Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/141

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of subscribers. He was absent two years. In May 1859, one of M'Clintock's sledge parties discovered the following document (of which a facsimile is given in M'Clintock's Narrative of the Fox) under a cairn near Cape Herschel: "28th May 1847. H. M. ships Erebus and Terror wintered in the ice in lat. 70° 5′ N., long. 98° 23′ W. Having wintered in 1846–'7 [correctly 1845–'6] at Beechey Island, in lat. 74° 43′ 28″ N., long. 91° 39′ 15″ W., after having ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. All well. Party consisting of 2 officers and 6 men, left the ships on Monday, 24th May 1847, Gm. Gore, Lieutenant., Charles F. Des Vœux, Mate." Round the margin these words are added: "[part torn off] 1848. H. M. ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22nd April, five leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37′ 42″ N., long. 98° 41′ W. This paper was found by Lieutenant Irving under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831, four miles to the northward, where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in June 1847. Sir James Ross' pillar has not, however, been found, and the paper has been transferred to this position, which is that in which Sir James Ross' pillar was erected. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June 1847; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date, 9 officers and 15 men. F. R. M. Crozier, Captain and senior officer—and start (on) to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River. James FitzJames, Captain, H.M.S. Erebus." Two days later a boat was discovered, with two skeletons and guns and portions of books and plate that had belonged to the ill-fated expedition. This is the last that was ever ascertained concerning Captain Crozier and his brave companions. All must have perished of hunger and exhaustion.—

“ The arctic clouds uplift
A moment, and no more,
And through the snowy drift,
We see them on the shore:
“ A band of gallant hearts.
Well ordered, calm, and brave,
Braced for their closing parts—
Their long march to the grave.”—Punch.

M'Clintock named the extreme west point of King William's Island, "Cape Crozier." Sir Roderick Murchison agrees with M'Clintock and others in affirming that "Franklin and his followers secured the honour for which they died—that of being the first discoverers of the North-west Passage." Captain Crozier's fellow townsmen have erected a fine monument to his memory. 124 226* 233 253

Crumpe, Samuel, M.D., a Limerick physician, born in 1766, was the author of a work upon opium, published in 1793. He gained a prize from the Royal Irish Academy for his Essay on the Means of Providing Employment for the People, also published in 1793. M'Culloch styles this "A really valuable production. . . The principles which pervade the work are sound; and those parts of it which have special reference to Ireland are distinguished by the absence of prejudice, and by their practical good sense." He died in 1796. 16 37†

Cuchulaind, called by Tigernach "fortissimus heros Scotorum," one of the Red Branch knights, flourished about the 1st century. He was a native of Ulster, and was a cousin of Conall Cearnach, and of the three sons of Uisneach, the children of his aunt Ailbi. At seven years of age he was initiated into the military order, and received most of his education at Skye. At twenty-seven he was slain, according to one account by Lugaidh, grandson of Cairbre Niaser, at the battle of Murthemni, in Louth; according to another, by the sons of Calitin. His residence was at Dun-Dealgan (Dundalk): his wife, the beautiful princess Emer. Innumerable references to him are to be found in the Irish annals and Fenian tales. In O'Curry's Manners and Customs his name appears no less than 153 times. He is one of the principal characters in the Tain-Bo-Chuailgne (The Cattle Prey of Cooley), the Irish Iliad. [See Meave.] He is described riding in his chariot, armed with thirty-four spears and darts, and eight shields. "And he then put on his helmet of battle, and of combat, and of fighting, on his head; and from every recess and from every angle of which issued the shout as it were of an hundred warriors; because it was alike that women of the valley, and hobgoblins, and wild people of the glen, and demons of the air, shouted in front of it, and rear of it, and over it, and around it, wherever he went, at the spouting of the blood of warriors and heroes upon it.261 His head and right hand were buried at Tara. 171 261

Cumian, or Cumene the White, Abbot of Iona, was born in Tirconnell the beginning of the 7th century. He was sent for his education to Iona, and soon outstripped "most of his contemporaries in the exercise of virtue, and all of them in learning." On his return he founded or governed an abbey in the west of Leinster. The difference concerning the

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