remarkably skilful in feathering his own nest, made a cadastral survey of Ireland, which still remains. Cromwell's scheme of confiscation was thoroughly carried out, spite of much angry wrangling between the Puritan warriors. The remains of the defeated Irish armies went, in thousands, into exile in foreign lands; they were the heralds of the renowned soldiery who, for a century and a half, were deadly, but honourable foes of the British name. The rule of the Protector in Ireland was stern but enforced peace; Ireland was prostrate in the exhaustion of despair; there is much proof that, under the Cromwellian settlement, the country made a kind of material progress. But Cromwell's great scheme of colonisation failed, as such schemes had failed in many instances before; a large majority of the 'adventurers' and the soldiers sold their possessions, usually for a mere nothing: many 'degenerated' like the old Norman families, and, won over by the spells 'of the daughters of Heth,' had, in one or two generations, become 'mere Irish.' The ultimate result of the Cromwellian conquest was to establish in Ireland three or four thousand owners of the soil, of English blood and Puritan leanings, without the support of inferior dependents, in the midst of a vanquished population hostile in race and faith; the sentiments thus engendered have never died out; to this day 'a Cromwellian landlord' is a name of reproach in Catholic Ireland. At the Restoration hope for a moment revived in the hearts of the ruined owners, who had been dispossessed by Cromwell, and of whom hundreds had fought for the Crown; but this was dashed by the perfidy of Charles II. and his courtiers; the Cromwellian forfeitures were, in the main, confirmed; large tracts were given back to favourites of the Stuarts, but thousands of beggared families lost their estates for ever through a policy of cruel baseness and wrong. Ireland remained quiescent for nearly thirty years; she even prospered under the wise rule of Ormond--one of the noblest figures in her unhappy history; but the bitter memories of the past lived in the conquered people, though, as has repeatedly been seen in a Celtic race, they were treasured in silence, and caused little apparent trouble. James II. ascended the throne in 1685; he had a great opportunity to mitigate many of the wrongs of Ireland; he might have removed some of the evils of the Cromwellian conquest, and have effected changes in the settlement of the land, which, at least, would have done partial justice. But the unfortunate king was a bigot, and, in no sense, a statesman; like his father he tried the desperate policy of making use of Ireland in his designs against English liberties; he sent Tyrconnell to Dublin, and, in a few months, revolution had broken out through the country; English and Protestant Ireland was well-nigh trampled underfoot; Catholic and Celtic Ireland rose up in a wild hope of revenge. I cannot even glance at the stirring events that