among the mountains of Kerry. The spot is still remembered,
and the name of "the Earl's road" transports the fancy
of the traveller to that tragical scene. Cowering over
the embers of a half-extinct fire in a miserable hovel,
the lord of a country, which in time of peace had yielded
an annual rental of "40,000 golden pieces," was despatched
by the hands of common soldiers, without pity, or time,
or hesitation. A few followers watching their _creaghts_
or herds, farther up the valley, found his bleeding trunk
flung out upon the highway; the head was transported over
seas, to rot upon the spikes of London Tower.

The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right
line, according to the theory of the "Undertakers" and
the Court of England in general, vested in the Queen the
570,000 acres belonging to the late Earl. Proclamation
was accordingly made throughout England, inviting "younger
brothers of good families" to undertake the plantation
of Desmond--each planter to obtain a certain scope of
land, on condition of settling thereupon so many
families--"none of the native Irish to be admitted."
Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up
10,000 acres in Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000
acres, partly in Waterford and partly in Cork; Sir William
Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000 acres in Kerry; Sir Edward
Denny 6,000 in the same county; Sir Warham, St. Leger,
and Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork; Sir
William Courtney 10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir Edward
Fitton 11,500 acres in Tipperary and Waterford, and Edmund
Spenser a modest 3,000 acres in Cork, on the beautiful