points, will be a vast and daily addition to the convenience of a populous community for every purpose of business, health, and pleasure. But, looking beyond this limited range, and without attempting to grasp at any monopoly, it certainly affords room for speculations of far wider extent and significance. I gladly leave to Sir Cusack Roney, who has just favoured us with a most valuable and clear-sighted statement, and to others who share with him the immediate responsibility of these railway operations-I leave it to them to decide how far they may safely indulge their hopeful anticipations. I will be content with reminding you, that though the point from which we started this morning, the village of Dunkettle, may as yet be a rather obscure name on the map of the world, yet it has Europe behind it, and America before it. Such names, Gentlemen, are big enough to suggest any amount of speculation that we may reasonably indulge in; and with all the favourable anticipations which are encouraged by the proceedings of this day, I am sure I shall be giving effect to the feeling by which all I now have the honour to address are animated, by asking you to join with me in drinking "Prosperity to the Cork and Youghal Railway, and to the Cork and Queenstown Branch;" and I couple with them the name of the Chairman of the Companies, Sir Cusack Roney.

BANQUET IN THE CORK ATHENEUM.

[NOVEMBER 14TH, 1859.]

TOAST:

"The Health of the Earl of Carlisle, and Prosperity to Ireland."

THE EARL OF CARLISLE said :—

MR. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN,

Allow me to thank you deeply from my heart for the extreme cordiality with which you have received the toast just proposed to you. I can assure you that it is no common gratification to me, on this occasion of my second visit to your fair and ancient city, as the Represen

tative of our beloved Queen, to find, by the renewed, and allow me to say the greatly increased warmth of your welcome, that your feelings of loyalty and attachment to a constitutional throne, so far from having sustained any decrease, have only found vent in a more distinct and manifest expression. It might, indeed, have been considered strange if it had been otherwise. We are living under the shelter of equal laws and enlightened institutions-with no exclusive barriers against any class or creed-against the profession of the faith which every man owes to his God, or against the exercise of those faculties and abilities which his God has given him. Since we last met here, some regions of the globe, and those amongst the fairest and brightest which gem its varied surface, have been visited by the afflictions of violence and war. In some of them the clouds of civil commotion and change have gathered, or the fiery thunderbolts of war have burst, while we have to thank a gracious Providence that we have been enabled to till our own fields in ease and security-to reap the rich abundance of peaceful harvests. There is no point upon which, in a world so full of change, and in a modern society like ours, so full of complications, that I would wish to express myself with any degree of assurance and presumption. Still, we must gratefully admit that within our own borders poverty has been diminished; crime, except in a few dark spots, has greatly decreased; agriculture has been improved; trade has been enlarged, and peace has been preserved. We hear elsewhere of a vast manufactory of Minie rifles, and of Armstrong guns; and very glad too am I to hear of them, and I think very possibly that more of them might be well bestowed on Spike Island, or the forts at the entrance of Cork Harbour. Still, I feel it is news of better omen to the world at large to know, as we did tonight, from the lips of our worthy Chairman, that the exports from Cork have enormously increased in so very unwarlike and yielding an article as butter. We read in sundry places of the appearance of pestilence and cholera; but I reflect with satisfaction that my friend, Dr. Barter, is ready to supply an unlimited quantity of Turkish baths, from one of which I have just issued. With respect to your own good city of Cork, I am sure I could not tell you how glad I am to meet so respectable and brilliant a company again in this noble space, so radiantly lighted above, surrounded by the names of the sons of men of this country, of whom generous Ireland may be justly proud, and below them adorned in a manner certainly not less attractive by her living daugh

ters. I have felt, however, Gentlemen, that the pleasure which I have derived, in every point of view, from my present visit, has been most materially enhanced by the several works of obvious public usefulness with which it has been associated and connected, which indeed centre mainly in your own city, but which are calculated to radiate to many collateral advantages for the whole surrounding district and the country at large. In the first place, we have joined together in laying the foundation of a noble bridge over your pleasant River Lee, which, if we lay the stress upon as the signal ornament which it will be to this city, it is only because it will in a vastly superior degree contribute to the convenience and comfort of every class of its inhabitants. Next, we opened a great portion of a new line of railway from Cork to Youghal, which will connect your beautiful Cove with the fine estuary of the Blackwater; and, further, we gave the starting point to that most important branch which will connect Cork with Queenstown. Before such an audience as this I need not dilate upon the importance of further cementing that most important connexion. What the Piræus of old was to Athens-what Kingstown is now to Dublin-Queenstown is, and will be, to Cork. But may we not look still further? May we not cast our eyes beyond the sinuous and silvery Cove beneath your town, even to that world of Atlantic waters which toss and foam beyond? Of course I am not here to speak with any precision on details which do not come properly before me. Still less am I here to undervalue the just claims of any corresponding and kindred undertaking. But with facts we may deal; and we know that in twenty hours from London, and in five hours from Kingstown, heavy mail bags were safely stowed in the Harbour of Cork, on board of the packets which were to proceed to the Western World. We know, too, that if any one had preferred that conveyance, they would have saved themselves at least some twenty-four hours, not very pleasantly spent on a wintry and stormy sea. I almost shrink from touching upon this point. I do not like the appearance, even for the sake of Ireland, of endeavouring to make capital out of events of sorrow and calamity. Still it is another of the facts to which I have referred, that within the last few weeks the Channel between our islands has been the scene of heart-rending disasters. I cannot refrain from applying to the case of Ireland on this subject-though I ought to make some apology for doing so-some noble lines of the Roman poet, Claudian, which he addressed to one of his hearers when he represented

the storms of winter and the winds of heaven as conspiring to assist his efforts to insure his victory

"Cui fundit ab antris

Eolus armatas hyemes; cui militat æther,

Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti!"

But whatever may be the issue and event of any special enterprise or undertaking, I feel confident that it is in enterprises which have for their aim to augment the resources, to promote the intercourse, to prolong the friendship of the great family of man, that nations will find their highest honour and their richest reward. We do not envy the trophies

of Magenta or Solferino. We deplore, while we honour, the brave blood that has been shed on the banks of the Ganges and Peiho; but we exult with joy without alloy, and without repentance, when we feel that we have borne a share in undertakings which will augment the stock of national wealth, civilization, and beneficence-when we feel that we have extended the basis for the civilizing influence of peace and commerce, and that we have added new links to the chain of human brotherhood.

ΑΝ

VICEREGAL VISIT TO LURGAN.

[AUGUST 6TH, 1861.]

N Address having been read by WILLIAM PAUL, Esq., who was introduced to His Excellency by LORD LURGAN,

The EARL OF CARLISLE said:

I beg to express to the Town Commissioners, and through them to the inhabitants of the thriving and spirited town of Lurgan, my most sincere thanks for their loyal and friendly Address. Knowing well that every effort has been made in this industrious neighbourhood to develope the great staple trade of the Province of Ulster, I earnestly sympathize with the painful interest you must have felt in watching the progress of the civil strife which has suddenly blasted the prosperity of that immense region which is naturally your most populous market; and I fervently echo your prayer that ere long we may receive, and by the

speediest conveyance, the joyful assurance of restored peace. My colleagues in the Imperial Government will learn with the same pleasure as myself that the recent commercial treaty which they have formed with the great empire of France, has already worked perceptibly for the advantage of this district. I gladly anticipate that the other nations of Europe will be speedily induced to follow the example of two countries so well qualified to take the lead in all the noble ways of peaceful glory. Amidst so much to gladden the eye and delight the heart in this advanced and advancing district, the occasional outburst of religious animosities among its intelligent and manly population has formed almost the only drawback to the full complacency of the contemplation. It has given me real joy that the great improvement recently observable in this respect has enabled me to dispense, before coming among you, with some of the precautions which had previously seemed to be necessary. But if precaution is sometimes the duty, confidence is the glory of Governments. The generosity of the men of Ulster will give me no occasion to regret that which I now repose in them. I rejoice to hear of the steady increase of your population in numbers, surpassing that of any other town in Ireland within the last ten years; and still more, of the extent to which they have been wise enough to provide aids and appliances for intellectual and moral improvement. If anything could add to the satisfaction I have in meeting the sympathizing representatives of so enlightened a community, it is that I come among them as the guest of a nobleman whom I may truly call their fellow-townsman, whose residence, whose family, whose character comprise the refinements, the graces and the virtues which soften, adorn, and elevate our common human existence.