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there now. There were about three boats lying near the cutter lying along side it, and six sailors, with long shadows, lolling upon the pier. As for the warehouses, they are enormous; and might accommodate, I should think, not only the trade of Westport, but of Manchester too. There are huge streets of these houses, ten stories high, with cranes, owners' names, &c., marked Wine Stores, Flour Stores, Bonded Tobacco Warehouses, and so forth. The six sailors that were singing on the pier, no doubt are each admirals of as many fleets of a hundred sail, that bring wines and tobacco from all quarters of the world to fill these enormous warehouses. These dismal mausoleums, as vast as pyramids, are the places where the dead trade of Westport lies buried-a trade that, in its lifetime, probably was about as big as a mouse. Nor is this the first nor the hundredth place to be seen in this country, which sanguine builders have erected to accommodate an imaginary commerce. Millowners over-mill themselves, merchants over-warehouse themselves, squires over-castle themselves, little tradesmen about Dublin and the cities over-villa and over-gig themselves, and we hear sad tales about hereditary bondage and the accursed tyranny of England.

Commercial dealings at Cork are texts for our following extract.

That the city contains much wealth, is evidenced by the number of handsome villas round about it, where the rich merchants dwell; but the ware houses of the wealthy provision-merchants make no show to the stranger walking the streets and of the retail-shops, if some are spacious and handsome, most look as if too big for the business carried on within. The want of ready money was quite curious. In three of the principal shops I purchased articles, and tendered a pound in exchange-not one of them had silver enough: and as for a five-pound note, which I presented at one of the topping booksellers, his boy went round to various places in vain, and finally set forth to the bank, where change was got. In another small shop I offered half-a-crown to pay for a sixpenny article-it was all the same. "Tim," says the good woman, "run out in a hurry and fetch the gentleman change." Two of the shopmen, seeing an Englishman, were very particular to tell me in what years they themselves had been in London. It seemed a merit in these gentlemen's eyes to have once dwelt in that city; and I see in the papers continually ladies advertising as governesses, and specifying particularly that they are "English ladies."

I received six 51. Post-office orders: I called four times on as many different days at the Post-office before the capital could be forthcoming, getting on the third application 201., (after making a great clamour, and vowing that such things were unheard of in England,) and on the fourth call the remaining 10l. I saw poor people who may have come from the country with their orders, refused payment of an order of some 40s.; and a gentleman who tendered a pound-note in payment of a foreign letter, told to "leave his letter and pay some other time." Such things could not take place in the hundred and second city in England; and, as I do not pretend to doctrinize at all, I leave the reader to draw his own deductions with regard to the commercial condition and prosperity of the second city in Ireland.

But to return to a sample of characteristic character: a speaker in an inn, "dressed in deep black, worn however with that dégagé air peculiar to the votaries of Bacchus," and whose dashing black satin waistcoat which "generously disdained to be buttoned," called for its share of whiskey punch "that trickled from the chin above," is addressing a young English officer:

"Sir," says he," as I was telling you before this gentleman came in (from Westport, I preshume, sir, by the mail; and my service to you!), the butchers in Chume (Tuam)—where I live, and shall be happy to see you and give you a shake-down, a cut of mutton, and the use of as good a brace of pointers as ever you shot over-the butchers say to me whenever I look in at their shops, and ask for a joint of meat-they say: "Take down that quarter o'mutton, boy, It's NO USE WEIGHING IT for Mr. Bodkin. He can tell with an eye what's the weight of it to an ounce !" And so, sir, I can! and I'd make a bet to go into any market in Dublin, Tchume, Ballinasloe, where you please, and just by looking at the meat decide its weight."

Mr. Titmarsh warns all English to be on their guard against Irish whiskey. But we must not yet part with the orator who sported the black satin waistcoat.

The honest gentleman proceeded with his personal memoirs; and (with a charming modesty that authenticated his tale, while it interested his hearers for the teller) he called for a fresh tumbler, and began discoursing about horses. "Them I don't know," says he, confessing the fact at once, " or if I do, I've been always so unlucky with them that it's as good as if I didn't. To give you an idea of my ill-fortune: me brother-'n-law Burke sent me three colts of his to sell at this very fair of Ballinasloe; and, for all that I could do I could only get a bid for one of 'em, and sold her for sixteen pound. And d'ye know what that mare was, sir?" says Mr. Bodkin, giving a thump that made the spoon jump out of the punch-glass for fright,-"D'ye know who he was? she was Water-Wagtail, sir,-WATER-WAGTAIL! She won fourteen cups and plates in Ireland before she went to Liverpool; and you know what she did there?" (we said, oh! of course.) "Well, sir, the man who bought her from me sold her for four hundre' guineas; and in England she fetched eight hundre' pounds! Another of them very horses, gentlemen, (Tim, some hot water-screeching hot, you divil—and a sthroke of the limin)-another of them horses that I was refused fifteen pounds for, me brother-'n-law sould to Sir Rufford Bufford for a hundre'-and-fifty guineas Wasn't that luck? Well, sir, Sir Rufford gives Burke his bill at six months, and don't pay it when it come jue. A pretty pickle Tom Burke was in, as I leave ye to fancy, for he paid away the bill, which he thought as good as goold; and sure it ought to be, for Sir Rufford had come of age since the bill was drawn, and before it was due, and as I needn't tell you had slipped into a very handsome property. On the protest of the bill, Burke goes in a fury to Gresham's, in Sackville-street, where the baronet was living, and (would ye believe it?) the latter says he doesn't intend to meet the bill, on the score that he was a minor when he gave it. On which Burke was in such a rage, that he took a horsewhip, and vowed he'd beat the baronet to a jelly, and post him in

every club in Dublin, and publish every circumstance of the transaction." "It does seem rather a queer one," says one of Mr. Bodkin's hearers, "queer indeed; but that's not it, you see; for Sir Rufford is as honourable a man as ever lived; and after the quarrel he paid Burke his money, and they've been warm friends ever since-but what I want to show you is our infernal luck. Three months before, Sir Rufford had sold that very horse for three hundre guineas."

Certainly we have met with this self-same worthy: he stands out distinctly in our mind's eye, and cannot be forgotten. Nor is there a particle of bitterness in the portaiture, although the exaggeration may be sharply true. Some of the sketches in these volumes indeed put one in love of the Irish. The ladies, for example, "appear to be full as well educated and refined, and far more frank and cordial, than the generality of the fair creatures on the other side of the Channel." Mr. M. did not hear anything about poetry, and only in one house met with an album. But he heard " some capital music, of an excellent family sort that sort which is used, namely, to set young people dancing, which they have done merrily for some nights.'

We have not treated our readers to anything of the landscape sort, bating what the ragged bearded genius of a guide uttered at the Seven Churches be taken as an exception. The fact is that Mr. T. has an eye more towards urban scenes and life than those of country, unless you go with him into the more frequented haunts, such as those offered by agricultural meetings and social occasions. Glendalough and its religious fanes may therefore detain us for a moment, affording a picture pretty in itself, and drawn in the artist's prettiest style. First of Irish scenery in the general, where the landscape is tender.

I think the Irish scenery just like the Irish melodies-sweet, wild, and sad even in the sunshine. You can neither represent one nor other by words ; but I am sure if one could translate "The Meeting of the Waters" into form and colours, it would fall into the exact shape of a tender Irish landscape. So, take and play that tune upon your fiddle, and shut your eyes and muse a little, and you have the whole scene before you. I don't know if there is any tune about Glendalough: but if there be, it must be the most delicate, fantastic, fairy melody that ever was played.

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There is a little lake and little fords across it, surrounded by little mountains, and which lead you now to little islands where there are all sorts of fantastic little old chapels and graveyards; or again into little brakes and shrubberies where small rivers are crossing over little rocks, splashing and jumping, and singing as loud as ever they can."

There are seven churches, whereof the clergy must have been the smallest persons, and have had the smallest benefices and the littlest congregations

ever known.

As for the Cathedral, what a bishoplet it must have been that presided there the place would hardly hold the Bishop of London, or Mr. Sidney Smith-two full-sized clergymen of these days-who would be sure to quarrel there for want of room, or for any other reason. There must have been a dean no bigger than Mr. Moore, and a chapter no bigger than that chapter in Tristram Shandy which does not contain a single word, and mere pop-guns of canons, and a beadle about as tall as Crofton Croker, to whip the little boys who were playing at taw (with peas) in the yard.

Somewhat in the landscape line are certain of the characteristics of the North as compared with the South.

The ride of ten miles from Armagh to Portadown was not the prettiest, but one of the pleasantest drives I have had in Ireland; for the country is well cultivated along the whole of the road, the trees in plenty, and villages and neat houses always in sight. The little farms, with their orchards and comfortable buildings, were as clean and trim as could be wished; they are mostly of one story, with long thatched roofs and shining windows, such as those that may be seen in Normandy and Picardy. As it was Sunday evening, all the people seemed to be abroad; some sauntering quietly down the roads a pair of girls here and there pacing leisurely in a field—a little group seated under the trees of an orchard, which pretty adjunct to the farm is very common in this district; and the crop of apples seemed this year to be extremely plenty. The physiognomy of the people too has quite changed the girls have their hair neatly braided up, not loose over their faces, as in the South; and not only are bare feet very rare, and stockings extremely neat and white, but I am sure I saw at least a dozen good silk gowns upon the women coming along the road, and scarcely one which was not clean and in good order. The men for the most part figured in jackets, caps, and trousers, eschewing the old well of a hat which covers the popular head at the other end of the island, the breeches, and the long ill-made tail-coat. The people's faces are sharp and neat; not broad, lazy, knowing-looking, like that of many a shambling Diogenes who may be seen lounging before his cabin in Cork or Kerry. As for the cabins, they have disappeared; and the houses of the people may rank decidedly as cottages. The accent, too, is quite different; but this is hard to describe in print. The people speak with a Scotch twang, and as I fancied, much more simply and to the point: a man gives you a downright answer, without any grin or jokę, or attempt at flattery. To be sure, these are rather early days to begin to judge of national characteristics; and very likely the above distinctions have been drawn after profoundly studying a Nothern and a Southern waiter at the inn at Armagh.

Ere closing our paper, we have to state that neither of the North nor of the South, we mean particularly at present, of Protestantism nor of Catholicism, as witnessed by Mr. T. in Ireland, do we receive a favourable impression. In one passage he tells us, he has had the pleasure of sitting under a minister in the northern division, "who insulted the very patron who gave him his living; discoursing upon the sinfulness of partridge shooting, and threatening hell-fire as the

last "meet" for fox-hunters; until the squire, one of the best and most charitable resident landlords in Ireland, was absolutely driven out of the church where his fathers had worshipped for hundreds of years, by the insults of this howling evangelical inquisitor."

The Bible, Boniface, and psalm-singing at Coleraine :

The town of Coleraine, with a number of cabin suburbs belonging to it, lies picturesquely grouped on the Bann river; and the whole of the little city was echoing with psalms as I walked through it on the Sunday morning. The piety of the people seems remarkable: some of the inns even will not receive travellers on Sunday; and this is written in an hotel of which every room is provided with a Testament, containing an injunction on the part of the landlord to consider this world itself as only a passing abode. Is it well that Boniface should furnish his guests with Bibles as well as Bills, and sometimes shut his door on a traveller who has no other choice but to read it on a Sunday? I heard of a gentleman arriving from ship-board at Kilrush on a Sunday, when the pious hotel-keeper refused him admittance; and some more tales, which to go into would require the introduction of private names and circumstances, but would tend to show that the Protestant of the North is as much priest-ridden as the Catholic of the South, priest and old-woman-ridden, for there are certain expounders of doctrine in our church, who are not, I believe, to be found in the church of Rome; and wo betide the stranger who comes to settle in these parts, if his "seriousness" be not satisfactory to the heads (with false fronts to most of them) of the congregations.

Lastly, of the Trappists, &c.

They have among themselves workmen to supply all their frugal wants, ghostly tailors and shoemakers, spiritual gardeners and bakers, working in silence, and serving Heaven after their way. If this reverend community, for fear of the opportunity of sinful talk, choose to hold their tongues, the next thing will be to cut them out altogether, and so render the danger impossible-if, being men of education and intelligence, they incline to turn butchers and cobblers, and smother their intellects by base and hard menial labour; who knows but one day a sect may be more pious still, and rejecting even butchery and bakery as savouring too much of worldly convenience and pride, take to a wild-beast life at once? Let us concede that suffering, and mental and bodily debasement, are the things most agreeable to Heaven, and there is no knowing where such piety may stop. I was very glad we had, not time to see the grovelling place; and as for seeing shoes made or fields tilled by reverend amateurs, we can find cobblers and ploughboys to do the work better. By the way, the Quakers have set up in Ireland a sort of monkery of their own. Not far from Carlow we met a couple of cars drawn by white horses, and holding white Quakers and Quakeresses, in white hats, clothes, shoes, with wild maniacal-looking faces, bumping along the road. Let us hope that we may soon get a community of Fakeers and howling Dervises into the country. It would be a refreshing thing to see such ghostly men in one's travels, standing at the corners of roads, and praising the Lord by standing on one leg, or cutting and hacking themselves with knives

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