THE WILD IRISH GIRL

By Lady Sydney Morgan

In Two Volumes, Vol. I

New York: P. M. Haverty.

1879

INTRODUCTORY LETTERS.

THE EARL OF M————

TO THE HONORABLE HORATIO M————, KING’S BENCH.

Castle M————, Leicestershire,

Feb. ——, 17———.

If there are certain circumstances under which a fond father can address an imprisoned son without suffering the bitterest heart-rendings of paternal agony, such are not those under which I now address you. To sustain the loss of the most precious of all human rights, and forfeit our liberty at the shrine of virtue, in defence of our country abroad, or of our public integrity and principles at home, brings to the heart of the sufferer’s dearest sympathising friend a soothing solace, almost concomitant to the poignancy of his afflictions; and leaves the decision difficult, whether in the scale of human feelings, triumphant pride or affectionate regret preponderate.

“I would not,” said the old earl of Ormond, “give up my dead son for twenty living ones.” Oh! how I envy such a father the possession, and even the loss of such a child: with what eagerness my heart rushes back to that period when I too triumphed in my son; when I beheld him glowing in all the unadulterated virtues of the happiest nature, flushed with the proud consciousness of superior genius, refined by a taste intuitively elegant, and warmed by an enthusiasm constitutionally ardent; his character indeed tinctured with the bright colouring of romantic eccentricity, but marked by the indelible traces of innate rectitude, and ennobled by the purest principles of native generosity, the proudest sense of inviolable honour, I beheld him rush eagerly on life, enamoured of its seeming good, incredulous of its latent evils, till fatally fascinated by the magic spell of the former, he fell an early victim to the successful lures of the latter. The growing influence of his passions kept pace with the expansion of his mind, and the moral powers of the man of genius, gave way to the overwhelming propensities of the man of pleasure. Yet in the midst of those exotic vices (for as such even yet I would consider them,) he continued at once the object of my parental partiality and anxious solicitude; I admired while I condemned, I pitied while I reproved.

The rights of primogeniture, and the mild and prudent cast of your brother’s character, left me no cares either for his worldly interest or moral welfare: born to titled affluence, his destination in life was ascertained previous to his entrance on its chequered scene; and equally free from passions to mislead, or talents to stimulate, he promised to his father that series of temperate satisfaction which, unillumined by those coruscations, your superior and promising genius flashed on the parental heart, could not prepare for its sanguine feelings that mortal disappointment with which you have destroyed all its hopes. On the recent death of my father I found myself possessed of a very large but incumbered property: it was requisite I should make the same establishment for my eldest son, that my father had made for me; while I was conscious that my youngest was in some degree to stand indebted to his own exertions, for independence as well as elevation in life.

You may recollect that during your first college vacation, we conversed on the subject of that liberal profession I had chosen for you, and you agreed with me, that it was congenial to your powers, and not inimical to your taste; while the part I was anxious you should take in the legislation of your country, seemed at once to rouse and gratify your ambition; but the pure flame of laudable emulation was soon extinguished in the destructive atmosphere of pleasure, and while I beheld you, in the visionary hopes of my parental ambition, invested with the crimson robe of legal dignity, or shining brightly conspicuous in the splendid galaxy of senatorial luminaries, you were idly presiding as the high priest of libertinism at the nocturnal orgies of vitiated dissipation, or indolently lingering out your life in elegant but unprofitable pursuits.

It were as vain as impossible to trace you through every degree of error on the scale of folly and imprudence, and such a repetition would be more heart wounding to me than painful to you, were it even made under the most extenuating bias of parental fondness.

I have only to add, that though already greatly distressed by the liquidation of your debts, at a time when I am singularly circumstanced with respect to pecuniary resources, I will make a struggle to free you from the chains of this your present iron-hearted creditor, through the retrenchment of my own expenses, and my temporary retreat to the solitute of my Irish estate must be the result; provided that by this sacrifice I purchace your acquiescence to my wishes respecting the destiny of your future life, and an unreserved abjuration of the follies which have governed your past.

Yours, &c. &c.

M———.

TO THE EARL OF M————

My Lord,

Suffer me, in the fullness of my heart, and in the language of one prodigal and penitent as myself, to say, “I have sinned against Heaven and thee, and am no longer worthy to be called thy son.” Abandon me then, I beseech you, as such; deliver me up to the destiny, that involves me to the complicated tissue of errors and follies I have so industriously woven with my own hands; for though I am equal to sustain the judgment my own vices have drawn down upon me, I cannot support the cruel mercy with which your goodness endeavours to avert its weight.

Among the numerous catalogues of my faults, a sordid selfishness finds no place. Yet I should deservedly incur its imputation, were I to accept of freedom on such terms as you are so generous to offer. No, my Lord, continue to adorn that high and polished circle in which you are so eminently calculated to move; nor think so lowly of one, who, with all his faults, is your son, as to believe him ready to purchase his liberty at the expense of your banishment from your native country.

I am, &c. &c.

King’s Bench. H. M.

TO THE HON. HORATIO M————.

An act to which the exaggeration of your feelings gives the epithet of banishment, I shall consider as a voluntary sequestration from scenes of which I am weary, to scenes which, though thrice visited, still preserve the poignant charms of novelty and interest. Your hasty and undigested answer to my letter (written in the prompt emotion of the moment, ere the probable consequence of a romantic rejection to an offer not unreflectingly made, could be duly weighed or coolly examined) convinces me experience has contributed little to the modification of your feelings, or the prudent regulation of your conduct. It is this promptitude of feeling, this contempt of prudence, that formed the predisposing cause of your errors and your follies. Dazzled by the brilliant glare of the splendid virtues, you saw not, you would not see, that prudence was among the first of moral excellences; the director, the regulator, the standard of them all; that it is in fact the corrector of virtue herself; for even virtue, like the sun, has her solstice, beyond which she ought not to move.

If you would retribute what you seem to lament, and unite restitution to penitence, leave this country for a short time, and abandon with the haunts of your former blameable pursuits, those associates who were at once the cause and punishment of your errors. I myself will become your partner in exile, for it is to my estate in Ireland I banish you for the summer. You have already got through the “first rough brakes” of your profession: as you can now serve the last term of this season, I see no cause why Coke upon Lyttleton cannot be as well studied amidst the wild seclusion of Connaught scenery, and on the solitary shores of the “steep Atlantic,” as in the busy bustling precincts of the Temple.

I have only to add, that I shall expect your undivided attention will be given up to your professional studies; that you will for a short interval resign the fascinating pursuits of polite literature and belles lettres, from which even the syren spell of pleasure could not tear you, and which snatched from vice many of those hours I believed devoted to more serious studies. I know you will find it no less difficult to resign the elegant theories of your favourite Lavater, for the dry facts of law reports, than to exchange your duodecimo editions of the amatory poets, for heavy tomes of cold legal disquisitions; but happiness is to be purchased, and labour is the price; fame and independence are the result of talent united to great exertion, and the elegant enjoyments of literary leisure are never so keenly relished as when tasted under the shade of that flourishing laurel which our own efforts have reared to mature perfection. Farewell! My agent has orders respecting the arrangement of your affairs. You must excuse the procrastination of our interview till we meet in Ireland, which I fear will not be so immediate as my wishes would incline. I shall write to my banker in Dublin to replenish your purse on your arrival in Ireland, and to my Connaught steward, to prepare for your reception at M———— house. Write to me by return.

Once more farewell!

M————.

TO THE EARL OF M————

My Lord,

He who agonized on the bed of Procrostus reposed on a couch of down, compared to the sufferings of him who in the heart he has stabbed, beholds the pulse of generous affection still beating with an invariable throb for the being who has inflicted the wound.

I shall offer you no thanks, my Lord, for the generosity of your conduct, nor any extenuation for the errors of mine.

The gratitude the one has given birth to—the remorse which the other has awakened, bid equal defiance to expression. I have only (fearfully) to hope, that you will not deny my almost forfeited claim to the title of your son.

H. M.

TO J. D., ESQ., M. P.

Holyhead.

We are told in the splendid Apocrypha of ancient Irish fable, that when one of the learned was missing on the Continent of Europe, it was proverbially said,

“Amandatus est ad disciplinum in Hibernia”

But I cannot recollect that in its fabulous or veracious history, Ireland was ever the mart of voluntary exile to the man of pleasure; so that when you and the rest of my precious associates miss the track of my footsteps in the oft trod path of dissipation, you will never think of tracing its pressure to the wildest of the Irish shores, and exclaim, “Amandatus est ad, &c. &c. &c.”

However, I am so far advanced in the land of Druidism, on my way to the “Island of Saints,” while you, in the emporium of the world, are drinking from the cup of conjugal love a temporary oblivion to your past sins and wickedness, and revelling in the first golden dreams of matrimonial illusion.

I suppose an account of my high crimes and misdemeanours, banishment, &c. &c. have already reached your ears; but while my brethren in transportation are offering up their wishes and their hopes on the shore, to the unpropitious god of winds, indulge me in the garrulity of egotism, and suffer me to correct the overcharged picture of that arch charicature report, by giving you a correct ebauche of the recent circumstances of my useless life.

When I gave you convoy as far as Dover, on your way to France, I returned to London, to

“Surfeit on the same

and yawn my joys——”

And was again soon plunged in that dreadful vacillation of mind from which your society and conversation had so lately redeemed me.

Vibrating between an innate propensity to rights and an habitual adherence to wrong; sick of pursuits I was too indolent to relinqush, and linked to vice, yet still enamoured of virtue; weary of the useless, joyless inanity of my existence, yet without energy, without power to regenerate my worthless being; daily losing ground in the minds of the inestimable few who were still interested for my welfare; nor compensating for the loss, by the gratification of any one feeling in my own heart, and held up as an object of fashionable popularity for sustaining that character, which of all others I most despised; my taste impoverished by a vicious indulgence, my senses palled by repletion, my heart chill and unawakened, every appetite depraved and pampered into satiety, I fled from myself, as the object of my own utter contempt and detestation, and found a transient pleasurable inebriety in the well practised blandishments of Lady C——.

You who alone know me, who alone have openly condemned, and secretly esteemed me, you who have wisely culled the blossom of pleasure, while I have sucked its poison, know that I am rather a méchant par air, than from any irresistible propensity to indiscriminate libertinism. In fact, the original sin of my nature militates against the hackneyed modes of hackneyed licentiousness; for I am too profound a voluptuary to feel any exquisite gratification from such gross pursuits as the “swinish multitude” of fashion ennoble with that name of little understood, pleasure. Misled in my earliest youth by “passion’s meteor ray,” even then my heart called (but called in vain,) for a thousand delicious refinements to give poignancy to the mere transient impulse of sense.

Oh! my dear friend, if in that sunny season of existence when the ardours of youth nourish in our bosom a thousand indescribable emotions of tenderness and love, it had been my fortunate destiny to have met with a being, who—but this is an idle regret, perhaps an idle supposition;—-the moment of ardent susceptibility is over, when woman becomes the sole spell which lures us to good or ill, and when her omnipotence, according to the bias of her own nature, and the organization of those feelings on which it operates, determines, in a certain degree our destiny through life—leads the mind through the medium of the heart to the noblest pursuits, or seduces it through the medium of the passions to the basest career.

That I became the dupe of Lady C——, and her artful predecessor, arose from the want of that “something still unpossessed,” to fill my life’s dreadful void. I sensibly felt the want of an object to interest my feelings, and laboured under that dreadful interregnum of the heart, reason and ambition; which leaves the craving passions open to every invader. Lady C—— perceived the situation of my mind, and—but spare me the detail of a connexion which even in memory, produces a nausea of every sense and feeling. Suffice it to say, that equally the victim of the husband’s villainy as the wife’s artifice, I stifled on its birth a threatened prosecution, by giving my bond for a sum I was unable to liquidate: it was given as for a gambling debt, but my father, who had long suspected, and endeavoured to break this fatal connexion, guessed at the truth, and suffered me to become a guest (mal voluntaire) in the King’s Bench. This unusual severity on his part, lessened not on mine the sense of his indulgence to my former boundless extravagance, and I determined to remain a prisoner for life, rather than owe my liberty to a new imposition on his tenderness, by such solicitings as have hitherto been invariably crowned with success, though answered with reprehension.

I had been already six weeks a prisoner, deserted by those gay moths that had fluttered round the beam of my transient prosperity; delivered up to all the maddening meditation of remorse, when I received a letter from my father (then with my brother in Leicestershire,) couched in his usual terms of reprehension, and intervals of tenderness; ascertaining every error with judicial exactitude, and associating every fault with some ideal excellence of parental creation, alternately the father and the judge; and as you once said, when I accused him of partiality to his eldest born, “talking best of Edward was most of me.”

In a word, he has behaved like an Angel. So well, that by Heavens! I can scarcely bear to think of it. A spurious half-bred generosity—a little tincture of illiberality on his side, would have been Balm of Gillead to my wounded conscience; but with unqualified goodness he has paid all my debts, supplied my purse beyond my wants, and only asks in return, that I will retire for a few months to Ireland, and this I believe merely to wean me from the presence of an object which he falsely believes still hangs about my heart with no moderate influence.

And yet I wish his mercy had flowed in any other channel, even though more confined and less liberal.

Had he banished me to the savage desolations of Siberia, my exile would have had some character; had he even transported me to a South Sea Island, or threw me into an Esquimaux hut, my new species of being would have been touched with some interest; for in fact, the present relaxed state of my intellectual system requires some strong transition of place, circumstance, and manners, to wind it up to its native tone, to rouse it to energy, or awaken it to exertion.

But sent to a country against which I have a decided prejudice—which I suppose semi-barbarous, semi-civilized; has lost the strong and hardy features of savage life, without acquiring those graces which distinguish polished society—I shall neither participate in the poignant pleasure of awakened curiosity and acquired information, nor taste the least of those enjoyments which courted my acceptance in my native land. Enjoyments did I say! And were they indeed enjoyments? How readily the mind adopts the phraseology of habit, when the sentiment it once clothed no longer exists. Would that my past pursuits were even in recollection, the aspect of enjoyments. But even my memory has lost its character of energy, and the past, like the present, appears one unwearied scence of chill and vapid existence. No sweet point of reflection seizes on the recollective powers. No actual joy woos my heart’s participation, and no prospect of future felicity glows on the distant vista of life, or awakens the quick throb of hope and expectation; all is cold, sullen and dreary.

Laval seems to entertain no less prejudice against this country than his master, he has therefore begged leave of absence until my father comes over. Pray have the goodness to send me by him a box of Italian crayons, and a good thermometer; for I must have something to relieve the tedium vitae of my exiled days; and in my articles of stipulation with my father, chemistry and belles lettres are specially prohibited. It was a useless prohibition, for Heaven knows, chemistry would have been the last study I should have flown to in my present state of mind. For how can he look minutely into the intimate structure of things, and resolve them into their simple and elementary substance, whose own disordered mind is incapable of analyzing the passions by which it is agitated, of ascertaining the reciprocal relation of its incoherent ideas, or combining them in different proportions (from those by which they were united by chance,) in order to join a new and useful compound for the benefit of future life? As for belles lettres! so blunted are all those powers once so

“Active and strong, and feelingly alive,

To each fine impulse,”

that not one “pansee coleur de rose” lingers on the surface of my faded imagination, and I should turn with as much apathy from the sentimental sorcery of Rosseau, as from the volumnious verbosity of an High German doctor; yawn over “The Pleasures of Memory,” and run the risk of falling fast asleep with the brilliant Madame de Sevigne in my hand. So send me a Fahrenheit, that I may bend the few coldly mechanical powers left me, to ascertain the temperature of my wild western territories, and expect my letters from thence to be only filled with the summary results of metoric instruments, and synoptical views of common phenomena.

Adieu.

H. M.

THE WILD IRISH GIRL.

LETTER I.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

Dublin, March, ——, 17——

I remember, when I was a boy, meeting somewhere with the quaintly written travels of Moryson through Ireland, and being particularly struck with his assertion, that so late as the days of Elizabeth, an Irish chieftain and his family were frequently seen seated round their domestic fire in a state of perfect nudity. This singular anecdote (so illustrative of the barbarity of the Irish, at a period when civilization had made such a wonderful progress even in its sister countries,) fastened so strongly on my boyish imagination, that whenever the Irish were mentioned in my presence, an Esquimaux group circling round the fire which was to dress a dinner, or broil an enemy, was the image which presented itself to my mind; and in this trivial source, I believe, originated that early formed opinion of Irish ferocity, which has since been nurtured into a confirmed prejudice. So true it is, that almost all the erroneous principles which influence our maturer being, are to be traced to some fatal association of ideas received and formed in early life. But whatever maybe the cause, I feel the strongest objection to becoming a resident in the remote part of a country which is still shaken by the convulsions of an anarchical spirit; where for a series of ages the olive of peace has not been suffered to shoot forth one sweet blossom of national concord, which the sword of civil dissension has not cropt almost in the germ; and the natural character of whose factious sons, as we are still taught to believe, is turbulent, faithless, intemperate, and cruel; formerly destitute of arts, letters, or civilization, and still but slowly submitting to their salutary and ennobling influence.

To confess the truth, I had so far suffered prejudice to get the start of unbiassed liberality, that I had almost assigned to these rude people scenes appropriately barbarous; and never was more pleasantly astonished, than when the morning’s dawn gave to my view one of the most splendid spectacles in the scene of picturesque creation I had ever beheld, or indeed ever conceived—the bay of Dublin.

A foreigner on board the packet compared the view to that which the bay of Naples affords: I cannot judge of the justness of the comparison, though I am told one very general and commonplace; but if the scenic beauties of the Irish bay are exceeded by those of the Neapolitan, my fancy falls short in a just conception of its charms. The springing up of a contrary wind kept us for a considerable time beating about this enchanting coast; the weather suddenly changed, the rain poured in torrents, a storm arose, and the beautiful prospect which had fascinated our gaze, vanished in the mists of impenetrable obscurity.

As we had the mail on board, a boat was sent out to receive it, the oars of which were plied by six men, whose statures, limbs, and features declared them the lingering progeny of the once formidable race of Irish giants, Bare headed, they “bided the pelting of the pitiless storm,” with no other barrier to its fury, than what tattered check trousers, and shirts open at neck, and tucked above the elbows afforded; and which thus disposed, betrayed the sinewy contexture of forms, which might have individually afforded a model to sculpture, for the colossal statue of an Hercules, under all the different aspects of strength and exertion. *

* This little marine sketch is by no means a fancy picture;
it was actually copied from the life, in the summer of 1806.

A few of the passengers proposing to venture in the boat, I listlessly followed, and found myself seated by one of these sea monsters, who, in an accent that made me startle, addressed me in English at least as pure and correct as a Thames’ boatman would use; and with so much courtesy, cheerfulness, and respect, that I was at a loss to reconcile such civilization of manner to such ferocity of appearance; while his companions as they stemmed the mountainous waves, or plied their heavy oars, displayed such a vein of low humour and quaint drollery, and in a language so curiously expressive and original, that no longer able to suppress my surprise, I betrayed it to a gentleman who sat near me, and by whom I was assured that this species of colloquial wit was peculiar to the lower class of the Irish, who borrowed much of their curious phraseology from the peculiar idiom of their own tongue, and the cheeriness of manner from the native exility of their temperament; “and as for their courteousness.” he continued, “you will find them on a further intercourse, civil even to adulation, as long as you treat them with apparent kindness, but an opposite conduct will prove their manner proportionably uncivilized.”

“It is very excusable,” said I, “they are of a class in society to which the modification of the feelings are unknown, and to be sensibly alive to kindness or to unkindness, is, in my opinion, a noble trait in the national character of an unsophisticated people.”

While we spoke, we landed, and for the something like pleasurable emotion, which the first on my list of Irish acquaintance produced in my mind, I distributed among these “sons of the waves,” more silver than I believe they expected Had I bestowed a principality on an Englishman of the same rank, he would have been less lavish of the eloquence of gratitude on his benefactor, though he might equally have felt the sentiment.—So much for my voyage across the Channel!

This city is to London like a small temple of the Ionic order, whose proportions are delicate, whose character is elegance, compared to a vast palace, whose Corinthian pillars at once denote strength and magnificence.

The wondrous extent of London excites our amazement; the compact uniformity of Dublin our admiration. But a dispersion is less within the coup-d’oil of observance, than aggregation, the small, but harmonious features of Dublin sieze at once on the eye, while the scattered but splendid traits of London, excite a less immediate and more progressive admiration, which is often lost in the intervals that occur between those objects which are calculated to excite it.

In London, the miserable shop of a gin seller, and the magnificent palace of a Duke, alternately create disgust, or awaken approbation.

In Dublin the buildings are not arranged upon such democratic principles. The plebian hut offers no foil to the patrician edifice, while their splendid and beautiful public structures are so closely connected, as with some degree of policy to strike at once upon the eye in the happiest combination. *

* Although in one point of view, there may be a policy in
this close association of splendid objects, yet it is a
circumstance of general and just condemnation to all
strangers who are not confined to a partial survey of the
city.

In other respects this city appears to me to be the miniature copy of our imperial original, though minutely imitative in show and glare. Something less observant of life’s prime luxuries, order and cleanliness, there are a certain class of wretches who haunt the streets of Dublin, so emblematic of vice, poverty, idleness, and filth, that disgust and pity frequently succeed in the minds of the stranger to sentiments of pleasure, surprise, and admiration. For the origin of this evil, I must refer you to the supreme police of the city; but whatever may be the cause, the effects (to an Englishman especially) are dreadful and disgusting beyond all expression.

Although my father has a large connexion here, yet he only gave me a letter to his banker, who has forced me to make his house my home for the few days I shall remain in Dublin, and whose cordiality and kindness sanctions all that has ever been circulated of Irish hospitality.

In the present state of my feelings, however, a party on the banks of the Ohio, with a tribe of Indian hunters, would be more consonant to my inclinations than the refined pleasures of the most polished circles in the world. Yet these warm-hearted people, who find in the name of stranger an irresistible lure to every kind attention, will force me to be happy in despite of myself, and overwhelm me with invitations, some of which it is impossible to resist. My prejudices have received some mortal strokes, when I perceived that the natives of this barbarous country have got goal for goal with us, in every elegant refinement of life and manners; the only difference I can perceive between a London and a Dublin rout is, that here, amongst the first class, there is a warmth and cordiality of address, which, though perhaps not more sincere than the cold formality of British ceremony, is certainly more fascinating. *

* “Every unprejudiced traveller who visits them [the Irish]
will be as much pleased with their cheerfulness as obliged
by their hospitality; and will find them a brave, polite,
and liberal people.”—Philosophical Survey through Ireland
by Mr. Young.

It is not, however, in Dublin I shall expect to find the tone of national character and manner; in the first circles of all great cities (as in courts) the native features of national character are softened into general uniformity, and the genuine feelings of nature are suppressed or exchanged for a political compliance with the reigning modes and customs, which hold their tenure from the sanction and example of the seat of government. Before I close this, I must make one observation, which I think will speak more than volumes for the refinement of these people.

During my short residence here, I have been forced, in true spirit of Irish dissipation, into three parties of a night; and I have upon these occasions observed that the most courted objects of popular attention, were those whose talents alone endowed them with distinction. Besides amateurs, I have met with many professional persons, whom I knew in London as public characters, and who are here incorporated in the first and most brilliant circles, appearing to feel no other inequality, than what their own superiority of genius confers.

I leave Dublin to-morrow for M———— house. It is situated in the county of ——————, on the northwest coast of Connaught, which I am told is the classic ground of Ireland. The native Irish, pursued by religious and political bigotry, made it the asylum of their sufferings, and were separated by a provincial barrier from an intercourse with the rest of Ireland, until after the Restoration; so I shall have a fair opportunity of beholding the Irish character in all its primeval ferocity.

Direct your next to Bally————, which I find is the nearest post town to my Kamskatkan palace, where with no other society than that of Black stone and Co. I shall lead such a life of animal existence, as Prior gives to his Contented Couple—

“They ate, and drank, and slept—what then?

Why, slept, and drank, and ate again.”—

Adieu. H. M.

LETTER II.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

M———— House.

In the various modes of penance invented by the various penance mongers of pious austerity, did you ever hear the travelling in an Irish postchaise enumerated as a punishment, which by far exceeds horse-hair shirts and voluntary flagelation?

My first day’s journey from Dublin being as wet a one as this moist climate and capricious season ever produced, my berlin answered all the purposes of a shower bath, while the ventillating principles on which the windows were constructed, gave me all the benefit to be derived from the breathy influence of the four cardinal points.

Unable any longer to sit tamely enduring the “penalty of Adam, the season’s change,” or to sustain any longer the “hair-breadth ’scapes,” which the most dismantled of vehicles afforded me, together with delays and stoppages of every species to be found in the catalogue of procrastination and mischance, I took my seat in a mail coach which I met at my third stage, and which was going to a town within twenty miles of Bally————. These twenty miles, by far the most agreeable of my journey, I performed as we once (in days of boyish errantry) accomplished a tour to Wales—on foot.

I had previously sent my baggage, and was happily unincumbered with a servant, for the fastidious delicacy of Monsieur Laval would never have been adequate to the fatigues of a pedestrian tour through a country wild and mountainous as his own native Savoy. But to me every difficulty was an effort of some good genius chasing the demon of lethargy from the usurpations of my mind’s empire. Every obstacle that called for exertion was a temporary revival of latent energy; and every unforced effort worth an age of indolent indulgence.

To him who derives gratification from the embellished labours of art, rather than the simple but sublime operation of nature, Irish scenery will afford little interest; but the bold features of its varying landscape, the stupendous attitude of its “cloud capt” mountains, the impervious gloom of its deep embosomed glens, the savage desolation of its uncultivated heaths, and boundless bogs, with those rich veins of a picturesque champaigne, thrown at intervals into gay expansion by the hand of nature, awaken in the mind of the poetic or pictoral traveller, all the pleasures of tasteful enjoyment, all the sublime emotions of a rapt imagination. And if the glowing fancy of Claude Loraine would have dwelt enraptured on the paradisial charms of English landscape, the superior genius of Salvator Rosa would have reposed its eagle wing amidst those scenes of mysterious sublimity, with which the wildly magnificent landscape of Ireland abounds. But the liberality of nature appears to me to be here but frugally assisted by the donations of art. Here agriculture appears in the least felicitous of he! aspects. The rich treasures of Ceres seldom wave their golden heads over the earth’s fertile bosom; the verdant drapery of young plantations rarely skreens out the coarser features of a rigid soil, the cheerless aspect of a gloomy bog; while the unvaried surface of the perpetual pasturage which satisfies the eye of the interested grazier, disappoints the glance of the tasteful spectator.

Within twenty miles of Bally———— I was literally dropt by the stage at the foot of a mountain, to which your native Wrekin is but a hillock. The dawn was just risen, and flung its gray and reserved tints on a scene of which the mountainous region of Capel Cerig will give you the most adequate idea.

Mountain rising over mountain, swelled like an amphitheatre to those clouds which, faintly tinged with the sun’s prelusive beams, and rising from the earthly summits where they had reposed, incorporated with the kindling æther of a purer atmosphere.

All was silent and solitary—a tranquility tinged with terror, a sort of “delightful horror,” breathed on every side.—I was alone, and felt like the presiding genius of desolation!

As I had previously learned my route, after a minute’s contemplation of the scene before me, I pursued my solitary ramble along a steep and trackless path, which wound gradually down towards a great lake, an almost miniature sea, that lay embosomed amidst those stupendous heights whose rugged forms, now bare, desolate, and barren, now clothed with yellow furze and creeping underwood, or crowned with misnic forests, appeared towering above my head in endless variety. The progress of the sun convinced me that mine must have been slow, as it was perpetually interrupted by pauses of curiosity and admiration, and by long and many lapses of thoughtful reverie; and fearing that I had lost my way (as I had not yet caught a view of the village, in which, seven miles distant from the spot where I had left the stage, I was assured I should find an excellent breakfast,) I ascended that part of the mountain where, on one of its vivid points, a something like a human habitation hung suspended, and where I hoped to obtain a carte du pays: the exterior of this hut, or cabin, as it is called, like the few I had seen which were not built of mud, resembled in one instance the magic palace of Chaucer, and was erected with loose stones,

“Which, cunningly, were without mortar laid.”

thinly thatched with straw; an aperture in the roof served rather to admit the air than emit the smoke, a circumstance to which the wretched inhabitants of those wretched hovels seem so perfectly naturalized, that they live in a constant state of fumigation; and a fracture in the side wall (meant I suppose as a substitute for a casement) was stuffed with straw, while the door, off its hinges, was laid across the threshhold, as a barrier to a little crying boy, who sitting within, bemoaned his captivity in a tone of voice not quite so mellifluous as that which Mons. Sanctyon ascribes to the crying children of a certain district in Persia, but perfectly in unison with the vocal exertions of the companion of his imprisonment, a large sow. I approached—removed the barrier: the boy and the animal escaped together, and I found myself alone in the centre of this miserable asylum of human wretchedness—the residence of an Irish peasant. To those who have only contemplated this useful order of society in England, “where every rood of ground maintains its man,” and where the peasant liberally enjoys the comforts as well as the necessaries of life, the wretched picture which the interior of an Irish cabin presents, would be at once an object of compassion and disgust. *

* Sometimes excavated from a hill, sometimes erected with
loose stones, but most generally built of mud, the cabin is
divided into two apartments, the one littered with straw and
coarse rugs, and sometimes, (but very rarely) furnished with
the luxury of a chaff bed, serves as a dormitory not only
to the family of both sexes, but in general to any animal
they are so fortunate as to possess; the other chamber
answers for every purpose of domesticity, though almost
destitute of every domestic implement, except the iron pot
in which the potatoes are boiled, and the stool on which
they are flung. From those wretched hovels (which often
appears amidst scenes that might furnish the richest models
to poetic imitation) it is common to behold a group of
children rush forth at the sound of a horse’s foot, or
carriage wheel, regardless of the season’s rigours, in a
perfect state of nudity, or covered with the drapery of
wretchedness, which gives to their appearance a still
stronger character of poverty; yet even in these miserable
huts you will seldom find the spirit of urbanity absent—the
genius of hospitality never. I remember meeting with an
instance of both, that made a deep impression on my heart;
in the autumn of 1804, in the course of a morning ramble
with a charming Englishwoman, in the county of Sligo, I
stopped to rest myself in a cabin, while she proceeded to
pay a visit to the respectable family of the O’H———s, of
Nymph’s Field: when I entered I found it occupied by an old
woman and her three granddaughters; two of the young women
were employed scutching flax, the other in some domestic
employment. I was instantly hailed with the most cordial
welcome; the hearth was cleared, the old woman’s seat forced
on me, eggs and potatoes roasted, and an apology for the
deficiency of bread politely made, while the manners of my
hostesses betrayed a courtesy that almost amounted to
adulation. They had all laid by their work on my entrance,
and when I requested I might not interrupt their avocations,
one of them replied “I hope we know better—we can work any
day, but we cannot any day have such a body as you under our
roof.” Surely this was not the manners of a cabin but a
court.

Almost suffocated, and not surprised that it was deserted pro tempo, I hastened away, and was attracted towards a ruinous barn by a full chorus of female voices—where a group of young females were seated round an old hag who formed the centre of the circle; they were all busily employed at their wheels, which I observed went merrily round in exact time with their song, and so intently were they engaged by both, that my proximity was unperceived. At last the song ceased—the wheel stood still—and every eye was fixed on the old primum mobile of the circle, who, after a short pause, began a solo that gave much satisfaction to her young auditors, and taking up the strain, they again turned their wheels round in unison.—The whole was sung in Irish, and as soon as I was observed, suddenly ceased; the girls looked down and tittered—and the old woman addressed me sans ceremonie, and in a language I now heard for the first time.

Supposing that some one among the number must understand English, I explained with all possible politeness the cause of my intrusion on this little harmonic society. The old woman looked up in my face and shook her head; I thought contemptuously—while the young ones, stifling their smiles, exchanged looks of compassion doubtlessly at my ignorance of their language.

“So many languages a man knows,” said Charles V., “so many times is he a man,” and it is certain I never felt myself less invested with the dignity of one, than while I stood twirling my stick, and “biding the encounter of the eyes,” and smiles of these “spinners in the sun.” Here you will say was prejudice opposed to prejudice with a vengeance; but I comforted myself with the idea that the natives of Greenland, the most gross and savage of mortals, compliment a stranger by saying, “he is as well bred as a Greenlander.”

While thus situated, a sturdy looking young fellow with that figure and openness of countenance so peculiar to the young Irish peasants, and with his hose and brogues suspended from a stick over his shoulder, approached and hailed the party in Irish: the girls instantly pointed his attention towards me; he courteously accosted me in English, and having learnt the nature of my dilemma, offered to be my guide—“it will not take me above a mile out of my way, and if it did two, it would make no odds,” said he. I accepted his offer, and we proceeded together over the summit of the mountain.

In the course of our conversation (which was very fluently supported on his side,) I learnt, that few strangers ever passing through this remote part of the province, and even very many of the gentry here speaking Irish, it was a rare thing to meet with any one wholly unacquainted with the language, which accounted for the surprise, and I believe contempt, my ignorance had excited.

When I enquired into the nature of those choral strains I had heard, he replied—“O! as to that, it is according to the old woman’s fancy and in fact I learnt that Ireland, like Italy, has its improvisatores, and that those who are gifted with the impromptu talent are highly estimated by their rustic compatriots;” and by what he added, I discovered that their inspirations are either drawn from the circumstances of the moment, from one striking excellence or palpable defect in some of the company present, or from some humourous incident, or local event generally known.

As soon as we arrived at the little auberge of the little village, I ordered my courteous guide his breakfast, and having done all due honour to my own, we parted.

My route from the village to Bally———— lay partly through a desolate bog, whose burning surface, heated by a vertical sun, gave me no inadequate idea of Arabia Deserta; and the pangs of an acute headache, brought on by exercise more violent than my still delicate constitution was equal to support, determined me to defer my journey until the meridian ardours were abated; and taking your Horace from my pocket, I wandered into a shady path, “impervious to the noontide ray.” Throwing my “listless length” at the foot of a spreading beech, I had already got to that sweet ode to Lydia, which Scaliger in his enthusiasm declares he would rather have written than to have possessed the monarchy of Naples, when somebody accosted me in Irish, and then with a “God save you, Sir!” I raised my eyes, and beheld a poor peasant, driving, or rather soliciting, a sorry lame cow to proceed.

“May be,” said he, taking off his hat, “your Honour would be after telling me what’s the hour?” “Later than I supposed, my good friend,” replied I, rising, “it is past two.” He bowed low, and stroking the face of his companion, added, “well, the day is yet young, but you and I have a long journey before us, my poor Driminduath.”

“And how far are you going, my friend?”

“Please your Honour, two miles beyond Bally———-.”

“It is my road exactly, and you, Driminduath, and I, may perform the journey together.” The poor fellow seemed touched and surprised by my condescension, and profoundly bowed his sense of it, while the curious triumviri set off on their pedestrian tour together.

I now cast an eye over the person of my compagnon de voyage. It was a tall, thin, athletic figure, “bony and gaunt,” with an expressive countenance, marked features, a livid complexion, and a quantity of coarse black hair hanging about the face; the drapery was perfectly appropriate to the wearer—an under garment composed of “shreds and patches,” was partially covered with an old great coat of coarse frieze, fastened on the breast with a large wooden skewer, the sleeves hanging down on either side unoccupied, * and a pair of yarn hose which scarcely reached midleg, left the ankle and foot naked.

* This manner of wearing the coat, so genera, among the
peasantry, is deemed by the natives of the county of Galway
a remnant of the Spanish mode.

Driminduath seemed to share in the obvious poverty of her master—she was almost an anatomy, and scarcely able to crawl. “Poor beast!” said he, observing I looked at her, “Poor beast! little she dreamed of coming back the road she went, and little able is she to go it, poor soul; not that I am overly sorry I could not get nobody to take her off my hands at all at all; though to-be-sure ’tis better to lose one’s cow than one’s wife, any day in the year.”

“And had you no alternative?” I asked.

“Anan!” exclaimed he, starting.

“Were you obliged to part with one or the other?” Sorrow is garrulous, and in the natural selfishness of its suffering, seeks to lessen the weight of its woe by participation. In a few minutes I was master of Murtoch O’Shaughnassey’s story: * he was the husband of a sick wife; the father of six children, and a labourer, or cotter, who worked daily throughout the year for the hut that sheltered the heads, and the little potatoe rick which was the sole subsistence of his family.

* Neither the rencontre with, nor the character or story of
Murtoch, partakes in the least degree of fiction.

He had taken a few acres of ground, he said, from his employer’s steward, to set grass potatoes in, by which he hoped to make something handsome; that to enable himself to pay for them he had gone to work in Leinster during the last harvest, “where, please your Honour,” he added, “a poor man gets more for his labour than in Connaught; * but there it was my luck (and bad luck it was) to get the shaking fever upon me, so that I returned sick and sore to my poor people without a cross to bless myself with, and then there was an end to my fine grass potatoes, for devil receive the sort they’d let me dig till I paid for the ground; and what was worse, the steward was going to turn us out of our cabin, because I had not worked out the rent with him as usual, and not a potatoe had I for the children; besides finding my wife and two boys in a fever: the boys got well, but my poor wife has been decaying away ever since; so I was fain to sell my poor Driminduath here, which was left me by my gossip, in order to pay my rent and get some nourishment for my poor woman, who I believe is just weak at heart for the want of it; and so, as I was after telling your Honour, I left home yesterday for a fair twenty-five good miles off, but my poor Driminduath has got such bad usage of late, and was in such sad plight, that nobody would bid nothing for her, and so we are both returning home as we went, with full hearts and empty stomachs.”

* It is well known that within these last thirty years the
Connaught peasant laboured for threepence a day and two
meals of potatoes and milk, and four pence when he
maintained himself; while in Leinster the harvest hire rose
from eight pence to a shilling. Riding out one day near the
village of Castletown Delvin, in Westmeath, in company with
the younger branches of the respectable family of the F——ns,
of that county, we observed two young men lying at a
little distance from each other in a dry ditch, with some
lighted turf burning near them; they both seemed on the
verge of eternity, and we learned from a peasant who was
passing, that they were Connaught men who had come to
Leinster to work; that they had been disappointed, and owing
to want and fatigue, had been first attacked with ague and
then with fevers of so fatal a nature, that no one would
suffer them to remain in their cabins: owing to the
benevolent exertions of my young friends, we however found
an asylum for these unfortunates, and had the happiness of
seeing them return comparatively well and happy to their
native province.

This was uttered with an air of despondency that touched my very soul, and I involuntarily presented him some sea biscuit I had in my pocket. He thanked me, and carelessly added, “that it was the first morsel he had tasted for twenty-four hours; * not,” said he, “but I can fast with any one, and well it is for me I can.” He continued brushing an intrusive tear from his eye; and the next moment whistling a lively air, he advanced to his cow, talking to her in Irish, in a soothing tone, and presenting her with such wild flowers and blades of grass as the scanty vegetation of the bog afforded, turned round to me with a smile of self-satisfaction and said, “One can better suffer themselves a thousand times over, than see one’s poor dumb beast want: it is next, please your Honour, to seeing one’s child in want—God help him who has witnessed both!”

* The temperance of an Irish peasant in this respect is
almost incredible; many of them are satisfied with one meal
a day—none of them exceed two—breakfast and supper; which
invariably consists of potatoes, sometimes with, sometimes
without milk. One of the rules observed by the Finian Band,
an ancient militia of Ireland, was to eat but once in the
twenty-four hours.—See Keating’s History of Ireland.

“And art thou then (I mentally exclaimed) that intemperate, cruel, idle savage, an Irish peasant? with a heart thus tenderly alive to the finest feelings of humanity; patiently labouring with daily exertion for what can scarcely afford thee a bare subsistence; sustaining the unsatisfied wants of nature without a murmur; nurtured in the hope (the disappointed hope) of procuring nourishment for her, dearer to thee than thyself, tender of thy animal as thy child, and suffering the consciousness of their wants to absorb all consideration of thy own; and resignation smooths the furrow which affliction has traced upon thy brow, and the national exility of thy character cheers and supports the natural susceptibility of thy heart.” In fact, he was at this moment humming an Irish song by my side.

I need not tell you that the first village we arrived at, I furnished him with the means of procuring him a comfortable dinner for himself and Driminduath, and advice and medicine from the village apothecary for his wife. Poor fellow! his surprise and gratitude was expressed in the true hyperbola of Irish emotion.

Meantime I walked on to examine the ruins of an abbey, where in about half an hour I was joined by Murtoch and his patient companion, whom he assured me he had regaled with some hay, as he had himself with a glass of whisky.—What a dinner for a famishing man!

“It is a dreadful habit, Murtoch,” said I.

“It is so, please your Honour,” replied he, “but then it is meat, drink, and clothes to us, for we forget we have but little of one and less of the other, when we get the drop within us; Och, long life to them that lightened the tax on the whiskey, for by my safe conscience, if they had left it on another year we should have forgotten how to drink it.”

I shall make no comment on Murtoch’s unconscious phillippic against the legislature, but surely a government has little right to complain of those popular disorders to which in a certain degree it may be deemed accessory, by removing the strongest barrier that confines within moral bounds the turbulent passions of the lower orders of society.

To my astonishment, I found that Murtoch had only purchased for his sick wife a little wine and a small piece of bacon: * both, he assured me, were universal and sovereign remedies, and better than any thing the phisicianers could prescribe, to keep the disorder from the heart ** The spirits of Murtoch were now quite afloat, and during the rest of our journey the vehemence, pliancy, and ardour of the Irish character strongly betrayed itself in the manners of this poor unmodified Irishman; while the natural facetiousness of a temperament “complexionably pleasant,” was frequently succeeded by such heartrending accounts of poverty and distress, as shed involuntary tears on those cheeks which but a moment before were distended by the exertions of a boisterous laugh.

* It is common to see them come to gentlemen’s houses with a
little vial bottle to beg a table spoonful of wine (for a
sick relative,) which they esteem the elixir of life.
** To be able to keep any disorder from the heart, is
supposed, (by the lower orders of the Irish,) to be the
secret of longevity.

Nothing could be more wildly sweet than the whistle or song of the ploughman or labourer as we passed along; it was of so singular a nature, that I frequently paused to catch it; it is a species of voluntary recitative, and so melancholy, that every plaintive note breathes on the heart of the auditor a tale of hopeless despondency or incurable woe. By heavens! I could have wept as I listened, and found a luxury in tears. *

* Mr. Walker, in his Historical Memoir of the Irish Bards,
has given a specimen of the Irish plough-tune? and adds,
“While the Irish ploughman drives his team, and the female
peasant milks her cow, they warble a succession of wild
notes which bids defiance to the rules of composition, yet
are inexpressibly sweet.”

The evening was closing in fast, and we were within a mile of Bally————, when, to a day singularly fine, succeeded one of the most violent storms of rain and wind I had ever witnessed. Murtoch, who seemed only to regard it on my account, insisted on throwing his great coat over me, and pointed to a cabin at a little distance, where, he said, “if my Honour would demean myself so far, I could get good shelter for the night.”

“Are you sure of that, Murtoch?” said I.

Murtoch shook his head, and looking full in my face, said something in Irish; which at my request he translated—the words were—“Happy are they whose roof shelters the head of the traveller.

“And is it indeed a source of happiness to you, Murtoch?”

Murtoch endeavoured to convince me it was, even upon a selfish principle: “For (said he) it is thought right lucky to have a stranger sleep beneath one’s roof.”

If superstition was ever thus on the side of benevolence, even reason herself would hesitate to depose her. We had now reached the door of the cabin, which Murtoch opened without ceremony, saying as he entered—“May God and the Virgin Mary pour a blessing on this house!” The family, who were all circled round a fine turf fire that blazed on the earthen hearth, replied, “Come in, and a thousand welcomes”—for Murtoch served as interpreter, and translated as they were spoken these warm effusions of Irish cordiality. The master of the house, a venerable old man, perceiving me, made a low bow, and added, “You are welcome, and ten thousand welcomes, gentleman.” *

* “Failte augus cead ro ag duine nasal.” The term gentleman,
however, is a very inadequate version of the Irish nasal,
which is an epitthet of superiority that indicates more than
mere gentility of birth can bestow, although that requisite
is also included. In a curious dialogue between Ossian and
St. Patrick, in an old Irish poem, in which the former
relates the combat between Oscar and Ilian, St, Patrick
solicits him to the detail, addressing him as “Ossian uasal,
a mhic Fionne”, “Ossian the Noble—the son of Fingal.”

So you see I hold my letter patent of nobility in my countenance, for I had not yet divested myself of Murtoch’s costume—while in the act, the best stool was wiped for me, the best seat at the fire forced on me, and on being admitted into the social circle, I found its central point was a round oaken stool heaped with smoking potatoes thrown promiscuously over it.

To partake of this national diet I was strongly and courteously solicited, while as an incentive to an appetite that needed none, the old dame produced what she called a madder of sweet milk, in contradistinction to the sour milk of which the rest partook; while the cow that sup plied the luxury slumbered most amicably with a large pig at no great distance from where I sat, and Murtoch glancing an eye at both, and then looking at me, seemed to say, “You see into what snug quarters we have got.” While I (as I sat with my damp clothes smoking by the turf fire, my madder of milk in one hand, and hot potatoe in the other) assured him by a responsible glance, that I was fully sensible of the comforts of our situation.

As soon as supper was finished the old man said grace, the family piously blessed themselves, and the stool being removed, the hearth swept, and the fire replenished from the bog, Murtoch threw himself on his back along a bench, * and unasked began a song, the wild and plaintive melody of which went at once to the soul.

When he had concluded, I was told it was the lamentation of the poor Irish for the loss of their glibbs or long tresses, of which they were deprived by the arbitrary will of Henry VIII.—The song (composed in his reign) is called the Coulin ** which I am told is literally, the fair ringlet.

* This curious vocal position is of very ancient origin in
Connaught, though by no means prevalent. Formerly the
songster not only lay on his back, but had a weight pressed
on his chest. The author’s father recollects having seen a
man in the county of Mayo, of the name of O’Melvill, who
sung for him in this position some years back.
** The Cualin is one of the most popular and beautiful
Irish airs estant.

When the English had drawn a pale round their conquests in this country, such of the inhabitants as were compelled to drag on their existence beyond the barrier, could no longer afford to cover their heads with metal, and were necessitated to rely on the resistance of their matted locks. At length this necessity became “the fashion of their choice.”

The partiality of the ancient Irish to long hair is still to be traced in their descendants of both sexes, the women in particular; for I observed that the young ones only wore their “native ornament of hair,” which sometimes flows over their shoulders, sometimes is fastened up in tresses, with a pin or bodkin. A fashion more in unison with grace and nature, though less in point of formal neatness, than the round-eared caps and large hats of our rustic fair of England.

Almost every word of Murtoch’s lamentation was accompanied by the sighs and mournful lamentations of his auditors, who seemed to sympathize as tenderly in the sufferings of their progenitors, as though they had themselves been the victims of the tyranny which had caused them. The arch policy of “the ruthless king,” who destroyed at once the records of a nation’s woes, by extirpating “the tuneful race,” whose art would have perpetuated them to posterity, never appeared to me in greater force than at that moment.

In the midst, however, of the melancholy which involved the mourning auditors of Murtoch, a piper entered and seated himself by the fire, sans façon, drew his pipes from under his coat, and struck up an Irish lilt of such inspiring animation, as might have served St. Basil of Limoges, the merry patron of dancing, for a jubilate.

In a moment, in the true pliability of Irish temperament, the whole pensive group cheered up, flung away their stools, and as if bit to merry madness by a tarantula, set to dancing jigs with all their hearts, and all their strength into the bargain. Murtoch appeared not less skilled in the dance than song; and every one (according to the just description of Goldsmith, who was a native of this province,) seemed

“To seek renown,

By holding out to tire each other down.”

Although much amused by this novel style of devotion at the shrine of Terpsichore, yet as the night was now calm, and an unclouded moon dispersed the gloom of twilight obscurity, I arose to pursue my journey. Murtoch would accompany me, though our hospitable friends did their utmost to prevail on both to remain for the night.

When I insisted on my host receiving a trifle, I observed poverty struggling with pride, and gratitude superior to both: he at last reluctantly consented to be prevailed on, by my assurance of forgetting to call on them again when I passed that way, if I were now denied. I was followed for several paces by the whole family, who parted with, as they received me, with blessings,—for their courtesy upon all occasions, seems interwoven with their religion, and not to be pious in their forms of etiquette, is not to be polite.

Benevolent and generous beings! whose hard labour

“Just gives what life requires, but gives no more,”

yet who, with the ever ready smile of heart-felt welcome, are willing to share that hard earned little, with the weary traveller whom chance conducts to your threshold, or the solitary wanderer whom necessity throws upon your bounty. How did my heart smite me, while I received the cordial rites of hospitality from your hands, for the prejudices I had hitherto nurtured against your characters. But your smiling welcome, and parting benediction, retributed my error—in the feeling of remorse they awakened.

It was late when I reached Bally————, a large, ugly, irregular town, near the sea coast; but fortunately meeting with a chaise, I threw myself into it, gave Murtoch my address, (who was all amazement at discovering I was son to the Lord of the Manor,) and arrived without further adventure at this antique chateau, more gratified by the result of my little pedestrian tour, than if (at least in the present state of my feelings,) I had performed it Sesostris-like, in a triumphal chariot, drawn by kings; for “so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,” appear to me the tasteless pleasures of the world I have left, that every sense, every feeling, is in a state of revolt against its sickening joys, and their concomitant sufferings.

Adieu! I am sending this off by a courier extraordinary, to the next post-town, in the hope of receiving one from you by the same hand.

H. M.

LETTER III.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

I perceive my father emulates the policy of the British Legislature, and delegates English ministers to govern his Irish domains. Who do you think is his fac totum here? The rascally son of his cunning Leicestershire steward, who unites all his father’s artifice to a proportionable share of roguery of his own, I have had some reason to know the fellow; but his servility of manner, and apparent rigid discharge of his duties, has imposed on my father; who, with all his superior mind, is to be imposed on, by those who know how to find out the clew to his fallibility: his noble soul can never stoop to dive into the minute vices of a rascal of this description.

Mr. Clendinning was absent from M———— house when I arrived, but attended me the next morning at breakfast, with that fawning civility of manner I abhor, and which, contrasted with the manly courteousness of my late companion, never appeared more grossly obvious. He endeavoured to amuse me with a detail of the ferocity, cruelty, and uncivilized state of those among whom (as he hinted,) I was banished for my sins. He had now, he said, been near five years among them, and had never met an individual of the lower order, who did not deserve a halter at least: for his part, he had kept a tight hand over them, and he was justified in so doing, or his lord would be the sufferer; for few of them would pay their rents till their cattle were driven, or some such measure was taken with them. And as for the labourers and workmen, a slave-driver was the only man fit to deal with them; they were all rebellious, idle, cruel, and treacherous; and for his part, he never expected to leave the country with his life.

It is not possible a better defence for the imputed turbulence of the Irish peasantry could be made, than that which lurked in the unprovoked accusations of this narrow-minded sordid steward, who, it is evident, wished to forestall the complaints of those on whom he had exercised the native tyranny of his disposition (even according to his own account,) by every species of harrassing oppression within the compass of his ability. For if power is a dangerous gift even in the regulated mind of elevated rank, what does it be come in the delegated authority of ignorance, meanness, and illiberality? *

* A horde of tyrants exist in Ireland, in a class of men
that are unknown in England, in the multitude of agents of
absentees, small proprietors, who are the pure Irish
squires, middle men, who take large farms, and squeeze out a
forced kind of profit by letting them in small parcels;
lastly, the little farmers themselves, who exercise the same
insolence they receive from their superiors, on those
unfortunate beings who are placed at the extremity of the
scale of degradation—the Irish peasantry.—An Enquiry into
the Causes of Popular Discontents in Ireland.

My father, however, by frequent visitations to his Irish estates (within these few years at least,) must afford to his suffering tenantry an opportunity of redress; for who that ever approached him with a tear of suffering, but left his presence with a tear of gratitude! But many, very many of the English nobility who hold immense tracts of land in this country, and draw from hence in part the suppliance of their luxuries, have never visited their estates, since conquest first put them in the possession of their ancestors. Ours, you know, fell to us in the Cromwellian wars, but since the time of General M————, who earned them by the sword, my father, his lineal descendant, is the first of the family who ever visited them. And certainly, a wish to conciliate the affections of his tenantry, could alone induce him to spend so much of his time here as he has done; for the situation of this place is bleak and solitary, and the old mansion, like the old manor houses of England, has neither the architectural character of an antique structure, nor the accommodation of a modern one.

“Ayant l’air delabri, sans l’air antique.”

On enquiring for the key of the library, Mr. Clendinning informed me his lord always took it with him, but that a box of books had come from England a few days before my arrival.

As I suspected, they were all law books—well, be it so; there are few sufferings more acute than those which forbid complaint, because they are self-created.

Four days have elapsed since I began this letter, and I have been prevented from continuing it merely for want of something to say.

I cannot now sit down, as I once did, and give you a history of my ideas or sensations, in the deficiency of fact or incident; for I have survived my sensations, and my ideas are dry and exhausted.

I cannot now trace my joys to their source, or my sorrows to their spring, for I am destitute of their present, and insensible to their former existence. The energy of youthful feeling is subdued, and the vivacity of warm emotion worn out by its own violence. I have lived too fast in a moral as well as a physical sense, and the principles of my intellectual, as well as my natural constitution are, I fear, fast hastening to decay I live the tomb of my expiring mind, and preserve only the consciousness of my wretched state, without the power, and almost without the wish to be otherwise than what I am. And yet, God knows, I am nothing less than contented.

Would you hear my journal? I rise late to my solitary breakfast, because it is solitary; then to study, or rather to yawn over Giles versus Haystack, until (to check the creeping effects of lethargy) I rise from my reading desk, and lounge to a window, which commands a boundless view of a boundless bog; then, “with what appetite I may,” sit down to a joyless dinner. Sometimes, when seduced by the blandishments of an even ing singularly beautiful, I quit my den and prowl down to the sea shore where, throwing myself at the foot of some cliff that “battles o’er the deep,” I fix my vacant eye on the stealing waves that

“Idly swell against the rocky coast,

And break—as break those glittering shadows,

Human joys.”

Then wet with the ocean spray and evening dew, return to my bed, merely to avoid the intrusive civilities of Mr. Clendinning. Thus wear the hours away.”

I had heard that the neighbourhood about M———— house was good: I can answer for its being populous. Although I took every precaution to prevent my arrival being known, yet the natives have come down on me in hordes, and this in all the form of haut ton, as the innumerable cards of the clans of Os and Macs evince. I have, however, neither been visible to the visitants, nor accepted their invitations: for “man delights me not, nor woman either.” Nor woman either! Oh! uncertainty of all human propensities! Yet so it is, that every letter that composes the word woman! seems cabalistical, and rouses every principle of aversion and disgust within me; while I often ask myself with Tasso,

“Se pur ve nelle amor alcun dileito.”

It is certain, that the diminutive body of our worthy steward, is the abode of the transmigrated soul of some West Indian planter. I have been engaged these two days in listening to, and retributing those injuries his tyranny has inflicted, in spite of his rage, eloquence, and threats, none of which have been spared. The victims of his oppression haunt me in my walks, fearful lest their complaints should come to the knowledge of this puissant major domo.

“But why,” said I to one of the sufferers, after a detail of seized geese, pounded cows, extra labour cruelly extorted, ejectments, &c. &c.. given in all the tedious circumlocution of Irish oratory,—“why not complain to my father when he comes among you?”

“Becaise, please your Honour, my Lord stays but a few days at a time here together, nor that same neither; besides, we be loth to trouble his Lordship, for feard it would be after coming to Measther Clendinning’s ears, which would be the ruination of us all; and then when my Lord is at the Lodge, which he mostly is, he is always out amongst the quality, so he is.”

“What Lodge?” said I.

“Why, please your Honour, where my Lord mostly takes up when he comes here, the place that belonged to Measther Clendinning, who call ed it the Lodge, becaise the good old Irish name that was upon it did not suit his fancy.”

In the evening I asked Mr. Clendinning if my father did not sometimes reside at the Lodge? He seemed surprised at my information, and said, that was the name he had given to a ruinous old place which, with a few acres of indifferent land, he had purchased of his hard labour, and which his Lord having taken an unaccountable liking to, rented from him, and was actually the tenant of his own steward.

O! what arms of recrimination I should be furnished with against my rigidly moral father, should I discover this remote Cassino, (for remote I understand it is) to be the harem of some wild Irish Sultana; for I strongly suspect “that metal more attractive” than the cause he assigns, induces him to pay an annual visit to a country to which, till within these few years, he nurtured the strongest prejudices. You know there are but nineteen years between him and my brother; and his feelings are so unblunted by vicious pursuits, his life has been guided by such epicurian principles of enjoyment, that he still retains much of the first warm flush of juvenile existence, and has only sacrificed to time, its follies and its ignorance. I swear, at this moment he is a younger man than either of his sons; the one chilled by the coldness of an icy temperament into premature old age, and the other!!!———Murtoch has been to see me. I have procured him a little farm, and am answerable for the rent. I sent his wife some rich wine; she is recovering very fast. Murtoch is all gratitude for the wine, but I perceive his faith still lies in the bacon!

LETTER IV.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

I can support this wretched state of non-existence, this articula mortis, no longer. I cannot read—I cannot think—nothing touches, nothing interests me; neither is it permitted me to indulge my sufferings in solitude. These hospitable people still weary me with their attentions, though they must consider me as a sullen misanthropist, for I persist in my invisibility. I can escape them no longer but by flight—professional study is out of the question, for a time at least. I mean, therefore, to “take the wings of” some fine morning, and seek a change of being in a change of place; for a perpetual state of evaga-tion alone, keeps up the flow and ebb of existence in my languid frame. My father’s last letter informs me he is obliged by business to postpone his journey for a month; this leaves me so much the longer master of myself. By the time we meet, my mind may have regained its native tone. Laval too, writes for a longer leave of absence, which I most willingly grant. It is a weight removed off my shoulders; I would be savagely free.

I thank you for your welcome letters, and will do what I can to satisfy your antiquarian taste; and I would take your advice and study the Irish language, were my powers of comprehension equal to the least of the philological excellences of Tom Thumb or Goody Two Shoes,—but alas!

“Se perchetto a me Stesso quale acquisto,

Firo mai che me piaccia.” *

* “Torquatto Tasso.”

Villa di Marino, Atlantic Ocean

Having told Mr. Clendinning, that I should spend a few days in wandering about the country, I mounted my horse. So I determined to roam free and unrestrained by the presence of a servant, to Mr. Clendinning’s utter amazement, I ordered a few changes of linen, my drawing-book, and pocket escritoire, to be put in a small valice, which, with all due humility, I had strapped on the back of my steed, whom, by the bye, I expect will be as celebrated as the Rozinante of Don Quixote, or the Beltenbros L’Amadis de Gaul; and thus accoutred set off on my peregrination, the most listless knight that ever entered on the lists of errantry.

You will smile, when I tell you my first point of attraction was the Lodge; to which (though with some difficulty) I found my way; for it lies in a most wild and unfrequented direction, but so infinitely superior in situation to M——— house, that I no longer wonder at my father’s preference. Every feature that constitutes either the beauty or sublime of landscape, is here finely combined. Groves druidically venerable—mountains of Alpine elevation—expansive lakes, and the boldest and most romantic sea-coast I ever beheld, alternately diversify and enrich its scenery; while a number of young and flourishing plantations evince the exertion of taste in my father, he certainly has not betrayed in the disposition of his hereditary domains. I found this Tusculum inhabited only by a decent old man and his superannuated wife. Without informing them who I was, I made a feigning wish to make the place a pretext for visiting it. The old man smiled at the idea, and shook his head, presuming that I must be indeed a stranger in the country, as my accent denoted, for that this spot belonged to a great English Lord, whom he verily believed would not resign it for his own fine place some miles off; but when, with some jesuitical artifice I endeavoured to trace the cause of this attachment, he said it was his Lordship’s fancy, and that there was no accounting for people’s fancies.

“That is all very true,” said I, “but is it the house only that seized on your Lord’s fancy?”

“Nay, for the matter of that,” said he, “the lands are far more finer; the house, though large, being no great things.” I begged in this instance to judge for myself, and a few shillings procured me not only free egress, but the confidence of the ancient Cicerone.

This fancied harem, however, I found not only divested of its expected fair inhabitant, but wholly destitute of furniture, except what filled a bedroom occupied by my father, and an apartment which was locked. The old man with some tardiness produced the key, and I found this mysterious chamber was only a study; but closer inspection discovered that almost all the books related to the language, history, and antiquities of Ireland.

So you see, in fact, my father’s Sultana is no other than the Irish Muse; and never was son so tempted to become the rival of his father, since the days of Antiochus and Stratonice. For, at a moment when my taste, like my senses, is flat and palled, nothing can operate so strongly as an incentive, as novelty. I strongly suspect that my father was aware of this, and that he had despoiled the temple, to prevent me becoming a worshipper at the same shrine. For the old man said he had received a letter from his Lord, ordering away all the furniture (except that of his own bed-room and study) to the manor house; the study and bed-room, however, will suffice me, and here I shall certainly pitch my head-quarters until my father’s arrival.

I have already had some occasions to remark, that the warm susceptible character of the Irish is open to the least indication of courtesy and kindness.

My politesse to this old man, opened every sluice of confidence in his breast, and, as we walked down the avenue together, having thrown the bridle over my horse’s neck, and offered him my arm, for he was lame, I enquired how this beautiful farm fell into the hands of Lord M————, still concealing from him that it was his son who demanded the question.

“Why, your Honour,” said he, “the farm, though beautiful is small; however, it made the best part of what remained of the patrimony of the Prince, when————”

“What Prince?” interrupted I, amazed.

“Why, the Prince of Inismore, to be sure, jewel, whose great forefathers once owned the half of the barony, from the Red Bog to the sea-coast. Och! it is a long story, but I heard my grandfather tell it a thousand times, how a great Prince of Inismore in the wars of Queen Elizabeth, had here a castle and a great tract of land on the borders, of which he was deprived, as the story runs, becaise he would neither cut his glibbs, shave his upper lip, nor shorten his shirt; * and so he was driven, with the rest of us beyond the pale. The family, however, after a while, flourished greater nor ever. Och, and it is themselves that might, for they were true Milesians bread and born, every mother’s soul of them. O not a drop of Strongbonean flowed in their Irish veins, agrah!

* From the earliest settlement of the English in this
country, an inquisitorial persecution had been carried on
against the national costume. In the reign of Henry V. there
was an act passed against even the English colonists wearing
a whisker on the upper lip, like the Irish; and in 1616, the
Lord Deputy, in his instructions to the Lord President and
Council, directed, that such as appeared in the Irish robes
or mantles, should be punished by fine and imprisonment.

“Well, as I was after telling your Honour, the family flourished, and beat all before them, for they had an army of galloglasses at their back, * until the Cromwellian wars broke out, and those same cold-hearted Presbyterians, battered the fine old ancient castle of Inismore, and left in the condition it now stands; and what was worse nor that, the poor old Prince was put to death in the arms of his fine young son, who tried to save him, and that by one of Cromwell’s English Generals, who received the town lands of Inismore, which lie near Bally————, as his reward. Now this English General who murdered the Prince, was no other than the ancestor of my Lord, to whom these estates descended from father to son. Ay, you may well start, Sir, it was a woful piece of business; for of all their fine estates, nothing was left to the Princes of Inismore, but the ruins of their old castle, and the rocks that surround it; except this tight little bit of an estate here, on which the father of the present Prince built this house; becaise his Lady, with whom he got a handsome fortune, and who was descended from the Kings of Connaught, took a dislike to the castle; the story going that it was haunted by the murdered Prince; and what with building of this house, and living like an Irish Prince, as he was every inch of him, and spending 3000 l. a year out of 300 l., when he died (and the sun never shone on such a funeral; the whiskey ran about like ditch water, and the country was stocked with pipes and tobacco for many a long year after. For the present Prince, his son, would not be a bit behind his father in any thing, and so signs on him, for he is not worth one guinea this blessed day, Christ save him;)—well, as I was saying, when he died, he left things in a sad way, which his son is not the man to mend, for he was the spirit of a king, and lives in as much state as one to this day.”

* The second order of military in Ireland.

“But where, where does he live?” interrupted I, with breathless impatience.

“Why,” continued this living chronicle, in the true spirit of Irish replication, “he did live there in that Lodge, as they call it now, and in that room where my Lord keeps his books, was our young Princess born; her father never had but her, and loves her better than his own heart’s blood, and well he may, the blessing of the Virgin Mary and the Twelve Apostles light on her sweet head. Well, the Prince would never let it come near him, that things were not going on well, and continued to take at great rents, farms that brought him in little; for being a Prince and a Milesian, it did not become him to look after such matters, and every thing was left to stewards and the like, until things coming to the worst, a rich English gentleman, as it was said, come over here and offered the Prince, through his steward, a good round sum of money on this place, which the Prince, being harrassed by his spalpeen creditors, and wanting a little ready money more than any other earthly thing, consented to receive; the gentleman sending him word he should have his own time; but scarcely was the mortgage a year old, when this same Englishman, (Oh, my curse lie about him, Christ pardon me,) foreclosed it, and the fine old Prince not having as much as a shed to shelter his gray hairs under, was forced to fit up part of the old ruined castle, and open those rooms which it had been said were haunted. Discharging many of his old servants, he was accompanied to the castle by the family steward, the fosterers, the nurse * the harper, and Father John, the chaplain.

* The custom of retaining the nurse who reared the
children, has ever been, and is still in force among the
most respectable families in Ireland, as it is still in
modern, and was formerly in ancient Greece, and they are
probably both derived from the same origin. We read, that
when Rebecca left her father’s house to marry Isaac at
Beersheba, the nurse was sent to accompany her. But in
Ireland, not only the nurse herself, but her husband and
children are objects of peculiar regard and attention, and
are called fosterers. The claims of these fosterers
frequently descend from generation to generation, and the
tie which unite? them is indissoluble.

“Och, it was a piteous sight the day he left this: he was leaning on the Lady Glorvina’s arm as he walked out to the chaise, ‘James Tyral,’ says he to me in Irish, for I caught his eye; ‘James Tyral,’ but he could say no more, for the old tenants kept crying about him, and he put his mantle to his eyes and hurried into the chaise; the Lady Glorvina kissing her hand to us all, and crying bitterly till she was out of sight. But then, Sir, what would you have of it; the Prince shortly after found out that this same Mr. Mortgagee, was no other than a spalpeen steward of Lord M————‘s. It was thought he would have run mad when he found that almost the last acre of his hereditary lands was in the possession of the servant of his hereditary enemy; for so deadly is the hatred he bears to my Lord, that upon my conscience, I believe the young Prince who held the bleeding body of his murdered father in his arms, felt not greater for the murderer, than our Prince does for that murder’s descendant.

“Now my Lord is just such a man as God never made better, and wishing with all the veins in his heart to serve the old Prince, and do away all difference between them, what does he do, jewel, but writes him a mighty pretty letter, offering this house and a part of the lands a present. O! divil a word of lie I’m after telling you; but what would you have of it, but this offer sets the Prince madder than all; for you know that this was an insult on his honour, which warmed every drop of Milesian blood in his body for he would rather starve to death all his life, than have it thought he would be obligated to any body at all at all for wherewithal to support him; so with that the Prince writes him a letter: it was brought by the old steward, who knew every line of the contents of it, though divil a line in it but two, and that same was but one and a half, as one may say, and this it was, as the old steward told me:

“The son of the son of the son’s son of Bryan, Prince of Inismore, can receive no favour from the descendant of his ancestor’s murderer.”

“Now it was plain enough to be seen, that my Lord took this to heart, as well he might, faith; however, he considered that it came from a misfortunate Prince, he let it drop, and so this was all that ever passed between them; however, he was angry enough with his steward, but Measther Clendinning put his comehither on him, and convinced him that the biggest rogue alive was an honest man.”

“And the Prince!” I interrupted eagerly.

“Och, jewel, the prince lives away in the old Irish fashion, only he has not a Christian soul now at all at all, most of the old Milesian gentry having quit the country; besides, the Prince being in a bad state of health, and having nearly lost the use of his limbs, and his heart being heavy, and his purse light; for all that he keeps up the old Irish customs and dress, letting nobody eat at the same table but his daughter, * not even his Lady when she was alive.”

* M’Dermot, Prince of Coolavin, never suffered his wife to
sit at table with him; although his daughter-in-law was
permitted to that honour, as she was the descendant from the
royal family of the O’Connor.

“And do you think the son of Lord M———— would have no chance of obtaining an audience from the Prince?”

“What the young gentleman that they say is come to M———— house? why about as much chance as his father, but by my conscience, that’s a bad one.”

“And your young Princess, is she as implacable as her father?”

“Why, faith! I cannot well tell you what the Lady Glorvina is, for she is like nothing upon the face of God’s creation but herself. I do not know how it comes to pass, that every mother’s soul of us loves her better nor the Prince; ay, by my conscience, and fear her too; for well may they fear her, on the score of her great learning, being brought up by Father John, the chaplain, and spouting Latin faster nor the priest of the parish: and we may well love her, for she is a saint upon earth, and a great physicianer to boot; curing all the sick and maimed for twenty miles round. Then she is so proud, that divil a one soul of the quality will she visit in the whole barony, though she will sit in a smoky cabin for hours together, to talk to the poor: besides all this, she will sit for hours at her Latin and Greek, after the family are gone to bed, and yet you will see her up with the dawn, running like a doe about the rocks; her fine yellow hair streaming in the wind, for all the world like a mermaid.

“Och! my blessing light on her every day she sees the light, for she is the jewel of a child.”

“A child! say you!”

“Why, to be sure I think her one; for many a time I carried her in these arms, and taught her to bless herself in Irish; but she is no child either, for as one of our old Irish songs says, ‘Upon her cheek we see love’s letter sealed with a damask rose.’ * But if your Honour has any curiosity you may judge for yourself; for matins and vespers are celebrated every day in the year, in the old chapel belonging to the castle, and the whole family attend.”

* This is a line of a song of one Dignum, who composed in
his native language, but could neither read nor write nor
spoke any language but his own. “I have seen,” said the
celebrated Edmund Burke (who in his boyish days had known
him) “some of his effusions translated into English, but was
assured, by judges, that they fell far short of the
originals; yet they contained some graces, ‘snatched beyond
the reach of ark’ “—Vide Life of Burke.

“And are strangers also permitted?”

“Faith and it’s themselves that are; but few indeed trouble them, though none are denied. I used to get to mass myself sometimes, but it is now too far to walk for me.”

This was sufficient, I waited to hear no more, but repaid my communicative companion for his information, and rode off, having inquired the road to Inismore from the first man I met.

It would be vain, it would be impossible to describe the emotion which the simple tale of this old man awakened. The descendant of a murderer! The very scoundrel steward of my father revelling in the property of a man who shelters his aged head beneath the ruins of those walls where his ancestors bled under the uplifted sword of mine.

Why this, you will say, is the romance of a novel-read schoolboy. Are we not all, the little and the great, descended from assassins; was not the first born man a fratricide? and still, on the field of unappeased contention, does not “man the murderer, meet the murderer, man?”

Yes, yes, ‘tis all true; humanity acknowledges it and shudders. But still I wish my family had never possessed an acre of ground in this country, or possessed it on other terms. I always knew the estate fell into our family in the civil wars of Cromwell, and, in the world’s language, was the well-earned meed of my progenitor’s valour; but I seemed to hear it now for the first time.

I am glad, however, that this old Irish chieftain is such a ferocious savage; that the pity his fate awakens is qualified by aversion for his implacable, irascible disposition. I am glad his daughter is red headed, a pedant, and a romp; that she spouts Latin like the priest of the parish, and cures sore fingers; that she avoids genteel society, where her ideal rank would procure her no respect, and her unpolished ignorance, by force of contrast, make her feel her real inferiority; that she gossips among the poor peasants, over whom she can reign liege Lady; and, that she has been brought up by a jesuitical priest, who has doubtlessly rendered her as bigoted and illiberal as himself. All this soothes my conscientous throes of feeling and compassion; for oh! if this savage chief was generous and benevolent, as he is independent and spirited; if this daughter was amiable and intelligent, as she must be simple and unvitiated! But I dare not pursue the supposition, It is better as it is.

You would certainly never guess that the Villa di Marino, from whence I date the continuation of my letter, was simply a fisherman’s hut on the seacoast, half way between the Lodge and Castle of Inismore, that is, seven miles distant from each. Determined on attending vespers at Inismore, I was puzzling my brain to think where or how I should pass the night, when this hut caught my eye, and I rode up to it to inquire if there was any inn in the neighbourhood, where a chevalier errant could shelter his adventurous head for a night; but I was informed the nearest inn was fifteen miles distant, so I bespoke a little fresh straw, and a clean blanket which hung airing on some fishing tackle outside the door of this marine hotel, in preference to riding so far for a bed, at so late an hour as that in which the vespers would be concluded.

This mine host of the Atlantic promised me, pointing to a little board suspended over the door, on which was written:

“Good Dry Lodging.”

My landlord, however, convinced me his hotel afforded something better than good dry lodging; for entreating me to alight, till a shower passed over which was beginning to fall, I entered the hut, and found his wife, a sturdy lad their eldest son, and two naked little ones, seated at their dinner, and enjoying such a feast, as Apicius, who sailed to Africa from Rome to eat good oysters, would gladly have voyaged from Rome to Ireland to have partaken of; for they were absolutely dining on an immense turbot (whose fellow-sufferers were floundering in a boat that lay anchored near the door.) A most cordial invitation on their part, and a most willing compliance on mine, was the ceremony of a moment; and never did an English alderman on turtle day, or Roman emperor on lampreys and peacocks’ livers, make a more delicious repast, than the chance guest of these good people, on their boiled turbot and roasted potatoes, which was quaffed down by the pure phalernian of a neighbouring spring.

Having learnt that the son was going with the compeers of the demolished turbot to Bally————,

I took out my little escritoire to write you an account of the first adventure of my chivalrous tour; while one of spring’s most grateful sunny show ers, is pattering on the leaves of the only tree that shades this simple dwelling, and my Rosinante is nibbling a scanty dinner from the patches of vegetation that sprinkle the surrounding cliffs. Adieu! the vesper hour arrives. In all “my orisons thy sins shall be remembered.” The spirit of adventure wholly possesses me, and on the dusky horizon of life, some little glimmering of light begins to dawn.

Encore adieu.

H. M.

LETTER V.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

Castle of Inismore, Barony of ————.

Ay, ‘tis even so—point your glasses—and rub your eyes, ‘tis all one; here I am, and here I am likely to remain for some time, but whether a prisoner of war, taken up on a suspicion of espionage, or to be offered as an appeasing sacrifice to the manes of the old Prince of Inismore, you must for a while suspend your patience to learn.

According to the carte du pays laid out for me by the fisherman, I left the shore and crossed the summit of a mountain that “battled o’er the deep,” and which after an hour’s ascension, I found sloped almost perpendicularly down to a bold and rocky coast, its base terminating in a peninsula, that advanced for near half a mile into the ocean. Towards the extreme western point of this peninsula, which was wildly romantic beyond all description, arose a vast and grotesque pile of rocks, which at once formed the site and fortifications of the noblest mass of ruins on which my eye ever rested. Grand even in desolation, and magnificent in decay—it was the Castle of Inismore. The setting sun shone brightly on its mouldering turrets, and the waves which bathed its rocky basis, reflected on their swelling bosoms the dark outlines of its awful ruins. *

* Those who have visited the Castle of Dunluce, near the
Giant’s Causeway, may, perhaps, have some idea of its
striking features in this rude draught of the Castle of
Inismore.

As I descended the mountain’s brow I observed that the little isthmus which joined the peninsula to the main land had been cut away, and a curious danger-threatening bridge was rudely thrown across the intervening gulf, flung from the rocks on one side to an angle of the mountain on the other, leaving a yawning chasm of some fathoms deep beneath the foot of the wary passenger. This must have been a very perilous pass in the days of civil warfare; and in the intrepidity of my daring ancestor, I almost forgot his crime. Amidst the interstices of the rocks which skirted the shores of this interesting peninsula, patches of the richest vegetation were to be seen, and the trees which sprung wildly among its venerable ruins, were bursting into all the vernal luxuriancy of spring. In the course of my descent, several cabins of a better description than I had yet seen, appeared scattered beneath the shelter of the mountain’s innumerable projections; while in the air and dress of the inhabitants (which the sound of my horse’s feet brought to their respective doors,) I evidently perceived a something original and primitive, I had never noticed before in this class of persons here.

They appeared to me, I know not why, to be in their holiday garb, and their dress, though grotesque and coarse, was cleanly and characteristic. I observed that round the heads of the elderly dames were folded several wreaths of white or coloured linen, * and others had hand kerchiefs ** lightly folded round their brows, and curiously fastened under the chin; while the young wore their hair fastened up with wooden bodkins. They were all enveloped in large shapeless mantles of blue frieze, and most of them had a rosary hanging on their arm, from whence I inferred they were on the point of attending vespers at the chapel of Inismore.

* “The women’s ancient headdress so perfectly resembles that
of the Egyptian Isis, that it cannot be doubted but that the
modes of Egypt were preserved among the Irish.”—Walker on
the Ancient Irish dress, p. 62.
** These handkerchiefs they call “Binnogues,” it is a remnant
of a very ancient mode.

I alighted at the door of a cabin a few paces distant from the Alpine bridge, and entreated a shed for my horse, while I performed my devotions. The man to whom I addressed myself, seemed the only one of several who surrounded me that understood English, and appeared much edified by my pious intention, saying, “that God would prosper my Honour’s journey, and that I was welcome to a shed for my horse, and a night’s lodging for myself into the bargain.” He then offered to be my guide, and as we crossed the drawbridge, he told me I was out of luck by not coming earlier, for that high mass had been celebrated that morning for the repose of the soul of a Prince of Inismore, who had been murdered on this very day of the month. “And when this day comes round,” he added, “we all attend dressed in our best; for my part, I never wear my poor old grandfather’s berrad but on the like occasion,” taking off a curious cap of a conical form, which he twirled round his hand and regarded with much satisfaction. *

* A few years back, Hugh Dugan, a peasant of the county of
Kilkenny, who affected the ancient Irish dress, seldom
appeared without his berrad.

By heavens! as I breathed this region of superstition, so strongly was I infected, that my usual scepticism was scarcely proof against my inclination to mount my horse and gallop off, as I shudderingly pronounced, “I am then entering the castle of Inismore on the anniversary of that day on which my ancestors took the life of its venerable Prince!”

You see, my good friend, how much we are the creatures of situation and circumstance, and with what pliant servility the mind resigns itself to the impressions of the senses, or the illusions of the imagination.

We had now reached the ruined cloisters of the chapel, I paused to examine their curious but dilapidated architecture when my guide, hurrying me on, said, “if I did not quicken my pace, I should miss getting a good view of the Prince,” who was just entering by a door opposite to that we had passed through. Behold me then mingling among a group of peasantry, and, like them, straining my eyes to that magnet which fascinated every glance.

And sure, fancy, in her boldest flight, never gave to the fairy vision of poetic dreams, a combination of images more poetically fine, more strikingly picturesque, or more impressively touching. Nearly one half of the chapel of Inismore has fallen into decay, and the ocean breeze as it rushed through the fractured roof, wafted the torn banners of the family which hung along its dismantled walls. The red beams of the sinking sun shone on the glittering tabernacle which stood on the altar, and touched with their golden light the sacerdotal vestments of the two officiating priests, who ascended its broken steps at the moment that the Prince and his family entered.

The first of this most singular and interesting group, was the venerable Father John, the chaplain. Religious enthusiasm never gave to the fancied form of the first of the patriarchs, a countenance of more holy expression or divine resignation; a figure more touching by its dignified simplicity, or an air more beneficently mild, more meekly good. He was dressed in his pontificals, and, with his eyes bent to the earth, his hands spread upon his breast, he joined his coadjutors.

What a contrast to this saintly being now struck my view; a form almost gigantic in stature, yet gently thrown forward by evident infirmity; limbs of herculean mould, and a countenance rather furrowed by the inroads of vehement passions, than the deep trace of years. Eyes still emanating the ferocity of an unsubdued spirit, yet tempered by a strong trait of benevolence; which, like a glory, irradiated a broad expansive brow, a mouth on which even yet the spirit of convivial enjoyment seemed to hover, though shaded by two large whiskers on the upper lip, * which still preserved their ebon hue; while time or grief had bleached the scattered hairs which hung their snows upon the manly temple. The drapery which covered this striking figure was singularly appropriate, and, as I have since been told, strictly conformable to the ancient costume of the Irish nobles.

* “I have been confidently assured, that the granfather of
the present Rt. Hon. John O’Neal, (great grandfather to the
present Lord O’Neal) the elegant and accomplished owner of
Shane’s Castle, wore his beard after the prohibited Irish
mode.”—Walker, p. 62.

The only part of the under garment visible, was the ancient Irish truis, which closely adhering to the limbs from the waist to the ancle, includes the pantaloon and hose, and terminates in a buskin not dissimilar to the Roman perones. A triangular mantle of bright scarlet cloth, embroidered and fringed round the edges, fell from his shoulders to the ground, and was fastened at the breast with a large circular golden brooch, of a workmanship most curiously beautiful; round his neck hung a golden collar, which seemed to denote the wearer of some order of knighthood, probably hereditary in his family; a dagger, called a skiene (for my guide explained every article of the dress to me,) was sheathed in his girdle, and was discerned by the sunbeam that played on its brilliant haft. And as he entered the chapel, he removed from his venerable head a cap or berrad, of the same form as that I had noticed with my guide, but made of velvet, richly embroidered.

The chieftain moved with dignity—yet with difficulty—and his colossal, but infirm frame, seemed to claim support from a form so almost impalpably delicate, that as it floated on the gaze, it seemed like the incarnation of some pure ethereal spirit, which a sigh, too roughly breathed, would dissolve into its kindred air; yet to this sylphid elegance of spheral beauty was united all that symmetrical contour which constitutes the luxury of human loveliness. This scarcely “mortal mixture of earth’s mould,” was vested in a robe of vestal white, which was enfolded beneath the bosom with a narrow girdle embossed with precious stones.

From the shoulder fell a mantle of scarlet silk, fastened at the neck with a silver bodkin, while the fine turned head was enveloped in a veil of point lace, bound round the brow with a band or diadem, ornamented with the same description of jewels as encircled her arms. *

* This was, with a little variation, the general costume of
the female noblesse of Ireland from a very early period. In
the fifteenth century the veil was very prevalent, and was
termed fillag, or scarf; the Irish ladies, like those of
ancient and modern Greece, seldom appearing. As the veil
made no part of the Celtic costume, its origin was probably
merely oriental.
The great love of ornaments betrayed by the Irish ladies of
other times, “the beauties of the heroes of old,” art thus
described by a quaint and ancient author:—“Their necks are
hung with chains and carkanets—their arms wreathed with
many bracelets.”

Such was the figure of the Princess of Inis-more! But oh! not once was the face turned round towards that side where I stood. And when I shifted my position, the envious veil intercepted the ardent glance which eagerly sought the fancied charms it concealed: for was it possible to doubt the face would not “keep the promise that the form had made.”

The group that followed was grotesque beyond all powers of description. The ancient bard, whose long white beard

“Descending, swept his aged breast,”

the incongruous costume—half modern, half antique, of the bare footed domestics, the ostensible steward, who closed the procession—and above all, the dignified importance of the nurse, who took the lead in it immediately after her young lady; her air, form, countenance, and dress, were indeed so singularly fantastic and outre, that the genius of masquerade might have adopted her figure as the finest model of grotesque caricature.

Conceive for a moment a form whose longitude bore no degree of proportion to her latitude; dressed in a short jacket of brown cloth, with loose sleeves from the elbow to the wrist, made of red camblet striped with green, and turned up with a broad cuff—a petticoat of scarlet frieze, covered by an apron of green serge, longitudinally striped with scarlet tape, and sufficiently short to betray an ancle that sanctioned all the libels ever uttered against the ancles of the Irish fair—true national brogues set off her blue worsted stockings, and her yellow hair, dragged over a high roll, was covered on the summit with a little coiff, over which was flung a scarlet handkerchief, which fastened in a large bow under her rubicund chin.

As this singular and interesting group advanced up the central aisle of the chapel, reverence and affection were evidently blended in the looks of the multitude which hung upon their steps; and though the Prince and his daughter seeked to lose in the meekness of true religion all sense of temporal inequality, and promiscuously mingled with the congregation, yet that distinction they humbly avoided, was reverently forced on them by the affectionate crowd, which drew back on either side as they advanced, until the chieftain and his child stood alone in the centre of the ruined choir, the winds of heaven playing freely amidst their garments, the sun’s setting beam enriching their beautiful figures with its orient tints, while he, like Milton’s ruined angel,

“Above the rest,

In shape and feature proudly eminent,

Stood like a tower;”

and she, like the personified spirit of Mercy hovered round him, or supported more by tenderness than her strength, him from whom she could no longer claim support.

Those gray headed domestics, too, those faith ful though but nominal vassals, who offered that voluntary reverence with their looks, which his repaid with fatherly affection, while the anguish of a suffering heart hung on his pensive smile, sustained by the firmness of that indignant pride which lowered on his ample brow!

What a picture!

As soon as the first flush of interest, curiosity, and amazement had subsided, my attention was carried towards the altar; and then I thought as I watched the impressive avocation of Father John, that had I been the Prince, I would have been the Caiphas too.

What a religion is this! How finely does it harmonize with the weakness of our nature, how seducingly it speaks to the senses; how forcibly it works on the passions; how strongly it seizes on the imagination; how interesting its forms; how graceful its ceremonies; how awful its rites. What a captivating, what a picturesque faith! Who would not become its proselyte, were it not for the stern opposition of reason, the cold suggestions of philosophy!

The last strain of the vesper hymn died on the air as the sun’s last beam faded on the casements of the chapel; and the Prince and his daughter., to avoid the intrusion of the crowd, withdrew through a private door, which communicated by a ruinous arcade with the castle.

I was the first to leave the chapel, and followed them at a distance as they moved slowly along, their fine figures, sometimes concealed behind a pillar, and again emerging from the transient shade, flushed with the deep suffusion of the crimsoned firmament.

Once they paused, as if to admire the beautiful effect of the retreating light, as it faded on the ocean’s swelling bosom; and once the Princess raised her hand and pointed to the evening star, which rose brilliantly on the deep cerulean blue of a cloudless atmosphere, and shed its fairy beam on the mossy summit of a mouldering turret.

Such were the sublime objects which seemed to engage their attention, and added their sensible inspiration to the fervour of those more abstracted devotions in which they were so recently engaged. At last they reached the portals of the castle, and I lost sight of them. Yet still spellbound, I stood transfixed to the spot from whence I had caught a last view of their receding figures.

While I felt like the victim of superstitious terror when the spectre of its distempered fancy vanishes from its strained and eager gaze, all I had lately seen revolved in my mind like some pictured story of romantic fiction. I cast round my eyes; all still seemed the vision of awakened imagination. Surrounded by a scenery grand even to the boldest majesty of nature, and wild even to desolation—the day’s dying splendours Awfully involving in the gloomy haze of deepening twilight—the gray mists of stealing night gathering on the still faintly illumined surface of the ocean, which, awfully spreading to infinitude, seemed to the limited gaze of human vision to incorporate with the heaven whose last glow it reflected—the rocks, which on every side rose to Alpine elevation, exhibiting, amidst the soft obscurity, forms savagely bold or grotesquely wild; and those finely interesting ruins which spread grandly desolate in the rear, and added a moral interest to the emotions excited by this view of nature in her most awful, most touching aspect.

Thus suddenly withdrawn from the world’s busiest haunts, its hackneyed modes, its vicious pursuits, and unimportant avocations—dropped as it were amidst scenes and mysterious sublimity—alone—on the wildest shores of the greatest ocean of the universe; immersed amidst the decaying monuments of past ages; still viewing in recollection such forms, such manners, such habits (as I had lately beheld,) which to the worldly mind may be well supposed to belong to a race long passed beyond the barrier of existence, with “the years beyond the flood,” I felt like the being of some other sphere newly alighted on a distant orb. While the novel train of thought which stole on my mind, seemed to seize its tone from the awful tranquillity by which I was surrounded, and I remained leaning on the fragment of a rock, as the waves dashed idly against its base, until their dark heads were silvered by the rising moon, and while my eyes dwelt on her silent progress, the castle clock struck nine. Thus warned, I arose to depart, yet not without reluctance. My soul, for the first time, had here held commune with herself; the “lying vanities” of life no longer intoxicating my senses, appeared to me for the first time in their genuine aspect, and my heart still fondly loitered over those scenes of solemn interest, where some of its best feelings had been called into existence.