occasionally to shew that still they lived," and a busy hum arose, the sure forerunner into the neighbouring apartment, of the gushing of the waters of inspiration, deemed there, too long sealed up, the suspended cry of the keeners was vigorously resumed, as their experienced organs caught with unerring precision, the various indications, by which the approach of the liquids was ascertained, and all things denoted the commencement of the best portion of the proper business of the night, needless is it to note the encreasing symptoms of life, manifested in this numerous assemblage, as the potent fumes of the dew and the malt, ascended in bland conjunction with the blue vapours of the Indian leaf, converse waxed pleasant and inter pocula many excellent things were spoken, which haplessly no recording muse has reported; but the choice spirits had grouped themselves round the door of the Zem Zem, wherein were placed the strong waters, and without actually monopolizing to themselves all the good cheer that flowed therefrom, they doubtless consumed in the way of tolls and dues &c., the lion's portion. The effects of such close attention to business, became by degrees very evident, until those further removed from the scene, on whom the deportment of these people had been productive of an abstemiousness by no means desirable, began with great satisfaction to observe symptoms of the progess of the fumes of their potations, which announced themselves in high words, and finally in the upraising for the purpose of surgical operation, of that well known instrument of phlebotomy, the shilelah; it is not my province to undertake the vindication of feelings, which could derive pleasure from such a termination of festive enjoyment, some dogs will bay the brightest moon, and why should so large an assemblage as the present be without its share of this canine breed, however, in denouncing the conduct of the malcontents they happened to be right, every well meaning person in a moment was at his post, in aiding and assisting in the forcible expulsion of the combatants into the bawn without, but the general confusion of all this was inexpressible, the sorrowing lament of the keeners within, the shrieks of females, and the yells and hurras of those in active service without, combined together to make a most extraordinary scene; it was not however long suffered to continue, the makers of peace, a class too numerous in this instance, by using the most forcible arguments on the indurated crania of its violators, and sometimes reducing to reason an officious spectator, as well as a hero in the melée soon contrived to restore order, and procure the night to proceed in peace without further disturbance, amongst the preservers of the general repose, few engaged with more intensity to restore regularity, than "the shepherd of the main sea deep," as Spencer would call the sailor,-in all the extravagance of virtue, he rushed into the middle of the tumult, and applied a short bluff cudgel which he generally retained beside him, with such rapidity and dexterity, wonderful when the poor fellow's apparent want of strength was considered, to that part of the head of the ringleader, where report says, the organ of combativeness was developed with most flowery profusion, that in a few moments, he was found standing prostrate at his feet," this feat as it should, met with very general applause, some compliments were bestowed on the old man's prowess, which would have been more acceptable, but that many of them too strongly reminded him of his too near approach to that "ineluctabile tempus," when he was finally to repose with his fathers;-after the ceasing of this turmoil, some few of the rioters were seen scattered over the surrounding fields, with groups of struggling friends toiling around them, in efforts

to compel their return to their homes, more of them remained without in the bawn, and a few more returned and slunk into obscure corners, seemingly much refreshed and comforted by the exertion of their natural genius for riot, for with them on such occasions "'tis nature speaks, and nature will be heard," one of these, my good friend, the schoolmaster of the parishr pointed out to me, look at the drunked rascal" said he, "he has Cain's "mark on his nose, nature has branded and seared it with a red hot iron, "she has tatooed him in a mode peculiar to herself, assuredly, it may be "said that he carries on him prima facie evidence of his propensities, “ha, ha, ha,”—and truly, the prominent feature of the person alluded to, gave unerring indication of deep and frequent potations, he was nevertheless, a loose and active fellow, I was informed that he had formerly served his country as a soldado, but he had committed self abduction by deserting, and shutting both ears to the call of honour, his costume bore sad marks of wear and tear. Though I believe no antiquary, his chapeau of felt was a true representative of the ancien Barred; the frown, which once was flat, had ascended into an acute cone, and the leaf beneath, had folded itself up around, and made an admirable reservoir in time of moisture for all the rain which descended thereon,-while during the ascendaney of the dog star, it formed a cool and sheltered repository for his ebon colour ed dude looking at his lack stocking shins, you had sworn he was a Persian Gheber, the sacred element of fire had so marked and scorched a thou sand circlets upon them, during his frequent and protracted visits to its shrine near the chimney corner, he would have afforded a fine subject for the peneil of Cruikshank. But amongst the group amidst whom I found myself haply seated, there were a few characters, who, though not in exterior circumstances quite as grotesque, yet were they in all other respects as worthy of record; of these, the most conspicuous in contempt of question, was the before-mentioned Philomath, he was a low, round and chubbed little man, accoutred in a light coloured old fashioned wig and dark attire, with a huge pair of highly polished buckles gracing his shoes; for many years had he now been the head of a little university, of the classical grade, in the neighbourhood, renowned far beyond the mountains in which it lay embosom ed; numerous elymosynary disciples, commonly called poor scholars, and many of them candidates for the church, had long spread his fame abroad, and as a skillful instructor in the ancient languages of Greece and Rome, an euridite lecturer in the English Grammar, as laid down by Bishop Louth, and in the science of Book-Keeping, by single and double entry, according to the Italian method,-in Navigation, Fortification and Gunnery, he used to boast he had no rival;-but the envious fates had within the last two years sent to him one who questioned those high pretensions, a professor of the very same "sciences," who had been successful in the abduction of a wife from Kerry, and conceiving that he had thereby formed a connexion with the boundary of that county, settled himself in the neighbourhood almost under the nose of our pedagogue, and by fair or foul persuasion, placed himself over some of the late pupils of the ancient master, a circumstance, which in no degree tended to endear him to that venerable personage, but the majority of the parishioners still adhered to their old friend, he was endeared by long residence among them, his vast learning, and above all, his being a poet of the first water, was a recommendation of the highest kind, he was a very Ossian in the vernacular tongue;-from his cradle, like Pope, he lisped in numbers, nay, some have gone so far as to

say that he composed sonnets in his nurse's arms, but of this, no decisive evidence has ever been offered, he was besides in all things relating to legendary and superstitious lore, perfectly a man of the people, he believed, and he feared, or he doubted with them, while his learned competitor it was said, was rather a scoffer of those things, which our friend never failed to make tell against him, with the parents in the neighbourhood; during the entire time of the scuffle, he continued without unbending his mind from its own high course, by seeming to notice such an unimportant event, to keep a large share of the conversation to himself, and as he found one willing and patient auditor amongst those who surrounded, he selected him as the representative of the others, to receive the full tide of knowledge, information, quaint pleasantry and complaint which he was profusely pouring forth. This favoured auditor was no other than Mr. Thaddeus Brady, vulgo Thyge Brady, the parish clerk, and right hand man of the priest; he was a personage of grave and solemn deportment, becoming his reverend station and connexion, on whose countenance, the wind and weather of 60 years had produced a dusky brown, which told of little of in-door occupation, a few thin elf locks lay scattered over his region of organs or bumps, and his face was well garnished with a huge projecting nose, widely distended, and deeply embrowned; he held constantly grasped in his left hand a huge horn or mull, well primed with his favourite luxury, of which, ever and anon, he indulged himself with copious pinches, whose lavish extravagance struck terror into the souls of the different snuff takers, who silently observed his fell visitations to said mull, and inwardly as they beheld, prayed with unwonted churlishness that their boxes may remain inviolate and unspoliated by a visit from his ravaging finger and thumb. Amongst this very interesting group, the causes of, and the facts attending the decease of the woman whose wake was holding, were fully discussed, and amply detailed; and the following is the substance of what I could collect relative to this matter, amidst the broken and varied conversation which arose upon it.

The brother of the deceased, held by unanimous consent in his native district, a character, which secured to him the unbounded attachment of a wide spreading circle of friends and relatives; though not naturally quarrelsome, he was never known to remain back when his faction or friends, thought it proper to try their strength, with the clan or party, which by hereditary right and usage was opposed to them, and his feats of strength and activity in the rustic battle, were the theme and the admiration of his own party, while they taught their opponents to respect him as a very formidable enemy. At the pattern, he was the love of the fair; at the goal, in the division of men, he was eagerly sought after by both sides, and young and old united in agreeing that he was the flower of the parish, the beau ideal of an accomplished Kerryman seemed to be realized in him, since his penmanship was unexceptionable, his grammatical knowledge was undoubted, he was equalled by few in lofting of stones, and he possessed straight and shapely knees;-but what avails knowledge, cr strength, or beauty, against the dart of the grim enemy of mortality. The rival factions, the Montagues and the Capulets of the borders, met in dread hostility, to vindicate the claims of one to a victory in the last conflict, by proving their strength again, and to wipe away from the other, the foul imputation of their having suffered a defeat; the entire strength of both parties was on this occasion brought into the field,

nay, the very women anxious for the honour of their families, "armed themselves with stockings filled with stones, a dreadful weapon in the hands of those amazons, more dangerous, and often more fatal than the best and quickest oak sapling, wielded by the other sex ;-the conflict was one of more animosity, and longer continuance than any which had hitherto disgraced those regions, and as it was determined to be decisive of the pretensions of one or other of the parties, every thing which strength, or valour, or stratagem, could effect, was essayed, and the minds of men were wound up to their utmost pitch of excitation and exertion; many had already fallen at both sides, some dangerously wounded, and report stated one or two mortally, when the yeomanry force rushed in, to prevent further loss of life; but the combatants were too resolutely bent on victory, to desist on such an interference, they, as if by mutual consent, turned their strength and their fury on the intruders, and such was the ferocity and vigour of their united attack, that they compelled the red-coats to make a precipitate retreat from the fray, leaving nevertheless, some few of them stretched, as one of the eye witnesses, my informant, expressed it, in faints in the dykes by the road side;-but this victory was fatal to the unfortunate brother-in-law of our host, he received a mortal wound from a yeoman's bullet, and survived but a few moments, being borne a corpse out of the scene of action. The effect of this lamentable circumstance on his sister, who loved him greatly, was truly distressing; to her husband and and friends, she became inconsolable for his loss, rejected every attempt to soothe her affliction, and alone in her apartment, would spend her days in wailing and tears, or would wander out, unconscious of purpose, or object, indulging in sad recollections, and unavailing sorrow; on these latter occasions, she was often seen to go in the direction of a sunny hill, which lay at some distance from the house, where was one of those round entrenched forts, or lisses, so common in Ireland, and so puzzling to antiquaries. This was considered haunted ground, and it was seldom that the foot of the intruder was within its solemn circle; a thick growth of white thorn which crowned the earthen rampart, threw a gloomy shade over the space within, and rendered it a meet retirement where (in the mind of superstition) the aerial beings who haunt these spots might love to dwell; unearthly melody had often been heard by those who passed near this spot, and sounds and voices mingled with the breeze, which belonged to no mortal beings; tradition reported the names of many who had been struck within the precincts of the rath, and mothers would caution their offspring against approaching its fearful limits. It was to this place that the mourner would often repair, and it was observed that she gradually became more attached to it; but after the eve of midsummer she never more visited it,she was seized with the illness which terminated in her death, nor to the enquiries of her friends, would she ever in more than vague and unsatisfactory replies, tell what it was she saw or heard at the liss;-during her illness however, she was not so uncommunicative, relative to frequent visions which she had in the silence of the night, she declared she had been often visited by her brother, accompanied by several departed friends, whom she well remembered, many of them long dead, together with others, strangers to her, they informed her that they dwelt in a subteranean city, where all the splendours and pleasures that imagination could conceive, awaited them, that all the amusements which they loved in life, they still enjoyed, and that invisibly those scenes and places where they had once resorted,

they still frequented; they were desirous that she should join them, and her friends and brother repeatedly beseeched her to consent to her departure, and that her illness should soon cease;-but her natural love of life, and the pain of separating from those relatives who still lived, induced her at all times to resist their solicitations, and her reasons influenced some of those deceased suitors to desist from pressing their wishes, while more of them and her brother with them, persisted in their desire, the consequence was a battle, a violent tempest marked the night on which it was fought, a field adjoining the house seems to have been the place wherein they engaged, clotted blood was perceived in different parts, the next morning, and even the walls of the dwelling house were stained with blood, all marks of the fierce conflict which decided the fate of this woman; her illness after this encreased, the interference of her departed friends or enemies was often apparent, they assailed her in different ways, sometimes dropped pins into her drink, or would often advise her to drown herself, a gospel was procured for her to protect her from their attempts, but this was soon afterwards snatched from her in the fields, and yet again, strangely returned to her the next night. One day, walking abroad, a large man came to her of unearthly appearance, she screamed aloud with affright, some of the domestics ran out to her assistance, and she shewed them a bird hopping through the bushes, which she said had just now appeared to her in the form of a great large man, they ran after it in pursuit to kill it, but she cried out to them to desist, as it was better let it alone, she finally became subject to the fits;-the falling sickness, as it is called, is deemed peculi arly the infliction of the good people, and with them, its cure is generally deemed to rest;-the priest may exercise his spiritual power beneficially, it is believed, to relieve the sufferer; but few of the clergy have ever been known to interfere, and such as have, it is said, have done it at their own peril, as the disorder is only removed from the patient to the physician;the legitimate remedy then, is to leave the matter to the "good folk" themselves, who, if they are inclined to spare their victim, generally present an herb of sanatory power to him or her when in the fields, and for that pose; doors are left open during the fits, that the sick mayif the remedy be offered, avail themselves of it, and follow the "sheefrogue," (or whoever it is that presents it,) to the next field, and it is deemed unlucky on that account, while the fit is on, for any one to cross the person afflicted, or stand between him or her and the door;-after the disorder had therefore manifested itself in the present instance, there was no door to be found shut, night or day in the house, though she had announced the conflict which had taken place between her deceased relatives, and that those who were for sparing her had sustained a defeat, yet, hopes were entertained, that the friendly party might be enabled to give the powerful herb, and save In no instance was the supernatural interference of the diona maha, or good people, more conspicuous than in the extraordinary power of song, which she acquired during her illness, her voice as a singer, was always very bad, but from the moment of her being "struck," it acquired a compass and power of melody, seldom equalled; in some of her fits, she sung the sweet "moureen bawn," in a manner that astonished and delighted, while it filled with awe and fear, all who heard her, for this singularly beautiful air, seems to be the charter-melody of the good people, as it has been often heard in the close of evening, by those who have approached too near their lisses or forts. In one of these fits,

her.

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