More, once chiefs or kings of Desmond."

"It is in the order of things," said De

Vere, coolly.

"Oh! exactly; the vigueur de dessus,' which may be translated' might, not right, has been the same in all ages; but it is peculiar to the conquest of Ireland, to behold Henry the Second in his camp at Aquitain, distributing to his followers principalities, out of a country he had never seen, a country still in possession of its rightful chiefs, and in which his enterprising marshal, Strongbow, had then scarcely left the track of his footstep. It is curious also to behold the pope, consecrating this robbery, the Irish chieftains disdaining the Saxon king and the Roman pontif, defending, losing, recovering, and forfeiting again their ancient territories; and finally the English lords becoming Irish in feelings, character, and language, and

avenging the very injuries they had themselves inflicted, because they had become victims of the same barbarous policy by which their ancestors had been influenced. The causes of Ireland's misfortunes are so deep seated, that every page in her history is a palliation of her faults, and the graver errors of the people will all be found in the misrule of her government."

"Better governed, she would be more prosperous," said the younger traveller, "and less interesting and less amusing. As it is, she is melancholy and gentlemanlike,' a thing to make one laugh and cry in a breath. Her history, turned into metre, would dramatize into a sort of tragi-comic melo-dram of mirth and misery, ferocity and fun, that would leave the pathetic grotesque of chrononhotonthologus far behind."

"Them is the Gaulties, plaze your

honor," said the driver, "

among the clouds. There, Sir, not a mountain in the province will bate them, any how, let alone Mangerton."

"They are, indeed, truly respectable mountains for this little island," said the younger traveller, directing his glance to a range of bold romantic perpendicular acclivities, whose conic pinnacles were lost in the clouds, and whose dark stupendous range might have formed a natural and impregnable boundary between rival and contending states.

At the village of Gaul Bally they found only the ruins of some religious houses, a barrack, and a little Shebean house, where the driver stopped for a few minutes to refresh his horses and himself. They soon recommenced their mountain journey, doubling a formidable ridge, and ascending a gentle acclivity, while the driver, almost throwing the reins upon the horses necks, sat with his arms folded, and recommenced

for the twentieth time since they had left Cashel,

"The groves of Blarney, they are so charming.”

"This will never do," said the Commodore, letting down the front glass. "Why, my friend, your horses seem tired already."

"They do, plaze your honor," was the cool reply. "And do you know the raison of that same, Sir? Why, then, it's becaise they're on level ground, Sir. Sorrow a thing else ails them. Och the craturs are kind and lazy like myself, and quite untractable to a smooth level plain; but wait till yez gets up among the glens and precipices. Its then, Sir, you will see them bate the reglar posters, why! entirely; for they knows the ways of the place, and little fear for the chay being left in smithereens,* on the top of a rock, there, or at the bottom of that hollow, down in the divil's glin to your lift, Sir."

* Smithereens; i. e. fragments.

"Its very evident," said the Commodore," that this fellow is as untractable as his horses. There is a dogged indif ference about him, a good-humoured pertinacity of manner, with which it would clearly be in vain to contend; it were best, therefore, to leave him to his song and his waywardness."

"Oh! I hold no contention with tra velling contingencies," replied de Vere: "through life, as through a journey, the 'Laissez-aller' is my device. Who would take the trouble of even WILLING, when a pebble under your chaise-wheel may set volition at nought. Who would contend with accidents and events, uncertain and incalculable as the elements on which they so often depend?"

"This is a fine road, your honors, said the driver, breaking off his song abruptly, and applying his remark to a rude, rough, narrow acclivity, mossgrown and torrent-worn, and becoming every moment more difficult of ascent.