1830.] [ 161 ] 



WALKS IN IRELAND : N<\ V. 



I LEAVE the county of Wicklow, with its ever-changing alternation 

 of sunshine and shade ; its sparkling villas and cheerful lawns, on the 

 east ; its solemn valleys and unpeopled mountains, on the west : " the 

 March of Mind" has brought " the Spirit of Improvement" to my plea- 

 sant haunts, and, like poor General Boone, I must retire into the interior. 

 What with piety and planting, Methodism and Scotch firs, there is no 

 such thing as taking a stretch of half-a-dozen miles in any direction now- 

 a-days : on one side you are met with, " No person permitted to walk in 

 this demesne without a ticket from Mr. or Mrs. Popkins ;" on the other, 

 " Alderman Perriwig allows no one to cross this plantation ;" or, " Take 

 notice, Mr. Ferret has closed the road over this hill." Hemmed in on 

 the right and left, you endeavour to advance in front ; but you are 

 stopped by, " Any person found on this mountain will be persecuted 

 according to law." Determined to effect a timely retreat, you face about ; 

 but a great white post, like an Austrian sentry, stares you in the face, 

 with " No passage this way." Powerscourt is shut up ; the Dargle is 

 forbidden ground on Sundays ; nay, no later than yesterday, I was 

 greeted, at the foot of Bray-Head, with " No person allowed to walk on 

 these grounds," marvellously ill-painted on a dirty board. How often 

 have I lain on the rocky crown of Bray-Head, in the dreamy sunshine of 



livelong summer day, while a thousand gay and glittering fancies 

 floated through my mind, " like a half-seen brook sparkling through 

 flowers," as one of the pretty writers in the Annuals might say, or as I 

 would say myself, if I had the luck to be a poet ; or, again, in thought- 

 ful autumn, watching the evening mists as they saddened around the 

 Pirate's Rock, in the uncertain distance ; or the restless waves, as they 

 raved and tossed beneath my feet, like the guilty in a troubled sleep. 

 But those days are gone by, and Bray-Head is now possessed by " the 

 Spirit of Improvement" and stuck all over with a legion of little starve- 

 ling larches ; so that, until exorcised by the woodcutter some fifty years 

 hence, it is, I suppose, to be held sacred from intrusion. 



It is strange enough that, in many instances, Religion is made the 

 stalking-horse for the system of exclusion of which I complain, and you 

 are denounced as little better than an idolater if you think of a country 

 excursion on a Sunday ; as if religious feeling, and abstract love of the 

 Creator, are not as likely to take possession of one's mind when listening 

 amidst sunshine, and flowers, and all sweet and pleasant sights and 

 sounds, to the innocent creatures of God, the blackbird or the lark, sing- 

 ing their unpremeditated hymns of natural inspiration, as when seated 

 beneath the loftiest roof that ever ascended at the bidding of man, unra- 

 velling the mazy intricacies of the profoundest discourse ever delivered 

 on either side of any question by the Reverend Doctor Philpotts, or lulled 

 by the sweetest organ ever built by Flight and Robson. 



Let us away, then, to the south : the wildest mountains of Cork and 

 Kerry are as familiar to me as the Burlington Arcade to Pea-green 

 Hayne, or Regent-Street to a Half-pay ; and although I have not the 

 honour to be a sworn Whiteboy, yet I can count amongst my acquaint- 

 ances many distinguished members of that respectable fraternity. More- 

 over, I am very sufficiently versed in traditional lore ; so that I flatter 

 myself I am not unequal to the task of guiding you into the heart of that 

 region of mystery and adventure, where George the Fourth and Captain 



M. M. New Smer. -VoL. IX. No. 50. Y 



