the father made the "witty godson" of Elizabeth read him some cantos of his translation of Ariosto; but the followers of the earl were unspoiled in their fidelity by any refinements of luxury or knowledge:

"The earl," says Sir John Harrington, "began by debasing his own manner of hard life, comparing himself to wolves, that fill their bellies sometime, and fast as long for it. **** Other pleasant and idle tales were needless and impertinent, or to describe his ferntable and fern-forms, spread under the stately canopy of heaven. His guard, for the most part, were beardless boys without shirts; who, in the frost, wade as familiarly through rivers as water-spaniels. With what charm such a master makes them love him I know not, but if he bid come, they come; if go, they do go; if he say do this, they do it."

But we are lingering too long amongst the traces of old manners, as we lingered, till the sun was setting,

art has here acclimated or nature strown, upon the mountains on which the mists are gathering, and driving fast before a gusty wind. Our steersman is impatient, and he has cause. "The boys" pull with a will through the waves, which now heave like a troubled sea. We have passed in a quarter of an hour from serene beauty into stern grandeur. How solemnly now sleeps Innisfallen in her watery bed; Glena looks frowning; the Lake is black, beyond all imaginable blackness of water-black in its vast depth, and beneath the gloom of the gathering clouds. Welcome the friendly shallow of the point on which our boat at last is stranded.

Now, that we have seen these Lakes under very favourable circumstances, and can judge in some degree of their claims to surpassing beauty, let us compare our own impressions with those of two very competent but essentially different observers. Inglis, acute, cau

tious, rarely elevated beyond the point of calm satis faction; Wilson, the most tasteful and discriminating of enthusiasts. It is true that we have been only two days, as yet, amongst these wondrous scenes ;-but we have had rare opportunities of weather-all appliances at hand-and not an hour lost. We agree to the utmost extent of admiration with our two authorities.

And first Inglis :-" Although the lakes of Killarney are three in number, yet they are all contained in one mountain hollow; and certainly there is not, within the same compass, anything in England presenting the same concentration of charms, There is infinitely greater variety at Killarney. In form, and in the outline of its mountain boundaries, the lower lake of Killarney is decidedly superior to Winandermere: and though the head of Ulleswater presents a bolder outline than is anywhere to be found in Killarney, yet it is upon this outline alone that the reputation of Ulleswater depends. Elsewhere than at Patterdale, the lake scenery is tame; and the same may be said of Winandermere, which, towards the lower extremity, is almost devoid of attraction. On the contrary, throughout the whole chain of lakes, there is a variety at Killarney; tameness is nowhere to be found: and I cannot think that the somewhat nearer approach to sublimity, which is found at the head of Ulleswater, can weigh in the balance against the far greater variety in the picturesque and the beautiful, which Killarney affords. It would be unfair to compare the lakes of Killarney, with Winandermere, Keswick, and Ulleswater; for these are spread over a great extent of country; whereas, the lakes of Killarney are all contained within a smaller circumference than Winandermere but even if such a comparison were to be admitted, Killarney would outvie the English lakes in one charm, in which they are essentially deficient. I mean the exuberance and variety of foliage which adorns both the banks and the islands of the Killarney lakes. Such islands as Ronan's Island, Oak Island, Dinis Island, and Innisfallen, covered with magnificent timber and gigantic ever-greens, are nowhere to be found amongst the English lakes. I think it will be gathered from what I have said, that I accord the preference to Killarney."

Christopher North, in the passage which we are about to quote, is more brief than in his previous summing up of the characteristics of the English and Scotch Lakes; but he is not in the slightest degree less emphatic when he thus bursts out. He is looking from Mangerton, whither we shall lead our reader before we part :

"What a panorama! Our first feeling was one of grief that we were not an Irishman. We knew not where to fix our gaze. Surrounded by the dazzling bewilderment of all that multitudinous magnificence, the eye, as if afraid to grapple with the near gloryfor such another day never shone from heaven-sought elief in the remote distance, and slid along the beautiful river Kenmare, insinuating itself among the recesses

of the mountains, till it rested on the green glimmer of the far-off sea. The grandeur was felt, far off as it was, of that iron-bound coast. Coming round with an easy sweep, as the eye of an eagle may do, when hanging motionless aloft he but turns his head, our eyes took in all the mighty range of the Reeks, and rested in awe on Carran-Tual. Wild yet gentle was the blue aërial haze over the glimpses of the Upper Lake, where soft and sweet, in a girdle of rocks, seemed to be hanging, now in air and now in water-for all was strangely indistinct in the dim confusion-masses of green light, that might be islands with their lovely trees. But suddenly tipt with fire shone out the golden pinnacles of the Eagle's Nest; and as again they were tamed by cloud-shadow, the glow of Purple Mountain for a while enchained our vision, and then left it free to feast on the forest of Glena, till, wandering at the capricious will of fancy, it floated in delight over the woods of Mucruss, and long lost among the trembling imagery of the water, found lasting repose in the stedfast beauty of the sylvan isle of Innisfallen."

With this passage in our minds we close our second day, with hopes of a bright sky for Mangerton to

morrow.

For two days we have been sequestered on the bank of the Lower Lake, in the profound quiet of our hotel. The Killarney beggars find no admission here. The only signs of Killarney life are the two patient women who sit all day at the hotel-door, offering their knickknacks of the arbutus and the bog-oak. It is time we saw something of the population; so we will walk to Mucruss on our way to Mangerton.

A pretty road of a mile leads to Killarney. We pass the unfinished cathedral, begun, from the design of Pugin, some four or five years ago, and left as it is through failing means. At a distance on the hill is a noble asylum for pauper lunatics, and, somewhat nearer, the Union Workhouse-a large fabric. Within this Workhouse all is order and cleanliness. At the time of our visit to Killarney the Guardians had additional buildings for in-door relief,-the whole capable of accommodating 2,800 persons. The Union, it appears, is admirably managed; the Guardians have had no assistance from Government; out-door relief has been administered, not to the able-bodied, but in extreme cases of widows and children. And yet, although a stern necessity was driving the able-bodied fast into the Workhouse, there were causes in operation which kept out many even when famine was at their door. The children are the first victims. The parents will not come into the Workhouse with their families till the last moment. Are they badly fed? Are they cruelly treated? Quite the contrary. Discipline, order, regularity, cleanliness, deter them from seeking this relief. A witness before the Lords' Committee says, "It is the dread of cold water being applied to them, and clean clothing."

Another witness says, that they would infinitely prefer privations of food and clothing, and insufficiency

of fuel, in a badly-managed workhouse, to abundance and regularity in a workhouse like that of Killarney. Crouched under a gateway as we passed through the street, we saw such a being as poets have imagined Spenser in his Hag, Shakspeare in his Sycorax,-but such a being as never before shocked our eyes-an old woman in whom all semblance of humanity had perished. She was there to mutter and beg in her horrible filth and rags: she might have been in the workhouse. It is useless reasoning about all this. The habits of centuries are not only second nature but nature itself. Gradually, however, will the Union Workhouse eradicate these habits. At Killarney there are workshops preparing, where labour may be given to the able-bodied. Under a recent Act the Guardians are empowered to provide agricultural instruction for their young inmates; and in some Unions they have many acres under cultivation, where farm-servants are being formed who will bring skilled labour to the agricultural revolution that must take place in Ireland. Again; the girls in some of the workhouses, in Galway especially, are trained for domestic labours, and fitted to become the wives of colonists, by learning all the industrial resources of good housewifery. These Workhouses, then, which at first sight strike the traveller in Ireland as indications of misery, are likely to become great instruments of real education. The wretched hovel, dark, filthy, damp, and smoky, cannot exist for ever by the side of a well-regulated Union Workhouse. At the entrance of Killarney, as in most Irish towns, there are such hovels. Some have been pulled down, and the tenants evicted; but enough remain to show us how the mass of Irish cottiers have been living, time out of mind. Miss Edgeworth long ago described these dens of wretchedness, in an Irish

town (village), under an absentee landlord :-" This town consisted of one row of miserable huts, sunk beneath the side of the road, the mud walls crooked in every direction; some of them opening in wide cracks, or zigzag fissures, from top to bottom, as if there had just been an earthquake-all the roofs sunk in various places-thatch off, or overgrown with grass -no chimneys, the smoke making its way through a hole in the roof, or rising in clouds from the top of the open door-dunghills before the doors, and green standing puddles-squalid children, with scarcely rags to cover them, gazing at the carriage. **** they drove by, some men and women put their heads through the smoke out of the cabins; pale women, with long black or yellow locks-men with countenances and figures bereft of hope and energy." (Cuts 11 to 14.)

As

Not the slightest change in a quarter of a century. The famine has made the matter, as far as external appearances go, not a bit the worse. The deserted cabins that we see in every part of the country tell us that evictions are going on. We have seen with our own eyes what eviction means. There is a padlock on the frail door of a mud-cabin ;-the ground about is choked with weeds;-the potato-crop has failed;—the tenant can pay no rent ;-he is fled, or has perished. This is a short and sad tale; and we jump too hastily to a conclusion if we think that the evil is to be remedied by banishing the potato, as well as its cultivator. Unquestionably the famine was the result of the almost exclusive potato-cultivation, in the small holdings;-and it is very easy to say that the small holdings should be turned into large farms;-corn should be grown instead of potatoes; and the wretehed cottiers become farm-labourers. The people themselves know better than superficial political econo