pit full; while scenes introducing battlefields, burning forests, and cataracts of real water crowded the houses to overflowing. It was at this juncture that Griffin hoped to bring about his dramatic revolution. It was with this object in view that he composed a tragedy and read it for his brother, who, seeing that it contained much that was excellent and much that gave evidence of future success, no longer withheld his permission for Gerald to try his future in the heart of the English metropolis. One cold morning, in the autumn of the year 1823, Gerald Griffin found himself a bewildered stranger in the streets of London. The sense of utter loneliness, the feeling of timid embarrassment, which overpowered him in the bustle and uproar, amid the winding streets and smoky labyrinths of the densely populated Babel, had been experienced by many another aspiring adventurer, whom the glitter of a great name and the hope of literary preferment had drawn from happy retirements to battle through adversity to fame and fortune. His first object on his arrival in town was to seek the shelter of respectable lodgings; his next, to introduce himself, to explain his projects and to submit his tragedy to the manager of a London theatre. The manuscript was returned after some months delay, with the intimation that it was too poetic and too didactic, and would require extensive revision before it could be brought upon the stage. Accident, rather than good luck, threw Banim across his path, and he proved to be a valuable and a faithful friend. In the little sanctum at the rear of No 7 Amelia Place, Brompton, where Curran had written his speeches and Banim had composed his tragedies, Gerald sat down to reinspect the returned work, and at the suggestion of his friend to omit whole scenes, to substitute others, to lop off epithets which were too glaringly poetic, and to abbreviate speeches which were too discursively long. But despite all the author's revision and Banim's abler experience "Aquire" was fated never to occupy the boards. No amount of labor could redeem the fault of a drama which conveyed moral precepts in the classic solemnity of select and studied periods. Despairing, at length, of ever having it produced, Gerald withdrew it in disgust; but what he did with the manuscript, whether it was purposely destroyed, or accidentally lost, we are unable to say. "Aquire," however, must have contained many excellencies, judging from other poetical work of the author written at the same time, and from the testimony of his accomplished brother, whose excellent literary taste made him a competent judge. "Gisippus," a tragedy written at this period, was produced with great success two years after the author's death, Macready sustaining the title role. A series of continued failures to satisfy the wants of exacting stage managers, slightly altered the plan, though not the purpose, of the work which Griffin had set himself to accomplish.