sense of honor which distinguished him through life, and which often rose to a weakness; for the delicate reserve which made absence from home a self-imposed hermitage; and for the deep, devotional feeling and healthy habit of moral reflection which ever shaped and inwove the pure current of his thoughts and writings. A visiting tutor gave Gerald an elementary knowledge of English until the year 1814, when he was sent to Limerick. He remained in the city attending a classical school till he had acquired a familiarity with the works of the great Latin authors. At an age when it is scarcely customary to emancipate children from the prim decorum and polite restraint of the nursery, young Griffin was pouring with unmixed delight over the pages of Horace, Ovid and Virgil. Of the three, he preferred the sweet pastoral of the gentle poet of Mantua, and to the end of his life retained this partiality. Inspiration caught from so pure a source wrought itself into innumerable songs and sonnets, which Gerald managed to write clandestinely, when some new frolic drew away the attention of his brothers and sisters, and left him in the enjoyment of a peaceful hour and a quiet corner. During these intervals of busy writing he was insensibly acquiring that light and graceful style, by the gentle charm of which the most sober strain of serious thought became the most acceptable kind of agreeable reading. Though still young, he could well realize how indispensable a good style is for literary success. He lived at a time when books were comparatively scarce, in a district remote from easy access to well-filled libraries; when the cost of transportation often equalled the advertised price for the newest canto of "Childe Harold," or the latest novel by the "Great Unknown." But what would have been disadvantages to many a beginner proved to have been of incalculable benefit to Gerald Griffin. His knowledge of books and authors was limited to the extent of his mother's library, and it contained, among other choice works, the writings of the inimitable author to whose graceful allurement Washington Irving owed half his fame and all the classic sweetness of his fascinating style. He copied out whole chapters of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and rarely went out of doors without bringing for a companion a copy of the "Animated Nature." In the boy, pensive and serious beyond his years, might be traced the different characteristics of mind and heart which eventually made up the texture of his later manhood, the yearning desire for retirement, the habit of sober reflection, the trait of gentle sadness, and the passionate love for home and country. The years of his childhood passed unattended by a single sorrow. Time, however, brought a change, which broke rudely in upon the even tenor of his happy life. The pretty homestead on the banks of the Shannon was to be broken up, old poetic haunts had to be forsaken, and the sheep of the little fold were to be dispersed.