ful with a morose old gentleman, who could see no beauty in their "darlint collars; " and they quite failed in an attempt, evidently persisted in for their own amusement, to dispose of some beautiful little babies'-caps, to a waspish old girl of sixty-five!

Limerick is divided into three parts, the Irish town, the English town, and Newtown Perry (so called after a Mr. Sexton Perry, who commenced it); and these are connected by bridges, of which the old Thomond, hard by King John's Castle, and the new Wellesley, said to have cost 85,0007, are interesting. The eccentricities of the workmen must have added materially to the costliness of the latter structure, inasmuch as they seem to have been Odd Fellows as well as very Free Masons, who, instead of cementing stones and friendships, only turned the former into stumbling blocks for the latter, by throwing them at each other's heads. Every day an animated faction-fight, between the boys of Clare and the boys of Limerick, was got up (instead of the bridge), until at length it was found necessary to bring out an armed force, to keep order on this Pons Asinorum.

The main street of Newtown Perry, in which is Cruise's Hotel, is a long and handsome one; and what's more, you may buy some good cigars in it, a rare refreshment in Ireland.

We went to see the Cathedral (partly out of compliment to the memory of good Bishop Jebb); but its iron gates were

scrupulously locked. Perhaps, had they been open, we should not have ventured within, for the building had a grim uninviting look, and seemed as though it despised us thoroughly for daring to come when it wasn't service-time. I should not have been at all surprised, if "a variety of humbugs in cocked-hats" had sallied forth to disperse us.

One of the lace-girls, for they had followed us, with reduced prices and a fresh supply of their pretty work, told us, as we turned from the gate, that "during the grate sage o'Limerick there was a mighty big gun on the top of that church, that kept firing away, day and night." Whereupon Frank said, that the interesting fact was highly creditable to the Dean and Chapter, who generally deputed any hard work to one of the minor

canons.

In which of the sieges did the great gun thunder? Was it that of 1651, when Ireton (whose character one never can identify with that beautiful portrait engraved by Houbraken, for how could such a noble presence belong to a man "melancholick and reserved,"* and so wanting in personal courage, as to allow Mr. Holles to pull him by the nose ?†) died before the walls from the plague? Or did it some forty years later send forth its

* Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. iii., p. 362.

+ Birch's Lives of Illustrious Persons, p. 96.

sulphurous and tormenting flames, against "bould Giniral Ginkil," and help to expedite that Famous Treaty of Limerick, honorable alike to all ?

We did not see nor hear anything of the great Pig-Factory, whereat one million porkers are said to be annually slain. A stern Hebrew, of a truculent taste, might possibly venture to settle in the vicinity; but the music must be too high by several octaves for Christians of the ordinary stamp.

I wonder whether the lady still lives in Limerick, who had the passage of arms, or rather of legs, with General Sir Charles Napier. Being, in the complimentary diction of her friends, "a remarkably fine woman," or, in the vulgar verbiage of irreverent youth "a regular slogger," she was wont to despise those of her fellow-creatures, who did not weigh sixteen stone; and when the little soldier broke his leg, she remarked contemptuously, "that she supposed some fly had kicked his poor spindle-shanks!" It so happened that, just as he recovered, the large lady met with a similar accident, breaking her leg. Napier was at no loss to improve the occasion. "Going to her house," he says, "I told the servant, how sorry I was to hear that a bullock had kicked his mistress, and injured its leg very much; and that I had called, in consequence, to inquire whether her leg was at all hurt?"

We left Limerick for Killarney by the mail train, at 11:30 A.M., entering the main line of the Great Southern and Western Railway after an hour's travelling, progressing thereon as far as Mallow (the town upon the banks of the Blackwater, with its church, and trees, and picturesque bridge, is a sweet little 'study,' and looked as though the sun shone there always); and thence by a branch line to Killarney, which we reached at 4 P.M. We passed through a country (including part of the Golden Vale of Limerick *), varied, fertile, and well-cultivated, although two young officers (who looked at us, when we entered their carriage at Mallow, as though I were at the crisis of small-pox, and my friend a ticket-of-leave man) declared, as they woke up just opposite an embankment, that the scenery was "beastly plain."

"It extends from Charleville to Tipperary by Kilfinnan nearly thirty miles, and again across from Ardpatric to within a short distance of Limerick city, sixteen miles."-Saxon in Ireland, p. 101.

CHAPTER XIII.

KILLARNEY.

HERE are words which, although unnoticed in the delightful treatises of the Dean of Westminster (may his fame increase!), have a strong, strange power upon the heart,words which can ring for us, listening by

the brookside, and in arbours and meadow-haunts once more, the joy-bells of a former mirth, or toll above past sorrows

K