mosities which are mostly found to exist amongst a people who have been for some generations oppressed-secondly, to charm into peaceable habits a peasantry disorganised by the operation of a system which afforded them no protection from the laws, and which could be only effected by the unequal means of persuading them that the labours of the Association would be successful in obtaining a proper administration of justice-thirdly, the abrogation of those disqualifying statutes which, as it were, still outlawed the Catholic community from the benefits of the constitution. To attain success in the two first objects would have been an achievment in itself attended with sufficient difficulty to have entitled the Association to the highest degree of fame; but when the obstacles which stood in the way of the third are considered the inveterate religious antipathy which was to be disarmed by the force of reason alone-the powerful union of prejudice and selfinterest, which was to be subdued by an intimidation arising from the parade of the moral power of a confederated people-such an end, to be attained through such means, could only be anticipated by a mind endowed with courage and foresight far beyond that portion of either which is possessed by ordinary mortals.

It is necessary for the success of some enterprises not to anticipate the difficulties or dangers which may be encountered before they are achieved. The temporary obstacles which present themselves to the imagination are often more successful in deterring the mind from action, than the reward of success is in encouraging it to persevere.— Many were influenced by the latter to remain in sapine and degrading despondency, while others gave their dispirited aid, without a hope for the desired result. Thus the Catholics were divided into different classes, composed of those who entertained particular degrees of feeling upon the subject of their emancipation; but the most numerous and perhaps the most difficult to rouse to a dignified sense of wrong, was comprehended by those who felt no ambition to improve their political condition, and, from an innate degradation of mind, were contented with the enjoyments they derived from mere animal existence !

INVOCATION.

1 woo thee, nature, in thy mood
Of wild and lonesome solitude
Where most I love to trace thy hand,
In my romantic father land.
Late as I roamed, when darkly fell
The coming night o'er hill and dell—
All wildly sighed the wint'ry blast,
And shrouding mist descended fast
Upon the mountain's heatby side,
Obscuring, for it could not hide
Its might and majesty of form,
Responsive to the gath'ring storm,
The ocean lifted up its voice,

And bid its thousand waves rejoice,
As onward foaming high they bore,
And broke in thunder on the shore.
Nor less I love thee when thy face
Is deck'd with ev'ry smiling grace-
When earth and sea alike are calm,
And the cool winds are breathing balm-
When the soft shadows on the hill,
The gentle chiding of the rill;
The verdant meadow's tender green
Are sweetly felt, and heard, and seen.
"Youth of the year," delightful spring,
Who in thy train such joys doth bring,
'Tis sweet to mark the meanest flow'r
That heralds thee-thou hast a pow'r,

To wake within my inmost soul,
Deep feeling far beyond control.
The crocus bursting from the earth,

The cuckoo's song, the blossom's birth,

The murmur of the roving bee,

Oh! how I love those types of thee!

5 A

VOL. I. NO. XI.

SUMMER RAMBLES AND SKETCHES-NO. IV.

A DISAGREEABLE SURPRISE A BOAT race.

LORD BYRON mentions in one of his letters, that he awoke one fine morning and found himself famous. It is related of a fellow-countryman of ours, (nor is the story very improbable,) who was found sunk to his nose in the quagmire the day after a pattern, that he didn't know what the devil stuck him there; and many respectable characters are nearly convinced that the entire world went to sleep on some night or other, orthodox Protestants, and got up by times crossing themselves, and perpetrating sundry other papistical antics. It is not an unusual sight to behold grown-up persons totally unconscious of having quitted the nursery, nor is it a matter of rare occurrence for men of discretion to be caught in the act of drivelling the rankest nonsense. "A dagger-drawn democrat hot for reform" of to-day may be converted before to-morrow into a loyal and devoted defender of the reigning dynasty, ready, on the slightest provocation, to damn the audacity of the rabble rout, or bless the condescension of his gracious king. Even noblemen and honorable gentlemen have been sometimes known to trample upon principles which were once the staple of their sentiments, the badge of their professions, the prime and sole movers of all their actions. All the men that I could

ever hear of were born before they had ever thought of coming into the world; and most of those I have known died before they had decided upon leaving it thus in fact, the most surprising changes in the physical and moral order of the universe are wrought on a sudden; and being, as I verily believe, unpremeditated on the part of their respective agents or objects, when effected, astonish them just as much as they astonish the rest of the world. The ardor of youthful enterprise, or the perplexity of ambitious intrigues, or the duplicity of tortuous politics, while they carry a man much farther than he had ever intended to proceed, enchain the faculty of judgment, and elude the guardianship of experience,-even conscience, during the delirium, is torpid or inactive, and though honor may be tarnished, and lives sacrificed in the fury of personal or political excitement, remorse cannot sting into reflection a heart panoplied in the densest web of sophistry, or guarded against the invasion of thought by the fogs of passion and all the stormy tumult of wild emotions. It is only after the breath of the tempest is hushed, and when the swell of the billows, though still mountainous, is less abrupt and can be calculated with more certainty as to time and extent, that a man awakens to the consciousness of having been engaged in some enterprise of peril. The consciousness, to be sure, is at first vague and shadowy, but soon settles into a full conviction of all that has occurred.

As where a young man (or maiden) seated under an umbrageous oak, upon carpet of moss or grass or fresh wild flowers, looks up through the woven foliage at the azure sky cut into strange fantastic fragments by the interposing branches, which waving to and fro, as the

evening breeze begins to freshen from the distant river, diversify the features of the firmament with endless variety, he (or she) at first distinctly catches the leading characters of every change, but soon à dreaming indistinctness settles on the prospect, and though the branches still bend before the pressure of the breeze, there is but one combination of features discernable on the face of heaven; 'tis fixed as the poles!" is it a dream? no! by all that's lovely, 'tis" a dream, reader! the flap of a beetle dispelled it albeit consecrate to love, and the young poet or poetess sighs yet again in solitary sofrow: even so, as David Gamut used to say, some stern reality, like the knock of the beetle, rouses into perfect sobriety the man circumstanced as above supposed; and whether that reality be the shout of a multitude assembled to witness his execution or his coronation, whether it be the pressure of a shackle or of a diadem, whether it be a gray hair falling on his looking glass while he was making his toilet, or the shrill scolding voice of a wife unsheathing for the first time her maiden tongue, either perhaps as it was till now beyond his intention or desire, continues to be now beyond his control.

These reflections occurred to me, and well for me they did, as will be seen just now, about three weeks ago, while I sat in my little library at mount, waiting dinner. I had been rather assiduously employed for some time in domestic arrangements, and had totally forgotten to make any inquiries about our Magazine, but as soon as I could devote a minute to thought, I perceived at once the neglect of which I was guilty; and accordingly, being a good Roman Catholic, I resolved to do penance by riding into Limerick and making personal reparation for the slight. This act of justice might be viewed in another light, I must confess, by such malicious persons as should advert to the fineness of the morning which was dry and frosty, and to the confinement I had undergone for the past fortnight. But con scious of the purity of my motives, I persevered in my design of travel as soon as I should stow away some eggs and toast with a caulker or two of coffee or chocolate. I don't like tea, reader, unless it be specially recommended to me by the ladies, and indeed even then I submit to it rather as a choice of evils than from any overweening desire to ingratiate myself at present in that quarter: but alas! wives; wives, though dear, may die, and minds, however constant, may change, and then it would be perhaps as well for a middle-aged man that he had not been voted to the lumber-room as an oddity. Well, in pursuance of my intention, two o'clock found me cantering through Patrick-street on my roan filly, and I had glanced over the contents, simpered, and was proceeding to request the use of a paper-knife from Mr. O'Gorman, before 1 adverted to the presence of a third gentleman in the shop, with a number of the Magazine opened before him at the identical spot to which my intentions were verging.

Have you any suspicion, Mr. O'Gorman, to whom the authorship of those papers should be ascribed?

Which papers, Sir, said Mr. O'Gorman, and he bustled over his lively little body, to get at the solution of his own question. Summer Rambles and Sketches, replied the gentleman.

The words fell upon my ear like a clap of thunder, nor more

vividly reveals the lightning flash to benighted traveller a precipitous bank, than to my awakened perception they disclosed the gulf over which I was swinging. I believe I grew pale or red, for O'Gorman looked at me, and I thought he smiled. Was Summer Rambles and Sketches, thought I, written by an author.-Oh! The gentleman started at the groan, although it was not very loud, but then 'twas the stifled burst of agony. O'Gorman thought I was fainting and called loudly for water, but I interrupted the process, which, doubtless, would have been gone through, with all the formalities for such cases made and provided, for, staggering over, I grasped the stranger by the hand. He screamed, and endeavoured to withdraw the hand, but I was frenzied and my gripe was as the closing of a vice. "Tell me, Sir," said I, and I stared at him while I spoke, but could not see him for there was a mist upon my eyes, and I felt the blood tingling in my brain, and my hat pressed upon my brows as if an iron clasp were screwed around them," tell me, Sir, for God's sake tell me, are you-can you be serious?"

"How, Sir," said the gentleman, (I could hear his teeth chattering); "what, Sir,-you're mad, Sir; unhand me."

"Never," said I," will I loose this hold till you answer; am I the author of "Summer Rambles and Sketches."

O'Gorman must have whispered him something, for he answered, in a tone half deprecatory, half damnatory, but so modified you could not tell which part of his answer conveyed the threat, or which the supplication; "you'll answer for this conduct, Sir, although you are"

I knew the rest, but 'twere death to hear it; I dashed away his hand, rushed from the shop,-saw streets and churches, bridges, banks and turnpikes flying away, like shifting scenery of a panorama; heard, far behind, shouts of uproarious laughter, and deeper still, as every street, and field, and farmhouse sent forth its unearthly peal, I plunged my gory spurs and more desperately slashed the generous beast.

In front of my house there is a square of about twenty yards, enclosed with trellis-work and partitioned into flower-plots. A low rustic gate is the only entrance through it to the hall door. This gate I faced and cleared, but my mare fell dead at the other side, and the shock restored me in some measure to my faculties. Madness yielded to shame, but the feeling of shame was so overpowering that it soon obtained as great a mastery over my poor brain as the wildest madness. I extricated myself from the saddle, or rather extricated my spurs from the flanks of the mare, deep in which the rowels were sunk, and before I could even conceive the consequences, flew to my library and pushed the bolt inside.

"An author!" said I, forgetting every intermediate occurrence, "an author!! ha, ha, ha!" I sunk upon a chair and glaced hurriedly along the shelves. An author! I looked at my coat to see if it was a shabby black, or threadbare, or broken at the elbows,-but no, 'twas the same dark green I had home during the Christmas holidays, ungreased, unsullied, and velvety as when first I wore it. An AUTHOR! I ran to the novel recess and found, what I wanted, a looking-glass;