lean, and haggard, and emaciated cattle of the middlemen; and these middlemen would decide the election by pounds, shillings, and pence, as they would dispose of their bullocks at Smithfield. 'But it is not universally true that the forty-shilling freeholders are driven like cattle to the hustings. The proof of this is found not only in contested elections, but also in counties where there is no contest, and where no man will offer himself as a candidate, whether it be Cavan or Galway that is to be represented, without avowing his sentiments to be in accordance not only with those of the gentry, but also with those of the forty-shilling voters. They already have power, and it is the very exercise of this power which has contributed to raise an outcry against them. It is a power at present only in its bud; every friend of civil liberty should shield it from the blast which might now destroy it; he should protect it with all his might, as the very palladium of Irish rights; and the Englishman who does not wish to see all hope of improvement in the state of the representation of his own country cut off should rally round the weak and defenceless freeholders of Ireland. If they be sacrificed to the ambition or selfishness of the British aristocracy, or to the vengeance of the Irish Orangemen, the cause of civil liberty throughout the empire will receive the deepest wound which has been inflicted on her for a century-a wound from which perhaps she may not recover, The perjury attributed to this class of persons is, we think, much overrated; for that field and cabin must be worth little if the cottier has not an interest of forty shillings a year in his holding. That he actually has this interest must be evident by comparing the rent he pays with the rent paid by the tenant of the middleman: the one is not charged more than twenty or thirty shillings a year for what his less fortunate neighbour is obliged to give in labour five guineas, and that too for a house less comfortable, and a garden less productive. The poor man in Ireland wants only land to make him independent. Á potatoe-field is necessary to his existence; and, if he is unable to procure it from the lord of the soil, he is obliged to submit to such terms for it as the rapacity of the middleman may prescribe. Any measure, therefore, that would subject the Irish cottier to the dictation of the land-pirate, is deserving of nothing but the utmost reprobation. It goes to increase an existing evil, without being productive of any possible good. It tends to separate still more widely the poor from the aristocracy, and do away with that respect which greatness is obliged to pay to the dignity of independent poverty. The attention which is now shown by landlords to these freeholders would be completely abrogated; while the cabin, in place of being visited and repaired, would be levelled to the ground, to make way, as Dr. Doyle says, for a more improving tenant. If we are told that the present system tends to impair the morals of the peasantry, we answer that their morals are very good, and that their habits only want improving; and we are sure the disfranchising these people could neither better their condition nor make them more virtuous. On the contrary, raise the qualification of a freeholder to five pounds, and you will have the men, who now lings, voting at each successive elecswear only to an interest of forty shiltion without any improvement in their circumstances. But it is said that landlords can still enable them to vote by giving them the fee-simple of a house, or an interest of five or ten pounds in their holding. The latter they are not likely to do: and the former they will not; for then the tenant would be completely independent, as he would have a lease for ever. But is this a sacrifice Ireland ought to make, that her people_should be emancipated? Hear Dr. Doyle's reply: I should rather suffer injustice and wrong than be the dupe of any man; the former might be inflicted on me by force, but to the latter I would myself become a party; and a feeling of wounded pride at being overreached by my adversary would be the most bitter ingredient in the cup of my affliction. No! I would expect that if it were proposed to the Catholics to barter the elective franchise for emancipation, that they would indignantly reject the unworthy compromise. I do hope they are intelligent, and can see that this franchise is the germ of Ireland's greatness; that they are generous, and will not betray the interests of their fellow-subjects with their own; that they are patient, and will labour for the attainment of all their rights; and that they will transmit to their posterity the best blessing bestowed on them by a gracious monarch, and by those great men of their own country, who by their labours, as memorable as their patriotism and talents, raised their helpless brethren from a state of abject servitude to a position from which they can at least descry the temple of the constitution.' Mr. O'Connell, we are sorry to find, has thrown the weight of his opinion into the opposite balance; and far be it from us to attribute unworthy motives to a man who has mainly brought about results that must end in the liberation of his country. To him we concede what we claim for ourselves-the right of private judgment; and, while we feel that truth and reason are on our side, we are confident that he is actuated by the purest love of his country and her people. The two last Letters in the work before us are on a proposed introduction of modified poor-laws into Ireland. On this subject the doctor has not evinced his usual acuteness of reasoning or powers of judgment. He certainly has failed to make out his case; and his analogy between the head of a family and the head of a state is by no means just, for a father is correctly intrusted with a power that never should be conceded to the ruler of a nation. On the doctor's own showing, the poor-laws should not be introduced into Ireland; and we have never been more astonished than at the inferences he draws from the proposed adoption of such a measure. We are quite confident they would be the reverse of his anticipations. His benevolence has blinded him to facts; otherwise he must have known that the adoption of compulsory relief would destroy private charity. The English people are charitable, 'tis true; but then it is on a large scale-individuals they seldom relieve. The doctor admits that collections at places of worship would be adequate to the support of paupers, unless in seasons of unusual distress: but, when he says charitable donations would be stimulated by the fear of being taxed, he states a fact which we are inclined to doubt, nor can we see much merit in the offering that could not be withheld. The doctor approves of the poor laws as they exist in Scotland-that is, no rates are to be enforced until private charity proves insufficient to relieve the necessitous. We can tell the doctor, what probably he does not know, that, comparatively speaking, there are as many beggars in the Land of Cakes as in the Land of Bogs; while she has her full share of unrelieved distress. The condition of the Irish peasant will not be improved by poor-rates or pecuniary grants. Give him justice, and confidence in the laws, and you have given him all you can possibly bestow. The materials of his happiness are within his own reach; and these he will himself procure, unless you distract his attention by promises of assistance that can never be fulfilled. The laws of society cannot be improved by legislative enact ments; and, though certain habits of the peasantry are now injurious and unprofitable, yet let them alone, and they will work their own cure. The subdivisions of farms are rapidly going out of fashion in Ireland; and, even if they were still persisted in, they are not so mischievous as is represented; for we have demonstrated, in our first Number, that large farms must still be in abundance. The Irish peasant should be told that it is in his own power to improve his condition; and, like the petitioner of Jupiter, if denied assistance elsewhere, he will put his own shoulder to the work, and obviate all difficulties. At all events poor-laws are not adapted for the meridian of Ireland. As we intend shortly going more at large into this important subject we shall close the volume here, and regret that our limits will not permit us to give more copious extracts from a work characterized by enlarged views and extensive knowledge;—a work which we earnestly recommend to the English reader who may wish for accurate information on the nature of Catholic principles, Papal power, and Bible Societies, in Ireland. The success of these Letters will, we hope, induce the Catholic clergy to appeal more frequently to the press; substantiate their claim to a proper place in the literary world, to which their virtues and attainments entitle them. and THE HERMIT IN IRELAND.NO. II THE CROW STREET RUINS. Or the Crow Street Playhouse little at the present moment remains but the naked and solitary walls; it is a place in which the work of destruction has gone on with an almost iniraculous rapidity. Seats, scenery, boxes, and benches, have been gradually disappearing; and, while multitudes were interested in the preservation of the place, not an individual stepped forward, not one effort was made, to check the progress of the midnight or even of the mid-day plunderer. According to the old adage, What is every body's business is nobody's business;'-this at least appears to have been the opinion or the feeling of those connected with this ill-fated establishment. They continued to look quietly on-they saw the place gradually going to ruin-and now, and only now, when the work is complete, they begin to see their error, and, like the father of Johnson locking up his plundered warehouse, they are becoming watchful when nothing is left them to take care of. They have just stationed in the place a tribe of preservers: these have now nothing to do but to talk over the changes which time has effected, to gaze at their leisure on the cold and cheerless walls that rise around them, or to listen to the wind as it whistles through the glassless apertures that yield it a free entrance. Those who have suffered by the destruction of the concern (and I believe many have suffered) are loud in their complaints against the unfortunate manager;—indeed I am afraid that it is upon his head that the blame must principally rest. He is now in poverty -it is not fair to speak very harshly of him ; but the effects produced by the culpable stubbornness of the man may be pointed out, if it were only to serve as a sort of warning to others. It appears that Mr. Harris, the new patentee, was naturally anxious to obtain possession of the Crow Street house. He made an offer which the greater number of those who were interested in the affair considered extremely liberal: the former manager, however, insisted on having free admission for all his bond-holders. This could not, with any sort of consistency, be complied with. Some of Mr. Jones's VOL. 1.-No. 2. friends ventured to remonstrate with him:-it was useless; he was accustomed to have his way—he was not to be changed: the negotiation dropped— and the new manager, eager to secure the favour of his Irish friends, opened for their accommodation a temporary theatre at the Rotunda.-Even after this the owners of Crow Street had some hope of retrieving the error committed by their manager; but the purchase of the ground in Hawkins Street, and the commencement of the building there, put an end at once to all their pleasing calculations. we I had been rambling with a literary friend through Dame Street: turned away from the crowd, and, after passing slowly down Fownes's Street, we stood directly beneath the ruin. We entered by what had been once the principal door, and, proceeding through a dark and narrow passage, reached the centre of the place. I looked around me with a sort of melancholy interest; I had been frequently there before. I paused-my friend gazed on me, but uttered not a word. And this,' said I,' was once the theatre! How transient, how frail, how perishable, are the things of earth! This was the spot-the gay, the splendid spot-where talent, and youth and beauty, congregated. Where, within these solitary walls, have they left their impression?-where shall we turn to trace their footsteps?—In yonder space arose the boxes-those boxes that were thrown open to receive the little lordlings of their day—that enclosed the place-conferring peer with his followers and his flatterers, the ancient dowager with the members of her card-party, and the titled beauty with her uninteresting tribe of simpering admirers! Thither strolled the senator to rest him for the time from his labours. Yonder sat the Grattans, and the Currans, and the Floods, smiling upon the assembled crowd that greeted them as they entered; laughing at the wild wit that flashed at intervals from the galleries; or imbibing the lofty sentiments of the tragic bard, as they fell slowly and solemnly from the lips of the actor. In that deepened hollow, far beneath, we can trace the boundaries of the pit: there gathered the wits, the oddities, and the geniuses I of the time; there lingered the Lysaghts, the Mac Nallys, and the Reynolds's, ready to laugh dull Prudence out of countenance, or willing to disconcert the wisdom of the worldly ones by the irresistible magic of a joke! Of all their jibes and their jests, of all their" quips and their cranks," of all the mirth that reigned around them, here there remains not a vestige! Where are the men of sound," who occupied in stateliness the crowded orchestra? Where are the gifted composer and the tasteful performer, who once sat here scattering about them the very soul of harmony?-They have disappeared-crotchets, quavers, sharps, flats, and all! there lingers not behind them even a solitary echo! Where even is that stage upon which the Mossops, and the Barrys, and the Kembles, strutted their little hour in tragic dignity?-Can this broken mound, this raised space upon which we stand, be the scene of their departed achievements? Yonder is the Green Room, where the idlers, and the foplings, and the wouldbe wits of the day, resorted. Its present occupants are of another and an humbler class. Four ill-clad meagrelooking figures, with damp stones for their seats, are chatting carelessly around that small fire which they have just kindled. This indeed is a melancholy alteration! the scene altogether is one calculated to make even a trifler thoughtful. Of all that was once gay and gaudy beneath the extended dome of this lonely edifice there is now hardly a trace remaining-utter desolation reigns within the place!—There is not a door to exclude the vulgar intruder, not a window to keep off the winter breeze, not a bench to receive the solitary visitor-not the fragment of a gallery, not the relic of a box, not a plank to tread upon save that which the ragged inmates of the Green Room have now torn up to feed their miserable fire!-Such is the Crow Street Playhouse. I have entered it when it wore a different aspect !—It is painful to look upon this scene of ruin-it makes one sad to think that the place which might have been preserved as an additional ornament to the splendid metropolis of Ireland is now but a dangerous and disgusting nuisance. My friend and I turned around; we were about to depart, when one of the Green-room gentry advanced to show us the readiest way out. He was clad in seedy black, in the extreme of what is called shabby-genteel. His air was altogether theatrical :-"This way, gentlemen," said he, politely removing his small greasy hat-"this way, if you plaise:" his accent was trebly Corkonian.-"What part do you play here?" said my friend. 66 Troth, sir, I've played many of 'em ; I've been door-keeper, candle-snuffer, and bill-sticker-dropping by degrees, sir; I was always too fond of a drop." "You're manager here now, I suppose?"-"Oh yes, sir," said he, laughing; "and I've got on famously: we've been playing 'All in the Wrong? for a great number of nights; ay, and of days too; but its nearly all overthe place is deserted-even the robbers don't think it worth their while to come now."-We gave the new manager a trifle to drink, and left him to take care of his house of desolation.' SUPERSTITIONS OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY.-NO. II. THE FAIRYMAN OF CROONAAN. IN that part of Leinster, where the counties of Carlow, Kilkenny, and Wexford meet, there is a picturesque and romantic dell, called by the peasantry The Fairy Glen of Croonaan,' in which there is nothing more remarkable than a holy well, a clear stream, the ruins of a poor cottage, and one of those mounds of earth which antiquarians tell us are sepulchral monuments, but which the country people, with equal probability, say are the habitations of the good people. The latter being the popular opinion, these motes are approached with awe, and *In all probability these artificial elevations, so numerous in Ireland, are nothing more than the high places from which the Brehons distributed justice, which they always did in the open air. The name Mote (a court of judicature) seems to confirm this opinion. the most pious or profligate will refrain, while near them, from saying any thing disrespectful to the invisible inhabitants of the place. Every mote has its history of appalling wonders, more or less attested by the people of the neighbourhood; but the one of Croonaan is familiar to all the peasantry of the South; and, as the events on which the story rests happened at no very remote period, they are implicitly believed, and related with all the veneration that is due to the respective actors in this superstitious drama. Somewhat less than a century ago the ruins which are yet visible in the vale of Croonaan were inhabited by an honest and industrious couple, of the name of Roach, who, in the first year of their union, were blessed as they thought with a son, whom they had baptized in honour of Ireland's patron saint, Patrick. The boy, until his second year, constituted the greatest comfort of his doting parents, and might have continued their joy and solace were it not for an envious fairy. One day, while his partial mother was engaged in gathering a brashna for the fire, the chubby little Patrick was amusing himself near the holy well in pulling wild flowers, when his artless gambols attracted the attention of a pious votary, who was apparently performing her devotions at the blessed fountain of Croonaan. Nine times she made the circuit of the spring on her bare knees, which appeared too tender for such an office; and, when the mortification was concluded, she arose, drank three times of the water, and tied a lock of her hair to a branch of the tree that shaded the well; then, with a smile, approached the laughing Patrick, took him up in her arms, and apparently caressed him with the utmost tenderness. Her dress indicated that she belonged to a superior rank in life; and the mother of the boy, like all mothers, was gratified by the attention shown her child by one who seemed her superior. Her vanity thus got the better of what she should have otherwise considered her duty; for, were it an ordinary woman who had so intensely admired the boy, she would undoubtedly have discarded ceremony, and spat in his face to prevent the effects of being overlooked,' saying, at the same time, All your thrift your own;' that being considered necessary whether the object looked upon be either man or beast. The stranger seemed so much taken with the child, that she accompanied it and its mother to the cottage, and gave them both some trifling presents before she took her departure. On the next day she again made her appearance, wearing a large cloak, but had not been long in the house when she fell down in a swoon. Mrs. Roach, alarmed for the safety of her guest, ran to the well for some fresh water; but, to her surprise, on her return no stranger was to be found. She flew to the door, and cast her eye to every place where there was any egress from the valley, but no woman could be seen. She then hurried in, examined the cradle, saw a child-screamed and fell down-arose, blessed herself, cautiously removed the clothes once more from the boy's face, and again fell down in hysterics, from which she was only aroused by the voice of her dear little Patrick' calling out 'Mammy!' Thank Heaven!' exclaimed the poor distracted creature, 'tis he! 'tis he! But no; this is not his face, nor his eyes, nor his mouth, nor his nose, nor his chin-yet, ("Mainmy" again,) ay, that is my poor Patrick. Alas! what will Paddy say when he comes home, and finds his boy bewitched? for surely that wretch (cross of Christ betwixt me and all hurt and harm!) was a witch, or at least a woman of an evil eye.' Such were her exclamations as she regarded the face of her child, so suddenly deformed from a look of health and loveliness to a pallid and sickly hue, with features now almost as repulsive as they were before engaging. The voice alone remained; and, were it not for this, ould Paddy' could not have recognised his boy in the fairystruck creature he met on his return from labour. The report of the transaction soon spread through the neighbourhood; and all the gossips, for five miles round, came to offer advice and assistance. It being deemed a case entirely beyond the power of medicine, there was no thought of applying to a doctor; and, when Roach spoke of going to the priest for spiritual assistance, an old granny rebuked him |