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Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 28, January 9, 1841

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 28, JANUARY 9, 1841 ***

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

NUMBER 28.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1841.

VOLUME I.

CASTLE-CAULFIELD, COUNTY OF TYRONE.

The subject of our prefixed illustration is one of no small interest, whether considered as a fine example—for Ireland—of the domestic architecture of the reign of James I, or as an historical memorial of the fortunes of the illustrious family whose name it bears—the noble house of Charlemont, of which it was the original residence. It is situated near the village of the same name, in the parish of Donaghmore, barony of Dungannon, and about three miles west of Dungannon, the county town.

Castle-Caulfield owes its erection to Sir Toby Caulfield, afterwards Lord Charlemont—a distinguished English soldier who had fought in Spain and the Low Countries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and commanded a company of one hundred and fifty men in Ireland in the war with O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, at the close of her reign. For these services he was rewarded by the Queen with a grant of part of Tyrone’s estate, and other lands in the province of Ulster; and on King James’s accession to the British crown, was honoured with knighthood, and made governor of the fort of Charlemont, and of the counties of Tyrone and Armagh. At the plantation of Ulster he received further grants of lands, and among them 1000 acres called Ballydonnelly, or O’Donnelly’s town, in the barony of Dungannon, on which, in 1614, he commenced the erection of the mansion subsequently called Castle-Caulfield. This mansion is described by Pynnar in his Survey of Ulster in 1618-19, in the following words:—

“Sir Toby Caulfield hath one thousand acres called Ballydonnell [recte Ballydonnelly], whereunto is added beside what was certified by Sir Josias Bodley, a fair house or castle, the front whereof is eighty feet in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth from outside to outside, two cross ends fifty feet in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth: the walls are five feet thick at the bottom, and four at the top, very good cellars under ground, and all the windows are of hewn stone. Between the two cross ends there goeth a wall, which is eighteen feet high, and maketh a small court within the building. This work at this time is but thirteen feet high, and a number of men at work for the sudden finishing of it. There is also a strong bridge over the river, which is of lime and stone, with strong buttresses for the supporting of it. And to this is joined a good water-mill for corn, all built of lime and stone. This is at this time the fairest building I have seen. Near unto this Bawne there is built a town, in which there is fifteen English families, who are able to make twenty men with arms.”

The ruins of this celebrated mansion seem to justify the opinion expressed by Pynnar, that it was the fairest building he had seen, that is, in the counties of the plantation, for there are no existing remains of any house erected by the English or Scottish undertakers equal to it in architectural style. It received, however, from the second Lord Charlemont, the addition of a large gate-house with towers, and also of a strong keep or donjon.

From the ancient maps of Ulster of Queen Elizabeth’s time, preserved in the State Paper Office, Castle-Caulfield appears to have been erected on the site of a more ancient castle or fort, called Fort O’Donallie, from the chief of the ancient Irish family of O’Donghaile or O’Donnelly, whose residence it was, previously to the confiscation of the northern counties; and the small lake in its vicinity was called Lough O’Donallie. This family of O’Donnelly were a distinguished branch of the Kinel-Owen, or northern Hy-Niall race, of which the O’Neills were the chiefs in the sixteenth century; and it was by one of the former that the celebrated Shane or John O’Neill, surnamed the proud, and who also bore the cognomen of Donghailach, or the Donnellian, was fostered, as appears from the following entry in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1531:—

“Ballydonnelly was assaulted by Niall Oge, the son of Art, who was the son of Con O’Neill. He demolished the castle, and having made a prisoner of the son of O’Neill, who was the foster-son of O’Donnelly, he carried him off, together with several horses and the other spoils of the place.”

We have felt it necessary to state the preceding facts relative to the ancient history of Ballydonnelly, or Castle-Caulfield, as it is now denominated, because an error of Pynnar’s, in writing the ancient name as Ballydonnell—not Ballydonnelly, as it should have been—has been copied by Lodge, Archdall, and all subsequent writers; some of whom have fallen into a still more serious mistake, by translating the name as “the town of O’Donnell,” thus attributing the ancient possession of the locality to a family to whom it never belonged. That Ballydonnelly was truly, as we have stated, the ancient name of the place, and that it was the patrimonial residence of the chief of that ancient family, previously to the plantation of Ulster, must be sufficiently indicated by the authorities we have already adduced; but if any doubt on this fact could exist, it would be removed by the following passage in an unpublished Irish MS. Journal of the Rebellion of 1641, in our own possession, from which it appears that, as usual with the representatives of the dispossessed Irish families on the breaking out of that unhappy conflict, the chief of the O’Donnellys seized upon the Castle-Caulfield mansion as of right his own:—

“October 1641. Lord Caulfield’s castle in Ballydonnelly (Baile I Donghoile) was taken by Patrick Moder (the gloomy) O’Donnelly.”

The Lord Charlemont, with his family, was at this time absent from his home in command of the garrison of Charlemont, and it was not his fate ever to see it afterwards; he was treacherously captured in his fortress about the same period by the cruel Sir Phelim O’Neill, and was barbarously murdered while under his protection, if not, as seems the fact, by his direction, on the 1st of March following. Nor was this costly and fairest house of its kind in “the north” ever after inhabited by any of his family; it was burned in those unhappy “troubles,” and left the melancholy, though picturesque memorial of sad events which we now see it.

P.

THE LAKE OF THE LOVERS,

A LEGEND OF LEITRIM.

How many lovely spots in this our beautiful country are never embraced within those pilgrimages after the picturesque, which numbers periodically undertake, rather to see what is known to many, and therefore should be so to them, than to visit nature, for her own sweet sake, in her more devious and undistinguished haunts! For my part, I am well pleased that the case stands thus. I love to think that I am treading upon ground unsullied by the footsteps of the now numerous tribe of mere professional peripatetics—that my eyes are wandering over scenery, the freshness of which has been impaired by no transfer to the portfolio of the artist or the tablets of the poetaster: that, save the scattered rustic residents, there is no human link to connect its memorials with the days of old, and, save their traditionary legends, no story to tell of its fortunes in ancient times. The sentiment is no doubt selfish as well as anti-utilitarian; but then I must add that it is only occasional, and will so far be pardoned by all who know how delightful it is to take refuge in the indulgent twilight of tradition from the rugged realities of recorded story. At all events, a rambler in any of our old, and especially mountainous tracts, will rarely lack abundant aliment for his thus modified sense of beauty, sublimity, or antiquarian fascination; and scenes have unexpectedly opened upon me in the solitudes of the hills and lakes of some almost untrodden and altogether unwritten districts, that have had more power to stir my spirit than the lauded and typographed, the versified and pictured magnificence of Killarney or of Cumberland, of Glendalough or of Lomond. It may have been perverseness of taste, or the fitness of mood, or the influence of circumstance, but I have been filled with a feeling of the beautiful when wandering among noteless and almost nameless localities to which I have been a stranger, when standing amid the most boasted beauties with the appliances of hand-book and of guide, with appetite prepared, and sensibilities on the alert. It is I suppose partly because the power of beauty being relative, a high pitch of expectancy requires a proportionate augmentation of excellence, and partly because the tincture of contrariety in our nature ever inclines us to enact the perverse critic, when called on to be the implicit votary. This in common with most others I have often felt, but rarely more so than during a casual residence some short time since among the little celebrated, and therefore perhaps a little more charming, mountain scenery of the county, which either has been, or might be, called Leitrim of the Lakes; for a tract more pleasantly diversified with well-set sheets of water, it would I think be difficult to name. Almost every hill you top has its still and solitary tarn, and almost every amphitheatre you enter, encompasses its wild and secluded lake—not seldom bearing on its placid bosom some little islet, linked with the generations past, by monastic or castellated ruins, as its seclusion or its strength may have invited the world-wearied anchorite to contemplation, or the predatory chieftain to defence.

On such a remote and lonely spot I lately chanced to alight, in the course of a long summer day’s ramble among the heights and hollows of that lofty range which for a considerable space abuts upon the borders of Sligo and Roscommon. The ground was previously unknown to me, and with all the zest which novelty and indefiniteness can impart, I started staff in hand with the early sun, and ere the mists had melted from the purple heather of their cloud-like summits, was drawing pure and balmy breath within the lonely magnificence of the hills. About noon, as I was casting about for some pre-eminently happy spot to fling my length for an hour or two’s repose, I reached the crest of a long gradual ascent that had been some time tempting me to look what lay beyond; and surely enough I found beauty sufficient to dissolve my weariness, had it been tenfold multiplied, and to allay my pulse, had it throbbed with the vehemence of fever. An oblong valley girdled a lovely lake on every side; here with precipitous impending cliffs, and there with grassy slopes of freshest emerald that seemed to woo the dimpling waters to lave their loving margins, and, as if moved with a like impulse, the little wavelets met the call with the gentle dalliance of their ebb and flow. A small wooded island, with its fringe of willows trailing in the water, stood about a furlong from the hither side, and in the centre of its tangled brake, my elevation enabled me to descry what I may call the remnants of a ruin—for so far had it gone in its decay—here green, there grey, as the moss, the ivy, or the pallid stains of time, had happened to prevail. A wild duck, with its half-fledged clutch, floated fearless from its sedgy shore. More remote, a fishing heron stood motionless on a stone, intent on its expected prey; and the only other animated feature in the quiet scene was a fisherman who had just moored his little boat, and having settled his tackle, was slinging his basket on his arm and turning upward in the direction where I lay. I watched the old man toiling up the steep, and as he drew nigh, hailed him, as I could not suffer him to pass without learning at least the name, if it had one, of this miniature Amhara. He readily complied, and placing his fish-basket on the ground, seated himself beside it, not unwilling to recover his breath and recruit his scanty stock of strength almost expended in the ascent. “We call it,” said he in answer to my query, “the Lake of the Ruin, or sometimes, to such as know the story, the Lake of the Lovers, after the two over whom the tombstone is placed inside yon mouldering walls. It is an old story. My grandfather told me, when a child, that he minded his grandfather telling it to him, and for anything he could say, it might have come down much farther. Had I time, I’d be proud to tell it to your honour, who seems a stranger in these parts, for it’s not over long; but I have to go to the Hall, and that’s five long miles off, with my fish for dinner, and little time you’ll say I have to spare, though it be down hill nearly all the way.” It would have been too bad to allow such a well-met chronicler to pass unpumped, and, putting more faith in the attractions of my pocket than of my person, I produced on the instant my luncheon-case and flask, and handing him a handsome half of the contents of the former, made pretty sure of his company for a time, by keeping the latter in my own possession till I got him regularly launched in the story, when, to quicken at once his recollection and his elocution, I treated him to an inspiring draught. When he had told his tale, he left me with many thanks for the refection; and I descending to his boat, entered it, and with the aid of a broken oar contrived to scull myself over to the island, the scene of the final fortunes of Connor O’Rourke and Norah M’Diarmod, the faithful-hearted but evil-fated pair who were in some sort perpetuated in its name. There, in sooth, within the crumbled walls, was the gravestone which covered the dust of him the brave and her the beautiful; and seating myself on the fragment of a sculptured capital, that showed how elaborately reared the ruined edifice had been, I bethought me how poorly man’s existence shows even beside the work of his own hands, and endeavoured for a time to make my thoughts run parallel with the history of this once-venerated but now forsaken, and, save by a few, forgotten structure; but finding myself fail in the attempt, settled my retrospect on that brief period wherein it was identified with the two departed lovers whose story I had just heard, and which, as I sat by their lowly sepulchre, I again repeated to myself.

This lake, as my informant told me, once formed a part of the boundary between the possessions of O’Rourke the Left-handed and M’Diarmod the Dark-faced, as they were respectively distinguished, two small rival chiefs, petty in property but pre-eminent in passion, to whom a most magnificent mutual hatred had been from generations back “bequeathed from bleeding sire to son”—a legacy constantly swelled by accruing outrages, for their paramount pursuits were plotting each other’s detriment or destruction, planning or parrying plundering inroads, inflicting or avenging injuries by open violence or secret subtlety, as seemed more likely to promote their purposes. At the name of an O’Rourke, M’Diarmod would clutch his battle-axe, and brandish it as if one of the detested clan were within its sweep: and his rival, nothing behind in hatred, would make the air echo to his deep-drawn imprecation on M’Diarmod and all his abominated breed when any thing like an opportunity was afforded him. Their retainers of course shared the same spirit of mutual abhorrence, exaggerated indeed, if that were possible, by their more frequent exposure to loss in cattle and in crops, for, as is wont to be the case, the cottage was incontinently ravaged when the stronghold was prudentially respected. O’Rourke had a son, an only one, who promised to sustain or even raise the reputation of the clan, for the youth knew not what it was to blench before flesh and blood—his feet were over foremost, in the wolf-hunt or the foray, and in agility, in valour, or in vigour, none within the compass of a long day’s travel could stand in comparison with young Connor O’Rourke. Detestation of the M’Diarmods had been studiously instilled from infancy, of course; but although the youth’s cheek would flush and his heart beat high when any perilous adventure was the theme, yet, so far at least, it sprang more from the love of prowess and applause than from the deadly hostility that thrilled in the pulses of his father and his followers. In the necessary intervals of forbearance, as in seed-time, harvest, or other brief breathing-spaces, he would follow the somewhat analogous and bracing pleasures of the chase; and often would the wolf or the stag—for shaggy forests then clothed these bare and desert hills—fall before his spear or his dogs, as he fleetly urged the sport afoot. It chanced one evening that in the ardour of pursuit he had followed a tough, long-winded stag into the dangerous territory of M’Diarmod. The chase had taken to the water of the lake, and he with his dogs had plunged in after in the hope of heading it; but having failed in this, and in the hot flush of a hunter’s blood scorning to turn back, he pressed it till brought down within a few spear-casts of the M’Diarmod’s dwelling. Proud of having killed his venison under the very nose of the latter, he turned homeward with rapid steps; for, the fire of the chase abated, he felt how fatal would be the discovery of his presence, and was thinking with complacency upon the wrath of the old chief on hearing of the contemptuous feat, when his eye was arrested by a white figure moving slowly in the shimmering mists of nightfall by the margin of the lake. Though insensible to the fear of what was carnal and of the earth, he was very far from being so to what savoured of the supernatural, and, with a slight ejaculation half of surprise and half of prayer, he was about changing his course to give it a wider berth, when his dogs espied it, and, recking little of the spiritual in its appearance, bounded after it in pursuit. With a slight scream that proclaimed it feminine as well as human, the figure fled, and the youth had much to do both with legs and lungs to reach her in time to preserve her from the rough respects of his ungallant escort. Beautiful indignation lightened from the dark eyes and sat on the pouting lip of Norah M’Diarmod—for it was the chieftain’s daughter—as she turned disdainfully towards him.

“Is it the bravery of an O’Rourke to hunt a woman with his dogs? Young chief, you stand upon the ground of M’Diarmod, and your name from the lips of her”—she stopped, for she had time to glance again upon his features, and had no longer heart to upbraid one who owned a countenance so handsome and so gallant, so eloquent of embarrassment as well as admiration.

Her tone of asperity and wounded pride declined into a murmur of acquiescence as she hearkened to the apologies and deprecations of the youth, whose gallantry and feats had so often rung in her ears, though his person she had but casually seen, and his voice she had never before heard. The case stood similar with Connor. He had often listened to the praises of Norah’s beauty; he had occasionally caught distant glimpses of her graceful figure; and the present sight, or after recollection, often mitigated his feelings to her hostile clan, and, to his advantage, the rugged old chief was generally associated with the lovely dark-eyed girl who was his only child.

Such being their respective feelings, what could be the result of their romantic rencounter? They were both young, generous children of nature, with hearts fraught with the unhacknied feelings of youth and inexperience: they had drunk in sentiment with the sublimities of their mountain homes, and were fitted for higher things than the vulgar interchange of animosity and contempt. Of this they soon were conscious, and they did not separate until the stars began to burn above them, and not even then, before they had made arrangements for at least another—one more secret interview. The islet possessed a beautiful fitness for their trysting place, as being accessible from either side, and little obnoxious to observation; and many a moonlight meeting—for the one was inevitably multiplied—had these children of hostile fathers, perchance on the very spot on which my eyes now rested, and the unbroken stillness around had echoed to their gladsome greetings or their faltering farewells. Neither dared to divulge an intercourse that would have stirred to frenzy the treasured rancour of their respective parents, each of whom would doubtless have preferred a connexion with a blackamoor—if such were then in circulation—to their doing such grievous despite to that ancient feud which as an heirloom had been transmitted from ancestors whose very names they scarcely knew. M’Diarmod the Dark-faced was at best but a gentle tiger even to his only child; and though his stern cast-iron countenance would now and then relax beneath her artless blandishments, yet even with the lovely vision at his side, he would often grimly deplore that she had not been a son, to uphold the name and inherit the headship of the clan, which on his demise would probably pass from its lineal course; and when he heard of the bold bearing of the heir of O’Rourke, he thought he read therein the downfall of the M’Diarmods when he their chief was gone. With such ill-smothered feelings of discontent he could not but in some measure repulse the filial regards of Norah, and thus the confiding submission that would have sprung to meet the endearments of his love, was gradually refused to the inconsistencies of his caprice; and the maiden in her intercourse with her proscribed lover rarely thought of her father, except as one from whom it should be diligently concealed.

But unfortunately this was not to be. One of the night marauders of his clan chanced in an evil hour to see Connor O’Rourke guiding his coracle to the island, and at the same time a cloaked female push cautiously from the opposite shore for the same spot. Surprised, he crouched among the fern till their landing and joyous greeting put all doubt of their friendly understanding to flight; and then, thinking only of revenge or ransom, the unsentimental scoundrel hurried round the lake to M’Diarmod, and informed him that the son of his mortal foe was within his reach. The old man leaped from his couch of rushes at the thrilling news, and, standing on his threshold, uttered a low gathering-cry, which speedily brought a dozen of his more immediate retainers to his presence. As he passed his daughter’s apartment, he for the first time asked himself who can the woman be? and at the same moment almost casually glanced at Norah’s chamber, to see that all there was quiet for the night. A shudder of vague terror ran through his sturdy frame as his eye fell on the low open window. He thrust in his head, but no sleeper drew breath within; he re-entered the house and called aloud upon his daughter, but the echo of her name was the only answer. A kern coming up put an end to the search, by telling that he had seen his young mistress walking down to the water’s edge about an hour before, but that, as she had been in the habit of doing so by night for some time past, he had thought but little of it. The odious truth was now revealed, and, trembling with the sudden gust of fury, the old chief with difficulty rushed to the lake, and, filling a couple of boats with his men, told them to pull for the honour of their name and for the head of the O’Rourke’s first-born.

During this stormy prelude to a bloody drama, the doomed but unconscious Connor was sitting secure within the dilapidated chapel by the side of her whom he had won. Her quickened ear first caught the dip of an oar, and she told her lover; but he said it was the moaning of the night-breeze through the willows, or the ripple of the water among the stones, and went on with his gentle dalliance. A few minutes, however, and the shock of the keels upon the ground, the tread of many feet, and the no longer suppressed cries of the M’Diarmods, warned him to stand on his defence; and as he sprang from his seat to meet the call, the soft illumination of love was changed with fearful suddenness into the baleful fire of fierce hostility.

“My Norah, leave me; you may by chance be rudely handled in the scuffle.”

The terrified but faithful girl fell upon his breast.

“Connor, your fate is mine; hasten to your boat, if it be not yet too late.”

An iron-shod hunting pole was his only weapon; and using it with his right arm, while Norah hung upon his left, he sprang without further parley through an aperture in the wall, and made for the water. But his assailants were upon him, the M’Diarmod himself with upraised battle-axe at their head.

“Spare my father,” faltered Norah; and Connor, with a mercifully directed stroke, only dashed the weapon from the old man’s hand, and then, clearing a passage with a vigorous sweep, accompanied with the well-known charging cry, before which they had so often quailed, bounded through it to the water’s brink. An instant, and with her who was now more than his second self, he was once more in his little boat; but, alas! it was aground, and so quickly fell the blows against him, that he dare not adventure to shove it off. Letting Norah slip from his hold, she sank backwards to the bottom of the boat; and then, with both arms free, he redoubled his efforts, and after a short but furious struggle succeeded in getting the little skiff afloat. Maddened at the sight, the old chief rushed breast-deep into the water; but his right arm had been disabled by a casual blow, and his disheartened followers feared, under the circumstances, to come within range of that well-wielded club. But a crafty one among them had already seized on a safer and surer plan. He had clambered up an adjacent tree, armed with a heavy stone, and now stood on one of the branches above the devoted boat, and summoned him to yield, if he would not perish. The young chief’s renewed exertions were his only answer.

“Let him escape, and your head shall pay for it,” shouted the infuriated father.

The fellow hesitated. “My young mistress?”

“There are enough here to save her, if I will it. Down with the stone, or by the blood——”

He needed not to finish the sentence, for down at the word it came, striking helpless the youth’s right arm, and shivering the frail timber of the boat, which filled at once, and all went down. For an instant an arm re-appeared, feebly beating the water in vain—it was the young chief’s broken one: the other held his Norah in its embrace, as was seen by her white dress flaunting for a few moments on and above the troubled surface. The lake at this point was deep, and though there was a rush of the M’Diarmods towards it, yet in their confusion they were but awkward aids, and the fluttering ensign that marked the fatal spot had sunk before they reached it. The strength of Connor, disabled as he was by his broken limb, and trammelled by her from whom even the final struggle could not dissever him, had failed; and with her he loved locked in his last embrace, they were after a time recovered from the water, and laid side by side upon the bank, in all their touching, though, alas, lifeless beauty! Remorse reached the rugged hearts even of those who had so ruthlessly dealt by them; and as they looked on their goodly forms, thus cold and senseless by a common fate, the rudest felt that it would be an impious and unpardonable deed to do violence to their memory, by the separation of that union which death itself had sanctified. Thus were they laid in one grave; and, strange as it may appear, their fathers, crushed and subdued, exhausted even of resentment by the overwhelming stroke—for nothing can quell the stubborn spirit like the extremity of sorrow—crossed their arms in amity over their remains, and grief wrought the reconciliation which even centuries of time, that great pacificator, had failed to do.

The westering sun now warning me that the day was on the wane, I gave but another look to the time-worn tombstone, another sigh to the early doom of those whom it enclosed, and then, with a feeling of regret, again left the little island to its still, unshared, and pensive loneliness.

ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE—No. IV.

The composition which we have selected as our fourth specimen of the ancient literature of Ireland, is a poem, more remarkable, perhaps, for its antiquity and historical interest, than for its poetic merits, though we do not think it altogether deficient in those. It is ascribed, apparently with truth, to the celebrated poet Mac Liag, the secretary of the renowned monarch Brian Boru, who, as our readers are aware, fell at the battle of Clontarf in 1014; and the subject of it is a lamentation for the fallen condition of Kincora, the palace of that monarch, consequent on his death.

The decease of Mac Liag, whose proper name was Muircheartach, is thus recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1015:—

“Mac Liag, i. e. Muirkeartach, son of Conkeartach, at this time laureate of Ireland, died.”

A great number of his productions are still in existence; but none of them have obtained a popularity so widely extended as the poem before us.

Of the palace of Kincora, which was situated on the banks of the Shannon, near Killaloe, there are at present no vestiges.

LAMENTATION OF MAC LIAG FOR KINCORA.

A Chinn-copath carthi Brian?

Oh, where, Kincora! is Brian the Great?

And where is the beauty that once was thine?

Oh, where are the princes and nobles that sate

At the feast in thy halls, and drank the red wine?

Where, oh, Kincora?

Oh, where, Kincora! are thy valorous lords?

Oh, whither, thou Hospitable! are they gone?

Oh, where are the Dalcassians of the Golden Swords?[1]

And where are the warriors that Brian led on?

Where, oh, Kincora?

And where is Morogh, the descendant of kings—

The defeater of a hundred—the daringly brave—

Who set but slight store by jewels and rings—

Who swam down the torrent and laughed at its wave?

Where, oh, Kincora?

And where is Donogh, King Brian’s worthy son?

And where is Conaing, the Beautiful Chief?

And Kian, and Corc? Alas! they are gone—

They have left me this night alone with my grief!

Left me, Kincora!

And where are the chiefs with whom Brian went forth,

The never-vanquished son of Evin the Brave,

The great King of Onaght, renowned for his worth,

And the hosts of Baskinn, from the western wave?

Where, oh, Kincora?

Oh, where is Duvlann of the Swiftfooted Steeds?

And where is Kian, who was son of Molloy?

And where is King Lonergan, the fame of whose deeds

In the red battle-field no time can destroy?

Where, oh, Kincora?

And where is that youth of majestic height,

The faith-keeping Prince of the Scots?—Even he,

As wide as his fame was, as great as was his might,

Was tributary, oh, Kincora, to me!

Me, oh, Kincora!

They are gone, those heroes of royal birth,

Who plundered no churches, and broke no trust,

’Tis weary for me to be living on the earth

When they, oh, Kincora, lie low in the dust!

Low, oh, Kincora!

Oh, never again will Princes appear,

To rival the Dalcassians of the Cleaving Swords!

I can never dream of meeting afar or anear,

In the east or the west, such heroes and lords!

Never, Kincora!

Oh, dear are the images my memory calls up

Of Brian Boru!—how he never would miss

To give me at the banquet the first bright cup!

Ah! why did he heap on me honour like this?

Why, oh, Kincora?

I am Mac Liag, and my home is on the Lake:

Thither often, to that palace whose beauty is fled,

Came Brian to ask me, and I went for his sake.

Oh, my grief! that I should live, and Brian be dead!

Dead, oh, Kincora!

M.

[1] Coolg n-or, of the swords of gold, i. e. of the gold-hilted swords.

COLUMN FOR THE YOUNG.

Biography of a mouse.

“Biography of a mouse!” cries the reader; “well, what shall we have next?—what can the writer mean by offering such nonsense for our perusal?” There is no creature, reader, however insignificant and unimportant in the great scale of creation it may appear to us, short-sighted mortals that we are, which is forgotten in the care of our own common Creator; not a sparrow falls to the ground unknown and unpermitted by Him; and whether or not you may derive interest from the biography even of a mouse, you will be able to form a better judgment, after, than before, having read my paper.

The mouse belongs to the class Mammalia, or the animals which rear their young by suckling them; to the order Rodentia, or animals whose teeth are adapted for gnawing; to the genus Mus, or Rat kind, and the family of Mus musculus, or domestic mouse. The mouse is a singularly beautiful little animal, as no one who examines it attentively, and without prejudice, can fail to discover. Its little body is plump and sleek; its neck short; its head tapering and graceful; and its eyes large, prominent, and sparkling. Its manners are lively and interesting, its agility surprising, and its habits extremely cleanly. There are several varieties of this little creature, amongst which the best known is the common brown mouse of our granaries and store-rooms; the Albino, or white mouse, with red eyes; and the black and white mouse, which is more rare and very delicate. I mention these as varieties, for I think we may safely regard them as such, from the fact of their propagating unchanged, preserving their difference of hue to the fiftieth generation, and never accidentally occurring amongst the offspring of differently coloured parents.

It is of the white mouse that I am now about to treat, and it is an account of a tame individual of that extremely pretty variety that is designed to form the subject of my present paper.

When I was a boy of about sixteen, I got possession of a white mouse; the little creature was very wild and unsocial at first, but by dint of care and discipline I succeeded in rendering it familiar. The principal agent I employed towards effecting its domestication was a singular one, and which, though I can assure the reader its effects are speedy and certain, still remains to me inexplicable: this was, ducking in cold water; and by resorting to this simple expedient, I have since succeeded in rendering even the rat as tame and as playful as a kitten. It is out of my power to explain the manner in which ducking operates on the animal subjected to it, but I wish that some physiologist more experienced than I am would give his attention to the subject, and favour the public with the result of his reflections.

At the time that I obtained possession of this mouse, I was residing at Olney, in Buckinghamshire, a village which I presume my readers will recollect as connected with the names of Newton and Cowper; but shortly after having succeeded in rendering it pretty tame, circumstances required my removal to Gloucester, whither I carried my little favourite with me. During the journey I kept the mouse confined in a small wire cage; but while resting at the inn where I passed the night, I adopted the precaution of enveloping the cage in a handkerchief, lest by some untoward circumstance its active little inmate might make its escape. Having thus, as I thought, made all safe, I retired to rest. The moment I awoke in the morning, I sprang from my bed, and went to examine the cage, when, to my infinite consternation, I found it empty! I searched the bed, the room, raised the carpet, examined every nook and corner, but all to no purpose. I dressed myself as hastily as I could, and summoning one of the waiters, an intelligent, good-natured man, I informed him of my loss, and got him to search every room in the house. His investigations, however, proved equally unavailing, and I gave my poor little pet completely up, inwardly hoping, despite of its ingratitude in leaving me, that it might meet with some agreeable mate amongst its brown congeners, and might lead a long and happy life, unchequered by the terrors of the prowling cat, and unendangered by the more insidious artifices of the fatal trap. With these reflections I was just getting into the coach which was to convey me upon my road, when a waiter came running to the door, out of breath, exclaiming, “Mr R., Mr R., I declare your little mouse is in the kitchen.” Begging the coachman to wait an instant, I followed the man to the kitchen, and there, on the hob, seated contentedly in a pudding dish, and devouring its contents with considerable gout, was my truant protegé. Once more secured within its cage, and the latter carefully enveloped in a sheet of strong brown paper, upon my knee, I reached Gloucester.

I was here soon subjected to a similar alarm, for one morning the cage was again empty, and my efforts to discover the retreat of the wanderer unavailing as before. This time I had lost him for a week, when one night, in getting into bed, I heard a scrambling in the curtains, and on relighting my candle found the noise to have been occasioned by my mouse, who seemed equally pleased with myself at our reunion. After having thus lost and found my little friend a number of times, I gave up the idea of confining him; and, accordingly, leaving the door of his cage open, I placed it in a corner of my bedroom, and allowed him to go in and out as he pleased. Of this permission he gladly availed himself, but would regularly return to me at intervals of a week or a fortnight, and at such periods of return he was usually much thinner than ordinary; and it was pretty clear that during his visits to his brown acquaintances he fared by no means so well as he did at home.

Sometimes, when he happened to return, as he often did, in the night-time, on which occasions his general custom was to come into bed to me, I used, in order to induce him to remain with me until morning, to immerse him in a basin of water, and then let him lie in my bosom, the warmth of which, after his cold bath, commonly ensured his stay.

Frequently, while absent on one of his excursions, I would hear an unusual noise in the wainscot, as I lay in bed, of dozens of mice running backwards and forwards in all directions, and squeaking in much apparent glee. For some time I was puzzled to know whether this unusual disturbance was the result of merriment or quarrelling, and I often trembled for the safety of my pet, alone and unaided, among so many strangers. But a very interesting circumstance occurred one morning, which perfectly reassured me. It was a bright summer morning, about four o’clock, and I was lying awake, reflecting as to the propriety of turning on my pillow to take another sleep, or at once rising, and going forth to enjoy the beauties of awakening nature. While thus meditating, I heard a slight scratching in the wainscot, and looking towards the spot whence the noise proceeded, perceived the head of a mouse peering from a hole. It was instantly withdrawn, but a second was thrust forth. This latter I at once recognised as my own white friend, but so begrimed by soot and dirt that it required an experienced eye to distinguish him from his darker-coated entertainers. He emerged from the hole, and running over to his cage, entered it, and remained for a couple of seconds within it; he then returned to the wainscot, and, re-entering the hole, some scrambling and squeaking took place. A second time he came forth, and on this occasion was followed closely, to my no small astonishment, by a brown mouse, who followed him, with much apparent timidity and caution, to his box, and entered it along with him. More astonished at this singular proceeding than I can well express, I lay fixed in mute and breathless attention, to see what would follow next. In about a minute the two mice came forth from the cage, each bearing in its mouth a large piece of bread, which they dragged towards the hole they had previously left. On arriving at it, they entered, but speedily re-appeared, having deposited their burden; and repairing once more to the cage, again loaded themselves with provision, and conveyed it away. This second time they remained within the hole for a much longer period than the first time; and when they again made their appearance, they were attended by three other mice, who, following their leaders to the cage, loaded themselves with bread as did they, and carried away their burdens to the hole. After this I saw them no more that morning, and on rising I discovered that they had carried away every particle of food that the cage contained. Nor was this an isolated instance of their white guest leading them forth to where he knew they should find provender. Day after day, whatever bread or grain I left in the cage was regularly removed, and the duration of my pet’s absence was proportionately long. Wishing to learn whether hunger was the actual cause of his return, I no longer left food in his box; and in about a week afterwards, on awaking one morning, I found him sleeping upon the pillow, close to my face, having partly wormed his way under my cheek.

There was a cat in the house, an excellent mouser, and I dreaded lest she should one day meet with and destroy my poor mouse, and I accordingly used all my exertions with those in whose power it was, to obtain her dismissal. She was, however, regarded by those persons as infinitely better entitled to protection and patronage than a mouse, so I was compelled to put up with her presence. People are fond of imputing to cats a supernatural degree of sagacity: they will sometimes go so far as to pronounce them to be genuine witches; and really I am scarcely surprised at it, nor perhaps will the reader be, when I tell him the following anecdote.

I was one day entering my apartment, when I was filled with horror at perceiving my mouse picking up some crumbs upon the carpet, beneath the table, and the terrible cat seated upon a chair watching him with what appeared to me to be an expression of sensual anticipation and concentrated desire. Before I had time to interfere, Puss sprang from her chair, and bounded towards the mouse, who, however, far from being terrified at the approach of his natural enemy, scarcely so much as favoured her with a single look. Puss raised her paw and dealt him a gentle tap, when, judge of my astonishment if you can, the little mouse, far from running away, or betraying any marks of fear, raised himself on his legs, cocked his tail, and with a shrill and angry squeak, with which any that have kept tame mice are well acquainted, sprang at and positively bit the paw which had struck him. I was paralysed. I could not jump forward to the rescue. I was, as it were, petrified where I stood. But, stranger than all, the cat, instead of appearing irritated, or seeming to design mischief, merely stretched out her nose and smelt at her diminutive assailant, and then resuming her place upon the chair, purred herself to sleep. I need not say that I immediately secured the mouse within his cage. Whether the cat on this occasion knew the little animal to be a pet, and as such feared to meddle with it, or whether its boldness had disarmed her, I cannot pretend to explain: I merely state the fact; and I think the reader will allow that it is sufficiently extraordinary.

In order to guard against such a dangerous encounter for the future, I got a more secure cage made, of which the bars were so close as to preclude the possibility of egress; and singularly enough, many a morning was I amused by beholding brown mice coming from their holes in the wainscot, and approaching the cage in which their friend was kept, as if in order to condole with him on the subject of his unwonted captivity. Secure, however, as I conceived this new cage to be, my industrious pet contrived to make his escape from it, and in doing so met his death. In my room was a large bureau, with deep, old-fashioned, capacious drawers. Being obliged to go from home for a day, I put the cage containing my little friend into one of these drawers, lest any one should attempt to meddle with it during my absence. On returning, I opened the drawer, and just as I did so, heard a faint squeak, and at the same instant my poor little pet fell from the back of the drawer—lifeless. I took up his body, and, placing it in my bosom, did my best to restore it to animation. Alas! it was to no purpose. His little body had been crushed in the crevice at the back part of the drawer, through which he had been endeavouring to escape, and he was really and irrecoverably gone.

NOTE ON THE FEEDING, &C., OF WHITE MICE.—Such of my juvenile readers as may be disposed to make a pet of one of these interesting little animals, would do well to observe the following rules:—Clean the cage out daily, and keep it dry; do not keep it in too cold a place; in winter it should be kept in a room in which there is a fire. Feed the mice on bread steeped in milk, having first squeezed the milk out, as too moist food is bad for them. Never give them cheese, as it is apt to produce fatal disorders, though the more hardy brown mice eat it with impunity. If you want to give them a treat, give them grains of wheat or barley, or if these are not to be procured, oats or rice. A little tin box of water should be constantly left in their cage, but securely fixed, so that they cannot overturn it. Let the wires be not too slight, or too long, otherwise the little animals will easily squeeze themselves between them, and let them be of iron, never of copper, as the animals are fond of nibbling at them, and the rust of the latter, or verdigris, would quickly poison them. White mice are to be procured at most of the bird-shops in Patrick’s Close, Dublin; of the wire-workers and bird-cage makers in Edinburgh; and from all the animal fanciers in London, whose residences are to be found chiefly on the New Road and about Knightsbridge. Their prices vary from one shilling to two-and-sixpence per pair, according to their age and beauty.

H. D. R.

THE PROFESSIONS.

If what are called the liberal professions could speak, they would all utter the one cry, “we are overstocked;” and echo would reply “overstocked.” This has long been a subject of complaint, and yet nobody seems inclined to mend the matter by making any sacrifice on his own part—just as in a crowd, to use a familiar illustration, the man who is loudest in exclaiming “dear me, what pressing and jostling people do keep here!” never thinks of lightening the pressure by withdrawing his own person from the mass. There is, however, an advantage to be derived from the utterance and reiteration of the complaint, if not by those already in the press, at least by those who are still happily clear of it.

There are many “vanities and vexations of spirit” under the sun, but this evil of professional redundancy seems to be one of very great magnitude. It involves not merely an outlay of much precious time and substance to no purpose, but in most cases unfits those who constitute the “excess” from applying themselves afterwards to other pursuits. Such persons are the primary sufferers; but the community at large participates in the loss.

It cannot but be interesting to inquire to what this tendency may be owing, and what remedy it might be useful to apply to the evil. Now, it strikes me that the great cause is the exclusive attention which people pay to the great prizes, and their total inconsideration of the number of blanks which accompany them. Life itself has been compared to a lottery; but in some departments the scheme may be so particularly bad, that it is nothing short of absolute gambling to purchase a share in it. So it is in the professions. A few arrive at great eminence, and these few excite the envy and admiration of all beholders; but they are only a few compared with the number of those who linger in the shade, and, however anxious to enjoy the sport, never once get a rap at the ball.

Again, parents are apt to look upon the mere name of a profession as a provision for their children. They calculate all the expenses of general education, professional education, and then of admission to “liberty to practise;” and finding all these items amount to a tolerably large sum, they conceive they have bestowed an ample portion on the son who has cost them “thus much monies.” But unfortunately they soon learn by experience that the elevation of a profession, great as it is, does not always possess that homely recommendation of causing the “pot to boil,” and that the individual for whom this costly provision has been made, cannot be so soon left to shift for himself. Here then is another cause of this evil, namely, that people do not adequately and fairly calculate the whole cost.

Of our liberal professions, the army is the only one that yields a certain income as the produce of the purchase money, But in these “piping times of peace,” a private soldier in the ranks might as well attempt to verify the old song, and

“Spend half a crown out of sixpence a-day,”

as an ensign to pay mess-money and band-money, and all other regulation monies, keep himself in dress coat and epaulettes, and all the other et ceteras, upon his mere pay. The thing cannot be done. To live in any comfort in the army, a subaltern should have an income from some other source, equal at least in amount to that which he receives through the hands of the paymaster. The army is, in fact, an expensive profession, and of all others the least agreeable to one who is prevented, by circumscribed means, from doing as his brother officers do. Yet the mistake of venturing to meet all these difficulties is not unfrequently admitted, with what vain expectation it is needless to inquire. The usual result is such as one would anticipate, namely, that the rash adventurer, after incurring debts, or putting his friends to unlooked-for charges, is obliged after a short time to sell out, and bid farewell for ever to the unprofitable profession of arms.

It would be painful to dwell upon the situation of those who enter other professions without being duly prepared to wait their turn of employment. It is recognised as a poignantly applicable truth in the profession of the bar, that “many are called but few are chosen;” but with very few and rare exceptions indeed, the necessity of biding the time is certain. In the legal and medical professions there is no fixed income, however small, insured to the adventurer; and unless his circle of friends and connections be very wide and serviceable indeed, he should make up his mind for a procrastinated return and a late harvest. But how many from day to day, and from year to year, do launch their bark upon the ocean, without any such prudent foresight! The result therefore is, that vast proportion of disastrous voyages and shipwrecks of which we hear so constantly.

Such is the admitted evil—it is granted on all sides. The question is, what is to be done?—what is the remedy? Now, the remedy for an overstocked profession very evidently is, that people should forbear to enter it. I am no Malthusian on the subject of population: I desire no unnatural checks upon the increase and multiplication of her Majesty’s subjects; but I should like to drain off a surplus from certain situations, and turn off the in-flowing stream into more profitable channels. I would advise parents, then, to leave the choice of a liberal profession to those who are able to live without one. Such parties can afford to wait for advancement, however long it may be in coming, or to bear up against disappointment, if such should be their lot. With such it is a safe speculation, and they may be left to indulge in it, if they think proper. With others it is not so. But it will be asked, what is to be done with the multitudes who would be diverted from the professions, if this advice were acted upon? I answer, that the money unprofitably spent upon their education, and in fees of admission to these expensive pursuits, would insure them a “good location” and a certain provision for life in Canada, or some of the colonies; and that any honourable occupation which would yield a competency ought to be preferred to “professions” which, however “liberal,” hold out to the many but a very doubtful prospect of that result.

It is much to be regretted that there is a prevalent notion among certain of my countrymen that “trade” is not a “genteel” thing, and that it must be eschewed by those who have any pretensions to fashion. This unfortunate, and I must say unsound state of opinion, contributes also, I fear, in no small degree, to that professional redundancy of which we have been speaking. The supposed absolute necessity of a high classical education is a natural concomitant of this opinion. All our schools therefore are eminently classical. The University follows, as a matter of course, and then the University leads to a liberal profession, as surely as one step of a ladder conducts to another. Thus the evil is nourished at the very root. Now, I would take the liberty of advising those parents who may concur with me in the main point of over-supply in the professions, to begin at the beginning, and in the education of their children, to exchange this superabundance of Greek and Latin for the less elegant but more useful accomplishment of “ciphering.” I am disposed to concur with that facetious but shrewd fellow, Mr Samuel Slick, upon the inestimable advantages of that too much neglected art—neglected, I mean, in our country here, Ireland. He has demonstrated that they do every thing by it in the States, and that without it they could do nothing. With the most profound respect to my countrymen, then, I would earnestly recommend them to cultivate it. But it may perhaps be said that there is no encouragement to mercantile pursuits in Ireland, and that if there were, there would be no necessity for me to recommend “ciphering” and its virtues to the people. To this I answer, that merchandize offers its prizes to the ingenious and venturous much rather than to those who wait for a “highway” to be made for them. If people were resolved to live by trade, I think they would contrive to do so—many more, at least, than at present operate successfully in that department. If more of education, and more of mind, were turned in that direction, new sources of profitable industry, at present unthought of, would probably discover themselves. Much might be said on this subject, but I shall not enter further into the speculation, quite satisfied if I have thrown out a hint which may be found capable of improvement by others.

F.

GEESE.

BY MARTIN DOYLE.

The rearing of geese might be more an object of attention to our small farmers and labourers in the vicinity of bogs and mountain tracts than it is.

The general season for the consumption of fat geese is from Michaelmas to Christmas, and the high prices paid for them in the English markets—to which they can be so rapidly conveyed from many parts of Ireland—appear to offer sufficient temptation to the speculator who has the capital and accommodation necessary for fattening them.

A well-organized system of feeding this hardy and nutritious species of poultry, in favourable localities, would give a considerable impulse to the rearing of them, and consequently promote the comforts of many poor Irish families, who under existing circumstances do not find it worth while to rear them except in very small numbers.

I am led to offer a few suggestions on this subject from having ascertained that in the Fens of Lincolnshire, notwithstanding a great decrease there in the breeding of geese from extensive drainage, one individual, Mr Clarke of Boston, fattens every year, between Michaelmas and Christmas, the prodigious number of seven thousand geese, and that another dealer at Spalding prepares for the poultry butcher nearly as many: these they purchase in lots from the farmers’ wives.

Perhaps a few details of the Lincolnshire practice may be acceptable to some of the readers of this Journal:—

The farmers in the Fens keep breeding stocks proportioned to the extent of suitable land which they can command; and in order to insure the fertility of the eggs, they allow one gander to three geese, which is a higher proportion of males than is deemed necessary elsewhere. The number of goslings in each brood averages about ten, which, allowing for all casualties, is a considerable produce.

There have been extraordinary instances of individual fecundity, on which, however, it would be as absurd for any goose-breeder to calculate, as it is proverbially unwise to reckon chickens before they are hatched; and this fruitfulness is only attainable by constant feeding with stimulating food through the preceding winter.

A goose has been known to lay seventy eggs within twelve months, twenty-six in the spring, before the time of incubation, and (after bringing out seventeen goslings) the remainder by the end of the year.

The white variety is preferred to the grey or party-coloured, as the birds of this colour feed more kindly, and their feathers are worth three shillings a stone more than the others: the quality of the land, however, on which the breeding stock is to be maintained, decides this matter, generally strong land being necessary for the support of the white or larger kind. Under all circumstances a white gander is preferred, in order to have a large progeny. It has been remarked, but I know not if with reason, that ganders are more frequently white than the females.

To state all the particulars of hatching and rearing would be superfluous, and mere repetition of what is contained in the various works on poultry. I shall merely state some of the peculiarities of the practice in the county of Lincoln.

When the young geese are brought up at different periods by the great dealers, they are put into pens together, according to their age, size, and condition, and fed on steamed potatoes and ground oats, in the ratio of one measure of oats to three of potatoes. By unremitting care as to cleanliness, pure water, and constant feeding, these geese are fattened in about three weeks, at an average cost of one penny per day each.

The cramming system, either by the fingers or the forcing pump, described by French writers, with the accompanying barbarities of blinding, nailing the feet to the floor, or confinement in perforated casks or earthen pots (as is said to be the case sometimes in Poland), are happily unknown in Lincolnshire, and I may add throughout England, with one exception—the nailing of the feet to boards. The unequivocal proofs of this may occasionally, but very rarely, be seen in the geese brought into the London markets: these, however, may possibly be imported ones, though I fear they are not so.

The Lincolnshire dealers do not give any of those rich greasy pellets of barley meal and hot liquor, which always spoil the flavour, to their geese, as they well know that oats is the best feeding for them; barley, besides being more expensive, renders the flesh loose and insipid, and rather chickeny in flavour.

Every point of economy on this subject is matter of great moment, on the vast scale pursued by Mr Clarke, who pays seven hundred pounds a-year for the mere conveyance of his birds to the London market; a fact which gives a tolerable notion of the great extent of capital employed in this business, the extent of which is scarcely conceivable by my agricultural countrymen.

Little cost, however, is incurred by those who breed the geese, as the stock are left to provide for themselves, except in the laying season, and in feeding the goslings until they are old enough to eat grass or feed on the stubbles. I have no doubt, however, that the cramp would be less frequently experienced, if solid food were added to the grass, when the geese are turned out to graze, although Mr Clarke attributes the cramp, as well as gout and fever, to too close confinement alone. This opinion does not correspond with my far more limited observation, which leads me to believe that the cramp attacks goslings most frequently when they are at large, and left to shift for themselves on green food alone, and that of the poorest kind. I should think it good economy to give them, and the old stagers too, all spare garden vegetables, for loss of condition is prejudicial to them as well as to other animals. Mr Cobbett used to fatten his young geese, from June to October, on Swedish turnips, carrots, white cabbages, or lettuces, with some corn.

Swedish turnips no doubt will answer very well, but not so well as farinaceous potatoes, when immediate profit is the object. The experience of such an extensive dealer as Mr Clarke is worth volumes of theory and conjecture as to the mode of feeding, and he decides in favour of potatoes and oats.

The treatment for cramp and fever in Lincolnshire is bleeding—I know not if it be hazarded in gout—but as it is not successful in the cases of cramp in one instance out of twenty, it may be pronounced inefficacious.

I have had occasion lately to remark in this Journal on the general disinclination in England to the barbarous custom of plucking geese alive. In Lincolnshire, however, they do so with the breeding stock three times in the year, beginning at midsummer, and repeating the operation twice afterwards, at intervals of six weeks between the operations.

The practice is defended on the plea, that if the feathers be matured, the geese are better for it, while it is of course admitted that the birds must be injured more or less—according to the handling by the pluckers—if the feathers be not ripe. But as birds do not moult three times in the year, I do not understand how it should be correctly said that the feathers can be ripe on these three occasions. How does nature suggest the propriety of stripping the feathers so often? Where great numbers are kept, the loss by allowing the feathers to drop on the ground would be serious, and on this account alone can even one stripping be justified.

In proof of the general opinion that the goose is extremely long-lived, we have many recorded facts; among them the following:—“In 1824 there was a goose living in the possession of Mr Hewson of Glenham, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, which was then upwards of a century old. It had been throughout that term in the constant possession of Mr Hewson’s forefathers and himself, and on quitting his farm he would not suffer it to be sold with his other stock, but made a present of it to the in-coming tenant, that the venerable fowl might terminate its career on the spot where its useful life had been spent such a length of days.”

The taste which has long prevailed among gourmands for the liver of a goose, and has led to the enormous cruelties exercised in order to cause its enlargement by rendering the bird diseased in that organ through high and forced feeding in a warm temperature and close confinement, is well known; but I doubt if many are aware of the influence of charcoal in producing an unnatural state of the liver.

I had read of charcoal being put into a trough of water to sweeten it for geese when cooped up; but from a passage in a recent work by Liebig it would appear that the charcoal acts not as a sweetener of the water, but in another way on the constitution of the goose.

I am tempted to give the extract from its novelty:—“The production of flesh and fat may be artificially increased: all domestic animals, for example, contain much fat. We give food to animals which increases the activity of certain organs, and is itself capable of being transformed into fat. We add to the quantity of food, or we lessen the progress of respiration and perspiration by preventing motion. The conditions necessary to effect this purpose in birds are different from those in quadrupeds; and it is well known that charcoal powder produces such an excessive growth in the liver of a goose as at length causes the death of the animal.”

We are much inferior to the English in the art of preparing poultry for the market; and this is the more to be regretted in the instance of geese, especially as we can supply potatoes—which I have shown to be the chief material of their fattening food—at half their cost in many parts of England. This advantage alone ought to render the friends of our agricultural poor earnest in promoting the rearing and fattening of geese in localities favourable for the purpose.

IRISH MANUFACTURES.

The encouragement of our native manufactures is now a general topic of conversation and interest, and we hope the present excitement of the public mind on this subject will be productive of permanent good. We also hope that the encouragement proposed to be given to articles of Irish manufacture will be extended to the productions of the head as well as to those of the hands; that the manufacturer of Irish wit and humour will be deemed worthy of support as well as those of silks, woollens, or felts; and, that Irishmen shall venture to estimate the value of Irish produce for themselves, without waiting as heretofore till they get “the London stamp” upon them, as our play-going people of old times used to do in the case of the eminent Irish actors.

We are indeed greatly inclined to believe that our Irish manufactures are rising in estimation in England, from the fact which has come to our knowledge that many thousands of our Belfast hams are sold annually at the other side of the water as genuine Yorkshire, and also that many of those Belfast hams with the Yorkshire stamp find their way back into “Ould Ireland,” and are bought as English by those who would despise them as Irish. Now, we should like our countrymen not to be gulled in this way, but depend upon their own judgment in the matter of hams, and in like manner in the matter of articles of Irish literary manufacture, without waiting for the London stamp to be put on them. The necessity for such discrimination and confidence in their own judgment exists equally in hams and literature. Thus certain English editors approve so highly of our articles in the Irish Penny Journal, that they copy them by wholesale, not only without acknowledgment, but actually do us the favour to father them as their own! As an example of this patronage, we may refer to a recent number of the Court Gazette, in which its editor has been entertaining his aristocratic readers with a little piece of badinage from our Journal, expressly written for us, and entitled “A short chapter on Bustles,” but which he gives as written for the said Court Gazette! Now, this is really very considerate and complimentary, and we of course feel grateful. But, better again, we find our able and kind friend the editor of the Monitor and Irishman, presenting, no doubt inadvertently, this very article to his Irish readers a few weeks ago—not even as an Irish article that had got the London stamp upon it, but as actually one of true British manufacture—the produce of the Court Gazette.

Now, in perfect good humour, we ask our friend, as such we have reason to consider him, could he not as well have copied this article from our own Journal, and given us the credit of it—and would it not be worthy of the consistency and patriotism of the Irishman, who writes so ably in the cause of Irish manufactures, to extend his support, as far as might be compatible with truth and honesty, to the native literature of Ireland?

Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.—Sold by all Booksellers.

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Table of Contents

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

CASTLE-CAULFIELD, COUNTY OF TYRONE.

THE LAKE OF THE LOVERS, A LEGEND OF LEITRIM.

ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE—No. IV.

LAMENTATION OF MAC LIAG FOR KINCORA.

COLUMN FOR THE YOUNG. Biography of a mouse.

THE PROFESSIONS.

GEESE. BY MARTIN DOYLE.

IRISH MANUFACTURES.

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