Mifs Owenfon left Dublin in the dote) was walking in the vicinity of autumn of 1806, with the intention Sligo at a very early hour, when a of rambling through fuch fcenes in found, wild, low, and plaintive, the north-west of Connaught as fhe fought his ear; and approaching the had not yet vifited; and it was there fpot from whence it feemed to prothat the compofed the different ceed, he obferved an elderly female fketches which occupy thefe two vo- leaning over a little paling which lumes. They will not detract from encircled a cabin. Her hair was difher name. Her picture of the Irish hevelled, her eyes full of tears, and peafantry is a highly interefting one; her voice, though broken and inarand the warm benevolence that ticulate, refpired in the intervals of prompts her many withes for their her deep-heaved fobs, a melancholy welfare and amelioration, do as much recitative accompanied by thefe fimple honour to her heart, as the language words- A few days are gone by ; it is conveyed in does to her pen.- fhe entered this gate in all her beauty Many characterstic anecdotes are and health; to-morrow the will pass fcattered through the volumes, which it without life, and the never will en are highly interefting. ter it more.' This funeral fong was the impromptu requiem of a wretched mother, whofe only daughter (a young and lovely girl) had expired the night before.'

A young peafant in Weftmeath gave me the following account of his family, which I believe is an epitome of the general state of the peafantry in a county not thirty miles from the metropolis. The boy was the eldeft of feven children though fcarcely twelve years old, and of courte the only one able to labour; in the fum mer and harveft feafon he earned four-pence a day, his father worked for fix-pence and eight-pence a day thro' the yca; they paid fix pounds for an acre of oats, forty fillings a year for grafs for their cow, and for-ty fhillings for their cabin and a little ground for their potatoes; in winter, when the cow was dry, they lived upon oaten bread, and potatoes and falt. Engaged with the care of feven children, the mother could give little affiftance except by fpinning founetimes and out of the year's hire of the father, Sundays and holidays were deducted.'

This fhews indeed that the Iith peafantry are reduced to a very low fate, and policy and humanity all.c demand that their condition thould be ameliorated. The following anecdote refpecting this clafs of people is a highly interefting one :

But a few days back, a mufical profeffor (from whom I had the anec

The heavieft curfe that an Irish pealant can breath upon his enemy. is, the fcreech of the morning be upon you, of which the following explanation is given by mifs Owen fon :

• When the dawn rifes for the first time on the remains of a beloved and deceafed object, thofe feelings of for row which were till then faintly expreffed, or filently betrayed, become. wild and vehement in their indul gence; and the thrick of defpair which ufhers in the dawn's grey light to the bed of death, may indeed well, be confidered as an anathema by the ear and the heart on which it falls.'

Our authorefs fometimes fhews herself to be equally able to wield the pen of humorous delineation, as of. penfive melancholy. The following. is fotruly characteriftical of the Irith character, and furnithes fo amuting a fpecimen of mils Owenfon's powers, that we cannot refrain from prefending it to the reader :--

6

My rambles and frequent converfations with the peafantry in the neighbourhood of L*** houfe, have obtained me a degree of ruftic notoriety,

ety, to which I ftand indebted for a bare-footed and bare-headed to Munvifit from mr. Thady O'Conolan, a fter, where the best schools were then school-mafter in the neighbourhood, held; that they commenced their phiand a perfonage not only highly lofophic pilgrimage poor and friendeteemed by his rural difciples, but lefs; but that they begged their way, looked up to by hd intelligent and that the name of poor Scholar neighbours as a prodigy of learning, procured them every where friends erudition, and genius. He intro- and fubfifience: that having heard duced himself, by faying, he had much of the celebrity of a schoolheard I was fond of Irith compofiti- mafter in the county of Clare, he on, and that he had waited on me to and his adventurous companions dimention he had fome of the poems rected their steps towards his feminaof Offian, which were much at my ry; but (added Thady) it being fervice. The Irith' (he added with a grazing country, and of courfe no a brogue that beggars all conception), hofpitality to be found there (meanthe Irifh is the finest and loftieft ing that it was thinly inhabited), we tongue in the world: the English could not get a fpot to fhelter our

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can never come near it, and the Greek heads in the neighbourhood of the fchool; fo being a tight fet of Connaught boys, able and ftrong, we carried off the fchool-mafter one fine night, and never ftopped till we landed him on the other fide of the Shannon, when a priest gave us a chapelhoufe, and fo we got learning and hofpitality to boot, and the fchoolmaster made a great fortune in time, all Connaught flocking to him. and now here I am the head of a fine fe minary myfelf.' He informed me that he had fifty pupils; that the head clafs were in Homer, and did not pay for their tuition, as they affifted him to teach the reft; that all boys of the name of O'Conolan were alfo taught gratis, and the reft paid according to the means of their parents, from une thilling to four a quarter; he added that he had then five female eleves,

(

to whom (faid he) I am teaching philofophy, the humanities and mamatics, to give them a genteel idea of becoming tutoreffefs in gentlemens' families.' After fome further converfation, mr. Thady Q'Conolan departed, but not without a promise of our visiting his academy the following day.

alone is worthy of being compared to it. He then with great enthufiafm repeated the defcription of Fion's fhield in Irish, and Homer's defcription of that of Achilles, giving (with great exultation) the preference to the former; as he did to Offian's account of his father's hounds, over the dogs of Ovid: and then with the utmost gravity declared his intention of tranflating the Eneaid, and fome of Terence's plays, into Irith. The latter (he continued) I will teach to my fcholars, who may play it yet upon one of the great London ftages to admiration.'

When I complimented him on the extent of his erudition, and exprefled my aftonishment at his having acquired it in fo remote a fituation, he replied: Young lady, I went far and near for it, as many a poor fcholar did before me for I could conftrue Homer before I ever put on fhoe or flocking, aye, or a hat either, which to be fure I never did till I was twenty years of age.' He then at my request gave me a sketch of his peripatetic ftudies. When he was a young man (he faid) there were but few fchools in Connaught, and thofe few but bad and that it was not unusual for eight or ten boys who had the love of learning frong upon them,' to fet off

:

6

The lyceum of this Connaught fage, is a miferable cabin on the fide of a very defolate wood. The found of our horfes' feet brought a number

of

of his young difciples to the door, dery, while their eyes were fixed on the clad in a drapery light and frugal as vifitors; and three tall fellows were Philofophy herfelf could dictate; for endeavouring to read all at the fame neither the Greek fandal, the Roman time out of an old tattered volume of perones, nor the Irith brogue, fecured Virgil. There (faid Thady pointtheir naked feet from the damp earth- ing to the inom), there is my en floor of the academy. The next fanctum fanon: there I teach moment Thady himself appeared in Homer, philofophy and the matheall the majefty of pedagogue power: matics and taking down an old his hair, drefs, and manier were all book (which had fympathized in the admirable, and left the Lingo and destiny of Virgil) he exclaimed : O'Sullivan of O'Keefe far behind; This is the only Homer I have; his low clumfy figure, clerical ton- and though feven boys read out of it fore, rubicund face; his wrapping daily, it never caufes a moment's coat, according to the old Irish col- difpute: whereas, if I had two young tume, faftened with a fkewer, the gentlemen ftudying in it, my Homer flecves unoccupied, and the collar of would be a bone of contention to his fhirt thrown open; combined them from morning till night.' Inwith his Greek and Latin quotations, deed Thady endeavoured continually his rich brogue, and affected dignity, to imprefs us with an idea of the to render him a finished character. fubordination and civilized manners Having reprimanded his pupils for of his fcholars, and we faw nothing their want of good manners, he wel- that in the leaft degree contradicted comed us with a look and air that his affertions; he affured us that the feemed to convince us, as well as labourer who earned but fixpence a them, that their dereliction from de- day, would fooner live upon potatoes corum proceeded not from any defi- and falt, than refuse a little learning ciency of precept or example on the to his child. I have,' faid he, part of their mafter. He then apo- above twenty boys who are come logized for the abfence of his fift clafs, from diftant parts to me, who begged who, he faid, he intended fhould their way, and who are now mainhave confrued fome of Homer for tained among the poor of the neighus; but that they had gone to cut bourhood, who, far from confiderturf for a poor diftreffed family in the ing them a burthen, were so eager neighbourhood, and that for that day to have them, that to avoid jealoufy, the Trojan plains were refigned for I was obliged to have lots drawn for the bog. It was but the other day them; the boys indeed are grateful, (faid he) they built up that cabin and make the best returns they can yonder for a poor old widow, and I by working early and late for their gave them a holiday for it and my patrons when not engaged with me.' blefling into the bargain." Having procured a holiday for his pupils, we now take leave of Thady; and if to be a fchool-mafter, it is requifite to be more or less than man,' as Le Sage declares, Thady certainly conceived himfelf the former, as he detailed the merits of his feminary, and the claffic progress of his difciples.'

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The interior of Thady's cabin perfectly correfponded with its external afpect. It was divided into two apartments, which boafted no other furniture than an old deal table covered with copy-books and flates, and a few boards placed on ftones which ferved as feats to the young ftudents. fome of whom were poring over the Seven wife Mafters of Greece; others, vainly held a Cor- muft sonclude.

With this, our extracts and our criticism of thefe interesting volumes

ORIGINAL

Long then shall plenty bless the land,

Her coafts with grateful commerce (mile ;
And long shall freedom, hand in hand,

With arts and science grace this ifle ;
And proudly shall the muses raise
Thee heroes deeds--the patriots' praise,

And ever-meritorious fame:
And loudly to the shores around,
And hills and vallies shall resound

With George's migbiy name.
Clonmell, Jan. 1, 1808.

D. HICCEUS.

S

1

For the Ancient Hibernian Magazine, Her proper flature gives delight,

And strikes the heart as soon as fight!
The Limerick Beauties of 1808.

Miss M-ch-n. Do.
for beauty is their own ;

Sight is the wound which Chloe gives, The feeling heart, fimplicity of life,

Who lees her, loves ; yet loves, and lives : And elegance and taste : the faultless form, More fierce the glance froin M-ch-n's Shap'd by the hand of harmony; the cheek, Where the live crimson, thro' the native We see, we love but oh! we die!

eye : white, Soft-fhooting o'er the face diffuses bloom, Miss O'B-n. Bing-S-h-ol, Do. And every nameless grace; the parted lip, But alı! my mufe is much too weak Like the red-rose bud moist with morning of this enchanting nymph to speak :dew,

In Ann ten thousand charms are seen, Breathing delight; the snowy swell. A modest--with an angel-mien ! ing breaft:

Miss

Tn. Do.
The look resistless, piercing to the soul,
And by the foul inform’d, when drett in Lovely as fancy can express,

With Tweet fimplicity of dress ; love, She fits high-smiling in the conscious eye! And wears no brilliants but her eyes!

Who coilly trifles can despise,
Miss D-k-n. G-'s-it.

Miss D-ne. Do.
THE lovely young D-k-n has long

Fair D-ne! esteem'd among thy ser, Been fairest of the fairer throng ; Her Shape-her air-her all conspire,

Of ev'sy grace and gift posset ;
To make the gazing world admire !

Renown'd for all that's great and kind,
Beauty

and wit, with worth combind! Miss O'G_y. G's-ft.

Miss M. D-ne. Do.
Fair is O G-y-charming maid !
In all the pride of spring array'd ;

Marg'ret's charms with sweetness joinid, Bleft with the pleasing means t'obtain

Express the beauties of her mind;

Her breath sweet as Arabia's groves,
O'er man a lasting-fure domain !

Where every sweet fpontan'ous roves !
Miss K-g-. G's.lt.

Miss E. D-ne. Do.
K-gol thy form-thy lovely mind,

Whillt dear Eliza's air and mien
Like adamant our senses bind ;
Such beaut'ous look-such innate grace,

Might vie with those of Cyprus' queen ; Attend thy speech-thy fteps-thy face!

For in the dance such grace does Aine,

As makes her gesture all divine.-
Miss R-V-s. Do.
Let Mira all her charms display,

Miss F. Done. Do.
My heart disdains the feeble ray;

But how shall mortal pen defcribe, For all that's bright and gay I find

Sweet Fanny's cheeks with crimson dy'd ? In fair R-v-si form—in fair R-v-s' Who withstand th’ artill’ry of her eyes?

Who can view her without surprize
mind!
Miss R--d. Do.

Miss A. W-4-1. Do.
R-f-d's majestic sweetness too,

But oh! what language can display, With rapture num'rous lovers view

Fair Anna's mind and lovely say? រ:

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