534 



Monthly Review of Literature. 



[MAY, 



known to the literati of his times, and in 

 correspondence with many of them. There 

 is a folio volume of letters, many of them of 

 great interest, particularly an almost un- 

 broken series to his father and brother for 

 the last thirty years of his life, in which he 

 details his literary engagements, the current 

 public events, and domestic circumstances, 

 in a clear but very cursory manner always 

 grave, sometimes heavy. Almost all his 

 writings are in Latin, of which he had great 

 command. The best specimens, beyond all 

 question, are his letters. The annals and 

 history of his country are in a very inferior 

 style of composition. He was a poet too; 

 but a cold correctness is the highest praise 

 his Latin versification is entitled to ; and Mr. 

 Bowring, almost the only man in England 

 who knows any thing of Dutch poets, speaks 

 of his vernacular poetry as scarcely worthy 

 of his splendid reputation. His Evidences of 

 the Christian Religion were originally writ- 

 ten in Dutch verse. 



Sketches in Ireland ; Description of In- 

 teresting and hitherto unnoticed Districts 

 in the North and Sonth ; 1827. These 

 sketches, though plainly the production of a 

 harum-scarum sort of brain, struck with the 

 coup-de-soleil of fanaticism, and a passion 

 for preaching and converting, shew so much 

 good feeling, and so much correct conception 

 of the state of Irish society, as in our minds 

 to redeem the puppyism so conspicuous in 

 his manner, and make us even bear with the 

 details of the fairy and fancy legends he so 

 sedulously gathers up, in rivalry of Crofton 

 Croker, and with respect to which his own 

 credulity is infinitely less excusable than 

 that which he gratuitously imputes to the 

 Catholics, and labours to expose. Does he 

 for a moment believe that these marvellous 

 stories are gravely and distinctly credited by 

 one in a thousand of the acute, though illi- 

 terate, race of Ireland ? The Irish belief on 

 these matters we take to be about as ex- 

 tensive as that of the people of our own 

 country in witchcraft, or in the demoniac ori- 

 gin of wonders so commonly, all over Eng- 

 land, named from the devil, and once, se- 

 riously perhaps, ascribed to his agency. 



There is one source of blunders relative 

 to the uneducated Irish which has not been 

 sufficiently attended to, and that is their ig- 

 norance of our language, and our ignorance 

 of theirs. This is particularly applicable to 

 the remoter districts visited by the author. 

 He himself will furnish an apt illustration 

 of our meaning, though on him the lesson 

 seems to have been lost. He is in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Bantry Bay : 



A shower of rain drove us to seek shelter in the 

 hut of the man who looks after the pheasants 

 (Lord Bantry's). He was alone ; and with all the 

 civility that never deserts an Irishman, he wel- 

 comed us in God's name, and produced stools, 

 which he took cave to wipe with his great coat 

 before he pormitted us to sit on them. On in- 

 fjuiring from him why he was alone, and where 



were his family, he said they were all gone to 

 watch mass (it was the Saturday before Easter- 

 day). " And what is the watch-mass ?'' He could 

 not tell, "And what day was yesterday?" He 

 could not tell. " And what day will to-morrow 

 be?" He could not tell. " What! cannot you tell 

 me why yesterday has been called Good Friday, 

 and to-morrow Easter Sunday?" "No." Turn- 

 ing 1 to my companion, 1 was moved to observe, 

 with great emphasis, how deplorable it was to see 

 men, otherwise so intelligent, so awfully igno- 

 rant concerning matters connected with religion. 

 " Not so fastwith your judgment, my good Sir," 

 said my friend; "what if you prove very much 

 mistaken in this instance concerning the know- 

 ledge of this man ; recollect you are now speaking 

 to him in a foreign tongue. Come, now, t under- 

 stand enough of Irish to try his mind in his native 

 dialect." Accordingly he did so ; and it was quite 

 surprising to see how the man, as soon as the Irish 

 was spoken, brightened up in countenance ; and 

 I could perceive from the smile that played on the 

 face of my friend, how he rejoiced in the realiza- 

 tion of his prognostic ; and he began to translate 

 for me as follows. I asked him what was Good 

 Friday? " It was on that day that the Lord of 

 Mercy gave his life for sinners ; a hundred thou- 

 sand blessings to him for that." " What is Watch 

 Saturday?" " It was the day when watch was 

 kept over the holy tomb that held the incorrup- 

 tible body of my sweet Saviour." Thus the man 

 gave, in Irish, clear and feeling answers to ques- 

 tions, concerning which, when addressed in Eng- 

 lish, he appeared quite ignorant ; and yet of corn.- 

 mon English words and phrases he had the use ; 

 but like most of his countrymen in the south, his 

 mind was groping in foreign parts when convers- 

 ing in English, and he only seemed to think in 

 Irish ; the one was the language of his commerce, 

 the other of his heart. 



The leading purpose of the book, however, 

 is to give some account of districts little 

 known to the tourist, and of course to the 

 mere reader. These are the coast of Done- 

 gal, and the south-western points of the 

 county of Cork : and certainly there appears 

 to be some remarkable spots. He ascends 

 Lough Salt this is a mountain, not a lake 

 that commands a long line of the Donegal 

 coast. After describing with some anima- 

 tion the different points that came within the 

 purview of the hill : 



Northward of Don Castle, says he, lay the sands 

 of Rosapenna, a scene that almost realized in 

 Ireland the sandy desert of Arabia ; a line of 

 coast and country extending from the sea, deep 

 into the land, until it almost meets the mountain 

 on which we stood, and exhibiting one wide waste 

 of red sand ; for miles not a blade of grass, not a 

 particle of verdure ; hills and dales and undu- 

 lating swells, smooth, solitary, desolate, reflecting 

 the sun from their polished surface, of one uniform 

 and flesh-like hue. Fifty years ago this line of 

 coast was as highly improved in its way, as Ards, 

 on the opposite side of the bay, now is it was the 

 much-ornamented demesne, and continued the com- 

 fortable mansion of Lord IJoync an old fashioned 

 manorial house and gardens, planted and laid out, 

 in the taste of that time, with avenues, terraces, 

 hedges, and statues, surrounded with walled parks, 



