48 Walks in Ireland. [July, 



If you wish to read " Macbeth" as you ought, and as it deserves, go, find 

 out such a resting-place as mine, with a gloomy lake sleeping before you, 

 shadowed by gloomier mountains, with heathy summits, that th? witches 

 would love ; and near you, to retire to when the solemn fit is over, 

 have such a tranquil glen as sweetest Luggela — near you, but not in 

 sight ; and while you saunter through its pleasant groves, or by its sunny 

 waters, forgetting the weird sisters and the traitorous king, and calling up 

 Rosalind and Celia,' or that gentlest child of fancy, poor Ophelia, or 

 dreaming of Una and Britomart, conscious that you are in Ireland, the 

 land of Spenser's inspiration, you will scarcely envy the listless loungers 

 of Regent-street or Bond-street, or their apatlietic w^orshippers of JMerion- 

 square or Cavendish-row. Talking of Shakspeare, if you want to make 

 a pet of him, get Pickering's edition, 9 vols., fairy size ; that is to say, 

 about 384mo., to speak technically; and coax some gentle friend to make 

 you a velvet, prayer-book-like case for it — say nothing about the value 

 1/011 set upon her work until }'ou have fairly got it in your possession ; 

 but tell her tliat tlie delicate fingers of the noble and the beautiful are 

 worthily employed in making a shrine for Shakspeare ; and if, " with 

 such appliances and means to boot," you do not read him con avwre, if 

 your heart does not glow with reflected inspiration, you are as dull as 

 the fat weed that rots on Lethe's brink. 



I did not visit Luggela this walk, I oidy thought of it ; some time 

 hence, when I am in a pastoral, arcadian mood, I will read and think 

 about the golden age ; and, having thus prepared myself, will write 

 about Luggela, taking care to avoid (if possible) saying anything which 

 to a stranger might sound like flattery of tlie family Avhose property it 

 is, though to one who knows them it would be but a transcript of his 

 own thoughts. 



On the present occasion my path wound along the side of Lough Dan, 

 emerging at length from which, and avoiding as much as possible any- 

 thing resembling a road, I voluntarily suffered myself to lose my way 

 among the wild upland, boggy moors which surround the Devil's Glen. 



" The sky is changed — and such a change— Oh ! Night." — One of the 

 most sudden and violent storms of rain and thunder I ever remember, 

 surprised me about an hom* after sunset, when hugging myself with the 

 thoughts of a beautiful moonlight night after a shower, which, " good 

 easy man," I thovight would clear the air and moderate the tropical heat 

 of the weather. It was a grand sight, that thunder-storm ; and, though 

 attended at the time with not a little danger, I stiU look back upon 

 it with a feeling of awe, as realizing some of my wild reveries and day- 

 di'eams about chaos, and the war of the angels, and the deluge. 



The sun went down amidst a sea of fiery-looking clovids, while a 

 fresh breeze springing up unexpectedly from the north-east, came 

 sweeping over the waste of moor and bog, driving before it a dark grey 

 gigantic mass, more like a chain of uprooted mountains travelling 

 through the air, than an assemblage of unsubstantial vapour. When 

 right over head, the canopy of clouds settled and paused, the breeze 

 lulled, then died away in faint irregular moanings, until all was as still as 

 if Nature herself was holding her breath for awe. Then the clouds 

 opened like the rending of a veil, giving to view, not a flash, or a 

 sheet of lightning, but something like a mighty conflagration of blast- 

 ing, supernatural light, accompanied, not followed, by a crash as if ten 

 millions of angelic chariots were chasing the ruined host of Lucifer from 

 the uttermost verge of heaven into the bottomless abysm of the damned. 



