engaged in the public functions of his station, the General, mindful that he had himself experienced adversity, received a pleasure in redressing the grievances of his low but not despised fellow-mortals, equally journeying with himself through a temporary scene to one that is eternal,—where haply the honest poor might reign above the proud and lordly rich.
Open to the boundless main, and, consequently, exposed to its rude tumults and vicissitudes as was the rock which they inhabited, yet an excursion of a few miles brought them into a lovely country, where verdure and cultivation displayed themselves. The laborious oxen were yoked to the ploughshare, and, generous as was the earth, plentiful harvests were the result. "A land flowing with milk and honey" well might be applied; no dearth existing; the boards of its hospitable natives ever crowded by the rich produce of their prolific soil.
A few estates, the property of some of the Irish nobility, though thinly scattered around the neighbourhood, and but rarely visited by their owners, afforded to the General and Mrs. De Brooke the delightful recreation of a rural drive; on which occasions the latter, having a spare seat in her carriage, was often accompanied by one of the officers' la-
