and in order to satisfy their holy aspirations Père Varin proposed at last, that, pending the regular commencement of their religious life, they should consecrate themselves absolutely and for ever to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, binding themselves by a most colemn promise to teach it, in its tenderness and love and its thirst for souls, to all with whom they were brought in contact-to set it as a seal on their own hearts, and on the hearts of the young children hereafter to be committed to their care, by educating them in the most fervent devotions towards it, and thus to satisfy, as far as in them lay, the tender yearnings of that Sacred Heart, which desires nothing half so much as to be known and loved and worshipped among men.

This proposition, being an answer to Sophie's most vehement desires, was of course eagerly accepted, and on the 21st of November, the feast of the Presentation of our Blessed Mother, after a retreat of some days' duration, she and her companions entered the little chapel, so long the sanctuary of her soul, in the Rue Touraine, and made into the hands of Père Varin that solemn act of consecration, which, binding her for ever to the Heart of her Divine Spouse, has since, without doubt, become the brightest jewel of the crown which she wears as his spouse in heaven.

And here we must close our narrative, for a far more skilful pen than ours has undertaken to tell in English the full history of Madame Barat's life, and of the innumerable foundations by which she has helped to propagate and establish the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus far and near among all the nations of the earth.*

We trust, however, that this short sketch of a saintly life will prove the theory which we set forth at its commencement.

If Sophie Barat possessed a disposition tending naturally to good, she had, nevertheless, faults and failings, as we all have, to contend with-pleasures to renounce and sufferings to endure, and it was only by the courage with which she met the one and embraced the other that she made good her claim to those higher graces which tend directly to perfection.

As a child she confessed her faults publicly and in spite of shame, simply in hopes of obtaining a deeper contrition for them. She gave up the innocent delight of waiting on her mother in order to become the pupil of a severe and self-constituted preceptor; she turned at his slightest word, reluctant indeed but yet submissive, from her father's sunny vineyard and the winding waters of the Yonne, to shut herself up in her garret chamber and plunge into that deep and uninterrupted course of study which was to occupy the day.

And, as a young girl, she refrained from all the little vanities of her age and sex, renouncing them almost as soon as she had touched them. She abandoned parents and friends, and her lovely native province, dearly as she loved them all, in order to lead a studious and laborious life in Paris. She obeyed her brother as strictly as if she had been still a child. She submitted to his exactions: she accepted the mortifications he took good care to procure her; she resigned

Lady Georgiana Fullerton's translation of Abbé Baunard's Life of Madame Barat is on the eve of publication.

herself to his apparent lack of love; she added fasting and iron chains to the penitential works he had prescribed for her already in his character of director; and it was by these, and by no lighter or more pleasant means, that she rose from one degree of perfection to another, until she attained that supernatural state of sanctity which seems to entitle the soul possessing it, to pass at once and without purgation from death to life-the life everlasting awaiting it in heaven.

FU

ST. PETER.

ULL gladly would Saint Peter leave a throne,
And all earth's thrones united into one,
Homeless, through winter's cold, through summer's sun,
To follow Jesus 'mid hard ways unknown,
Hungering for no reward save Love's alone :-
To sit near Him when day's long course was run,
To watch his sad eyes smile. This could atone
For more than earth might ever give or hold.
And he left home, old ways, and old friends prized,
His nets, his liberty, and sea-life bold;
These were his precious things: he'd have despised
Earth's pride and gold beside them placed as nought-
Yet left he all, and only Jesus sought.

A. E.

HOW STRAFFORD GOVERNED IRELAND (1632-1641).

(Conclusion.)

ON the 12th of April, 1635, Wentworth dissolved the Parliament. He had now leisure to enter on the "great work of the plantations of Ormond and Connaught." He appointed a committee "to view all the conditions of former plantations, and out of them to take all they might conceive fit for the service of the Crown, the increase of religion, and the future peace and safety of the kingdom." At his coming to Ireland, the plantations had been recommended to him as "one of the chief cares entrusted to him by his Majesty, as the great subject to work upon, both to improve his Majesty's revenue and to

establish the sovereignty of his power in the kingdom of Ireland;" and he was assured that what complaints soever should be raised against him, the King would always support him and encourage his good endeavours with his favour."* Wentworth was not less eager for the work than Charles; he looked on it as "one of the hopefullest fruits now left to gather for his Majesty's advantage. Others had taken the plentiful harvest for themselves and left behind for him only such gleanings as these to pick up for the benefit of the Crown." These "gleanings," he reckoned, would amount to 120,000 acres, and bring an addition to the revenue of £20,000.† It may be that his zeal was roused by the ample rewards which his predecessors in the government of Ireland had obtained for engaging in and carrying through a like work: one of them, Sir Arthur Chichester, had lands bestowed on him which in 1633 were of the yearly value of £10,000; another, Lord Falkland, got a gift of £10,000.

One of the graces solemnly promised by Charles in Falkland's time was, that the King's title should not go back beyond sixty years; another was, that the inhabitants of Connaught, of the county of Thomond, and of Clare, should have such assurances for the security of their several estates from all ancient titles accrued unto the Crown before threescore years last past as should be requisite and reasonably devised by their counsel, and that their estates should be confirmed to them and to their heirs by Act of Parliament, so that the same might never after be brought into any further question.§ Relying on the royal promise that these graces should be made into laws in the second session, the last Parliament had granted subsidies with no sparing hand. The people could not believe that the King's purpose was to take their money and to withhold so reasonable a concession. In "the humble advice which Wentworth had given to the King for the framing of the answer to be sent to the petition of the Lower House, he had declared that the grace to which he offered the strongest objection was that which would make sixty years' undisputed possession of landed property a bar to the claims of the Crown; "it would prevent all plantation-a principal means of civilising the people and planting religion."||

A few years before, James I., by the system of spoliation called. planting, had robbed the native Irish of nearly all that remained to them after the rebellion of Desmond and the flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell. He had seized on six counties of Ulster, on Longford, the O'Farrells' country, Wicklow, held by the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes, the northern part of Wexford, held by the Kavanaghs, Iregan in the Queen's County, belonging to the MacGeoghegans, and Kilcoursey, the territory of the O'Molloys. South Munster, desolated in the last war, had also been replanted. Sir William Parsons, the Surveyor-General, was the agent employed by the Crown to extirpate He had come to Ireland in a menial position; and

the Irish race.

"Letters and Despatches of Thomas Wentworth, Lord Strafford," I. 159. + Ibid, p. 421, and II. 93.

See M'Nevin's "Confiscation of Ulster," passim.

Carte's "Life of Ormond," I. 52.

Letters, &c., I. 92.

during half a century he contributed as much to the destruction of the people by guile and cruelty as any armed conqueror could have done by fire and sword. Through his exertions, all these vast possessions were found by inquisition to be vested in the Crown, on the testimony of witnesses, many of whom had been subjected to torture until they testified what was necessary.* James had proposed to plant Connaught too, for a great part of it was still in the hands of the native Irish-all of whom were Catholics-and the land-hunger of the English Protestants was not yet satisfied. But the proposal was received with such horror, even by the English people, chiefly because some of the proprietors were of English descent, that it could not be carried through. Eighteen years before, an act had been passed to confirm the holders in the possession of their lands. In return, they had paid large sums into the Exchequer; the mere enrolment of the surrenders and patents in the Record Office had cost them £3,000. Unhappily the clerk forgot to register these in due form. This omission was afterwards made use of to invalidate their titles.t

The bold genius of Strafford was not turned from his purpose by the popular clamour. He determined, without further delay, to set about the opening of the Commission of Inquiry into Defective Titles. Connaught was the only part of Ireland that remained unplanted. His project was nothing less than to subvert the title to every estate in that province, and to establish there "a noble English plantation." Even the proprietors of English descent were not safe. He used to declare that the English of the Pale were the most refractory men in the kingdom, and that it was more necessary that they should be "planted" than any others, and that where plantations would not reach, defective titles should extend.§ Caution, however, was needed. To lessen the odium of the proceedings, he sought for the semblance of a legal title. Old records of State were examined, the libraries of ancient monasteries were ransacked, and "Mr. Attorney was ordered to get together such documents as the Tower of London could afford, and to send them severally to Ireland under the Great Seal." After much study the Crown, lawyers made out the following "Brief of his Majesty's title to the Counties of Roscommon, Sligo, Mayo, and Galway, in the province of Connaught."¶

King Henry III. caused the whole lands of Connaught to be seized into his hands for the trespass of Oethus (Aeodh), King of Connaught; and afterwards, in the eleventh year of his reign, he granted the same to Richard de Burgo and his heirs, reserving the yearly rent of 500 marks, saving to himself and his heirs five cantreds**

* Magee's "History of Ireland," II. 87. § Prendergast, "Cromwellian Settle-
+ Carte, "Life of Ormond," I. 48.
ment," Introduction, x.

Leland, "Hist. of Ireland," B. IV. C. I. | Letters, &c., I. 424 and 433.
Letters, &c., p. 454, where it is given in full detail.

** A cantred is supposed to contain 100,000 acres. In the charter granted by Henry II. to Robert Fitzstephen and Milo de Cogan, the kingdom of Cork is said to consist of 32 cantreds. Now the number of acres is about 3,200,000. It contained 100 manors or villages. "Cantred in Wales is the same as hundred in England, for cantre in the British language signifieth a hundred" (Cowel).—See Gibson's "History of Cork," I. 19.

of the said land, the best and nearest to the Castle of Athlone. By virtue of which grant Richard de Burgo was seized in fee of twentyfive cantreds, as appears by sundry records in the Exchequer, where the said rent of 500 marks for twenty-five cantreds was put in charge. It also appears by an old ledger-book of the Abbey of Multifarnham, that Connaught anciently contained thirty cantreds. From this Richard de Burgo these twenty-five cantreds descended lineally to King Edward IV., according to the pedigree following, viz.: Richard, Walter, alias Redmond, Richard, John, William, Elizabeth, his daughter and heiress, married to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Phillipa, their daughter and heiress, married to Edmond Mortimer, Earl of March; Roger Mortimer, Anne, married to Richard Earl of Cambridge, Richard Duke of York, King Edward IV. And thus King Edward IV. was seized again of all Connaught, viz., of five cantreds saved out of De Burgo's grant, which continued still in the Crown, and were put in charge in the Exchequer in Ireland as lands in demesne; and of the said twenty five cantreds, from descent by de Burgo; and the right thereof continued in the Crown ever since. But by reason of the continued wars and rebellions in Ireland and especially in these parts, the Crown made little benefit of these lands; but the profits were in a manner wholly taken by the inhabitants, most whereof were rebels; and the records and evidences which should entitle the Crown to these lands amongst others, were embezzled out of the Treasury of Trim, to the disherison of the Crown. For remedy whereof, by a statute made in Ireland in the tenth year of Henry VII., it was declared that the lordship of Connaught was annexed to the Crown; and it was further enacted, that it should be lawful for the King and his heirs to enter and seize on all such manors, honours, lordships, castles, and tenements, rents, services, moors, meadows, pastures, waters and mills, with their appurtenances, &c., appertaining to the said Lordship of Connaught.

The patents granted to the possessors of lands under Elizabeth by Sir John Perrott, were asserted to be voided by the non-performance of the conditions under which they were granted; those issued by James I. in 1615, to have been obtained by false suggestions and executed without due regard to the royal will and directions.*

The inhabitants of Leitrim had already acknowledged the King's title to their lands, and submitted to a plantation. The work began with the county of Roscommon. Before the opening of the Commission, Wentworth ordered that a return should be sent in of all the wealthiest men in the county; these, having a heavy stake, would be examples for good or evil in the ensuing inquisition; besides, if they proved defaulters or disobedient in any way, "round fines in the Castle Chamber” could be inflicted on them. The sheriff was ordered to select "such jurors only as might be made amenable in case they should prevaricate; for this being a leading case for the whole province, it would set a value in their estimation upon the goodness of

* Leland, B. V. C. I. The reader will find in "Fiction Unmasked," by Walter Harris, a detailed account of the various technical errors for which the patents were declared by the Crown lawyers to be void. See also Letters, &c., I. 455.