is best boon--his most precious gift; but his own hands polluted the
shrine--marred the beauteous and holy deposit. The loveliest image was
then smitten with deformity, and that passion, the highest and noblest
that could animate his bosom, became the bane of his happiness, the
destroyer of his peace, and the source whence every attribute of woe
hath sprung to afflict and darken the frail hopes of humanity. This may
be the dark side of the picture; but unless the breath of heaven
sanctify even the purest affections of our nature, they are a withering
blast, blighting its fairest verdure--a torment and a curse!

The following narrative, floating but indistinctly on the author's
memory, and in all probability attached to other names in localities
widely apart, is yet, he believes, true as to the more important
particulars. The site of a few cottages in a romantic dell in the
neighbourhood of Rochdale is still associated with the memory of the
unfortunate Earl of Tyrone. It is yet called "Tyrone's Bed." In history,
this noble chief is depicted in colours the most hideous and detestable;
but if the lion had been the painter, we should have had to contemplate
a different portrait. By his countrymen he was held in the most profound
reverence and respect. Beloved by all, he was hailed as the expected
deliverer of his native land from wrong and oppression. The most
bigoted of his persecutors cannot deny that oppression, the most foul
and inhuman, did exist; and the men who took up arms for the rescue of
their brethren may be pitied, if not pardoned, for their noble,
elevated, and enduring spirit. Let us not be misunderstood as the
advocates of rebellion; but surely there are occasions when the galling
yoke of oppression may be too heavy to sustain--when the crushed reptile
may, writhing, turn against him who tramples on it. Let us not do this
wrong, even to our enemies, by refusing to admire in them the
disinterestedness and magnanimity which in others would have insured our
admiration and applause.

About a mile from the spot we have just named stood the ancient mansion
of Grizlehurst. Surrounded on every side by dark and almost trackless
woods, sprung through a long line of ancestry from primeval forests, it
reposed in undisturbed seclusion, still and majestic as the proud swan
that basked upon the dark lake before it, secure from intrusion and
alarm. Gable-ends and long casements broke the low piebald front into a
variety o