mountain, whence I could espy Shan bally, the seat of Lord Lismore, on a rock romantically beetling over the Suir, and surrounded with plantations, and beyond it was pointed out to me the town of "nate Clogheen," famous in song, as that in which the gallant Sergeant Snap first met the captivating Mrs Phaidrig Carey.

I should have said that, as we passed along, various places, according to the instructions of our prisoner, were cautiously approached, as being possibly the hiding place of his confederates; but as he still maintained that the most likely place to find them was farther on, we proceeded without feeling much disappointment. As we now entered upon an enormous boggy waste, we perceived towards its centre an enormous "clamp" of turf, as they call itin Ireland, being the general collection of the labours of the district in the way of peat-cutting, and piled there, to be drawn away as it might be required for individual use. Within the recesses of this "lone and dreary pile," our prisoner informed us we might calculate upon meeting with the man of whom we were in search, and we therefore now began to make preparation for the somewhat hazardous service in which we were about to be engaged. The danger, however, as it turned out, existed only in anticipation, as, notwithstanding all the caution we could use in making our way through the meandering allies of this huge ag gregation of peat sods, the robbers in their lurking place got the alarm, and fled in an opposite direction, gaining the bog, where no one less acquainted with it than themselves would dare to follow. Two of them, however, who were so unlucky as to tumble over each other in their flight, and thereby overthrow a wall of peats upon themselves, were so entangled as to be unable to get out, and we not only captured them, but the entire baggage of the enemy, which they had left behind in their hiding place. I proceeded to examine this, and as chance would have it, the very first thing I took up was a leathern bag tied with a string, from whence, after pulling forth a dead goose, a bottle of whisky, and a pair of old breeches, I extracted the very parchment of which I was in search. I felt that there was a most unromantic facility about the recovery of this document, which very

unsatisfactorily diminished the glory which I hoped to acquire by its acquisition; nevertheless I rejoiced with an unselfish joy, that, for the sake of its true owners, it was recovered.

And now, might I not speak of our further journey to Mitchelstoun, and of the magnificent castle thereof, and the noble lord its owner, to whose magisterial presence we brought the captives, not of our bow and our spear, but of the falling wall of turf; touching which, one of the prisoners feelingly implored, "May bad luck saize the sowls of thim that made it!"— But I reckon, by my wearying fingers, that this sketch has got well nigh far enough, and that it is time to close it; yet I would linger a little longer, while I call to mind my second interview with that fair and gentle lady, for whose sake I should have been glad to have encountered something more difficult than that which fortune presented to me in the adventure I have related.

It was a fair and sunny noon when I approached Mount Evelyn for the second time-the traces of the rude devastation of the robbers had already disappeared, and the appearance of every thing around exhibited a happy union of Irish ornament with English neatness. Within the house, too, all was changed, and what, alas! seldom strikes us when we remark a change, all was changed for the better. The rifled room was elegantly in orderthe harp was restored to its proper place, and so were the vases and the flowers. The old lady had recovered from her fright, and wore that air of composed politeness which so well becomes old ladies; her daughter was as lovely as beauty and gracefulness could make her, and thanked me with such energetic gentleness for the trouble I had had on their account, and the great benefit I had conferred upon them, that I was ashamed of the slight service I had performed. I assured her, that all the trouble I had had was much more than repaid by the pleasure of seeing her again, under circumstances less unpleasant than those of our last meeting, and of feeling that I had, even in the slightest degree, contributed to the restoration of the property of which they had been so violently deprived; "but," I continued, " are you not afraid to continue to live here? I expected to find

you preparing to leave a part of the country where outrageous crime is so common. I am myself almost terrified at the thought of what you will be exposed to by continuing here."

"Oh," she replied, "you are too severe upon our neighbourhood; it is true there are many outrages to be lamented, such as you know nothing of in England, but we are not so very bad."

"We,' do you say? If your county were more wicked than that city of old, which Heaven smote with fire for its sins, yet still such a place as Mount Evelyn would secure for it that mercy which is given to many wicked for the sake of one good."

"Oh," she replied, smiling, "you have been travelling to the South, and brought home the privilege to flatter, which they say is acquired there; but in very truth, though I have lived much more in England than in Ireland, aud, I am afraid, after all, like it better, still I do not think Ireland so very savage as it is commonly thought in England. The kindness and devo ted attachment of the common people are very great, and though they are liable to frightful explosions of pas

sion'

"And to breaking into houses in the night," I maliciously interrupted. "Nay," she said, "that is appealing too much to personal feeling in the present instance; yet, if I were to tell you how kindly they sometimes spoke, and with a certain air of pro. tection in their tone and manner, even when they were robbing the house, you would exonerate them of some of the sullen brutality which is to be found with the banditti of other countries."

"I am very glad you have told me of that," said I; "it may save the lives of the men who have been ta ken."

"Their lives! did you say?" she replied, with much emotion; "Oh Heaven, how selfish I have been, never to have thought of the unhappy condition into which I might have known they have brought themselves. Indeed! Indeed! they were not brus tal-not inhuman. If I might entreat of you to trouble yourself fur ther about this matter, do, for the sake of mercy, make intercession for them."

Fair ladies, if you would know what it is that gives to beauty the most beautiful expression, it is to plead earnestly in the cause of mercy-the rather, I believe, if you have dark blue eyes; but that is a matter concerning which the learned are not unanimous.

'I assured Miss Evelyn, that if the men were found guilty, when they were tried, I should use every exertion to represent their conduct as favourably as it deserved to be represented, for a commutation of punishment. They were convicted, and the applications made were successful. Their lives, after much deliberation and he sitation, were spared, and once more I earned thanks that I shall long remember.

It was some three or four months after this, when I was taking some coffee in the Imperial Hotel in Cork, that I chanced to take up a Clonmel newspaper, and accidentally looking to that important corner of a country paper, dedicated to the names of those who have been so ungracious as to get married before us, I read the following:-"Married, on the 10th instant, by the Very Reverend the Dean of Cloghran, Captain Frederick Clutterbuck of the Regiment of Lancers, to Louisa, only daughter of M. Evelyn of the Mount, near Clonmel, Esquire."

'The coffee in Cork is extremely bitter-perhaps they roast it overmuch,

must prevail; errors concerning, not only the rule of faith, but the foundation of government in civil society.

The state of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is very peculiar, and not to be fully understood with out adverting to mixed religious and political considerations. The penal laws, enacted at the period of the Revolution, were of the severest character, and must, if persevered in, have crushed those against whom they were directed. Had they been vigorously enforced, even for three generations, Popery must necessarily have been extinguished. But, although there was much reason to apprehend danger to the then newly-established government, from the faction upon whose overthrow it was founded, yet were the privations inflicted upon them, as much the fruits of party zeal as of political foresight. Popery was the bugbear by which the atheists, the libertines, and the republicans, who, to a large extent, wielded the Whig interest, were enabled to excite the ferment necessary for their own selfish ends; and the penal laws were enacted as much for the purpose of spiting their rivals, as of crushing those whose principles might lead to the overthrow of the constitution.-It is not a little curious and amusing to observe, at the present day, how completely that party have changed their ground. For merly the popular topic was the danger of Popery; and then they were foremost in getting up fictitious plots, which remain the disgrace of British history, and enacting a code of laws, the severity of which justified the saying" that it was written in blood." Now that it is fashionable to regard Popery as only ridiculous, and that men's apprehensions are converted into contempt, the Whig party have affected popularity by bewailing the unhappy condition of their poor Romish brethren, deploring the privations to which they are subject, and clamorously contending for "Catholic Emancipation."

It will readily be supposed that enactments, proceeding more from faction than principle, (no matter what the danger which would, in reality, have justified them,) were not - very literally enforced when no party purpose was to be answered by their observance. In the very worst of times the Roman Catholic religion

subsisted by counivance, if not by tcleration; the rigour of the law was tempered by the humanities of life and the courtesies of society; and the repeal of the heaviest part of the penal code, when it afterwards took place, was almost like a sentence of death against a dead man, so completely had the obnoxious enactments been superannuated by neglect or desuetude. But what failed to crush was effectual to combine. Instead of extinguishing the Roman Catholics as a sect, the measures which were taken only served to unite them as a party. Concession followed concession, until every galling enactment was repealed. Every thing, in short, was conceded, but what alone was thought necessary to gua rantee the integrity of the constitu tion. But it is easier to remove the reality of grievance than the habit of complaint. An appetite for political power may be excited and encouraged to such a degree, that, literally, it "grows by what it feeds on." And it has been remarked of the Roman Catholics, that they have waxed bolder and more audacious in their demands, in exact proportion as they have experienced liberality and favour. The much that has been granted seems only to have exasperated their resentment for the little that has been retained; and the agitators seem more disposed to glory in martyrdom under the few privations that still remain, than to acknowledge or enjoy the va◄ luable constitutional privileges for which they are indebted to legislative indulgence.

Had the desire of converting the Irish natives been sincerely entertained by the government at the time of the Revolution, other measures undoubtedly would have been adopted, concurrently with the laws intended for the securing the succession of the house of Hanover. The church would have been upheld with dignity, and exhibited to advantage; promotions would have been regulated by moral and theological, rather than personal and political considerations; attempts would have been made with earnestness and efficiency to soothe the prejudices and enlighten the minds of the Roman Catholics; and a series of measures would have been instituted and continued, by which, despite all obstructions, the circle of light must gradually have gained on the circle of

darkness, and under the operation of which it would have been morally impossible that Ireland should have continued so long unreclaimed. But the Whigs were lords of the ascendant. Low church principles bore sway. The highest qualifications for the episcopal office would have been neutralized by the suspicion of any undue attachment to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. A single error in the political creed attainted the competency of the brightest parts, the profoundest learning, the Lost exalted virtues. The church, in a word, was used for the convenience of the state; it was desecrated by a subserviency to merely secular and political objects. In Ireland, it was regarded by the lay community with a ravenous rapacity; and, by the flagitious withholding of the agistinent tithe, the clergy were, in many instances, reduced to the condition of paupers. This measure, as impolitic as iniquitous, necessitated the union of small livings. Thus, while the flock was multiplied, the pastors were diminished; and this to a degree that amounted, in some cases, to the withholding of all religious instruction. Meanwhile, the same principles which led to a neglect of all the spiritual concerns of the church, and to a disregard for its rights and interests, were favourable to the progress of dissenterism, and gave no inconsiderable countenance and encourage ment to Popery. The Church of England was viewed with suspicion, and treated with neglect and injustice, while sects of all descriptions increa sed and multiplied under projects of toleration and bills of indemnity, as if dissent were a privilege, not an indulgence. Popery itself became, at length, subordinately established by law; and an annual parliamentary grant, for the support of the seminary at Maynooth, is a principal means of educating and equipping a large proportion of the Roman Catholic priest hood in Ireland.

Thus, while the prevalence of Whig principles served to pauperise and desecrate the church, they served also to increase dissent, and to enrich and establish Popery. The church was so ill administered as to furnish an excuse for the one; and the state was so ill advised, as to be induced to contribute to the support and maintenance of the other. It is no wonder,

then, that enlightened Protestantism should not have made very rapid advances; and nothing but the overruling providence of God could have prevented it from having very sensibly declined.

But it has not declined; on the contrary, we have good grounds for believing that Protestantism, notwithstanding all the causes that have been in operation to let and retard it, has made more way than, humanly speaking, could have been expected. We refer the reader to the digest of the evidence, taken before both Houses of Parliament, on the state of Ireland, by Messrs Phelan and O'Sullivan, for a most luminous summary of the various opinions respecting the comparative numbers of the Roman Catholics and Protestants, and the grounds upon which they are entertained. From the most extensive enquiries, it appears that they bear to each other the proportion of a little more than two and a half to unity. But any statement of the comparative numbers of Roman Catholics and Protestants affords but a very imperfect view of the actual circumstances of Ireland. The state of society requires to be considered, as it has been affected by the various causes that have been acting upon it during the last century, and which render any suggestions, founded upon a supposed analogy between that country and this, to the last degree mistaken and dangerous.

To maintain that laws, of the description of the disabling statutes, as they were in force in former times, must have had a very injurious effect upon the character of the people, is not, by any means, to maintain that there existed no necessity for their enactment. As long as they continued to operate with full severity, they must have reduced one party to a state of abject slavery, crushing energy, and extinguishing hope; and inspired the other with an intoxication of triumph, very likely to manifest itself in acts of severity and injustice. Although it is an undoubted truth that their operation was mitigated by Protestant philanthropy and benevolence, yet who can deny that their effects, considered merely with reference, to those who were obnoxious to them, were humiliating and deplorable? The maniac, whose frenzy renders it necessary to hold him in strict confinement, not