it not for his imperfect and unpleasing utterance, would be listened to with much satisfaction, as a man delivering no mean sentiments with freedom, dignity, and fire. The subject of tnese slight sketches are all extremely clever men: yet (how rare is genius!) even in the Irish Catholic Association there has not appeared a second Sheil. S. " On the TO THE MEN OF MILAN. By the Author of The Plagues of Ireland.' the emperor and empress arrived at Milan, and were received with acclamations in the evening their majesties honoured the Opera by their presence; after which a grand ball,' &c. &c.-Times, July 25, 1825. LEAVE to frail Fashion's tribe their toys, Their opera and their ball; Oh! leave them to their boasted joys, Aside let thoughts of mirth be flung, And prompt the old, and teach the young, Some seeds may find a barren soil, Haunt not the tyrant's showy court, To some, perchance, that scene seems gay: Who think there yet may come a day To end their country's woes : Smooth seems he in this easy hour; No lingering cloud is seen to lour Gay glances greet the crowds around, Smooth words to all are given, And every joyless sight and sound Far, far away is driven. Oh! go and breathe the dungeon's air, And mark what sights and sounds are there! There Liberty's crushed votaries sigh, There droop the suffering brave; Chained in their cheerless cells they lie, And shall they ne'er again be free To tread their own loved soil? Is glorious beauteous Italy Marked as a tyrant's spoil? Ye millions whom the clime can boast, K. BETTHEEN-A-VRYNE. THE old man had but a small train attending his obsequies. He died at a distance from the home of his fathers, and the person who had been sent to warn his kinsmen and descendants of his death came late with the tidings. They were not aware that he was coming to reside with them for ever; and but few were gathered to wait on him to his last abode. and the big tear that hung upon the cheek of her child, who knelt beside her, and uttered words of soothing in the pauses of her prayer. At length they quitted the churchyard, and their talk was of him whom they had left behind. I lingered after the rest-his blood was in my veins; I wished to give a tear to his memory, but I would not have it marked whilst I shed it. "Tis 'Twas a lovely evening, in the lat- an unamiable disposition, yet I cannot ter end of February, when we arrived conquer it, although I acknowledge at the churchyard. The obsequies Tears have a quality of manhood in them, were concluded whilst yet the last When shed for those we love. beam of the setting sun was quivering I loitered amongst the monuments on the stream beside us, and gilding of the lords of the manor to conceal the leafless trees that crowned the myself from the others whilst they heights above. There was no wail- were departing. I had just light ing; the remembrance of his age- enough to spell out the rhymes which the conviction which had long before told the virtues of generations of the dwelt upon our minds that he must D--s: I contrasted their last abodes soon depart-had robbed grief of with that which we had just closed, more than half its anguish ; and the ex- and thought Thou too, old man, pression upon every countenance was shalt have thine epitaph, less pompous sorrow, chastened by resignation. perhaps, but not less sincere.He had You would have thought, whilst they I scrawled the following with my hung in silent prayer over the green turf, that they were but performing some religious rite, on which no shadow of earthly affection obtruded but for the stifled sobs that broke from a woman who had thrown herself across the grave-his daughter; honest man:J. R. AGED 90. pencil, and fastened it with a twig to the sod. The next shower,' thought I, will wash it away :-no matter; a few years will do the same by the marble.' I shall make no apology for inserting it; 'tis the epitaph of an DIED FEB. 17TH, 1825. Though here no lofty mausoleum swells, And weeping thousands at thy funeral mourn. With deep and saddening thought of thee was riven ; And here, in this thy humble last abode, Farewell! though long on earth thou didst sojourn, And prompts the wish that thou hadst still remained. "Twas late when we arrived at the mountain hamlet which was to be our home during our stay in the country: that stay was not long protracted by those with whom I came from the city; but the novelty of rural manners, and the desire of observing the character of my countrymen in their less sophisticated state, tempted me to remain for a period longer. To relate some of these observations, as far as they regard the superstitions which exist in that part of the country, was the purpose for which I took up my pen-the occasion of my journey obtruded itself on me, and, rather than contend with it, I gave it a place. A few evenings after the funeral, whilst I was reading by a comfortable turf fire, around which the family sat conversing in Irish, a neighbour came in with a story. I did not attend at first; I did not understand the language, and so continued reading until the earnestness, almost approaching to awe, of the relater, and the subdued tones of the commentators around, attracted my attention. I laid down my book, and looked. I knew by the first glance that it was a ghost story, for the women drew their sushtheens closer to each other, the children squeezed themselves into the innermost corner of the chimney nook, and the men looked at each other and at the speaker with a mixture of wonder, curiosity, and—I can't say fear, for few are less fearful than the Irish peasantry, though scarcely any are more credulous; but it seemed that sort of sensation with which we hang over a dreadful precipice, whence we could depart, but would not, because of the pleasure which accompanies the dread that is excited. I could perceive a dash of scepticism in the countenances of some; in the others it was unmixed credulity. On asking the subject of their conversation, they informed me that the person who had taken the towns people home in a cart had seen something on the common at his return, and had gone to bed sick. I questioned them as to what this something might be, but they seemed desirous of declining any definition: at length, with some hesitation, they told me 'twas a spirit; but whether it were male or female, or whether a human figure at all, they seemed unwilling or unable to inform me: all I could learn was, that, as Lheam came over the common, the horse* (for it seems horses are better ghost-seers than men) stopped suddenly, and neither whipping nor wheedling could get him forward. Lheam began to grow terrified; his hair stood on end, his limbs trembled, and, looking fearfully round, he saw something at the other side of the horse. At length, by almost dragging him along, Lheam got the animal as far as the next cabin, from which having procured a spark of fire (i. e. a sod of turf), he travelled on, without any inconvenience from his ghostly visitor, till the mountain wind wasted the spark, on which it returned again. He was now near the glen; forced the horse and cart down a pass nearly precipitous; crossed the stream; and left his unwelcome acquaintance (who it seems could not pass running water) at the other side. Here he tried to check his horse, but in vain; the animal seemed to fly up the hill where before he used to toil, and Lheam, finding all opposition vain, flung himself into the cart, and left it to its own discretion. When they arrived at the yard of the house, the noise of the cart, and the rapidity with which it entered, drew the family out in alarm, and they found the horse panting at the door, his nostrils dilated, his eyes staring, his mane erect, every sinew strained, every vein swelled almost to bursting, and his body covered with foam and sweat; whilst Lheam was taken from the cart, as they said, * A Hint to Phrenologists.-An acquaintance, a gentleman of high literary and scientific reputation, who has observed with attention the superstitions of his countrymen, has given me the gradations of the ghost-seeing power in animals. It appears that a dog is the most highly gifted in this particular; a mare the next. Here I must observe that I should suppose (to use an Hibernicism) Lheam's horse was a mare, though my ignorance of what I have since learned prevented my making the inquiry. A woman is the next, and a man the least gifted. Quere-Have phrenologists observed in which of these animals the organ of imaginativeness is most largely developed? more dead than alive. He kept his bed the next day, but, I am happy to say, was quite recovered from his fright before I left the country. I laughed at the story, and tried to convince them that those who have 'shuffled off this mortal coil' are likely to have more serious occupation than running about the common frightening poor people who were employed on their business. That, if spirits did return to earth, which I neither undertook to affirm or deny, it must be for some special purpose of Providence, and to accomplish some end which could not be effected in the ordinary course of events. That, viewing it in this light, we must disbelieve the so frequent appearance of spiritual beings, since it is impossible to conceive that God made Nature so imperfect as to be unable to perform her own operations without such frequent assistance from extraordinary agents. I perceived that, though I made some impression on those who were before inclined to be incredulous, I was only wasting my time with the believers, who clung more firmly to their opinions in resisting my efforts to drag them from them. I asked whether they related these stories to their clergymen, and what they said on the subject? They answered that he made some such observations as I did, desiring them to return home sober, and they would fall in with no more spirits. This story led to another, and another; and a variety of instances, which could be attested by persons then living, were adduced; and a variety of arguments, by no means deficient of ingenuity, were urged to shake my scepticism. Amongst others was the story of Bettheen-a-Vryne, who still visited the glen beneath us; and some hinted that if I took a inidnight walk upon the bridge the lady might be kind enough to dissipate my doubts by a visit. The wild singularity of the tale attracted my attention; and, if it be not spoiled in my narration, may afford some gratification to your readers. BETTHEEN-A-VRYNE. Upwards of a hundred years since, the country around Araglen was kept in a state of constant alarm by the depredations of two brothers, named O'Bryne, or Byrne, who, together with a family of the Keeffes, surnamed Nhealeg, (the wicked,) laid every small gentleman and comfortable farmer in the neighbourhood under contribution; and not unfrequently added ill treatment, and sometimes even murder, to the catalogue of their crimes. Nay, so bold were they in their villainies, that having at one time attacked the house of a gentleman, named Bible, on the banks of the Blackwater, and missing the booty upon which they calculated, after stripping the place of what was most portable in plate, furniture, and provisions, they departed, tying up their plunder in the ticken of a bed, which they emptied for the purpose, and leaving word with Bible's wife (for he himself was fortunately absent) to be prepared with five hundred pounds against their return on that day week; which appointment they actually kept, though Bible thought it wise to decamp in the interim to a newlytaken residence at Youghal. They sometimes transacted business in a more covert manner, and others paid the penalty of their misdeeds. In one of these secret attacks on the house of a Mr. Watkins, of Waterpark, whom they robbed and murdered, one of the O'Brynes received a wound on the shin by stumbling over an iron pot as he was ransacking through the kitchen. When the alarm was raised, two persons, named Ryland and Keating, people of some respectability in the county of Tipperary, were taken up on suspicion: they had been playing at goal on that day, or some short time prior; and one of them having received a cut on the shin from a hurly,* the servants * Like M'Rory, in O'Donnell, who thought every body knew the master, I imagined that every body knew what a hurly was, till the same ingenious friend who corrected me on ghost-seeing informed me that the English are about as well acquainted with it as they are with potheen: that is, that some men of taste for inquiries into national amusements, like some men of better taste in inquiries after national potations, Peter the Great's Irish. wine, &c. might have learned something of it in the course of their studies. I must, therefore, Mr. Editor, inform you, who I hope are a person of better of Watkins, who had observed the accident which occurred to Byrne, took this as a corroboration of whatever other testimony appeared against these unfortunate men, and they were hanged at Cork, on circumstantial evidence, in the year 1722. Their innocence of the crime was afterwards made manifest by the confession of a person named William Lyne, who, being about to be executed in some time afterwards, declared upon the scaffold that James Byrne, Michael Byrne, another, and himself, were the only persons concerned in the murder and robbery for which Keating and Ryland so innocently suffered. The circumstance is related in the 'Cork Remembrancer,' and should be an everlasting warning to judges, jurors, and witnesses, of the dangers, the doubts, and difficulties, attending circumstantial evidence. Great as was the terror excited by the name of these robbers, it was exceeded by that of their sister Bettheen-a Vryne, who surpassed them in bodily strength and savage daring, as much as she exceeded them in mental depravity. To the force of a giantess she added the malignity of a end; And, where her glance of hatred darkly fell, 'Farewell.' pensity to cruelty as is attributed to Bettheen could exist in any bosom, much less in that of a woman; but the tradition of the whole country is strong against her. Nay, when some faint gleams of humanity (and the occurrence was very unfrequent) would break on the rugged hearts of her brothers, this fiend in human form cursed them for chicken-hearted rascals, and punished them on the spot for what she termed their cowardice. Yet she could sometimes be obliging; and an instance of her kindness has been mentioned, which, as it also serves to illustrate her bodily strength, I will relate here: One day, as Bettheen was about to cross the Blackwater, (it being a good deal swoln at the time,) with a bag of corn on her back, which she meant to dispose of at a neighbouring town, she perceived three men preparing to cross, yet at the same time displaying some terror at the swell which was in the river. Seeing them neighbours of her own, and being in one of her holiday humours, she desired them not to be at the trouble of stripping, as she would take them across on her back. I must here inform you (lest the good people from whom I had the story, and who seemed to lay particular stress on this part of the narration, should, if ever they meet with my version, deem it spoiled in the telling) that these sojourners by Blackwater's stream were a shoemaker, a tailor, and a weaver. Bettheen desired the shoemaker to mount first upon the sack; then the weaver; and, having ascertained that they were up, desired the tailor, the lightest portion of her load, being I forget how many parts of a man, to settle It is related of her, that, when engaged in their predatory proceedings, whilst the brothers were ransacking for plunder, she indulged her hellish disposition in inflicting the most refined tortures on such of the wretched inmates as were unhappy enough to fall into her power. It is almost impossible to think that such a protaste, that a hurly is a piece of timber, about three and a half feet long, and shaped thus: with which a large-sized ball is tossed from one end of a field to another. The game is called goaling, the favourite, and indeed the principal, amusement of the Irish peasantry, and in which villages, parishes, baronies, and frequently counties and provinces, contend for the honour of victory. It is played in the following manner :-The ball is placed in the middle of a field or common, which an equal number of persons elected out of the opposing parties, (whose election, by-theby, involving the reputation of large portions of the community, are made with a greater regard to the end in view than some with which I am acquainted,) strike at with the aforementioned hurly, each striving to opposite ends of the field, the conquest remaining with the party which succeeded in the attempt. Tis a very healthful sport, affording a great display of strength and agility; and, but that the angry passions, which are always excited in trials of strength, and which in this instance are heightened by the presence of the disputant's sweethearts, sometimes make it terminate dangerously, it would be a noble exercise. |