a thrifle, good gintlemen, to pay the bit o' postage, God bless yer bewtifle young faces." Of course, we would, every mother's son of us. What an affectionate, exemplary parent! When we returned, a few days afterwards, she was again in correspondence with her beloved son, far away from her yearning tenderness, beyond the broad Atlantic; and, indeed, I have reason to believe from information which I gathered from the driver and our fellow-passengers, that this disconsolate mother writes to her exile child every day, except Sundays. The miserable huts of the peasantry, seen by the feeble light which comes through the doorway and smoke-hole (to talk about chimneys would be an insult to architecture) give one the idea, not so much that the pigs have got into the parlour, but that the family have migrated to the sty. An unpaved clay floor below, a roof of straw and weeds, dank, soaked, and rotting, overhead, a miserable bed in the corner, an iron pot over a peat fire, are the principal items of the property. Before the door is a sink, black and filthy, for the refuse. And yet the inmates look hale and happy beyond what one would hope to see, and the thought at once suggests itself, how much might be accomplished by such a people, awaking to assert its dignity, and to discharge its duty. Here and there are roofless cottages, gravestones, on which is written, as on Albert Durer's, " Emigravit; " he has gone to seek over the wide seas the comforts which here he could not, or would not, win; or he has gone "to the land, which is very far off," to hunger and thirst no more,— "There fell upon the house a sudden gloom, A shadow on those features fair and thin; And softly, from that hushed and darkened room, Two angels issued, where but one went in." It is sad indeed to see these monuments, "where memory" (as an Irish poet✶ sings) "sits by the altar she has raised to woe," monuments of suffering and dearth, amid scenes of surpassing beauty, and fields which might stand thick with corn, but where, from the shameful indolence of His creatures, "In vain, with lavish kindness, the gifts of God are strewn." There is no town between Galway and Clifden, unless we compliment with that title the large village of Oughterarde, pleasantly situated hard by Lough Corrib, with its picturesque bridge, marvellously transparent stream, handsome constables, and (comparatively speaking) magnificent church. The Roman Catholic churches are, for the most part, so very plain and poor, having little but the Cross, and a melancholy imitation of Gothic * Curran. mullions in wood, to denote their consecration, that the building of Oughterarde has quite an imposing effect, and we went up the hill to see it. The leisure and liberty allowed to passengers by car are amusingly refreshing in these days of steam; and I thought, as we sauntered towards Sainte Terre, how astonished the guard of an express train would be, to behold his fellow-travellers quietly strolling off to inspect the cathedral, at Peterborough, York, or Lincoln. We found little to admire, as to architecture without, or ornament within; but a priest, who went with us from the car, said it was "beautiful," and looked as if to him it was so indeed, as he knelt with others reverently praying there. I thought of our grand old churches at home, locked and barred, most of them, except for a few hours on Sunday (as though the soul should be treated, like a boa-constrictor, with six days sleep, and then a rabbit); and I envied that poor pilgrim through a prayerless world his privilege and opportunity. CHAPTER VII. CONNAMARA. Oughterarde is termed the entrance to Connamara, but the boundaries seem somewhat undefined, like the sensations induced by the wildly beautiful scenery, "The vague emotion of delight, While climbing up some Alpine height." Measured and mapped Connamara may be, but painted or described it never can. Those sublime landscapes of mountain, moor, and mere, are photographed on the memory for ever, but cannot be reproduced on canvass; and a great master of art, a Michael Angelo (Titmarsh) throws down his brush, with the wise confession, "all that we can do is to cry, Beautiful!" Who shall take it up, and paint? Not mine, a prentice hand, to daub a caricature (about as like the original, as a pastile to Vesuvius, or a "cinder-tip " to the Himalayas) of those glorious Irish Alps, of the Maum-Turk mountains, or of Bina Beola, rising, in solemn majesty, amid a sea of golden and roseate flowers. It requires a confidence which I do not feel, to attempt the Hallelujah Chorus on my penny trumpet, or, where Phidias distrusts his chisel, to commence a Colossus with my knife and fork. But I shall never forget our silent happiness, a happiness like childhood's, so complete and pure, as, mile after mile, we watched the sunlight and the shadows, sweeping over hill, and lake, and plain, (so swiftly that every minute the whole view seemed to change), and saw the snow-white goats among the purple heath, and the kine, jet-black and glowing red, knee-deep in the silver waters. But there are minds no scenery can delight or awe. I remember, how, travelling by rail, one glorious morning in December, the trees all hoar with frost, and glittering against a sky blue as the turquoise, I met a Cockney gent, who condescendingly surveyed the scene, and said that "it reminded him of Storr and Mortimer's! The water was very like those plate-glass things, which were used to set off the silver, and the trees a good deal resembled the candelabra clustered above." And he smiled as one who was pleased to approve the article which Nature humbly submitted to his inspection, and seemed, out of his overflowing |