"boycotted" by the National League,
shows that the open alliance between this organisation and the criminal
classes in certain parts of Ireland is beginning (not a day too soon) to
arouse the better order of priests in Ireland to the peril of playing
with edged tools. For my correspondent is not only a priest, but a
Nationalist. I have sent him in reply a letter received by me, also
to-day, touching the conduct in connection with the Lixnaw murder of a
priest, a curate, I think, comparatively new to the place, who,
standing by the corpse of the murdered man, endeavoured, so my informant
states, to make his unfortunate daughter give up the names of the
murderers, the effect of which would have been to put them on their
guard, and "under the protection of that public conspiracy of silence,
which is the shield of all such criminals in these parts!" Baron's Court
is a very large, stately mansion, lacking elevation perhaps like
Blenheim, but imposing by its mass and the area it covers. It was
rebuilt almost entirely by the late Duke of Abercorn, who also made
immense plantations here which cover the country for miles around. His
grandfather, the handsome Marquis of the days of the Prince Regent,
came here a great deal towards the end of his life, but did little
towards making the mansion worthy of its site. Two very good portraits
of him here show that he deserved his reputation as the finest-looking
man of his day, a reputation attested by a diamond ring, the history of
which is still preserved in the family. A fine though irregular pearl
given by Philip of Spain to his hapless spouse, Mary Tudor, is another
of the heirlooms of Baron's Court; but the ring and the note left by
Mary Stuart to Claud Hamilton, Lord Paisley, mysteriously disappeared
during the long minority of the late Duke under the trusteeship of the
fourth Earl of Aberdeen, and have since, it is said, come into the
possession of the Duke of Hamilton.

Of the three castles given to Lord Claud Hamilton by James I., to enable
him to hold this country, one which stood at Strabaue has disappeared,
the memory of it surviving only in the name of Castle Street in that
town. The ivy-clad ruins of another adorn a height in this beautiful
park. They are "bosomed high in tufted trees," and overlook one of three
most lovely lakes, stretching in a shining chain through the length of
the demesne.

Another ruined tower of the time of King John stands on an island in
one o