whole of the combustible roof was one mass of flame, shooting up into the serene air in a spire of dazzling brilliancy, mixed with vivid sparks, and relieved against a background of dark-gray smoke.

the

Sky and earth appeared reddened into common ignition with the blaze. The houses around gleamed hotly; of fire; and Shawn-a-Gow's bare head and herculean very stones and rocks on the hillside seemed portions shoulders were covered with spreading showers of the ashes of his own roof.

His distended eye fixed, too, upon the figures of the actors in this scene, how rendered fiercely distinct, and their scabbards, their buttons, and their polished black helmets, bickering redly in the glow, as, at a command from their captain, they sent up the hillside three shouts over the demolition of the Croppy's dwelling. But still, though his breast heaved, and though wreaths of foam edged his lips, Shawn was silent; and little Peter now feared to address a word to him. And other sights and occurrences claimed whatever attention he was able to afford. Rising to a pitch of shrillness that overmastered the cheers of the yeomen, the cries of a man in bodily agony struck on the ears of the listeners on the hill, and looking hard towards a spot brilliantly illuminated, they saw Saunders Smyly vigorously engaged in one of his tasks as disciplinarian to the Ballybreehoone cavalry. With much ostentation, his instrument of torture was flourished round his head, and though at every lash the shrieks of the sufferer came loud, the lashes themselves were scarce less distinct. house stood alone in the village. A short distance A second group challenged the eye. Shawn-a-Gow's before its door was a lime-tree, with benches contrived

depict the evils of that system of anti-Catholic tyranny when the penal laws were in full force, by which home education was denied to Catholic families unless by a Protestant teacher. The more rigid of the Catholics abjured all instruction thus administered; and Mr Banim describes the effects of ignorance and neglect on the second son of a Catholic gentleman, haughty, sensitive, and painfully alive to the disadvantages and degradation of his condition. The whole account of this family, the D'Arcys, is written with great skill and effect. In 1838 Mr Banim collected several of his contributions to periodical works, and published them under the title of The Bit o' Writin', and other Tales. In 1842 he sent forth an original and excellent novel, in three volumes, Father Connell, the hero being an aged and benevolent Catholic priest, not unworthy of association with the Protestant Vicar of Wakefield. This primitive pastor becomes the patron of a poor vagrant boy, Neddy Fennell, whose adventures furnish the incidents for the story. This was destined to be the last work of the author. He died in August 1842, in the prime of life, in the neighbourhood of Kilkenny, which also was his birthplace. 'Mr Banim began life as a miniature-painter; but, seduced from his profession by promptings too strong to be resisted, and by the success of a tragedy, Damon and Pythias, he early abandoned art, and adopted literature as a profession; and he will be long remembered all round the trunk, upon which, in summer weather, as the writer of that powerful and painful series the gossipers of the village used to seat themselves. of novels, Tales of the O'Hara Family. Some This tree, standing between our spectators and the years previous, the general sympathy was at- blaze, cut darkly against the glowing objects beyond it; tracted to Mr Banim's struggle against the suffer- and three or four yeomen, their backs turned to the ing and privation which came in the train of hill, their faces to the burning house, and consequently disease that precluded all literary exertion; and their figures also appearing black, seemed busily occuon that occasion Sir Robert Peel came to the pied in some feat that required the exertion of pulling aid of the distressed author, whose latter years with their hands lifted above their heads. Shawn were restored to his native country, and made flashed an inquiring glance upon them, and anon a easy by a yearly pension of £150 from the civil human form, still, like their figures, vague and undelist, to which an addition of £40 a year was after-fined in blackness, gradually became elevated from the wards made for the education of his daughter, an only child.' Besides the works we have mentioned, Mr Banim wrote Boyne Water, and other poetical pieces; and he contributed largely to the different magazines and annuals. The Tales of the O'Hara Family had given him a name that carried general attraction to all lovers of light literature; and there are few of these short and hasty tales that do not contain some traces of his unrivalled Irish power and fidelity of delineation. In some respects Mr Banim was a mannerist : his knowledge extended over a wide surface of Irish history and of character, under all its modifications; but his style and imagination were confined chiefly to the same class of subjects, and to a peculiar mode of treating them. A Life of Banim, with extracts from his correspondence-unfolding a life of constant struggle and exertion-was published in 1857, written by Mr P. J. Murray.

Description of the Burning of a Croppy's House. The smith kept a brooding and gloomy silence; his almost savage yet steadfast glare fastened upon the element that, not more raging than his own bosom, devoured his dwelling. Fire had been set to the house in many places within and without; and though at first it crept slowly along the surface of the thatch, or only sent out bursting wreaths of vapour from the interior, or through the doorway, few minutes elapsed until the

ground beneath the tree, until its head almost touched
suspended from that branch.
a projecting branch, and then it remained stationary,

Shawn's rage increased to madness at this sight, though he did not admit it to be immediately connected with his more individual causes for wrath. And now came an event that made a climax, for the present, to his emotions, and at length caused some expressions of his pent-up feelings. A loud crackling crash echoed from his house; a volume of flame, taller and more dense than any by which it was preceded, darted up to the heavens; then almost former darkness fell on the hillside; a gloomy red glow alone remained on the objects below; and nothing but thick smoke, dotted with sparks, continued to issue from his dwelling. After everything that could interiorly supply food to the flame had been devoured, it was the roof of his old house that now fell in.

'By the ashes o' my cabin, burnt down before me this night-an' I stannin' a houseless beggar on the hillside lookin' at id-while I can get an Orangeman's house to take the blaze, an' a wisp to kindle the blaze up, I'll burn ten houses for that one!'

And so asseverating, he recrossed the summit of the hill, and, followed by Peter Rooney, descended into the little valley of refuge.

The national character of Ireland was further illustrated by two collections of tales published anonymously, entitled To-day in Ireland, 1825; and Yesterday in Ireland, 1829. Though imperfectly acquainted with the art of a novelist, this

NOVELISTS.

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

instruct the poor-in the monastery at Cork. In the second year of his novitiate he was attacked with typhus fever, and died on the 12th of June 1840.

WILLIAM CARLETON.

WILLIAM CARLETON, author of Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, was born at Prillisk, in the parish of Clogher, and county of Tyrone, in the year 1798. His father was a person in lowly station-a peasant-but highly and singularly gifted. His memory was unusually retentive, and as a teller of old tales, legends, and historical anecdotes, he was unrivalled; and his stock of them was inexhaustible. He spoke the Irish and English languages with nearly equal fluency. His

some

over

of changing the whole destiny of my subsequent
life.' About this time chance threw a copy of Gil
Blas in his way, and his love of adventure was so
stimulated by its perusal, that he left his native
place, and set off on a visit to a Catholic clergy-
He stopped with
man in the county of Louth.
him a fortnight, and succeeded in procuring a
tuition in the house of a farmer near Corcreagh.
This, however, was a tame life and a hard one, and
Carleton resolved on precipitating himself on the
Irish metropolis, with no other guide than a cer-
tain strong feeling of vague and shapeless ambi-
tion. He entered Dublin with only 2s. 9d. in his
pocket. From this period we suppose we must
In 1830 appeared his Traits and Stories,
date the commencement of Mr Carleton's literary
two volumes, published in Dublin, but without the

career.

author's name.

digious favourite. In 1845 Mr Carleton published another Irish novel, Valentine M'Clutchy; in 1846, Rody the Rover; in 1847, The Black Prophet; in 1849, The Tithe Proctor; in 1855, Willy Reilly; and He died January in 1860, The Evil Eye. A pension of £200 was settled upon the Irish novelist.

The critics were unanimous in mother was skilled in the native music of the country, and possessed the sweetest and most favour of the Irish sketcher. His account of the exquisite of human voices.* She was celebrated northern Irish-the Ulster creachts-was new to for the effect she gave to the Irish cry or green vales' of his native Tyrone, of Donegal, and 'keene.' 'I have often been present,' says her the reading, public; and the 'dark mountains and Derry, had been left untouched by the previous son, when she has "raised the keene" the corpse of some relative or neighbour, and my writers on Ireland. A Second Series of these readers may judge of the melancholy charm which tales was published by Mr Carleton in 1832, and In 1839 he sent forth was equally well received. accompanied this expression of her sympathy, a powerful Irish story, Fardorougha the Miser, or when I assure them that the general clamour of violent grief was gradually diminished, from the Convicts of Lisnamona, in which the passion admiration, until it became ultimately hushed, and of avarice is strikingly depicted, without its victim no voice was heard but her own-wailing in being wholly dead to natural tenderness and affecsorrowful but solitary beauty.' With such parents tion. Scenes of broad humour and comic exCarleton could not fail to imbibe the peculiar Two years afterwards (1841) appeared The Fawn feelings and superstitions of his country. His travagance are interspersed throughout the work. humble home was a fitting nursery for Irish of Spring Vale, the Clarionet, and other Tales, genius. His first schoolmaster was a Connaught three volumes. There is more of pathetic comman, named Pat Frayne, the prototype of Mat one genial, light-hearted, humorous story, The Kavanagh in The Hedge School. He also received position in this collection than in the former; but classical teacher, a instruction from a tyrannical blockhead' who settled in the neigh-Misfortunes of Barney Branagan, was a probourhood; and it was afterwards agreed to send him to Munster, as a poor scholar, to complete his education. In some cases a collection is made to provide an outfit for the youth thus leaving home; but Carleton's own family supplied the funds supposed to be necessary. The circumstances attending his departure, Carleton has related in his fine tale, The Poor Scholar. As he journeyed slowly along the road, his superstitious fears got the better of his ambition to be a scholar, and stopping for the night at a small inn by the way, a disagreeable dream determined the homesick lad to return to his father's cottage. His affectionate parents were equally joyed to receive him; and Carleton seems to have done little for some years but join in the sports and pastimes of the people, and attend every wake, dance, fair, and merrymaking in the neighbourhood. In his seventeenth year he went to assist a distant relative, a priest, who had opened a classical school near Glasslough, county of Monaghan, where he remained two years. pilgrimage to the far-famed Lough Derg, or St Patrick's Purgatory, excited his imagination; and the description of that performance, some years afterwards, not only,' he says, 'constituted my début in literature, but was also the means of preventing me from being a pleasant, strong-bodied parish priest at this day; indeed it was the cause

A

*These particulars concerning the personal history of the novelist are contained in his introduction to the last edition of the Traits and Stories.

truth of his delineations and the apparent artless-
30, 1869. The great merit of Mr Carleton is the
ness of his stories. If he has not the passionate
melancholy but indignant reclamations'-of John
energy or, as he himself has termed it, the
Banim, he has not his party prejudices or bitter-
ness. He seems to have formed a fair and just
estimate of the character of his countrymen, and
home and abroad-in feud and in festival-in the
to have drawn it as it actually appeared to him at
various scenes which passed before him in his
native district and during his subsequent rambles.
The lower Irish, he justly remarks, were, until a
comparatively recent period, treated with apathy
and gross neglect by the only class to whom they
could or ought to look up for sympathy or protec-
tion. Hence those deep-rooted prejudices and
fearful crimes which stain the history of a people
remarkable for their social and domestic virtues.
In domestic life,' says Mr Carleton, 'there is no
man so exquisitely affectionate and humanised as
The national imagination is active,
the Irishman.
and the national heart warm, and it follows very
naturally that he should be, and is, tender and
strong in all his domestic relations. Unlike the
vehement, but deep; and whilst its shadow has
people of other nations, his grief is loud but lasting;

315

been chequered by the laughter and mirth of a cheerful disposition, still, in the moments of seclusion, at his bed-side prayer, or over the grave of those he loved, it will put itself forth, after half a life, with a vivid power of recollection which is sometimes almost beyond belief.' A people thus cast in extremes-melancholy and humorouspassionate in affection and in hatred-cherishing the old language, traditions, and recollections of their country-their wild music, poetry, and customs-ready either for good or for evil-such a people certainly affords the novelist abundant materials for his fictions. The field is ample, and it has been richly cultivated.

Picture of an Irish Village and School-house.

The village of Findramore was situated at the foot of a long green hill, the outline of which formed a low arch, as it rose to the eye against the horizon. This hill was studded with clumps of beeches, and sometimes inclosed as a meadow. In the month of July, when the grass on it was long, many an hour have I spent in solitary enjoyment, watching the wavy motion produced upon its pliant surface by the sunny winds, or the flight of the cloud-shadows, like gigantic phantoms, as they swept rapidly over it, whilst the murmur of the rocking trees, and the glancing of their bright leaves in the sun, produced a heartfelt pleasure, the very memory of which rises in my imagination like some fading recollection of a brighter world.

At the foot of this hill ran a clear deep-banked river, bounded on one side by a slip of rich level meadow, and on the other by a kind of common for the village geese, whose white feathers during the summer season lay scattered over its green surface. It was also the playground for the boys of the village school; for there ran that part of the river which, with very correct judgment, the urchins had selected as their bathing-place. A little slope or watering-ground in the bank brought them to the edge of the stream, where the bottom fell away into the fearful depths of the whirlpool under the hanging oak on the other bank. Well do I remember the first time I ventured to swim across it, and even yet do I see in imagination the two bunches of water-flagons on which the inexperienced swimmers trusted themselves in

the water.

About two hundred yards above this, the boreen [little road] which led from the village to the main road crossed the river by one of those old narrow bridges whose arches rise like round ditches across the road- -an almost impassable barrier to horse and car. On passing the bridge in a northern direction, you found a range of low thatched houses on each side of the road; and if one o'clock, the hour of dinner, drew near, you might observe columns of blue smoke curling up from a row of chimneys, some made of wicker-creels plastered over with a rich coat of mud, some of old narrow bottomless tubs, and others, with a greater appearance of taste, ornamented with thick circular ropes of straw sewed together like bees' skeps with the peel of a brier; and many having nothing but the open vent above. But the smoke by no means escaped by its legitimate aperture, for you might observe little clouds of it bursting out of the doors and windows; the panes of the latter, being mostly stopped at other times with old hats and rags, were now left entirely open for the purpose of giving it a free escape.

Before the doors, on right and left, was a series of dunghills, each with its concomitant sink of green, rotten water; and if it happened that a stout-looking woman with watery eyes, and a yellow cap hung loosely upon her matted locks, came, with a chubby urchin on one arm and a pot of dirty water in her hand, its unceremonious ejection in the aforesaid sink would be apt to send you up the village with your finger and thumb— |

for what purpose you would yourself perfectly understand closely, but not knowingly applied to your nostrils. But, independently of this, you would be apt to have other reasons for giving your horse, whose heels are by this time surrounded by a dozen of barking curs, and the same number of shouting urchins, a pretty sharp touch of the spurs, as well as for complaining bitterly of the figures; and you might notice-if you are, as I suppose odour of the atmosphere. It is no landscape without you to be, a man of observation-in every sink, as you pass along, a' slip of a pig' stretched in the middle of the mud, the very beau-ideal of luxury, giving occasionally a long luxuriant grunt, highly expressive of his enjoyment; or perhaps an old farrower, lying in indolent repose, with half-a-dozen young ones jostling each other for their draught, and punching her belly with their little snouts, reckless of the fumes they are creating; whilst the loud crow of the cock, as he confidently flaps his wings on his own dunghill, gives the warning note for the hour of dinner.

As you advance, you will also perceive several faces thrust out of the doors, and rather than miss a sight of you, a grotesque visage peeping by a short-cut through the paneless windows, or a tattered female flying to snatch up her urchin that has been tumbling itself heels up in the dust of the road, lest 'the gintleman's horse might ride over it;' and if you happen to look behind, you may observe a shaggy-headed youth in tattered frieze, with one hand thrust indolently in his breast, standing at the door in conversation with the inmates, a broad grin of sarcastic ridicule on his face, in the act of breaking a joke or two upon yourself or your horse; or perhaps your jaw may be saluted with a lump of clay, just hard enough not to fall asunder as it flies, cast by some ragged gorsoon from behind a hedge, who squats himself in a ridge of corn to avoid detection.

Seated upon a hob at the door, you may observe a toilworn man without coat or waistcoat, his red muscular sunburnt shoulder peering through the remnant of a shirt, mending his shoes with a piece of twisted flax, called a lingel, or perhaps sewing two footless stockings, or martyeens, to his coat, as a substitute for sleeves.

In the gardens, which are usually fringed with nettles, you will see a solitary labourer, working with that carelessness and apathy that characterise an Irishman when he labours for himself, leaning upon his spade to look after you, and glad of any excuse to be idle.

The houses, however, are not all such as I have described-far from it. You see here and there, between the more humble cabins, a stout comfortable-looking farmhouse with ornamental thatching and well-glazed windows; adjoining to which is a hay-yard with five or six large stacks of corn, well trimmed and roped, and a fine yellow weather-beaten old hay-rick, half-cut-not taking into account twelve or thirteen circular strata of stones that mark out the foundations on which others had been raised. Neither is the rich smell of oaten or wheaten bread, which the good-wife is baking on the griddle, unpleasant to your nostrils; nor would the bubbling of a large pot, in which you might see, should you chance to enter, a prodigious square of fat, yellow, and almost transparent bacon tumbling about, be an unpleasant object; truly, as it hangs over a large fire, with well-swept hearthstone, it is in good keeping with the white settle and chairs, and the dresser with noggins, wooden trenchers, and pewter dishes, perfectly clean, and as well polished as a French courtier.

As you leave the village, you have, to the left, a view of the hill which I have already described, and, to the right, a level expanse of fertile country, bounded by a good view of respectable mountains peering decently into the sky; and in a line that forms an acute angle from the point of the road where you ride, is a delightful valley, in the bottom of which shines a pretty lake; and a little beyond, on the slope of a green hill, rises a splendid house, surrounded by a park, well wooded and