancient stock of the Earls of Crawford.

PEDIGREE OF THE IRISH BRANCH.

THE REV. CHARLES WOLFE

AND

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

'Ανω ποταμων ἱερων χωρουσι παγαι.

EURIPIDES.

PROGRESSION, advancement, improvement; ardent and enthusiastic aspirations after excellence, purity, and happiness, would seem to constitute the original and elementary principles, the veritable and ineradicable instincts, of that highly developed refinement, that shrinking and delicate sensitiveness-that spirituality-which may, perhaps, be regarded as forming the essential foundation of the poetic temperament: that temperament which is kindled into rapturous excitement by the contemplation of the embodied representatives of the beautiful; the material symbols of the grand, the vast, the indefinite, in which the prophet-spirit riots, careers, luxuriates; thus arriving at that exaltation of its powers, that anticipative development of its being, through which, "upborne by indefatigable wing," an intellectual altitude is achieved, where, bathed in the living lustre of immortality, it is enabled to read and recognise the divine impress which conveys the assurance of its own quenchless existence, and to win, as it were, a foretaste and earnest of that pure, abstract, and passionless enjoyment, of which the present is the antithesis, and the future the realization. Philosophy once taught, that "nature abhors a vacuum." However this may be, mind, most unquestionably, and with an energy proportioned to its development, is opposed to the idea of reduction to nothingness, and shrinks with uncontrollable and spontaneous emotion from the drear prospect of annihilation. The mysterious union of intellect and matter, of which humanity consists, necessarily presents various aspects and diversified combinations, exhibiting in proportion, to the predominance of either element, an instinctive horror of extinction, an inborn loathing of the "jaws of darkness," or an apathetic indifference with respect to the negation of futurity, which, when contemplated in the extreme direction of the descending series, presents successive indications of continuous diminution, until the glories of the "mens divinion," either feebly linger, or altogether cease, in the wretched degradation of the Australian aborigines. The seraph sources, the spirit-fountains, of the sacred streams of genius and inspiration, tend, in the meaning affixed to the motto of this paper, onwards, upwards, heavenwards, in the direction of their home amongst the stars, which are the " poetry of Heaven,” and "peopled with beings bright as their own beams." Viewing these,

their "bauty and mystery," from afar, the spirit-life, instinct with the promptings of immortality, impelled by those destinies, which would

"O'erleap their mortal state,”

labours for extrication from this world's atmosphere, which is alien-gloom; from the incarnate prison which is living sepulture, until, alas!

and like the "barr'd up bird” that beats

"His neck and breast against his wiry dome,
Till the blood tinge his plumage,"

it falls exhausted, and is disenthralled.

The most vigorous stem first struggles through the superincumbent mass of resisting soil, into beauty, warmth, and sunshine; so "transcendental spirituality," obeying those impulses which constitute the source of "longing sublime and aspirations high," and in antithetical disdain of that clayey influence, whose companionship is endured for a season, first wins its emancipation, and mounting upwards, realizes, as it were, that beautiful theory, which exclaims, "whom the gods love, die young." Nature is replete with analogies; her ample volumes, her illustrated pages, her illumined and imperishable characters, invite investigation, and charm, whilst they instruct the studious mind, which, amidst the stupendous revelations which burst upon its view, soon learns to appreciate the multiplied evidences, which continually present themselves, of unity of design, adaptation of means, and perpetual benevolence of purpose; to recognise in the majestic movements of the multitudinous ocean, and gentle descent of the fertilizing rain-drop, mere diversities in the action and effects of the same grand principle; and to refer the vivid pageantry, and thousand varying hues, with which the "sun's gorgeous coming," and " "setting indescribable,' can embellish the cloud-curtained heavens, to the selfsame cause which lends to the flower its beauty, and to the diamond its lustre.

Original tendencies have reference to the accomplishment of certain definite purposes, and exhibit conclusive analogical proofs of pre-existent and directing intelligence; the tendency, in obedience to which an apple falls, is not intelligential, it is merely instrumental; the heart's pulsation proceeds not from its own volition, and yet the end for which it is designed is effected with undeviating fidelity. Planets circle round their primaries in orbits, on whose ellipticity is dependent the succession of the seasons, and those various phenomena, without which the stability of the system could not be maintained. Mind desires knowledge, because such is its proper aliment, whilst its wondrous functions of reasoning, reflection, comparison, analysis, and memory, constitute the means, the adaptation of which is so admirably calculated to minister to the gratification of the intellectual appetite. Mind desires eternity of being, in reference to which the faculty of hope would seem, in a peculiarly preeminent degree, to exercise its highest functions. Is this the only instance in which a distinct power, an inextinguishable impulse, an original and ever active tendency, will have existed in vain? In all things else, shall instrumentalities be abundantly capable of commanding the realization of