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most commodious position for beholding the crisis of the struggle, if to a crisis it should be urged. I fell in with the mouvement, and sauntered along the river. And now, reader, you may pray for either party as your inclinations prompt you, or, if you take no interest in the success of any, you can listen while I relate some legends of truth and fiction connected with the scenes among which I have placed you. The old town of Limerick stands upon an island formed by a branch of the Shannon, called the Abbey-river, with the main current. It is said, that the city was not originally insular, and that the Abbeyriver was a work of art, made under the auspices of the monks of one of the numerous abbeys with which that part of the city, now antimonastic, called the island, once abounded. Hence, it is said, the name is derived. What might have been the design of the projectors in undertaking such a stupendous work it is rather difficult to conjecture. Perhaps they intended it as a defence for the city; or perhaps they foresaw the uses to which their persecuted decendants were, in after days, to apply its oozy bed; and if they were gifted with such prophetic spirit, well might the toil of generations be consecrated in delving out such hiding-place for the silver bells of St. Mary's. Yes, 'twas worth the labour to secure a safe retreat, from which the avarice of the conqueror could never pluck them, for those sacred relics of the piety, and liberality, and splendor, of our free forefathers. There, in that channel, they now lie, unrusting though unrung; and the secret of the precise spot where they are hid is known only to the oldest friar of the order by whom they were concealed: whether that be the order of St. Dominick, or Francis, or Austin, tradition says not. When the last effort of bravery had been made, and the last precept of fortitude fulfilled, after the embers of hope had been long extinguished, and when even despair could claim no farther sacrifice, then the silver bells were removed from the steeple of St. Mary's cathedral, and consigned to the slimy depths of that profound river, and an oath was sworn that the place of their concealment should never be revealed while the Saxon ruled in the land; but as soon as the country shall shake off her thraldom, they shall be restored, and the peal of their jubilee shall be heard clear and cheering as far as the Shannon rolls her waters; 'twill vibrate along the emerald waves of ocean, and every peak and promontory shall catch up the symphonious echoes; and as the growth of pearls is matured by thunder, and their brilliancy derived from the impregnating flash, so shall the pearly “gem of the sea" borrow from that peal the consciousness of her full-grown power, and reflect, thenceforth and for ever, in undiminishd lustre, the glorious light of liberty which it shall herald to posterity. Such is the substance of a legend which the fisherman relates as he glides in tiny shallop between the salmon-weir and island banks, and which glads his heart with pleasing memories or soothing hopes of brighter days, while in the silent watches of night he plies his precarious trade.

The old bridge of Thomond, which is now supported on fourteen stone arches, was, at the time of the siege, a draw-bridge. When, towards the close of the siege, the inhabitants began to be straitened for food, it became necessary to make more sorties than perhaps it

would be thought prudent to make in other circumstances. In one of these the besieged were completely entrapped by Gincle, who had placed about five hundred men in ambush to protect some twenty or thirty who were escorting waggons apparenty loaded with stores, and, of course, to capture or kill such of the citizens as should be lured by the prospect of so welcome a prize. The bait was swallowed, and two hundred brave souls found themselves circumstanced like their equally brave and famous countryman-instead of catching a prize they caught a Tartar. Many resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible, and died gloriously with face to foe; but the greater part endeavoured to retrace their steps, and of these a few escaped within the walls, but, the enemy pressing on with alacrity, it became necessary to let down the bridge, and about a hundred of the Irish were precipitated into the river. The shrieks of these unfortunate victims to the general safety were harrowing, and the memory of their unavailing cries for help, heard faintly above the roar of a waterfall about sixty yards below the bridge, is transmitted to posterity in the name of the place. There are at present two mills flanking the cataract; the older of them shares the title which had been peculiar to the fall, and both mill and fall are now called, in a corruption of the Irish, those "of the call for help."

The mill is past, and we now stand upon the Wellesley-bridge, the second, if I am rightly informed, which has ever been built upon the same plan-its prototype is, I forget whether in Naples or Venice. The exterior curve of the arch is eccentrically elliptical, but the eccentricity decreases towards. the centre, where the curve is a semicircle. It is thus supposed to combine the strength of the rude arch of antiquity, with the airiness and grace to which the fastidiousness of modern taste too often postpones solidity. But hush! hear you not a murmur of distant shouting beyond the New-bridge?—Yes, "they come, they come!" The heads of thronging multitudes are indistinctly visible above the battlements, against the dusk of the eastern sky; and a stir may be noticed among the shipping of Merchants'-quay. The tumult thickens, crowds line the quays and burst into the ships, and the rigging is immediately endowed with animation. All are bent forward to catch the first dash of the oars. "Tis really beautiful! not five yards between them. The boats are yet in shadow, and I cannot distinguish the colours of the victors; but the gesticulations of the bye-standers are strong, violent, frantic, as of men who were to be stripped of honor, and could not die to retain or retrieve it. Ah! that conjecture was too unerring. The dock is cleared-the open channel gained-the blue jackets are foremost still. But what new burst of feeling or frenzy comes booming from the left? Yes, that indeed is pregnant, is soul, and as such touches a string in the hearts of the vanquished that had not yet vibrated. "Tis the mingled cry of parents and children-of wives and companions-of those who had beguiled the dreariness of cold, uncomforted evenings, by reviewing all the circumstances of such temporary triumph as was expected in this trial of strength and skill. And is a blight to be now cast upon all their hard-earned laurels? Let not the phlegmatic

VOL. I. NO. XI.

5 B

reader accuse them of folly or extravagance till he knows the limited range of the poor man's comforts.

How uniform is human nature in every age and state and circumstance! When the Roman emperors ceased to be Romans, they commenced driving tandem along the Appian way, with excessive emulation of superior excellence in the whip-department. When the French ceased to be a nation of conquerors, they became dancers; and their marshals, instead of wielding a truncheon, took to flourishing a fiddle-stick. When Hercules discontinued the trade of serpent-slaying, his glory was to stand as a butt for Omphale's velvet slippers.When Anglesey ceased to lead on his troops to victory, his imagination gloated upon the eclat that would arise from accepting the captaincy of a four-gun brig.-Thus it is with the fishermen. They are debarred by their situation from higher objects of pursuit, and, in obedience to the general law, throw heart and soul upon the attainment of such limited honours as may accrue from outstripping their antagonists in a boat-race. The only difference between theirs and the other cases I have recorded seems to be, that Nero and Anglesey voluntarily forewent more exalted pursuits, and thus merited the contempt they earned, while the poor fisherman is excusable in the selection of his objects, however lowly, on account of the narrow limits within which his faculties can be exercised. But, pardon me, reader! I have not hit upon the precise point of uniformity in the actions of men to which I wished to direct your attention. My object was not to illustrate the zeal and earnestness with which all pursue the phantoms of imaginary glory, but rather, the redoubled exertions they will be urged to make when a sight or sound, however evanescent, touches upon certain springs and awakens the memory of dormant feelings.

Behold an Indian warrior--a solitary chieftain, tied to a stake, amidst the enemies of his house and tribe. Suppose, for scenery, the gnarled trunks and impenetrable copse wood of the forest, lit up in the dusky glow of a watch-fire, and the malicious faces of his foes peering upon him with more demoniacal expression as the glare of his funeral pyre becomes redder and more intense-the Indian will endure, but the man must quiver! Suppose, now, that among the group, there is another manacled victim, one of the "dear, familiar faces," in whose smiles his young heart exulted-with whom he used, in happier days, to shoot the leopard for his mottled skin, or hunt the ostrich for his downy plume-let him meet the glance of that eye, and his heart is steel, and his features marble; his executioners devise fresh tortures in vain. The slightest tremor shall not gratify their malice, nor shall the least blanching of cheek or contraction of brow betray the agonies that are burning within. His spirit passes away unheard even the convulsion of death could not shake the rocky resolve that strung every fibre of that tortured frame.

--

Let us turn from the cruel spectacle of savage revenge, to seek for another example of the same effect in the listed field where knights and nobles vie with all the punctilious observances of chivalrous combat. Where life is freely risked and gladly forfeited to maintain the fabled supremacy of some Dulcinea of fact or fancy,-to prove that her dull gray eyes are black as night and lustrous as the evening star in

an autumn, or that her sallow cheeks outblush the Persian rose bud. Right gallantly the chargers prance, and, with steady aim and unswerving arm, the horsemen shiver their seasoned lances. Again they retreat, and again return, and still sustain the fame of their renowned achievements. Honour has been hither the sole mark of their ambition; nor is the magnet more engrossed by its devotion to the pole than their energies of mind and body by that Juggernaut of their idolatry. Still, bold and dauntless and energetic as has been their bearing, it can be excited still farther. At the very moment when strength appears exhausted and agility at a stand, a word pronounced in a certain tone from the gallery will penetrate recesses of the soul unexplored as yet, and evoke a fresh burst of manhood, before which all opposition must bite the dust.

Such, on a smaller scale, was the influence of that last cheer upon the wearied strandmen. The goal, now that the bridge is past, is not one hundred yards distant. Shall they return disgraced to their friends? never! They rally, and cheer back in weak reply, and the steersman waves his hat and strains the chords of the tiller till they crackle. Longer and more rapidly the oars are bent; they gain ground every stroke, and, like the axe of the poet, appear to gain fresh strength as they go. And now they shoot apast the sailors hurriedly," like a cloud in a tempest that passes the sun." Cork men are acting bravely, but their exertions, however sublimated, surpass not those of ordinary emulation. The sympathies of domestic life contribute not their bracing and concentrating influence. And thus, like other rivals in a crisis, they struggle with misdirected labour, and lash the water with ineffective might. It had been remarked, in the beginning of the race, that the sailors, in order to maintain their advantage, were obliged to expend a greater quantity of strength than their opponents, and the cause seemed to be that, on account of having been accustomed to rougher water, they had contracted a method of elevating their oars something more than was necessary on the smooth bosom of the Shannon. And now, when a reserve corps would be most requisite to ensure success, it is not forthcoming; and they are compelled to see their opponents appropriate the wreath which all but adorned their own temples. The signal is struck, and assembled myriads hail the victors with triumphant Ios, which were alas! to be so soon converted into the wailings of widowed parents and shrieks of orphan children. The vampire death was brooding with outstretched wings over the devoted city. I anticipated the swoop, and, by a hasty resolve, was travelling, on the following morning, towards some bathing place on the western coast of Clare.

I. K.

reader accuse them of folly or extravagance till he knows the limited range of the poor man's comforts.

How uniform is human nature in every age and state and circumstance! When the Roman emperors ceased to be Romans, they commenced driving tandem along the Appian way, with excessive emulation of superior excellence in the whip-department. When the French ceased to be a nation of conquerors, they became dancers; and their marshals, instead of wielding a truncheon, took to flourishing a fiddle-stick. When Hercules discontinued the trade of serpent-slaying, his glory was to stand as a butt for Omphale's velvet slippers.When Anglesey ceased to lead on his troops to victory, his imagination gloated upon the eclat that would arise from accepting the captaincy of a four-gun brig.-Thus it is with the fishermen. They are debarred by their situation from higher objects of pursuit, and, in obedience to the general law, throw heart and soul upon the attainment of such limited honours as may accrue from outstripping their antagonists in a boat-race. The only difference between theirs and the other cases I have recorded seems to be, that Nero and Anglesey voluntarily forewent more exalted pursuits, and thus merited the contempt they earned, while the poor fisherman is excusable in the selection of his objects, however lowly, on account of the narrow limits within which his faculties can be exercised. But, pardon me, reader! I have not hit upon the precise point of uniformity in the actions of men to which I wished to direct your attention. My object was not to illustrate the zeal and earnestness with which all pursue the phantoms of imaginary glory, but rather, the redoubled exertions they will be urged to make when a sight or sound, however evanescent, touches upon certain springs and awakens the memory of dormant feelings.

Behold an Indian warrior--a solitary chieftain, tied to a stake, amidst the enemies of his house and tribe. Suppose, for scenery, the gnarled trunks and impenetrable copse wood of the forest, lit up in the dusky glow of a watch-fire, and the malicious faces of his foes peering upon him with more demoniacal expression as the glare of his funeral pyre becomes redder and more intense-the Indian will endure, but the man must quiver! Suppose, now, that among the group, there is another manacled victim, one of the "dear, familiar faces," in whose smiles his young heart exulted-with whom he used, in happier days, to shoot the leopard for his mottled skin, or hunt the ostrich for his downy plume-let him meet the glance of that eye, and his heart is steel, and his features marble; his executioners devise fresh tortures in vain. The slightest tremor shall not gratify their malice, nor shall the least blanching of cheek or contraction of brow betray the agonies that are burning within. His spirit passes away unheard-even the convulsion of death could not shake the rocky resolve that strung every fibre of that tortured frame.

Let us turn from the cruel spectacle of savage revenge, to seek for another example of the same effect in the listed field where knights and nobles vie with all the punctilious observances of chivalrous combat. Where life is freely risked and gladly forfeited to maintain the fabled supremacy of some Dulcinea of fact or fancy,-to prove that her dull gray eyes are black as night and lustrous as the evening star in

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