in Tyrone's rebellion, three of the sons of Lord Roche were slain, and many of his people. The castle maintained a brave defence against the beleaguering army of Cromwell during the Parliamentary war; and the famous Countess of Derby was not singular in displaying the heroism so remarkable in a female breast, for Lady Roche proved that her fidelity to her sovereign was superior to regard for her own safety. She refused to yield up the castle, and sustained a siege for several days with great spirit; but a battery having been brought to bear on the walls from a place since called Camp Hill, she found the place untenable, and was forced to capitulate. Though the Lord Roche might have retained his estates on submitting to Cromwell, he refused to break his allegiance, and accordingly confiscation deprived him of his possessions. He retired to Flanders, where he obtained the command of a regiment, and would have lived in comfort, if not affluence, but the pay which should have supported his family, was contributed to assuage the exile of his prince; and how was he repaid?" Put not thy trust in princes," saith the Proverb. Charles II. was restored to the throne of his fathers! but was Lord Roche to the castle of his? The following letter, addressed from the Earl of Orrery to the Duke of Ormond, dated June 14th, 1667, recommending Lord Roche and his destitute family to his Grace's favour, is the fullest answer :-"It is a grief to me to see a nobleman of so ancient a family left without any maintenance; and being able to do no more than I have done, I could not deny to do for him what I could do, to lament his lamentable state to your Grace." The family sought and found, like so many of their countrymen, the maintenance and employment in foreign kingdoms they of right ought to have found in their own.

The present proprietor of this castle and the estate on which it stands, is Henry Mitchell Smyth, Esq., J.P., descended from the house of Ballinatray. He acquired the property by marriage with Priscilla Widenham Creagh, heiress to Charles Widenham, into whose family the castle and lands came in Cromwell's time. The founder of the house of Smyth appears, from a full and accurate account in "Burke's Landed Gentry," to have been Sir Richard Smyth, Kt., who married Mary, sister of the celebrated Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork. His son, Sir Percy, was conspicuous for his loyalty during the fearful civil wars of 1641, and subsequent years. He raised a force of one hundred men to assist the President of Munster, Sir William St. Leger. Various political appointments rewarded his zeal; and he was one of the remonstrants against the cessation of arms agreed upon between the Marquis of Ormond and Lord Muskerry, in a. D. 1644. His son represented the borough of Tallow in the Irish Parliament.

Castle-Cooke, co. Cork, Ireland,

THE SEAT OF WILLIAM COOKE COLLIS, ESQ., J.P.

ON a lofty hill, which flings its shadow fully across the silver waters of the Ariglin river, rushing for its cradle among the Gualty mountains, a few miles from Kilworth, co. Cork, stands a high solitary tower. This is Castle-Cooke; and a few hundred yards from the castle steep stands the residence of the Collis family. Like many houses of the old school, it is of very irregular architecture, apparently built more as convenience sug

gested than art designed, and now full of angles and gables, returns and fronts A roomy house nevertheless, and a sweet residence for an ardent lover of the chase. In the adjoining kennel have long lived

"Hounds that made the welkin ring,

And fetched shrill echoes from the hollow earth."

The old tower, in its airy height, gives a look of respectable antiquity to the place. The view from this portion of the demesne is extensive and beautiful. In front opens a deep and wooded glen, through which the waters of the Ariglin river force their way, and the plains of sand borne by the floods in winter shew the strength and breadth the waters then display. Oak coppices and fir groves darken the hill sides, and clothe the steep on which the castle is built. To the east extends the picturesque glen, where the earl of Kingston has recently added a tasteful summer villa to his other residences in this country. The blue and lofty peaks of the Gaultys bound the view in this quarter. A wild and primitive district extends from Castle-Cooke to the Kilworth mountains, where the Waste Land of Ireland Improvement Society might labour with signal advantage. In this retired and secluded region there settled down, sometime about the year 1670, by some singular chance, one Thomas Cooke, a wealthy merchant of London town. What on earth induced him to quit the sound of Bow bell for the lair of the Rapparee, near Kilworth moun tains, I cannot conceive; but it is possible he lent monies to the Williamite generals, as many adventurous men then did, on condition of getting grants of the lands forfeited by the adherents of James II., and in return for his gold Cooke got the acres along the Ariglin banks. Certain it is he fixed his dwelling here, in this tower upshooting high, and "Burke's Landed Gentry "records the descent of his progeny. The castle and lands having passed into female hands, went with them to the Collis family, by marriage of Martha Cooke with the Rev. William Collis, and from these is descended William Cooke Collis, Esq., J.P., the present proprietor. His eldest son married Miss Hyde, of Castle-Hyde, but, he dying without male issue, the heir apparent is the Rev. Maurice A. Collis, who is married to Anne, daughter of the Rev. John Talbot Crosbie, of Ardfert Abbey, and granddaughter of Lady Anne Crosbie, eldest daughter of William, Earl of Glandore.

NOTES RESPECTING THE LIFE AND FAMILY OF JOHN

DYER, THE POET.

BY WILLIAM HYLTON LONGSTAFFE.

No. III.

THE first mention of Clio by Dyer appears to be in his

Country

Walk," which, from the style in which it is written, I conjecture to have been composed about the same time as "Grongar Hill."

Thus it appears that Clio, whoever she was (and I think there can be no doubt, from the sequel, that she was a real fleshly personage), did not live in the poet's native country, but afar off. In the collections of British Poetry will be found a small poem, "The Enquiry," on the sadness of him as a shepherd, in the absence of his Clio. "To Mr. Dyer, by Clio," also. This begins with

"I've done thy merit and my friendship wrong,
In holding back my gratitude so long," &c.

And ends thus, after praising his poems and pictures :

"I wish to praise you, but your beauties wrong;
No theme looks green in Clio's artless song;
But yours will an eternal verdure wear,
For Dyer's fruitful soil will flourish there.
My humble lot was in low distance laid—
I was-oh, hated thought—a woman made;
For household cares and empty trifles meant,
The name does immortality prevent.

Yet, let me stretch beyond my sex, my mind,
And, rising, leave the flattering train behind;
Nor art, nor learning, wish'd assistance lends,
But nature, love, and music, are my friends."

Again, there is an epistle by Savage (who seems to have been very friendly with our poet), "To Mr. John Dyer, a painter, advising him to draw a certain noble and illustrious person; occasioned by seeing his picture of the celebrated Clio." He praises the picture in unmeasured terms of approbation, and calls him "enriched with Clio's praise." So Dyer and Clio were friendly, and he drew her picture; and did he love her? Yes, doubtless. And was the passion returned? It might be. We know not.

Let now his MSS. be examined, and we shall find some more definite notices of her perhaps. First, there is a fragment, apparently in answer to Savage's.

"O deeply learned, wisely modest, tell,

Is it a fa lt to like thy praise so well?
Pleas'd to be praised by thee, my spirits glow,
And could I ever, I could praise her now.
I meet her beauties in a brighter ray,
And in my eye-beams all her graces play.
Enlivened by your praise, my genius wakes,
And a bold notice of her beauty takes.
Too long in lethargy my soul has lain,
But now I dare her charms. Alas! in vain ;

{But hold my muse, thy praise has made thee vain

So the rash Icarus his way mistook.

mistook his way.)

O who can limn the beauties of her look!
And so young Phaëton in floods of day!

bold

}

}

And then he rambles on in general remarks on painting. But the prettiest little poem on the subject of Clio was written at Rome. It occurs in two metres; the longest is the best, and is here given :

"The tuneful song, O speed away,

Say every sweet thing Love can say;
Speed the bright beams of Wit and Sense,
Speed thy white Doves, and draw me hence.

"So may the carv'd fair-speaking stone,
Persuasive half, and half moss-grown ;
So may the column's graceful height,
O'er woods and temples gleaming bright,

"And the wreath'd urn among the vines,
Whose form my pencil now designs,
Be, with their ashes, lost in air,
No more the trifles of my care."

Finally, there is one more fragment, most mysterious, on which I can throw no light:

"Part of a Letter to Clio-it was wrote sometime in the year 1727.

.

the subject is too delicate. Had custom made us all free to unrestrained love, had law exacted no vows, I could then disturb the confidence of no man; I could then see and hear my Charmer, without doing an injury, real or imaginary. O Clio, I have often sate down with desire to do universal good, in the purest love, to be true to all. I have put myself in the place of the injured, and grieved at many things. For the future I am bent to do nothing that, were it known to all the world, would be thought unjust to any one. Clio, forgive me, and still believe your faithful," &c.

1727 was the year "Grongar Hill" was published in, and probably the "Country Walk," first quoted, written. Whoever this Clio might be, it seems likely that she was engaged to some other person, who was jealous of her intimacy with Dyer. But an impenetrable darkness rests on this early love of our poet. Certainly Clio was not his future wife, for she would only be fifteen years old at this date.