among the workmen continually, to be looked in the face all day long by
intrusive people who had no business there. I never refused strangers at
proper seasons, the satisfaction of their curiosity. The circumstance to
which you allude has foundation in fact. I was coming out of the
hall, going towards the plantations, when a stranger addressed me.
"Can I see Fonthill?'

"It is not shown.'

"Might I see the gardens then? You can show them, I dare say?'

"I thought I would follow out the joke, as the stranger was of gentlemanly address. I led him into the gardens, showed him the grounds, and lastly took him to the house. Here, I imagined, he began to suspect I was not what I pretended. I know not to this day who he was-but I thought him one of the pleasantest men I had ever conversed with-deeply read, sensible, and perfectly well bred. When I had shown him the principal apartments, I knew that dinner was serving up. I begged him to walk with me into a room he had not seen, and instantly led the way to the dinner-table, telling him of his mistake, of which there was by this time little need. I would take no denial; he dined with me. We conversed on a variety of subjects-he was at home in all. When he rose to go away, I rung for a servant, as it was dark, thanking him for his society. I asked if he had any conveyance. He only expressed a wish to be shown the way to the park gate. We parted, and I never saw him more. As to my treating one of the most agreeable strangers I ever saw in my life with rudeness-one who had eaten my salt-it was impossible. I hope I am a gentleman.'

I remarked that such misrepresentations arose from ignorance of his mode of living.

"Why distort facts? we must oppose received opinion in nothing if we would be unobserved and free of misrepresentation-our associations must be every body's-we must tacitly assent to falsehoods and frauds. People live now by each other's example altogether. A sort of universalism governs-we act, think, dream in the mass. Soon no single voice will be listened to-there will be no solitary searcher after truth in any thing. What the many do or dream will be the law. Past truths have been the result of individual efforts alone-no great truths have ever been discovered by masses of people-it is fair to suppose they never will. Great truths are the result of knowledge and reflection in minds highly gifted."

"Or universal experience goes for nothing if your remark be not correct," I observed.

"Speaking of the people," said Mr. Beckford, "I should have been happy to serve them had it been in my power. I belong, as my father did, to the popular side."

"Your name could never have been agreeable to the court; yet I saw in an old court magazine for 1782, an account of your going down the country-dance at St. James's with Miss North, on the Queen's birthday," I rejoined.

"I remember it. I was in my twenty-second year-the year before my marriage. In 1780, two years before that, a week after Lord George Gordon's riots in the city, I went to court with some of my opposition friends, who said if we did not go, the king would declare we were all leagued with Lord George. We went to keep up appearances on that

occasion. I was too young to be an object of antipathy, or to take any part in politics, during my father's life. Was not his reply to the king bold?"

I replied that I had several times read it with admiration. "Did he, (Mr. Beckford), not think that the public were much deceived in the character of George III.? Lord Chatham had characterised him as ca

pable of the grossest duplicity."

"I went

"He was destitute of feeling, too," said Mr. Beckford. to the levee after Gordon's riot, as I have observed. The military had just fired upon the mob-a necessary step to put a stop to lawless plunder and violence. I entered as the king had come out of his closet, the officer who commanded the troops being immediately before me. As soon as the king saw him, he said, You peppered them well, I hope-peppered them well-peppered them well!' in his loud way. Every body looked-the levity of the remark struck the officer. Firing even upon lawless mobs was then considered to be justitied only by self-evident necessity. I hope your majesty's troops will always do their duty,' was the answer, drily returned, with a gravity which feelings less obtuse than the king's must have felt to be a tacit reproof, as many were killed."

"Lord North's correspondence, recently published, shifts the prolongation of the American war upon the king," I added

"It clears North of all but weakness in suffering the king to sacrifice him to the royal obstinacy. Yet the royal declaration, not long before its sincerity, so unhappily for the king, was brought to the test, that he would lay down his crown before he would acknowledge American independence, might have deceived ministers more gifted with penetration than Lord North. I have no doubt Pitt was driven into the war with France. The abandonment of his early principles that as a minister made him so popular, the violent measures he pursued, and his swamping the House of Lords with new creations, was the king's determination, he being the instrument."

"He might have resigned."

"Pitt loved power-he was proud-but he had not the pride of his father, who, a courtier in manners and fond of power too, would not have suffered the king to rob him of his self-respect. His ambition was more honourable."

"I have often thought there was more meaning in Pitt's dying exclamation than every body understood," I observed.

He

"It is not improbable-Pitt was my companion in our minority. was a year older than I am. I used to visit for days together at Burton Pynsent."

"Lord Chatham, I believe, took great pains with Pitt's education?" "I remember," said Mr. Beckford, "he was very particular about the words he used in conversation. I arrived once at Lord Chatham's, when William Pitt had been absent on a visit, but was hourly expected home. I was in the apartment with the father when his son came in. 'I hope have spent your time agreeably, William ?' said the earl. you delectably,' replied William Pitt. Lord Chatham put on one of his stern looks-sternly, indeed, with his eagle features he could look when he pleased. Delectably, sir? Never let me hear you utter that affected word again. Delectably, sir!'

·

(To be continued.)

'Most

I am Detached to Bally-Sallagh-Local Sketches-Introduction to Mr. Ryan, the
Sub-Sheriff-Law of Debtor and Creditor in Connaught.

Ir was a mild, dark, windy day, in the first week of April, when, after a morning muster of my "charge of foot," I set out for Loughnacurragh, to kill a creel of trouts, could I but persuade them to shake off their general torpidity, and rise at sundry seductive-looking flies, which I had recently imported from the metropolis. The "lonely tarn" to which I directed my steps, was a huge pond of leaden-coloured water, situated in the centre of a barren moor. From a rocky knoll, half-amile distant, a few runlets trickled down the hill, and creeping through the morass, united with the dark waters of the Lough; while on the other side a drowsy dyke went twisting through the bog, and carried off the surplus supplies which occasionally came down in torrents from the neighbouring high grounds.

It was a place and water, however, to which neither the angler nor the artist would resort, as it afforded little on which to exercise painting or piscatorial skill. The scenery was wild and sterile, but without any traits of savage grandeur to redeem it; while the Lough was fringed with reeds, and to be enabled to cast a fly beyond them, it was necessary to wade knee-deep through mud, having the tenacity of bird-lime. No caution could save the fisherman from loss; and on my last visit, I had left a casting-line behind me to festoon the reeds, and a shoe as a votive offering to the Kelpie.

Every body knows that a trout is capricious as a woman, and to woo is not to win, unless both be taken "in the humour." You may induce a sprightly, golden-tinted denizen of a sparkling stream, to shorten his siesta beside stone or alder-root, and spring like a voltigeur at the tinselled fly; but, unless half-famished, the lazy, leaden-coloured tarntrout remains immoveable and impassive to temptation-rejects the charmer's art, charm he ever so wisely. On this occasion I found it after paddling through sedge and mud two mortal hours, I quitted this worthless pool for ever, leaving in exchange for a brace of sootybacked, ill-shapen fishes, a new shoe, a score of flies, and "the curse of Cromwell," superadded as a parting compliment.

So,

and

After I had cleared the moor, and performed ablution in the first clear rivulet I met with, purified from half-a-stone of mud, I marched lightly towards my quarters. It was still early in the day, and I took a circuitous route home by the low road, anxious to abridge the long, dull evening, to be passed in a congregation of mud cabins called a town,

June.-VOL. LXXI. NO. CCLXXXII.

M

beautified by a broken-windowed edifice named the chapel, and a ricketty, ruinous, three-storied house, roofed with gray flags, and for miles around forcing its tall, thin, shapeless chimneys on the eye. In this deserted-looking mansion, the gentle reader is respectfully informed that a drummer and fifer, two sergeants, thirty-six rank and file, a consumptive subaltern, and his very humble servant, were domiciled, to uphold the crown and dignity, and annihilate illicit whiskey, and the fabricators of the same.

At a half-mile distance from Ballysallagh*-as this agreeable retirement was truthfully denominated-two private dwelling places might be seen. The thatched building was the priest's, the slated one the titheproctor's. Three guagers had located themselves in a public-house not a stone's cast from our sentry-box-their business, to suppress distillation -our's, to answer their "writ of assistance," and protect them in the execution of a most unpopular duty.

The excisemen were very civil-and excepting that their requisitions were made generally at night, and the worse the weather, the more favourable for the surprise of malefactors, we got on agreeably enough. Of course, the only liquor we indulged in was the veritable mountain dew; and a marvellous keg, presented to us on our arrival at Ballysallagh, actually turned out a widow's cruise. Whenever a hollow sound from the vessel announced a consumption in its contents, by some undiscoverable accident, the sentry, while walking "his lonely round," would stumble over a full cask-but who the devil left it there could never be detected. Generally, on these mysterious occasions, a guager would be seen by some straggling soldier, flitting round a corner of the building; but as it would have been useless to attempt to solve what seemed an impenetrable mystery, the midnight deodant, on the following morning, was deposited in the widow's cruise.

The occupant of the slated house was the proctor-one of those abominated nuisances, who, like "middle-men," were at once the curse and the detestation of the peasantry. The fellow was a heartless scoundrel, and the favourite employé of a wholesale farmer of tithes for his master, a vulgar, illiterate, overgrown, and deformed brute, leased parishes by the dozen, and ground thousands annually from the wretched serfs. The countenance and character of the functionary of this tithe leviathan, were in keeping, and both of the worst description. The people abhorred and feared him. No wonder, then, that he had been fired at returning from a fair, and his peat-stack been burned on the bog. Consequently he preferred a slated house to a thatched one; never ventured after sunset out of doors; and if you met him in noontide on the high-road, the brass knobs of a brace of holster pistols might be seen peeping from the pockets of his cota_more,† indicating that the honest tithe-proctor was not exactly on a bed of roses.

The most exalted personage of this pleasant community remains to be described to wit, Father Theodore Dempsey; and of Father Thady, as the peasantry designated their spiritual director, I must give a personal sketch.

The priest was a stout, middle-sized, mild-tempered, old man, with

* In Irish, Balla means "a town," and sallagh, "dirty."

Cota more, anglice, a great-coat.

silver hair, and an inclination to obesity; but he was vigorous beyond his years, which were said to border upon four-score. His dress was such as the Irish priesthood wore formerly, before they became Catholic rectors, and returned members to Parliament by the dozen. The lower extremities of Father Thady were encased in Connemara hose, and his "continuations" were corduroy; a dusky black-coat, broad-brimmed hat, and a wig-whether hair, tow, or wool, would have been difficult to determine completed the costume of this antiquated churchman.

In those happy days, a poor priest would have been considered a curiosity. His wants were few, and the liberality of the flock was untaxed and voluntary. The thousand and one little presents offered throughout the year, were more than sufficient to supply the commissariat of his reverence; and hence, the fees received, were unrequired, and laid aside, hoarded during life, and partitioned after death among his relations. But Father Thady was poor. His parish was mountainous and unproductive. He had brought up two orphan nieces, and both married badly. He had sent one nephew to Maynooth, but he eloped, and enlisted in the 5th royal Irish dragoons. He had set up another in a country shop, but he ran off within the year, leaving the village baker without a wife, and his uncle security for a hundred pounds. All these calamities had almost broken the poor priest's heart. As to property, that was gone-christening and marriage money, offerings and oblations, all had disappeared-and of all the probationers in purgatory, whose sufferings Father Thady had abridged, not one solitary token of these sinners' gratitude could have been discovered in the old man's treasury. On that blessed morning when my detachment marched into barracks in Ballysallagh, if public report might be trusted, Father Thady was not worth a scultogue.**

But why all this rigmarole about an old priest, and his nieces and nephews? Patience, gentle reader. Every man, Jack Falstaff says, knows best how to buckle his own belt; and if you are to be delectated by my reminiscences, you must let me tell my story my own way.

I said that I took the lower road, and had I known localities better, I would have stuck to the higher one. The low road was three miles about, and as the measurement was Irish, the English reader may safely set it down at five. Shortly after I had entered on my new route, I was overtaken and passed by a stout-looking gentleman, seated "alone in his glory," in an ill-appointed gig. As he came up, above the rattle of axles innocent of grease, I overheard him lilting snatches of an old ballad; and as he trotted past, he threw a furtive but searching glance behind, and I caught the burden of his ditty.

Arrah! Thady, ye gander,
Ye'er like a highlander,
For want of your breeches-
Ah! ye divil, go
list-

Take a gun in your fist,

And don't be mending old ditches

Without any breeches.

Well, there was nothing offensive in this. My corduroys were unexceptionable, and "my withers all unwrung." On went the gig-driverbut an accident occurred that introduced me to his acquaintance.

* A Connaught coin-value undetermined.