sank deep into my heart. Every sentence of the past was throwing its shadow over all my future, and the utter wreck of my hopes seemed now inevitable.

While thus I sat brooding o'er my gloomiest thoughts, Mrs. Rooney, evidently affected by the subject, maintained a perfect silence. At last, however, she seemed to have summed up the whole case in her mind, as turning to me confidentially, with her hand pressed upon my arm, she added in a true moralizing cadence, very different from that she had employed when her feelings were really engaged—

"And that's what always comes of it, when a gallant, gay Lutherian gets admission into a family."

Shall I confess, that notwithstanding the deep sorrow of my heart, I could scarcely repress an outbreak of laughter at these words. We now chatted away on a variety of subjects, till the concourse of people pressing onwards to the town, the more thickly populated country, and the distant view of chimneys, apprised us we were approaching Ennis. Notwithstanding all my wish s to get on as fast as possible, I found it impossible to resist an invitation to dine that day with the Rooneys, who had engaged a small select party at the Head Inn, where Mrs. Rooney's apartments were already awaiting her.

It was dusk when we arrived, and I could only perceive that the gloomy and narrow streets were densely crowded with country-people who conversed together in groups. Here and there a knot of legal folk were congregated, chatting in a louder tone; and before the court-house stood the carriage of the chief justice, with a guard of honour of the county yeomanry, whose unsoldier-like attitudes and droll equipments were strongly provocative of laughter. The postillions, who had with true tact reserved "a trot for the town," whipped and spurred with all their might; and as we drove through the thronged streets, a strange impression fled abroad that we were the bearers of a reprieve, and a hearty cheer from the mob followed us to our arrival at the inn-door-a compliment which Mrs. Paul in nowise attributing to any thing save her own peculiar charms and deserts, most graciously acknowledged by a smile and a wave of her hand, accompanied by an unlimited order for small beer_ which act of grace was, I think, even more popular than their first impression concerning us.

"Ah, captain," said the lady with a compassionate smile, as I handed her out of the carriage, "they are so attached to the aristocracy!"

the lawyer's term it, approver. I knew well that no circumstance was more calculated than this to call forth all that is best and worst in Irish character, and thought, as I walked along through the dense crowd, I could trace in the features around me, the several emotions by which they were moved. Here was an old grey-headed man leaning on a staff; his lack-lustre eyes gazing in wonder at some speaker who narrated a portion of the trialhis face all cagerness, and his hands tremulous with anxiety; but I felt I could read the deep sorrow of his heart as he listened to the deed of blood, and wondered how men would risk their tenure of a life which, in a few days more, perhaps, he himself was to leave for ever. Here beside him was a tall and powerfully-built countryman; his hat drawn upon his eyes, that peered forth from their shadow-dark, lustrous, and almost wild in their expres

sion; his face, tanned by season and exposure, was haggard and care-worn, and in his firmly-clenched lips and fast-locked jaw you could read the resolute purpose of one who could listen to nothing save the promptings of the spirit of vengeance, and his determination that blood should have blood.

Some there were whose passionate tones and violent gestures showed that all their sympathy for the prisoners was merged in the absorbing feeling of detestation for the informer; and you could mark in such groups as these, that more women were mingled, whose blood-shot eyes and convulsed features made them appear the very demons of strife itself. But the most painful sight of all was the children who were assembled around every knot of speakers their eyes staring, and their ears eagerly drinking in each word that dropped; no trace of childhood's happy carelessness was there; no sign of that light-hearted youth that knows no lasting sorrow. No: their's were the rigid features of intense passion, in which fear, suspicion, craft, but above all, the thirst for revenge, were writ. There were some whose clenched hand and darkened brow betokened the gloomy purpose of their hearts. There were others whose outpoured wrath heaped curses on him who had betrayed his fellows--there was grief, violent, wild, and frantic-there was mute and speechless suffering, but not a tear did I see, not even on the cheek of childhood or of woman-no! Their seared and withered sorrow, no dew of tears had ever watered. Like a blighting simoom, the spirit of revenge had passed over them, and scorched and scathed all the verdant charities of life. The law, which in other lands is looked to for protection and security, was regarded by them as an instrument of tyranny; they neither understood its spirit, nor trusted its decisions; and when its blow fell upon them, they bent their heads in mournful submission, to raise them when opportunity offered, in wild and stern defiance. Its denunciations came to them sudden and severe they deemed the course of justice wayward and capricious-the only feature of certainty in its operation being, that its victim was ever the poor man.

The passionate elements of their wild natures seemed but ill-adapted to the slow-sustained current of legal in

vestigation they look upon all the details of evidence as the signs of vindictive malice; and thought that trickery and deceit were brought in arms against them. Hence each face among the thousands there, bore the traces of that hardened, dogged suffering that tells us that the heart is rather steeled with the desire to avenge, than bowed to weep over the doomed.

Before the court-house a detachment of soldiers was drawn up under arms; their unmoved features and fixed attitudes presenting a strange contrast to the excited expressions and changeful gestures of those about them. The crowd at this part was thickest, and I could perceive in their eager looks and mute expressions, that something more than common had attracted their attention; my own interest was, however, directed in another quarter; for, through the open window of the court-house I could hear the words of a speaker, whom I soon recognised as the counsel for the prisoner addressing the jury. My foraging cap passed me at once through the ranks, and after some little crushing I succeeded in gaining admission to the body of the court.

Such was the crowd within, I could see nothing but the heads of a closelywedged mass of people-save, at the distant part of the court, the judges, and to their right, the figure of the pleader, whose back was turned towards me.

Little as I heard of the speech, I was overwhelmed with surprise at what I did hear. Touching on the evidence of the approver" but slightly, the advocate dwelt with a terrific force upon the degraded character of a man who could trade upon the blood of his former friends and associates; scarce stopping to canvass how the testimony bore home upon the prisoner, he burst forth into an impassioned appeal to the hearts of the jury, on faith betrayed and vows forsworn; and pictured forth the man who could thus surrender his fellows to the scaffold, as a monster whose evidence no man could trustno jury confide in; and when he had thus heightened the colouring of his description by every power of an eloquence that made the very building ring, he turned suddenly towards the informer himself, as pale, wan, and conscience-stricken, he cowered beneath the lightning glance from an eye that seemed to pierce his secret soul

within him, and, apostrophizing his virtues, he directed every glance upon the miserable wretch that writhed beneath his sarcasm. This seemed, indeed the speaker's forte. Never did I hear any thing so tremendous as the irony with which he described the credit due to one who had so often been sworn and forsworn-" who took an oath of allegiance to his king, and an oath of fealty to his fellows, and then was there that day with a third oath, by which, in the blood of his victim, he was to ratify his perjury to both, and secure himself an honourable independence. The caustic satire verged once-only once-on something that produced a laugh, when the orator suddenly stopt

"I find, my lord, I have raised a smile. God knows, never did I feel less merriment. Let me not be condemned. Let not the laugh be mistaken-few are those events that are produced by folly and vice that fire the hearts with indignation, but something in them will shake the sides with laughter. So, when the two famous moralists of old beheld the sad spectacle of life, the one burst into laughter, the other melted into tears. They were each of them right, and equally right. But these laughs are the bitter rueful laughs of honest indignation, or they are the laughs of hectic melancholy and despair. But look there, and tell me where is your laughter now."

With these words he turned fully round and pointed his finger to the dock, where the six prisoners side by side leaned their haggard, death-like faces upon the rail, and gazed with stupid wonder at the scene before them. Four of the number did not even know the language, but seemed, by the instinct of their position, to feel the nature of the appeal their advocate was making, and turned their eyes around the court as if in search of some one look of pity or encouragement that should bring comfort to their hearts. The whole thing was too dreadful to bear longer, so I forced my way through the crowd, and at last reached the steps in front of the building. But here a new object of horror presented itself, and one which to this hour I cannot chase from before me.

In the open space between the line

formed by the soldiers and the court, knelt a woman, whose tattered garments scarce covered a figure emaciated nearly to starvation-her cheeks, almost blue with famine, were pinched inwards and her hands, which she held clasped with outstretched arms before her, were like the skinny claws of some wild animal. As she neither spoke nor stirred, there was no effort made to remove her; and there she knelt, her eyes, bloodshot and staring, bent upon the door of the building. Α vague fear took possession of me. Somehow I had seen that face before. I drew near, and as a cold thrill ran. through my blood, I remembered where. She was the wife of the man by whose bedside I had watched in the mountains. A half dread of being recognised by her kept me back for a moment then came the better feeling, that perhaps I might be able to serve. her; and I walked towards her, but though she turned her eyes towards me as I approached, her look had no intelligence in it-and I could plainly see that reason had fled, and left nothing save the poor suffering form behind it. I endeavoured to attract her attention, but all in vain ; and at last tried by gentle force to induce her to leave the place; but a piercing shriek, like one whose tones had long dwelt in my heart, broke from her, and a look of such unutterable, anguish, that I was obliged to desist and leave her.

The crowd made way for me as I passed out, and I could see in their looks and demeanour the expression of grateful acknowledgment for even this show of feeling on my partwhile some muttered as I went by a "God reward ye," "the Lord be good to you," as though at that moment they had nothing in their hearts save thoughts of kindness and words of blessing.

I reached my room, and sat down a sadder, perhaps a wiser man; and yet I know not this. It would need a clearer head than mine to trace all the varying and discordant elements of character I had witnessed to their true source to sift the evil from the good, to know what to cherish, what to repress, whereon to build hope, or what to fear. Such was this country once!has it changed since ?

THE real incidents of Barry's life, so far as they are known, might be told in a page; and this apparent defect is not to be compensated by any colouring drawn from the political history of his time, nor yet from the familiar events and interests of which the common records of social life must be made up. Yet few, not engaged in public affairs, have been more frequently the subject of keen and curious discussion, and none left more food for speculation and critical inquiry in the walks of art. His wayward and eccentric temper, his singular genius, and his very peculiar professional views and habits, altogether present a subject which, if it should be found defective in the ordinary interest of biography, will yet be acknowledged to have an interest of its own.

Of the earlier portion of James Barry's life the record is scanty, yet fully sufficient for every purpose of such recollections, and more than usually significant of the after consequences of his life. He was born in 1741, in the city of Cork.

Ac

cording to the most received accounts, his father commanded a trading vessel which coasted our southern shores. The son was destined to follow his father's business: but the constitution of his nature was both strongly and singularly composed. With the earliest dawn of reason he had already manifested a disposition curious, inquisitive, thoughtful, and concentrated; and a proportionate tendency to be inattentive and self-willed in regard to every thing but the favourite purpose. Such a frame of mind was unlikely to find its place in the monotonous routine and wearisome avocations of a trading vessel it fretted his active and excursive spirits, and irritated his impatience of an uncongenial constraint ;-these results were at last indicated by the not uncharacteristic act of running away. He was quickly, however, compelled to return to avocations, for which a little common observation ought soon to have discerned his utter unfitness. This discovery was

yet not made, until his pent-up spirit had obtained for itself a direction and a scope.

The tedium of the Irish channel was relieved by sketching, in red and white chalk, such objects as attracted his attention. Few who have handled the pencil are ignorant of its absorbing and engrossing charm: but Barry was by nature an enthusiast; his highwrought zeal, and unwearied love of exertion and attainment-the native characters of his mind-urged on those efforts which would, in ordinary youths, be but casual relaxations, into an unwearied assiduity, which soon imparted facility and powers to his hand and eye. To attain a ready faculty of coarse delineation would scarcely demand powers of the highest order; but Barry's hand was guided by no common affluence of conception, and stimulated by an ambition as earnest and aspiring as ever warmed the human breast. His ambition was soon awakened, for his progress attracted attention, and became the theme of admiration and wonder. So striking was this progress, and so plain were the demonstrations of his inaptitude for a seafaring life, that both these facts at last became the objects of very general notice his father was compelled to admit truths so opposed to his wishes, and at last consented to send his son James to school. What views may on this occasion have been adopted for his future destination cannot easily be inferred; among his biographers it has been assumed that it was designed to bring him up as a Romish priest; and it is to be allowed that his ascetic temper and extraordinary powers would have been a fortunate accession to that body. This conjecture is at least probable enough his mother was of the Romish faith, and had, it is likely, the whole stock of family religion to herself. Had such an allotment been earlier fixed, there were, indeed, in Barry's taste and temper abundant elements to confirm it. But the deep and silent charm of the graphic art had sunk too

deeply to be displaced by the foam and froth of medieval divinity, or lulled to rest by the ghostly fictions of the cloister. Whatever rudiments of knowledge a grammar-school (in those days) can be presumed to have afforded, he received with the ready alacrity of his active and searching intellect; but every instant of time that he could command was devoted to his favourite occupation, and the walls and even furniture of his father's house were covered with all sorts of figures in chalk. So constant was his diligence in this practice, that the hours of sleep were given to its cultivation; and his mother, anxious for his health, or for the safety of the house, thought it necessary to take away his candle. But among Barry's virtues, a tractable disposition is not to be numbered; and he soon found means to supply the want, and to add the greater portion of the night to his laborious day. Of the skill thus acquired, it would be useful to ascertain the value and the results, but such an estimate may have more interest and more obvious application at a further stage, when we shall revert to the subject.

It may here be enough to observe, generally, that the circumstances of his position, as now described, afforded few of the advantages requisite for the complete attainment of skill in the study which mainly engrossed his care. The instruction so essential in the mechanism of art, and the advantage of some recourse to models of the highest order in drawing and colouring, must have been wholly wanting, at a period when they are most especially important for the formation of the

taste.

To counterbalance such disadvantages, and to supply the defects of a contracted scale of education, there was much in the native constitution both of his mind and physical temperament. In him the intellectual and moral functions seem to have encroached upon the others; his life was absorbed in study and restless aspiring; he was impatient of rest, and insensible to the cravings of animal nature. His choice is said to have been the coarsest and scantiest diet; his favourite bed the floor: no begging friar ever walked upon the road to purgatory with more sincerity of self-infliction than his

ardent and intensely-bent spirit followed its own restless desire of excellence. It was his usual custom to lock himself in his own room, to escape interruptions, and, above all, to avoid the importunities of his mother, who soon became alarmed by so singular a course of application. Such activity of mind, and such unwearied assiduity, quickly exhausted whatever sources of information his small means could command. Not having the power to obtain at will the books requisite for any settled course of study, his eager curiosity devoured whatever offered: it was his custom to transcribe, and sometimes commit to memory, the contents of such volumes as he could borrow. He also sought the company of such persons as could in any way interest him by their communications; and seldom failed, in his turn, to attract them by the intelligence of his comments, or the sedate attention of his deportment.

His

Thus endowed by nature, and advanced by unwearied labour, it will be imagined that Barry's attainments presently began to wear an imposing form. Though rudely and irregularly informed, and wanting in the methodical command and essential precision of art, which, being the result of trained experience, cannot be re-invented by the untaught efforts of a single mind, yet Barry's pencil soon acquired an undisciplined power which astonished the rude connoisseurship of his native city, and satisfied his own taste. command of language and varied range of knowledge drew admiration, and he was looked upon as a prodigy of learning and sense. Here we must remark, that even in this local pre-eminence, there was much to fix the unfortunate tendencies of his disposition: the unqualified admiration of his intimates and acquaintance must have had a fatal influence upon a temper more modest and humble than his; and the absence of that salutary abatement of pride which results from comparison with rival merit, were wants which nothing in later life could have the force to countervail. Imperfectly acquainted with the higher objects of the art he cultivatedtotally bereft of the advantage of a familiarity with pictures of any merit, he had reasoned out from general principles a system commensurate with his own attainments. And though his