plicity in a sordid and barbarous murder."aye" when he means yes; "he begins The rope broke, and he fell violently to his sentences with "I say," pronounced the ground. His first words when he got quickly "assay," as if he were afraid of to his feet and recovered his breath were, losing his breath. He softens his conso"Ah! sheriff, sheriff, gie us fair hangin'." | nants or omits them altogether; as in the

"And maun a' tell the truth, the haile
truth, and naethin but the truth?"
"You
must," was the answer. "Weel, then,"
was her fearless avowal, "these are the
hands that poo'd the white sark ower his
heed." It is Presbyterianism that has
fixed the religious tone of the whole prov-
ince, though the Episcopalians, possess,
likewise, much of the religious vehemence
of their neighbors, and have earned
among English High Churchmen the char-
acter of being Puritan in their spirit and
theology.

following sentence: "Keep quiet, you ones; why, I can harly (hardly) hear my ears wi' the noise a' ye;" and as in these words: thimmel for thimble, fing-er for finger, sing-le for single, leather for ladder, gavel for gable, soger for soldier, chimley for chimney; while he uses a whole heap of words and expressions borrowed evidently from the Scotch, such as brash, wheen, speel, sleekit, sevendible, scringe, bing, skelly, farl, thraw, curnaptious, dotther, thole, boke, dunsh, oxther, coggle, sheugh, stour, foother, jeuk, floosther, sthroop, dwine, cowp, flype, thon (yon), corp (corpse), dixenary, girn, wumman, umberell, slither.

The peculiarities of Ulster dialect some times greatly puzzle the judges of assize, who are mostly Southerns by birth. A witness was once asked by a barrister how he had seen such a thing. "I saw it," was the reply, "by the blunk o' a caunle." "A blunk o' a caunle!" said the judge, "what's that?" "It's jist what a' say the blunk o' a caunle." "But what is the blunk o' a caunle?" "Weel, ye're a nice man to be sittin' up there, no to ken what a' mean by a blunk o' a caunle." He meant the blink of a candle. Mrs. S. C. Hall says she addressed a little girl in Bangor, County Down, "Where are you going, my dear?" "I'm ganging to schuile." "And where do you live?" "Is it whar I leeve? Joost wi' me fayther and mither." "How old are you?" "Joost sax."

We shall now proceed to say something of the success of the Ulsterman, both at home and abroad. Little needs to be said of his success at home, for, though taking root in far from the finest part of Ireland, he has turned the natural resources of Ulster to the best account, and created an emporium of manufacturing activity, commercial enterprise, and agricultural thrift, which has always been the envy and admiration of the south. Arthur Helps, in one of his pleasant essays, says that the first rule for success in life is to get yourself born, if you can, north of the Tweed; and we should say it would not be a bad sort of advice to an Irishman to get himself born, if possible, north of the Boyne. He might have to part with something of his quickness of perception, his susceptibility to external influence, and his finer imagination; but he would gain in workingpower, and, especially in the one great quality indispensable to success - selfWe need hardly say that Presbyterian- containedness, steadiness, impassibility to ism runs strong in the native current of outward excitements or distracting pleas Ulster blood. It has a good deal of the ures. It is this good quality, together douce Davie Dean type, and is resolutely with his adaptability, that accounts for the opposed to all religious innovations. It success of the Ulsterman in foreign counwas Dean Swift who said, when he saw tries. He may be hard in demeanor, the stone-cutters effacing the cherub faces pragmatical in mind, literal and narrow, from the old stone-work of an Episcopal almost without a spark of imagination; church which was to do duty in a Presby- but he is the most adaptable of men, and terian edifice, "Look at these rascally accepts people he does not like in his Presbyterians, chiselling the very Popery grave, stiff way, reconciling himself to the out of the stones!" Mr. Froude says it facts or the facts to himself. He pushes. was the one mistake of Swift's life, that along quietly to his proper place, not using he misunderstood the Presbyterians. It his elbows too much, and is not hampered is not generally known that there was a by traditions like the Celt. He succeeds Janet Geddes in Ulster. At the Restora- particularly well in America and in India, tion, the celebrated Jeremy Taylor ap- not because Ulstermen help one another pointed an Episcopal successor at Comber, and get on like a corporation; for he is County Down, to replace an excellent not clannish like the Scottish Highlanders Presbyterian worthy, who refused con- or the Irish Celts, the last of whom unforformity. The women of the parish col-tunately stick together like bees, and drag lected, pulled the new clergyman out of one another down instead of up. No forthe pulpit, and tore his white surplice to ribbons. They were brought to trial at Downpatrick, and one of the female witnesses made the following declaration :

eign people succeed in America unless
they mix with the native population. It
is out of Ulster that her hardy sons have
made the most of their talents. It was an

Ulsterman of Donegal, Francis Mackemie, | of Hong Kong, was a native of Belfast. who founded American Presbyterianism in Besides the gallant General Nicholson, the early part of the last century, just as Ulster has given a whole gazetteful of it was an Ulsterman of the same district, heroes to India. It has always taken a St. Columbkille, who converted the Picts distinguished place in the annals of war. of Scotland in the sixth century. Four of An Ulsterman was with Nelson at Trafalthe presidents of the United States and gar, another with Wellington at Waterloo. one vice-president have been of Ulster General Rollo Gillespie, Sir Robert Kane, extraction, James Monroe, James Knox Lord Moira, and the Chesneys were all Polk, John C. Calhoun, and James Bu- from County Down. Ulstermen have left chanan. General Andrew Jackson was their mark on the world's geography as the son of a poor Ulster emigrant who explorers, for they furnished Sir John settled in North Carolina towards the Franklin with the brave Crozier, from close of the last century: "I was born Banbridge, his second in command, and somewhere," he said, "between Carrick- then sent an Ulsterman, M'Clintock, to fergus and the United States." Bancroft find his bones, and another Ulsterman, and other historians recognize the value of M'Clure, to discover the passage Franklin the Scotch-Irish element in forming the had sought in vain. society of the Middle and Southern States. It has been the boast of Ulstermen that the first general who fell in the American war of the Revolution was an Ulsterman Richard Montgomery, who fought at the siege of Quebec; that Samuel Findley, president of Princeton College, and Francis Allison, pronounced by Stiles, the president of Yale, to be the greatest classical scholar in the United States, had a conspicuous place in educating the American mind to independence; that the first publisher of a daily paper in America was a Tyroneman named Dunlop; that the marble palace of New York, where the greatest business in the world is done by a single firm, was the property of the late Alexander T. Stewart, a native of Lisburn, County Down; that the foremost merchants, such as the Browns and Stewarts, are Ulstermen; and that the inventors of steam-navigation, telegraphy, and the reaping-machine-Fulton, Morse, and M'Cormick -are either Ulstermen or the sons of Ulstermen.

It is now time that we should speak of the intellectual position and achievements of the northern province. The wonder is, indeed, that it has any place at all in the ranks of literature and scholarship, for, till about two generations ago, there was no provision made by the State for supporting a literary or intellectual life in the province. It was a great mistake that England did not found a university in Ulster to cultivate the intellectual powers of the hardy Northerners, and to supply guidance and nourishment to the most progressive part of the Irish community. Owing to restrictive legislation, the Presbyterians and Roman Catholics were shut out from all the advantages of the higher culture at home, and had to seek - the one in Scotland and the other on the Continent-for that amount of intellectual training which was deemed indispensable for the clerical profession. Maynooth was founded at the end of the last century, and Belfast College- mainly, indeed, by the public spirit of the citizens themselves Ulster can also point with pride to the -in 1816. Is it at all wonderful, theredistinguished career of her sons in India. fore, that nearly all the most distinguished The Lawrences, Henry and John - the names in Irish scholarship, literature, and two men by whom, regarding merely the statesmanship, such as Burke, Sheridan, human instruments employed, India has Swift, Berkeley, Plunket, Goldsmith, Curbeen preserved, rescued from anarchy, and ran, Grattan, and Moore, should belong to restored to the position of a peaceful and the south? They all owed their culture progressive dependency were natives of to Dublin University. Of course things County Derry. Sir Robert Montgomery are now altered for the better by the eswas born in the city of Derry; Sir James tablishment of the Queen's University, Emerson Tennant was a native of Belfast; with its trio of colleges, and other collegiSir Francis Hincks is a member of an ate institutions, which are, no doubt, rearUlster family remarkable for great variety ing a class of thinkers out of which the of talent. While Ulster has given one more creative order of minds may be exviceroy' to India, it has given two to Can-pected to arise. The growing prosperity ada in the persons of Lord Lisgar and of Ulster will, no doubt, by-and-by provide Lord Dufferin.. Sir Henry Pottinger, who that studious leisure which is almost inattained celebrity as a diplomatist, and dispensable for the highest products of was afterwards appointed governor-general genius.

But Ulstermen are under no neccessity | intellectual work of Ulstermen, in the of pleading intellectual poverty, for, not- walks of literature, science, and philosowithstanding all their disadvantages, they phy. It has been remarked that, though can boast, over the widest arena of human their predominant qualities are Scotch, knowledge and enterprise, a noble band of they have not inherited the love of abstract scholars, divines, philosophers, and liter-speculation. Yet they have produced at ary people, who command the admiration least one distinguished philosopher in the of the world. We have already spoken person of Francis Hutchison, professor of the statesmanlike ability of Ulstermen of moral philosophy in the University of abroad. Mention may now be made of at Glasgow in the last century, and, if we least one statesman at home-Lord Cas- may follow the opinion of Dr. M'Cosh, tlereagh who was a native of County the true founder of the Scottish school of Down, and the son of the first Marquis philosophy. He was born at Saintfield, of Londonderry, who was a Presbyterian County Down, where his father was a elder till the day of his death. The name Presbyterian minister. In natural sciof Castlereagh may not be popular in any ence, Ulster can boast of Sir Hans Sloane, part of Ireland on account of the bloody a native of Killyleagh, County Down; of recollections of the rebellion of 1798; but Dr. Black, the famous chemist, a native his reputation as a statesman has undoubt- of Belfast; of Dr. James Thompson and edly risen of late years, for it is now known his son, Sir William Thompson, both nathat he was not such an absolutist or tives of County Down, and of William ultraist as has been generally imagined. Thomson and Robert Patterson, both of He possessed in perfection the art of man- Belfast. In theology and pulpit oratory, aging men, and excelled as a diplomatist, Ulstermen have always taken a distinwhile he had an enormous capacity for guished place. If Donegal produced a work as an administrator. For most of deistical writer so renowned as John Tohis career he had a very remarkable_man land, Fermanagh reared the theologian who for his private secretary, Alexander Knox, was to combat the whole school of Deism a native of Derry, whose literary remains in the person of the Rev. Charles Leslie, have been edited by Bishop Jebb, and the author of "A Short and Easy Method whose conversational powers are said to with the Deists." The masterly treatise have recalled those of Dr. Johnson him- of Dr. William Magee, Archbishop of self. Lord Macaulay calls him "an alto- Dublin, on the doctrine of the atonement gether remarkable man." George Can- still holds.its place in theological literaning, the statesman who detached England ture. He was an Enniskillener, like Plunfrom the influences of Continental despot- ket, and his grandson, the present Bishop ism and restored her to her proper place of Peterborough, is one of the most eloin Europe, who was the first minister to quent divines on the English bench. perceive the genius and abilities of Wel- There is no religious body, indeed, in lington, and who opened that "Spanish Ulster that cannot point to at least one ulcer" which Napoleon at St. Helena de-eminent theologian with a fame extending clared to be the main cause of his ruin, was the son of a Derry gentleman of ancient and respectable family. Lord Plunket, who was equally celebrated in politics, law, and oratory, was a native of Enniskillen, where his father, the Rev. Thomas Plunket, was a minister of the Presbyterian Church. To come down nearer to our own times, three men who have made their mark on the national politics of Ireland-John Mitchel, Charles Gavan Duffy, and Isaac Butt - belong to Ulster. The first was the son of a Unitarian minister, and was born in County Derry; the second is the son of a County Monaghan farmer; the third, the son of the late rector of Stranorlar parish in County Donegal. An Ulsterman - Lord Cairns now presides over the deliberations of the House of Lords.

But we must speak of the more purely

far beyond the province. The Presbyte-
rians are proud of the reputation of the
Rev. Henry Cooke, of Belfast; the Unita-
rians, of the Rev. Henry Montgomery, of
Dunmurry, near Belfast; the Baptists, of
the Rev. Alexander Carson, of Tubber-
more, County Derry, the author of the
ablest treatise ever written on behalf of
Baptist principles; the Methodists, of Dr.
Adam Clarke, the learned commentator on
the Scriptures, who was born at Maghera,
in the same county; and the Covenanters,
of the Rev. John Paul, who had all the
logical acuteness of a schoolman. In ora-
tory, Ulstermen are proud of the great
abilities of Plunket, Cooke, Montgomery,
Isaac Butt, and Lord Cairns.
scholarship they name Dr. Archibald Mac-
laine, chaplain at the Hague, and transla-
tor of Mosheim's "History;" Dr. Edward
Hincks, of Killyleagh, County Down, the

In pure

decipherer of the Nineveh tablets; and | business that they concern themselves Dr. Samuel Davidson, the eminent Bib- very little with the opinion of the world. lical scholar and critic.

The one thing in which the Ulsterman contrasts least favorably with his brother Irishman is his want of poetry. His talents are neither for music nor poetry, nor does he cultivate the arts. Ulster claims the sculptor, Patrick M'Dowell; and Crawford, whose works adorn the Capitol at Washington, was born, we believe, at sea, his parents being emigrants from the neighborhood of Ballyshannon, County Donegal. But we cannot remember a single painter, or musical composer, or singer, who belongs to Ulster. In the art of novel-writing there is William Carleton, already referred to, the most realistic sketcher of Irish character who has ever lived, and who far excels Lever, and Lover, and Edgeworth in the faithfulness of his pictures, though he fails in the broader representations of Hibernian humor. No one has so well sounded the depths of the Irish heart, or so skilfully portrayed its kinder and nobler feelings. Ulster was never remarkable for pathos. Carleton is an exception; but he belonged to the ancient race, and first saw the light in the home of a poor peasant in Clogher, County Tyrone. The only other novel-writers that Ulster can boast of-none of them at all equal in national flavor to Carleton -are Elizabeth Hamilton, the author of "The Cottagers of Glenburnie," who lived at the beginning of this century; William H. Maxwell, the author of "Stories of Waterloo;" Captain Mayne Reid, the writer of sensational tales about Western America; Francis Browne; and Mrs. Riddle, the authoress of "George Geith." In dramatic literature, Ulster can boast of George Farquhar, the author of "The Beaux' Stratagem," who was the son of a Derry clergyman, and of Macklin, the actor as well as the author, known to us by his play, "The Man of the World." The only names it can boast of in poetry are Samuel Ferguson, the author of "The Forging of the Anchor;" William Allingham, the author of "Laurence Bloomfield," with two or three of lesser note.

They are interesting to us because they combine some of the best qualities of the English, Scotch, and Irish; showing much of the indomitable energy of the one, the prudential thrift of the other, and the generous impulses of the third. The two races that hold Ireland are destined to abide side by side, but they stand apart in politics; for Ulster is Imperialist, and the remainder of Ireland is so-called "national" or provincial. Both races have had just grounds of complaint against England for past oppression; but the old virus of opposition is still rankling in the south, while the north holds no bitterness in its heart against England. Benjamin Franklin has said that "the house was never yet built that was large enough to hold two families;" but Ireland has room enough for the two races that till its soil, and it will be a happy day for her when they shall begin to regard themselves as complemental to each other, and to work together with tolerant and friendly aims for the common good of their country.

T. C.

From All The Year Round. THE BAYREUTH PERFORMANCES.

THERE has probably never been an event in connection with the history of music which has caused so much excitement as the recent first performances, at Bayreuth in Bavaria, of Richard Wagner's great festival play, "Der Ring des Nibelungen." Not only is the work itself an experiment of an entirely new kind.; but the circumstances connected with its production are in many respects so remarkable, that some account of what was lately to be seen and heard in Bayreuth may probably be interesting even to the readers of a non-musical paper.

It is nothing very unusual, perhaps, for a composer to have to wait twenty years before he can get one of his operas brought forward; and it is at least as long We have thus attempted to sketch the since Wagner began the composition of characteristics of an energetic and self- his great work. But it is certainly a novreliant race who have received from the elty for a musician to build a special world perhaps less attention than they de- theatre, at a cost of some forty-five thou serve. Indeed, they themselves merit the sand pounds, for the performance of his reproach which was originally applied to own work; and this is what Wagner, with their Celtic brethren- "Hibernia sem- untiring perseverance and energy, has act per incuriosa suarum." They are un-ually succeeded in doing. It will probably questionably proud of their success; but be said: "Surely there are plenty of they are so bent upon minding their own theatres to be found in the principal cities