great Kings, for the bridegroom held the stirrup, and the priest the bridle. The latter welcomed me with the cordiality of an old acquaintance. "Salvo multum exoptate," said he, shaking me heartily by the hand. We then proceeded to the room where the company were assembled. The floor was earthen, but clean. A table was decently laid out for dinner. I was introduced to the bride. She was a modest-looking girl

about seventeen. She was dressed in a white calico gown and ribands, and had a fan in her hand. The Priest now began the ceremony. The evening was close and the room crowded. He soon got into a violent heat, and to cool himself, took his wig off several times, wiped his head, and replaced it. But whatever there might be uncouth in his manner, there was nothing ludicrous, either in that of the bride or her parents. The voice of nature will always find its way to the heart, and the tears which streamed down' their cheeks bespoke the affection they bore each other.

After the ceremony was over, the whiskey went round, and we then sat down to dinner. It was a very abundant one, not ill dressed,—nor, considering the condition of the people, ill served. The priest was grand carver, grand talker too, and grand laugher. I was seated at his right hand, and if I were not comfortable it was not his fault, for no person could be more attentive. The moment

dinner was over, the table was removed, and the company began dancing. The music was a fiddle and dulcimer. The dances were reels of three and of four-when one person got tired, another instantly started up in his or her place, and the best dancer was he or she who held out the longest. A singular kind of pas seul was performed by a crack dancer. A door was taken off the hinges, and laid on the floor, on which he danced in his stockingsoles. He displayed considerable activity, but there was an almost total want of grace. His principal movement consisted in rapidly and alternately raising his feet as high as his waistcoat, and when he succeeded in getting his toes a little way into the pocket, there was a universal burst of applause.

Every nation has a dance, as well as a song, peculiar to itself. Yet of the ancient Irish dance no mention is made by any historian. Tradition, indeed, gives us a description of the Rinceadh' Fada which, it affirms, was the dance of the ancient Irish. If it were, I regret that the use of it has passed away, as it appears to have been a very elegant one. When that unfortunate monarch, James II. landed at Kinsale, his friends, who waited his arrival on the sea shore, welcomed him with the Rinceadh' Fada, the figure and execution of which delighted him exceedingly. Three persons abreast, each holding the ends of a white handkerchief, first moved forward a few paces to

slow music, the rest of the dancers following, two and two, a white handkerchief between each. Then the dance began. The music suddenly changing to brisk time, the dancers passed with a quick step under the handkerchiefs of the three in front, wheeled round in semicircles, formed a variety of pleasing and animating evolutions, interspersed at intervals with entre chants or cuts, united, and fell again into their original places be hind, and paused. This it is conjectured was the dance of the Pagan Irish during their festivals on the 1st of May and the 1st of August, when fires were lighted, and sacrifices offered on the most lofty mountains in every part of the kingdom, to Bael, or the Sun. It is likewise conjectured, that the dancers were a kind of chorus, who sung as they danced, an hymn in praise of the Deity whom they were honouring.

But to return to the scene of which I was so unexpectedly a spectator. The whiskey was handed frequently about, a few took it mixed with water, but the generality drank it plain. The women scarcely tasted it, nor did the Priest. His spirits, indeed, seemed of themselves sufficiently buoyant

-he drank plentifully of tea, however, in which I was happy to join him. The company at length got noisy and intoxicated, and I began to find my situation unpleasant-not that I was apprehensive of the slightest danger; but coarseness is oppres

sive whenever it becomes familiar vulgarity may be endured when it is modest, which drunkenness seldom is. I was, therefore, agreeably surprised, when the man of the house came and told me a gentleman wanted to speak to me at the door. It was his landlord. The poor man had run up to his house to inform him of me, and to request him to offer me a bed. The gentleman, with great civility, had come down himself, and I gladly consented to accompany him back, to the great annoyance of nfy friend, the Priest, who said, he should now have nobody fit to talk to. I left him singing a French song, which, in the company he was in, could not be very edifying. He had sung one or two in the course of the evening. "I must give these barbarians," whispered he to me, "something they don't understand, or they would soon lose all reverence for me." It was, probably, to excite their reverence that he wore his grizzled wig and cocked hat: and with reason. When authority threw aside its flowing robes, and thrust itself into a drab-coloured strait coat, it did itself more harm than it was aware of.

No country I ever saw abounds more in picturesque situations than the North of Ireland. This house is in a most delightful one. It stands on the green brow of a little hill, which overlooks the town of B

-, and commands an assemblage

of hill and dale, of wood and water, of verdant mead and lofty mountain, the beauty of which it is impossible to describe. An extensive garden is in front, arranged in terraces. It is now in its highest perfection. Flora herself seems to preside over it, and Proserpine might come hither to gather her fairest flowers. The rose is in endless profusion, and sheds its rich fragrance on the room where I write. I love this flower; nor would I think myself solitary in a wilderness that was blooming with the rose. even, and all its combinations, are beautiful, and the soft dew of heaven becomes more beatified still when it is called la rosee. Well might the heroine of a German drama, when with enthusiastic rapture she recalled the voice of young and mutual love, exclaim, "Methought it was the song of the nightingale; methought it was the smell of the rose." If there were a place, indeed,

The name,