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of the great poet. Your celebrated countryman, Sir Walter Scott, has done such ample justice to the Dean's character as a writer, a patriot, and a man, that it would be wrong to say another word on the subject.

One loves to dwell on great names and illustrious characters; it brings them nearer to view, and infuses a flattering idea of something like personal acquaintance. Sir Walter Scott has lately paid this country a visit, and though I had not the good fortune to meet him, yet the very circumstance of his having been so lately among us, justifies, or rather, I think, calls upon me to say something in acknowledgment of the honour thus conferred. I must, however, be candid enough to tell you, that many of those who did see, or might have seen him, were disappointed. Now, don't let your Caledonian pride rise with indignation at Paddy's want of respect for so high a name, or his inability to appreciate so amiable a character; it is capable of being explained to the satisfaction of all parties. You must know, then, that, Hibernically speaking, we have but one mode of complimentary reverence for the great-and that is by fulsome addresses, sumptuous banquets, and wordy revellings; cramming them with flattery before dinner, with forty different kinds of meat at dinner, and with as many different sorts of intoxicating liquors after dinner. He must also join in the stunning discord of three-times-three, Heaven knows how often; he must not only make speeches, always an unpleasant task enough, but he must also, which is still worse, listeu to the halftipsy speeches of others; he must surrender his sense of hearing to a noisy band of wind-instruments, and he must undergo the vociferations of those who call themselves singers! An opportunity of enduring all this for five or six hours, is considered to be the highest compliment that can be paid to eminent worth by its civilised and refined admirers; and an actual endurance of it is, of course, thought to be the highest gratification that the said eminent worth can possibly enjoy. The compliment is not new in its nature, though the embellishments are modern. Homer's heroes complimented each other with feasts, and, literally speaking, killed their own beef and mutton; the occupations of

cook and butcher were not beneath the dignity of the hero, 'who killed, skinned, and roasted the animal on the spot. Wine was not wanting after the appetite had been satisfied with substantials, but I cannot find any traces upon record, of wind-instruments, speeching bumpers, or three times-three. For such additions as these we are indebted to the superior elegance of modern manners. Now, these, it seems, did not exactly suit the modern notions of Sir Walter Scott, whose taste lies in the feasts of literature, from which, as he has drawn largely himself, so has he been equally generous in feasting others. Hence the surprise of my kind-hearted countrymen, who naturally thought that the describer of heroes should be a here himself. Sir Walter travelled here as he would have done at home, not to be seen, but to see, and therefore thought proper to decline the an noying parade of public exhibition.

I shall certainly be glad to know what opinion he has formed of Killarney. To me, and I have seen many romantic scenes of like character, it is one of the most singularly delightful pictures that the sportive hand of nature ever pourtrayed. In other places will be found higher mountains, larger lakes, woods, islands, &c. But at Killarney all these objects are so hap pily grouped, so curiously contrasted, and yetaltogether so harmoniously com bined, that the first view of it, from an eminence near Turk Mountain, struck me more as a scene of enchantment than of reality. It was on a summer evening, without a cloud in the sky or a breeze on the lake. Our eyes, for there were three in company, were rivetted to the view, and hungry and tired as we were, it was a long time before we could prevail on ourselves to move. Yet the thousand details of it, in treading its shores and visiting its islands, are no less worthy of regard and admiration. Many, I am sure, participate with me in a desire to know what impression it has made on a mind so peculiarly susceptible of, as well as so inconceivably happy in describing all the varied beauties of natural landscape.

You see, sir, the danger of encouraging an old gentleman's garrulity. You expected anecdotes of early days, and I am writing about two of those subjects which most engage the admi

ration of the present age, Sir Walter Scott and the Lake of Killarney. In truth, this desultory kind of writing is very apt to lead the pen astray. A fixed and single subject charms the mind to one train of thought, and refuses admission to all ideas not directly conducive to the part contemplated. A correspondence like ours is more like conversation, where, in consequence of casual and unexpected suggestions, the subjects of discourse are perpetually changing, and they who began with the merry tale of a jolly friar, may end with the piteous story of a midnight ghost. How far this singularity may be acceptable to readers, I don't know, but it is most agreeable, because most easy, to the writer. When one travels for pleasure, it is much more amusing to loiter and diverge occasionally, than to follow the monotonous track of the mail-coach road.

In proof of what I have here said, a word, certainly not contemplated in the beginning of the paragraph, unexpectedly employs its powerful influence to turn me from the present, to recall the memory of the past, when ghosts, and goblins, and fairies formed, as a matter of course, the subject of many an evening's conversation and nocturnal alarm. Yet, I don't know why, my neighbourhood was not peculiarly happy in being the scene of spectral appearances or fairy gambols. Both, indeed, were religiously believed in, but all the stories told were received on credit. Everybody admitted that such things were, but nobody had seen them. They maintain a little of their credit still, but being much more rarely talked of, are fast sinking to oblivion. The notion of ghosts seems confined to a particular class of souls, viz. those of persons murdered, or who have come to some untimely end. Not many years since, a traveller, known to have money in his purse, was murdered by the family of a house where he sought a night's lodging. The room in which the murder was committed was the best bed-chamber in the house, and that in which the family were accustomed to sleep. From the day of the murder, it was deserted by all, the consciences which were seared to the commission of murder, being unable to brave the fear of meeting the ghost of the murdered. A knowledge of this fact, soon

discovered by their neighbours, gave full confirmation to the suspicions before entertained. Through the subsequent testimony of an accomplice, strengthened by circumstances, they received the just reward of their atrocious cruelty. I remember an instance of similar apprehension, which saved my father the trouble of watching a young plantation he was very fond of. The body of an unfortunate woman, who, in a fit of despair, had committed suicide, was found there. For many years after, and until the memory of the act began to be obliterated, not a creature of the lower class would venture to enter, or even approach very near its precincts, between the dusk of eve and the dawn of morning. They don't seem to have considered that a ghost, if loco-motive at all, might just as easily visit one place as another; or that, if permitted to re-visit this earth at all, the place least likely to be favoured with its company was that which their own fears had selected.

Of witchcraft, once so universally believed, and of which it is hard to say whether the belief was in its results more mischievous and cruel than ridiculous and absurd, I believe not a vestige is now remaining. When it ceased to be an object of judicial inquiry -when malice could no longer be gratified by persecution, nor superstition fed by daily fables, a doctrine engendered by vice and folly soon sunk under the withering power of ridicule and contempt. In my boyish days, however, it still maintained some ground among the vulgar. In this country, suspicion had selected a very curious accomplice for the superannuated sibyl; and it is not easy to conceive by what perversity of intellect two of the most harmless and helpless of all creatures should have been fixed upon as dealers in diabolical acts, a decrepid old woman, and a hare! The hare, it seems, was one of the witch's most favourite transformations, though it should seem to be one of the most dangerous shapes she could assume, being the unfortunate object of universal pursuit. But as hares, by their speed and doubling, sometimes elude the hunters in a wonderful manner, there was no easier way of accounting for the miracle than by pronouncing her a witch. One story I have frequently heard from an old poacher,

who was persuaded that he had often hunted old hags in the shape of old hares. This story, however, he had from a friend, and there could be no doubt of its truth, for it happened in the county of Kerry, a famous place for true stories. It is said, on the authority of Vallancy, or some other almost as good, that that county had been originally colonized from Tyre or Carthage, as you will also find in O'Driscol's book on Ireland, if it has not yet gone to the trunk-maker. Among their importations, they did not forget the Punica fides, a strong, but unfortunately a sole and solitary remnant and memorial of all the splendid arts and sciences they brought. The story is this-One of these bewitched hares had been long closely pursued, and the hunters were determined not to be foiled by her then, as as they had been many times before. In happened that, during the hunt, a dog more fleet than the rest had caught her by the rump, but she escaped from his jaws with no other injury than the loss of a little of her skin. After a very prolonged chase, the hounds came to a check near a few straggling cabins, beyond which they vainly looked or rather stooped for the scent. Puss was nowhere to be found. What was to be done? A bold huntsman exclaimed, "Though we can't find the hare, we may find the witch.' Accordingly, they commenced a search, and in one of the cabins was found a wrinkled hag with age grown double,' sitting on a stool, and mumbling to herself." The test was obvious-the hare had been wounded in a certain part, and an examination of the corresponding place in the old lady would effectually clear up the point. Civil entreaties were first resorted to, for one would not unnecessarily incur the displeasure of so dangerous an enemy, but they were

resorted to in vain. The sibyl, who, though she could run so well on four legs, could not even walk on two, refused to rise from her seat, and peremptorily declared against submitting to the proposed inspection. This opposition on the part of the aged dame, which might naturally enough be accounted for without imputation of sorcery, was to these sapient hunters' confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ; for what other motive could she possibly have for refusing to gratify so reasonable a demand? If it was a young woman, indeed, the case would be altered-but, Lord, what significs an old lady's scruples? In short, as the story goes, they proceeded to violent measures, the result of which was, the complete verification of their well-founded suspicions. But whether the alleged wound had been previously given by the hound, whether it was received in the scuffle, or whether it existed only in the imagination of the inspectors, is a matter that may admit some doubt. Fortunately for the old lady, the days of hanging and drowning were over, by which means she escaped that sentence which no court would have refused to such convincing testimony, and they retired quite delighted with the consciousness of their sagacity in discovering witches.

This story was firmly believed by the old poacher, and, for aught I know, by myself too when I first heard it. Had he lived in the flourishing days of witchcraft, he might have claimed no small bounty from the state; for on his principles, he had probably not only killed, but also devoured, at least half a dozen witches to his own share. I am, sir, &c.

CORK, October 31, 1825.

SENEX.

VOL. XVIII.

5 A

LINES ADDressed to JOHN BROSTER, F.A.S.E.

Discoverer of the System for the effectual Removing of Impediments of Speech.

BY A PUPIL.

WHEN the full moon is seen to rise
From her palace in the eastern skies,

Red and rayless, like the sun

When through mists his western goal is won
Or, o'er the southern mountains blue,
Rises the star of the night to view,
Then Fancy reigns, and rules the hour,
While Feeling assumes imperial power.

On such an eve did my pilgrim feet
Wind to the summit of Arthur's Seat;
'Twas a bright, rich, fairy scene around,
But Admiration's tones were bound,
And sad was my heart, as the willow bough
O'erhanging the stream that wails below-
Or, as wandering birds that fly-and fly-
Over ocean's waste immensity,

Yet find no island's green retreat
For their weary wings and useless feet.

A month hath pass'd, and Arthur's Seat
Is again, at twilight, my lone retreat,
And Salisbury's cliffs, engulph'd in mist,
Assume the tints of the amethyst,
And, far in the west, the hues of day
By the demon Darkness, are brush'd away,
While the eastern ruby-tinted skies,
Herald the Empress of night's uprise :
She comes-above a dark red streak,
Appear the lines of her pallid cheek,
Pure and bright, as a silver shield
Found unstain'd on a carnaged battle-field.

It was a beautiful scene- -a sight
That made the heart o'erflow with delight,
And the stranger gazed on the fairy beam,
Like one escaped from a painful dream ;-
The fever had pass'd away; his tongue
Was released from the spell that around it clung.
He call'd upon Echo-I saw him rejoice,

As Echo replied with unbroken voice.

And he said to the stream that murmured by,

"How oft have I envied thy liberty,

When my tongue was chain'd, and my words a sign
That the listener's guess could alone divine !"—

Oh I have feelings few may guess,

Which words, even words, cannot express,

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Due to him who loosed my voice, and brought
The light of words to my darken'd thought;
Not more grateful could Cain have been, I trow,

Had the curse of Heaven been erased from his brow!

E. D.

CAMBRIDGE, 19th October, 1825.

The writer of these lines, before he became Mr Broster's pupil, had been under the care of several gentlemen who professed to cure impediments of speech. These all failed in their attempts, because they were ignorant whence the impediment proceeded. But Mr Broster discovers, with almost intuitive acuteness, the particular cause of his pupil's impediment; and this, it will be owned, is a very necessary step towards removing it. To proceed in the first person-When I first became acquainted with the most prominent feature of Mr B.'s system, I was much disappointed in it-I mistook it for a simple elocutionary process. But, in fact, this prominent feature is only simple in principle; if rightly and pertinaciously adhered to, it is in practice omnipotent. Moreover, it owes nothing to elocution; but is a perfectly original discovery. Nay, so far from being at all indebted to elocution, the good orator must be in possession of Mr B.'s system: either unconsciously practising it, when it is bestowed on him by nature; or, consciously, having acquired it from Mr Broster. Persons who say they have weak lungs-who are unable to fill such a church—or make themselves audible in such a court of justice-will, after having attended Mr B., be able to speak for many hours together, without feeling any particular fatigue. I am aware that Mr B. has already instructed several clergymen with great success; but I hope soon to hear, that he makes it a part of his profession to enable men, intended for the church and law, to speak impressively and audibly, for a great length of time, with comparatively little exertion. I am here only offering a few remarks on the Brosterian system; for a fuller account of which, I refer the reader to Blackwood's Magazine for January 1825, and to the London Magazine and Review for August 1825, No. 8, Art. 5. But let me add, that Mr B.'s system is often highly conducive to the pupil's health. In many cases, the person troubled with defective utterance is continually impairing his constitution, by using other energies for the production of sound, than those furnished him for that purpose-other energies, which, having also their own individual functions to perform, are seriously injured by this increase of employment. But Mr Broster, by causing the organs of speech to undertake their own duty, relieves those parts of the frame which have been wearied and agitated by unnatural exertion, and prevents the further progress of an evil which has been to the pupil a consuming canker in the bud of life.

Lastly, speaking of Mr Broster's system, I affirm, that such as are afflicted with considerable impediment and distortion of countenance, will be immediately relieved by it-all who are endued with some perseverance, will derive much benefit from it-those who can wrestle vigorously against an old, and firmly adopt a new habit, will be effectually cured by it. Reader, if you have a relation-a friend-the victim of an impediment in speech-who shrinks from observation-who dreads to hear the sound of his own voice-and, if in his welfare you are interested, recommend him to try the efficacy of Mr Broster's system.

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