the sense to bring with me, and composed a most glorious jug of the finest sleeping-draught in the world.

I slept as sound as a rock till dawn. Uprose the morn, and uprose Captain J. Novice que je suis en fait de montagnes, even the Tralee hills struck me as rather respectable-looking tumuli. They are seen to most advantage approaching the town from Abbeyderney, a little village in the direction of Listowell. They rise almost perpendicularly from the sea, a considerable reach of which is visible, touching their base, and approaching within less than a mile of the town.

They burn quantities of lime in Kerry for the land, and at night the kilns scattered at distant intervals, and twinkling like plums in a schoolpudding, rari in gurgite vasto, present a singular appearance.

The fortunati nimium of this kingdom are wretched agriculturists. I saw but one decently cultivated farm in Kerry; it was on the road from Tralee to Killarney; the farmer's name, they told me, was Marshall. The peasantry of Kerry fight and talk Latin by instinct. Arriving at a village with a name versu quod dicere non est, and which defies the powers of orthography, I suddenly found my self surrounded by a host of combatants, who, at that instant, commenced operations. One fellow seized my horse, that I might not disturb them, and the rest leathered away most famously. Cudgels twinkled and Paddies fell in every direction. Meanwhile I occasionally heard the murmuring tones of a patriarch, who sat at the fire of the cabin, at the door of which I was detained prisoner. He was rating a wench who stood at the only window, gazing at the fun, and more intent on the scuffle than on the works of Minerva :-" Quid agis in ista fenestra, Bridgeta O'Shaughnessy? Aut quomodo te decet istis humeris totum diem terere nihilum agendo? Estne tam visu spectabile, homines sic fustibus rixas componere, ut de primis mortalibus tradidit noster Flaccus? Non ita est, Bridgeta mea: vade, age; quam multa vasa culinaria tibi sunt adhuc detergenda! Cirnea lactis coagulati agitanda, et" Here the din without became so furious, as to drown the conclusion of the old boy's expostulation, and a man who seemed a sort of leader of his faction, broke

his shillelah on his neighbour's pate. As I happened to be provided with one myself, and was unwilling to spoil sport, or see sport spoiled, I handed it out, and bade him play out the play. He received the gift with a grim smile of welcome, and in an instant I saw men tumbling like nine-pins "beneath his sturdy stroke." In some thing more than half an hour, a loud hurrah of "The Boys of Ballinageary for ever!" announced that the fray was ended,-my friend with the stick had won. He came up to where I stood, took off his hat, and with great propriety of speech and gesture, apolo gized for the delay, I had met with, assuring me that once the signal was given, it was impossible to stop for any gentleman; and as he handed back my stick with eloquent thanks, he hoped I took no offence at the taste of a scrimmage that had detained my honour." "None in creation, my good friend," I replied; " but pray, what occasioned this infernal row ?" "Och, it was only some words between mysel and Tim Oulaghan, about a girl I would'nt marry; an' he brought his faction agin us, an' we fought it out, and beat them like min." "And why would you not marry the girl?" "Sure, had'nt she a pearl on her eye like a biled cockle whin I seen her afore the Priest?" "You don't mean to say it was then first you discerned her blindness?" "Whin else, your honour? Devil a stem of her Í ever seen till then ?" "And were you going to marry a woman the first time ever you saw her?" "Troth and that same's the custom among huz always. When a girl takes on to be married, her father or mother, or the like, goes match-making, and spakes to any boy they fancy, and if he's. agreeable, and they offer fortin' according to his expictations, the priesht is invited, and the first thing the girl hears of the match being settled, or who is the man that's to own her, is whin the frinds arrive to eat the wedding dinner; and late in the evening, when all is hearty, in comes the boy, and thin they see each other for the first time." "And what fortune were you to get with this girl whom you didn't marry?" "Fifty pound, please your honour, and a feather-bed, and a losset, and four chairs."

Talking of marriages, I wonder how the deuce the south of Ireland got such

a name for pretty girls. I can assure you, I have seen more ripe and real beauty during half an hour's walk from Westmoreland Bridge to Saint Stephen's Green in the metropolis, than in the two counties of Limerick and Kerry put together. The female peasants are healthy-looking, with lively black eyes, but their features are coarse, and their gait and dress ungainly. The middling class are burdened with a nauseous superabundance of "vulgar gentility," that puts one out of patience with their mediocre looks; and of the upper rank, those who are most beautiful, are rather over-taught, so that Nature's loveliness hardly gets fair play, covered over, as it is, with the heavy embroidery of education. In fact, when you do meet with beauty in this region, 'tis rather of the intellectual than sensual cast, and for me, I hate clever women as much as ever Hypolitus did. Midway between Tralee and Killarney, you first behold MacGillicuddy's Reeks exulting in their glory. Carran Thual, the highest, is 3400 feet above the sea level. It was crowned, not exactly with an avalanche, but with something very like a night-cap of snow, when I passed.

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Whenever you visit Killarney, go to the Kenmare Arms,-inquire for Thomas Finn, the landlord,-tell him you mean to be comfortable, and there's no doubt he'll make you so. The man furnishes forth a breakfast not unworthy of the Land of Cakes. course, before you think of this meal, you have walked, or rode, or driven, some twenty miles; then you sit down to a table covered with cold ham and turkey, a round of beef, and smoking hot fresh eggs innumerable, with tea and coffee to wash down the solids,carefully attended all the while by Dennis, his major-domo, a huge Majocci-looking fellow, with black bushy whiskers, and spectacles on nose, and his black wig so classically arranged, that for an instant you suppose you have got before you a head-journeyman from one of the Magazines des Modes of Bond Street. But this disagreeable delusion soon passes, and you find, that instead of a big conceited fool, full of nothingness and knavery, whose every sentence is an impertinence, Dennis is a "rale Irishman," remarkable for his civility and his Kerry brogue.

What shall I say of the beauties of the Lakes-Upper, Middle, and Lower ? Nothing,-absolutely nothing. I must leave it to poets to describe lakes. Natheless, one word of Mangerton. Some people take ponies to ascend this mountain, but this is ridiculous, except for women. The top is only about six miles off; so giving a knapsack full of sandwiches, and a flask of Hollands, to a young bare-legged mountaineer, who was to attend me, I took my "stick in my fist," at a convenient hour after breakfast, and set forth for the mountain top. On our way, we went in to look at Mucness. There was a funeral just then on its way to the Abbey. Then first I heard the dirge called Keening, in the vulgar the Hullaboo, or Irish cry. It begins with a low moaning sound, apparently from women only, then gradually swelling, as it is taken up by one after another of the crowd, it bursts at length into a loud and wailing cry, which slowly dies away again to moans,-but no articulate words are heard. It is resumed every time the bearers of the coffin are changed, or any halt takes place in the procession. When the ceremony of interment is over, and the last sod beaten down upon the grave, the cry is once more repeated, loud and long; and

then they whose clamorous "grief has borne such an emphasis," depart in groups, chatting of their or◄ dinary affairs.

To those whose minds are in a melancholy mood already, the cry sounds exceedingly mournful, otherwise, and at a distance, one can hardly distinguish whether it be intended to express woe or mirth. There is by no means "snug lying in the abbey" here. Dead men's bones, and bits of coffins, lie scattered in every direction, and in some places skulls are piled up into heaps above the surface. There is an enormous ash-tree, too, growing out of the very middle of a heap of bones, which suggests the idea of its owing its immense magnitude to the loathsome decomposition that is going on below. Within the walls of the cloister stands a gigantic yew, of which the branches form a sort of natural roof to the apartment, and admit no more than a dim religious light, which enables you to see that the stem has lost its bark, and is dripping with the clammy moisture of a charnel-house.

The guides tell you a number of wonderful superstitious tales about this same yew tree, the recital of which you must listen to whether you will or no, as they consider it a part of the value they are to give for their day's hire. Many of the views of the lake and its shores from different parts of the demesne of Mucness, are exquisitely beautiful, and would be very interesting if one were not pestered with a guide who does not fail to observe that "here is a mighty nate skitch of the wather-isn't thim rocks purty?" In sum, the view was fine, the arbutus was in full fruit, and in full flower-the fruit presented every variety of tint, from the crude green of first formation, to the red ripeness of maturity. The holly, too, and the mountain ash, were covered with berries of a different shade of red, and the service tree with others of a lighter tint; while the sere and changing leaves of the oak, ash, beech, and alder, formed a foliage which presented an endless variety of hues. The fantastic shapes of most of the limestone cliffs, which form the water-worn shores, are very curious, and are named by the natives after various things to which they are conceived to bear a rude re semblance; they indicate a violent action of the water, very different from the smooth and placid stillness of the lake while I looked upon it, and told of former commotion, like a battered and shattered fortress, in the midst of a country smiling in peace and tranquillity.

Leaving Mucness, I began the ascent of Mangerton by a mountain path from a little village called Cloghereen. As you ascend, you leave the lakes behind; but from several points, when one turns about and looks down, the prospect is extremely beautiful. The lakes studded with little wooded islands, and bounded by huge mountains, whose ample sides are clothed with trees, lie like a delicious picture beneath your feet, while the wreaths of curling smoke mark the town of Killarney in the distance, and new vistas open in the mountains to the right, disclosing glens, whose gloomy sides are contrasted with the glittering surface of the little lakes that lie deep in their bosoms. At the height of nearly two thousand feet, on turning the shoulder of a slight and abrupt eminence, more perpendicular than

the general line of the ascent, you come suddenly upon a still lake of very considerable extent, awfully deep and cold-this is called the "Devil's Punch Bowl." The name embodies in it a pithy moral; for if Satan can boast no better liquor than this, it is an awful warning not to travel his way, nor put up in his quarters. I have heard, over the Border, that he had need o' a lang-shankit spune that sups kail wi' the deil; and I can testify that he had need of a flask of aquavitæ, that means to take a glass of grog with him after supper. A Glasgow man, who was here once on a fine summer's evening, after tasting of the cool and crystal flood, exclaimed to his guide, "God-sake, man, what a glorious bowl of punch you would mak, if a buddy could turn intil't, for about half an hour, a stream of rum, like that that runs beneath the New Brigo' Glasgow after a Lammas flood; wi' the juice o' a' the leemons that grew since the creation; and twa lumps o' sugar, the taen as big as the High Kirk, and the tither the size o the Infirmary!" "Anan ?" said the guide, astonished at this speech, of which he hardly understood one word; but the man from the Gorbals, wrapped in the magnificence of his thoughts, heeded him not, and, musing, took his way down the hill-side. On the side of this lake, which you first reach, the hill is barely high enough to keep in the waters, while, on the opposite side, it shoots up in a steep ascent to the summit of the mountain. climbing here is rather terrific, as the least slip would send you rolling backwards into the deep lake below; but my head was so full of a little experiment I had in view, that I thought not of the danger. I had been mightily taken with that notable new discovery of the celebrated sixpenny philosopher, Brougham, which overturns the antiquated systems of such fellows as Kepler and Newton (whose discoveries formed a part of that "wisdom of our ancestors," which has been lately discovered to be all fudge), and oversets the "ould” law of gravity, to the incalculable spread of useful knowledge, and the signal honour and glory of the new Cockaigne University. Now, in ascending Man◄ gerton, I had been dreadfully pestered by a set of fellows, cach of whom in◄ sisted on acting as guide to my ho

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nour, and, after many ineffectual efforts to dismiss them, I had changed my plan, and told them, that since no entreaties of mine could induce them to desist, as many might accompany as chose. Meanwhile, I secretly pleased myself with the thought of how cleverly I should outwit them. "Gravity," said I, extracting Brougham's treatise from my pocket, and reading therefrom, gravity varies with the distance exactly in the proportion of the squares, lessening as the distance increases: at two miles from the earth, it is four times less than at one mile; at three miles, nine times less, and so forth." Very well, I continued, if, at one hundred yards high, these men weigh ten stone each, (and I'm sure they were not more, for they were small light-limb'd fellows), when we get up two hundred yards, that weight will be diminished in the ratio of one to four; and when we shall get eight hundred yards up the hill, which is near the top, their weight will be to ten stone each, but as one square is to eight square, that is, one to sixty-four; in short, they will be little more than two pounds a-piece. Here then was my scheme-the fresh mountain breeze made me feel as vigorous as ever I did in my life-So, thought I, I shall, on some pretence, range my guides in a row along the top of the mountain, at intervals of twelve paces, which will allow room for a tidy little run between each: then, taking my race, I shall give each, in succession, a kick in the breech so vigorous, that, as they will be then little heavier than so many blown bladders, I shall see them severally wafted down the hill, to at least half a mile from the point of impact, and I can get clear off at my leisure. On the brow of the hill then, over Satan's bowl of toddy as aforesaid, I ranged my men in order, and commenced operations; but, judge of my astonishment and dismay, when the first man, instead of floating swiftly down the hill-side, with an initial velocity proportionate to the impetus communicated by the lever power of my dexter toe, exhibited such an unphilosophical vis inertia, as actually to withstand the shock, and collar me in an instant, demanding, with a volley of oaths, and in language somewhat of the plainest, what the devil I meant. The altercation soon turned the rest, who

hastily inquired what wasthe matter. "The matter!" said he of the wounded seat," by Jasus, I never got such a kick in the in my life; an' I'll take the law of him, so I will."

I never felt so convinced of the excellence of the metaphysical definition of solidity-it is, that resistance which we find in a body to the entrance of any other body into its place, until the former one has been removed. This resistance I had experienced to my cost; and it so completely overset my centre of gravity, that had not the fellow collared me so quickly, I should have been laid sprawling on my mother earth, floored by the equality of re-action to action; whereas I had expected but to beat the air. I looked as blank as a friar at a feast on a Friday; but as a man cannot have everything his own way in this world, like a bull in a china shop, I was fain to ascribe my proceeding to an occasional flightiness to which I was subject, and got off by tendering a golden remedy of sovereign efficacy for the sore place, and a full day's pay to all the rest. Then, muttering an anathema as mild as Doctor Slop's malediction on Obadiah, against all Jews, Whigs, atheists, lying philosophers, and other atrocious persons, I crept to the topmost summit of Mangerton.

Pardon, as Mr Locke says, this little excursion into physics. The failure of my first essay in natural philosophy, left me in that frame of heavenly pensive contemplation best suited for relishing and appreciating the beau ties of external nature; and now, indeed, a scene of inimitable grandeur burst upon my astonished sight. As I faced towards the east, I beheld a wide reach of the Atlantic, with the little islands, called the Blasquets, in the distance; farthest to my right the bays of Castlemaine and Dingle, with the hills above them, were visible on the southern horizon; while far upon my left, Bantry Bay was distinctly discernible; and more near me, in the same direction, the bay and river of Kenmare. Right beneath lay all the glories of Killarney-groups of mountains, richly wooded, dwindled into conical, or fantastically shaped hills from the height at which I stood, while sections of the different lakes stealing in amongst them in every direction, and reflecting the dancing sunbeams, gave light and effect down to

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the very base of every group. whole scene more resembled one of "those painted clouds that beautify our days," and deck the sunny skies of imagination, than anything one is accustomed to in nature and reality. Then came a change-a thick mist suddenly spread itself over the valley, and soon, in volumed masses, came rolling up the mountain's side, with a fearful and astonishing rapidity, and then sweeping across the whole line of view, shut the scene, as though it were a curtain drawn by the hand of God across the face of his most glorious creation. One minute all was sparkling in the sun, the next enveloped everything in a cold wet cloud, which I distinctly saw rushing towards me, till it struck me in the face, and clothed me like a wet garment. Shortly afterwards came on a shower of sharp, hard, little hailstones, that penetrated like needle points, and soon it turned to a mixture of snow and sleet. Under this I wended my way along a mountain path that overhangs the Punch-Bowl and Gleana Cappul, or the Horse's Glyn. When the shower began to clear away, and the mist occasionally broke up, so as to transmit a gleam of light, it was almost fearful to look down the precipitous steep upon the sullen water, or the huge void of the deep glyn; while, from every jagged eminence, depended a fleece of fog, streaming like the torn banners from some castle's height, after the rush of the battle is over.

By the time I had slowly descended, with the assistance of the guide, to the bottom of the slippery and almost perpendicular bank, to the level of the loch, the mist had passed away, and left only the fleecy rack careering with the wind; so that, after I had addressed myself with earnest diligence to my sandwiches, and repeated draughts of neat Hollands, I bounded down the mountain to Turk waterfall, with the vigour and agility of a native red deer; took the water at Glenah, and rowed across to Ross Castle, touching only at the island of Innisfallen, a delicious, quiet, little spot of soft green, and full of trees of Nature's

own planting. The Abbey here has nothing to offend one, nor truly anything very much to interest either, though it be I know not how many ages older than that of Mucness. I must except one spot, to which the fair-haired gilly who showed the lions directed my attention in a manner rather to be imagined than described. The stone-wall was there stripped of its ivy covering, and seared, evidently with the traces of recent fire; the scattered wood-ashes, too, on which the pensive eye of the lad rested, as his lip moistened, and his whole countenance assumed the pleasing melancholy cast of well-remembered pleasure-all, all betokened "that man had been here." "That, sir," said the lad, at length breaking silence, with a sigh of deep emotion," that is the place where they brile the salmon wid branches of arbutus-just as they takes it out of the wather, they splits it, sir, and fixes it up wid arbutus skivers." "And is it excellent?" "Devil a bether in the nayshins."-(Nations.) Here was food for meditation! How idly do philoso phers dispute whether man should be defined a rational, or a cooking animal! There needs but half an eye to see that the terms are synonymous.

When I reached the Kenmare Arms, and had changed my travel-stained habiliments-for next to the dinner itself, the greatest terrestrial enjoyment is the preparation for it-I stretched my legs beneath Mr Finn's mahogany; and as Dennis uncovered a salmon full of curd, " and a red and smoking round, of which the base was planted out," as foresters express it, by a screen of mellow foliage, I acknowledged that Killarney did abound in objects at once sublime and beautiful. Toil and hunger gave zest to food and rest. The pleasant fire—the steam of rich perfumes which rose from the dinner-table-the good old wine that followed,-gradually soothed me into incipient slumber, and sinking back into my easy-chair, as I muttered after honest Jack Falstaff, "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ?" I sunk into balmy repose.