among others on these crosses of Columba, was a regular circle, within which were drawn great numbers of fine wavy or knotted lines, running spirally to the centre. Upon one of these figures a small hand was neatly carved in bas-relief upon the stone I began to conjecture what

barren hillock where we had left our cars, and as a hard shower of hail was falling over the dark plain and among the old ruins, I was compelled, for the sake of shelter, to take a closer inspection of the interior of this cabin. This gave me an opportunity of watching the prep

tended to convey by these doubtless symbolical lines; and unable to invent any better hypothesis, I conjectured that this circle signified the world, that these snaky and wavy lines symbolized the strange turbulent labyrinths and whirlpools of human passion and suffering, which that world 'contains, and that the hand, standing forth in relief from the drawing, represented the guiding hand of the Father and Ruler of all things, who, directing and superintending those confused intricacies, would one day resolve them all into harmonious order.

After busying myself in these interesting speculations for some time, I turned round and asked my guide what was his conjecture as to the meaning of the figure. He respectfully took off his hat, and said, "I'll tell your honour. You see, there was a woman that had baked a

ment: so when she went to lay hold of the cake to take it up, it stuck to her hand, and she could never get it off again; and holy St. Patrick had the story carved in stone here for an everlasting lesson and warning to us, to keep holy the Sundays and holydays. That's it, your honour." So saying, Paddy put on his hat again.

At the foot of one of the crosses were sculptured various monsters and reptiles, probably emblematic of heathenism and the foes of Christianity, over whom the cross now reared its triumphant head.

"These crosses, your honour, were never set up by human hand," said my guide. "They were brought over from Rome by angels; and when they were laid in the churchyard, they got up of themselves, and put themselves upon the pedestal, just as your honour sees them. The angels hadn't even to put a hand to it, your honour. The crosses did it all of themselves. The cross of holy Columb Kill is the only one put up by human hands."

Columb Kill is a saint of very great reputation both in Ireland and Scotland. He is sometimes called Columba, which name was given him on account of the dovelike simplicity and innocence of his character. Kill is the old Irish word for church, so that his name, at full length, signifies, "the dove of the church." The cross erected to his honour among the ruins of Monasterboice has fallen down once, and has been put up again in a very broken state. It stands in a square hole on the pedestal, and this hole is partially filled with water. My guide assured me that this water never dried up, however long a drought there might be. Sick people come from far and wide to bathe their diseased limbs in "the sweat of Columba's cross." The peasantry also scratch off the scanty moss growing on the surface of the cross, and mix it with the tea they drink, "for good luck." I do not know whether, in any other part of Cristendom, it has ever been the custom to erect fine large crosses in the open air in honour of particular saints.

these are a particularly wholesome, nourishing, and strengthening kind of food, which can be true only when they are compared with the watery, tasteless, and meager potatoes upon which the Irish have to subsist. The English, generally very curious about our black bread, and to whom the word "black" seems to convey a kind of horror, often repeat that with them people would never think of giving such a mess to any but horses; forgetting that with us nobody would think of giving oats to any but horses, and forgetting how many millions of hungry poor there are in their empire who would be most thankful for this despised black bread, and whom it would certainly nourish much better than oatpaste which they call cake, and the nourishing qualities of which they praise so highly.

During my stay at Drogheda I had an opportunity of hearing the far-famed Irish harp, the ancient national instrument of the island. A catholic priest gave us an Irish musical soirée, which was so interesting to me, that I consider it as one of the most agreeable soirées at which I ever was present. The room of this catholic priest, like that of most Irish patriots, was decorated with the portraits of O'Connell, Father Mathew, and Thomas Moore. I scarcely knew O'Connell again, for he was represented in a stately robe edged with fur, and wore his lord mayor's chain round his neck, which gave him a most royal appearance. Father Mathew was represented standing on a grassy mound in the open air. Behind him, in the dark background, rose the cross, and the clouds being parted just over his head, a stream of light surrounded it like a glory. Around him kneeled and stood a crowd of persons, to whom he was preaching. This picture was interesting, as significant of the kind of adoration which Father Mathew receives in Ireland.

Drogheda is the last genuine Irish town. Farther north, every thing becomes more Scotch than Irish. In Drogheda the population is still

almost exclusively catholic, and this city is, therefore, a great darling of O'Connell's, and most zealous in his cause and that of repeal. The suburbs of Drogheda are genuine Irish suburbs, composed of wretched, dirty hovels, and a great many people are to be found in the neighbourhood who speak the old Irish tongue more fluently and frequently than the English. All these things rendered me desirous, before leaving the place, to hear some of that wild national poetry and music which I had often heard so much spoken of.

The first minstrel who made his appearance was an Irish declaimer of the lower orders, either a carpenter, a gardener, or a "broken farmer,"* I know not which, but who, as I was told, was acquainted with a great number of old Irish songs and legends. He entered, and thus addressed me: "Out of friendship for this man" (meaning the priest), "I am come; he tells me that there is a stranger here who wishes to hear something of our old Irish songs, and I will gladly repeat to him those I know."

"I thank you," said the priest, "but if you were to repeat all you know, we should have to listen all night, I suppose, and many other nights as well."

"Yes, indeed, our ancestors have bequeathed to us great numbers of songs, and very beautiful ones too, sir. If you could only understand them! What a beautiful song is that of Tober a Yollish,' that is of the glittering spring, which is only three miles off from our town; and that other of Cuchullin, the Irish champion, who went over Scotland. Please your reverence, shall I begin with Cuchullin?"

- "Do, my son, and God bless you."

The man began to recite, and went on uninterruptedly for a quarter of an hour. His story, of which I of course understood not a word, but which my friendly host afterwards explained to me, treated of a Scottish enchantress, named Aithuna, who, forsaken by her Irish lover, Cuchullin, laid a cruel spell upon their son Konnell, which compelled him by an irresistible enchantment, and entirely against his will, to follow, to persecute, to fight, and at last to destroy his father Cuchullin. At the last moment, af ter stabbing his father to the heart, in spite of the efforts by which he struggled to resist the horrible impulse of his destiny, his own heart broke in the struggle, and son and father died together, while the revengeful spirit of the cruel enchantress hovered in exultation over the dying, repeating to her treacherous lover the story of his inconstancy and her revenge.

I was glad of an opportunity of assuring myself by oral demonstration of the actual existence of Ossianic poetry like this at the present day. The reciter was, as I have said, a simple and ignorant man, with a good deal of the clown about him, and his recitation was as simple, unadorned, and undeclamatory as himself. Sornetimes, however, when carried away by the interest of his story, his manner and voice were animated and moving; at such times he fixed his eyes on his hearers, as if demanding their sympathy and admiration for himself and his poem. Sometimes I noticed that the metre completely changed, and I was told that this

was the case with all Irish poems, for that the metre was always made to suit the subject. I also heard that the most beautiful part of this balled was the dialogue of father and son upon the battle-field; but that a prose translation would give me no idea at all of its beauty.

Our bard next recited a "song of the Fairy Mounts." The story was that so often repeated in Ireland, of a fairy queen who falls in love with a mortal youth whom she finds sleeping on a mountain top, and whom she invites to fly to fairyland with her, endeavouring to tempt him by descriptions of the splendour and attractions of her fairy palace. He consents, on condition that when he dies, he shall be brought home to his people; which condition being granted, they go to fairyland together. While listening to the explanation of this poem, I was often reminded of Goethe's Erl-King, and of many Russian and Tartar legends of similar import. I used to fancy that the story of the Erl-King was of German origin, but now I rather imagine it to have originated in Ireland, and to have traversed the whole of Europe, terminating in Asia.

Our reciter informed us that most of his poems were of "venerable antiquity," and were Ossianic poetry. This Ossianic poetry, he said, was very abundant in the neighbourhood of Drogheda. This I had heard before, and from all I heard in Ireland, I am much inclined to believe-what indeed many have also conjectured-that Macpherson obtained the materials for his version of Ossian's poems from popular traditions and ballads in the north of Ireland. The whole Irish nation, both in the south and north, is certainly much more imbued with the spirit of this poetry, and posses many more traces of it, than the Scottish people, whether of the Highlands or Lowlands. Ossian is now generally believed to have been no Scotchman, but an Irishman, born at Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland. His father, Fingal, is more properly called Fin Mac Cul. "Fin Mac Cul was as great a hero in those days, as our Irish Wellington in these," said our old reciter. The Scotch and Irish dispute every inch of debatable ground in their ancient history, and quarrel as much about their old heroes, as about their saints and missionories. Doubtless the shrewder and more active Scotch have decorated their traditions with many borrowed plumes from the Emerald Isle. Macpherson was not the only, although the luckiest and cleverest falsifier of ancient Irish minstrelsy.

These recitations were followed by music from that national instrument of which the Irish poet, Samuel Lover, sings :

"Oh! give me one strain
Of that wild harp again;
In melody proudly its own,

Sweet harp of the days that are gone!"

The harp was brought out, and a blind young harper advanced, who was, as I was told, one of the most distinguished harpers in the neighbourhood; and in fact his music enraptured us all. The first piece he played was "Brian Boru's March." Brian Boru was a great Irish hero, who raised himself to be king of all Ireland, and defeated the Danes at the great battle of Clontarf, in 1014. Shortly after the battle, however, he was killed by the Danish leader Bruadair, and Erin thus, while she gained a great victory, lost a great chief. The music of this march is wildly powerful, and at the same time melancholy. It is at once the music of victory and of mourning. The rapid modulations and wild beauty of the airs, was such that I think this march deserves fully to obtain a celebrity equal to that of the Marseillaise and the Ragotsky.

When the Irish listen to these old airs and think of these old deeds, while their hearts beat at the remembrance of their ancient glory, they do not forget their present degradation, and look forward with almost as much confidence to a free and glorious future, as they look back towards a free and glorious past.

"But, Isle of the West,
Rear thy emerald crest,

Songs of triumph shall yet ring for thee."

So sings Lover.

The march of Brian Boru was followed by an air called the Fairy Queen, which I was told was a very old Irish melody. Old or not, I can testify that it is a charming piece of music, so tender, so fairy-like, and at the same time so wild and sweetly playful, that it can represent nothing but the dancing and singing of the elves and fairies by moonlight. I afterwards heard this piece on the pianoforte, but it did not sound half so soft and sweet as from the instrument of this blind young harper. Although I enjoyed the latter part of my evening's entertainment, which was given in a language so universally intelligible as music, much more than I had done the former, yet I shall not attempt further to describe that enjoyment; for of all the fine arts, music is the one of whose beauties it is most impossible to convey any adequate idea by criticism or description.

We were very much delighted with our harper, who was certainly an accomplished artist, yet Ireland contains many of still greater ability and celebrity. The most celebrated of all, however, is a man named Byrne, blind also, if I do not mistake. When, therefore, Moore mournfully sings,

"The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls,
As if that soul were fled,"

⚫ his lamentation must not be literally understood. Many harps still resound in Ireland, and a new harper's society has just been set on foot in Drogheda, of which the priest who gave us this entertainment is the life and soul. His whole room was crowded with harps, old and new. A harper's school is connected with this society, which already numbers sixteen pupils. When I was in Drogheda, a concert was in preparation, to be given next week, at which seven harpers, mostly blind, were to play together. I regretted that it was impossible for me to be present at this meeting. The greatest gatherings of Irish bards used to take place in "Tara's halls," to which Moore's poem alludes. This Tara, so frequently mentioned in the songs, poems, orations, and conversations of patriotic Irishmen, is now a small village a few miles from Drogheda, not far from New Grange. It was once the capital of Ireland, and a hall or palace stood there, in which the heathen kings and chieftains of Ireland assembled, probably at very different times and for very different pur

poses, but at least once every taree years, to debate on matters of general concern. Ollam Fodhla is said to have instituted these assemblies about 200 years before Christ. The bards followed their chieftains to these meetings, in order to sing their deeds and glories at the banquets and on all festal occasions. Not only the laws agreed upon by the chieftains at these meetings, but also the principal national events of the intervening years, were recorded in a sort of national register kept at Tara, the contents of which were set to music and sung by the bards. The last of these great national assemblies at Tara, took place in the year 554 after the birth of Christ, during the reign of King Diarmid. This was at the time when Christianity and the Christian priesthood had already become powerful in Ireland. When the old heathen institutions and castes were gradually swept away, that of the bards, who had formed a powerful and privileged caste, like the ulemas of Turkey and the Druids of their own country, was likewise thrust aside. Once it happened that a criminal who had taken refuge in a monastry, was torn from his sanctuary and executed at Tara. The monks loudly expressed their horror of this sacrilege, and proceeding in solemn procession to the palace of Tara, they pronounced a curse upon its walls. Since that day neither bards nor chieftains have met within the halls of Tara; and the convent that dared to pronounce a curse upon the ancient and venerable council-hall of the Irish kings, has been known since by the name of the Convent of the Curse.

My Irish friends assured me that it is a peculiarity of the Irish language, that it has no vulgar dialect. The most ignorant Irish speak it with as much purity and grammatical correctness as the most learned. This could not be the case with the English language, because this half Norman, half Saxon tongue has been forced upon conquered races, and each race, in learning English, has mixed up with it something of its own ancient idiom. Thus there is a Scotch, a Welsh, an Irish, and a Cornwall dialect. The English dialects are very different from those of Germany; being mere illegitimate corruptions and perversions of the pure English, while our German dialects are different branches of the same language, each possessing its own peculiar beauties and partisans, its own organic life, its own literature and poetry.

One of the gentlemen present at the musical soirée assured me that he possessed a great number of beautiful old poems in manuscript, which had long been hereditary in his family, and of which not one had ever been printed. He, like many of his countrymen, was of opinion that the fragments of Ossianic poetry which Macpherson had given to the world, were perverted and very imperfect specimens, and that his poems could convey no real idea of the beauty and variety of the national Irish poetry from which they were taken. This statement seems to me very probable, and the question naturally presents itself, why no genuine Irish Macpherson, zealous both for truth and his country's fame, comes forward to collect the precious relics of ancient Irish poetry, and by translating them into some modern language, to save what can be saved of the poetical treas

carefully and reverentially preserved as they are, in the families to which they belong, are yet becoming daily less and less numerous The memory of the people, however correct and faithful it may be, cannot but gradually falsify and lose some of the beauties of the originals. The number also of those who can enjoy these poems in the ancient tongue is daily diminishing, for the English language is continually making more and more progress in Ireland, and uprooting the dominion of the ancient Irish.

The Irish continually assure the stranger, that their poems are quite untranslatable, and would be as totally spoiled by transplanting into another language, as a beautiful flower by being covered with a coating of paint. No doubt, it is difficult to transfer from one language to another all the delicate aroma of poetry; but Macpherson has shown that a mere imitation, though assuredly an imperfect one, is sufficient to delight all Europe. At all events, they ought to be collected and printed in Irish.

Social entertainments, such as that I was present at in Drogheda, are among the most delightful a traveller can enjoy; but they are relics of a by-gone age, and are becoming more and more oldfashioned. Many amusements also of far newer inventions are dying away in this part of the world, to the delight as often as to the regret of the friends of refinement and social culture. Thus public balls are becoming very uncommon, race balls being the only kind still fashionable in England. Cardplaying is also falling more and more into disuse. Ten or twelve years ago a few friends seldom met together without the attraction of the card-table. At present cardplaying is almost entirely confined to professional gamblers, and to the lower classes. Conversation is more and more taking the place of that pastime so destructive to all true social enjoyment, the never too much to be condemned cardplaying.

FROM DROGHEDA TO BELFAST.

The next day I again took my usual seat on the stage-coach for Belfast-namely, an outside place beside the coachman. This seat, on the coachman's box, is the most sought after of all outside places in an English stage-coach. It is much the most comfortable, because, of course, more pains are taken to provide for the accommodation of so important a personage as the coachman than for that of his inferiors, the passengers. The box is covered with a soft cushion, while the other outside seats are bare wooden benches. The coachman has a leather covering to protect his legs from rain and cold, of which, if he is good-natured, he will generally spare a corner for the traveller next him; while the other outside passengers may put their legs in their pockets if they like, but can expect no further accommodation for them. Then there are the four fine-spirited English horses right before one, which alone furnish inexhaustible sources of interest during the journey; and, lastly, there is the great potentate himself, the coachman, beside one, who knows all about the places one passes, and has plenty of anecdotes and jokes about every mansion, park, or village on the way. If he should happen, by chance,

tle inclined to answer the questions and satisfy the curiosity of the inquisitive traveller, the latter may derive a great deal of entertainment and information from watching the ways and movements of the "driver" himself.

See how majestic and pompous looks the broad and comfortable stage-coachman, upon his broad and comfortable box, and what a dignified and commanding air of superiority he assumes towards his passengers! How respectfully and humbly the whole public behaves towards the great man who rules, with such calm and undisputed sway, four fiery and spirited horses!

The art of driving four-in-hand is so favourite a pursuit with the English, that the place of stage-coachman is mostly filled by a respectable man, one somewhat of a superior class. He is well paid, and can often, from the liberal perquisites received from the passengers, lay by small sums. He is therefore, generally, tolerably well dressed, wearing an ample waterproof greatcoat, of a light colour, buttoned up from top to bottom, and is invariably furnished with white leather gloves. He seats himself on the box, and the ostler stands ready to hand up the reins, the insignia of his office; and at the end of the journey he levies, in lordly style, his sixpenny tribute from the passengers. He always understands every part of his business to perfection, and all their proceedings are carried on with an astonishing regularity, unequalled in other countries. The four horses are of so fine a quality, the harness so admirably simple and complete, and kept in such perfect order, and the whole equipage is guided and directed with such nicety and rapidity by the slightest motions of the coachman's fingers, that the outside passenger on an English stage-coach will find inexhaustible sources of entertainment in watching and inspecting all this, and will, perhaps, feel much inclined to join in the lamentations often made by the coachmen and their partisans, over the present declining state of stage-coach travelling.

and is

For "tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true," that the "noble pursuit" of stage-coach driving, as I once heard it called in England, is fast losing its character of importance, an falling into the hands of a different set of people. The railroad and the steamboat are continually advancing upon the territory of the stage-coachman, and depriving him of his ancient consequence in public estimation. The standard of talents and qualifications necessary for his station is lowering every day, and peers of the realım no longer dispute the palm of glory with the stage-coachman, and encourage him to a noble emulation in feats of skill and danger.

On one account, however, all friends of humanity cannot but rejoice at these innovations; for the furious driving of the old stage-coachmen was a system of most destructive cruelty to their splendid horses. The heartless principles which regulated their behaviour to the poor animals, led them to regard these as mere machines, to be used up in whatever way was most profitable to their masters. It is a regular maxim of some, that no horse was fit for use after four years' stage-coach driving, for that four years of that tremendous labour ren-