LIMERICK is a sickly disagreeable place, where gloves and pretty women are much more scarce than pigs or papists.

This somewhat reconciled me to being started off at break of day, one fine windy morning, with a detachment, to the borders of Kerry; and when I had completed my returns of neighbouring roads, hills, bridges, and blacksmiths' shops, pursuant to the order of the commandant of our district, a good-natured, intelligent, fussy, particular old gentleman, I stole a march between the 10th and 24th of October, to pull an oar across the far-famed lakes, and scale Mangerton.

The first village of note on the road from Limerick to Killarney, is Adare -a pretty place by the by, and a grand trout stream running through it, with countless wild-duck thereupon. Here was of old a stronghold of the Desmonds; and the Castle, with its keep and ivy-mantled tower, still forms a splendid ruin. The old Abbey is more to my taste though; the tall, narrow, taper, arched windows peep so gracefully from beneath the green festooning of matted ivy, and form a delicate and almost gay relief to the sombre stillness of the massive cloisters. The property is Lord Dunraven's, a worthy man, Mr North, a resident landlord too, who preserves his game like a gentleman, and has imported a hundred brace of pheasants to stock his woods. I hope to see him in the House of Lords yet he would be in his place there, for he has a fastidious delicacy of cultivated taste, that unfitted him for the rough and round proceedings of the Lower House. I am afraid George Moore, our Dublin member, will break down from a deficiency, or delicacy, or what you will, of the same sort, and all men see how over-education has spoiled North-not thee, my most illustrious friend, but he of Lord Anglesey's borough.

The first full burst of the lower Shannon is superb 'Tis just after passing a little village called Foynes, about twenty miles from Limerick, and forty from the sea. The road winds along beneath a lofty cliff of rock, through which, indeed, it has

been cut, the stone having been originally soft and friable, though it has become indurated by exposure to the air. Even thus far inland, the river is from three to four miles broad, and just here, the banks are planted.-On the Clareshire side, by the wood of Cahircon, the estate of Mr. Scott-a gentleman whom I name with honour, for he is proprietor of that Burrin, the relish of whose far-famed oysters is yet upon my palate. The Limerick shore is clothed with the planting of Mount Trenchard, the residence of Mr Rice-father, I believe, of the Home Under-Secretary.

Next came I to Glyn, from which one of the three anomalous titles of knight is taken. The story runs, that one of the Earls of Desmond-they say so lately as in the days of good Queen Bess-bestowed on his three sons the titles of White Knight, Green Knight, and Knight of the Valley. The heirs male of the White Knight failed, but the title is still claimed, from intermarriage with the French line, by the Earl of Kingston. In him it seems a lucus a non lucendo sort of derivation, and not a nomen ex re inditum, for his lordship is a singularly darksome-looking man, and as he strides in his hairy strength among his tribes of tenantry and workmen at Mitchellstown Castle, flourishing a huge blackthorn sapling, he looks like the very moral of an O'Sullivan, or an O'Donoghue-More, started to life, to make the living start. The Green Knight's title, transformed to that of Knight of Kerry, is borne by a Mr Fitzgerald, and this too is the name of the Knight of Glyn, the modern version of Knight of the Valley.

Halted for dinner at Tarbert-the Berwick-upon-Tweed, which separates the Kingdom of Kerry from the Levant,-but was so little satisfied with the boasted mutton of that ancient place, that I rejoiced to come upon a wight some two hours after, just as he hooked a respectable sort of a salmon out of the Listowell river;

"Then, well pleased, I shook, From forth my pocket's avaricious nook, Some certain coins of silver,"

which I gave the man, not as 'twere

per force, but with hearty good-will; and deposited the finny treasure in the body of my dog cart, anticipating a delicious supper.

Kerry, as you approach Listowell, presents the appearance of a prodigious interminable plain. Low and boggy lands form on every side the melancholy prospect. Just before entering the town, you pass Ballinruddery, the place where the Knight of Kerry aforesaid does not reside. Listowell itself looked well, enlivened by the glowing beams of the sun, which was just then sinking in a volumed mass of rich and amber clouds, gorgeous and bright as the fat on the sirloin of a prize bullock. Ecstatic thought!-peace to the manes of the merry monarch, who dubbed that knight of knights, Sir Loin. They are building a handsome bridge over the river here. If Moore had called this pleasant world "bleak," in a song written during a pilgrimage from Tarbert to Tralee, instead of when sitting under a big tree, near Castle Howard, in the delicious vale of Arklow, there would have been some sense in it; but Waller has said, that poets succeed better in fiction than in truth.

I had not the least idea that any Christian people could be so utterly destitute of the first elements of civilization, as I soon discovered them to be in the Albergo Reale of this metropolitan city of the kingdom of Kerry. Celebrated as I knew this capital to be for its intercourse in fish, I did deem it sufficient to recommend my protégé, through the intermediation of the waiter, to the especial notice of the maitre de la cuisine, entreating, that the same might grace my supper table, summa diligentia, signifying, as we at Eton construed the words in Livy's very unhandsome account of "ould general" Hannibal, and his passage across the Alps," with some diligence," and not by any means "on the top of a diligence," as the Harrow men sup. pose. Indulging in pleasing dreams of coming bliss-I threw myself into a chair; videlicet, I sat down with all the cautious gentleness a long drive, and a somewhat jaded nether end, suggested, and summoning up all my resolution, tried to read the Epicurean, which lay at the top of my port manteau, straight on till supper should be announced. I made a conscience VOL. XXIII.

of this, because I had already been obliged to give a very decided and detailed opinion on its merits and defects to various young and ancient ladies, in several cut-mutton quadrilles ; and as yet I had not dipped beyond the title-page. When the waiter awoke me for supper, it lay open on the table at page 19. Rubbing my eyes, and muttering weak stuff-paucity of ideas -eau sucré-I tripped down stairs, and bade the man uncover the salmon first. Gently did I lay the trowel to the bosom of the sleeping beauty, and displaced the breast back to the shoulder-but let me not dwell upon the harrowing recollection. Suffice it, that after the first thrill of anguish, horror, and amaze, had subsided into that dull stupefying sense of calamity which succeeds, I asked the waiter in a voice of mingled anger and emotion"Where the devil is the curd ?" cur-curd, sir?" stammered the fellow with an air of stupid astonishment "is it curds and whey you mane?" The rascal actually did not know-aye, here in Tralee, where turbot are sold for three shillings a-piece, and salmon at fourpence the pound avoirdupois, the scoundrel had never heard that salmon had a curd! "Sirrah," cried I, "who spoiled my fish?" "The cook biled it, sir.” "Who, which, where, how-what person, assuming so proud a title, has disgraced that honoured name?" "Is it the cook's name, sir?

"Cu

;

Biddy Molony, sir." "Enough, enough, good fellow," I replied, with an hysteric laugh-"I see it all-she has popped my enfant cheri into cold instead of boiling water-A woman cook!-a female fury." But Virgil has already shadowed forth this calamity, Harpyia adsunt (i.e.) the devil sends bitch cooks

Diripiantque dapes, contactuque omni i fædant."

"Thus, ever thus-from manhood's dawn, I've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never carved a haunch or brawn, But all the fat was help'd away. I never nursed a turkey pout, To glad me with its plump white thigh, But, when I came to help about, The tit-bits-all-were sure to fly." Indignation and sorrow are more thirsty than hungry evils, so, after two pounds of tolerable rump-steaks, as a pis-aller, I betook myself to a small case of Bordeaux brandy, which I had

G

the sense to bring with me, and composed a most glorious jug of the finest sleeping-draught in the world.

I slept as sound as a rock till dawn. Uprose the morn, and uprose Captain J. Novice que je suis en fait de montagnes, even the Tralee hills struck me as rather respectable-looking tumuli. They are seen to most advantage approaching the town from Abbeyderney, a little village in the direction of Listowell. They rise almost perpen dicularly from the sea, a considerable reach of which is visible, touching their base, and approaching within less than a mile of the town.

They burn quantities of lime in Kerry for the land, and at night the kilns scattered at distant intervals, and twinkling like plums in a school-pudding, rari in gurgite vasto, present a singular appearance.

The fortunati nimium of this kingdom are wretched agriculturists. I saw but one decently cultivated farm in Kerry; it was on the road from Tralee to Killarney; the farmer's name, they told me, was Marshall. The peasantry of Kerry fight and talk Latin by instinct. Arriving at a village with a name versu quod dicere non est, and which defies the powers of orthography, I suddenly found my self surrounded by a host of combatants, who, at that instant, commenced operations. One fellow seized my horse, that I might not disturb them, and the rest leathered away most famously. Cudgels twinkled and Paddies fell in every direction. Meanwhile I occasionally heard the murmuring tones of a patriarch, who sat at the fire of the cabin, at the door of which I was detained prisoner. He was rating a wench who stood at the only window, gazing at the fun, and more intent on the scuffle than on the works of Minerva:-" Quid agis in ista fenestra, Bridgeta O'Shaughnessy Aut quomodo te decet istis humeris totum diem terere nihilum agendo? Estne tam visu spectabile, homines sic fustibus rixas componere, ut de primis mortalibus tradidit noster Flaccus? Non ita est, Bridgeta mea: vade, age; quam multa vasa culinaria tibi sunt adhuc detergenda! Cirnea lactis coagulati agitanda, et" Here the din without became so furious, as to drown the conclusion of the old boy's expostulation, and a man who seemed a sort of leader of his faction, broke

his shillelah on his neighbour's pate. As I happened to be provided with one myself, and was unwilling to spoil sport, or see sport spoiled, I handed it out, and bade him play out the play. He received the gift with a grim smile of welcome, and in an instant I saw men_tumbling like nine-pins "beneath his sturdy stroke." In something more than half an hour, a loud hurrah of "The boys of Ballinageary for ever!" announced that the fray was ended,-my friend with the stick had won. He came up to where I stood, took off his hat, and with great propriety of speech and gesture, apologised for the delay I had met with, assuring me that once the signal was given, it was impossible to stop for any gentleman; and as he handed back my stick with eloquent thanks, he hoped I" took no offence at the taste of a scrimmage that had detained my honour." "None in creation, my good friend," I replied; "but pray, what occasioned this infernal row?" "Och, it was only some words between mysel' and Tim Oulaghan, about a girl I would'nt marry; an' he brought his faction agin us, an' we fought it out, and beat them like min." "And why would you not marry the girl?" "Sure, hadn't she a pearl on her eye like a biled cockle when I seen her afore the Priest?" "You don't mean to say it was then first you discerned her blindness ?" "Whin else, your honour? Devil a stem of her Í ever seen till then !" "And were you going to marry a woman the first time ever you saw her?" "Troth and that same's the custom among huz always. When a girl takes on to be married, her father or mother, or the like, goes match-making, and spakes to any boy they fancy, and if he's agreeable, and they offer fortin' according to his expictations, the priesht is invited, and the first thing the_girl hears of the match being settled, or who is the man that's to own her, is whin the frinds arrive to eat the wedding dinner; and late in the evening, when all is hearty, in comes the boy, and thin they see each other for the first time." "And what fortune were you to get with this girl whom you didn't marry?" "Fifty pound, please your honour, and a feather-bed, and a losset, and four chairs."

Talking of marriages, I wonder how the deuce the south of Ireland got such

a name for pretty girls. I can assure you, I have seen more ripe and real beauty during half an hour's walk from Westmoreland Bridge to Saint Stephen's Green in the metropolis, than in the two counties of Limerick and Kerry put together. The female peasants are healthy-looking, with lively black eyes, but their features are coarse, and their gait and dress ungainly. The middling class are burdened with a nauseous superabundance of" vulgar gentility," that puts one out of patience with their mediocre looks; and of the upper rank, those who are most beautiful, are rather over-taught, so that Nature's loveliness hardly gets fair play, covered ever, as it is, with the heavy embroidery of education. In fact, when you do meet with beauty in this region, 'tis rather of the intellectual than sensual cast, and for me, I hate clever women as much as ever Hypolitus did. Midway between Tralee and Killarney, you first behold MacGillicuddy's Reeks exulting in their glory. Carran Thual, the highest, is 3400 feet above the sea level. It was crowned, not exactly with an avalanche, but with something very like a night-cap of snow, when I passed.

Whenever you visit Killarney, go to the Kenmare Arms,-inquire for Thomas Finn, the landlord, tell him you mean to be comfortable, and there's no doubt he'll make you so. The man furnishes forth a breakfast not unworthy of the Land of Cakes. Of course, before you think of this meal, you have walked, or rode, or driven, some twenty miles; then you sit down to a table covered with cold ham and turkey, a round of beef, and smoking hot fresh eggs innumerable, with tea and coffee to wash down the solids,carefully attended all the while by Dennis, his major-domo, a huge Majocci-looking fellow, with black bushy whiskers, and spectacles on nose, and his black wig so classically arranged, that for an instant you suppose you have got before you a head journeyman from one of the Magasins des Modes of Bond Street. But this disagreeable delusion soon passes, and you find, that instead of a big conceited fool, full of nothingness and knavery, whose every sentence is an impertinence, Dennis is a "rale Irishman," remarkable for his civility and his Kerry brogue.

What shall I say of the beauties of the Lakes-Upper, Middle, and Lower? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I must leave it to poets to dscribe lakes. Natheless, one word of Mangerton. Some people take ponies to ascend this mountain, but this is ridiculous, except for women. The top is only about six miles off; so giving a knapsack full of sandwiches, and a flask of Hollands, to a young bare-legged mountaineer, who was to attend me, I took my "stick in my fist," at a convenient hour after breakfast, and set forth for the mountain top. On our way, we went in to look at Mucness. There was a funeral just then on its way to the Abbey. Then first I heard the dirge called Keening, in the vulgar the Hullaboo, or Irish cry. It begins with a low moaning sound, apparently from women only, then gradually swelling, as it is taken up by one after another of the crowd, it bursts at length into a loud and wailing cry, which slowly dies away again to moans,-but no articulate words are heard. It is resumed every time the bearers of the coffia are changed, or any halt takes place in the procession. When the ceremony of interment is over, and the last sod beaten down upon the grave, the cry is once more repeated, loud and long; and then they whose clamorous "grief has borne such an emphasis," depart in groups, chatting of their ordinary affairs.

To those whose minds are in a melancholy mood already, the cry sounds exceedingly mournful, otherwise, and at a distance, one can hardly distinguish whether it be intended to express woe or mirth. There is by no means "snug lying in the abbey" here. Dead men's bones, and bits of coffins, lie scattered in every direction, and in some places skulls are piled up into heaps above the surface. There is an enormous ash-tree, too, growing out of the very middle of a heap of bones, which suggests the idea of its owing its immense magnitude to the loathsome decomposition that is going on below. Within the walls of the cloister stands a gigantic yew, of which the branches form a sort of natural roof to the apartment, and admit no more than a dim religious light, which enables you to see that the stem has lost its bark, and is dripping with the clammy moisture of a charnel-house.