Produced by Judith Boss and Charles Keller
THE PURCELL PAPERS.
BY THE LATE
JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU,
AUTHOR OF 'UNCLE SILAS.'
With a Memoir by
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
PASSAGE IN THE SECRET HISTORY OF AN IRISH COUNTESS
THE BRIDAL OF CARRIGVARAH
STRANGE EVENT IN THE LIFE OF SCHALKEN THE PAINTER
SCRAPS OF HIBERNIAN BALLADS
PASSAGE IN THE SECRET HISTORY OF AN IRISH COUNTESS.
Being a Fifth Extract from the Legacy of the late Francis
Purcell, P.P. of Drumcoolagh.
The following paper is written in a female hand, and was no doubt communicated to my much-regretted friend by the lady whose early history it serves to illustrate, the Countess D----. She is no more--she long since died, a childless and a widowed wife, and, as her letter sadly predicts, none survive to whom the publication of this narrative can prove 'injurious, or even painful.' Strange! two powerful and wealthy families, that in which she was born, and that into which she had married, have ceased to be--they are utterly extinct.
To those who know anything of the history of Irish families, as they were less than a century ago, the facts which immediately follow will at once suggest THE NAMES of the principal actors; and to others their publication would be useless--to us, possibly, if not probably, injurious. I have, therefore, altered such of the names as might, i…