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against the renowned chieftain of Ulster, and that act was one of the subjects of bitterest complaint, as he pretended that it "entrenched" upon his sovereign rights. In one sense of the word, it most decidedly did so. Sir William Russell and Sir John Norris had also their head-quarters at Armagh. This was already a very different state of things to when the Anglo-Irish lords never advanced beyond the Pale except in inroads and forays, without any further result than keeping up the antipathy of races and impeding the progress of civilisation; but still the subjugation of Ulster by the English was owing to the never-ending treachery of all parties concerned-for so small a country, a military operation, if it can be dignified by such a designation, of the greatest duration perhaps of any on

record.

The strong ramparts erected by Sussex enabled the garrisons of Armagh and Monaghan to hold out for a long time against their assailants; but in 1596 Tyrone suddenly marched upon the city and took it by stratagem. The English, under Marshal Bagnall, once more obtained possession of the metropolis of Ulster and garrisoned it, but only to evacuate it again after the disastrous battle of the Blackwater. Recovered by Lord Mountjoy, it was again lost, and became the centre of those dread massacres in the time of Phelim O'Neill, before adverted to. This chieftain, whose ferocity lent terror to his name, in violation of the capitulation, set the town and cathedral on fire and put a hundred innocent inhabitants to death, but he was himself apprehended, brought to trial, and executed in 1652.

The defection of the Lords of the Pale during the troubles brought about in England by the Parliamentary wars raised the hopes of the Irish chieftains, and especially of Owen Roe O'Neill, who had succeeded to Phelim, to the highest pitch-and that in Ireland is much higher than where imaginations are less exalted and judgment not so buoyant. Cromwell and his successors kept these rebellious lords in check; but the restoration of Charles II. effected another diversion and a change of interests. A transition which was again witnessed in an equally remarkable manner in the times of James II. and King William, when the supremacy of the loyalists was succeeded by that of the Protestants; and the cathedral, founded by the apostle of a church which upheld such vain juggleries as those of the staff of Christ, the purgatory at Devenish, the extirpation of noxious animals, and a thousand other extravagances, became the seat of the primate of a reformed Christianity.

What a change has come in the present day over past times! Those pious idlers, monks and friars of all orders and descriptions,-regular canons following in the suite of St. Patrick,-Culdees, teaching the sophistries of St. Columba,-Franciscans, for whom Bishop Scanlan erected a monastery in 1261,-have long since been driven to climates more genial to a lazy and unprofitable sanctity. With them also have disappeared the homes of nuns-rich and fair; wealthy preferments founded by the holy apostle for the express benefit of his canonised sisters, Bridget and Lupita. The latter appears to have died with a conscience ill at ease; for, according to Archdall, in his "Monasticon," her body was found buried deeply under the rubbish of her ancient nunnery in a standing posture, carefully and closely guarded by two crosses, one before and the other behind, from the assaults of the devil!

In the lieu of these pioneers of an early Christianity are now a primate and clergy teaching to the best of their power the Word of God,— schools inculcating knowledge alike to all sects and persuasions,—a noble observatory, founded by Lord Rokeby, possessing a resident astronomer, Dr. Robinson, one of the most distinguished men in the world of science. Would that the purifying and enlightening doctrines of present times were admitted throughout the length and breadth of Inisfail, the island of "evil" destiny! If the Roman Catholic peasantry no longer believe in werwolves, they still have faith in the miracles of the church. If the fire of St. Brigid is extinct, pilgrimages to the purgatory of St. Patrick are still rife; if the apples of St. Kevin or the ducks of St. Coleman are no longer to be found, holy wells and paths of penitence still abound; pieces of rag are still tied to bushes by the wayside; and if rats and mice have returned since the days of Patrick and Columba, the peasants of Clonmany still collect the earth of a mound sacred to the latter saint to drive them away. Ireland is still, as it ever has been, a land of ecclesiastical wonders and superstitions. It is a characteristic at once of the people and of a particular stage in the progress of society, which time will undoubtedly gradually chasten and ultimately obliterate. I cannot better finish this portion of my tour than by quoting the opinion of the learned historian of the church-Mosheim-upon the miracles supposed to have attended upon the ministry of the early Irish preachers :-" The simplicity and ignorance of the generality in those times furnished the most favourable occasion for the exercise of fraud; and the impudence of impostors, in contriving false miracles, was artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar; while the sagacious and the wise, who perceived these cheats, were obliged to silence by the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes if they detected the artifice. Thus does it generally happen in human life, that when the discovery and profession of the truth is attended with danger, the prudent are silent, the multitude believe, and impostors triumph."

A DREAM

WHICH PRECEDED THE DEATH OF MY FIRST-BORN.

BY FRANCIS WYMAN.

Coming events cast their shadows before.

I SAW in my dream

A misty stream,

Form'd less of wave than cloud;

And a baby boat

Was there afloat,

And an infant in a shroud!

With a sense of pain

I look'd again,

I sought that little bark;

But it faded away

Into mist and spray,

Or was lost in the vapours dark.

Campbell.

Then myriads more
Sped past the shore,

And athwart the cloudy waves,
Without oar or sail,

Dead, and cold, and pale;

And there was a smell of graves!

And some, as they sped,
Would turn the head,

And gaze all woebegone!
Then shrivel away
Into quick decay,

And leave but a skeleton!

Then it seem'd to me,
That, in mockery,

Each skeleton babe that pass'd

At me did grimace

With its bony face,

And looks of defiance cast!

Still I gaz'd intent
With wonderment,

'Till all but one had filed:
'Twas a baby fair

That linger'd there,

And look'd as 'twere not dead.

The thought that I knew
That baby, grew

Strong, nay, almost intense :
As it near'd the shore,
I knew more and more

Its look of intelligence.

Through vapour and spray
It made its way

Close to the shadowy strand;
And that wan pale child
Upon me smil'à,

And waved its pretty hand!

And it paus'd, and took
A farewell look,

Sweet, solemn, sad and fix'd,

As if 'twere the last

It had power to cast,

Ere with the clouds it mix'd!

Oh! the anguish I felt
As I saw it melt

Into the shrouding haze!
'Twas so like my child
In its aspect mild,

And its pensive, stedfast gaze

THE SPIRIT OF CHANGE IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.

BY JAMES HENRY SKENE, ESQ.

CHAPTER VIII.

INEVITABLE INSURRECTION AGAINST THE TURKS.

THE Turk is the true and worthy son of Ishmael. "His hand is against every man, and every man's hand is against him." He looks down upon and despises all mankind, except the chosen race to which he himself belongs, and which he conscientiously believes to be the greatest and noblest on the face of the earth. He equally dislikes the Christian, the Jew, and the Pagan,-while he does not even protect, although he ceases to molest, the renegade from any of these creeds to his own. When thrown into immediate contact with the Greek, he rarely ever addresses or speaks to him without adding the contemptuous word "kiopeck," or dog, to that of "giaour," or unbeliever; and the Greek appears to consider the words "okuλ," or dog, and "Toupkos," Turk, to be synonymous, as he uses them indiscriminately. There must exist very grave causes to account for the fact of two nations thus living together during a lapse of several centuries, without their mutual hatred having in the slightest degree abated. It is the curse that was pronounced on Hagar's son before his birth; it was followed, it is true, by a promise, at a later period, that he should become the father of a great nation-and it has been fulfilled; but the hand of his descendant is still against every man, and every man's hand is still against him.

The character of the Turk is so totally opposed to that of European nations, that it is with the greatest difficulty that it can be rightly appreciated by them. There is much in it which they are tempted to admire, and there is also much which they cannot help condemning; the former qualities, however, are generally connected with their manners and habits, while the latter are more intimately dependent on their nature and disposition. Their exterior is advantageous, and it seldom fails in inspiring respect on first acquaintance with them; but the soul that is within cannot be even partially unveiled without exciting aversion and disgust.

The Turk is commonly held to be honest; but Mr. Maundrell, who was some time at Aleppo, asserts that "he will always cheat when he can find an opportunity;" and they are often called generous; but Dr. Russell, another old resident, says they are "taxed with conducting all their transactions on the narrow principles of self-interest." Many other authors have also loaded the Turks with invectives; but they have little reason to complain, for even their character has found many equally zealous panegyrists. Sandys, a traveller in the beginning of the seventeenth century, says of them, that they are a "lazy people that work by fits, and more esteem of their ease than of their profit; yet are they excessively covetous; and although they have not the wit to deceive (for they be gross headed), yet have they the will, breaking all compacts with the Christians that they find discommodious." How much better this quaint old writer has penetrated into the real nature of the Turk, than some of the self-confident modern authors who vaunt their honesty! for Nov.-VOL. LXXXVII. NO. CCCXLVII.

Z

honesty and truth are the very antipodes of Turkish principles; their manners are an organised system of hypocrisy and dissimulation, their study is not to suffer any expression whatever to be seen on their countenance, and their ambition is to be able to talk in a sense totally different from their real feelings and opinions without even the smallest appearance of insincerity. To tell a skilful lie they hold to be the height of accomplishment.

It is not unusual to hear the Moslem characterised as a good-natured, kind-hearted person; and some even go so far as to assert his superiority in this respect to the Greek: these opinions may have originated in the greater facilities which exist for noticing the peculiarities of the latter, by whom, as in most countries, travellers are liable to be imposed upon and pillaged; when all they may have seen of the Turks is their calm and solemn bearing, united, as not unfrequently happens, with singularly handsome and prepossessing features. The ingenuous and unsuspecting temper of an Englishman leads him naturally to account for such an exterior by the supposition that it clothes a contented mind, an innocent heart, and a conscience at rest; but a deeper insight into the Turkish character will convince him that indolence, overweening pride, and degrading habits, have been mistaken for these amiable qualities; the lassitude and satiety which are left by over-indulgence are faithfully portrayed in his listless attitude; and the indifference which is engendered by the neglect of self-restraint is fully depicted in his dull

countenance.

Among half-civilised nations, untutored ignorance is generally betrayed by boisterous and foolish levity; but the want of education, and, in many cases, the imbecility of the Turk, are veiled under a mask of dignity and self-importance, which is not the expedient of the individual, but the confirmed habit of the race for the whole nation possess in the highest degree what the French call "l'air capable," an expression as happy as it is difficult to translate it is not a stoical frame of mind which supplies them with that air of gravity, and neither does deep feeling nor profound reflection in general lurk beneath it: the dreamy state in which they vegetate is not absence of mind arising from intensity of thought, but it is the formal apathy of habit which thus weighs, like an incubus, on the features and movements of the race. With regard to the real claims which the Mussulman possesses to the merit and reputation of good-heartedness, they at once lose all semblance of validity when they are confronted with the numberless instances of cruelty which prove the contrary. It has been remarked that he is kind to animals ; and that trait of character is usually considered to be indicative of a kind disposition. It is true that Turks have been often known to give money to bird-catchers, in order to induce them to open the cage and restore the captive to liberty; but they keep the cage of their human slaves close enough. It is also true that the Turks boast of not making use of whips for animals, while they allege that the mere manufacture of such instruments of torture employs thousands of workmen in European countries; but the wounded flanks of their riding-horses, and their sharp broad stirrups frequently covered with blood, give the lie to their pretended kindness to animals on that score. It is further true that the Turks protect from injury the herds of masterless dogs which infest the streets of their towns, and they often have food purchased for them;

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