greatly liked the excitement of a skirmish. I am told that after receiving a severe castigation from O'Connell, he would skip into the committee-room, rubbing his hands in the highest glee, and exclaiming, "Well, had not we a nice debate?"

Speaking of the victory of 1829, Mr. O'Connell expressed his conviction that one of the causes that induced the Duke of Wellington to grant Emancipation, was his grace's knowledge that a large part of the army were devoted to the Catholic cause.

"After the Clare election," said he, "there was a remarkably fine young man named Ryan, as handsome a fellow as ever I saw, who had been made a serjeant, although not more than a year in the army. In one of our popular processions, we encountered a marching detachment; and as my carriage passed, this young serjeant walked away from his men, and asked me to shake hands with him. In acting as I now do,' said he, 'I am guilty of infringing military discipline. Perhaps I may be flogged for it--but I don't care-let them punish me in any way they please-let them flog me, and send me back to the ranks-I have had the satisfaction of shaking the hand of the Father of my country.' There were many unequivocal indications of a similar spirit in the army; and doubtless such

a spirit among the troops was not without its due weight with the duke. As to my enthusiastic friend, the young serjeant, I afterwards learned that his little escapade was overlooked—and right glad I was to find that his devotion to me entailed no him."

punishment upon

In talk such as this passed the day. We slept at the Royal Oak, and at six o'clock next morning we resumed our journey. At Kilkenny, where we breakfasted, many of the leading Repealers of the city waited on Mr. O'Connell to urge him to resume immediately the agitation of the Repeal of the Union. He replied, that he felt well inclined to comply with their advice, but that as the period had not yet quite expired which he had resolved on employing in the experiment to obtain from the Imperial Legislature the performance of the pledge they had given in 1834, " to do justice to Ireland," he would postpone the renewed agitation of Repeal until the end of the session of the following year.

From Kilkenny we proceeded to Clogheen, in the county Tipperary, near which village we quitted the turnpike-road, and ascended the mountains that form the boundary between the counties of Tipperary and Waterford. The weather, which had been showery at Clogheen, became rapidly worse, and ere we had made half a mile of ascent, it blew

a perfect storm. Nothing can exceed the desert bleakness of the northern, or Tipperary side, of these mountains. Mile after mile our zigzag road

led us up in traverses, through scenes of apparently unreclaimable sterility, unenlivened with a human habitation. Thousands of acres are nearly destitute of surface-earth, and are covered with fragments of stone. The only living beings that we met for several miles were two miserable sheep, that cowered from the storm beneath a dyke. When at length we reached the highest elevation attained by the road, the quality of the ground seemed somewhat less sterile. We passed a lonely hollow among the hills, in the basin of which was a dark pool surrounded with steep, mossy banks. Some miles of nearly level road succeeded, the quality of the soil still improving; traces of agricultural industry appeared, and we soon passed well-built farmhouses and thriving plantations belonging to the tenants of the Duke of Devonshire, who is universally allowed to be a humane and considerate landlord, although an absentee.*

* From the example afforded by such landlords as the Duke of Devonshire, some persons have sought a defence of absenteeism in general. These persons say, "Look at the comfortable and prosperous tenantry on the duke's estate, or on the estates of Lords A., B., or C., who are absentees. Contrast the comforts of these tenants with the wretched condition of the tenants of

The southern descent of the mountains between Tipperary and Waterford is as rich and beautiful as the northern side is barren. The road leads for several miles through ravines clothed with luxuriant ash and oak woods, whose solitudes are enlivened with the wild music of rushing waters. From these defiles we emerged beneath the Castle of Lismore.

The greater part of the drive from Lismore to Mount Melleraye is exquisitely beautiful. It is shaded, as far as Cappoquin, by embowering oaks and beech of old growth. On the Melleraye side of Cappoquin, the road becomes very abrupt, and in one or two places dangerous from its great steepness. It runs for about a mile along the upper verge

certain tyrannical resident landlords; and then, (if you can,) call residence a blessing or absenteeism an evil!"

It requires little pains to expose the sophistry of such a plea as this. The benevolent absentee landlord is not benevolent because he is an absentee, but because he has a humane heart and just principles. His absenteeism has nothing to do with his benevolence; unless, perhaps, it may prevent its full expansion. In like manner, the resident tyrant is not a tyrant because he is resident; but because he is extravagant and avaricious ; or because he hates the religious and political principles of the people. If a greater number of the benevolent proprietors of large estates who are now absentees resided in Ireland, their presence and example would powerfully tend to shame their grasping and exterminating brethren out of their tyranny.

The advocates of absenteeism are in the habit of assuming that the tyrannical landlords are chiefly to be found among the residents. This assumption, I believe, to be directly the reverse of the fact.

of a wooded glen, through which flows a brook, that, when we passed, was swollen and turbid from the recent rains. I had been looking anxiously out for the monastery, but night fell before we were within two miles of it.

At length we reached the abode of the Trappists, and on arriving at the outer gate we were met by a procession consisting of the abbot, the sub-prior, and about twenty of the brethren, all dressed in their monastic habiliments. The abbot, in episcopal mitre and robes, and bearing his crozier, led forward Mr. O'Connell by the hand, whilst I was conducted by the sub-prior in a similar manner. The monks then followed, chanting a vesper hymn. The loud music had a grand effect as it rolled along the lofty roof. We proceeded through the aisle of the monastery church, of which the extent, partially revealed by the torches borne by the brethren, seemed greater than it really was, from the utter darkness that obscured its farther extremity. When the usual vesper service had been performed in a chapel adjoining the principal church, an address of welcome was presented to Mr. O'Connell, who pronounced an appropriate reply. He begged permission to constitute himself counsel to the monastery, whose inmates were at that period threatened with litigation. The matter alluded to has since been set right.