steward, is the abode of the transmigrated soul of some West-Indian planter. I have been these two days in listening to, and retributing those injuries his tyranny has inflicted, in spite of his rage, eloquence and threats, none of which have been spared. The victims of his oppression haunt me in my walks, fearful least their complaints should come to the knowledge of this puissant major domo.

"But why," said I to one of the sufferers, after a detail of seized geese, pounded cows, extra-labour cruelly extorted, ejectments, &c. given in all the tedious circumlocution of Irish oratory,-why not complain to my father when he comes among you?"

"Becaise, please your Honour, my lord stays but a few days at a time here together, nor that same neither besides, we be loth to trouble his lordship, for feard it would be after coming to measter Clendinning's ears, which would be the ruination of us all; and then when my lord is at the Lodge, which he mostly is, he is always out amongst the quality, so he is."

"What lodge?" said I.

"Why, please your Honour, where my lord mostly takes up when he comes here; the place that belonged to measter Clendinning, who called it the Lodge, becaise the good old Irish name that was upon it happened not to hit his fancy."

In the evening I asked Clendinning if my father did not sometimes reside at the Lodge? He seemed sur prised at my information, and said, that was the name he had given to a ruinous old place, which, with a few acres of indifferent land, he had purchased out of his hard labour, and which his lord having taken an unaccountable liking to, rented from him, and was actually the tenant of his own steward.

O! what arms of recrimination I should be furnished with against my rigidly moral father, should I discover this remote Cassino (for remote I understand it is) to be the harem of some wild Irish Sultana; for I strongly suspect "that metal more attractive" than the cause he assigns, induces him to pay an annual visit

to a country, to which, till within these few years, he nurtured the strongest prejudices. You know there are but nineteen years between him and my brother; and his feelings are so unblunted by vicious pursuits, his life has been guided by such epicurean principles of enjoyment, that he still retains much of of the first warm flush of juvenile existence, and has only sacrificed to time, its follies and its ignorance. I swear, at this moment he is a younger man than either of his sons; the one chilled by the coldness of an icy temperament, into premature and old age, and the other ! ! !

*

*

Murtoch has been to see me. I have procured him a little farm, and am answerable for the rent. I sent his wife some rich wine; she is recovering very fast. Murtoch is all gratitude for the wine, but I perceive his faith still lies in the bacon!

LETTER IV.

TO J. D. ESQ. M. P.

I CAN support this wretched state of non-existence, this articular mortis, no longer. I cannot read-I cannot think-nothing touches, nothing interests me ; neither is it permitted me to indulge my sufferings in solitude. These hospitable people still weary me with their attentions, though they must consider me as a sullen misanthropist, for I persist in my invisibility. I I can escape them no longer but by flight-professional study is out of the question, for a time at least. I mean, therefore, to "take the wings of" some fine morning, and seek a change of being in a change of place; for a perpetual state of evagation alone, keeps up the flow and ebb of existence in my languid frame. My father's last letter informs me he is obliged by business to postpone his journey for a month; this leaves me so much the longer master of myself: By the

time we meet, my mind may have regained its native tone. Laval too, writes for a longer leave of absence, which I most willingly grant. It is a weight removed of my shoulders; I would be savagely free.

I thank you for your welcome letters, and will do what I can to satisfy your antiquarian taste; and 1 would take your advice, and study the Irish language, were my powers of comprehension equal to the least of the philological excellencies of Tom Thumb or Goddy Two Shoes, but alas!

"Se perchetto a me Stesso quale acquisto,
"Faro mai che me piaccia."*

Villa di Marino, Atlantic Ocean,

Having told Mr. Clendinning that I should spend a few days in wandering about the country, I mounted my horse. So I determined to roam free and unrestrained by the presence of a servant, to Mr. Clendinning's utter amazement; I ordered a few changes of linen, my drawing book and pocket escritoir, to be put up in a small valise, which, with all due humility, I had strapped on the back of my steed, who, by the bye, I expect will be as celebrated as the Rozinante of Don Quixote, or the Beltenbros L' Amadis de Gaul; and thus accoutred, set off on my peregrination, themost listless knight that ever entered on the lists of errantry.

You will smile, when I tell you my first point of attraction was the Lodge; to which (though with some difficulty) I found my way; for it lies in a most wild and unfrequented direction, but so infinitely superior in situation to M- house, that I no longer wonder at my father's preference. Every feature that constitutes either the beauty or sublime of landscape, is here finely combined. Groves druidically venerablemountains of Alpine elevation-expansive lakes, and the boldest and most romantic sea coast I ever beheld, alternately diversify and enrich its scenery; while a * Torquatto Tasso.

number of young and flourishing plantations evince the exertion of a taste in my father, he certainly has not betrayed in the disposition of his hereditary domains. I found this Tusculum inhabited only by a decent old man and his superannuated wife. Without informing them who I was, I made a feigning wish to make the place a pretext for visiting it. The old man smiled at the idea, and shook his head, presuming that I must indeed be a stranger in the country, as my accent denoted for that this spot belonged to a great English Lord, who he verily believed would not resign it for his own fine place some miles off; but when with some jesuitical artifice, I endeavoured to trace the cause of this attachment, he said it was his lordship's fancy, and that there was no accounting for people's fancies.

"That is all very true," said I; "but is it the house only that seized on your lord's fancy?"

"Nay, for the matter of that," said he, "the lands are far more finer; the house, though large, being no great things.' I begged in this instance to judge for myself, and a few shillings procured me not only free egress, but the confidence of the ancient Cice

rone.

This fancied harem, however, I found not only divested of its expected fair inhabitant, but wholly des titute of furniture except what filled a bed-room occupied by my father, and an apartment which was locked. The old man with some tardiness produced the key, and I found this mysterious chamber was only a study; but closer inspection discovered, that almost all the books related to the language, history, and antiquities of Ireland.

So you see, in fact, my father's Sultana is no other than the Irish Muse; and never was son so tempted to become the rival of his father, since the days of Antiochus and Stratonice. For at a moment when my taste, like my senses, is flat and palled, nothing can operate so strongly as an incentive, as novelty. I really suspect that my father was aware of this, and that he had despoiled the temple, to prevent me be

coming a worshipper at the same shrine. For the old man said he had received a letter from his lord, ordering away all the furniture (except that of his own bed.room and study) to the manor house; the study and bed-room, however, will suffice me, and here I shall certainly pitch my head-quarters until my father's arrival.

*

I have already had some occasions to remark, that the warm susceptible character of the Irish is open to the least indication of courtesy and kindness.

My politesse to this old man, opened every sluice of confidence in his breast, and as we walked down the avenue together, having thrown the bridle over my horse's neck, and offered him my arm, for he was lame, I inquired how this beautiful farm fell into the hands of lord M-; still concealing from him that it was his son who demanded the question.

"Why, your Honor," said he, "the farm, though beautiful, is small; however, it made the best part of what remained of the patrimony of the Prince when

"What Prince?" interrupted I, amazed.

"Why, the Prince of Inismore, to be sure, jewel, whose great forefathers once owned the half of the barony, from the Red Bog to the sea coast. Och! it is a long story, but I have heard my grandfather tell it a thousand times, how a great prince of Inismore, in the wars of Queen Elizabeth, here had a castle, and a great tract of land on the borders, of which he was deprived, as the story runs, becaise he would neither cut his glibbs, shave his upper lip, nor shorten his shirt; and so he was driven, with the rest of us, beyond the pale. The family, however, after a

*From the earliest settlement of the English in this country, an inquisitorial persecution had been carried on against the national costume. In the reign of Henry V, there was an act passed against even the English colonists wearing a whisker on the upper lip, like the Irish; and, in 1616, the Lord Deputy, in his instructions to the Lord President and Council, direcred, that such as appeared in Irish robes or mantles, should be punished by fine and imprisonment,