"I swear by the bright beams of yon setting sun, How dreadful that vengeance their annals can tell, Richard II. landed at Waterford in the year 1399, at the head of thirty thousand foot, and ten thousand heavy armed cavalry :-the same army that gained such renown under the command of his father, the Black Prince, at the battle of Cressy-attended by the Duke of Glo'ster and a numerous train of nobility. The force of O'Cavanagh, to oppose the greatest army that ever landed in Ireland, consisted only of three thousand men, but so well armed and disciplined, that the English, who were taught to despise their rude mode of warfare, were astonished at their appearance and determined bravery. They advanced boldly to the attack, with loud shouts, and discharged their heavy spears, the force of which no armour could withstand, then slowly retreated to the woods, where their pursuers dare not follow. By thus harassing Richard's army, and cutting off their foraging parties and supplies, O'Cavanagh soon brought the invaders to great distressthough still retreating through the mountains, before the overwhelming force of the enemy, who strove, but in vain, to bring him to a general engagement. This masterly piece of warfare he pursued until the invading army were reduced to the greatest misery: their horses were almost entirely destroyed by want and fatigue, and nearly one half of their men had already perished by disease, famine, and the sword. In this state, they in turn retreated towards the sea coast, pursued by O'Cavanagh, who allowed them no rest, night nor day, from his repeated attacks. Some ships, laden with provisions from Dublin, having approached the coast for their relief, the famished soldiers rushed into the sea, fighting and killing each other, to obtain a temporary respite from the pangs of hunger. Such was the situation of Richard's army,-according to the description of the Earl of Totness. Under such circumstances, Richard could not hesitate a moment to save the remains of his army by treating with O'Cavanagh; he therefore commissioned the Duke of Glo'ster to meet him, who accordingly set forward to the appointed place, attended by a guard of two thousand horse, and one thousand archers. Froisard, an eyewitness of the interview, describes the Irish chieftain tall of stature, formed for agility and strength, a countenance haughty and severe, mounted on a swift and stately horse, darting from between two woods adjacent to the sea. Having arrived at a due distance, he halted, and, casting his spear from him, which he held in his right hand, advanced rapidly to the interview. The conditions of this treaty were so shameful that the English were ashamed to own it. We find, in effect, that Richard drew off the feeble remains of his shattered army, and made the best of his way to Dublin; and when there, had the meanness to deny the treaty, and Let the Saxons remember the plains of St. John, H. K. CLASSICAL ASSOCIATIONS CONNECTED WITH GARRETS. All We never think of a garret, but an infinitude of melancholy and lanky associations of skin and bone, poets and authors, come thronging on our imaginations. ideas of the sins of the flesh evaporate on our entrance; for if all the flesh that has ever inhabited a garret, were to be duly weighed in the balances, we are of opinion that it would not altogether amount to a ton. In walking up the steps that lead to this domiciliary appendage of genius, we are wholly overcome by the sanctity of the spot. think of it as the resort of greatness, the cradle and grave of departed intellect, and pay homage to it in a sullen smile, or a flood of tears. A palace, a church, or a theatre, we can We offered a reward of three hundred marks for the head of O'Cavanagh, for he no longer chose to go in person in search of his formidable conqueror. In the following reign of Henry IV., O'Cavanagh defeated the Duke of Lancaster, where the Phoenix Park is now situated-which formerly belonged to the knights of St. John of Jerusalem-and the English were pursued to the very walls of Dublin; and a dreadful havoc took place among the fugitives at the ford across the Liffey; so that the river was completely dyed with their blood, to which the Irish gave the name of Ath-Cro, or the bloody ford. There is now a bridge built over the river, which is still called Bloody Bridge. The English historians of the Pale are, of course, silent respecting the victories of this hero; but the results and confirmation of them are to be found in the trepidation of the colony-their constant demand of men and money-the complaints of the English parliament for the burden of supporting the colony in Ireland, the immense armies that were raised, and their total discomfiture. In the year 1411, it was stipulated that two families should be sent to Ireland from every parish in England, and Lancaster held a parliament in Trim for the purpose of raising supplies; and though aided by the zealous concurrence of Ormond and Kildare, was totally defeated by O'Cavanagh, as we have already related. The English paid tribute to the descendants of O'Cavanagh until the reign of Henry VIII. when an act of parliament was passed to repeal the black rent, or tribute to the Irish princes. contrive to pass with some degree of indifference; but a garret, a place where Goldsmith flourished, and Chatterton died, we can never presume to enter without first paying a tribute of reverence to the presiding deity of the place. How venerable does it appear, at least if it is a genuine garret, with its angular projections, like the fractures in poor Goldsmith's face; its tattered and thread-bare walls, like old Johnson's wig; and its numberless loop-holes of retreat" for the north wind to peep through, and cool the poet's imagination. The very forlornness of its situation inspires elevated ideas in proportion to its altitude: it seems isolated from the world, and adapted solely to the intimate connexion that genius holds with heaven. It was in a lonely garret, far removed from all connexion with mortality, that Otway conceived and planned his affecting tragedy of Venice Preserved;" and it was in a garret that he ate the stolen roll, which ultimately terminated in his death. It was in a garret that poor Butler indited his inimitable Hudibras, and convulsed the king and the court with laughter, while he himself writhed in the gnawing pangs of starvation. Some one has thus aptly alluded to the circum stance : "When Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,} He asked for bread, and he received a stone." A gentleman found Dryden in his old age exposed to the attacks of poverty, and pining in a garret, in an obscure corner of London. "You weep for my situation," exclaimed the venerable poet, on seeing him; "but never mind, my young friend, the pang will be soon over." He died a few days afterwards. Poor Chatterton!" the sleepless boy who perished in his pride," overcome by the pressure of poverty, and stung to the quick by the heartless neglect of a bigotted aristocrat, commenced his immortality in a garret in Shoreditch. For two days previous to his death he had eaten nothing; his landlady pitying his desolate condition, invited him to sup with her; he spurned the invitation with contempt, and put an end to his existence by poison. Crowds inflicted elegies on his memory, the length and breadth of which filled volumes, while the subject of these doleful tributes lies buried in a common workhouse in Shoe-lane, unnoticed by epitaph or eulogy. When a nobleman happened by chance to call upon Johnson, he found this great author by profession in a state of the most desponding hopelessness; a thing which an antiquarian might, perhaps, discover to have once been a table, was stationed in the middle of the garret; a few unfinished papers and manuscripts were scattered about the uncarpeted floor, in every direction; and the unfortunate owner of these curiosities had neither pens, ink, paper, nor credit to continue his lucubrations. It was about this time, when, threatened to be turned out of his literary pig-stye, that he applied to Richardson, the celebrated novelist, for assistance, who instantly sent him five pounds, a sum which relieved him from misery and a dungeon. Poor Goldsmith was once seated in his garret, where the Deserted Village was written, in familiar conversation with a friend, when his pride was considerably annoyed by the abrupt entrance of the little girl of the house, with "Pray, Mr. Goldsmith, can you lend Mrs. a chamber-pot full of coals?" the mortified poet was obliged to return an answer in the negative, and endure the friendly but sarcastic condolence of his companion. In a garret, either in the Old Bailey, or in Green-arbour-court, the exquisite "Citizen of the World," and equally celebrated Vicar of Wakefield," were written. Of the last mentioned work, the following ludicrous anecdote is not, we believe, generally known :-While Goldsmith was completing the closing pages of his novel, he was roused from his occupation by the unexpected appearance of his landlady, to whom he was considerably in arrears, with a huge bill for the last few weeks' lodgings. The poet was thunderstruck with surprise and consternation, he was unable to answer her demands, either then or in future; at length the lady relieved the nature of his embarrassment, by offering to remit the liquidation of his debt, provided he would accept her as his true and lawful spouse. His friend, Dr. Johnson, chanced by great good luck to come in at the time, and, by advancing him a sufficient sum to defray the expences of his establishment, consisting of only himself and a dirty shirt, relieved him from his matrimonial shackles. A literary friend once called to pay Fielding a visit, and found him in a miserable garret, without either furniture or convenience, seated on a gin-tub turned up for a table, with a common trull by his side, and a half-emptied glass of brandy and water in his hand. This was the idea of consummate happiness entertained by the immortal author of "Tom Jones;" by him whose genius handed down to posterity the inimitable character of Square, with his "eternal fitness of things." A French poet and his family, (we forget their names,) being unable to procure subsistence by their literary exertions, came to the somewhat novel expedient of anticipating the period of their starvation. They blocked up the door of their garret with the miserable remnants of their furniture, and, locked in each other's arms, with their little children, starving, by their side, coolly awaited the period of their final release from the thraldom of existence. In the last hours of sinking nature, the door of their garret was forcibly burst open, and their friends entered, and beheld the parents dying, and the children dead. With some difficulty the former were restored to health, and lived to behold a youth of misery obliterated in an old age of honor and happiness. Our modern Bloomfield, of rural and pastoral celebrity, wrote his "Farmer's Boy" in a garret, occupied by shoemakers, and pursued his poetical occupation amid the din of awls, and the clattering of heels. Collins composed his odes in some such miserable dwelling; and to complete the grand climax of intellect, and for ever to immortalize the name and reminiscences of a garret, this prodigious exertion of wit, this beautiful article, was written in one. It is, we believe, generally known, that Johnson and Garrick resolved to try their fortunes in the metropolis at one and the same time. They reached London in a most pitiable condition, the one with a shirt and half a pair of breeches, the other, with two brace of stockings, without tops or bottoms, and took up their abode in an obscure corner of the metropolis, where they lived in a miserable garret for some time subsequent to their arrival. The histrionic reputation of Garrick burst out at last in all its meridian refulgence, while |