, and kept her word, marrying him at Kingstown
two days after his release. 'Mary' was Miss Ellen Downing, whose lover
was also a fugitive after the outbreak; but he proved unfaithful, and
she was one of the last I heard of who died of pining away. It used to
be much talked of in my young days. Perhaps now that it is not, it more
often occurs. 'Speranza' was Lady Wilde, a fluent poet and essayist, who
survived her husband the archaeologist. One of her children inherited
much of her talent, but bears a chequered fame. I always thought the wit
of Oscar Wilde anything but Irish, and was always glad it possessed no
national attributes--unless impudence was one.

At one of his own first nights in London (I think it was on the occasion
of the production of _An Ideal Husband_ at the Haymarket) he was
summoned before the curtain by the customary shouts for 'Author,
author.'

He stood there for a moment amid the cheering, and then, in response to
cries for a speech, calmly took a cigarette case out of his pocket,
selected one of the contents, and, having very deliberately lighted it,
said:--

'Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know what you have done, but I have
spent a very pleasant evening with my own play. Good night.'

His brother, known as 'Wuffalo Will' among his friends, is the hero of
many stories.

Once he went up to a policeman and said:--

'Which is the way to heaven?'

'I don't know, sir; better ask a parson.'

'What do you think I pay taxes for? It's your business to be able to
tell me the way to heaven. As for the bally parsons, they don't
understand.'

A broad smile came over the constable's face.

'Were you asking where you could get blind drunk comfortably, sir?
because if so--'

And out came the hint with a wink.

Wilde was fond of that tale at one time.

The affair of ''48' was a farce. Stimulated by the French Revolution,
John Mitchel wrote rabid sedition, but received short shrift at the
hands of the Government, who arrested him, sentenced him to fourteen
years' transportation, and almost from the dock he was taken manacled in
a police van, escorted by cavalry, and put on board a steamer, which at
once put out to sea.

Smith O'Brien was the leader of this feeble insurrection. He had boasted
he would be at the head of fifty thousand Tipperary men. Instead his
army consisted of a few hundred half-clad ragamuffins, which attacked a
squad of police who took refuge in a farmhouse, and easily routed