MISTLEY HALL, one of the seats of Lord Rivers, is situated on a pleasant eminence, about one mile south of Manningtree, in Essex, and at no considerable distance from the river Stour.

This manor, at the time of the Doomsday survey, was held by the wife of Henry De Ramis, from whom it passed through several families, and, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, came into the possession of the Crown. Edward the Sixth granted it to Sir John Rainsforth, whose heirs sold it to Paul, Viscount Bayning; Anne, his granddaughter, conveyed it by marriage to Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, by whom the reversion was sold, about the year 1680, to Edward Rigby, Esq., from whom the present Dowager Lady Rivers is descended.

Mistley Hall, the principal part of which was built by the Right Honourable Richard Rigby, in addition to the family mansion, though far from the most magnificent, is confessedly as elegant a seat as any in the kingdom. The wing which commands the river Stour, consists of a suite of rooms, admirably constructed, and fitted up with corresponding taste. The drawing-rooms and parlours are adorned with a small collection of very capital pictures of the best masters-particularly Vertumnus and Pomona, by Rembrandt; a matchless Cuyp, a Gaspar Poussin, a Teniers, and the celebrated Woodman, from the more modern pencil of the inimitable Gainsborough.

He built a beautiful parish church on the banks of the Stour, which was constructed by Adams, so as to form a very striking and central object from the Hall. On the right of this, Mr. Rigby formed a spacious quay and store-houses, making Mistley one of the most complete little towns, as well as sea-ports, in the kingdom.

As Mr. Rigby was a person of some political importance in the last century, it may not be out of place, if we bestow a few words upon him here.

Embarked early in political life, with every advantage to be derived from strong, manly talents, and a winning address, it is no wonder that the leaders of the contending

parties of those days were desirous of enrolling him under their respective banners. Frederic, Prince of Wales, father of George the Third, was amongst the first to cultivate his acquaintance. He personally invited him to his levees at Leicester House, and became so pleased with his society, that he gave him an unsolicited promise to make him, on the first vacancy, a Gentleman of the Royal Bedchamber. Such vacancy happening not long after, Mr. Rigby's well founded expectation was disappointed by a different nomination. He resented this treatment, however, in a manner worthy of him. The Prince himself was hurt on the occasion, and endeavoured to correct the mistake by the offer of a douceur, as a temporary compensation: but this was rejected in the following terms—“I shall never receive pay for a service, of which I am not deemed worthy ; but rather think it my duty to retire from a Court where honour, I find, has no tie."

He kept his word, and never entered Leicester House afterwards.

Mr. Rigby, however, soon afterwards was made Secretary for Ireland, and was subsequently nominated Master of the Rolls, and obtained a seat in the Privy Council. In June, 1768, Mr. Rigby, having taken no part in politics for some years, was appointed Paymaster of the Forces, and continued in that lucrative office during the twelve years' subsequent administration of Lord North. The American war, so calamitous in its consequences to this country, proved an unexpected source of wealth to Mr. Rigby: from the expenditure of numberless millions upon military services, so complex, and so detached, immense sums of the public money, according to official usage, were unavoidably lodged in the hands of the Paymaster. This accidental turn of good fortune subjected him, however, eventually, to a prosecution, for which no precedent is to be found in the political annals of this country.

In this dilemma, he stated to Parliament his readiness to pay his balance by quick instalments. The country, as it were, with

AMONG the few preceptories possessed by the Knights Templars in Ireland, none was more remarkable than that of Rencrew, whose picturesque ruins still excite the admiration of all who pass up or down the romantic Blackwater. It was founded under the joint auspices of the pope and the king, being designed to enforce equally the religion of Rome and the domination of England on the septs of Munster, who clung to their ancient creed and ancient laws with a pertinacity which it was the fashion of that day to stigmatise as barbarous. Erected on the extreme verge of the precipitous hill, round which the Blackwater winds into the bay of Youghal, it commanded to the north a view of the river winding through hills covered with wood from their tops to the water's edge; while southwards the bay opened a wide sheet of water, generally tranquil as a lake, save where the river and ocean met at the bar that stretches across the entrance of the harbour. In the early age of the third crusade, Youghal was a place of considerable importance. The town was built on the slope of a hill, along whose summit ran a high wall, strengthened by towers. Two monasteries, just beyond the walls at the northern and southern extremities of the town, were fortified with considerable care, and the vassals of the abbots bound to military service, shared in turn the duty of guarding these outworks. The Justiciary Lacy had joined with the papal legate in making these arrangements, by which the town had the double security of sanctity and arms. It was commercially dependent on the city of Bristol, and even before the English conquest had been the dépôt of the white slave trade, for which Bristol was unfortunately too celebrated. One light-house at the southern extremity

of the town, displayed a beacon by night and a banner by day, to guide mariners to the anchorage ground; its care was entrusted to a convent of nuns, who held extensive royal grants on condition of maintaining the Round Tower and its signal light,

A town of about five thousand inhabitants, blessed with two abbeys, one nunnery, a collegiate establishment for the instruction of missionaries, and having within a few miles a preceptory of Knights Templars and a monastery of Augustinian friars, ought in all conscience to have been the most religious spot on earth. Unfortunately piety is sometimes in the inverse ratio of professions, and spite of nuns, friars, and templars, Youghal was about the most demoralised town in Christendom. The good citizens of Bristol finding the slavetrade ceasing to be lucrative, took to piracy and buccaneering. When it was desirable to avoid the awkward enquiries of English wardens, the captains of their privateers steered for the unsuspected port of Youghal and found there good stores in the monasteries, protectors in the abbots, and excellent agents in the friars. It was said that Youghal was generally a more profitable market than Bristol itself. The missionaries from its college, when they proceeded to the halls of some wild chieftain whom it was deemed expedient to reconcile to the faith of Rome and the sceptre of the Plantagenets, found that their admission was facilitated when they could give the lord intelligence of the wines of Gascony, and inform the lady how she could procure on cheap terms the produce of the looms of Flanders. The Templars cared little for the fate of the Holy Land; they could make safer and more profitable crusades nearer home. Deasies, the

There were the septs of the Flahertics, and the Flynns,

so obstinately attached to their Irishry that no hopes could be entertained of their civilisation; a foray into their lands prevented knightly swords from becoming rusty, and what was even more important, furnished the means of purchasing a share of the luxuries brought by the Bristol pirates.

In the end of John's reign, the distractions of England gave fresh vigour to the buccaneering trade, while that monarch's disputes with the pope rendered the royal authority little better than nominal. Richard Grace, abbot of St. Mary's, took upon himself the rule of Youghal, and laughed to scorn the remonstrances of the Lord President of Munster. Raymond le Poer, Grand Master of the Templars, made war and peace with the Irish septs as caprice or interest dictated. The proud Geraldines, though they scorned the king, quailed before those religious lords, and even the White Knight refused to exercise his privileges as hereditary seneschal of Imokilly when they interfered with the pretensions of Abbot or Prior. Matters were in this state when early on a summer's morning the warder of the preceptory blew the trumpet note that announced a vessel entering the harbour of Youghal. The Templars hasted to the ramparts, leaving matins unsung and prayers unsaid, to speculate on the size and probable freight of the ship. "By our Lady," said Lacy, who had served in Palestine under and against the lion-hearted Richard, "by our Lady, my life is well nigh done unless she brings us wine from the lands of the sun: for three weeks we have had nothing but filthy beer, or the mead of these savages who never saw the clustering grapes."

"There is my laughing dame of Cappagh," said Aylmer, a young knight whose vows were of recent date, "she loves to be confessed by a Templar, and I have promised to bring heran embroidered hood, such as the worthy abbot yonder presented to- -how call you the fair penitent that the thrice holy Richard Grace loves to shrive?”

"She bears St. George's cross," said Le Poer, "and a knight's pennon seems to flutter at her mast-head; she is a royal galley, I ween, and brings intelligence from England. Ho there, my squires! saddle my war-horse, and let my train be ready forthwith to attend me to the town."

The hour of noon had arrived ere the galley came to anchor opposite the Water

gate; but long before that time all the authorities of Youghal, civil and religious, had hasted to the shore to welcome their old favourite, Green, the captain of a royal vessel employed to chase the pirates, while he was himself the most rapacious and unscrupulous plunderer that ever crossed the channel. A loud shout greeted this worthy as he sprung ashore; the abbot pronounced a solemn benediction, the monks attempted to raise a psalm of triumph but stumbled in the music and the Latin, the mayor doffed his cap of maintenance, while the garrison made an attempt at a military salute of spears, scarcely less awkward than a present arms" by the yeomanry of the same place in more modern times. Green received all these honours with the lurking vanity that belongs to mean birth thrust into high station. He cast his eyes round the group, and then turning to the abbot, said,

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"Holy father! I have urgent business with the Grand Master of the Templars ;" and drawing near he added in a whisper, "for by his means alone can I be freed from the presence of a troublesome spy.”

Doubtless the Lord Le Poer will be in town ere long; he hath promised to share our noon-tide meal, and we hope, gallant captain, that thou wilt not refuse to participate in our convent fare-But whom have we here?"

A strange knight, clothed in complete armour, wearing his vizor down, had sprung to land in the midst of the conversation; he was followed by a stalwart squire, and a gigantic negro slave, the first, for aught we know, that had ever been seen in Ireland. The appearance of the black was more effectual than reading the riot act at John O'Connell's election; children screamed, womenshrieked, soldiers dropped their arms, nuns told their beads, monks tried to remember their prayers, the mayor set the example of running away, a piece of wisdom not forgotten in similar alarms by his successors; the Water-gate was wedged with fugitives, and ere Green could answer the question, knight, captain, and abbot, were hurried along by the crowd like pieces of drift timber in the ebb of the tide. devil!" shouted Green in fury; his cry was mistaken for terror, and it rendered the horror of the crowd incurable. No one doubted that Satan, in proper person, had come to take possession of Youghal as his

"The

"In the sultry month of August,
When the weather is hot below."

In fewer minutes than it has taken to write the description, the belief in the bodily presence of Satan pervaded the remotest corners of the town. Never did Youghal display greater consternation, except perhaps in the winter of 1825, when some one vented a prophecy that a lean turkey would serve for the dinner of all the Protestants there resident * on the ensuing Christmas day; and the half-pay officers, who had found the cheapness of the markets convenient to their purses, took sudden alarm and fled to England. The bells of churches and abbeys tolled, the streets were flooded with holy water, and the few who retained their senses were menaced with the fate of St. Stephen, for nothing is so offensive to a terrified multitude as want of sympathy in their fears.

The Grand Master of the Templars was riding slowly onwards, when the peal of the alarm bells rung in his ears. He hastily formed his train in battle array, and galloped onwards, to what he supposed must be a furious battle, nor did he draw bridle till stopped by the barriers of the North Gate. It was long before the terrified warders attended to his impatient summons, it was longer ere their feeble hands removed bolt and bar. At length the Templars were admitted, and beheld with wonder a scene of confusion which passed all powers of description or understanding, Poer was not the most patient of men; having vainly questioned the first he met as to the cause of the tumult, he levelled his lance and galloped through the shrieking crowd followed by his attendants. Near the Town-hall, he found Green, the abbot, and the stranger knight, trying to address the multitude, amid a jumble of noises to which Babel was a mere joke. Less evidence of an insurrection has often been received by Irish authorities, and Poer at once directed his followers to charge the mob. Real dangers were now added to groundless fears; the names of the devil and the Templars, casually but not unhappily united, were shrieked out by wretches, crushed, struck down, and trampled. But the military force soon had cleared an open space, and the abbot invited

* A fact.

astery, where all these puzzling scenes could be explained.

The negro, the innocent cause of the uproar and mischief, followed his master through the town; and a few who ventured to peep from their windows, thought that Satan having been conquered by the pious Richard Grace, was now led in triumph to be confined in the dungeons of the abbey. Some of the monks seemed to have formed the same belief; for, when the abbot invited his guests to follow him to the refectory, they hasted to prevent the slave from accompanying the train; and it was to them a new lesson in physiology, to learn that a woolly head, white teeth, and a black skin, might belong to a mortal man.

It was not until they entered the refectory, that Green found an opportunity of delivering his message to the Grand Master. "I present to you," he said, pointing to the stranger, "the worthy knight, Sir Colman Rashleigh, who has been sent to perform a penance in the preceptory of Rencrew."

Poer had previously recognised in the stranger, a brother of his order, and had felt surprised that a Templar should have come, without any previous announcement of his intention. He received Sir Colman courteously and said, "I trust my brother will find the penances of Rencrew very light."

When the guests sate down to table, Rashleigh, for the first time, raised his visor, and showed a countenance once handsome, which a Syrian sun had burned and a ghastly wound disfigured. His manners were cold and stately; they effectually damped the mirth which usually reigned in the refectory of St. Mary's; and the meal, instead of being protracted to a late hour, was terminated with unusual rapidity. Green spoke a few words in private to the Grand Master, who turned to the stranger and said, "After the fatigues of your voyage, rest is needful; the preceptory is but a short hour's ride from hence, one of my squires shall conduct you thither. I will not return until the morrow.”

Sir Colman bowed and withdrew, followed by his train. Green, the Abbot, and the Grand Master remained to discuss the disposal of certain valuable plunder, which Green had not been able to land in Bristol.

Weeks rolled on; the Templars of Rencrew were heartily weary of their new