should I care twopence for Mitchelhurst? No, it is my dream still- -a dream I'm never likely to realize, but the only possible dream for me. Only now I know how poor and dull my highest success would be." "You had better have stayed away," said the girl. He took his elbows off the gate, and bowed in acknowledgment of the polite speech. "Oh, you know what I mean," she said hurriedly. "Yes, I know. And, except for the kindness of your fairy godmother, I believe you are perfectly right. That of course, is a different question." Barbara would not answer what she fancied might be a sneer. "You see the place at its worst," she said, "and there is nobody to care for it; everything is neglected and going to ruin. Don't you think it would be different if it belonged to some one who loved it? Why don't you make your fortune," she exclaimed, with sanguine, bright-eyed directness, as as if the fortune were an easy certainty, "and come back and set everything right? Don't you think you could care for Mitchelhurst if 'My opinion doesn't matter." The clouds rolled heavily upwards, and massed themselves above their heads as they hastened down a steep lane which brought them out by the church. Barbara stopped at the clerk's cottage for a ponderous key, and then led the way through a little creaking gate. The path along which they went was like a narrow ditch, the mould, heaped high on either side, seemed as if it were burdened with its imprisoned secrets. The undulating graves, overgrown with coarse grasses, rose up, wave-like, against the buttressed walls of the churchyard, high above the level of the outer road. The church itself looked as if it had been dug out of the sepulchral earth, so closely was it surrounded by these shapeless mounds. Barbara, to whom the scene was nothing new, and who was eager to escape the impending shower, flitted, alive, warm, and young, through all this cold decay, and never heeded it. Harding followed her, looking right and left. They passed under two dusky yew-trees, and then she thrust her big key into the lock of the south door. "Are my people buried in the churchyard?” he asked. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed reverentially. "Your people are all inside." He stepped in, but when he was about to close the door he stood for a moment, gazing out through the low-browed arch. It framed a picture of old-fashioned headstones fallen all aslant, nettles flourishing upon forgotten graves, the trunks of the great yews, the weed-grown crest of the churchyard wall, defined with singular clearness upon a wide band of yellow sky. The gathered tempest hung above, and its deepening menace intensified the pale tranquillity of the horizon. "I say," said Harding as he turned away, “it's going to pour, you know!" "Well, we are under shelter," Barbara answered cheerfully, as she laid her key on the edge of one of the pews. "If it clears up again so that we get back in good time it won't matter a bit. And any how we've got umbrellas. The font is very old, they say." Harding obediently inspected the font. "And there are two curious inscriptions on tablets on the north wall. Mr. Pryor he's the vicar is always trying such things? "But you are going to wish me suc- to read them. Do you know much about cess while I am away making it? "Oh, certainly." "That will be a help," he said gravely. "I shan't look for an omen in the sky just do you see how threatening it is out yonder?" now 1 66 Nothing at all." "Oh!" in a tone of disappointment. "I'm afraid you wouldn't get on with Mr. Pryor then." "I'm afraid not." Perhaps you wouldn't care to look at | few miles above its junction with the them." Oh, let us look, by all means." They walked together up the aisle. "I don't care about them," said Barbara, "but I suppose Mr. Pryor would die happy if he could make them out." "Then I suspect he is happy meanwhile, though perhaps he doesn't know it," Reynold replied, looking upward at the half-effaced lettering. "He can read some of it," said the girl, "but nobody can make out the interesting part." Harding laughed, under his breath. Their remarks had been softly uttered ever since the closing of the door had shut them in to the imprisoned silence. He moved noiselessly a few steps further, and looked round. From The Nineteenth Century. WHAT DO THE IRISH READ? IRISHMEN who return to their country after a few years' absence cannot fail to see, as one of the most noticeable changes, an extension of popular literature; a great increase in the number of readers, not, however, in the upper or middle classes, but in the lower classes that is, lower as far as the possession of pounds, shillings, and pence is concerned. In a recent article in the London Reader, some statements were quoted from the reports of the United States Bureau of Educa. tion, showing the comparative statistics of education in some of the principal countries in the world, wherein Ireland heads the list, the United States comes second, Germany third, then Switzerland, then England, France, etc. Whether those statistics be correct or not, and whether or not the inference of the editor of the London Reader be adopted, that Ireland is the least ignorant country in the world, there is no doubt that the read ing public in Ireland is comparatively large. Nor can there be any doubt that the increase of readers is mainly in the class who, with an extension of the franchise, will get a voting power they do not now possess. That being so, it may be worth while inquiring, What do they read? Looking at a few rough notes rough, and very imperfect indeed answer to that question, though by no means a complete answer, may be given. Last year a trout-fisher who was wandering on the banks of the Clashmore, a -a sort of Blackwater, turned into a cottage from a shower of rain and found an old woman listening to a girl reading some verses. "It's Mr. T. D. Sullivan's 'Green Leaves,' sir," said the daughter, in reply to a question; "my brother bought it three weeks ago in Youghal for a shilling." "And what part do you like best?" "Well then, sir, I was just repeating about the lord and the moon, the lord who said we might as well ask for the moon as ask for Repeal. My mother has a great fancy for it; it makes her laugh." As the book was being looked through, the girl added, “There are other songs I prefer myself, though." Here are some lines from the old woman's favorite, being Mr. Sullivan's rejoinder to what was said by an eminent member of the Cabinet, and, possibly, a future premier: So we might as well ask for the moon, my lord; You think we would get it as soon, my lord; In giving applause To our glory-crowned cause, And in shouting, "Old Ireland, well done!" -my lord. The visitor hinted to the daughter of the house that she probably preferred the verses further on, relating to an approaching marriage. "No, indeed, sir," she replied, "there are poems about exiles I rather read." And she added, "Not altogether of our own times either: 'Saint Columba in Exile' and 'O'Neill in Rome,' I like them very much." In what professes to be a translation of a Gaelic poem by St. Columba, these lines Occur: But yet with such a love as mine For Erin and her noble race, But far from Derry, far from Kells, In the poem describing the exiled chief of three hundred years ago, the visitor read these verses: To a question about the battle of the Yellow Ford, she said she would not like to answer, till she read a book called "The Story of Ireland" written by the same gentleman, Mr. Sullivan [but in that she was mistaken, it was by his brother], which the priest of the parish was going to lend them. "And the priest himself, which of the 'Green Leaves' does he fancy?" "I don't rightly know," she replied, "but, from something my brother said, I think Father John turned down that page," and she pointed to this: Of two wicked brothers I'll sing you a song: Then, young men and old men, take heed what With your wives and your daughters keep out For as sure as the Evil One rules down in hell, In the window-sill, next to some wellthumbed prayer-books, was what looked like the second volume of Mr. Sullivan's. Dalton Williams." The remainder of the "Green Leaves," the "Poems of Richard rather limited stock of literature consisted of O'Connell's Cork "Almanack," a Dublin weekly publication called the Shamrock, some not very fresh copies of the Cork Weekly Herald and a supplement of the Examiner, a newspaper also printed in Cork. The Shamrock, price one penny, contained half-a-dozen stories, one being "To Hell or Connaught," an Irish historical romance translated from the French of T. Alphonse Karr, as well as some Irish songs and sketches. Two days after the Clashmore excur. sion another experience of popular lit erary taste was gained, on calling at the residence of the priest of a parish nearer to Cork. The priest was not at home, and the servant - half acolyte and half errand-boy, not more than sixteen years of age who was in charge of the house, was sitting on the doorstep absorbed in the columns of United Ireland. "You are reading one of Mr. Healy's or Mr. Sexton's speeches, I suppose?" "No, sir," said the boy, "I skip the speeches; stories and poetry are what I fancy most." "And is this tale, 'Dark Rosaleen, a Romance of Irish Latter Life,' very interesting?" "Yes, sir, very." He smiled and said, "I do well, sir; Clarence Mangan, of course: I know his 'Dark Rosaleen' by heart." "Do you remember the first verse?" Without a moment's hesitation he repeated these lines: O my Dark Rosaleen, Do not sigh, do not weep! The priests are on the ocean green, And Spanish ale shall give you hope, My Dark Rosaleen! My own Rosaleen ! Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope, "In those days," said the boy, "the pope sent assistance to Ireland." There was a pause, and then he added, "I like the two last verses: I could scale the blue air, I could plough the high hills, Would give me life and soul anew, My Dark Rosaleen! O! the Erne shall run red With redundance of blood, The earth shall rock beneath our tread, Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die, The judgment hour must first be nigh, My Dark Rosaleen!" "Do you remember any other of Mangan's poems?" "Yes, sir, that's a fine poem where John MacDonnell sees in a dream the guardian spirit of Erin, With features beyond the poet's pen, The lamentation of MacLiag for cora: Showed fleckt with blood, and an alien sun And there stood on high, Amid his shorn beams, a skeleton ! It was by the stream Of the castled Maine, One autumn eve, in the Teuton's land, Of the time and reign Of Cáhal Mór of the Wine-red Hand! ."I am told he died some years ago, "I do not rightly know," he continued, very poor," said the boy in a sad voice. "whether he was related to Mr. Mangan the watchmaker in Patrick Street; if so, he was a Protestant. But whether he was a Protestant or a Catholic, I hope he Kin- is in heaven. May the Lord preserve him!" What I lately saw in the " Penny Readings" shows his Irish spirit to the last: They are gone, those heroes of royal birth trust. When I see the ruined abbeys and castles I whisper that lamentation to myself," said the boy. "But there is something more grand still," he continued, “in 'Ă Vision of Connaught, in the Thirteenth Century," " "You have a copy of Mangan's poems, of course?" he was asked. "No sir, I picked up these few bits from the Irish Penny Readings' and MacCarthy's Book of Irish Ballads,' not the historian, but Denis Florence. As I know you are a friend of his reverence, sir, I can get you a peep at the Book of Ballads; but," he added pausing, "I suppose you know it well." He stepped into the parlor and returned with one of My countrymen! my words are weak, Yet would I fain and fondly seek To see you borne in freedom's bark. This boy of sixteen, recently a monitor in the national school, and now an assistant to the old woman who took care of the priest's house, how did he get this taste for Clarence Mangan's poems? As well might it be asked how did he get his Celtic nature? Why does he love his country? The visitor did not speculate on this, for he had some slight knowledge of his own race; but some months after he was reminded of the incident by seeing how an eminent littérateur and statesman, not free from the responsibility of trying to understand Irishmen, had told the House of Commons that Mangan's poetry is for mature years only. The priest, who had gone on a distant call, could not be seen that day, but meeting his visitor the following week in the county town he said, "So you heard a recitation lately, when waiting for me." And in reply to a remark, he added, "The boy is like many others in the parish. His literary tastes are cultivated mainly in the Land League Rooms. For certain reasons I don't go there myself; perhaps I am one of the silent foundation stones. He goes of an evening, and next day I hear snatches of verses of Moore, Fergu. son, or Davis, and it all ends in borrowing a volume to be read in the kitchen or the garden." Young Men's Society, one of the officebearers mentioned the Abbé MacGeoghegan's "History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Limerick," with John Mitchell's continuation; D'Arcy McGee's "History of Ireland to the Emancipation of the Catholics;" Duffy's "Four Years of Irish History," with the preceding fragment, "Young Ireland;" A. M. Sullivan's "Story of Ireland; " Justin H. McCarthy's "Outline of Irish History;" Lecky's "History of the Eighteenth Century;" Walpole's "History of Ireland to the Union; " O'Calla ghan's "History of the Irish Brigade in France;" Justin McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times" - these are the most read; but the works of Macaulay, Hallam, Froude, with Father Tom Burke's In biography, Madden's "Lives of the In the course of some further explana-" Refutation of Froude," are read also. tions "the silent foundation stone" said, "The Land League Rooms, or National League Rooms, as they are now, of 1883, are the true heirs at-law of Thomas Davis's reading-rooms of forty years ago with this difference, that they have plenty of readers readers of pure, vigorous, national literature - readers such as Davis yearned for." He volunteered some information about the Catholic Young Men's Societies, which he called "our civic academies of nationality." In spite of the influence of some eminent person whom, he said, "the Catholic Layman' is showing up in the Nation," and of one or two others who whisper, "No politics-this is purely a Catholic society," the library and reading-room of the Young Men's Society have taught the young clerks and well-to-do artisans ten times more about Irish history, poetry, and biography than was known to all the habitués of the fashionable clubs on the Grand Parade and South Mall, where the upper and middle-class Catholics may be seen. He wound up by saying: 66 If you go by the test of literary taste and knowledge, those working men of the country reading-rooms and these shop boys and clerks of the city are no longer the lower classes. The young gentlemen educated at Oscott or Stonyhurst- sons of pious fathers and mothers - young gentlemen who may be seen in the smoking-room of the Munster Club, or at the races, or emulating the style of some of the military mashers, these are not now. adays from a literary point of view our upper or middle-class youth." In reply to an inquiry as to what histories are generally read in the Catholic 2399 LIVING AGE. VOL. XLVII. The Irish history that has the widest Icirculation is written by two men, the union of whose literary work is characteristic of the national spirit- the Royalist priest who was chaplain to James the Second's army, and the Ulster Protestant who was transported to Bermuda in 1848. The two histories that come next in popular favor are significant of how widespread throughout the world is the growth of Irish national literature - one is by a late minister of Canada, the other by the ex-premier of Victoria. In another county, at one of the cattle fairs, the countryman who has sold a few pigs may be seen buying a small book or two. A similar purchase having been made by an idler who was strolling through the fair, he found he had got, for one halfpenny, "The Brian Boru SongBook." The sixteen pages of this evidently very popular publication are in a bright-colored cover, showing an Irish horse-soldier of the eleventh century galloping across a plain on which stands a round tower. The first song is Moore's 'Remember the Glories of Brian the Brave." Here the Munster farmer can read: 66 Mononia! when Nature embellish'd the tint Moore also contributes "Silent, O |