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| IN PORTLESTER CHAPEL, DUBLIN. -The preceding sketch shows still another aspect of the Portlester chapel. A neglected tomb, above which, in the crumbling wall, is a sculptured panel representing some holy scene, stands in the foreground. It, doubtless, contains the dust of some scion of the brave Fitz-Eustace family, who, in the days of the Crusades, may have followed Richard Coeur du Lion or Prince Edward, afterward Edward I, "the hammer of the Scotch," to the Holy Land; for the Irish Palesmen, of Norman blood, always sent their martial contingents into the field with the fighting Plantagenets, whether to Syria or to France. They were found even in the ranks of John of Gaunt, when that ambitious prince led his expedition into Spain. Ireland had many a "young and brave" Dunoir, who fought for glory and his lady love, always kneeling, with gilded spurs, before the shrine of his patron saint, generally St. Mary, here yet he said farewell to damsel fair and native land. And grant, immortal Queen of Heaven, Was still the warrior's prayer, That I may prove the bravest knight And wed the fairest fair! Who knows what once brilliant hopes and blasted prospects animated the silent dust now reposing dreamlessly beneath that cold, discolored marble? |
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