day in the month of last March, and as I rolled along a M‘Adamized road leading to the village, 1 had no occasion whatsoever, to look up for a sign-post to tell me that there were dry lodgings, or entertainment for horse or man; for if there be entertainment in a hearty welcome, comfortable fare, and a community of Christian fellowship and feeling, I had all without money and without price, at the house of the Curate of the parish. Reader, perhaps you are a quiet easy personage, that loves a summer jaunt along the lower road to Lucan, or by the Glanmire road into Cork; and perhaps your eye is made for the enjoyment of such scenes, where the industry of man dresses up, brightens, and brings into full point and prominence the features of Nature; perhaps your taste and habits are made and moulded on landscapes such as these, and possibly you would not relish the rough coast of Cork, the cliffs of the Atlantic, the mountain bulwarks that curb the angry ocean; but still, after all, if I could bespeak a fine day for you—if, keeping off fog, rain, and storm, I could shew you these shores, gilt and gladdened by the sun, I think I should command your admiration; and I might expect you to exclaim, "these are thy glorious works, Parent of good."

My friend resides in an antient glebe-house, sheltered down on the shore, in a sunny nook, half way between the Church and the village. It is under the guardianship of a protecting hill, and some old sycamore trees in solitary magnificence and unpruned luxuriance; their long branches sweeping the lawn, seem to say that we are here to shew that no one should be so comfortable as a good minister. Here also, the myrtle, the hydrangia, and many a tender plant grow, adorning the pastor's garden; altogether it was a happy, quiet, close, and secluded spot, and the contrast it presented to the serrated mountains, to the black sea-beaten rocks, to the bold promontories and boiling ocean, reminded me how in lapse of time and succession of its dwellers, this quiet glebe might give shelter to some gentle delicate mind; some intellect luxuriant, and gifted with high and Christian imaginings-a lively contrast to the rugged mountaineer, and rude seaman with whom it was his fate to mingle, but not to coalesce. On the morning following my arrival, my host said, he really did not know better how to induce me to stay with him, than to take me on an excursion amongst his parishioners; for this is one of those neww-light Clergy, who consider that one of the most useful purposes for which a minister can live, is to go from house to house amongst his flock, and hold communion with them in pastoral visits, there presiding as teacher, guardian, counsellor, and friend, "instant in season, and out of season,' "reproving, rebuking, exhorting with long suffering and doctrine." What do you choose then, I offer you land or sea, mountain or ocean; I am Vicar of Cape Clear Island, where I have no Protestant parishioners, except about twenty of the water-guard: I am curate here, of Skull, where interspersed amongst moor and moun

tain, I have fifteen hundred Protestants to visit, and oversee:
Some how or other every one likes to land on an island. Sancho
Panza was not solitary in longing to have a Barataria of his own, of
which he might say all here is mine. Tis true, that old cyclopean
man-mountain, Johnson, who loved a blind alley in London better
than a green field at Richmond, says, "every island is a prison
strongly guarded by the sea.". But I prefer Sancho's fancy to the
Doctor's, and therefore, my dear friend, I will even attend you, to
your vicarage of Cape Clear. Very well, so be it. The day is un-
usually fine for the time of the year; the mist is ascending from
the sea; the cap is rolling off from the mountain; the boats are
going out to cut sea weed; all likely to be safe: I will go into the
village and get some lads to handle the oars; also, to the kitchen
and bespeak some cold meat; do you get ready your great coats, for
it is cold, and see, dont forget to put a Bible in your pocket: in
half an hour we shall be afloat-and so it was, in less than the
given time the boat was launched, four as fine fellows as ever Ire-
land sent to make Wellington a Duke, had their horny hands
fastened to an oar-three were young and loose lads, about twenty
years of age, full chested and broad shouldered, all bone and mus-
cle, not a particle of fat on their whole frames, loose, light, and joy-
ous in their appearance; fit for land or sea, trained to oar or
spade. The potatoe after all is a wonderful root, that can rear, in-
vigorate, and throw such life, and elasticity, and energy into the hu-
man frame-the fourth was an older and steadier character, selected
for his prudence and knowledge of tides, currents, and localities.
Says I to myself, when I looked at his shrewd sedate countenance,
this man may, like my boatman to the Holy Island, be able and
willing-may have the tact and find delight in giving me some supply
of the legendary stories and traditionary superstitions of this vicinity.
But alas! my friend put this expectation out of promise when he
whispered me, the three young fellows are Catholics, but John is a
Protestant, a good Christian, a God-fearing man, a man whom it is
well to have with us, when venturing in equinoxial weather in an
open boat, some leagues out on the Atlantic; O! then, says I, this
man cares nothing about the good people. A well-found boat, four
springing oars set in motion by elastic backs, soon brought us out
into the
e middle of the bay of Skull; not a breath was on the ocean;
the grey mist of the morning had risen, and was dissolved in the
clear cold atmosphere; the sun walked above in its pride of light,
the harbour had become a looking glass for the hills and headlands
to dress themselves in, and assume a softer and sweeter counte-
nance, and all

The smooth expanse received, impressed
Calm Nature's image on its watery breast.

The bold and cave-cut promontory; the lofty light house; the ruined castle; the green island; the sable rock, with all its gulls

and cormorants, round which the tide growled, danced, and boiled; all these were reflected and prolonged in western lines upon the bosom of the deep, and above, towering as the lord paramount of the mountain range, stood Mount Gabriel.

Reader, if you have never been in the South Western dietrict of Ireland; if you have not seen these great bulwarks, that stand as redoubts to the continent of Europe against the force of the great ocean, you cannnot form, from seeing English hills, or even Welsh or Wicklow mountains, an idea of these out-works of Ireland; they look as if Noah's deluge here first operated, and the windows of Heaven had opened here perpendicularly and washed them bare, to the very bone. No bog, no soil, no verdure on them—all grey and rugged in the anatomy of their stratification: amidst these everlasting hills, arose in peculiar prominence, Mount Gabriel. Why, my lads, said I, is yonder mountain called such an outlandish name; one would think it was brought here by Oliver Cromwell, it has such an un-Irish-such a Saxon name. O! then, says Pat. Hayes, who was one of the most talkative of the party, a fine savage, with a huge curley head, that disdained the wearing of a hat; a broad face, giving ample latitude for the grin of an immense mouth, which as belonging to an Ichthyophagous, or fish-eating animal, was set with teeth bright and sharp like a sea lion, or a walrus. O! says Pat. it is a pity that the blockhead is not here to tell the gentleman the story about this, for sure and certain such poor garcoons as the like of us know little, and care not the tail of a herring for such old stories. And who, said I, is the blockhead? O, says my friend the Vicar, who sat beside me at the helm, the blockhead is an old man living up on the mountain, who, from his great memory, his knowledge of cures for cattle, charms against fairy-struck people, experience in bleeding, acquaintance with legends about the good people, the Milesians, and Fin M'Coul, is called far and near, the blockhead.

My dear fellow, will you to-morrow bring me to that man I would pilgrimage over all the hills in Cork and Kerry to get into chat with him says I to myself, this is just the man that I want. Crofton Croker with all his Fairy legends, shall not out-rival all the rich variety of southern superstition I shall cull and concoct for my friend the Examiner :-Ah my good friend, do bring me to the blockhead to-morrow Why yes to be sure, but stay, can you speak Irish? Not a word, to my sorrow be it spoken. Well then go home first and learn Irish, for Thady Mahony can speak no other language. Well boys, can none of you (as I cannot get it out of the blockhead) tell me about Mount Gabriel; O! yes, Sir, says Pat. Hayes, my godmother used to tell me it was called after the Angel Gabriel, who came, you know, from Heaven to deliver the happy message of mercy to the Virgin ever blessed be her name. And so on his return, as he was flying back, he looked down upon Ireland, and as he knew that in time to come, this honest island

would never part with the worship and duty it owes to the Mother of God, he resolved to take a peep at the happy land, that St. Patrick was to bestow for ever on the Virgin. So down he came, and perched on the western peak of that mountain; the mark, they say, of his standing is there to this day, and his five toes are branded on the rock, as plain as if I clasped my four fingers and thumb upon a sod of drying turf; and just under the blessed mark, is a jewel of a lake, round as a turner's bowl, alive with trout; and there are islands on it that float about up and down, east and north, and south; but every Lady-day they come floating to the western point, and there they lie fixed under the crag that holds the track of the Angel's foot. With conversation such as this, we beguiled the row until we passed two long low islands that sheltered the entrance of the Bay of Skull-and now we were abroad on the bosom of the great Western Ocean; the mighty mysterious Atlantic, that in its veiled immensity, had secreted from Roman enterprize, and Carthaginian avarice, the Columbian world; and Oh! what a noble expanse, East, and West, we could run our eye coastward to the right, Baltimore to the extreme left, Crookhaven, and the Mizen head, and studded along, rose

And here and there this bold coast had its high head-lands, and cave-cut promontories, relieved with fortresses of other times, pleasing to the eye from their picturesque forms and positions; interesting to the mind, from the associations connecting us with days of romance, enterprize, and peril.

Eastward, the dark Rosbrine, the Fortalice of Felimey O'Mahony, the pirate and the Popeling, under the shelter of whose strong hold the Spanish Jesuits from Valladolid and Salamanca landed, and diffused their deadly animosity against Elizabeth and the Reformation.-Here Stukely, Sanders, and Allen concocted the furious insurrections of Tyrone and Desmond; and hither came Carew, the Lord President, with all the power of Munster, to quell the pride, and lay low the bulwarks of the Bishop of Rome: and where is now the Psalter of Rosbrine-the rhyming record of all the pious practices, and crimson achievements of these sea Lords. Nearer again, Ardtenent Castle, another rock-nest of these Mahonys; and in the western offing, look at the Black Castle out there like a solitary cormorant watching all day long its prey on her rockperch. And westward still, the bold and high Bally divilin, see how it cuts the clear blue sky with its embattled loftiness. Denis O'Driscol, one of the boatmen, as he rested on his oar, many a white bone, bleaching under sea and sun is wet and dry day by day under that old Castle; there lie the unburied bones of two tribes of the Mahonys Justin Oge, and Carberry Buy

3.

says

O'Mahony of the North. They fell out about a prey of cattle, and met here to decide the feud on that sunny strand for a summer's day they fought hand to hand, and foot to foot. Justin's true love, the sloe-eyed Grace O'Sullivan, sat on the tower of Ballydivilin. Justin fought under the weavings of his Grace's scarf, and Carbury Buy never feared, pitied, or forgave,-on they fought, till the sun sinking over Crookhaven looked on them all lying on the ground like matted sea weed; not a mother's son remained alive to wake or carry to the grave the exterminated tribe.

:

4

It was now time to look seaward, where the southern expanse lay so beautifully green-liquid jasper beneath your eye; but like sheeted quick-silver before it.Thus the ocean in all its smooth splendour, lay breasting itself to the sun; it lay basking after its equinoxial troubles, and yet there was a long, full, slow swell, heaving in from the south like the calm breathings of a Giant's sleep, it majestically raised our little skiff, and laid us down again; as if it said, trust me, I can do no harm. I who had never been on the ocean before who had never crossed any sea, except the narrow channel that divides Wales from Dublin, now, out in a little bark on the Atlantic, I was greatly struck with this awful swell, that seemed as an attribute of its own great grandeur, unconnected with the influence or operation of any other element: as we rowed along, we came near an island, on the sea-side of which was a little sandy cove protected by an old shattered castle, whose top was covered with grey moss, and its base clothed with sea-weed, and studded with limpets. This was evidently the hold and retreat of some dark rover of the deep, in distant times-some barbarian that united the bold, bad occupations of the smuggler and the pirate. In latter days, within men's memory, it was the scene of shipwreck ruin, and plunder. Before light-houses were established, and placed under the now admirable arrangement on those coasts, it was too much the practice, for the barbarian dwellers of these rocks and isles, to hang out false lights to lure the unwary vessels in dark and stormy weather, to venture and go to pieces on these rocks. In this way, on a dark and howling night, was a wisp of potatoestalks kept burning on the top of the Castle, and Denis Mahony who had the care of the light, says to his son Felix, Phelim my boy, I see a light, it seems to be on this side the Blasket Rock-sure enough a vessel has mistaken our lucky wisp for Crookhaven light; in she comes, give me a fresh wisp. She is our's, as sure as there are cottoners in Cork. There she drives, sweep, crash on the seal rock; she is our's, Phelim, my darling, such was the language of the old wrecker to his son. The whole family, the whole islanders were soon down on the shore-an African trader had struck on the rock, and the people but in getting on board the wreck, and plundering and tearing up every thing to pieces; the best and only thing that can be said for them was, that they did not commit murder. She was laden with the rich

were busy, not in saving either crew or cargo, and the people