uch honour. Pray, my dear Le Fanu, inquire, and answer me here
by next packet, or as soon as convenient. My success here has been quite
triumphant.

'Yours very truly,

'SAMUEL LOVER.'

We have heard it said (though without having inquired into the truth
of the tradition) that 'Shamus O'Brien' was the result of a match at
pseudo-national ballad writing made between Le Fanu and several of the
most brilliant of his young literary confreres at T. C. D. But however
this may be, Le Fanu undoubtedly was no young Irelander; indeed he did
the stoutest service as a press writer in the Conservative interest, and
was no doubt provoked as well as amused at the unexpected popularity
to which his poem attained amongst the Irish Nationalists. And here
it should be remembered that the ballad was written some eleven years
before the outbreak of '48, and at a time when a '98 subject might
fairly have been regarded as legitimate literary property amongst the
most loyal.

We left Le Fanu as editor of the 'Warder.' He afterwards purchased the
'Dublin Evening Packet,' and much later the half-proprietorship of the
'Dublin Evening Mail.' Eleven or twelve years ago he also became the
owner and editor of the 'Dublin University Magazine,' in which his
later as well as earlier Irish Stories appeared. He sold it about a year
before his death in 1873, having previously parted with the 'Warder' and
his share in the 'Evening Mail.'

He had previously published in the 'Dublin University Magazine' a number
of charming lyrics, generally anonymously, and it is to be feared that
all clue to the identification of most of these is lost, except that of
internal evidence.

The following poem, undoubtedly his, should make general our regret at
being unable to fix with certainty upon its fellows:

'One wild and distant bugle sound
Breathed o'er Killarney's magic shore
Will shed sweet floating echoes round
When that which made them is no more.

'So slumber in the human heart
Wild echoes, that will sweetly thrill
The words of kindness when the voice
That uttered them for aye is still.

'Oh! memory, though thy records tell
Full many a tale of grief and sorrow,
Of mad excess, of hope decayed,
Of dark and cheerless melancholy;

'Still, memory, to me thou art
The dearest of the gifts of mind,
For all the joys that touch my heart
Are joys th