such a brave ventursome fellow, I'll be after making you up if you walk down stairs with me, out of the could;' and sure enough it was snowing like murdher. 6 Oh! may I never see Athy if I do,' returned Paddy; for you only want to be after loading me with ould bones, or, perhaps, breaking my own, which would be just as bad.' 'Pon, honor,' said the hound, 'I am your friend; and so don't stand in your own light. Come with me, and your fortune is made. Remain where you are, and you'll die a beggarman.' So, begad, with one palaver and another, Paddy consented; and, in the middle of the Rath, opened up a beautiful staircase, down which they walked; and, after winding and turning, and winding and turning, they came to a house much finer than the Duke of Leinster's, in which all the tables and chairs were solid gold. Paddy was quite delighted; and, after sitting down, a fine lady handed him a glass of something to drink; but he had hardly swallowed a spoonful when all around set up a horrid yell; and those, who before appeared beautiful, now looked like what they were --enraged good people.' Before Paddy could bless himself, they seized him, legs and arms, carried him out to a great high hill, that stood like a wall over a river, and flung him down. Murdher!' cried Paddy; but it was no use; he fell upon a rock, and lay there as dead until next morning, where some people found him in the trench that surrounds the mote of Coulhull, the good people having carried him there: and from that hour till the day of his death he was the greatest object in the world. He walked two double, and had his mouth (God bless us!) where his ear should be. I saw him often and often when I was a girl.' Towards the conclusion of Rose's narrative the company had collected themselves into a very narrow circle around her, and had not recovered from the wonder her story had excited, when the door flew open, and Luke Driscol fell prostrate on the floor. I have won my bet!' exclaimed the smith. Take care of my pipe!' cried out the old woman; while others, having less cause for selfishness, rais ed the ploughman from the ground. His face had all the paleness of death; and several minutes elapsed before he recovered, so as to speak to those about him. Luke, honey, where's my pipe?' again asked the old woman, and was answered only by an unmeaning stare. 'Oh! ay,' said she, 'I expected as much: it is gone, and may I never take another shough if I'd wish it for all the pipes in Leinster, and—' 'Whist, woman, whist!' interrupted Luke, for I have seen-' Seen what?' inquired the smith. The witch of Tracy's Town, and the fairies in christendom.' Peg Martin?' said Jem where was she?' all 'Sitting in the middle of the Rath,' replied Luke; and ten thousand of the neatest and purtiest men and women ever you seen dancing around her. Some of them weren't much bigger than my thumb; yet they were so nimble and so soople, that it would do your heart good to look at them, only for the fear.' Then you saw the good people ?' Och, aye, by the powers, kilt me quite! One o' them, who was neither like a goat nor a calf, but the exact image of both, came behind me, and, without saying as much as "by your leave, Luke, "hit's me a polthough between my shoulders; and, though I run for the bare life, he kept thumping me until I reached the door; and then, with a terrible big thump, he drove me clean into the kitchen, here. Och! I'm sure there's not a whole bone in my skin!' Oh! it was only the Phooka,' said the smith; you'll not make game of him any more, and so now pay what you lost.' With this demand Luke complied; and, as the whole company were now pretty well terrified, they soon after left the shibbeen, and returned to their respective homes, thoroughly convinced of the existence of good people.' Next day Luke was sent to work in the very field where the Rath was situated, and, to his amazement, was strictly enjoined to plough through the prohibited ground-ground held so long sacred, and undisturbed by the lower regions had yawned forth their inmates, for the destruction of Mr. Power's property, as the cattle had broke loose from their stalls, and commenced destroying each other. No one would dare venture out; and at day-break, when the unearthly storm had subsided, the out-offices were a complete wreck, several cows and pigs killed, and the once com spade or coulter, that the reason why it is so is utterly unknown.* At first Luke gently remonstrated; for sure such a thing as ploughing a Rath was never heard of before; and the master could not be in earnest to bring the good people on his back.' This argument proving unavaling, Luke related his adventure of the preceding night, at which Mr. Power only laughed. Luke, having no fur-fortable bawn presented only a scene ther excuse, at length positively refused, on which the farmer seized the plough-desired the boy to drive on-but had not gone more than a yard or two into the Rath, when crash went the beam. Another plough being procured, it was quickly served in the same manner; and what Luke regarded as the work of the fairies his master attributed to the quantity of roots which had grown in the ground. Abandoned, however, the work was on this day; and that night the farmer suffered for his temerity. About twelve o'clock his house was assailed by a tremendous gale of wind that threatened to carry away the roof, while sounds and screams of the most terrific kind filled the bawn or farm-yard. It seemed as if TO-DAY IN THE demand,' the political economists say, 'produces the supply;' and we must refer to this axiom for an explanation of the sudden irruption, as it were, of Irish publications, or, more correctly speaking, publications relative to Ireland, in the literary market. Politics has its tens of thousands' of pamphlets, which, like certain insects, have the term of their existence limited to a day, while the labours of the polemic are quite as brief and transitory. To cause a resuscitation of these, by critical notice, of desolation. Next night the visitation was repeated with more than its former horror; and the day following Luke called upon Peg Martin, the Witch of Tracy's Town, for advice and assistance. The hag was at first inexorable; but the artful ploughman contrived to soften her into compliance by the present of a guinea, and the promise of sundry things, which he never intended to give. In the evening he returned home, took the paddle, and turned back the sod into the furrow; after which he poured on the Rath a libation of cows' beestheens, which seemed to have had the effect of averting further calamity from his master, as he slept the next and each succeeding night in undisturbed tranquillity. IRELAND.† would be only to imitate the dubious kindness of the gaol surgeon, who restores his patient to health that he may endure a more painful death. We have, therefore, from motives of humanity, consigned these ephemeral abortions to the tomb of all the Capulets,' and restricted ourselves to works of better promise-publications of a more literary and permanent cast-in which instruction is sometimes blended with amusement. The mutation of taste is proverbial: Scotch novels have had their day; and The * Rath, according to Spenser, signifies a hill, but I never knew one of them to be particularly elevated. In general they are separated from the adjoining field by a kind of ditch, though sometimes undistinguished except by the brushwood, which, in the total absence of cultivation, is allowed to grow on them. Some are very large, not unfrequently occupying an acre of ground, though others do not exceed a few perches square. peasantry regard them as the peculiar habitations of the good people; and, as antiquarians are unable to explain their original purpose, may not I as well elucidate the mystery, by assuring them that Raths were the burial-places of the people, previous to the introduction of Christianity. One of them is to be found in every townland; and I have myself found one of them filled with human bones-a fact which accounts for the veneration in which they are held. To-day in Ireland, 3 vols. 8vo. Charles Knight. London. Voi. L-No. 4. the Great Unknown, or, rather, the well known, seems to be aware of this; for, if report speaks true, Sir Walter has gone to Wales and Syria for the materials of his longpromised, well-puffed, Crusaders.' Once we heard that it was his intention to make Ireland the scene of a 'Waverley' exhibition; but this idea, we believe, he has now abandoned; and, considering the imperfect knowledge he must necessarily have of that country and people, we think it as well that he has done so; for it was impossible that he could depict Irish life with the same felicity with which he has drawn his Highland neighbours. With the one he was familiar from childhood, with the other he is totally unacquainted. An erroneous description of foreign scenery and manners could not be easily detected; but the novelist who should mistake either one or the other in Ireland would encounter the ridicule of a thousand readers. Considering how fertile the history of Ireland is in novel and romantic incidents, it is somewhat strange that a field so prolific has been so totally neglected; for we have no work illustrative of the past state of that kingdom, unless those which issue from Mr. Newman's shop, in Leadenhall Street, and these we could never muster courage to read. An attempt of this kind, if made by a man of talent, well acquainted with Ireland, would be likely to succeed. The English people know nothing of Irish history; and, as the affairs of that country now preponderate both in the political and fashionable world, any work that tends to throw light on the subject is sure of attention; and one of the description we mention could not but prove efficacious, in as much as it would cheat the public into useful information-a knowledge of the sufferings of Ireland. In saying this we do not mean to depreciate the labour of those whose works are calculated to make England acquainted with the present condition of the Irish people. On the contrary, we consider them of a higher order, believing that it is much less difficult to give a pleasing description of times and customs long past than to draw a faithful picture of existing manners-to show us ourselves in the magic mirror of genius, and bring before us scenes and persons with whom we have been familiar. This is a task to which few are equal; and, knowing the talents that an undertaking of the sort requires, it is with considerable apprehension that we read every new announcement of works on Ireland, lest, in the infancy of inquiry, wrong notions should be imbibed by the public from writers biassed by party or mistaken from ignorance. It was not without feelings of this kind that we took up the work before us, and had not read far when convinced that our fears were not groundless. The author is undoubtedly one from whom better things may be expected, and has shown, in the present instance, talents of no mean order, though evidently not under the control of judgment or experience. Were we to draw an inference from his work, we should conclude he is a young man just let loose from school;' for his ideas are only half-formed, many of his opinions are rash, and a great portion of his wit abortive. Still he is not without redeeming qualities: he abounds with that indicative of genius-confidence; and, though this occasionally looks like impudence, we are inclined to think it springs from a less censurable source. Many of his sketches are just and eloquent, and many of his opinions are intitled to examination; but, taken as a whole, the work is undeserving of praise, and seems to have been written with little care and great haste. It consists of four tales. first, entitled The Carders,' evinces such a contempt of probability, that we shall take no further notice of it than merely to point out the author's absurd conclusion-namely, that the Jesuits are the secret agents of Whiteboyism! Indeed, throughout the three volumes his hostility to the Catholic clergy is very remarkable; and, from the drafts he has given us of some of them, we are persuaded he knows nothing of that meritorious class of men. We are sorry for this, because we believe he is not devoid of candour, as in other respects he has shown a laudable feeling towards the Catholics of Ireland. We would, therefore, recommend him to pay a The visit to the priest of the parish, drink a tumbler of good whisky punch with him, and we are convinced he will repent of having endeavoured to bring the Catholic clergy, ay, or the Jesuits either, into contempt. The second tale, Connemara,' is a preposterous attempt at ridiculing a man already sufficiently ridiculous.— The caricature cannot be mistaken, and every reader will immediately recognise a well-known legislator in the absurd Dick M'Loughlin. In this, as in the former tale, all probability is outraged, and the reader turns away in disgust from the vapid non sense. In the third tale, Old and New Lights,' the author is more at home. His high-church principles sharpen his wit; and, as we dislike all new lights except gas, we shall make a few extracts from this tale. Charles St. George, a young man of talents, and great inexperience, having graduated in Trinity College, decided on entering the Church, and, soon after being ordained, was sent down to a curacy at Ardenmore, in the county of Louth. Believing that he should have but two enemiesCatholicism and infidelity-to contend with, he armed himself on all points against popery and deism; but, contrary to his expectation, the first person that welcomed him on his arrival was Father M'Dowd;-a fancy sketch, for the original, we are sure, is not to be found in Ireland. Enemies, however, he was destined to encounter, and, what was still more strange, they lurked among his own flock, deposited there by the Rev. Mr. O'Sing, his predecessor, who was removed more to the south, in consequence of his evangelical tenets. He was a young man of weak intellects, and warm imagination, who prayed in society and conversed from the reading-desk- in the drawingroom he preached and in the pulpit he wept;' so that the sanctified curate might have been described as when nearest the church to have been farthest from God. He had, however, his disciples; but, as the old lights dreaded 'puritanical innovations, they succeeded in having him removed, in consequence of which his followers regarded him as a martyr. Amongst O'Sing's disciples the lower order, whose feelings in loyalty, its contrary, in religion, or in any party-following, are always personal if possible, looked upon the new curate with alienation and resentment. The higher proselytes, whose attachment was to the sectarian spirit, not to its preacher, approached St. George, on tenances of favour and patronage. the contrary, with the blandest counOf this number, Gervas Lowrie, Esquire, of Laylands, took an early opportunity of visiting St. George, and begged his company to dinner on the following Saturday. This invitation had scarcely been accepted by St. George, and its severe and solemn bearer turned his horse from the door, when a gentleman of the opposite party came to pay his respects to the Mr. Lowrie departing, a smile accompacurate. As Mr. Pennington coming, met nied the salute of the former, which might have been interpreted, "We are both early in the field, and on the same errand;' but Lowrie, though he returned the amicable salute, disdained a smile on any such trivial occasion. They were both gentlemen of the first rank and property in the country: Mr. Lowrie, perhaps, the wealthier of the two, although Mr. Pennington, from his affability and style of living, was more popular, He came to pay the same compliment, and and more respected amongst all ranks. make the same request with St. George's last visitor-of his company to dinner on the following Sunday. "But," continued that gentleman, "as we are all at Ardenmore House anxious of your acquaintance, and as you must be lonely these first days of your sojourn, you will favour us by waving ceremony, and partaking of our family repast to-day.' St. George consented, and for the first time learned the schism that distracted the people of Ardenmore. dinner conversation, St. George did not During the whole course of afterrecover his astonishment at finding himself thrown upon a land of controversyGulliver was not more annoyed when he stumbled on Laputa-a controversy, too, in which he was totally uninstructed and unprepared. Against Deist or Catholic opponents he had armed himself with the breast-plate and back-plate of orthodoxy; but the side-armour to defend him against those faithless allies, that attacked him insidiously in flank, he was totally without. "Heavens!" mentally ejaculated he, "what a land!-discord and dissension are its very elements! Here, in this county, equally removed from Catholicism and Presbyterianism, where the established religion prevails more triumphantly than in any part of Ireland, the very Protestants split instantly into parties, and, forgetful of the common enemy that rages around them, they combat, and argue, and hate, for some minor points of difference, habits of life, and such like, with more virulence and animosity than what in other countries separates Turk and Christian. It was to escape this wordy warfare, this turmoil, this ambition, that I shunned the bar, and sought the retirement of the church; and yet this very harbour, whither I have fled, I find tossed and agitated by fiercer waves than even the wide ocean of life." He was not interrupted in these meditations by Mr. Pennington, or his guest, young Harry Lowrie, who had refused to embrace the new light adopted by his family. After some time, however, he recovered from his reverie, and found himself agreeably entertained by Miss Mary Pennington, a young artless girl, and her cousin, Louisa Pennington, a coquette of thirty. With the latter St. George falls in love. On Saturday he visited the Lowries at Laylands, where every thing was arranged after the evange lical fashion-formal, cold, and hypocritical. Even the looks of the young ladies had a puritanical cast. The present may be the best opportunity of mentioning that the introduction of New Light into Laylands had been owing to these young ladies. They were young, but not very young; say four, five, and six-and-twenty were their respective ages; and, consequently, there had passed over their heads some six or eight years of their most attractive period of bloom and beauty, without bringing to their sides one declared lover, or probable husband. That they ever sought or desired to see such a being, I would not affirm-young ladies never can be suspected of such views. But, certainly, for one month in each of these years they had not failed to show themselves in the gay society of Dublin; and at other times the ten or twelve miles distance between Laylands and Drogheda was never an obstacle to their journeying to and from the assemblies of that gay town. In despite of all this, however, whether it proceeded from want of beauty, accomplishment, or good fortune; or whether, as is often the case, adventurous beaus were frightened or puzzled in approaching the sororial trio, so it happened that the thus vacant places at their sides had never been, one of them, satisfactorily filled. Now, as love is the natural occupation of youth, and as the Miss Lowries were far too well behaved to fall in love gratis and of their own accord, they began at length to feel the necessity of supplying its place by some enthusiastic feeling of kindred excitement. And at the hour most apropos, the zealous, eloquent, and sensitive O'Sing made his appearance in the pulpit of Ardenmore church, and instantly decided the direction in which the sprouting sensibilities of the Miss Lowries should shoot. Pity is akin to love, say the poets-so is sanctity, saith observation, much given to the tender passion; and Miss Jemima Lowrie, as she was heroically bidding adieu to all further thoughts of love, that she might devote herself exclusively to "Maiden meditation, fancy free," received a dart in the very hour of flight from the hitherto inattentive little deity, that left her heart in a piteous state of perplexity, sadly taken, not only with the preaching, but the person, of Mr. O'Sing. In return, that weeping ecclesiastic, who, through his tears had always a shrewd eye to his interest, was neither blind nor ungrateful to the preference of Miss Jemima. And the lovers were meditating an holy escapade together, when the primate's dismissal came to mar at once the effects of his eloquence, both sacred and profane. It is astonishing, that in her former graceless state of luke-warm religion, Miss Jemima could never for a moment have dared to entertain the thought of flying from her parents, and uniting herself to a poor upstart, for such was Ō'Sing; but sanctity is a supreme excellence, the consciousness of possessing which counterbalances and excuses in its possessor a world of foible. 'How the young ladies had contrived to win over their parents to this New Light, as it was called, is quite as inexplicable to me; but certain it is, that the old people received from their offspring this fruit that seemed to convey to them now, for the first time in their long lives, a knowledge of good and evil--the evil past, the good to come. Mr. O'Sing was, no doubt, instrumental; but the truth is, that fanaticism, especially in the better or higher ranks of life, always commences its attack wisely upon the weaker sex, and from them is communicated to that weaker portion of and congenial to them to follow the dicthe stronger, who find it at once peaceable tates of their spouses.' The Lowries having in vain endeavoured to win St. George to the New Light, he quits the Laylands without exciting any feeling in his favour, and next day, in his sermon, confirmed the fears of those who suspected that he was not a worthy successor of Mr. O'Sing. The Old Lights, |