The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Tour In Ireland, by S. Reynolds Hole This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: A Little Tour In Ireland Author: S. Reynolds Hole Illustrator: John Leech Release Date: January 30, 2014 [EBook #44805] Last Updated: February 28, 2018 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND *** Produced by David Widger from page images generously provided by Google Books A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND By S. Reynolds Hole An Oxonian (Dean Of Rochester) With Illustrations By JOHN LEECH “By suffering worn and weary, But beautiful as some fair angel yet.” 1892 TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN LEECH A TRUE ARTIST A TRUE FRIEND AND A TRUE GENTLEMAN THIS BOOK WHICH HE MADE A SUCCESS IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR I S. REYNOLDS HOLE PREFACE. have been so often and persuasively asked to republish A Little Tour in Ireland, which I wrote as “an Oxonian,” many years ago, at the request of my beloved friend and companion, John Leech, and of which only one edition has been issued, and that long since exhausted; I have been so severely upbraided for “keeping his splendid illustrations locked up in a box, and raising the price of the few copies which come into the market, to thrice the original cost;” I have been so fully certified, not only by hearsay but by my own eyes, that there is little or no perceptible change in the scenes, which he drew and I described; and my apprehension, that the style in which the book is written might be denounced as unbecoming, has been so completely expelled by the amused remonstrance of my friends, who insist that gaiety becomes an undergraduate as much as gaiters a Dean;—that I can make no further resistance, and only ask that the failings of the author may be condoned by the talent of the artist. S. Reynolds Hole. The Deanery, Rochester: 1892. CONTENTS PREFACE. CHAPTER I. PREFATORY. CHAPTER II. TO DUBLIN. CHAPTER III. DUBLIN. CHAPTER IV. FROM DUBLIN TO GALWAY. CHAPTER V. THE FAMINE. CHAPTER VI. FROM GALWAY TO OUGHTERARDE. CHAPTER VII. CONNAMARA. CHAPTER VIII. CLIFDEN. CHAPTER IX. KYLEMORE. CHAPTER X. FROM KYLEMORE TO GALWAY. CHAPTER XI. FROM GALLWAY TO LIMERICK CHAPTER XII. LIMERICK CHAPTER XIII. KILLARNEY. CHAPTER XIV. KILLARNEY CHAPTER XV. KILLARNEY. CHAPTER XVI. FROM KILLARNEY TO GLENGARRIFF CHAPTER XVII. GLENGARRIFF. CHAPTER XVIII. GLENGARRIFF TO CORK CHAPTER XIX. CORK CHAPTER XX. BLARNEY CHAPTER XXI. FROM DUBLIN HOMEWARD T CHAPTER I. PREFATORY. HERE are two species of Undergraduates, the Fast and the Slow. I am now of the former persuasion. Originally, having promised my relations that I would take a Double First-Class and most of the principal prizes, I was associated with the latter brotherhood, but was soon compelled to secede, and to sue for a separation, a mensâ et thoro, their tea-table and early rising, on the plea of incompatibility of temper. One young gentleman, who described himself as being very elect indeed, candidly told me that, unless my sentiments with reference to bitter beer and tobacco underwent a material change, he could give me no hope of final happiness; and another impeccable party, with a black satin stock and the handiest legs in Oxford, felt himself solemnly constrained to mention, that he could not regard horse-exercise as at all consistent with a saving faith. I spoke of St. George (though I dared not say that I had met him at Astley's), of St. Denis, and St. Louis, of the Crusaders, and the Red Cross Knight; but he only replied that I was far gone in idolatry, and he lent me the biography of the Reverend T. P. Snorker, which, after describing that gentleman's conversion at a cock-fight, with the sweet experiences of his immaculate life, and instituting a comparison between his preaching and that of St. Paul (a trifle in favour of Snorker), finally declared him to be an angel, and bade all mankind adore, and reverence, and buy his sermons at seven-and-six. When I returned the publication, and told him that, though I had been highly entertained, I liked the Life of George Herbert better, he called me a hagiologist (a term which struck me as being all the more offensive, inasmuch as I had no idea of its meaning), 1 and murmured something about “the mark of the beast,” whereupon, I regret to confess, that I so far lost my temper as to address him with the unclassical epithet of “a young Skunk,” suggesting the expediency of his immediate presence at Jericho, and warning him, that, if he were not civil, “the beast” might leave a “mark” upon him. That very day, I wrote to the butler at home, to send up my pink and tops, and “went over to roam” in happier pastures. 1 “Egan, in addressing a jury, having exhausted every ordinary epithet of abuse, stopt for a word, and then added, 'this naufrageous ruffian.' When afterwards asked the meaning of the word, he confessed he did not know, but said; 'he thought it sounded well.'”—Sketches of the Irish Bar, vol. i. p. 83. I find them more healthful also. I find that so far from my perception of right and wrong being destroyed, as the disciples of Snorker prophesied, by a gallop after the Heythrop hounds, and my appreciation of Thucydides being expelled by my morning pipe, I have, mentally and bodily, a better tone; and though my former condiscipuli groan when they meet me coming in from the chase, as though I were the scarlet lady herself, I still venture to appear at chapel, and will back myself to construe the funeral oration of Pericles against the ugliest of the lot. Oh, that fox-hunting were the worst enemy to me, a student, for I might be a class man still! But I have contracted a habit desperately antagonistic to literature,—I am allways falling in love. The moment I see a pretty face, I feel that sort of emotion which Sydney Smith used to say the late Bishop of London rejoiced to contemplate in his clergy, “a kind of drop-down-deadness.” I cannot walk out, or drive out, or ride, or row out, but I am sure to have an attack. I have had as many, indeed, as two in one day. With the daughters of Deans and Presidents, with visitors, with ladies come in from the country to shop, I am perpetually and passionately in love. I don't like it, because there is not the most remote probability of my ever exchanging six syllables with these objects of my devoted affection, not to mention that they are equally beloved by some three or four hundred rivals; but I am powerless to oppose; I can't help it. My life is an everlasting “dream of fair women:” I know it is a dream, but I cannot waken. Others have roused me, though, and most uncomfortably. I heard a Devonshire girl, whom I met at a wedding breakfast, and with whom I thought I was progressing favourably, whispering to her neighbour, “This tipsy child is becoming a nuisance, and I really must ring for nurse,” when I was as sober as Father Mathew, and had whiskers of considerable beauty, if viewed in an advantageous light. Still more sadly and recently, another “daughter of the gods, divinely fair,” dissipated Love's young dream, and sent me forth to a foreign land to forget my sorrows, as, indeed, I immediately did. The catastrophe, which caused our happy days in Ireland, befel as follows. “'Twas in the prime of summer time, an evening calm and cool,” that I found myself wandering among the shrubberies of ———— Castle with a most lovely girl. A large picnic party had been enlivened by archery and aquatics, and I fancy that the glare of some new targets, and the sheen of the “shining river,” had not only dazzled my eyes, but likewise had bewildered my brain. In spite of the cooling beverages, the cobblers and the cups, I was actuated by an extraordinary liveliness. I sang songs for the company, not quite reaching the high notes, but with intense feeling, doing all in my power to indicate to the lovely girl that she was my Annie Laurie, and that for her I should consider it a pleasant gymnastic exercise to expire in a recumbent position. I made felicitous alterations in the words, such as, “hazel is her e'e” for “dark-blue;” and in the song of “Constance,” instead of “I lay it as the rose is laid on some immortal shrine,” I contrived, with immense difficulty, and by means of a terrific apoggiatura, to substitute the word stephanotis of which I had that morning given her a bouquet. But “brevis esse laboro;” we were alone, and I resolved to propose. I seized her elbow with both hands, a ridiculous position, but I was very nervous, and was about to ask the momentous question, when she said with such a tone of gentle pity as took away half the pain, “Philip, I am engaged to Lord Evelyn. Shall we go back for coffee?” I seconded the motion, but oh, what an amazing period of time we seemed to occupy in carrying our proposition out! The first idea which presented itself to my F mind was suicide, but it met with an unfavourable reception; the second, to enlist immediately, and to secure the earliest coup-de-soleil possible; the third, to insult Lord Evelyn (the beast was at Christ Church, and I knew him), and subsequently to shoot him in Port- Meadow. “What right had he,” I asked myself, “to anticipate me, and win her heart? I hate these accursed aristocrats, who suck the life-blood of the people.” This is the accursed aristocrat who sucks the life-blood of the people! 026m Original Size At last, we rejoined the party, and found them talking the silliest rubbish conceivable, and apparently enjoying the nastiest coffee I ever remember to have drunk. That night, and at the witching hour, when men and women tell each other everything, (in the strictest confidence), they in their dormitories, and we in our smoke-rooms, I revealed my misery to my friend Frank C————, who happened happily to be staying with me. Frank has Irish blood in his veins, and his first impulse was to have “a crack at the Viscount,” but he ultimately took a less truculent view of the case, and suggested brandy and water. From this source, and “from the cool cisterns of the midnight air,” for we were smoking our cigars out of doors, “our spirits drank repose,” and we finally resolved “to banish my regret,” and to replenish our sketch-books, by a fortnight's tour in Ireland. CHAPTER II. TO DUBLIN. 028m Original Size ORTHWITH, I put myself into active training, and got into splendid condition for doing “justice to Ireland.” I read Moore's Melodies; I played Nora Creina upon the flute, not perhaps with that rapidity which is usual outside the Peepshows, but with much more expression; I discoursed with reapers; I tried to pronounce Drogheda, till I was nearly black in the face; I drank whiskey-punch (subsequently discovered to be Hollands); I ate Irish stew (a dish never heard of in that country) and I bought the sweetest thing in portmanteaus, with drawers, trays, pockets, compartments, recesses, straps, and buckles, more than enough to drive that traveller mad, who should forget where he had placed his razors. Amid these preparations, I am ashamed to state, that I became disgracefully oblivious of my little disappointment in the shrubberies, and soon realised the Chinese maxim, more truthful than genteel,—“the dog that is idle barks at his fleas, but he that is hunting feels them not.” Indeed, to make my confession complete, and to descend the staircase of inconstancy to the lowest depth of humiliation, I must acknowledge that on the day of our departure I fell violently in love at Crewe Station, whence my heart was borne away, in the direction of Derby, by the loveliest girl, that is to say, one of the loveliest girls, that ever beautified an express train. 030m Original Size I begin to fear that my unhappy tendencies to this kind of fierce, but fugitive attachment, have not been at all improved by communion with Mr. Thomas Moore, and I tremble to find myself listening complacently to the fickle philosophies of Marmontel, —“Quand on na pas ce que ion aime, il faut aimer ce que l'on a.” “The Rows” of Chester are very picturesque and quaint, but do not make a favourable impression upon a giant with a new hat, and, being on the upper side of six feet, I was glad to leave them for that pleasant, briny, breezy, railway, which takes one, via Conway, to Bangor, and thence,—thundering through the Britannia Tube, and just allowing a glimpse of Telfords triumph, the Bridge of the Menai, grand and graceful,—over drear Anglesea, 1 to Holyhead. And, oh, how glad we were, to find old Neptune in his mildest mood, only now and then just raising his shoulders, as some good-humoured athlete, who should say, “I'm in the jolliest frame of mind, my lads, but I could pitch the biggest of you into the middle of next week, any moment, with the most perfect ease.” T 1 In the time of the Druids it was called “the Shady Island,” and, though no longer umbrageous, the name is not altogether inappropriate. Pleasant it was to pace the broad, clear deck, with perfectly obedient legs, and to ask what we could have for dinner, with a real curiosity on the subject. Frank C————, not distinguished for deeds of naval daring, began, in the joy of his heart, to sing songs of an ultra-marine description, alluding to the land with severe disparagement, and stigmatising that element as “the dull, tame shore.” I must say, that when I heard him chanting,— “Give to me the swelling breeze, And white waves heaving high,” I trembled to think what a change would take place in the keynote of that cheery vocalist, and what dismal misereres would ensue, should his rash petition be conceded. Happily it was not attended to, and we had but one invalid, a lady (the captain very properly put a young man in irons, for saying something about no Cyc-lades in these seas); and she, I believe, only wanted sympathy and sherry from her husband, who was evidently a recent capture, and who administered both these cordials in due proportions, first a sip and then a kiss, ever and anon, when he thought that no one was looking, taking liberal gulps for his own private refreshment. It was very beautiful, as the day declined, to watch the vivid phosphorescence of the sea, myriads of those marine glow-worms, whose proper names I know not, but who cause this brilliant phenomenon, lighting up their tiny lamps. Then the light of “Ireland's eye” (bright and clear, though there must be a sty there), seemed to welcome us, blinking bonnily; and entering the bay of Dublin, with grateful recollections of its haddock, we were safely landed upon Kingstown quay. Forty minutes more on the rail, and we reach the city, some of our fellow-passengers having only left London that morning, and having travelled from one capital to the other in little more than twelve hours. We had our first experience of Ireland proper when, emerging from the station at Dublin, we called for an “outside car,” and a son of Nimshi, responding in the distance, charged down upon us through a phalanx of vehicles, and reached us, I know not how, amid the acrimonious observations of his brethren. The first feeling, as we sat on the low-backed car, “travelling edgeways,” as Sir Francis Head designates this style of transit, was one of extreme insecurity, and though we laughed, and made believe that we liked it, we were glad enough to hold on by the iron-work until we arrived at Morrisson's. Our account with the charioteer was as follows:— S. D. To Driver..........................................16 To small boy, seated at drivers feet, whipping the horse, and exciting him with cries of “Yap”..............................................06 To man, for holding on our luggage, by embracing it with extended arms....................10 Total..................................................30 In the next place, we committed the pious fraud of making a hearty supper under pretence of tea, instructing Mark the waiter, very willing and active, but with no time for works of supererogation, to brew us a large vessel of that beverage (which we never touched), as though it gave a dignity to the proceeding, and justified, by its respectable appearance, our large potations of Guinness. So we drew on to midnight, and to (Ay de mi! Won't my friend with the bandy legs denounce “this wine-bibbing book”? ) Irish whiskey. Nevertheless, of Irish whiskey this must be said, that, when tastefully arranged, it's a drink for dukes; and he who skilleth not to brew it, more Hibernico, may thank me, perhaps, for thus instructing him,—Imprimis, to take the chill off his tumbler (just as he would air his best bed for a beloved friend) by holding it for a few seconds over the hot water; secondly, to dissolve three lumps of sugar, medium size, in a small quantity of aqua calidissima; thirdly, to pour in the whiskey (Kinahans “LL.”) from one of those delightful little decanters, which would make such charming adjuncts to a doll's dinner party; fourthly, to fill up and drink. Frank suggests a soupçon of lemon; and this was the sole point upon which, throughout our tour, we were not quite unanimous! CHAPTER III. DUBLIN. HE next morning found us, with the indomitable pluck of Englishmen, once more upon an outside car, as doggedly determined as two old Whigs never to resign our seats. First, we drove to Merrion Square, where we had a call to make, and where, each side of the square being numbered alike, we spent a good deal of time in pulling at the wrong bells, and in unnecessarily evoking several servants, whose easy mission it was to take care of “number one.” Of this Square and of St. Stephen's Green we thought that, though as to extent and pleasant situation they were quite equal to anything in London, the houses themselves were by no means so handsome or commodious. The University of Dublin, to us who study among the chapels and the cloisters of mediaeval Oxford, does not resemble a university at all, but is more like a series of Government offices, or any other spacious public buildings. 036m Original Size Why do the porters wear velvet hunting caps? Frank would keep inquiring, “where the hounds met” (it was a broiling day early in August), “why they didn't have top boots?” &c., &c., &c. The museum is a very interesting one; and our cicerone in the cap pointed out the harp of Brian Boroimhe—that “Bryan the Brave,” who was so devoted to threshing the Danes and music; the enormous antlers of an Irish elk, which placed upon wheels would make a glorious outside car, the passengers sitting among the tines; eagles, and other native birds, galore; and numberless antiquities and curiosities. There were some awful instruments, which we gazed upon with intense interest, as being the most cruel shillelaghs we had ever seen, until the guide happened to mention that they were “weapons of the South-Sea Islanders.” The Chapel of Trinity College, like some in our English Universities, is more suggestive of sleep than supplication, gloomy without being solemn, and the light dim without being religious. There was a sacrifice of two inverted hassocks upon the altar, but the idol of the place, a gigantic pulpit, indignantly turned his back on them, and I was not slow to follow his example, with a sigh for “The good old days, when nought of rich or rare. Of bright or beautiful, was deem'd a gift Too liberal to Him who giveth all.” Indeed, I felt much more impressed, and inclined to take off my hat in the Examination and Dining Halls, as I stood in the pictured presence of Irish worthies, and thought of them, and of others not there portrayed, in all their young power and promise. I thought of Archbishop Ussher, who, a boy of eighteen, contended with Jesuit, Fitz-Symonds, and was designated by his opponent as “acatholicorum doctissimus.” I thought of Swift, as well I might, having recently read, for the third time, that most touching essay on his life and genius from the master hand of Thackeray. 1 I could cry over that lecture any time; there is so much noble sympathy in it of one great genius with another—such a tender yearning not to condemn, and, all the while, such a grand, honest resolution to take side with what is right and true. I thought of Swift, “wild and witty,” in the happiest days of his unhappy life, getting his degree, “speciali gratia” (as a most particular favour), and going forth into the world to be a disappointed, miserable man—to fight against weapons which himself had welded, a hopeless, maddening fight. All must pity, as Johnson and Thackeray pity, but who can love? He put on the surplice for mere earthly views, and it was to him as the shirt of Hercules! 1 The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, three of whom, Swift, Steele, and Goldsmith, were Irishmen. And next (could two men differ more?) of Goldsmith. I thought of him shy and silent (for he was a dull boy, we read, and never learned the art of conversation), chaffed by his fellow-students, and saluted by them, doubtless, in the exuberance of their playful wit, as Demosthenes, Cicero, &c., &c., until he might have felt himself, like his own “Traveller” “Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,” had there not been the “eternal sunshine” of genius, and the manifold soft chimes of poesy, to make his heart glad. “He was chastised by his tutor, for giving a dance in his room.” (was it a prance à la Spurgeon, and for gentlemen only, or was there a brighter presence of “sweet girl-graduates with their golden hair?”) “and took the box on his ear so much to his heart, that he packed up his all, pawned his books and little property, and disappeared from college.” 1 Horace Walpole speaks of him as “an inspired idiot,” and Garrick describes him as one “for shortness call'd Noll, Who wrote like an angel, and talk'd like poor Poll:” but I take leave to think that the “Deserted Village,” a tale told by this idiot, will be read when Walpole is forgotten; and I believe the author to have been as deep as Garrick. 1 Thackeray. Blessed be the art that can immortalise, as Sir Joshua has immortalised, features so sublime and beautiful, because so bright with noble power and purpose, as those of Edmund Burke. Scholar, statesman, orator, author, linguist, lawyer, earnest worshipper of nature and of art, what a mine of purest gold thy genius! and how the coin stamped with the impress of thine own true self enriches all the world! “The mind of that man,” says Dr. Johnson, “was a perennial stream; no one grudges Burke the first place,” and Sir Archibald Alison speaks of him, as “the greatest political philosopher, and most far-seeing statesman of modern times.” What a troublous, impressive sight that must have been, when he and Fox, both of them in tears, gave up the friendship of five-and- twenty years, because they loved each other too well to cry “Peace,” where there was no peace. Out of all the grand music he wrote and spoke, let me select one air and leave him. And are not his words on Marie Antoinette, like music, martial music, “like a glorious roll of drums,” and the sound of a trumpet to knightly hearts? “I thought,” he says, “ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look, which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.” But no, I cannot leave him, it would not be honest to leave him, without the confession that there was a flaw in the statue, one note of this grand instrument out of tune, and that this giant had his weakness. It must be sorrowfully owned that he had low and unsound views on the subject of the pursuit of game; he said it was “a trivial object with severe sanctions;” and his most devoted admirers can never emancipate his memory from the stern and sad suspicion, that he could not have been a first-rate shot. I thought of Grattan, who distinguished himself within these walls,—the brave unswerving patriot, whose fiery eloquence Moore terms “the very music of freedom” (music, by the way, which would very summarily be stopped in our day by Mr. Speaker Denison); of Moore himself, with his head upon his hands, “sapping” at those Latin verses, which he hated with all his heart, ever and anon disgusted to find the second syllable of some favourite dactyl long, or the first of some pet spondee short; finally (as the chroniclers tell), tearing up the performance, and sending to the Dons some English verse in lieu, for which, to their glory be it written, they gave him praise and a prize. Here, too, he commenced his translation of the Odes of Anacreon, (a labour of Love, if ever there was one); and here, doubtless, oft in the stilly night, he sang some of those touching melodies, which were so soon to “witch the world.” Lastly, I thought (for our jockey in undress was getting rather restive) of genial, jovial Curran, of whom Dan O'Connell said, “there never was so honest an Irishman,” and of whom there is one of the most charming biographies extant in the “Curran and his Contemporaries,” by Mr. Commissioner Philips. We could not see the very large and valuable Library, as it is closed during Vacations; and so having admired the exterior of the New Museum, and taken a general survey of the college, we made our bow to the Alma Mater of Ireland. It must be exquisitely gratifying to a large majority of the inhabitants to contemplate King William III. riding, gilt and bronzed, upon College Green, to be kept in constant recollection of the Boyne, and of the immunities and privileges which resulted from it. Everybody knows that he was a fine horseman, but the sculptor has not given him a hunting seat; and I think we could improve him, if we had him at Oxford, by painting him in a cutaway and buckskins. There is no fault to be found with the statues of Nelson and of Moore, the former being very effective, and the latter (though suggestive in the distance of a gentleman hailing an omnibus) being impressive and pleasing on a nearer view. The public buildings which we saw, the Bank of Ireland (once the Houses of its Lords and Commons), the Four Courts, College of Surgeons, Post Office, Barracks, &c., are all handsome, chiefly of Grecian architecture, and interesting to those who fancy this style of sight-seeing. We were rather disappointed with Sackville-Street. It wants length; and it wants (Heaven send it soon!) the animation of business and opulence, gay equipages, and crowded pavements. The Phoenix Park is delightful, rus in urbe—some 1700 acres of greensward and trees. We met several regiments, returning from a review; (the carman told us there were two reviews weekly, and we, of course, said something brilliant about the Dublin Review being monthly); and were, consequently, in an admirable frame of mind to appreciate the monument, grim and granite, in honour of the Iron Duke. What men this Dublin has given to the world—Swift, Steele, Burke, Grattan, Moore, Wellington. The names of his great battles are graven on the obelisk, Waterloo being, of course, omitted. I say “of course,” because there is something so delightfully Irish in this small oversight, that it seems quite natural and appropriate; and I should as little dream of being surprised or vexed by it, as if in an Irish edition of Milton I could find no “Paradise Lost.” In the Phoenix Park are the Constabulary Barracks, and the men were at drill as we drove by. There is no exaggeration in stating, that if a regiment could be formed from the Irish constables, it would be the finest regiment in arms See them wherever you may, they are, almost without exception, handsome, erect, heroic. Picked men, and admirably trained, they are as smart, and clean, lithe, and soldier-like, as the severest sergeant could desire. They do credit to him whose name they bear, for they are still called “Peelers” after their godfather Sir Robert, who originated the force, when Secretary for Ireland. Fifty of them had left Dublin for Kilkenny that morning, to expostulate with the bould pisantry on the impropriety of smashing some reaping-machines recently introduced among them. The Irishman is not quick to appreciate agricultural improvements. It required an Act of Parliament to prevent him from attaching the plough to the tails of his horses; he was very slow to acknowledge that the plough itself was better, when made of iron than of wood; he esteemed a bunch of thorns, with a big stone a-top, as the most efficient harrow going; and he denounced the winnowing- machine, as a wicked attempt to oppose the decree of a good Providence, which sent the wind of heaven “to clane the whate and oats.” A short time afterwards, we were surprised to see in a letter from one of these constables to The Galway Express, that their pay, after twenty years' service, is only two shillings per diem; and low as the remuneration for labour still is in this country, one cannot help but sympathise with the complainant. These lions, from whose manes and tails we have ventured to extract a few memorial hairs, were inspected before luncheon; immediately after that refection, we set forth per rail, and via Kingston, to Killiney. We had ample time, as we went, to contemplate the surrounding objects, which were not “rendered invisible from extreme velocity,” the nine miles occupying forty-five minutes; but we saw nothing of especial interest until we had reached the station, and began to ascend the hill. Then we exulted, eye and heart. The hill itself is worthy of a visit, the massive blocks of “its cold grey stones” contrasting admirably with the rosy heaths (I never saw ericas in greenhouse or garden with such a fresh, vivid brightness, 1) and with the glowing, golden furze. Ah, how poor and formal are statues, and terraces, and vases, and “ribbon-patterns,” and geometrical designs, and “bedding out,” when compared with nature's handiwork! And though, perhaps, never since the days of “the grand old gardener” has ornate horticulture attained so great a splendour, what true lover of flowers is really satisfied with our gorgeous modern gardens? We treat them, for the most part, as a child, with a new box of paints, his pictures—all the most glaring colours are crowded together; and the eye, dazzled and bewildered, yearns for that repose and harmony which, in nature, whether in the few flowerets of some hidden nook, or in the fiery autumnal grandeur of some mighty forest, diffuse perpetual peace. 1 This applies throughout Ireland. See “Inglis's Tour,” vol. ii., p. 42. There is an extraordinary structure at the top of Killiney Hill, which could only have been devised by an Irish architect. It is not a tower, nor a lighthouse, nor a summer-house: nay, the builder himself confesses he knows not what it is, in the following inscription: —“Last year being hard with the poor, the walls about these hills, and This, &c. &c., erected by John Mapas, Esq., June, 1742.” Hard by, a young Duke of Dorset was thrown and killed, while hunting. It must have been a very Irish fox that led hound and horse into such a perilous position, and the only wonder is that any of the riders came down alive. A monumental pillar perpetuates the sorrowful history, and warns enthusiastic sportsmen from galloping over the broken ground and hidden fissures of misty mountain tops. Apropos of mountain and of mist, we saw a sight which reminded us of Anne of Geierstein, as she appeared to Arthur Philipson, “perched upon the very summit of a pyramidical rock.” For among the works executed by the benevolent behest of Mapas, there is one, hewn in stone, a four-sided staircase, leading to an apex, intended, doubtless, for a statue. But this was wanting when we first arrived; for the design, like so many others in poor old Ireland, had never been completed, and there were no “statues gracing, This noble place in.” But by the goddess Vanus, just as Frank and I were lamenting this sad omission, the loveliest—at all events one of the loveliest— girls I ever remember to have seen, tripped lightly up the steps, laughing at a dear old clerical papa, who pretended to be alarmed, but wasn't; and something, beating violently under my left brace, told me that my heart had returned from Crewe, as a traveller comes home for a day or so, to prepare himself for another tour. It stayed with me four seconds, and then 'twas hers. “Behold,” I said, “'Car les beaux yeux Sont les deux sceptres de l'amour,' the enthronement of the Queen of Beauty.” And the sea-breeze forsook the jealous waves to woo her; the sunlight beamed on her with golden smiles; and the very swallow, turning from his favourite fly, flew past her, twittering admiration. Rough sailors out at sea that day caught sight of this fair vision through the glass, and ceased for half an hour to swear. There she stood, as “jocund day Stands tip-toe on the misty mountain top;” like Byron's Mary, on the hill of Annesley, awaiting that mighty hunter, the gallant, handsome Musters, when “on the summit of that hill she stood Looking afar, if yet her lover's steed Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.” Or she might have been “The Gardener's Daughter,” when, “Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young.” But never mind what she might have been, there she was. “Talk about Helen, That was a fiction, but this is reality.” 050m Original Size And never shall I forget how painfully drear that pedestal seemed, when the statue, descending, took her Papa's arm (Oh, that her beloved Governor were mine also!), and was gone from our gaze, like a beautiful star. The view from the hill of Killiney is one of the loveliest in this land of loveliness. Seated among the purple and golden flowers, you look over its rocks and trees upon the noble Bay of Dublin with its waters “bickering in the noontide blaze,” and the stately ships gliding to and fro. Below is Kingstown, opposite the old hill of Howth, and in the centre the metropolis of Ireland. I do not think that one ever has such a happy feeling of entire contentment, as when gazing upon beautiful scenery; and there we sat, in silent admiration, and took no note of time, until the train by which we had proposed to return, awoke us from our dreamy bliss, shrieking at us in derision from below, and steaming off to Dublin. So that, some two hours later, we found our dinners and ourselves a little overdone at Morrisson's; and nothing but some very transcendental claret, and the resilient spirit of roving Englishmen, could have induced us to sally forth once more for the gardens of Porto-Bello. Becoming acclimatised to the Outside Car, we began to enter into conversation with the drivers, and found them, like all Irishmen, quant and witty, though their humour, perhaps, does not lie so near the surface as it did before the Famine and Father Mathew.1 Our charioteer this evening was eloquently invective against a London cab which preceded us, and which he designated as “a baste of a tub.” “Sure, gintlemen,” said he, “and I'm for th'ould style intirely—it's illigant. I tell ye what it is, yer onners,” (and he turned to us in impressive confidence, and pointed contemptuously with his whip at the offending vehicle) “I'd lep over the likes o' that with this little mare;” but we earnestly begged he wouldn't. T 054m Original Size We were so fortunate as to reach the Porto-Bello Gardens just in time for “The Siege and Capture of Delhi.” We had both of us formed most erroneous impressions on the subject, and it was a grand opportunity for ascertaining truth. If the representation was correct, and there seems no reason to mistrust it, as “no expense had been spared,” it is high time for the English people to be told that the accounts which have appeared in their newspapers (the graphic, glowing descriptions of Mr. William Russell inclusive) are wickedly and superlatively false! 1 The priest can scarcely have been a descendant of his namesake, the General, who, to the manifest delight of an Irish Parliament, thus spake of potheen:—“The Chancellor on the woolsack drinks it, the Judge on the bench drinks it, the Peer in his robes drinks it, the Beggar with his wallet drinks it, I drink it, every man drinks it.” The city of Delhi is constructed of painted wood, and does not exceed in dimensions a respectable modern residence. Before it, there is a pool of water. The siege commenced with a tune on the key-bugle, and with an appropriate illumination of Bengal lights, which extended over the entire scene of war, and was got up, as we supposed, at the joint expense of the combatants. Then the Anglo-Indian army, which had taken up a perilous position about four yards from the city, led off with a Roman-candle, and the rebels promptly replied with a maroon. The exasperated besiegers now went in, or rather went a long way over, with rockets,—the Sepoys, with undaunted courage, defying them with blue lights and crackers. For a time the battle was waged with extraordinary spirit, steel- filings, &c., &c.; but, finally, the “awful explosion of the Magazine,” admirably rendered by a “Jack-in-a-box,” threw the rebels into sad distress, and they came running (all six of them) from the city, trying the old dodge to give an idea of multitude, by rushing in at one door and rushing out at another. The British soldiers, conversant with this manouvre, which they had so often witnessed at Mr. Batty's Hippodrome, immediately charged into the devoted city, lit a red light, and all was over. The total silence, which immediately ensued within the walls, impressively told the annihilation of the vanquished, and the great fatigue (or, alas! it might be the abject intoxication) of the victors, reminding one forcibly of the schoolboy's description, in Latin, of the termination of a siege,—“Dein victores, urbe capta, si cut pisces bibunt, et, parvula, si ulla, itlis culpa, nullum bestiarum finem ex seipsis faciunt.” Frank said it was Delhicious! and to this atrocity, as well as to His Excellency's absence from Dublin, I attribute the melancholy fact that the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland never called upon us. CHAPTER IV. FROM DUBLIN TO GALWAY. HE next morning at breakfast, a Scotch gentleman, with an amazing accent, would read the newspaper in such loud tones to his friend, that, not being monks, nor accustomed to be read to, more monastico, at our meals, we really could not enjoy our food, and were compelled to toss up which of us should recite to the other the list of Bankrupts from The Times. I lost, but had not progressed far in my distinct enunciation of the unhappy insolvents, when the Caledonian took the hint, and we ate our mackerel in peace. Leaving Dublin by the “Midland Great Western Railway,” at 10.30, we reached Galway at 3.45. The intermediate country is, for the most part, dreary and uninteresting, at times resembling the bleaker parts of Derbyshire, and at times Chat Moss. “I am no botanist,” as the Undergraduate remarked to the Farmer, who expostulated with him for riding over his wheat; but the agriculture appeared to be feeble, and to show want of management in its twofold signification. The green crops looked well everywhere, but the corn was thin, and the pastures by no means of that emerald hue which we had expected to find. With the exceptions of peasants, cutting and stacking peat for their winter fuel, children at the doors of cottages, the railway passengers and officials, there seemed to us, coming from densely populated England, to be really “nobody about;” and the contrast between our present route and that which we had travelled, two days before, through the “Potteries,” was as marked as contrast well could be. This comparative quietude and silence prevailed wherever we went, as though we were wandering through the grounds of some country place, “the family” being abroad, and most of the servants gone out to tea. Ah, when will the family come back to live at home, to take delight in this beautiful but neglected garden, weed the walks, turn out the pig, and look after these indolent and quarrelsome servants?—indolent and quarrelsome, only because there are none to encourage industry and to maintain peace. We passed the station of Maynooth, but did not see the “Royal College of St. Patrick,” and are therefore unable to vituperate that establishment, as otherwise it would be our duty to do. 060m Original Size Missing this fashionable Christian exercise, I amused myself by attiring a portly, closeshaven priest—who sat opposite to me, and who had a face which would have represented anybody with the aid of a clever costumier—in all sorts of imaginary head-dresses, dowagers' turbans, Grenadiers' caps, Gampian bonnets, beadles' hats, &c., and endeavoured to fancy the feelings of his flock, if they were to see him in reality, as I in thought. Passing through county Meath, we were again reminded of Swift, who held the rectory of Agher, with the vicarages of Laracor and Rathbeggan therein, and of the beautiful Hester, sacrificed to his vanity, and crying aloud, in piteous tone, “It is too late! It is too late!” Nigh to Athlone (of which more hereafter) is the village of Auburn, formerly called Lissoy, the residence of Parson Goldsmith, and the early home of the poet. The scenes of his childhood and his youth were doubtless remembered by him, when he wrote “The Deserted Village,” and many features of resemblance may still be traced. At Ballinasloe (everybody has heard of its great horse-fair, and how the hunters jump over the walls of the “Pound,” in height about eight feet, Irish) we entered the county of Galway, and tremblingly anticipated, after all we had heard of its wild, reckless sons, that some delirious driver would spring upon the engine, with a screech louder than its own, put on all steam, run us off the line for fun, and cause us to be challenged by our fellow-passengers, should we escape with our lives, for not appreciating the sport. But we travelled onwards, demurely and at peace; and, indeed, throughout our little tour, so far from being provoked or annoyed, we met with nothing but kindness and courtesy, and a good-humoured willingness to be pleased and to please. The Railway Hotel at Galway is the largest that we saw in Ireland, and contains, as we had been informed, “a power o' beds.” These want sleepers sadly, and at present the tourist, as he wanders from coffee-room to dormitory, feels very much “Like one that treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose guests are fled,” &c., and cheers his loneliness with the thought, that should Galway become (as all who care for Ireland must hope) the port for America, this solemn stillness shall depress no more. The inn forms one side of the principal Square, and, the neighbour buildings being comparatively small and dingy, resembles some grand lady, in all her crinoline, teaching the third class at a Sunday school. The grass- plat and garden are nicely kept, but their chief ornaments struck us as being rather incongruous, to wit, hydrangeas and cannon! The guns were pointed at our bedroom windows, and it really required some little resolution next morning to shave ourselves with placidity “at the cannons' mouth.” Having secured places for the morrow on the Car to Clifden, specially stipulating for “the Lake side” of the conveyance, we selected a shrewd-looking lad from a crowd of candidates (the Roman candidati wore white togas in the market- place, but these young gentlemen did not), and went to see the sights. We saw a great deal that was very interesting, and a great deal that was very dirty; we saw the traces of Spanish architecture, in quaint gateways and quadrangular courts, but were not “reminded of Seville,” our only association with that city being a passionate love of marmalade; we saw Lynch's castle, and its grotesque carving is very curious; we saw the house in Deadman's Lane, where lived that Fitz-Stephen, Warden of Galway, who, according to the worst authenticated tradition, assisted at the hanging of his own son; we saw warehouses sans ware; granaries, some without grain, and others with “the meal-sacks on the whitened floor;” we saw and greatly admired Queen's College; we saw chapels and nunneries, whence the Angelus bell sounded as we passed; above all, we saw the Claddagh. Going thither, our little showman told us of the big trade in wines between this place and Spain which flourished in the good times of old, and I foolishly thought to perplex him by the inquiry, “whether much business was done in the Spanish juice line?” “And sure,” said he, “your onner must know, that was the thrade intirely. Divil a taste of anything else did they bring us, but the juist of their Spanish vines.” The Englishman who desires a new sensation should pay a visit to the Claddagh. When we arrived, the men were at sea; but the women, in their bright red petticoats, descending half-way down the uncovered leg, their cloaks worn like the Spanish mantilla, and of divers colours, their headkerchiefs and hoods, were grouped among the old grey ruins where the fish market is held, and formed a tableau not to be forgotten. Though their garments are torn, and patched, and discoloured, there is a graceful simple dignity about them which might teach a lesson to Parisian milliners; and to my fancy the most becoming dress in all the world is that of a peasant girl of Connamara. Compare it, reader, with our present mode, and judge. Look at the two, sculptor, and say which will you carve? Say, when “Santa Philomena” is graved in marble, shall it be with flounces and hoops? 065m Original Size No, whatever may be the wrongs of Ireland no lover of the picturesque and beautiful would wish to see her re-dressed (so far as the ladies are concerned—the gentlemen might be improved); no one would desire to see her peasant girls in the tawdry bonnets and brass-eyed boots, which stultify the faces and cripple the feet of the daughters of our English labourers. As to the origin of these Claddagh people, I am not sufficiently “up” in ethnology, to state with analytical exactness the details of their descent; but I should imagine them to be one-third Irish, one-third Arabian, and the other Zingaro, or Spanish gypsy. 1 I thought that I recognised in one old lady an Ojibbeway chief, who frightened me a good deal in my childhood, but she had lost the expression of ferocity, and I was, perhaps, mistaken. The men are all fishermen (very clumsy ones, according to Miss Martineau, who talks about harpoons as if they were crochet needles, in her interesting “Letters from Ireland”); but they give up their cargoes to the women on landing, only stipulating that from the proceeds they may be supplied with a good store of drink and tobacco, and so get due compensation on the shore for their unvarying sobriety at sea. 1 Wales is also represented by members of the Jones family. The original John may have come over with Thomas Joyce, who was good enough to appropriate “the Joyce Country” to himself and family, in the reign of Edward the First. They live (some 1500 souls in all) in a village of miserable cabins, the walls of mud and stone, and for the most part windowless, the floors damp and dirty, and the roofs a mass of rotten straw and weeds. The poultry mania—(and if it is not mania to give ten guineas for a bantam, in what does insanity consist? l)—must be here at its height, for the cocks and hens roost in the parlour. But “the swells” of the Claddagh are its pigs. They really have not only a “landed expression,” as though the place belonged to them, but a supercilious gait and mien; and with an autocratic air, as though repeating to themselves the spirited verses of Mr. A. Selkirk, they go in and out, whenever and wherever they please. I saw one of them, bold as the beast who upset Giotto, 2 knock over a little child with his snout; and I have a sad impression that the juvenine was whipped for interfering with the royal progress. Frank solemnly declared that he saw one, as portrayed with his back against the lintail of his home, and smoking his evening pipe. 1 This form of delirium is by no means of modern origin. Opvi-ôofiavta, a passionate love of rare birds, was known among the ladies of Athens. 2 We read in Lanzi's History of Painting, that as Giotto was walking with his friends, one Sunday, in the Via del Cocomero at Florence, he was overthrown by a pig running between his legs. Whereupon the painter, albeit he was in his best clothes, philosophically recognised a just retribution, “for,” said he, “although I have earned many thousand crowns with the bristles of these animals, I never gave to one of them a spoonful of swill in my life!” 068m Original Size I receive this statement cum grano salis (always appropriate to bacon), as I do Phil Purcel's, that “there was in Ireland an old breed of swine, which is now nearly extinct, except in some remote parts of the country, where they are still useful in the hunting season, if dogs happen to be scarce;” 1 and (with all deference to the lady). 1 Carleton's “Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.” Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's, “an acquaintance of ours taught one to point, and the animal found game as correctly as a pointer. He gave tongue, too, after his own fashion, by grunting in a sonorous tone, and understood when he was to take the field as well as any dog.” 1 But, however this may be, everything in the Claddagh is done to “please the pigs:” “Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, You see them, lords of all around, pass by;” and Og reigneth once more in Basan. He is precious and he has his privileges. “I think” (sa...