proposition in which he finds a cause for every evil, viz., that the rich being English and Protestant, have no sympathy for the poor, who are Irish and Catholic. Here, too, we might in contradiction refer to the fact, that to the general charitable institutions of the country the Protestants are the chief contributors, and that too in a proportion far exceeding the alleged superiority of their riches. But to show the spirit in which his book is written, may suffice to observe that the poor laws were never made a party question, that many Roman Catholics (among them Mr. O'Connell) opposed their introduction; and M. De Beaumont himself, in his third part, chapter 1, section 3, argues at some length against the system of poor laws lately introduced into Ireland, and indeed against every system, which he at once condemns by this dilemma : it "N'arrivera-t-il pas necessairement l'une de ces deux choses?-Ou l'on voudra executer la loi assez largement pour la rendre efficace, et alors elle sera impossible; ou bien on ne lui donnera d'autre execution que celle qui est practicable, et alors elle sera impuissante, si même elle n'est funeste.”—" Will not one of these two things necessarily happen? Either an endeavour will be made to execute the law with such liberality as to give it efficacy, and this will be impossible; or the law will not be executed beyond what is practicable, and then it will be powerless, or will even lead to calamitous results." His observations on the causes and effects of absenteeism afford a good example of the spirit in which he views every thing Il arrive souvent d'attribuer tous les maux de l'Irlande au defaut de residence de l'aristocratie; mais c'est prendre une consequence du mal pour le mal lui même. L'aristocratie d'Irlande n'est point mauvaise parce qu'elle s'absente; elle s'absente parce qu'elle est mauvaise." Again, in page 227— Et le plus souvent le propriétaire ne prononce pas même ces paroles de regret, car il ne voit pas les misères dont il est l'auteur. Retiré dans son palais de Londres, il n'entend pas les cris de désespoir qui s' chappent de la cabane irlandaise; il ne sait point, sous le ciel pur et serein de l'Italie, si l'orage a foudroyé en Irlande la moisson du pauvre; il ne sait point à Naples si, છે faute de soleil, la récolte a manqué dans la froide Hybernie, si par contre-coup les pauvres colons, dont sa terre est couverte, sont tombés dans la détresse; il ignore si ces malheureux ont essuyé quelque coup imprévu de la fortune, telle qu'une longue maladie du chef de la famille, la perte de leur bétail; il ne sait rien de ces choses, et il serait incommode pour lui de les savoir. Ce qu'il sait bien, c'est que 20,000 livres sterling lui sont dues par ses fermiers d'Irlande; que sa vie est réglée sur ce chiffre, que cette somme lui doit être payée à telle échéance, et qu'on ne saurait en différer le paiement un seul jour sans troubler l'ordre de ses habitudes et l'arrangement de ses plaisirs." "And most frequently the proprietor does not pronounce even these words of regret, for he does not see the misery of which he is the author. Withdrawn to his palace in London, he does not hear the cries of despair which issue from the Irish cabin. Under the pure and serene sky of Italy he does not know if the storm has lodged the corn of the poor Irishman. At Naples he does not know if the harvest has failed for want of sun in the cold of Ireland, if, as the necessary consequence, the poor farmers with whom the land is covered have fallen into distress; he does not know if these unhappy beings have suffered some unexpected stroke of misfortune, such as the tedious illness of the father of a family, or the loss of their cattle; he knows none of these things, and it would be inconvenient for him to know them. What he does know well is that £20,000 a year are due to him by his Irish tenants, that his style of living is regulated by this amount of income, that this sum ought to be paid to him on such a day, and that the payment cannot be delayed a single day without disturbing the order of his habits, and the arrangement of his pleasures." We are by no means a friend to absenteeism, but we feel ourselves compelled to state that M. De Beaumont is guilty of gross exaggeration in representing it as the general practice of the Irish landlords, and in describing its evil consequences. It is only a matter of justice to admit that the few estates which belong to absentee proprietors of £20,000 a-year, are among the best managed estates in the country. We appeal to all who are acquainted with the estates of the Duke of Devonshire, Marquis of Lansdowne, Marquis of Hertford, Marquis of Abercorn, and Earl Fitzwilliam for the justice of this remark. It appears that the English habits and English sympathies of those noblemen for the poor afford a compensation for the disadvantages of their absence. In vol. 2, p. 83, our author finds a sufficient excuse for the absence of the Roman Catholic who makes a fortune in this country." Et ce n'est pas seulement la campagne qui est agitée; dans les villes, qui le sont moins a la verité, les partis Bout si violents, les querelles si animies, le spectacle des miseres du peuple si affreux, que leur sejour ne contente point l'homme qui, apres avoir travaille, voudrait jouir en paix du fruit de ses labours. Il arrive donc souvent que, ne trouvant point en Irlande cet asile de repos, les nouveaux enrichis le vont chercher dans quelque villes d' Angleterre. On voit comment beaucoup font leur fortune en Irlande sans qu'un egal nombre y reside; et c'est cependant la residence qui est a considerer bien plus que la fortune faite. Il ne s'agit pas en effet, de savoir si des catholiques gagnent plus ou moins d'argent en plaidant ou en faisant le commerce, et si avec les fruits de leur profession ils achetent de la terre ou des rentes in Irlande; mais bien s'ils vivent en Irlande sur cette terre," &c. Thus if some of the aristocracy prefer living in England among their equals and connexions, it is because they are a bad aristocracy and have no sympathy with their country; and yet it seems the state of Ireland is such as naturally to drive away from it many of those who made their fortunes and spent the greater part of their lives here; and whose habits, and friends, and acquaintances, and religion ought to make them prefer a residence in Ireland." It is ever thus with our author. Every act of the Protestants or of the aristocracy is attributed to a hatred or want of sympathy towards Ireland, while he finds a ready excuse for the same conduct when pursued by members of the opposite party. Even for the love of falsehood which in many places he states to be a characteristic of the Irish people he finds a sufficient excuse in the circumstances in which they have been placed. "Il n'est arrivé qu'à un très-petit nombre de subir cette dépravation complète; mais il n'en est peutêtre pas un seul qui, tout en demeurant fidèle à son culte religieux, n'ait été atteint d'une corruption au moins partielle. Tous ont perdu l'amour du vrai parceque la franchise et la sincérité attiraient infailliblement la persécution sur leur tête; presque tous ont contracté l'habitude de mentir, parce que le mensonge a été pour eux pendant plus d'un siècle une arme nécessaire et légitime. Ils ont pris des habitudes de violence et de rébellion, sous l'influence d'une tyrannie qui les forçait de se placer en hostilité ouverte contre les lois. Mainteinant ne vous plaignez point si vous trouvez chez l'Irlandais une aversion générale pour le vrai, un goût absolu pour le mensonge. Est-ce qu'il est capable, grossier et ignorant comme vous l'avez fait, de tracer dans son esprit avec quelque discernement une ligne de démarcation entre les cas où sa conscience peut l'absoudre d'un mensonge et ceux où elle ne saurait l'en justifier?" "It has happened to few only to suffer this complete depravation of character; but, perhaps, there is not a single Irishman who, in remaining faithful to his religious persuasion, has not been at least partially corrupted. All have lost the love of truth, because candour and sincerity infallibly drew down per secution on th head; almost all have contracted the habit of lying, because, for more than an age, falsehood has been their necessary and lawful weapon. They have adopted habits of violence and rebellion under the influence of a tyranny which forced them to place themselves in open hostility against the law. Now, do not complain if you find among the Irish a general aversion for truth, an absolute taste for falsehood. Gross and ignorant as you have made him, is he able, with any judgment, to trace in his mind the line of demarcation between the cases in which his conscience can acquit him of a lie, and those in which it cannot justify him for it." The latter sentence would be more properly addressed to those who have taught the peasant that there are cases in whi. falsehood involves no guilt, and it shows the pernicious tendency of those doctrines, which, in so many instances, inculcate the innocence of falsehood, and thus impairs the love of truth in general. But, as against the English government his argument goes for nothing, it never taught the people to tell lies, nor ever placed even the guilty under the necessity of resorting to falsehood for his protection, since the laws of England, different in this respect from those of France, did not require the accused to answer any questions. It is not correct to say that any man suffered for speaking the truth in such a manner as to confound his moral perceptions. If a criminal confesses his guilt he is punished for his crime, not his confession. If he could escape punishment by a skilful fabrication of falsehood, it amounts to no more than this, that truth sometimes brings inconvenience to the speaker, if it did not, there would be no temptation to falsehood. But the remainder of our observations we are obliged to defer to a future number, when we shall show that his opinion of the tendency and object of Lord Normanby's administration coincides with our own, the only difference being in our sentiments respecting the wild democracy which is to be substituted for our present constitution. WE have a native-shall we say a Protestant?-partiality tor Ulster; and of all Sir Walter Scott's ballads, are most taken with that one-almost the only thing Irish he ever wrote-beginning "Once more, but how changed since my wander. ings began! I have heard the deep voice of the Lagan and Bann, And the pines of Clanbra resound to the roar That wearies the echoes on fair Tullymore." Though, truth to say, the Lagan and Bann are now as quiet-gliding pieces of water as the Commissioners of Inland Navigation need wish to look upon-for the frequent wier has converted every rapid into a series of milldams-and the pines of Clanbrasil, we are compelled to admit, exist mostly, if not altogether, in the condition of bog-fir. Still, though Sir Walter has hardly hit off the characterists of these banks of Banna, with all the accuracy that might have been expected had he been celebrating more classic regions "fast by the river Tweed," he has touched a chord that always vibrates pleasantly in our breast, for in spite of the sharp accent and high cheek-bones of its population, our heart, we confess, ever warms to the dear black North. It is a fine, healthy, breczy, balladloving, romantic land. The weavers are all poets. Whether it is that the click clack of the shuttle and treadles necessarily suggests the succession of metres, or that there is something epic in the peculiar smell of the yarn, we do not pretend to say; but certain it is, that of twenty linen-weavers taken at random any where between Bannbridge and Newtown-Limavady, you may fairly calculate on finding at least a dozen who will be not only capital ballad-singers, but reasonably good poetasters in their way. Unlike the weavers of Kilmarnock, these are no creeshy nation ;" but a clean, wholesome, well-timbered people, living, especially in Down and the south of Antrim, among corn-fields and meadows, every man with his own kailyard and orchard at the house-end, so that, in the season of the year, he has a scent of apple blossoms rich enough to neutralize the perfume of all the flowers of Edinboro' wafting in and out of his windows. "Oh! 'tis pretty to be in Ballinderry, These are men who have something else to live on besides the memory of days gone by. They are a comfortable and contented people, who, when they have time to spare from profitable ocformer days as matter of curiosity and cupation, keep alive the memory of entertainment-not living and moving in a dream of traditions and old wives tales, like the starving visionaries of the west, but recurring to these from time to time in the genial hours of the fore-supper," when the cares of the A Tour in Connaught; comprising Sketches of Clonmacnoise, Joyce Country, and Achill. By the Author of "Sketches in Ireland." Dublin: Curry and Co. 1839. VOL. XIV. K day are over, and when something of all that is yet forthcoming. Truemore satisfactory has been provided the world, Connaught included, has for their fare, than even a tale of fairy- every reason to congratulate itself on land, garnished with the most authentic a man having been found eager enough anecdotes of St. Columbkill, or King in the pursuit of our national melodies, Brian Boru. to go on such a foray at such a time; for to Bunting's publications we undoubtedly owe not only the best of Moore's Melodies, as well as of Lover's, but the revival and restoration of the old music of the country, which, had it not been for his exertions, might still be confined to the performance of blind pipers in Tyrawley, or of mendicants operating on tin fiddles through the glens of Joyce Country and Murrisk. For although Bunting had published two volumes of native Irish music, collected almost wholly in Connaught, prior to the year 1809-and although there are remaining, we believe, nearly one hundred tunes of the collection still to be published, and of course still current in the localities from which they were at first procured, yet not a Connaughtman has withdrawn his fingers from the chanter of his bagpipe to set down a single tune of this large residue, or to follow up, even by the publication of a Loobeen, the noble example thus set by the Ulster musician eight and forty years ago. Ulster, again, it was that sent them Maxwell, who has made the world as well acquainted with their manners as Bunting had made it acquainted with their music. The red deer might have belled till doomsday through every mountain hollow between Molyranny and the Owenmore, and the world been none the wiser, had the authorship of Wild Sports of the West" been left to the wild sportsmen of the west country. The walls of Doona might have gone on crumbling and toppling down to the beach of Tullaghan bay, till their site had been as smooth as the lawn before Westport house, without redemption either of hero or heroine, had Croy Lodge not been tenanted by some one who came "from beyond the bridge of Portumna." The greatest effort in literature that has been made west of the Shannon within the memory of man by native writers is, we will be bound to say, the correspondence between Moore of Moore Hall and Macdonnell of Doo Castle, backed by their respective friends in the Castlebar Telegraph; and even here, Munster, represented by O'Gorman Mahon, has the lion's share, if not of the prey, at least of the penmanship. Calliope and Clio, we greatly fear, This we conceive to be a state of society far more likely to produce men of right literary taste-far more likely to open the true vein of romance, of humour, and of poetry, than one in which, while tradition and song are infinitely more rife, so also in an equal degree are hunger and superstition. It is to this difference between the states of society in Ulster and Connaught respectively, as well as to the difference of race, that we would attribute the fact of the former province having been so much more fruitful of literary ability than the latter. The same may be observed of Scotland. See the extraordinary fertility of the civilized lowlands in men of genius; while the highlandmen, existing themselves in an atmosphere of romance, have but the name of a single bombastic plagiarist to redeem them from the charge of an inglorious silence both in song and story. Yet it was on highland traditions, highland scenery, and highland manners that the rising genius of the lowlands chiefly throve and exercised itself. And so it has been in Ireland also. The genius of the rest of Ireland uses Connaught as a species of literary store-farm. Ulster, Leinster, and Munster breed men of genius, who, so soon as they have exhausted their own provinces of lay and legend, incontinently cross the Shannon to carry on a predatory warfare against Fin Varra and Grana Uaile. There they rob and pillage without mercy, driving preys of ghost stories, and taking black mail of songs and tunes, as unceremoniously as ever the Finns of old lifted sheep and black cattle. Meanwhile the Connacians go on coshering, and story-telling, and droning on their bagpipes; fighting, joking, ghost-seeing; acting comedies and romances every day of their lives; but never dreaming of taking pen in hand to turn themselves to account. It is well nigh fifty years since Edward Bunting of Belfast, after scouring all the glens of Ulster from Cushendun to Ballyshannon in search of Irish airs, made his descent like another Fin MacCoul on the plains of Mayo, from whence he carried off the materials of all the Irish music that has been published from that day to this, not to speak I'll come and fix my quarters in the Condai Mhaigh-eo." Ulster, again, sent light-hearted Harry Lorrequer to do for Galway what its thirteen tribes and six and twenty halftribes would never have done for themselves till crack of doom. But for the black North, these positive Blakes, passionate Bodkins, fighting Frenches, stout D'Arcys, and all the rest of that dashing, duelling, fox-hunting race of squires, whose whims and oddities are now, by honest Harry's labours, as well known in Baden-Baden and St. Petersburgh as they are in Ballinasloe or the Claddagh, should have gone down to posterity with no other record of their virtues than that which is furnished by O'Kelly's "Western Eudoxologist," or the files of her majesty's courts of common law and equity. Who first made classic ground of Maam Turk, and gave the world to know that there was such a place as the Killery harbour? A lady from beyond the Shannon, and from beyond the Channel, too. Who first placed the Costello in its rightful position at the head of the fly-fishing rivers of the United Kingdom, so that at the very mention of any place within twenty miles of Spiddal the angler's teeth water on the banks of the Tweed? It was an English parson. Who turned Jack Joyce's head with vanity, introducing the giant in the flannel waistcoat with one stroke of his pen to every cultivator of polite literature in Europe, and sending tourists in shoals from the remotest parts of the kingdom, full of curiosity and money, to cultivate the acquaintance and line the pockets of every hulking peasant from the Twelve Pins to Furmnamore? A little quiver fellow of a North Briton, that you would say, to have looked at-for poor Inglis is, alas! no more-"would never do for Galway," and yet he has done so much for Connemara that we question whether it would have been worse for that country to have done without his book, or to have done without the best line of road that ever Nimmo carried Hardi through its mountain-passes. man of Galway is the solitary excep tion to all that we have been stating, His history of his native town is a very creditable work; but we verily believe it is the only thing in the shape of a native book-of course we make no account of the Minstrelsy-that the entire province has produced since the compilation of the Chronicles of Cong and the Leabhair Lecain. But, for all that is known of the antiquities of the rest of the five counties, they are in debted to others. First as indeed all parts of Ireland now do they owe to Petrie whatever is known of their Cyclopean remains and round towers. The cahirs, cairns, and cromlechs of northern and southern Moyture, works in grandeur of design and execution aspiring to a comparison with the walls of Tyrins and Mycenae, but in interest for the antiquary any where, and for the Irish antiquary in particular, far surpassing them-because we now know when they were built, whom they were built by, and what they were built for these, we say, if left to native historians, would have continued "Druid's altars," and "temples of the sun," to this day. As to the towers, we can only say, that those who have read Mr. Petrie's MS. prize essay, admit the question to be settled, that they were Christian edifices. Nay, we are assured that the dates, and the names of the founders of two of the very towers at Clonmacnoise, described in the volume which we are now about to notice more at large, are in this essay definitely ascertained. We trust we shall soon have an opportunity of giving our readers a more satisfactory account of the work, for we have heard with much pleasure that it is at last about to issue from the press. Indebted thus to the other provinces for so many and various notices, one might suppose that Connaught, as a field of literary culture, would be now wellnigh spent, and that it was high time for the painters, moralists, humorists, and antiquaries, to make way for the cotton-spinner and tax-gatherer. But far from it. You might as well attempt to eat down a corcass meadow on the banks of the Fergus, by driving in an indefinite number of bullocks-that is, if we are to believe our county Clare store-farmers-as to exhaust this El Dorado of literary material, by transporting into it any given number of tourists, statists, legend-hunters, whimcatchers, trait-trappers, and historians: |