It happened that day that it was the eve of St. John, the same on which, two years ago, Robert had heard and scorned the words in the Magnificat. Vespers were performed before the pope and the two sovereigns: the music and the soft voices fell softer as they came to the words, and Robert again heard, but with far different feelings, Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted the humble." Tears gushed into his eyes, and, to the astonishment of the court, the late sullen and brutal fool was seen with his hands reverently clasped upon his bosom in prayer, and the water pouring down his face in floods of penitence. Something of holier feeling than usual had turned all hearts that day. The King's own favourite chaplain had preached from the text which declares charity to be greater than faith or hope. The emperor began to think mankind really his brothers. The pope wished that some new council of the church would authorize him to set up over the Jewish Ten Commandments, and, in more glorious letters, the new, eleventh, or great Christian commandment," Behold, I give unto you a new commandment, LOVE ONE ANOTHER." In short, Rome felt that day like angel-governed Sicily.

When the service was over, and the sovereigns had retired to their apartments, the unknown King Robert's behaviour was reported to the unsuspected King-Angel, who had seen it, but said nothing. The sacred interloper announced his intention of giving the fool a trial in some better office, and he sent for him accordingly, having first dismissed every other person. King Robert came in his fool's-cap and bells, and stood humbly at a distance before the strange great charitable unknown, looking on the floor and blushing. He had the ape by the hand, who had long courted his good-will, and who, having now obtained it, clung to his human friend in a way that, to a Roman, might have seemed ridiculous, but to the angel, was affecting.

"Art thou still a king, said the angel?" putting the old question, but without the word "fool."

"I am a fool," said King Robert," and no king."

"What wouldst thou, Robert?" returned the angel, in a mild voice. King Robert trembled from head to foot, and said, "Even what thou wouldst, O mighty and good stranger, whom I know not how to name, hardly to look at!"

The stranger laid his hand on the shoulder of King Robert, who felt an inexpressible calm suddenly diffuse itself over his whole being. He knelt down, and clasped his hands to thank him.

"Not to me," interrupted the angel, in a grave, but sweet, voice; and kneeling down by the side of Robert, he said, as if in church, "Let us pray."

King Robert prayed, and the angel prayed, and after a few moments, the king looked up, and the angel was gone; and then the king knew that it was an angel indeed.

And his own likeness returned to King Robert, but never an atom of his pride; and after a blessed reign, he died, disclosing this history to his weeping nobles, and requesting that it might be recorded in the Sicilian Annals.

THE REBELS: A TALE OF EMMETT'S DAYS.

BY MRS. WHITE.

PART I.-THE COUSINS.

UPON a bright and sunny morning in the early part of the summer of 1803, an immense funeral procession might be traced winding from the Rathfarnham road, through some of the principal streets of Dublin, over Essex-bridge, and so on towards Clontarf. The velvet trappings of the horses, the heavy plumes that decorated their heads and canopied the hearse, together with the number of mourning and other carriages that followed, bespoke the deceased lady to have been one of the higher rank of life, while the multitude of pedestrians that lengthened the procession ostensibly evinced the respect in which she had been held.

Rudely attired horsemen, bestriding steeds as rough and wild looking as if newly taken from the Kerry mountains, followed the coaches; and then came an indiscriminate throng of men and women clad in the blue-caped coat, or hooded cloak of the country-the latter drawn over the head, and held down, giving, when seen in the mass, a most sombre effect; but when occasionally thrown side-ways off the clear ruddy cheek of some young coleen, bestowing no little piquancy to the roguish glance of a dark Milesian eye, that might here and there be seen coquettishly peeping from under them.

There was no "keening," as the funeral cry is technically called in Ireland; but now and then the women would break off from gossip and laughter to clap their hands, and move their heads from side to side with the peculiar action of grief. The occupants of the coach, who in right of consanguinity followed at the head of the corpse, were four young men the two sons of the deceased, and two nephews, the children of her sister; but although thus nearly connected, it was easy to observe that on the present occasion but little kindred feeling existed between them. A gloomy silence that might have passed for the taciturnity of grief, but for the sullenness that darkened the countenances of the two elder cousins, had continued unbroken throughout their melancholy journey. When crossing the bridge, however, that leads over the canal, the narrowness of the road occasioned a temporary delay, and amongst the crowd a shrill voice was heard exclaiming

"Where am I-at all, at all, good people? Och! I believe I'm on God's earth on a hill. Will nobody take me out of this-the eyes are dim wid me?"

""Tis on the bridge you are, Ansty! Give us a grip of your hand before the berryin' 'll be done on ye!" answered a woman, who made one amidst the crowd.

"Take me out o' this, for the love of God!" she continued, in the same nasal whine with which she was in the habit of soliciting the charity of the passers-by-" take me out o' this, for the love of God, Nelly Orrigan! I'm kilt entirely wid the hate, and the druth!"

"Is it to lose the burrin'?" inquired her friend, in a tone of similar import to the modern-" Don't you wish you may get it?"

"Ye, a finer funeral than ever this was 'ill pass this way next week," replied the old woman.

"Who's that, then?" inquired Nelly, with no little curiosity.

"Take me out of this, a cushla!" continued the beggar, pertinaciously. And the other, fearful of losing both the funeral and the intelligence she wanted, succeeded in drawing her out of the crowd to the shelter of a dilapidated shed near them.

"Ye, whose 'ill the funeral be, Ansty?" she inquired, as she seated the old mendicant against the wall.

"The life's not out ov him yet, asthore!" replied the other. for one that's at this burrin', there 'ill be three to his."

"But

"The Lord be good to us, Ansty! but 'tis you're the queer woman; for all the sun is fine an' warm, I declare you'd freeze the life in us wid the dthroll talk you have!" rejoined her companion. "But isn't it the fine funeral, God bless it!" she continued, her fears of Ansty subsiding in the feeling of admiration the scene before her awakened.

""Tis so, a nenow!" assented the old woman. "Many's the day since I seen such a sight laving Dublin; but not a dthrop of rain," she muttered, alluding to a popular superstition-"not a dthrop of rain fell this blessed morning!—the heavens do be always shut against the Sassenach!"

""Tis herself had the good heart then," exclaimed the other, warmly; "and 'tis she was the rale lady, and the charitable, God rest her soul! signs by many's the eye that's wet this way for her, and many's the lone heart that's grieving afther her this morning. I'll engage it isn't her bad deeds brought all these to the fore," and she glanced round triumphantly on the dense multitude that thronged the road from the city.

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"Is any

lessly.

of her own people here?" inquired the mendicant, care

"Her two sons, and some more of her people."

“When did the eldest come home from the North?" asked the old

woman.

"Faith, that's more nor I can tell ye," rejoined the other; "but I seen 'em coming out of the house this morning, an' I hear 'em saying they war the two sons-an' fine handsome boys they are, entirely."

"Where are they, I wondther?" said the crone, peering her dim, blood-shot eyes around, that blinked in the sunshine like those of a cat. "These should be them," said her informant, as the hearse slowly passed them, and the first mourning coach came on-"these should be them, next the head of the coffin. "Tis, sure enough; I know the look of the dark-faced young man. Ye, don't they look lost entirely?"

"Help me, till I'll get a sight of 'em!" exclaimed the old woman, hastily lifting herself on her crutch. "Are them two blood relations," she inquired, pointing her long fleshless hand at the two young men, who sat confronting each other.

"By coorse they are-sister's chilther."

"They'll be more so than iver, by this to-morrow," replied the weird-looking old woman.

"How 'ill that be," asked the other.

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Nabochalish; 'tis the truth I'm telling you,” replied the hag.

Never mind.

"That one op-pos-it ye, is the makings of a fine man," said Nelly, gazing admiringly on the younger of the two sons; "he is the dead image of his mother."

"Faith, if he isn't, he soon will be," replied old Ansty, with a hollow laugh at the dark wit of her suggestion, which appeared not to be understood by her companion, who continued—

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"I declare to ye, there isn't an inch between himself an' the young masther; an' for all that, he's but a gossoon. I never seen any one grow up so quick; 'tis only the other day since I used to see him with the other young boys fishing of a summer's evening in the Dodder; an' to-day, till I hear the people say they war the brothers, I didn't know him for the same."

"I'll tell ye a greater miricle," said Ansty, her yellow, withered face, distorted to more than its natural repulsiveness, by her fearful laugh; "he will grow more between this an' to-morrow night, than he did in any twelve months of his life."

"Ye, you're a queer woman; what meaning have ye, at all—at all?" said Nelly, with a very perceptible shiver.

"Just what I'm saying," said old Ansty; "sit down, till we'll hav' a shuffle of the cards, an' I'll tell you the forthune of them four."

"God be good to us!" exclaimed Nelly, in real horror; "is it in the face of the corpse, and before all the people, you'd entice me!"

"Devil a much the corpse 'ill mind us," returned the old woman; "and for them that's following her, not one of 'em but 'ud run a mile to hear what I'll tell you now."

"I'm obliged to you all the same," rejoined Nelly Orrigan; "but I intind to follow the funeral." And she endeavoured to disentangle herself from the grasp the ancient sybil retained of her cloak.

"Time enough," returned the latter; "don't you see something has crossed the hearse, more luck to it, an' they're obliged to wait this way. Sit down awhile, it 'ill be asy for you to pick up wid 'em again." Afraid of offending her companion, Nelly reluctantly yielded to her ill luck, and once more sat down beside her.

"As I was going to tell you," continued Ansty, coming closer than ever to her victim; "the youngest of them two forenent me, will come this journey again this day week; but if it is, he'll be the length of himself before himself, all the way."

"Blessed hour! is it a corpse he'll be?" asked Nelly, breathlessly. "As sure as I hav' a head on me," said the other, bringing her cadaverous visage into startling proximity to Nelly's.

"The cross of Christ between us an' all harm!" exclaimed Nelly, devoutly crossing herself. "But 'tis you are the wondtherful woman, Ansty Connelly! Is it his fetch you've seen?"

"That's neither here nor there," answered Ansty, mysteriously; "believe me or believe me not, till you see it come to pass. But here's another thing I hav' to tell you, the corpse hav' but a small share in bringing all these together. I see men from all counties, neither friends nor followers-what is it brought them to the burrin', do ye think?"

"Tis yourself knows best, Ansty," replied her now thoroughly frightened companion, "I thought they were tinents, or people like myself that had a respect for her."

"Look at that man upon the rough pony that hav' his hat pulled

down over his face, and the great coat upon him; see, he keeps up to the side of the carriage that the young masther is in. Do ye know who that is?"

"Not the laste in the world!"

"Whisper!" continued the mendicant, approaching her head to the other's, "that is Mr. Robert Emmett! Now, do ye guess what's bringing them together?"

"Och! he's sold-he's lost!" exclaimed Nelly, leaping from the ground; "one of them in the car b'longs to the Castle sogers-Mr. Douglass Hewitt."

"Hould ye'r whist, ye omadhaun!" interrupted Ansty, dragging her again to her side, "unless you'd give him up to them yourself, will ye be quiet. His friends don't know him there, so 'tis hard if the Castle people would find him out!"

"Och! a yea! but these are the bad times," said Nelly, lamentingly, "when two in a house wont be of the same heart and mind; and the one blood itself 'ill belong to different factions."

"Wait awhile; why wait awhile?" said Ansty, raising herself on her crutch; "before that corpse is well under the ground, you'll know the truth of what you're saying." And with this assurance the old woman took leave of her gossip, and turning down a narrow lane at the back of the shed, disappeared.

"Faith, an' it's you're the dthroll woman, Ansty Connelly!" muttered Nelly, also rising. "Devil welcome you here, any way. I declare the heart in me is as low as a carroge's kidney,* listening to the queer talk you had."

So saying, Nelly shook the dust from her cloak, and again took her place among the crowd, pondering over all that the beggar-woman had predicted, and determining to see the end of the affair.

For the first four months of the infatuated Emmett's attempts to organize a rebellion in Ireland, government continued perfectly ignorant of the danger with which it was menaced; but after that period, rumours of his proceedings reached the authorities, although no means were taken to frustrate them, either from an idea that it was in itself too unimportant to be much regarded; or, in the cruel policy of the times, to allow time for its full development, in order to entrap a greater number of victims, and thus insure more signal vengeance than a trifling execution of two or three individuals.

Deeply imbued with the visionary and romantic projects which the unfortunate Emmett so wildly followed out, young, ardent, and impetuous, the names that still scatter a sad radiance over the otherwise dark page that is charactered with the rebellion of '98 had for many an enthusiastic son of "Old Trinity" a meretricious glare, that, ignisfatuus-like, glowed only to destroy. And for none more fatally than for young Perring! Schoolfellows, and afterwards brother-col

* A black creeping insect, something like the beetle, very much detested by the lower order of Irish, who have a legend, that on the Sunday on which our Saviour plucked the ears of corn, some Jews pursued him, and coming up to one of his followers, demanded which way he had gone. The disciple affected ignorance, when one of these insects, instigated no doubt by the devil, exclaimed, "Through the fields !-through the fields !" And to this day it is not unfrequent to observe the lower order of catholics killing them, all the while exclaiming, "Seven deadly sins off my soul!-seven deadly sins off my soul !" which they absolutely believe are remitted on the destruction of one of those Judas's insects.