couple-father (keep him holy! I pray,) with some bawbee or other.""Asy, asy, la bonne chrétienne," interrupted the couple-beggar; "reinin the enemy of grace, soyez sage, and don't meddle with aught but the packet of hair-powder; patent ye know it is, and cost me a power of money the pound, so lay it away carefully, and get out of the hut, groighol, allez vite, vourneen. So now attend to me, children, and answer me fairly, without travelling a hair's-breadth from the right line of truth. La verité jusqu'à la mort, spake truth while you live; but especially tell no lies to a man like myself, who has studied morality in the college abroad, and officiated at home; but let that pass. Well, now listen to me, young woman. Have you your parents' consent to this match? Of course you have though, or you wouldn't be coming to me this way; that's settled. Tenez, tourneen, has either of ye a spouse lawfully married, at this present time living? Naturally not, or you wouldn't dare venture into the holy estate again. Marriage, you know, is--but that in good time; you'll learn all about it soon enough, so why need I preach, c'est temps perdu; allons! And have you the priest's fee ready? To be sure you brought it, don't I see it there lurking in the heel of your fist." After a few more preliminary questions, which the couple-beggar invariably answered himself, the ceremony was performed, and the whole of our party wished the young bridegroom joy.

We had scarcely emerged from the hut before the ragged king of the pattaru ran up to the bride, and, accosting her by her new weddingname of Swaney, told her that her father O'Dowell and his adherents were hunting about his dominions in quest of her, and that it was more than probable they would wreak summary vengeance on her husband, for stealing her away without the middle-man's consent. He added, that he had only an old tub by the church-porch in the valley for a palace, so that he could not conceal them there; but he was ready to lead them away to the best still in the land, which lay in the heart of a neighbouring mount, and was worked by Phinney Macreagh, his cousingerman; who loved him "as well as his own heart's blood," having both been suckled by the same nurse. "I was robbed of the maiden I loved," said he, "by a flinty-souled middle-man; and I have often heard the ould women say, when they thought I was asleep, that the loss of Kathleen made me a lunatic; but, poor creatures, I pity them, they're fools; and I'm king of the fair, and won't suffer young hearts to be broken where I reign, by a middle-man. They tell me, Kathleen is dead, but I won't believe it, not I: for I hear her voice in the night-wind, and her song comes to me over the waters of Suir

She's the primrose of the country, she 's all my earthly care,
My love, my dove, my darling, my joy, and only dear.'

No other songs but those that Kathleen loves ever cross my lips. That
one I often sang to her at home;-but come, boys, will you follow ?
I'm trusty, though simple, they say. Will you come ?"-The shout of
O'Dowell was now heard in the fair; and the Merman, having intimated
a wish to pay one more visit to the womb of Pothien before he died,
warmly supported the request of the bridegroom, that we should accom-
pany him to the still-pit, and, as the friends of his relative Gorry, protect
him, if necessary, against the middle-man's fury. This was
an irre-

sistible appeal to youthful blood; and we immediately quitted the pattaru, and followed the lunatic king towards the hills.

After walking for a considerable time, we at length discovered, on the brink of a ledge, skirted by low shrubs and small detached pieces of rock, a deep-green spot of turf, still bright and sparkling with dew, although the sun had long been blazing upon it. Here our conductor fell upon his knees, and placing his brow upon the sward, cried, in a tone of delight, ""Tis here-dewy and wet with the spirit steam. Lay your heads to the turf, boys, and listen to the dull snore of the strong fire below

It secretly burns, like the deep love-flame,

When the heart feels what the tongue dare not name;
Oh! nought burns so strong as the smothered fire
Of bright hope, or revenge, or fond desire.

The Pothien boys are here, and look, yonder lies one of them.— Whurrah, spalpene! arise." The free-spirit man, who was basking in the sun, started up in evident alarm at the cry of the fool. He was a tall meagre fellow, with a cadaverous complexion, fiery little eyes, matted red hair, and almost in a state of nudity. He eyed us askance as we approached, with the strange figure of the Merman, mounted on the black, at our head; and retreated towards a spot of wild gardenground, where the earth appeared to have been recently upturned, and the mattock stood in the soil, as if the cottager had just retired for a temporary cessation from his accustomed toil. He was proceeding to dig again, when the voice of the fool arrested his operations: "Down with it, man!" said he, "hurl away the mattock and take the fire-rake. Your palm is too hot, your eye too red, and your cheek too shroud-like for a husbandman. The Pothien is upon your face, darling. The ould one of darkness might as well try to conceal his ox-foot as you your trade. We are all friends, so fear not; but lay by the spade, and show us the way to the still-pit. Lo, Sir, I am the King of the Pattaru, and Kathleen shall be my queen. Know you me now?" The Pothiener, who was akin to the chief of the pit, immediately recognised his relation, and, leaping over the fence, seized him in his arms, and carried him away to the back of a dilapidated cabin, which we now for the first time perceived, testifying his joy as he went by the most extravagant gestures and exclamations. We followed him to the brink of a well behind the cabin, where he hastily lined an immense bucket with thatch from the roof, and placed Norah and Columba carefully within it. The old windlass creaked with their weight, and in a short time they were concealed by the narrow depths of the well. As soon as the last coil of the rope was spent, the free-spirit man slid from the brink: we followed with all possible caution; and by the aid of the bucket-rope, the regular steps in the wall, and the instructions of our guide, arrived in safety on a level with Swaney, Duigenan, and the pattaru king, who had previously descended to guide and support the crazy vessel which conveyed young Norah and the bride. The waters were roaring below us, the stars twinkled in the heavens as in the depth of night, and on every side we heard the deep voice of confined flames, the bubbling of hot liquors, and a confused din of mingled lamentation and merrymaking. We remained in a cluster at this spot until the Pothiener succeeded in removing a strongly-cemented mass of mortar and stones,

which concealed a small oaken door. The bucket was then hauled to the aperture, and we all passed into the still. After ascending and de-, scending several rude steps, we reached an open space, from whence many passages branched off. But this was the city, the chief place of the still, and a number of persons were congregated within it. The heat was intense, and the uproar almost deafening. At the extremity of a passage immediately opposite to that by which we had entered, a large furnace fire was blazing, and billows of grey steam rolled along the top of the roughly-hewn arch. Buckets, tubs, casks, piggins, with the more ponderous utensils of the still, were strewed about on every side. A wooden cross was erected in the centre, surmounted by stout pieces of oak, which served as props to the low roof, and the mud walls were plentifully adorned with glaring scriptural pictures, holy relics, and croslets of damaged arms. Several men were lying asleep in different corners; two young fellows were quarrelling over a little table that stood in a puddle on the ground, covered with dice, dominoes, and cards; a third was sedately counting his gains as he puffed his doothien; and the residue of those visible and awake were roaring the old Jaco bite song of "The bonny night-bird," round a large tub of raw spirit. On one side was a corpse covered with a sheet, upon which a black kerchief, in the shape of a cross, was affixed; and the deep-red flash of the still-fire glared on the haggard cheek of the Cointaghana, who still wailed at the head of the coffin, although it was long after mid-day. A pale girl was strewing the first flowers of the year upon the shroud, while another removed the withering funereal herbs that decorated the festoons of white linen which depended from the roof immediately above the place of lamentation.

We had been but a little time in the pit, when a party of young Pothieners brought in O'Dowell, the middle-man, whom they had found drunk and asleep in one of the pattaru huts. Swaney had already told his tale to the people of the still, who set up a shout so loud at the announcement of the middle-man, that he started from his torpor in considerable alarm. The scene must have been truly terrific to his unaccustomed eye. Torwy the Merman, with Tim the black, the Cointaghana, and mourning women, the extravagantly attired pattaru king, with the wild Pothieners laughing like demons through their rags at his affright, were grouped around him, apparently in liquid flames; while the still-fire blazed at his back, and the liquor he had drunk at the fair was, as he afterwards said, "burning his vitals." Fear subdued his drunkenness; but his tongue was parching with fever. He had already closed his eyes again, when young Swaney, with Columba kneeling by his side, presented him with a goblet of sparkling liquor. The gift was well timed; and O'Dowell looked up with a blended expression of wonder and gratitude, while he quaffed the delicious beverage which restored him to life and consciousness. In the breathing space between his first and second draught, he placed his hand upon the heads of Swaney and Columba, in token of forgiveness: the Pothieners rewarded him with three applauding shouts; and our party soon after left the pit, and journeyed onwards to the foot of Sliabh-namann, where the wedding of Gowry Duigenan and the young Lass of the Wreck was celebrated with the usual rustic ceremonies, brown myrtle" and joyous revelry.

66 nutA.

SONG OF THE GREEKS.-BY T. CAMPBELL.

AGAIN to the battle, Achaians!

Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;

Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree

It has been, and shall yet be the land of the free;

For the cross of our faith is replanted,

The pale dying crescent is daunted,

And we march that the foot-prints of Mahomet's slaves
May be wash'd out in blood from our forefathers' graves.
Their spirits are hovering o'er us,

And the sword shall to glory restore us.

Ah! what though no succour advances,

Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances

Are stretch'd in our aid-be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone;
For we've sworn, by our Country's assaulters,
By the virgins they 've dragg'd from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old and their blood in our veins,
That living, we shall be victorious,

Or that dying, our deaths shall be glorious.

A breath of submission we breathe not;
The sword that we 've drawn we will sheathe noti
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.
Earth may hide-waves engulph-fire consume us,
But they shall not to slavery doom us :

If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves;

But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,
And new triumphs on land are before us.

To the charge !-Heaven's banner is o'er us.

This day shall ye blush for its story,

Or brighten your lives with its glory.

Our women, Oh, say, shall they shriek in despair,

Or embrace us from conquest with wreaths in their hair?
Accursed may his memory blacken,

If a coward there be that would slacken

Till we've trampled the turban and shown ourselves worth Being sprung from and named for the godlike of earth.

Strike home, and the world shall revere us

As heroes descended from heroes.

Old Greece lightens up with emotion

Her inlands, her isles of the Ocean;

Fanes rebuilt and fair towns shall with jubilee ring,

And the Nine shall new-hallow their Helicon's spring.

Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness,

That were cold and extinguish'd in sadness;

Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white-waving arms,

Singing joy to the brave that deliver'd their charms,

When the blood of yon Musulman cravens

Shall have crimson'd the beaks of our ravens.

LETTERS FROM ENGLAND.

BY M. DE ST. FOIX.*

LETTER XIV.

London,

1817.

In tragedy the English have, I think, more merely good actors than we have; but a merely good actor is the most insipid person in the world to describe, so I shall tell you no more about them. But there is one tragic actor on the London stage by whom I have been so deeply interested, and whose powers appear to me of so extraordinary a description, that I shall take some pains to give you an idea of them. His name is Kean. The coincidence of name with our own celebrated Le Kain is remarkable. He is quite young-not more than six or seven and twenty, and this is only his second season in London; and yet he has already established a reputation nearly as great as that of Talma. I expect, too, that you'll be a little startled, if not scandalized, when I tell you that I think he deserves it-that he is, upon the whole, nearly as great an actor-that he possesses as consummate a judgment, as pure and delicate a taste, as clear, quick, and vivid conceptions, and as admirable and wondrous a power of embodying those conceptions. For physical powers he is about as much and as little indebted to Nature as Talma is but it is remarkable, that whatever Talma wants, Kean has, and whatever Kean wants, Talma has. Unlike Talma, Kean's person is insignificant, and his voice is totally bad; and unlike Talma, also, his eye is like lightning, and his face has a power of expression that is perfectly magical. The action of Talma is less constrained and redundant than that of any other French tragedian; but Kean's is still less so than his. It has much more variety, and yet is much more simple and natural: his attitude in any given situation being precisely that which a consummate painter would assign to it. If I were to notice the general resemblance and the general difference between these two extraordinary actors, I should say that both draw their resources fresh and direct from Nature, and that both study her as she exists in the depths of their own hearts; but that Talma has more imagination than passion, and Kean more passion than imagination.— Not that Talma wants passion, or that Kean wants imagination; but passion is the characteristic of the one, and imagination of the other. When Talma exclaims in Macbeth, "Il est là! là!" the strength of his imagination kindles that of the spectators, till they absolutely see the image of the murdered king reflected from his face. His imagination is still more conspicuous in the tremendous power he gives to the words in the same play, "Arrête, donc, ce sang qui coule jusqu'à moi!" But surely the most splendid and astonishing of all theatrical exhibitions, and the effects of which are to be attributed to the realizing power of his imagination, is that of Talma in Edipus, at the moment that he discovers his involuntary crimes. It is a thing to be seen once, and remembered for ever; but not to be described. Kean has nothing like this in the same class of acting. His characteristic, as I have said, is passion-passion under all its names and varieties-through all its windings and blendings-in all its delicate shades and most secret recesses. Its operation never for a moment ceases to be visible; for, when he ceases to speak, every motion of his thoughts is abso

* Continued from page 145.