Railway will be completed, and then the tourist may rail right through from Dublin; at present, however, tourists take the Mallow route. Some prefer the Macroom; and in general, with a party, the latter is the more desirable course, as by it you come first on Inchigeela, on the source of the Lee and Glengariffe. I, however, was alone; and as there are no public conveyance from Macroom and Glengariffe, I feared the chance of encountering any one who would join me in posting, so I determined on going by Mallow, and returning by Macroom. It was dark when we reached the town of Killarney, and of course here the annoyance began. I was recommended to the Lake Hotel, and observing a car with the Lake Hotel inscribed on it, I inquired from the driver if there was room at the house, it being a mile and a quarter from the town. "Lots of room," was the reply; and so three other gentlemen and myself got our luggage on the jarvey, and set out for the Lake. The clustering foliage of the trees darkened our path, and nought could be seen till we reached the gate of the avenue leading to the hotel. The gate was opened by a small boy, and forthwith a stream of execrations flowed from our Jehu, because the boy had no light to guide him to the avenue. Threats of complaint were held out to the landlord, but the little fellow said nothing till the driver had exhausted himself, and then he inquired, "How can I show you light if I have got no candle?" Arrived at the hotel, we were agreeably informed there was not even stretching room on the floor; and an English gentleman, one of our party, who had previously written for accommodation, was sadly disappointed. He and myself agreed with the landlord (who directed us, if all else failed, to a lodging for the night in the town) to return to him the following day; and accordingly the four of us again took car to try the Muckross Arms, or the Fox Hotel, each at the pleasant distance, at the hour of eleven o'clock, of about a couple of miles. Both houses were crammed, and so nothing remained but to return to the town, where ultimately we obtained accommodation, the car-driver modestly demanding from each person one shilling and sixpence. Now, the pro

prietors of the hotels should not have cars waiting the arrival of the coaches if there be not accommodation in their houses, nor should they have boys about them whose sole object seemed to be to lie in the most approved fashion. I cannot readily forget the impression of the first glance at the Lakes of Killarney. The islands studding the waters, the wood-crowned hills, the towering mountains, all vividly realise the dream of poet or painter; and the exceeding loveliness of the scene, massed as it was in groups of varied beauty, amply justifies whatever eulogy or description may have been written of it. I am not about to be your guide, for unluckily for comfort there are too many of that idle class of persons at Killarney, and my simple advice to you is—avoid them all. The boatmen we found extremely obliging and courteous, and they will serve all the purposes of a guide, and you thus escape the endless history of the O'Donoghue and his interesting appendices. In fact, a guide to the Gap of Dunloe is a positive imposition; the road is as open as a mail-coach one, and the points of access are so easy, that a child may attain them. We were disappointed with the Gap. It is wanting in the grandeur we anticipated; and with the exception of the view just as the Black Mountain opens on you, it is not comparable in wildness with other places which are suggested-Llanberris or Glencroe. A characteristic incident meets the traveller as he enters the Gap. Out of a wretched cave issues an old woman of destitute and miserable appearance; a story is then told you how her children went to America, leaving her grandchildren with her, and how she supports them by the casual contributions of strangers. But why remain in that lair? you ask. Will the landlord do nothing? Quite the reverse; he pays her so much a week-she refuses to leave the miserable covert-she will not go into the workhouse-because the children and she would be separated; and, of course, the regular levy is inflicted, for her appearance induces sympathy, and the children thus grow up in habits of idleness and beggary. Where is the Rev. Father here? A word from him would settle all this sort of thing; but that is precisely what he will not utter. Again,

"You are

her father's stately demesne. I was very angry; but what right had I to be so? and so, in a most amiable mood, I followed her. "Has papa grown tiresome that you have left him so soon?" "You know," I replied, "I never was a long after-dinner sitter." a good deal altered since you left us." "If it be a compliment, I can safely return it." The slightest start gave intimation that I was making a homethrust; but I was teazed with her apparent coolness, and I only grew savage. Time," said I, "works wonders, and nothing is to me more wonderful than the changes of life. I had thought I might have calculated on even a trifling interest in Miss Eleanor R, in the welfare of the companion of her younger years, but the world seems to have acted here as elsewhere." "Oh, here comes papa; he delights to hear of the world!" With this she left me; and, making an excuse to the old gentleman, I wended my way homewards. What has happened, thought I, to make that gentle heart so callous and so changed, and yet what is all this to me? I cannot expect to be so familiarly treated as when a boy, and what right have I to seek a reason for the change? Morning came, and with it a letter from Eleanor, conveying to me the whole story, and reminding me how, in other years, we had promised to be confiding, and that if ever a crisis happened in our fate, we would seek for a sympathy. I need not repeat it here; suffice it, that having spent some months in Dublin, she had met an officer of the garrison, one whose achievements were of a different character than those of polka-dancing or intriguing, and who had availed himself of the many opportunities which are afforded military men of studying nature in all its phases. It was natural that his fine mind and generous qualities should at once have influenced Eleanor R--and it was very natural that her sweet disposition, and her gentle manners, should have won a chivalrous heart. So it was; they became affianced. He came down to her father's on a visit; and in one of those playful passages which, I believe, occur in the career of lovers, Eleanor began to talk of her early associates, amongst others, of myself. The acute sensitiveness of one

who thinks he has secured a whole heart, and finds a thought wandering elsewhere, induced a taunt; Eleanor resented it, and they met no more. His regiment was ordered to India almost immediately after, and he was amongst the gallant band who perished in the Punjaub. All this you see comes of a voice and the association of its tones; so untrue is the saying, vox et præterea nihil."

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Let me now suggest to you to spend your first day at Killarney in visiting the lower lake, Ross Island, Innisfallen, and the middle lake, which can be done with great ease; second day, the Gap of Dunloe and the upper lake; third day, the walk through Muckross demesne; fourth, the ascent to Mangerton, or some other of the mountains; and, if you remain a fifth, you can take Lord Kenmare's grounds and the several objects of interest in the immediate vicinity of the town. The hotels are extremely moderate, and you may pleasantly pass a week, not dissatisfied with plain fare. There are not so many beggars as I expected to have seen. There is a host of bog-oak and arbutus vendors, but mendicancy, as such, is certainly diminished within the last two or three years, thanks, I believe, to Mr. Herbert.

I need not describe to you the noble road to Glengariffe from Killarney-it is considered a triumph of engineering skill; winding along the mountainous range at an easy ascent, and affording magnificent views of the country. It passes through three tunnels, the longest of which divides Kerry and Cork. Kenmare, where we changed horses, is not a neat town. Empty houses and a straggling street are its characteristics, though it is said that it does a good deal of business, in what I cannot imagine. The road from Kenmare, certainly, is unsurpassable, and the first view of Glengariffe is amongst those things you never forget. The blue lake, the open Bay of Bantry, and the fierce Atlantic, bounding the view; the wooded glens, and the dark-brown hills, and the gurgling of the mountain streams, are things memory loves and lingers on. We remained at Glengariffe two days, roaming through Lord Bantry's demesne, sailing on the bay where the French anchored, wondering at all and

everything, and at nothing so much as that this beautiful country should be neglected and forgotten. We returned to Cork by Gougane Barra, the source of the river Lee, and, unquestionably, no visiter to the region should omit seeing the Holy Lake! It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, and the small island in its centre contains a group of ash trees, the remains of a chapel, and a stone to the memory of the Rev. Denis O'Mahony, who made it holy

ground. The quiet solitude of the spot, and its extreme loneliness, sink on the mind with a gentle influence; no chirrupping of birds nor bleating of flocks, no hum of labour nor song of workman, interfere to disturb the soothings of nature in one of her gentlest aspects.

But I must pause: I know I have wearied you, and so I will merely add, we reached Macroom, and thence journeyed by a noble road back to Cork, where I must say-Farewell!

In this age, when we are inundated with books of (so called) poetry, some having a little merit, some having very little indeed, and some having none at all, it is quite cheering and delightful to find a new competitor bearing such decided marks of true poetical genius as are evident in the collection of poems which the Honourable Julian Fane has, at the age of twenty-five, given to the public. It is hazardous to praise an unknown poet so much, yet we will be much disappointed if his future efforts do not serve to corroborate our views, by procuring for him a widespread reputation. There are, indeed, many errors of taste, and lines of commonplace in the volume before us, but these are seen in a more glaring light from their being found along with passages, we might almost say whole poems, of the very highest merit.

If we remember aright, it is Addison who, in one of his essays, makes a remark to the effect, that the great art of a writer shows itself in the choice of pleasing allusions, which should generally be taken from the great or beautiful works of nature and art. In this

particular our author excels. Nearly all his allusions, and most of his similes, are chosen with singular happiness and fidelity; and yet he does not, like too many recent authors, after bringing forward a good allusion or simile, work it to death, and present it in every possible way, until at last the reader gets quite tired of it. No; he strikes the key-note of the tune, but does not weary you with all its variations. The following fine image is taken from the "Prelude," wherein the poet dwells on

B

Thy words imply, that Love which bides In human breasts, perforce must know A rise and fall, an ebb and flow, As constant as the ocean-tides.

Be 't so! with those whose petty cares

In narrow hearts have sown disease:
Dearest! thou art unlike to these,
Nor should thy love resemble theirs.

Be thy rare love like that sweet sea,
Which, peerless, owns enchanted waves,
And in still beauty tideless laves
The happy shores of Italy."

However, we do not wish to hold these dozen lines up as our creed on the delicate subject of love, for we consider them decidedly heterodox. We believe with Sir Walter Scott, that

"Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;"

and, having his good authority, we London: William Pickering, 1852.

confess that we would infinitely prefer a lady falling in love with us in the "good old way," than in the unfluctuating, inanimate manner for which a wish is expressed in the foregoing lines. We fear such an affection would soon become very insipid. While on this subject, we may add, that the Honourable Mr. Fane, if we are to draw any conclusion from the number of songs he addresses to young ladies, must have been a remarkably susceptible young man, to have fallen in love (up to the age of twenty-five, recollect) with " Kathleen," Minna," "Margaret," "Lydia," "Leonora," "Olivia," Agnes," "Maude," &c. Certainly, if he was enamoured even for a short time, say three weeks, of each and all of these fair ones, he must have consumed a good deal of time in such dallying. In such cases, he was quite right to adopt the easy, quiet, Mediterranean sort of way at which he has hinted; for the idea of sending a regular Atlantic wave of love to wash over the heart of each, would imply that he was a personified love-ocean, where the tide was always coming in violently, and never going out at all.

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We sincerely hope that all the young ladies are as imaginary as their names evidently are. Of course it is but natural that a young poet should have penned such songs, but some of them

certainly would have been much better left unpublished, for they are not remarkable for anything except being good specimens of mediocre poetry; others, however, display much refinement of feeling and delicacy of expression, and one or two of them are so rich and choice in metaphor, as nearly to approach the style of our own Tom Moore. We would, however, advise him not to write so much on the sentiment of love in future; though he does it very well, still it is evident he can write on much more important subjects much better. Let him give up writing on trifles, and recollect the words of Pope

"He who would win renown, above

must soar

A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove.” That he can do so, and can with the utmost feeling awaken the higher and nobler sympathies of the human heart, his two poems addressed" Ad Matrem" fully prove. In one of these, an ode to his mother on her natal day, when, as he quaintly observes,

The hand of Time Slides a fresh pearl upon her threaded years,"

the following beautiful stanzas, alluding to a family bereavement, are to be found: