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THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

THE CASTLE OF TERMON MAGRATH, COUNTY OF DONEGAL.

In a recent number of our journal we called the attention of our readers to the little-appreciated beauties of Lough Erne; and we now present them with another vista of that delightful locality in connection with the Castle of Termon Magrath, or Termon, as it is more usually called, which is situated at its northern extremity, in the county of Donegal. Considered as a sheet of water, the lower lake appears from this side to the greatest advantage; but its distant shores are but little improved by plantations, and consequently look comparatively bleak and barren. In the immediate vicinity of our subject, however, the scenery is of the rich character for which Lough Erne is so remarkable, the shores of the lake being fringed with the plantations of the glebe of Templecarn and those of Waterfoot, the beautiful seat of Colonel Barton.

The Castle of Termon is situated in the parish of Templecarn, about half a mile to the west of the pleasant and improving little town of Pettigoe, which, if it had a comfortable inn, would be a good station for pleasure tourists wishing to enjoy the scenery of the lower Lough Erne and that of Lough Derg, with its celebrated purgatory of St Patrick.

The foundation of this castle, according to popular tradition, is ascribed to the celebrated Malmurry, or, as he was usually called, Myler Magrath, the first Protestant Bishop of Clogher; and there is every reason to believe this tradition correct. The lands on which the castle is situated anciently constituted the Termon of St Daveog of Lough Derg, of which the Magraths were hereditarily the termoners or churchwardens; and of this family Myler Magrath was the head; so that these lands properly belonged to him anteriorly to any grant of them derived through his bishopric. He was originally a Franciscan friar, and being a man of distinguished abilities, was advanced by Pope Pius V. to the see of Down; but having afterwards embraced Protestantism, he was placed in the see of Clogher by letter of Queen Elizabeth, dated 18th May 1570, and by grant dated the 18th September, in the same year. He remained, however, but a short time in this see, in which he received but little or nothing of the revenues, and in which he was probably surrounded by enemies even among his own kindred, and was translated to the archbishopric of Cashel on the 3d of February, in the year following. He died at Cashel at the age of one hundred, in the year 1622, and was interred in the choir of that ancient cathedral, where a splendid monument to his memory still exists, with a Latin inscription penned by himself, of which the following quaint translation is given in Harris’s Ware:—

Harris remarks, that the Roman Catholics of his diocese have a tradition that he returned to his original faith previously to his death, and that though it was pretended that he was buried in his own cathedral, yet he had given private orders for burying his body elsewhere, to which circumstance, as they say, the two last lines of his epitaph allude. “But,” says Harris, “although he was no good man, and had impoverished his see by stripping it of much of its ancient estate, yet I do not find any room to call his sincerity as to his religious profession in question, living or dying. These lines rather seem to hint at the separate existence of the soul and body.” But however this may be, there is another tradition relative to him less doubtful, inasmuch as it is common to the peasantry of different creeds, namely, that he was the handsomest man in Ireland in his day!

The Castle of Termon, like most edifices of the kind erected in the sixteenth century, consisted of a strong keep with circular towers at two of its angles, and encompassed by outworks. It was battered by Ireton from the neighbouring hill in the parliamentary wars; but its ruins are considerable, and by their picturesqueness add interest to the northern shore of the lower Lough Erne.

P.

THE IRISH MIDWIFE.
BY WILLIAM CARLETON.

Introductory.

Of the many remarkable characters that have been formed by the spirit and habits of Irish feeling among the peasantry, there is not one so clear, distinct, and well traced, as that of the Midwife. We could mention several that are certainly marked with great precision, and that stand out in fine relief to the eye of the spectator, but none at all, who in richness of colouring, in boldness of outline, or in firmness and force, can for a moment be compared with the Midwife. The Fiddler for instance lives a life sufficiently graphic and distinct; so does the Dancing-master, and so also does the Matchmaker, but with some abatement of colouring. As for the Cosherer, the Shanahie, the Keener, and the Foster-nurse, although all mellow toned, and well individualized by the strong power of hereditary usage, yet do they stand dim and shadowy, when placed face to face with this great exponent of national temperament.

It is almost impossible to conceive a character of greater self-importance than an Irish Midwife, or who exhibits in her whole bearing a more complacent consciousness of her own privileges. The Fiddler might be dispensed with, and the Dancing-master might follow him off the stage; the Cosherer, Shanahie, Keener, might all disappear, and the general business of life still go on as before. But not so with her whom we are describing; and this conviction is the very basis of her power, the secret source from which she draws the confidence that bears down every rival claim upon the affections of the people.

Before we introduce Rose Moan to our kind readers, we shall briefly relate a few points of character peculiar to the Irish Midwife, because they are probably not in general known to a very numerous class of our readers. This is a matter which we are the more anxious to do, because it is undeniable that an acquaintance with many of the old legendary powers with which she was supposed to be invested, is fast fading out of the public memory; and unless put into timely record, it is to be feared that in the course of one or two generations more, they may altogether disappear and be forgotten.

One of the least known of the secrets which old traditionary lore affirmed to have been in possession of the Midwife, was the knowledge of how beer might be brewed from heather. The Irish people believe that the Danes understood and practised this valuable process, and will assure you that the liquor prepared from materials so cheap and abundant was superior in strength and flavour to any ever produced from malt. Nay, they will tell you how it conferred such bodily strength and courage upon those who drank it, that it was to the influence and virtue of this alone that the Danes held such a protracted sway, and won so many victories in Ireland. It was a secret, however, too valuable to be disclosed, especially to enemies, who would lose no time in turning the important consequences of it against the Danes themselves. The consequence was, that from the day the first Dane set foot upon the soil of Ireland, until that upon which they bade it adieu for ever, no Irishman was ever able to get possession of it. It came to be known, however, and the knowledge of it is said to be still in the country, but must remain unavailable until the fulfilment of a certain prophecy connected with the liberation of Ireland shall take away the obligation of a most solemn oath, which bound the original recipient of the secret to this conditional silence. The circumstances are said to have been these:—

On the evening previous to the final embarkation of the Danes for their own country, the wife of their prince was seized with the pains of childbirth, and there being no midwife among themselves, an Irish one was brought, who, as the enmity between the nations was both strong and bitter, resolutely withheld her services, unless upon the condition of being made acquainted with this invaluable process. The crisis it seems being a very trying one, the condition was complied with; but the midwife was solemnly sworn never to communicate it to any but a woman, and never to put it in practice until Ireland should be free, and any two of its provinces at peace with each other. The midwife, thinking very naturally that there remained no obstacle to the accomplishment of these conditions but the presence of the Danes themselves, and seeing that they were on the eve of leaving the country for ever, imagined herself perfectly safe in entering into the obligation; but it so happened, says the tradition, that although the knowledge of the secret is among the Irish midwives still, yet it never could be applied, and never will, until Ireland shall be in the state required by the terms of her oath. So runs the tradition.

There is, however, one species of power with which some of the old midwives were said to be gifted, so exquisitely ludicrous, and yet at the same time so firmly fixed in the belief of many among the people, that we cannot do justice to the character without mentioning so strange an acquisition. It is this, that where a husband happens to be cruel to his wife, or suspects her unjustly, the Midwife is able, by some mysterious charm, to inflict upon him and remove from the wife the sufferings annexed to her confinement, as the penalty mentioned by holy writ which is to follow the sex in consequence of the transgression of our mother Eve. Some of our readers may perhaps imagine this to be incredible, but we assure them that it is strictly true. Such a superstition did prevail in Ireland among the humbler classes, and still does, to an extent which would surprise any one not as well acquainted with old Irish usages and superstitions as we happen to be. The manner in which the Midwife got possession of this power is as follows:—It sometimes happened that the “good people,” or Dhoine Shee —that is, the fairies—were put to the necessity of having recourse to the aid of the Midwife. On one of those occasions it seems, the good woman discharged her duties so successfully, that the fairy matron, in requital for her services and promptitude of attendance, communicated to her this secret, so formidable to all bad husbands. From the period alluded to, say the people, it has of course been gladly transmitted from hand to hand, and on many occasions resorted to with fearful but salutary effect. Within our own memory several instances of its application were pointed out to us, and the very individuals themselves, when closely interrogated, were forced to an assertion that was at least equivalent to an admission, “it was nothing but an attack of the cholic,” which by the way was little else than a libel upon that departed malady. Many are the tales told of cases in which midwives were professionally serviceable to the good people; but unless their assistance was repaid by the communication of some secret piece of knowledge, it was better to receive no payment, any other description of remuneration being considered unfortunate. Some of those stories have been well told, and with others of them we may probably amuse our readers upon some future occasion.

From this source also was derived another most valuable quality said to be possessed by the Irish Midwife, but one which we should suppose the virtue of our fair countrywomen rendered of very infrequent application. This was the power of destroying jealousy between man and wife. We forget whether it was said to be efficacious in cases of guilt, but we should imagine that the contrary would rather hold good, as an Irishman is not exactly that description of husband who would suffer himself to be charmed back into the arms of a [Pg 203] polluted wife. This was effected by the knowledge of a certain herb, a decoction of which the parties were to drink nine successive times, each time before sunrise and after sunset. Of course the name of the herb was kept a profound secret; but even if it had been known, it could have proved of little value, for the full force of its influence depended on a charm which the Midwife had learned among the fairies. Whether it was the Anacampserotes of the middle ages or not, is difficult to say; but one thing is certain, that not only have midwives, but other persons of both sexes, gone about through the country professing to cure jealousy by the juice or decoction of a mysterious herb, which was known only to themselves. It is not unlikely to suppose that this great secret after all was nothing more than a perverted application of the Waters of Jealousy mentioned by Moses, and that it only resembled many other charms practised in this and other countries, which are generally founded upon certain passages of Scripture. Indeed, there is little doubt that the practice of attempting to cure jealousy by herbs existed elsewhere as well as in Ireland; and one would certainly imagine that Shakspeare, who left nothing connected with the human heart untouched, must have alluded to the very custom we are treating of, when he makes Iago, speaking of Othello’s jealousy, say,

Here it is quite evident that the efficacy of the “syrups” spoken of was to be tried upon the mind only in which the Moor’s horrible malady existed. That Shakspeare, in the passage quoted, alluded to this singular custom, is, we think, at least extremely probable.

We have said that the Midwife stood high as a matchmaker, and so unquestionably she did. No woman was better acquainted with charms of all kinds, especially with those that were calculated to aid or throw light upon the progress of love. If for instance young persons of either sex felt doubt as to whether their passion was returned, they generally consulted the Midwife, who, on hearing a statement of their apprehensions, appointed a day on which she promised to satisfy them. Accordingly, at the time agreed upon, she and the party interested repaired as secretly as might be, and with much mystery, to some lonely place, where she produced a Bible and key, both of which she held in a particular position—that is, the Bible suspended by a string which passed through the key. She then uttered with a grave and solemn face the following verses from the Book of Ruth, which the young person accompanying her was made to repeat slowly and deliberately after her:—

“And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”

If at the conclusion of these words the Bible turned, she affirmed, with the air of a prophetess, not only that the affection of the parties was mutual, but that their courtship would terminate in marriage. If, on the contrary, it remained stationary, the passion existed only on one side, and the parties were not destined for each other. Oh, credulous love! not to see that the venerable sybil could allow the Bible to turn or not, just as she may have previously ascertained from either party whether their attachment was reciprocal or otherwise! We dare say the above charm is seldom resorted to now, and of course this harmless imposition on the lovers will soon cease to be practised at all.

The Midwife’s aid to lovers, however, did not stop here. If they wished to create a passion in some heart where it had not previously existed, she told them to get a dormouse and reduce it to powder, a pinch of which, if put into the drink of the person beloved, would immediately rivet his or her affections upon the individual by whose hands it was administered. Many anecdotes are told of humorous miscarriages that resulted from a neglect of this condition. One is especially well known, of a young woman who gave the potion through the hands of her grandmother; and the consequence was, that the bachelor immediately made love to the old lady instead of the young one, and eventually became grandfather to the latter instead of her husband. Indeed, the administering of philtres and the use of charms in Ireland were formerly very frequent, and occasionally attended by results which had not been anticipated. The use especially of cantharides , or French flies, in the hands of the ignorant, has often been said to induce madness, and not unfrequently to occasion death. It is not very long since a melancholy case of the latter from this very cause appeared in an Irish newspaper.

The Midwife was also a great interpreter of dreams, omens, auguries, and signs of all possible sorts, and no youngsters who ever consulted her need be long at a loss for a personal view of the object of their love. They had only to seek in some remote glen or dell for a briar whose top had taken root in the ground; this they were to put under their pillow and sleep upon, and the certain consequence was, that the image of the future wife or husband would appear to them in a dream. She was also famous at cup-tossing; and nothing could surpass the shrewd and sapient expression of her face as she sat solemnly peering into the grounds of the tea for the imaginary forms of rings, and love-letters, and carriages, which were necessary to the happy purport of her divination, for she felt great reluctance to foretell calamity. She seldom, however, had recourse to card-cutting, which she looked upon as an unholy practice; the cards, as everyone knows, being the only book on which the devil says his prayers night and morning. Who has not heard of his prayer-book ?

We are now to consider the Midwife in the capacity of a woman not only brimful of medicinal knowledge, but possessed of many secrets, which the mere physician or apothecary could never penetrate. As a doctress, she possessed a very high reputation for all complaints incident to children and females; and where herbal skill failed, unlike the mere scientific man of diplomas, she could set physical causes and effects aside, and have recourse at once to the supernatural and miraculous.

For instance, there are two complaints which she is, beyond any other individual, celebrated for managing—that is to say, headache, and another malady which is anonymous, or only known to country folk by what is termed “the spool or bone of the breast being down.” The first she cures by a very formal and serious process called “measuring the head.” This is done by a ribbon, which she puts round the cranium, repeating during the admeasurement a certain prayer or charm from which the operation is to derive its whole efficacy. The measuring is performed twice—in the first instance, to show that its sutures are separated by disease, or, to speak more plainly, that the bones of the head are absolutely opened, and that as a natural consequence the head must be much larger than when the patient is in a state of health. The circumference of the first admeasurement is marked upon a ribbon, after which she repeats the charm that is to remove the headache, and measures the cranium again, in order to show, by a comparison of the two ribbons, that the sutures have been closed, the charm successful, and the headache consequently removed. It is impossible to say how the discrepancy in the measurement is brought about; but be that as it may, the writer of this has frequently seen the operation performed in such a way as to defy the most scrutinising eye to detect any appearance of imposture, and he is convinced that in the majority of cases there is not the slightest imposture intended. The operator is in truth a dupe to a strong and delusive enthusiasm.

When the Midwife raises the spool of the breast, the operation is conducted without any assistance from the supernatural. If a boy or girl diminishes in flesh, is troubled with want of rest or of appetite, without being afflicted with any particular disease, either acute or local, the Midwife puts her finger under the bone which projects over the pit of the stomach, and immediately feels that “the spool of the breast is down”—in other words, she informs the parents that the bone is bent inwards, and presses upon the heart ! The raising of this precisely resembles the operation of cupping. She gets a penny piece, which she places upon the spot affected, the patient having been first laid in a supine posture; after this she burns a little spirits in a tumbler in order to exhaust the air in it; she then presses it quickly against the part which is under the penny piece; and in a few moments, to the amazement of the lookers-on, it is drawn strongly up, and remains so until the heart-bone is supposed to be raised in such a manner as that it will not return.

The next charm for which she is remarkable among the people, is that by which a mote is taken out of the eye. The manner of doing this is as follows:—A white basin is got, and a jug of the purest water; the midwife repeatedly rinses her mouth with the water, until it returns as pure and clear [Pg 204] as when she took it in. She then walks to and fro, repeating the words of the charm, her mouth all the time filled with the water. When the charm is finished, she pours the water out of her mouth into the clean basin, and will point out the mote, or whatever it may have been, floating in the water, or lying in the bottom of the vessel. In fact, you could scarcely mention a malady with which the Midwife of the old school was not prepared to grapple by the aid of a charm. The toothache, the cholic, measles, childbirth, all had their respective charms. The latter especially required one of a very pithy cast. Every one knows that the power of fairies in Ireland is never so strong, nor so earnestly put forth, as in the moment of parturition, when they strive by all possible means to secure the new-born infant before it is christened, and leave a changeling in its stead. Invaluable indeed is the midwife who is possessed of a charm to prevent this, and knows how to arrange all the ceremonies that are to be observed upon the occasion without making any mistake, for that would vitiate all. Many a time on such occasions have the ribs of the roof been made to crack, the windows rattled out, the door pushed with violence, and the whole house shaken as if it would tumble about their heads—and all by the fairies—but to no purpose: the charm of the midwife was a rock of defence; the necessary precautions had been taken, and they were ultimately forced to depart in a strong blast of wind, screaming and howling with rage and disappointment as they went.

There were also charms for the diseases of cattle, to cure which there exist in Ireland some processes of very distant antiquity. We ourselves have seen elemental fire produced by the friction of two green boughs together, applied as a remedy for the black-leg and murrain. This is evidently of Pagan origin, and must have some remote affinity with the old doctrines of Baal, the ancient god of fire, whose worship was once so general in Ireland.

Of these charms it may be said that they are all of a religious character, some of them evidently the production of imposture, and others apparently of those who seriously believed in their efficacy. There is one thing peculiar about them, which is, that they must be taught to persons of the opposite sex: a man, for instance, cannot teach a charm to a man, nor a woman to a woman, but he may to a woman, as a woman may to a man. If taught or learned in violation of this principle, they possess no virtue.

In treating of the Irish Midwife, we cannot permit ourselves to overlook the superstition of the “lucky caul,” which comes so clearly within her province. The caul is a thin membrane, about the consistence of very fine silk, which covers the head of a new-born infant like a cap. It is always the omen of great good fortune to the infant and parents; and in Ireland, when any one has unexpectedly fallen into the receipt of property, or any other temporal good, it is customary to say “such a person was born with a ‘lucky caul’ on his head.”

Why these are considered lucky, it would be a very difficult matter to ascertain. Several instances of good fortune, happening to such as were born with them, might by their coincidences form a basis for the superstition; just as the fact of three men during one severe winter having been found drowned, each with two shirts on, generated an opinion which has now become fixed and general in that parish, that it is unlucky to wear two shirts at once. We are not certain whether the caul is in general the perquisite of the Midwife—sometimes we believe it is; at all events, her integrity occasionally yields to the desire of possessing it. In many cases she conceals its existence, in order that she may secretly dispose of it to good advantage, which she frequently does; for it is considered to be the herald of good fortune to those who can get it into their possession. Now, let not our English neighbours smile at us for those things until they wash their own hands clear of such practices. At this day a caul will bring a good price in the most civilized city in the world—to wit, the good city of London—the British metropolis. Nay, to such lengths has the mania for cauls been carried there, that they have been actually advertised for in the Times newspaper.

Of a winter evening, at the fireside, there can be few more amusing companions than a Midwife of the old school. She has the smack of old times and old usages about her, and tastes of that agreeable simplicity of manners which always betokens a harmless and inoffensive heart. Her language is at once easy, copious, and minute, and if a good deal pedantic, the pedantry is rather the traditionary phraseology and antique humour which descends with her profession, than the peculiar property or bias of her individual mind. She affects much mystery, and intimates that she could tell many strange stories of high life; but she is always too honourable to betray the confidence that has been reposed in her good faith and secrecy. In her dress she always consults warmth and comfort, and seldom or never looks to appearance. Flannel and cotton she heaps on herself in abundant folds, and the consequence is, that although subject to all the inclemency of the seasons both by night and day, she is hardly ever known to be sick. The cottage of the Midwife may in general be known by the mounting-stone which is beside her door, and which enables her without difficulty or loss of time to get on horseback behind the impatient messenger. The window of her bedroom is also remarkable for its opening on hinges like a door, a thing not usual in the country. This is to enable her to thrust forth her well-flannelled head without any possible delay, in order to inquire the name of the party requiring her aid, the length of journey before her, and such other particulars as she usually deems necessary. The sleep of the Midwife is almost peculiar in its character to herself. No person sleeps more soundly and deeply than she does, unless to a knock at the door or a tap at the window, to both of which it may be said she is ever instinctively awake. We question if a peal of cannon discharged at her house-side would disturb her; but give on the other hand the slightest possible knock or tap at either her door or window, and ere you could imagine she had time to awaken, the roll of flannel that contains her head is thrust out of the window.

Having thus recited everything, so far as we could remember it, connected with the social antiquities of her calling, and detailed some matters not generally known, that may, we trust, be interesting to those who are fond of looking at the springs which often move rustic society, we now close this “Essay on Midwifery,” hoping to be able to bring the Midwife herself personally on the stage in our next, or at least in an early number.

GLIMPSES IN THE MOUNTAINS.
BY COUL GOPPAGH.

What can have become of the old world I remember long long ago—almost twenty years ago? It is a weary look backward, and the distance hides it. This is not the world I was born in. I remember when the old men used to show me the ways they walked in, scores of years before, and the very corners and the footpaths through the fields. Here they met an old friend—there they took shelter from a storm. On this lake they skated all day—from that hill they saw the ships returning with victory from foreign war. Men walked quietly together then in silence or friendly talk, and did not jostle each other from the way; they went to bed and rose as the sun did; they followed in their fathers’ ways—read the same books, laughed at the same fine old jokes, and believed their posterity would do the same. Old men then wore grey hairs, and saw their children’s children, and were venerable. But they are all gone; and could they look out of their graves (if indeed their very graves be spared), they would not know the old world they used to live in.

It is all changed now with us old fellows of five-and-twenty. We are left doting among the ruins of our youth. There is nothing left to us of our early days. The old crooked grassy byeways where we went to gather blackberries and idle away a summer day, have been gone over by the surveyor’s chain, and some straight cut, with prim, bare fences, has run it down. The little stream has been piped over, and, where it “babbled o’ green fields,” is a noisy, muddy thoroughfare. Over the green glen where the hazels nourished their brown clusters, strides a cursed viaduct; the execrable railway has frighted the linnets from the boughs, and a bird’s nest shall never more be found. In the lonely bay where we used to gather shells, thinking ourselves in fairy land, and wondering what lay beyond the dim horizon, the steamboat roars and splashes. Riot and swearing and slang and vice of cities have usurped the quiet haunts of country calm and charity.

It is for a coming age all these things are preparing: to us is allotted only the vexation and bewilderment. I have no associations to link me to these horrors, and I prefer the old repose to all the luxuries they bring. What is it to me that I can go to East or West in so many days sooner, or even if the sun that sets on me to-night should rise for me to-morrow by the Ganges? Here is my “fortunate isle;” this is my home where my heart is. I have no business with Egypt or the Nile. I wish to sit undisturbed by my own fireside, to [Pg 205] walk under the old trees, to look on my own fields, to be warmed by my own sun. But they will dig a canal through my silent walks, and the infernal city will pour through these banks its restless impurity, and make them echo with the laughter of brutal debauchery.

It is something for a man to look on the same scenes he looked on in his childhood, among the same fields and trees and household ways his forefathers tilled and planted, and knew before him. There is a sanctity grows round them year by year, enriching the heart, that cannot be broken through nor profaned without a loss never to be repaired. The exile can still listen to the whispering of the woods and the sound of the streams, but he remembers the woods and waters of his native land with tears. In twenty years I have grown old and an exile where I was born. Huge piles have covered the green where I played. The roar of busy streets insults the memory of the green lanes where I strolled at evening.

There is no country now. The city has invaded the solitude, and vice and impudent folly march in its rear. The bumpkin imitates the swagger of the citizen—the ploughman talks politics—the haymaker shakes the swathe and discourses of political economy—the reaper questions the revenue.

The mountains yet remain! I can see them, still, from my door; I can see them from the city streets. I can climb up their rugged sides still, and bless God that no discoverer as yet has uprooted the hills.

My heart is with them, for they have not changed. With them I have still a sovereign sympathy, for I can look on them and renew the fancies of my infancy. There is not a torrent pouring down their sides, not a crag nor a bramble, that is not reverend in my eye.

The world is drunk, and raves. Come away from these reeling bacchanals, and let us fare among the hills! Long ago, before the time of history, some naked savage here has worshipped the sunrise; some Druid sacrificed his victims; some barbarian Spartacus, lurking among the wild deer and the wolves, has defied his nation; some young warrior, with tears on his hardy cheek, has pointed up thither, whispering to one beside him dearer than his name, his clan, or his life, and sped away on the wings of love to the peace and safety of the mountains.

These noble fronts have never varied. The clouds float here over the same ridges on which the eyes of our childhood rested, and of the men of old time. The clank of monstrous engines has never yet dismayed the primeval stillness.

The skeleton of creation is visible here, and we see the beginnings of the world. This solid granite sparkled in the sun when “the evening and the morning were the first day,” and was as firm and solid to the centre when the world was “without form and void.” This whinstone rock has been hardened in some earthquake furnace long since then, and these flints are new, though they held fire before Prometheus suffered. This soft soil is the relics of the life and death of a thousand green years, and the fresh bloom that feeds on its decay will nourish succeeding blossoms.

The Western nations look here for the dawn, and the people of the East for sunset. Young children look up here from cottage doors at evening, and see the portals of Paradise opened, gazing through vistas brighter than imagination, unfolding far into the heart of heaven, and hold their breath, waiting for the passage of the archangels. This is a glorified soil. On these peaks hang the morning and the evening stars. The sun and the moon come here to do them honour; and they clothe themselves with gold and azure, and purple, deeper than the Tyrian, to receive their celestial guests.

High up here in this blessed solitude there is life, and liberty of heart, and sacred peace. No fenced-in space confines me here. I breathe in a domain as wide as the horizon, as high as the planets and the sun. The clouds are my fellow-wanderers here, and enjoy with me the liberal bosom of the air. Their ethereal hills and dales invite my fancy to a real heaven, where I gather all I love around me. Their shadows cover me as they pass over, and I bid them “God speed” as they carry cool showers down to the thirsting land. No miserable moan of want or sickness, no sob of long-breaking hearts, no choked sigh of cheated hope, nor any human woe, alarms me here. I see no loathsome household, plague-stricken with poverty, and festering in filth, despised of men, and famishing into horrors and crime: no form of woman (black shame before God!) wading in fœtid rags through mire and snow, with those awful human (!) children of hers, debased as the swine with whom they sleep (for charity!) and on whom the rich man looks—poor unreckoning fool!—and never pauses to think and tremble.

Here the wild bee sings among the rich fragrance of the heather-bells and thyme, gathering pure honey, fresh from the breath of the immediate sunrise. The larks have their nests among the heath by thousands, and make the whole mountain musical. Many strange insects, born and dying in the hour, that live on dew-drops, buzz by, and a thousand unknown creatures, gifted with voice, inhabiting small twigs in labyrinths of greenest moss, join in the hymn. The invisible wind, like a ruler of the strings, pours in a sovereign master-note that blends in all one solemn harmony, filling the air till the valleys sing for joy.

Here is Solitude, unforced, and free as the wandering wind. Here is peace like the summer life of untrodden blossoms. Here is a lofty quiet as of the dreams of the heart over its holy memories. Here are everlasting rocks, steadfast as honour, and true. Here is wealth for Fancy, and a dwelling for Imagination. Wide and far as the peaks can seek the heavens, there is no place for Envy or Hate, where the glens are vocal, and the holy silence compels the heart to adoration, making a haven for religion among the mighty hills.

What throes of central agony heaved up these huge mountains, twisting and folding each into each away as far as the eye can follow! What pangs and convulsions at the heart! What startling from chaotic trance, long before man or his mammoth ancestors, at the creative song of some wandering star-messenger, millions of years upon its way!

My heart enlarges here, and recognises an aërial amity with the sky. I am filled with celestial promptings. I shake off all incumbrance of the earth. I stretch out my arms to the blue heaven, and its breath comes into my bosom as a friend. The stir of humanity is dumb beneath me. I leap among the heathy knolls. I sing beside the infant rivers. I shout, and hear answers from the lurking echoes, like the mysterious voices of infinite years. I drink in unused air with

I stand wrapt in mute visions, growing into the majesty of the mountains. I spurn Decay and Time. I share the enduring strength, and carry lightly the burden of centuries.

The mountains swell up around me like a sea with billows. My footfall is inaudible, and I fleet to and fro like the unbodied soul of a great poet that makes the worlds it sees. There are no furrows on this soil: the curse has not fallen here. The sweat of the brow has not dropped here, nor aught save the rain and the dew of heaven. I am still nearer to the angels, and my spirit begins to put forth unaccustomed wings.

The ancient gods still linger here, and Antiquity has not yet grown old. The world has not yet heard “the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” nor has Paul yet preached. Here I am a devout Pagan. I am the friend of Plato; I remember the voice of Socrates. I worship the Gods reverently, and have come up hither with sacrifice according to the voice of the oracle.

I have drunk with the muses at this fountain. Here, under the hanging ivy from the rock, I behold the real Castaly; and wherever the stream may wander, it will carry music on its way from divinest voices. From this clump I have listened to Apollo teaching the shepherds. Yea, I feel my veins tingling with a more celestial liquor; I own invulnerable limbs, and am myself a God!

It was not Mercury, but I, who passed swiftly down yon green declivity with feathered feet, and away over the hill-tops like the shadow of a cloud. Those cattle brousing in the thicket, far down the ravine, I stole from Pieria. I bear the imperial mandates, and the breeze carries the sound of my eloquence through all the forests.

But I aspire to loftier seats. This is the high Olympus; Saturn is baffled, and immortal Jove laughs at the terrible prophecies of the enduring Titan. Let him rend his rivets. Let him melt the heart of Caucasus, or appease the Vulture! Would that I could as easily escape the reproaches of Juno, or overcome Danäe! But it shall rain gold to-morrow in her lap, and Leda shall fondle in her snowier bosom a snowy swan. Meanwhile let the nectar be poured! The laughing gods surround me, and I know immortal vigour. How Mercury jeered at the grinning Vulcan erewhile as he writhed his iron sinews, when I held him over the edge of heaven! Here I compel the clouds around me; I sit throned, and thunder.

[Pg 206]

Lo! to my ears comes up a solemn strain, and the Eagle shrieks and flies. The thunderbolt withers from my hand:—

A louder thunder has been heard than Jove’s. There is a mountain more venerable than Olympus. Moses went up there to talk with God, and came down with the brightness of the sun in his countenance that could not be looked upon, bearing in his hand an eternal law. That thunder still echoes which shook Babylon, and quelled the Assyrian. The Persian rolled away before it like a cloud. The Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, have fled from it for ever.

But a greater than Moses has made the mountains holy. A greater hierophant opened up there the law and the prophets. On a mountain Satan confessed his conqueror. Who shall conceive of that tremendous hour, pregnant with the fate of man, when “Jesus went up alone into the mountain to pray!” And we know what deed was done on Calvary.

APOLOGUES AND FABLES
FROM FOREIGN LANGUAGES.

( Translated for the Irish Penny Journal. )

No. V.—THE OLD MAN AND THE YOUTHS.
(FROM THE FRENCH OF LAFONTAINE.)

Learning, it has been said, may be an instrument of fraud: so may bread, if discharged from the mouth of a cannon, be an instrument of death.— Bentham.

THE SNUFF SHOP.

Few, we dare say, ever entered a shop of the description named in the title of this paper with any other idea than that they were entering merely a repository of Lundy Foot, cigars, and small twist. Few, we suppose, ever looked on such a place in any other light, or ever considered its keeper in any other point of view than that simply of a tobacconist. Yet is there another light, and a dismal one it is, in which both the snuff shop and the snuff dealer himself may be looked upon; and it is in such a light that we ourselves always do look upon them. This is, viewing the one as a charnel-house of defunct authors; the other as a goul, battening on their mortal remains. We sometimes vary this horrifying, but, alas! too correct view of the snuff shop and the snuff dealer, by supposing the one a sort of literary shambles or slaughter-house, and the other a cold-blooded, merciless literary butcher.

Taking either of these views of the snuff shop, what a change takes place in its aspect, and in that of every thing and person pertaining to it! What a dismal and hideous den it then becomes, and what a truculent, savage-looking fiend becomes that smiling and simpering tobacconist! No bowels of compassion has he for the mangled and mutilated authors that are lying thick around him, cruelly Burked by his own merciless hands. No; there he sits in the midst of the dire carnage as calm and unconcerned as if he had nothing whatever to do with it—the callous monster!

Pursuing the idea just broached, let us enter this horrid den, and for a moment contemplate its interior in a spirit in accordance with that idea; for, not being authors, we have nothing to fear for ourselves, it being that class only that need stand in awe of the snuff shop—to all others it is a harmless place enough.

Lo! then, behold (giving us the advantage here of a little stretch of imagination), the walls bespattered with the blood and brains of murdered authors; and see that blood-stained bench which the demon of the place calls a counter; and in various other depositories around lie their dismembered limbs and mangled carcases. Oh, it is a shocking and heart-rending sight!

Some of those unfortunates have evidently died hard: they have the appearance of having struggled desperately for life. But, alas, in vain! An irresistible destiny thrust them into the fatal snuff shop, where they perished quickly and miserably by the hand of the ruthless savage within. Others, again, seem to have quietly resigned themselves to their fate, and, indeed, to have been more than half dead before they were brought in; while others, again, appear to have been wholly defunct, having died a natural death. These, then, have been conveyed thither merely to be cut up, and converted to the degrading uses of the tobacconist.

Although some of the unhappy authors whose mangled remains strew this den of horrors seem to have attained a kind of maturity before they were cruelly torn to pieces as we now see them, by far the greater number are a sort of murdered innocents, having been strangled in their birth, or shortly after. A good many there are, too, who seem to have been dead born, or to have perished while yet in embryo.

Piteous as it is to look on the heavy, sturdy corpses of the murdered prose writers that lie thickly up and down this chamber of death, yet infinitely more piteous is it to contemplate the delicate, fragile forms of the poets thus cruelly mangled and mutilated that lie no less thickly around us. Poor dear, unfledged things! What a fate has been thine!—what a destiny, to be consigned, ere ye had yet opportunity to open your little musical throats, to the tender mercies of that literary Burke—that ruthless monster whom the world, thinking of him only in connection with cigars and pigtail, calls a tobacconist. Where now, sweet little humming birds, be those soft and tender notes with which ye sought, alas, how vainly! to charm the huge, rude ear of an uncouth and barbarous world that would not listen to ye? Alas, they have ceased for ever! How little does that savage, the demon of the place, mind your sweet, small voices, that give forth a piteous wail, like the last notes of the dying swan, every time he lays his merciless hands on you. Little, indeed! Let but a customer come in for half an ounce of “Blackguard,” and he will, without the smallest hesitation or compunction, seize one of you, dear unfortunates, and tear you limb from limb for his own and that customer’s conveniency: ay, for a paltry three half-pence, mayhap less—a pennyworth of “Scotch”—will he perpetrate this atrocious deed. That sanguinary bench, that horrid [Pg 207] counter, is strewn over with your slim carcases and fragile limbs; and your murderer is hanging over your mutilated remains, laughing and chatting and joking with his customers as pleasantly and unconcernedly as if you were so much waste paper. Oh, it is atrocious!

Such, then, dear reader, is the light—a terrible one, indeed, but as thou wilt acknowledge, we have no doubt, a correct one—in which we look upon snuff shops, which, as thou well knowest, have long lain, and not unjustly, under the stigma of being fatal to authors. If thou art one, pray, then, eschew it; for if thou dost once enter its dismal portals, thou wilt never, never more be heard of in this world!

C.

ANIMAL TAMING.

SECOND AND CONCLUDING ARTICLE.

In my last paper on the taming of animals, I treated the subject generally rather than in detail. It is probable that the curious reader may not be displeased to learn a little more of the mode of keeping and domesticating wild and savage animals, as well as the methods to be adopted in order to bring together fierce animals of different species, and induce them to occupy the same cage in peace and harmony, and without danger of contention. It is, as will be at once recognised, this latter circumstance which renders the exhibitions of Van Amburgh and his rivals as wonderful as they are; it being a far easier matter to reconcile a lion or a tiger to yourself, and even familiarize it to the furthest possible degree, than it is to induce the tiger and the lion to consort together, and refrain from engaging in deadly conflict.

Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration of the mode which should be adopted to tame two or more animals, that you are made a present of a lion and a tiger. If the animals be very young, you will have very little trouble with them for a long time—none, indeed, beyond the necessity of attending to their health, for the larger felines are difficult to be reared; but as they grow older, they will be very apt to quarrel between themselves; wounds will be given and received, and the death or maiming of either, or perhaps of both, will pretty speedily result. To guard against any unpleasantness of this nature, it should be your business the instant you receive the animals to commence operations. Let them be kept at first far apart; for it is not advisable, as their dispositions may be very different, that one should be witness of the severity you may be compelled to exercise towards the other. This done, take, according to the animals’ ages, a stout cane, a supplejack, or an iron rod. If the creatures be very young, that is, under three months, or perhaps four, the cane will be sufficient. If greater, or from that to half grown, you will require the supplejack, and let it be thicker at one end than at the other. For a half-grown animal the iron rod will be absolutely necessary, and it must be of sufficient weight that a blow of it on the skull may be sufficient to produce a temporary insensibility—the only chance you will have of escape, should the fierce brutes at any time take it into their heads to rebel.

Having thus provided yourself with arms offensive, you must be equally cautious as to your costume. That must be of strong material, hard, and fitting close. You must have no loose flapping skirts, no open jackets. All must be tight, and buttoned closely to the body. An under-waistcoat (sleeved) of strong buff, with a stout pea-jacket over it, leather or corduroy breeches, and top boots, is about the best dress for the experimentalist in animal taming that I can suggest at this moment. The reason—for I like to give a reason for everything I recommend—of this necessity for a firm, tight-fitting dress, is, that if a wild animal, although to all appearance perfectly domesticated, chances even in play to get his claws fastened in your clothes, the sensation of seizing upon prey involuntarily presents itself to his imagination. The accidental entanglement is succeeded by a plunge of the claws, the jaws are brought into requisition, and your life is by no means in a safe position. Hence the necessity for tight dress.

Thus accoutred, with your rod in your hand, and, if the animal be more than half grown, a brace of pistols in your breast—the one loaded with ball, the other with powder, upon which a quantity of tow has been crammed down—approach the cage of the young animal which you design to tame. I commence with this stage of the process, because I presume that you have already rendered your protegé sufficiently familiar by feeding and caressing it through the bars, and by spending some time each day in its company. I presume therefore that it has already begun to recognise your appearance, and to come over to your hand when called, as well as to permit you to stroke and pat it, without attempting to bite you. Approach the cage, hold in your left hand a heavy cloak or blanket wrapped round your hand and arm; let there be two assistants near at hand, and a small stove in which half a dozen iron rods are heating; let the door of the cage be a real door, opening upon hinges, and shutting with a good and deeply-notched latch—not a sliding door, as such a mode of entering the cage might be as much as your life was worth. Speak kindly to the animal, and caress it through the bars of its cage ere you enter, or the suddenness of your entrance may irritate or alarm it, and thus induce it to attack you. Your costume should likewise by no means have been put on for the first time. You should have dressed in a similar manner during all your former visits, so that your intended pet might be acquainted with your appearance. Let a platform be erected outside the cage, to its level, and ascend this, where stand a few minutes, boldly caressing and speaking to the animal. Then throw open the door, enter with a firm and resolute step, push the door behind you, but see that you do not for an instant remove your eyes from those of the animal you are visiting. Do not advance from the door; stand near the bars of the cage, that you may have a better chance of escape, and may be more readily assisted by your attendants in the event of an attack. Speak kindly towards the animal, and if it, as it most likely will, comes over to you, fear nothing, but stretch forth your hand and caress it. The creature will then probably purr, and rub against you. Permit it to do so, and encourage it in its familiarity; but if it offer to play with you, repress such disposition with firmness; and if you perceive that the animal is bent on frolic, leave the cage at once, for it is unsafe longer to remain, the play of these savage creatures always leading to mischief, just as the cat sports with the captured mouse ere she gives it the finishing blow, and buries it in her maw. Repress, therefore, every attempt to play. Use your rod freely and severely. Do so not merely for a grievous fault, but for the most distant appearance of insubordination. Let your corrections be terrible when you do inflict them, and you will have to repeat them so much the less frequently. Some, and Van Amburgh I believe among the rest, are in favour of beating the animals every morning, whether they deserve such chastisement or not, just by way of keeping up a salutary awe of their masters. I object to this, as I conceive it to be both cruel and unnecessary. If animals are of an unruly disposition, and require frequent correction, I should rather recommend that they should be visited every morning, and an opportunity of misbehaving themselves thus afforded, when indeed a good thrashing might be administered with much greater justice. Never display either timidity or ill-humour. The former will make the animals despise your menaces, and perhaps give you a bite or a claw—the latter will cause them to hate you, to regard you as a tyrant, and probably seize on the first favourable opportunity for your destruction. Be just, therefore, in your punishments, and do not be too familiar. Never for an instant permit any animal to make too free with you. Recollect the old copybook adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt;” and recollect that if a young lion or a tiger so far forgets himself as to despise your authority, you will stand a fair chance of being torn to pieces some fine morning, and devoured for their breakfast.

I conceive that the preceding rapidly sketched hints will serve as a sufficient ground-work for the animal-tamer to act upon. He must not be discouraged if he do not succeed at first, and he must be satisfied to take time, and persevere. Without this he need not hope for success.

The animal-tamer must be fearless—such a thing as terror must be a feeling wholly foreign to his soul. He must be as brave as a lion: for how can he otherwise hope to subdue the bravest of the animal creation? I have said “bravest,” and so let the word stand; but I was perhaps led to employ the expression rather from popular prejudice, than from a conviction of its truth. The feline tribes are very powerful and very fierce animals, but they are by no means brave. A bulldog has more courage in his pigmy body, than exists in the prodigious carcasses or a dozen lions or tigers. Let the animal-tamer recollect this, and the knowledge of this fact will probably encourage him. To give a case in point:—I was once endeavouring to make friends with the tigress in the Zoological Gardens, Phœnix Park—a beautiful animal, subsequently purchased from the Zoological Society by the proprietors of the Portobello [Pg 208] Gardens, and since unfortunately dead. I had got so far as to be able to stroke the creature on the head and back, and even to open her mouth with my hand, and leave it within her terrible jaws. This I did on my third visit to her, in presence of the animal’s keeper. One day I was alone with the tigress, and my hand was upon her neck: she with equal good nature had placed her enormous paw upon my shoulder, and was purring in a most affectionate manner, when a sudden noise from one of the other animals caused me to start; instantly the paw was brought down upon my arm with some violence, and before I could extricate my hand, Kate, as the tigress was called, had closed her teeth upon the limb, which she held firmly, though as yet uninjured. I strove to withdraw my hand, but to no purpose. I felt in a most uncomfortable position, reader, for I feared that I should lose a very useful member of my frame: it was my right hand. Had I lost it, I should have been unable to have written this or any of the other papers I have given you. The teeth of the tigress became more and more firmly closed, and my efforts to disengage my hand were unavailing; I called for assistance, but no one was within hearing; when, calling courage and resolution to my aid, I bethought me of my own principles, and, raising my other hand, dealt Kate as severe a blow as I was able with my clenched fist upon her nose. The experiment was successful. The animal, at once releasing my hand, sprang with an angry howl to the opposite side of her cage, from which in a few moments she returned cowering and submissive, apparently eager to regain that portion of my good opinion that she seemed conscious of having forfeited.

If, then, you are attacked, act with promptness and decision. Use your rod freely; but if you find yourself in danger, employ your pistol, not, however, that loaded with ball (reserve it as a last resource, when there is nought else between you and death), but that loaded only with powder and tow; fire it into the animal’s face, and I think there is no doubt but it will afford you ample time for escape; nay, it may in all likelihood render you conqueror; and if you perceive that the shock has terrified your assailant, hand the pistol to be re-loaded by an assistant, while you advance and finish with your rod what the pistol began. If you be seized and overpowered, let your attendants use the heated irons; they should be of a sufficient length to reach to any part of the cage, and should be applied to the nose and mouth. They will generally be found successful in turning the current of affairs.

Ere taking leave of my readers, I must say a few words as to introducing animals of different species to each other. A very brief notice, comprised under one or two heads, will suffice. First, let each animal be perfectly and individually under your control. Secondly, do not put the strangers into the same cage all at once, but put them into a cage partitioned by an iron railing, in which leave them for a few weeks, until you begin to perceive that they have made each other’s acquaintance, and may be trusted together; and do you enter the cage with them when first brought together, and visit the least symptom of hostility with instant and effective chastisement. They should not at first be left together entirely, but only for an hour or two each day while it is convenient to you to attend. By and bye, when they become sufficiently familiarized, you need be under no apprehension. When two animals have been brought together, it will be comparatively easy and safe to introduce a third, then a fourth, and so on; the safety increasing in proportion to their numbers. Make it also your business to select your animals with judgment. To an old leopard introduce a young lion, for instance, because the leopard will, in consequence of the youth of his new acquaintance, crow over him, and aid you in subduing him. This advantage, to be gained by observing dissimilarity of ages, is by no means to be overlooked, as it is a powerful agent in the work of domestication and association of the different species of animals. When one animal is of a timid kind—the natural prey probably of the other, which latter is fierce and powerful—you have nothing to do but to make the more powerful animal afraid of its timid and defenceless companion. This may be done in various modes, just as the time or opportunities may suggest. A simple illustration may serve. Take a young cat and put her into a cage. Take a rat’s or a mouse’s skin, and fill it with hot scalding bran; throw it to the cat, and when she runs at it, take hold of her and thrust the hot skin into her mouth; keep it there for a minute till she is well burned, and you have rendered that cat ever afterwards harmless towards mice, at least towards such as you may introduce to her; a wild one which she met with at large might fare differently, though I hardly think she would even attempt to injure it. Treat a bird-skin in this manner, and, after the scalding, tie it for a while around puss’s neck, and you have secured your aviary from molestation. Sometimes the first experiment of this kind is not successful. When such is the case, however, be not disheartened, but repeat it; and one or two such inflictions cannot fail being effective. You may thus have cats, rats, mice, birds, &c., &c., all in one cage; a curiosity I have often beheld, and which I have myself succeeded in forming in the manner I have described.

Let not the reader who may endeavour to put the above rules in practice be disheartened by a little difficulty at starting. The power of nature is strong, and it is not until after a long and severe course of training that art can expect to overcome it. Let, therefore, the experimenter ever bear in mind the extraordinary force of nature, and the vast labour necessary to keep it in abeyance; and in order that he should do so, I shall tell him the following anecdote:—

“Cecco maintained that nature was more potent than art, while Dante asserted the contrary. To prove his principle the great Italian bard referred to his cat, which by repeated practice he had taught to hold a candle in its paw while he supped or read. Cecco desired to witness the experiment, and came not unprepared for his purpose. When Dante’s cat was performing its part, Cecco lifted up the lid of a pot which he had filled with mice; the creature of art instantly showed the weakness of a talent merely acquired, and, dropping the candle, sprang on the mice with all its instinctive propensity. Dante was himself disconcerted; and it was adjudged that the advocate for the occult principle of natural faculties had gained his cause.” Bear this anecdote therefore in mind. Do not forget the power of natural instinct, even over the most careful artificial training; and let it be your anxious care to keep far distant every circumstance that might provoke the awakening of the one, or tend to shake or to subvert the influence of the other.

This short sketch has, I trust, given my readers an insight into the mode by which Van Amburgh and his rivals perform their wonders; and I can assure them, that by following the principles I have here laid down, they may themselves, if they choose, equal in their own private menageries the performances of those public exhibitors.

H. D. R.

Philosophy. —Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery: it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. The great source of calamity lies in regret or anticipation; he therefore is most wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future. This is impossible to a man of pleasure; it is difficult to the man of business, and is in some degree attainable by the philosopher. Happy were we all born philosophers—all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.— Goldsmith.

There are but two means in the world of gaining by other men—by being either agreeable or useful.

Artificial modesty disparages a woman’s real virtue as much as the use of paint does the natural complexion.

It is a common fault never to be satisfied with our fortune, nor dissatisfied with our understanding.— Rochefoucault.

A prison is a grave to bury men alive.— Mynshul.

A titled nobility is the most undisputed progeny of feudal barbarism.— Sir James Mackintosh.

The worthiest people are the most injured by slander; as we usually find that to be the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.— Swift.

A miser grows rich by seeming poor, an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.— Shenstone.

There is not greater difference between the living and the dead, than between a wise man and a blockhead.— Aristotle.

A man who has good judgment has the same advantage over men of any other qualifications whatsoever, as one that can see would have over a blind man of ten times the strength.— Steele.