passion of love, could they catch a portion of the pure spirit that pervades them. Would it be believed that the beautiful song in the Duenna How oft, Louisa, hast thou said is a literal translation of an old Irish ballad, and that Mr. Sheridan even borrowed with it the air to which it was sung? The following is the production of an obscure poet, who died many years ago. I do not understand Irish, but I am assured that it is as literally translated as the idiom of the two languages will allow : SONNET. Thou dear seducer of my heart, Fond cause of every struggling sigh; What tho' this tongue did never move, My eyes, my look-have spoke my love, For still imagination warm, Presents thee at the noon-tide beam, Alvina tho' no splendid store Of riches more than merit move; Pulse of my beating heart! shall all My gay seductive hopes be filed; Unpitied wilt thou see me dead? I'll make a cradle of this breast, Thy image all its child shall be; CHAPTER XXVIII. A 1 I WALKED this morning to the little town (as it is called) of Minecherin. It is situated in the very heart of the mountain, and, at a little distance, might be taken for a part of it. It consists of twenty or thirty little cabins. To each of these are attached a few acres of land a portion is a potatoe garden, and the remainder gives grass for a cow, and produces a little oats. To an Eng'lishman nothing would seem more wretched than the situation of these cabins. The ground on which they stand is half-reclaimed bog, and heaps of manure are piled and scattered round them, which render entrance a matter of considerable difficulty. Nor does the state of the inte rior appear to make amends for the exterior. In mid-day the darkness of midnight rests upon it. The chimney is seldom so well constructed as to carry away the smoke, through which some women, blear-eyed, shrivelled, and blackened, seated on their three-legged stools, like so many Sybils in the act of prophecy, gradually become visible. A cow, a calf, and a pig, generally fill up the back ground. The appearance of the furniture corresponds with that of the inhabitants a few earthen vessels, tin porringers, and wooden noggins on the dresser, two or three stools around the fire, and a bed or beds, covered by a coarse and black rug, make up the whole of it. "All this is wretchedness, surely, or there is no such thing as wretchedness upon earth." To many, very many, no doubt it would be so, but happily the people most interested, are not wretched very far from it, and many good reasons might be given, why they should not. In the first place, neither they nor their imme diate fathers, ever knew a better way of living. This in itself is almost every thing. Man is the mere creature of habit, and all those tastes which have the most influence over him, are acquired ones-no man ever was born with a love of snuff, of coffee, of pepper, or of claret. In the next place, the bogs on which (in which I should rather say) they live, give them plenty of turf. The poorest man has (if it is not his own fault) an inexhaustible abundance of firing. Chilled, and as it were impregnated, with the damp and moisture of his mountains, even the smoke of his cabin gives him pleasure. He is not a creature who lives in a medium way, nor is he, perhaps, the more to be pitied on that account. He has the rapid alternation of heat and cold, of drought and moisture, and if he is often chilled and drenched during the day, has a more exquisite relish for the fire during the night, and when he is dried and baked, as it were in an oven, he re turns again with cheerfulness to the open air. His food is simple; but he has it in abundance, It is wholesome food likewise. Vegetables and milk, potatoes, butter, onions, and oaten-bread? Onions and garlic are of a most cordial nature. These vegetables composed part of the diet which enabled the Israelites to endure, in a warm cli mate, the heavy tasks imposed upon them by their Egyptian masters. They were likewise eaten up by the Roman farmers to repair the waste of their strength, by the toils of harvest. When, notwithstanding their cordial properties, he feels to uneasy sensations in his stomach, from the acess 11 cent qualities of his food, nature kindly extends (13 her hand to him, with a medicine drawn from his own mountains-a medicine which he does!!! not take reluctantly, but readily and cheerfully whiskey--which, when not drank to excess, is as well-suited to his temperament and necessities, as wine is to a Frenchman's, or ale to an Englishman's, Milk and vegetable diet humanize the heart, and if they do not create, cherish benevolent dispositions. All fierce animals are carnivorous, all gentle ones are granivorous. An Irish mountaineer is mild, humane, and affectionate, and he shrinks yes, paradoxical as it will be reckoned by many he shrinks beyond most other men from the idea of inflicting misery, or of shedding blood, This is his natural and quiescent charac ter. ? 3 But he is social, and he has extraordinary sen sibility. His sympathy is easily excited, and he catches the flame of enthusiasm with an ardour Inconceivable to persons of a more phlegmaticor temperament. The quarrel, therefore, of his neighbour, his friend, his relation, is his own quarrel he kindles as he goes along, passion. takes entire possession of him, and under the influence of this temporary frenzy, he is capable of committing the greatest excesses. Women are more tender, more humane, and affectionate, than men; but when in a passion they have much less self-government, and have, perhaps, done more atrocious deeds. The wretched condition of society in Ireland, |