first into the little Lough Boffin, then into the larger Lough Ree, and lastly, when he has got more than half way to the ocean, into the yet longer Lough Derg. Below Limerick he opens into a noble estuary, and when at length he falls into the sea between Loop Head and Kerry Head, the glorious river has completed a course of two hundred and fourteen English or about forty-three German miles. The greater part of the Shannon runs through the central plain which separates the mountainous north from the mountainous south. A similar plain exists in England between Hull and Bristol, and in Scotland between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in each case the plain intervenes between larger districts of a decidedly mountainous character. Each of these three plains, moreover, is intersected by the principal canals of the several countries, and each has its principal river, as the Severn, the Clyde, and the Shannon.

I fell in, that evening, in Shannon Harbour, he starts on his course strong with the tribute of with a member of one of these ancient Irish fam- a lake (Lough Allen), and traverses the middle lies, and as, notwithstanding their pride of an- of Ireland, in a direction from north-east to southcestry, they are mostly friendly, sociable, and west. Thrice again he widens out into a lake; communicative, we spent the evening very agreeably together. The most interesting communication of my new friend consisted in the plan of an estate, which he said his family had possessed for eighteen hundred years, first as native princes, and afterwards, under an altered name, as vassals of England. On this territory, occupying a surface of forty English square miles, There are no less than eighteen ruined castles and wo ruined towers, making one ruin to every square mile. If the same proportion hold good for the rest of the country, Ireland, with its thirtytwo thousand square miles, must have sixteen thousand ancient ruins, and for aught I know this number may not be much over the mark. My friend was from Connemara, the wild western mountainous district of Connaught. He spoke highly of the hospitality of the gentry in those parts, particularly of the O'Flahertys, the descendants of the ancient sovereigns. People lived very "stylishly" there, my friend assured me, gave splendid dinners and parties, and were more "showy" than even in other parts of Ireland. The melancholy consequence, however, of this stylish and showy way of life is, that most of the estates are heavily mortgaged, and these mortgages, the unavoidable result of extravagance, are usually enumerated among the causes of the decline of Irish agriculture.

Connaught, particularly the mountainous part, was long a favourite place of refuge for the Celtic Irish, when driven by the English from the eastern districts. It has, therefore, like Wales, retained a more completely national character, the English language being scarcely understood

As the Shannon waters no less than thirteen of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, the improvement of the navigation has long been one of the leading public questions in that country. More than one hundred years ago, it was believed that by an expenditure of £60,000 or £80,000, it would be possible to remove the chief difficulties, which consisted of a number of rocks and shoals that encumbered its channel. When the Earl of Strafford was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he proposed a plan, which, however, was not carried into execution. Several projects were afterwards proposed, some of which were altogether. neglected, others only partially carried out, but all of them, like almost every measure calcula

in the more remote regions. Leinster, on the ted to be beneficial to Ireland, originated in Eng

other hand, is almost Anglicized, the Irish language being spoken in only a few out-of-the-way Corners. Nearly the same may be said of Munster, though scarcely to the same degree. Of Ulster the greater part has received a Scottish impression, though Irish is still spoken here and there. Connaught is the only thoroughly Irish province. Leinster may be said to be the province of light, Connaught the province of darkness to Ireland; in the former is the greatest cultiva'ion, and the lovely land of Wicklow; in the latter, poverty, barbarism, superstition, and the wilds of Connemara. Even in trifles there is a marked difference between the inhabitants of the two provinces. Thus in Leinster, as throughout England, people eat the entrails of the sheep, but never those of the hog; in Connaught it is just the reverse.

IRELAND.

land. The invention of steam navigation has, however, had the chief effect in at last bringing about the improvements in the Shannon, as it has done in many other rivers. A new company. has been formed for the purpose of removing, as much as possible, all natural impediments to the navigation of the river, and though the works are not yet complete, twelve steamboats are already in full activity on the Shannon, where fif teen years ago there was only one.

As there are no railroads in Ireland, with the exception of two miniature ones, of whose farther extention there appears to be no immediate prospect, the canals which traverse the country. are much used for travelling, and boats, generally full to overflowing, ply regularly from and to Dublin. The boats, like the treckschuits in.. Holland, are drawn by horses that move along. at a smart trot. To a stranger, desirous of studymuch to be recommended.

THE SHANNON AND THE FAIRIES OF ing the Irist people, this manner of travelling is It was on a beautiful day that I embarked to Well may the Irish speak of the "Royal Shan- descend the Shannon. Flowing out of a lake, non," for he is the king of all their rivers. A foreigner, when he thinks of some of our large continental streams, may at first consider the epithet somewhat of an exaggeration, but let him go down this glorious river and its lakes, and he will be at no loss to understand that royal majesty, in the matter of rivers, may be quite independent of length or extent. The British islands certainly can boast of no second stream, the beauties of whose banks could for a moment be compared to those of the Shannon.

At his very birth he is broad and mighty, for

and forming several other lakes in its progress, the water is extremely clear and beautiful. The movement is in general equable, excepting a few rapids which are avoided by means of canals. The banks, too, are pleasing to the eye. Large green meadows stretch along the sides of the river, and villages alternate with handsome country seats, surrounded by their parks. Herons abound along the margin, and many of these beautifu birds were continually wheeling over us in the air, their plumage glittering again in the rays of the sun.

side of a well. My husband fell asleep, but I didn't, and soon I heard the most beautiful music; I thought there might have been a piper near at hand, and stood up to look about me, but as I saw nothing I waked my husband, and bid him listen. 'Let's go on,' says he, 'it's the good people that's playing; and so he pulled me away, and by the same token I left a new handkerchief behind ine that I had bought in Galway, and had pulled out to look at by the well side.'

"Now that again is a fact," observed my Kerry friend very learnedly. The English have compiled a number of " Books of Facts" for their children, but here are facts which they have probably not yet thought of collecting.

Of all nations of the earth the Irish are probably the strongest in their belief in the tricks and antics of these tiny slaves. There are stories in general circulation infinitely more marvellous than those I have here related, but I preferred to tell those which the people declared had occurred to themselves, and being much more characteristic of the country than legends which have probably received poetical embellishments in passing through the hands of their several nar

rators.

It is quite characteristic of the Irish that their fairies should be divided, like the island itself, into counties. You hear of the Limerick fairies, and the Donegal fairies, and the Tipperary fairies, and the fairies of two adjoining counties have their faction fights, just like the inhabitants themselves. In Tipperary, however, is a place in which all the fairies in Ireland are said to hold their meetings. Another peculiarity of the Irish fairies is that they are quite as desirous to get mortals into their service, as mortals are to obtain control of them. "They have always one or other of them in their service," said my Kerry friend, "and they are always particularly anxious to get hold of little children. When a fairy has set her heart upon a child it falls sick and dies, and then the fairies fetch it away, and breed it up, and it comes, perhaps, to be one of the mightiest among them. Troth it's the red-haired children the fairies are fondest of, and it's they that run the greatest risk."

Now all this sounds very poetically, but it would be happy for Paddy, for all that, if English civilization could but drive his fairies out of his head. He might then be less disposed to ascribe his misfortunes to supernatural causes, and look for wealth and independence not, like Goethe's money digger, to elves and goblins, but to his own care and industry. How often have I wished that to some of my superstitious Irish friends I could have translated Goethe's excellent lines:

Komm mit ängstlicher Beschwörung
Nicht zurück an diesen Ort.
Grabe hier nicht mehr vergebens.
Tages Arbeit, Abend's Gäste,
Saure Wochen, frohe Feste,
Sei dein künftig Zauberwort.*

Passing from the fairies my born and bred
Kerryman came to speak of Father Mathew and
the great temperance question.
Oh, he's

a blessed man, and the Almighty,

glory be to his name, gave him the power that shines from him."

"You mean," said I, " the power of eloquence and persuasion, and of the excellent example he offers in his own life."

"Oh no, not at all, that's not what I mean. But when a man has taken the pledge and received his blessing, there's a particular grace in it. There's something in it, sir, that you can't so easily understand, a grace, a power, that nobody comprehends who has not himself experienced it. The true and effectual pledge is not to be taken from the hands of any other man. Take the pledge of another priest, and it has not the same binding power."

"That's true enough, your honour," interrupt ed another, "for doesn't he cure the most confirmed drunkards? Nay, it's them he makes most welcome, and when they have taken the pledge, it's they that make the very best temperance men. And doesn't he heal the lame and the blind? Oh, we could tell you a hundred facts of that, how he has healed them even against his own will, for Father Mathew's too modest to own to the power that's in him, but we know well that he has it for all that."

Amid conversations like these we passed the little town of Banagher. It is fortified, and thus presents a spectacle of rare occurrence in the British islands, though less rare in Ireland than in England and Scotland. Then gliding along by Redwood castle and the beautiful meadows of Portumna, we left the town of Portumna to our right, and entered the waters of Lough Derg. The steamer in which we had hitherto travelled was of small dimensions, with a wheel under the stern, to allow of its passing through some canals of no great breadth; but on the broad lake a new and larger vessel prepared to receive us. The two steamers came close to one another, to exchange their respective passengers, and their manœuvre, as they swept round on the wide water, pleased me much.

Of the lakes that like so many rich pearls are strung upon the silver thread of the Shannon, Lough Ree and Lough Bodarrig, lying in a level country, and in a great measure surrounded by bogs, present little that is pleasing to the eye.. Lough Allen is situated almost wholly within the mountainous districts of the north, and a large portion of Lough Derg is made picturesque by the mountains of the south. Like all Irish lakes, Lough Derg contains a number of small green islands, of which the most renowned is Inniscaltra, an ancient holy place, containing the ruins of seven venerable churches of great antiquity, and the remains of one of those remarkable columnal erections known in Ireland ueder the name of " round towers." We passed the sacred isle at the distance of a mile and a half, but we could very distinctly make out all its monuments by the aid of a telescope. Among the Irish a dispute arose whether "St. Patrick's

purgatory" was to be sought for here, or on an island in one of the upper lakes. A similar tradition may have attached itself to several islands, but St. Patrick's purgatory, as known at one time to half the Christian world, and still to the whole learned world of Ireland, was undoubtedly situated in Inniscaltra. The Irish tradition was that St. Patrick had prevailed on God to place the entrance to purgatory in Ireland, that the unbelievers might the more readily be convinced of the immortality of the soul, and of the sufferings that awaited the wicked after death. A

few monks, according to Boate, an old Irish to embark for Limerick. The captain of the writer, dwelt near the cavern that represented steamer and his mates shipped themselves on this entrance. Whoever came to the island with the backs of some cantering nags, and, thus ca

parisoned, rattled away in front as commanders and escort to the caravan. At the end of a few miles we embarked again, but this time in a long canal-boat drawn by a couple of horses. All this sounds rather wild and Irish; in England such a variegated mode of transport is scarcely to be found.

4

Our new boat was separated into two divisions; in the hindmost, the genteeler passengers sat, in two rows, very devoutly opposite to each other, and in seats not unlike church pews. In what might be called the steerage, my Temperance friends from Kerry and Tipperary were chatting and smoking away on long benches, with more comfort apparently, and certainly with much less constraint. I soon overcame any repugnance which I might otherwise have felt on account of the less scrupulous cleanliness of this part of the vessel, and determined to visit it, to prosecute my studies of Irish char

the intention of descending into the cavern, and
examining its wonders, had to prepare himself
by long vigils, fasts, and prayers, to strengthen
him, as he was told, for his dangerous expedi-
tion; but in reality, by reducing his bouily
strength, to make his imagination more ready to
receive the impressions which it was thought
desirable to leave upon his mind. He was then
let down into the cavern, whence, after an inter-
val of several hours, he was drawn up again
half dead, and when he recovered his senses,
mingling the wild dreams of his own imagina-
tion with what the monks told him, he seldom
failed to tell the most marvellous tales of the
place for the remainder of his life. It was not
till in the reign of James II. that the monks were
driven away from the place, and the mystery of
the dark cavern dissolved. This legend again
appears to me to be remarkably characteristic of
the Irish. I believe they are the only Christian
people who have found out an entrance to pur-acter.
gatory at all, and when they did so, it argued no
little courage to place it in the centre of their
own island, at the same time that it argued an
admirable childlike taith, to have so long con-
tinued the dupes of a few designing monks.
The Greeks also had an entrance to the infernal
regions, and some of their heroes were curious
enough to explore it; but Homer places it at a
distance from Greece, and it was only after many
wanderings that Ulysses was able to discover it.
The southern end of Lough Derg narrows as
you proceed, tapering at last almost to a point,
and at this point lies the little town of Killaloe.
This southern end is, however, by far the most
beautiful part of the whole lough. The mount-
ains of Slievh Bernagh, Knockermaun, &c., that
lie close to the lake, are green, wooded, and in-
habited. Farther away to the right the Inchi-
quin mountains, and to the left the Keeper,
tower to a height of upwards of 2000 feet. In
one of these mountains may be noticed a re-
markable indentation called the Devil's Bite,
which the Irish have not been able to account
for in any other way than by supposing the devil
to have once conceived the whimsical notion of
biting a bit out of the mountain; taking it, I sup-
pose, for the back of a plump Irish pig. The
titbit, however, seemed not to have pleased him,
for he spat it out again, and I was told that
somewhere in Ireland, I forget where, I might
find a fragment of rock that exactly fitted into
the place bitten into by the devil.

1

Some pages back I made mention of the reputation of the Kerry men for learning, and found here a remarkable instance of it. I saw a man reading an old manuscript in the ancient Celtic character in which the Irish is still written, The manuscript consisted of a multitude of sheets stitched together, and the several parts, to judge from the appearance of the paper, must have been written at very different times. It was brown with age, but had evidently been preserved with great care. A part, the man told me, he had added himself, the rest of it he had inherited from his father and grandfather; but some of it, he believed, had been in the family long before their time. I inquired about the contents. They were the most beautiful, he said, of the old Irish poems, some histories of remarkable events, and some treatises of ancient authors. Among others, there was a translation of a work by Aristotle on natural history.

On inquiry, I found there was another man on board, a native of Clare, who had a manuscript of a similar character with him. I asked the reason why they carried these relics with them on a journey. They said they did not like to lose sight of them, and then there were times when they might read a bit in them. In the sequel I found many manuscripts of the kind in the hands of the common people in Ireland. I was told there were some on parchment of extreme age, but I never saw any myself except on

paper.

We issued once more from our narrow canal upon the broad, beautiful Shannon, and landed

Lough Derg, the sailors told me, was six or seven feet higher in winter than in summer; an immense increase of volume for a piece of wa- on the quay at Limerick late in the evening. ter of such extent. It rarely freezes in winter, though in the same latitude as the Prussian LIMERICK AND THE IRISH SATUR.

Haffs, that are covered with ice almost every year. In general, Lough Derg has no ice at all in winter, not even on its margin; but in very severe winters, it was mentioned as something anusual, ice four inches thick would form on the sides. Once, about forty years ago, the whole lake had been so completely frozen over, that a car had been driven across.

Beyond Killaloe we come again to rocks and whirlpools, and as the canal was not yet finished, by means of which this part of the river is to be avoided, we had the amusement of landing with bag and baggage, and proceeding with jaunting cars to the spot where it was possible

DAYS.

Limerick is the third city in Ireland, with a population of 75,000. Dublin, the first, contains 270,000, and Cork, the second, 110,000 inhabitants.

The trade of Limerick, like that of most Irish cities, has increased in an astonishing degree. The exports have trebled since 1820, and in 1841 the customs alone produced £246,000, or about 1,700,000 Prussian dollars. The inhabitants are, in consequence, full of hope that their port, hitherto a third class one, may soon be raised to the second class.

In the new parts of the town, the effects of this

1

1

improving commerce are plain enough to be seen; the streets are broad and imposing, and the houses large and well built. St. Georgestreet may vie with Sackville-street in Dublin. St. George is an English saint, and the whole of this new quarter is called the English town. Galway and many other Irish cities are divided, in the same way, into an English and Irish town. The Irish town is generally full of dirt, disorder, and decay; the English quarter, on the other hand, reminds one of the better parts of London. The inhabitants of the two quarters live in a sort of constant opposition to one another. In this way every large city in Ireland has been adorned by the English with a cleanly and comfortable quarter, and the Irish have returned the favour by hanging on to most of the large English cities, a a di dirty and disorderly quarter of Helots. In Manchester there are said to be 60,000 Irish, in Glasgow 50,000, in Liverpool 40,000, in Birmingham 25,000, in Leeds 12,000, and in London more than 100,000. In almost every large English town you find a quarter that reminds you of St. Giles's in London. The English complain much, and with good reason, of the habits of the Irish. The Irish have also many well-founded complaints to make of the English; but when the Irish sum up their grievances, they ought also to remember the advantages for which they stand indebted to the English. It is the English that improve the navigation of the Shannon, urge the draining of the bogs, and gradually drive the Irish elves and fairies into the sea; it is the English who enrich the Irish towns with clean, comfortable, and civilized quarters; it is the English who constitute the soul and pith of the British power, and it is to them that the Irish owe it, if they are able to participate in the wide-spread commerce of Great Britain, and to share in all the opportunities and advantages that stand open to a British subject. The vigorous, speculative, and persevering Anglo-Saxons force the indolent and unenergetic Celts along with them on the road of glory and national greatness; they pull them forward, somewhat rudely perhaps, but they do pull

them forward.

Nothing, however, is to be found in Limerick more beautiful than the "Limerick lasses," who are as much celebrated in Ireland as the "Lancashire witches" are in England. Both places lie in the west, and in the more Celtic west of the two islands. This may afford matter of curious speculation, but who will fathom the mysteries that hang over the formation of beautiful

women?

and an expensive way of living it must be, see ing that so many pawnbrokers and pawnbrokers assistants are maintained almost exclusively out of the earnings of the poor.

A Saturday in an Irish town, and indeed in every town of the United Kingdom, is a day of great life and bustle among the humbler classes. The silent joyless Sunday is at hand, the labour of the week is over, money is plentiful, and the consequence is that half the population may always be seen, on a Saturday evening, moving about till midnight, gossiping, jesting, buying, carousing. The shops remain open till midnight, and, as nothing to be had on the following day, the poor must make their purchases on the Saturday, if they would provide a better dinner for Sunday than for ordinary days. Saturday evening is thus the most important part of the week to the small dealers, particularly to those who traffic in the various kinds of s of provis ions.

The beggars, too, make their harvest on a Saturday evening, as one of them acknowledged when examined by a magistrate in Dublin. It is the poor who are, in general, most liberal to the mendicants, and it is on the Saturday that the poor inan can most easily bestow his gifts.

When first I came into an English town on a Saturday evening, I thought an insurrection must just have broken out, or must at least be on the point of doing so. The streets were crowded with busy and eager multitudes, all of the humbler classes, and one might suppose that if a spark had but fallen among these masses they would instantly have burst into a flame. Yet there were sparks enough, ay and inflammatory torches, burning harmlessly around. That very evening, for instance, at every corner, and under every lamp of Limerick, was posted up a proclamation, issued by the friends of O'Connell, calling upon the Irish nation, in the name of the great agitator, to repair to a meeting that was to be held in a few days, and at which he was to harangue the people. Over the proclamation was printed in large letters:

"REPEAL! REPEAL! REPEAL!

"Up, citizens of Limerick and Irishnen all! Up and bestir yourselves for a separation from England! Up for your native right of a separate. parliament! The immortal (sic!) O'Connell will appear among you. He calls upon you. He needs your aid in Erin's cause. Be firm and united, and cease not, like himself, to watch unceasingly over the welfare of your country, and to be ever active in our great, common, patriotic struggle."

It was arm-in-arm with a descendant from a royal race, a Mr. O'Rourke, that I sallied forth to see the town. An O'Rourke was among the princes that assisted the English in the first conquest of Ireland, but turning afterwards against the invaders, he was killed by them. The family subsequently fell into decay, and there are Limerick has many fine buildings and public now but few left to bear the name. It was on a institutions, but all of modern erection, and just Saturday evening, and the pawnbrokers' shops like what a traveller may see in other towns in were full of bustle. The poor people were re- Ireland and England. In Galway, however, the deeming their Sunday clothes, that they might metropolis of the wild west, and an Hesperian look gay on the morrow. They had just receiv- colony, he will find a more quaint and peculiar ed their weekly wages, of which a part was go- city, with antiquities such as he will meet with ing to the pawnbroker, and the rest would prob- nowhere else. The old town is throughout of ably be expended before Sunday evening. On Spanish architecture, with wide gateways, broad Monday their bit of finery would have to wan- stairs, arched passages, and all the fantastic or

This document then went on, in yet stronger language, to call upon the people to assemble in great numbers on the appointed day, to lay in a warm stock of patriotism, and above all not to be backward in their pecuniary contributions.

der back to the money-lender, and the remainder
of the week would be spent in rags and priva-
tion. Thousands of the poor Irish live thus,

naments calculated to carry the imagination back to Granada and Valencia. Then the town, with its monks, churches, and convents, has a