clean, when the back of the most loathsome of reptiles turns out, on examination, more beautiful than the butterfly? Who shall say what extremes may not meet, when, amid the filth of an Irish hovel, spring, like flowers, out of ordure, the graces of a prince in his palace ?" All this, the reader will remark, was seen from the top of a stage-coach on a drenching wet day! What wonderful powers of observation he must have! The penciller next treats us to a song, descriptive of an Irish cabin, which he tells us was sung for him by one of the most beautiful women he saw in Ireland. His memorable arrival in Drogheda is thus described:

"As we drove into Drogheda, we entered a crowd, which I can only describe as suggesting the idea of a miraculous advent of rags. It was market-day, and the streets were so thronged that you could scarce see the pavement, except under the feet of the horses; and the public square was a sea of tatters. Here and all over Ireland I could but wonder where and how these rent and frittered habiliments had gone through the preparatory stages of wear and tear. There were no degrees -nothing above rags to be seen in coat or petticoat, waistcoat or breeches, cloak or shirt. Even the hats and shoes were in rags; not a whole covering, even of the coarsest material, was to be detected on a thousand backs about us: nothing shabby, nothing threadbare, nothing mended, except here and there a hole in a beggar's coat, stuffed with straw. Who can give me the genealogy of Irish rags? Who took the gloss from these coats, once broadcloth? who wore them? who tore them? who sold them to the Jews? (for, by the way, Irish rags are fine rags, seldom frieze or fustian). How came the tatters of the entire world, in short, assembled in Ireland? for if, as it would seem, they have all descended from the backs of gentlemen, the entire world must contribute to maintain the supply."

Readers, such of you as have been in Drogheda, did you ever see any thing like this? People of Drogheda, do you recognise yourselves in this picture here drawn of you? We are sure you cannot. But he is not done with you yet. He had been rather unlucky in the pursuit of his favourite subjects for study in Belfast-namely, the beggars; but this disappointment was atoned for in Drogheda. He describes them thus:

"I had been rather surprised at the scarcity of beggars in Belfast, but the beggary of Drogheda fully came up to the travellers' descriptions. They were of every possible variety. At the first turn the coach made in the town, we were very near running over a blind man, who knelt in the liquid mud of the gutter (the calves of his legs quite covered by the pool, and only his heels appearing above), and held up in his hands the naked and footless stumps of a boy's legs. The child sat in a wooden box, with his back against the man's breast, and ate away very unconcernedly at a loaf of bread, while the blind exhibitor turned his face up to the sky, and, waving the stumps slightly from side to side, kept up a vociferation for charity that was heard above all the turmoil of the market place. When we stopped to change horses, the entire population, as deep as they could stand, at least with any chance of being heard, held out their hands, and in every conceivable tone and mode of arresting the attention, implored charity. The sight was awful: old age in shapes so hideous, I should think the most horrible nightmare never had conceived. The rain poured down upon their tangled and uncovered heads, seaming, with its cleansing torrents, faces so hollow, so degraded in expression, and, withal, so clotted with filth and neglect, that they seemed like features of which the very owners had long lost, not only care, but consciousness and remembrance; as if, in the horrors of want and idiotcy, they had anticipated the corrupting apathy of the grave, and abandoned every thing except the hunger which gnawed them into memory of existence. The feeble blows and palsied fighting of these hag-like spectres for the pence thrown to them from the coach, and the howling, harsh, and unnatural voices in which they imprecated curses on each other in the fury of the struggle, have left a remembrance in my mind, which deepens immeasurably my fancied nadir of human abandonment and degradation. God's image so blasted, so defiled, so sunk below the beasts that perish,' I would not have believed was to be found in the same world with hope."

But we, and our readers too, have probably had enough of Mr Willis's "Pencillings by the Way" in Ireland-pencillings which would seem to have been sketched with a material to which he is apparently very partial, namely, dirt. And now,

in return for the favour which this gentleman and his coadjutor have conferred upon us, by their exertions to enable us to improve our acquaintance with ourselves, we shall communicate our own opinion of them, and hope they will be equally benefited by the knowledge. We think, then, that they are a pair of gentlemen who must have a wonderfully good opinion of themselves, and that not altogether without reason, inasmuch as they possess in common one quality, which shall be nameless, but in which not even we, natives of the Emerald Isle as we are, can pretend to compete with them. We do not think that there are any two Irishmen living, who would travel into a foreign country to represent its scenery like the one, or sketch the manners and characteristics of its inhabitants like the other, and expect that they should be rewarded by the purchase of their works by that people or in that country. Mr Bartlett is but an indifferent artist, unacquainted even with some of the rudiments of his art, who has acquired the trade-knack of making pretty pictures by imitating the works of others, and by a total disregard of the real features of the scenes which he undertakes to depict. Mr Willis is a more accomplished sketcher in his line; and his delineations might be of value, if his conceited ambition to produce effect did not continually mar whatever intrinsic worth they might otherwise possess; but as it is, he is little better than a pert and flippant caricaturist. Neither one nor the other of these gentlemen, in short, would seem qualified for the task which they have so daringly undertaken; and we think it would have been well, if, before they resolved upon going through with it, they had been mindful of the Eastern proverb, "A lie, though it promise good, will do thee harm, and truth will do thee good at the last.' Applying this to ourselves as critics, we feel in conclusion bound to acknowledge that the prints in this work, considered as engravings, are deserving of the highest praise. X. Y.

OLD PROVERBS.

"THERE'S LUCK IN LEISURE."

66 DELAYS ARE DANGEROUS."

"JAMES SCANLAN wants to see you, sir. I told him you were hardly done dinner, but he begged me to let you know he is waiting."

"Dear me," said my father, "what can he want? Show him in, Carey. Well, James, what is the matter?"

"Oh! your honour, sir, won't you come see my poor father? He'll speak to you, but we can't get a word from him. He's dying of grief, my mother is so bad."

Your mother, James !-what has happened her?" "She took a heavy cold, sir, on Friday last, from a wetting she got going to Cashel; and when she came home, she took to her bed, and it's worse and worse she has got ever since, and at last she began to rave this morning; and as Dr M'Carthy was going past to the dispensary, Pat called him in; and when he looked at her, he just shook his head and said he'd send her something, but that we must be prepared for any thing that might happen. Well, sir, when my father heard that, he went and sat down by the bedside, and taking my mother's hand in his, says he, Åh, then, Mary, a-cushlamachree, am I going to lose you? Are you going from me? Did I ever think I'd see this day? Ah, Mary, avourneen, sure you won't leave me?" And from that to this he has never stirred, nor spoken, nor taken the least notice of any one-not even of me-not even of me."

The poor fellow burst into a flood of tears.

In a few minutes I was standing with my father by the bedside of Mrs Scanlan. She was quite unconscious of what was passing around. Her husband, who was my father's principal tenant, and a substantial farmer, sat as his eldest and favourite son had described; and although the object of my father's visit was to rouse him from his lethargy, it was long ere he addressed himself to the task. It seemed almost sacrilegious to disturb such hallowed grief.

At length he laid his hand upon Scanlan's shoulder. "Come, James," said he, “look up, man; don't be so utterly cast down. You know the old saying, Whilst there's life, there's hope.'

"It's kind of your honour to try and comfort me; but yours was always the good heart, and the kind one, and you never made the sight of your sunny face a compliment. But it's no use there's no hope. The death's on her handsome countenance."

He groaned deeply, and rocked himself backwards and forwards.

66

James," said my father, "we must be resigned to the will of God, but we need not make ourselves miserable by anticipating evils."

"Your honour was but a slip of a gossoon when you danced at the bright girl's wedding, and you're come now in time to see the last of the old woman. - the old woman, the old woman," repeated he, as if something struck him in the sound of the words as strange. Two-and-forty is not old, but they called her the old woman' since the boys began to grow up. But she never grew old to me; she's the same now that she was the first evening I told her, that she was the only treasure on the face of the earth that my heart coveted. Only, much as I loved her then, I love her more now. Oh! Mary, Mary, pulse of my heart, would to God I could die before you!"

The younger son Pat, his mother's favourite, now entered the room in a state of pitiable excitement. He had been at the dispensary to procure the medicine prescribed by the doctor, and to his imagination every person and every thing seemed to have conspired to delay him, whilst the lookers on deemed his haste almost superhuman.

He immediately attempted to administer the draught he had brought, but his mother could not be made to understand what was wanted of her; and at length, as if teased by his importunities, she suddenly dashed the cup of medicine from her.

The look of unutterable anguish with which he regarded her, as she rejected and destroyed that upon the taking of which depended the last hope, was indescribable.

The almost fierceness of his haste, which he now saw had been utterly useless, had flushed his cheek and lighted up his countenance, and he stood with his hands clasped, and raised as if in prayer, with firmly shut lips, and his eyes, in which you could view the transition from eager hope to utter despair, fixed upon her face, like a being that was changing into stone.

At the other side of the bed was his father, who had resumed his former attitude, and beside him stood his eldest son, whose utterly wretched countenance, alternating from one parent to the other, showed that he suffered that lowest state of misery, which anticipates still further and greater woe as a consequence from that which overwhelms at present.

My father left the room. I looked upon the group one instant. I felt that I could have resigned the possession of worlds to be permitted the luxury of raising the load of grief from those afflicted hearts; but it could not be, and I retired to relieve my surcharged feelings in solitude.

Ere morning dawned, nature had received another instalment of her debt.

My father and I attended the funeral, and were surprised at the apparent fortitude of Mr Scanlan. We wished to bring him with us to the Hall after the sad ceremony, but he would not come. We then accompanied him to his own house. As we entered, I glanced at him: he was ghastly pale. He looked slowly round, fixed his eyes one moment on the countenance of his younger son, another on the elder, and sank upon a chair.

Since the period of which I now write, I have often witnessed the closing scene of mortality, and various are the opinions I have heard, as to which point of time, between the moment of death and the first appearance abroad of the survivors in their mourning apparel, is the saddest, the most afflicting, or the most trying-whether the moment of dissolution, the first appearance of the undertaker, the laying out in the apparel of death, the bringing of the coffin, the last frantic kiss and look, the screwing down, the carrying out, the dull thud of the clay upon the coffin lid. Oh! think not that I am coolly writing this, that I am probing with the surgeon's calmness the deep, the sensitive (with many bleeding) wounds that death has given.

I am but a young man, yet my brain reels, and my eyes burn, and my heart swells to my throat, as memory holds the mirror to my view, and I see depicted in it the scenes, and feel again the feelings, that have been more than once or twice excited at the stages which I have just recounted in order. But of all the stabs thus given to the heart, of all those moments of anguish, the keenest is that felt when the survivor re-enters the house, where the form and the voice and the

cheerful laugh of the departed one had made his home a little paradise, and feels that that home is now for ever desolate! Is there a desert so deserted?

66

James," said Mr Scanlan, after he had looked steadfastly at him for some time," you were the first she brought me; and when you came into the world, I was almost beside myself with joy; and when I was allowed to enter the room where she was sitting up in bed, with you in her arms, I almost smothered you both with kisses; and I cried, and laughed, and danced about as if I was mad. Sure I need'nt be ashamed to own it, now that she's gone. And when I told her that they said you were the image of me, she answered me, So he ought, for sure you were always before my eyes;' and when I said that I could'nt be 'always,' she said that 'twas the eyes of her heart she meant. So, Pat, avourneen (addressing the younger, who had been all this time crying bitterly), though you're the living image of her that's dead, and though father could'nt love son more than I do you, you're not surprised that I gave James the preference sometimes, though I never loved you the less."

"Father dear," said Pat, "I was never jealous of Jem, nor he of me; we both knew that our faces and tempers and dispositions took after you both-Jem's after you, and mine after my mother. Oh! mother dear! mother dear!" He burst into a paroxysm of grief, ran wildly into his mother's room, and threw himself across the bed, roaring in a frenzied manner, 'James, honey, isn't the house terrible lonesome?" and a violent shudder ran through poor Scanlan's frame. "Isn't there a great echo in it? It's very chilly; I believe I had better go and lie down on the bed."

He stood up, and, continuing the forward movement of his body after he had risen to a standing position, would have fallen, extended on his face, but that I caught him just as his watchful son had sprung to save him.

Poor Pat now mastered his feelings in some degree, and turned his entire attention to assist his surviving parent. He was laid on the bed, and shortly recovered himself, and addressed my father. "I know your honour feels for my trouble, and will excuse the boys and me for not showing the attention we ought to show for your goodness."

"Say nothing about attention to me, James; I am sorry for your trouble, and, God knows, I wish I knew how to relieve and comfort you.".

"I'm sure you do, sir.—Boys, I won't be long with you. The pulse of my heart is gone. Look up to his honour, and never forget, that, though there's no clanship in these times, and though many a shoneen holds a higher head than his in the country now, you still owe him your love and fealty, for he's one of the real old stock; and your forefathers followed his forefathers in war and peace, when, if you stood on the highest crag of the Bogaragh, you could'nt see to the bounds of their wide domains. And while his honour is present, and I have my senses clear about me, I'll lay my commands on you both, boys; and if ever you break through them (though I am sure you never will), let his honour, and the young master here bear witness against you."

He then delivered what was simply a verbal will, directing how they should dispose of and divide his property and effects, and concluded as follows :

"When your mother and I were married, we were both of us full of old savings and proverbs, and we thought, like most others, that their meaning should be taken in the plainest and fullest signification; and as most of them are universally allowed to contain a great deal of wisdom and good sense, we thought that whoever regulated his or her conduct strictly according to their rule, would of necessity be the wisest person in the world.

One of these sayings, that I had been taught to believe was one of the wisest ever pronounced by man, was, there's luck in leisure,' and this was my most favourite maxim; but when I got married, I found that your mother-that your mother had a favourite one also- delays are dangerous." Well, the first year, when the corn was coming up, a corn factor came to this part of the country, and offered a middling fair price for an average crop. Mary bade me take it, as i'd have that much money certain, and if the season should turn out bad, the factor would be the sufferer, and I'd be safe. Take it at once,' said she; you know "delays are dangerous.

I began to consider that if the season should be only middling, inclining to bad, I might get as much money still, as the factor offered; and if it should turn out fine, the crop

would produce a great deal more, whilst it would be only in the event of a bad season that I'd be apt to lose. There's luck in leisure,' said I; ' I'll wait.' Well, the season was dreadful; most of the crops were totally destroyed, and we suffered more than almost any of the neighbours. I was afraid to look Mary in the face, when I had made out the extent of my loss, but she only said, Come, Jemmy, it can't be helped; the worse luck now, the better another time. You'll attend more to wise old sayings for the future; they were made out of wiser heads than yours.'

6

Ah, but, Mary, a-cushla, it was following an old saying that I was; sure you have often heard say, "there's luck in leisure. 'Poh,' said she, that's only a foolish saying, take my word for it.'

Next year the sky-farmer came again. He had lost nothing, for no one would deal with him, on his terms, the year before; and to hear how heartlessly he'd jeer and jibe them that had the sore hearts in their bosoms, and calculate up for them how much they had lost, and then he'd say, he supposed they would'nt refuse a good offer another time. Well, I asked him was he going to make me a good offer, and he said he would'nt care if he did, and he offered as much as would hardly pay the rent, letting alone seed and labour. Why,' said I, you'll give as much as you offered last year.' Not I indeed,' said he; 'I bought experience instead of corn last year, and you paid for it;' and he laughed, and shook himself with glee, and chuckled, and jingled the guineas in his pockets, until I was hardly able to keep from knocking him down.

6

Well, I higgled and bargained, and tried to raise him, but not another penny would he give; and at last he said that he was going away in the morning, and so I might take it or leave it, as I liked—he would'nt force his money on any man, not he. Delays are dangerous,' thought I; and, though it was a certain loss, I agreed.

A finer season than that, never came from the heavens. The factor came to see the crops, and such crops as they were! Several others had done like me; and if he laughed at us the year before, he laughed ten times more now. The year before he had lost nothing: this year he had made a fortune. He had laughed at our losses before, but he now laughed over his own gains. They may laugh who win.'

If he had taken it quieter, he might have done the same thing again; but by acting as he did, he set every one against him, and he never after could buy up growing crops here.

'Mary, my darling,' said I, 'we're almost ruined, in the second year, by following old sayings. I'll never believe in them again.' Jemmy, dear,' said she, I have been thinking the matter over, and I believe it's not the sayings that are wrong, but the wrong use that's made of them; for if we had said them the other way, we'd have made money instead of losing it; and for the future we'll try to use the sense that God has given us, and the acquirements such as they are that He has enabled us to obtain, in directing us to the proper use and timely application of those proverbs that are really wise and useful when properly applied.'

As it was the will of the Almighty, boys, that your dear mother should not have had her senses about her when departing, and it's likely that these are the last of her sensible words that I'll ever be able to tell you, I'd have you take them, and think upon them as if they were her last addressed to you, and let neither proverbs, however apparently wise in themselves, nor superstitious remarks, ever guide your actions or sway your conduct until you have applied to them the touchstone of your own common sense.

May God bless and guide you, my darling boys; and now I have done with the world and its affairs.' That day fortnight the funeral of James Scanlan was attended by NAISI.

IRISH BULLS.On the first appearance of Miss Edgeworth's admirable "Essay on Irish Bulls," the secretary of a celebrated agricultural society in Ireland received orders from its committee to procure several copies of the book, for the use of the members in their labours for improving the breed of cattle!

66

AN AMBITIOUS HORSE AND ACCOMMODATING RIDER.-An Irishman was riding through a bog, when his horse sank deeply into the mud, and in his efforts to extricate himself, Bob got his foot into the stirrup. Arrah, musha!" exclaimed the rider, "if you are going to get up, it is time for me to get down!" and he forthwith proceeded to dismount with all reasonable speed.

NOVEL AND SINGULAR MODE OF RELIEVING

NERVOUS COMPLAINTS.

IN a London medical work entitled The Doctor, are given the particulars of an interesting case of neuralgia, or tic douleureux, which, it appears, after having been treated with the usual medicines for more than two years, with little or no remission of the painful symptoms attending it, yielded at length to a new and extraordinary remedy, in the shape of a metal magnet. The experiments tried upon the occasion promise results of such considerable interest and practical importance to the health perhaps of thousands, that we shall offer no apology to our readers for copying the history of the cure and the accompanying details into our columns, premising only, that while we individually place every reliance on the good faith of the witnesses who attest the facts recorded, we do not consider ourselves bound to vouch for their statement authoritatively to others, or draw any inference of a positive kind with respect to a remedy, of the nature and effects of which, after all, it is properly the province of the faculty alone to form a judgment.

"Our readers (observes the writer) will remember the interesting case of neuralgia of the finger, at St Thomas's Hospital, upon which Dr Elliotson stated, in a clinical lecture, that he had exhausted his store of remedial agents, without developing a shade of improvement. [The remedies resorted to primarily were, carbonate of iron, cyanuret of potass, strychnine, croton oil, hydrocyanic acid, and extract of belladonna.] A more severe case, probably, was never subjected to treatment. The man left the hospital for a time, totally unrelieved, but soon afterwards returned, when, in accordance with a suggestion, as Dr Elliotson has since observed, of a correspondent of our own, the colchicum autumnale was tried in the case, without, however, the slightest benefit being derived therefrom. The sedative powers of the lobelia inflata then suggested to Dr Elliotson the propriety of giving the patient the chance of that medicine. The grounds on which it was employed proved to be in some measure correctly founded. The man took the lobelia, in increasing doses, every hour, beginning with seven drops of the tincture, and adding a drop to each progressive dose, until as large a quantity had been reached as could be taken without deranging the functions of the stomach. Some amelioration of the affection followed this treatment. The patient, who was before unable even to cross the ward, or bear without excruciating agony the slightest contact with his finger-nails, and had become emaciated to the extremest degree, from pain and sleeplessness, was now enabled to walk a little way and enjoy intervals of rest, partly recovered his good looks, and became comparatively cheerful.

The relief, however, was very far from being either perfect or permanent. In fact, the continued exhibition of the medicine was demanded to secure any portion of rest.

A short time since, however, a new remedial agent presented itself, in the form of the magnet. The hospital was visited, first by Dr Kyle, and subsequently by Dr Blundell, who followed up the application begun by Dr Kyle. The lobelia inflata was allowed by Dr Elliotson to be suspended, and the effect of the magnet tried. That effect was, to the surprise of all who witnessed it, a most decided one; the pain was, on every application of the instrument, removed, and continued absent for several hours.

On Tuesday last [in June 1833], Dr Blundell attended the hospital at the hour of Dr Elliotson's visit, when, in the presence of the pupils and our reporter, he drew forth the magnet, and commenced its application to the patient's finger.

The instrument is of the horse-shoe form, about ten inches in its long axis, and five in its short, composed of five layers of metal, the central being the longest, and the whole bound with stout ribbon. The patient was at the time apparently suffering considerable pain, and unable to use his hand. The north pole of the magnet was gently passed five or six times down the sides and back of the middle finger, and then rested on the central joint. The result was such an immediate cessation of suffering, that he could gnash his fingers into the palm of his hand with ease and comfort, and he declared himself to be entirely relieved. The power of the instrument, however, did not cease here. Dr Blundell showed that it possessed the means of reproducing the pain in the most intense form. The south pole of the magnet was directed along the finger. At the third pass the patient began to bite his lip and close his eyes with an expression of pain. At a few

passes more his chin was spasmodically buried in his breast, and his wrinkled features expressed the acutest suffering. This was allowed to continue for a few seconds, when the north pole was again presented to the finger, and the agony speedily subsided. The spectators then left the man lying with a countenance perfectly tranquil.

At the extremity of the ward lay an elderly lady, a martyr to tic douleureux in the lower jaw, extending to the ear, and affecting a large portion of the head. The disease, she stated, was of more than nine years' duration, and had never ceased to afflict her for a day during that period, up to her entrance into the hospital. Her appearance was proportionably miserable. The magnet had also been applied in her case, and with similar advantage, as she stated. On the present occasion it was found, on approaching her bed, that she was in consequence free from pain on that morning, and the further aid of the magnet was not needed. 'But cannot you show its power by producing the pain?' inquired a bystander. The suggestion was acted on. The south pole of the magnet was passed from the centre of the chin along the lower jawbone up to the ear. At the third pass the poor woman indicated that the tic was commencing, and in a few seconds more the affection was experienced intensely. The process was then stopped, as the experiment had been carried far enough to satisfy all present of its consummation; and after a brief space the presentation of the north pole wholly freed the sufferer from pain. The operator subsequently stated, that by continuing the passes he could have carried the pain on to the production of delirium.

There is a female patient in another ward, who had suffered intense toothache for three months, when, a fortnight since, according to her own evidence, which we have no reason to doubt, it was instantly cured by one application of the magnet, through the medium of a key, and had not returned in the slightest degree up to the period of the visit of which we have given the details.

These are very interesting facts. We submit them to our readers unaccompanied by comment. The specific name given to his instrument by Dr Blundell, is that of mineral magnet.' How far its application to disease admits of extension, we are at present ignorant.”

A SOLVENT BANK.-The best bank ever yet known is a bank of earth; it never refuses to discount to honest labour; and the best share is the plough-share, on which dividends are always liberal.

AN IRISH BULL OF 1630.-Nowe that Ireland doth give birthe to strange sortes of men, whose too greate quicknesse of thoughte doth impeede theyre judgmente, this storye whiche I have heard, will shewe. A wealthie lord of the countie of Corke there had a goodlie faire house new-built, but the broken brickes, tiles, sande, lime, stones, and such rubbish, as are commonlie the remnantes of such buildinges, lay confusedlie in heapes, ande scattered here ande there; the lord therefore demanded of his surveyor, wherefore the rubbish was not conveyed awaie; the surveyor said, that hee proposed to hyre an hundred carts for the purpose. The lord replied, that the charge of carts might be saved, for a pit might be digged in the grounde, and soe burie it. Then, my lord," said the surveyor, "I pray you what will wee doe with the earth which wee digge out of the said pitt?" "Why, you coxcombe," said the lord, "canst thou not digge the pitt deepe enough to hold rubbish and all together?"-From the works of Taylor, the

Water Post.

CAROLAN'S LIBERALITY.-Carolan never prostituted his muse to party politics or religious bigotry, though attachment to the ancient faith and families of Ireland was the ruling principle of his heart; yet he could discern the virtues and celebrate the praises of those who dissented from the one, or claimed no connection with the other.-Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy.

FULLER. The well-known author of " British Worthies" wrote his own epitaph, as it appears in Westminster Abbey. It consists of only four words, but it speaks volumes, namely, "Here lies Fuller's earth."

Printed and Published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No 6. Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.Agents:-London: R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row. Manchester: SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street. Liverpool: J. DAVIES, North John Street. Birmingham: J. DRAKE. Bristol: M. BINGHAM. Broad Street. Edinburgh: FRASER and CRAWFORD, George Street. Glasgow: David ROBERTSON, Trongate.

OUR prefixed illustration gives a near view of one of the most interesting ruins now remaining in the romantic region of Connemara, or the Irish Highlands, and which is no less remarkable for its great antiquity than for the singularly wild and picturesque character of its situation, and that of its surrounding scenery. It is the feature that gives poetic interest to the most beautiful portion of Lough Corrib-its upper extremity where a portion of the e, about three miles in length, is apparently surrounded and shut in by the rocky and precipitous mountains of Connemara and the Joyce country, which it reflects upon its surface, without any object to break their shadows, or excite a feeling of human interest, but the one little lonely Island-Castle of the Hen. That an object thus situated having no accompaniments around but those in keeping with it should, in the fanciful traditions of an imaginative people, be deemed to have had a supernatural origin, is only what might have been naturally expected; and such, indeed, is the popular belief. If we inquire of the peasantry its origin, or the origin of its name, the ready answer is given, that it was built by enchantment in one night by a cock and a hen grouse, who had been an Irish prince and princess!

There is, indeed, among some of the people of the district a dim tradition of its having been erected as a fastness by an

O'Conor, King of Connaught, and some venture to conjecture that this king was no other than the unfortunate Roderick, the last King of Ireland; and that the castle was intended by him to serve as a place of refuge and safety, to which he could retire by boat, if necessity required, from the neighbouring monastery of Cong, in which he spent the last few years of his life and it is only by this supposition that they can account for the circumstance of a castle being erected by the O'Conors in the very heart of a district which they believe to have been in the possession of the O'Flahertys from time immemorial. But this conjecture is wholly erroneous, and the true founders and age of this castle are to be found in our authentic but as yet unpublished Annals, from which it appears certain that the Hen's Castle was one of several fortresses erected, with the assistance of Richard de Burgo, Lord of Connaught, and Lord Justice of Ireland, by the sons of Roderick, the last monarch of the kingdom. It is stated in the Annals of Connaught, and in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1225, that Hugh O'Conor (son of Cathal Crovedearg), King of Connaught, and the Lord Justice of Ireland, Richard De Burgo, arriving with their English at the Port of Inis Creamha, on the east side of Lough Corrib, caused Hugh O'Flaherty, the Lord of West Connaught, to surrender the island of Inis Creamha, Oilen-na-Circe, or the Hen's Island,