the moat, twirling round and round and round with the lightness of a straw, to the sweetest music that kept time to his motion. The greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put up above all the musicians, and he had servants 'tending upon him, and every thing to his heart's content, and a hearty welcome to all; and in short he was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land.

Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much frightened, until one, stepping out from the rest, came up to him, and said

"Lusmore! Lusmore!

Doubt not, nor deplore, For the hump which you bore On your back is no more; Look down on the floor, And view it, Lusmore!" When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light, and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and be saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head; and he did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round again with the greatest wonder and delight upon every thing, which appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim. At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke he found that it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, the birds singing sweet; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put his hand behind to feel for his hump; but no sign of one was there on his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now become a well-shaped dapper little fellow; and, more than that, found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the fairies had made for him.

Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and springing up at every step, as if he had been all his life a dancingmaster. Not a creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had great work to persuade every one that he was the same man-in truth he was not, so far as outward appearance went.

Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore's hump got about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for miles round, it was the talk of every one, high and low.

One morning, as Lasmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin-door, up

came an old woman to him, and asked if
he could direct her to Cappagh.

" out

"I need give you'no directions, my good
woman," said Lusmore," for this is Cap-
pagh; and whom may you want here?"
"I have come," said the woman,
of Decie's country, in the county Water-
ford, looking after one Lusmore, who I
have heard tell had his hump taken off by
the fairies for there is the son of a gossip
of mine who has got a hump on him that
will be his death; and may be, if he could
use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump
may be taken off him. And now I have
told you the reason of my coming so far:
'tis to find out about this charm, if I
can."

Lusmore, who was ever a good-na-
tured little fellow, told the woman all the
particulars, how he had raised the tune for
the fairies at Knockgrafton, how his hump
had been removed from his shoulders, and
how he had got a new suit of clothes into
the bargain.

The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip's house, in the county Waterford, she told her every thing that Lusmore had said, and they put the little humpbacked man, who was a peevish and cunning creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at night-fall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.

'Jack Madden, for that was the bumpy man's name, had not been sitting there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much sweeter than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, augus Da Cadine, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the fairies had done, or watching for a fitting opportunity to raise the tune higher again than Lusmore had: so, having heard them sing it over seven times without stopping, ont he bawls, never minding the time, or the humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly, augus Da Dardine, augus Da Hena, thinking that, if one day was good, two were better; and that,if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes given him, he should have two.

No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came crowding round about him with great anger, screeching, and screaming, and roaring out, "Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?" and one stepped up to him above all the rest, and

said

"Jack Madden! Jack Madden !
Your words came so bad in
The tune we feel glad in ;-
This castle you're had in,

That your life we may sadden :

Here's two humps for Jack Madden.” And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump and put it down upon became fixed as firmly as if it was nailed poor Jack's back, over his own, where it on with twelvepenny nails by the best carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came to look after their little mau, they found him half dead, lying at the foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well to be sure, how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say any thing, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders: home they brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts and their looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight of his other hump, and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving, they say, his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy tunes again.'

Mr. Croker has enriched his little volume with notes that indicate extensive reading and accurate judgment, while they add much to the value of the work. The fol lowing piece of poetry is not undeserving of praise :-

CORMAC AND MARY.

She is not dead-she has no grave-
But lives beneath Lough Corrib's water;
And in the murmur of each wave
Methinks I catch the songs I taught her.'
Thus many an evening by its shore
Sat Cormac raving wild and lowly;
Still idly muttering o'er and o'er,

She lives, detained by spells unholy.
Death claims her not, too fair for earth,
Her spirit lives-alien of heaven;
Nor will it know a second birth

When sinful mortals are forgiven!
'Cold is this rock-the wind comes chill,
And mists the gloomy waters cover;
But oh her soul is colder still-

To lose her God-to leave her lover!"
The lake was in profound repose,

Yet one white wave came gently curling,
Ard, as it reached the shore, arose
Dim figures-banners gay unfurling.
Onward they move, an airy crowd;
Through each dim form a moonlight
ray shone;
While spear and helm, in pageant proud,
Appear in liquid undulation.
Bright barbed steeds curvetting tread

Their trackless way with antic capers;
And curtain clouds hang overhead,
Festooned by rainbow-coloured vapours.

And, when a breath of air would stir

That drapery of Heaven's own wreathing, Light wings of prismy gossamer

I have heard of these schemes with

unmingled horror; and, as I shall
labour to disabuse the government,

with sufficient care to determine ex

actly its size or situation;' and, considering the great inequality of its

Just moved and sparkled to the breathing. I request the attention of Irish surface, perhaps we might be within

Nor wanting was the choral song,

Swelling in silvery chimes of sweetness; To sound of which this subtile throng

Advanced in playful grace and fleetness. With music's strain all came and went

Upon poor Cormac's doubting vision;
Now rising in wild merriment,

Now softly fading in derision.
Christ save her soul,' he boldly cried;

And when that blessed name was spoken,
Fierce yells and fiendish shrieks replied,
And vanished all, the spell was broken.
And now on Corrib's lonely shore,

cottiers and farmers, as well as
landlords. That all of them may
understand me, I shall express my-
self in plain, concise, and homely
language, and be as brief as the
nature of my inquiries will admit.
Landlords, your oracle, The
Edinburgh Review,' in the last
Number, contains an article on Ire-
land, of which I can only express my
contempt by saying that it is a pu-

Freed by his word from power of faery,erile piece of declamation, in every To life, to love, restored once more, Young Cormac welcomes back his Mary. In my next, perhaps, I may give another short tale, unless prevented by a press of matter.

Rock.

line of which the writer betrays a
total ignorance of the country
about which he was speaking, as
well as a perfect forgetfulness of the
first principles of political economy.
It is now my business to refute his
reasoning and his facts; and, if I
prove the latter erroneous, the for.
mer dissolves of itself.

the truth in assuming 22 millions of acres as the data to build our estimate upon. This, however, is not necessary for the present inquiry; and we shall therefore suppose, for sake of round numbers, that 21,000,000 acres is the extent; and, deducting one-seventh for waste land, we shall have 18,000,000 acres which we are to consider productive. Some persons have supposed one-fourth, or onefifth, of the whole superficies to be waste; but, considering how very small a portion of this ground is absolutely unproductive, we have a right to assume that not more than one-seventh is actually waste.

Allowing six persons to each family, we shall then have, in round numbers, 840,000 families subsisting by agricultural labour; and these, so far from being too numerous for the area they have to occupy, if the land was fairly divided between them, it would give 21 English acres to each. This division, however, never can take place, and circumstances have already parcelled out the ground to them in very unequal portions. Nine-tenths of these may be called cottiers, and occupy farms of from the remainder are comfortable farmers, cultivating from 20 to 60 acres ; and the residue may be said to possess from 100 to 1000 acres. They would then stand nearly as follow:

one to ten acres. Three-fourths of

Persons.

No. of

Fami-
lies.

Average Acres

to each Family

Total Acres occupied by each Class.

ROCK'S LETTERS TO IRISH LANDLORDS. LETTER I. The groundwork of his whole. IRISH LANDLORDS,-I am about superstructure rests on superabungiving you some advice; and, dant population and subdivisions knowing the prejudice that must of farms; that is, there are too many exist against any thing coming from people in Ireland, and farms are too me, I am prepared to obviate it, small. This is the cant of the day; for I shall solely rely upon facts, and you ought to know, if you look state nothing without producing an over your rent-rolls, that this cant authority, and substantiate every is false. A writer in a recent pubstatement by unanswerable proofs.lication has ably and conclusively If you are prudent you will attend demonstrated the general opinion to me; but, even if you should not, on these subjects to be erroneous; my labour will not be useless, for and therefore I cannot do better these Letters, though addressed to than take such extracts from his Description of you, are intended for the public article as will serve as a data for me eye, and I hope the legislature will to refer to in the progress of these not deem them unworthy of pe- Letters. These extracts being full, rusal. They have long been making clear, and explicit, I give them in Large Farmers 21,000 500 10,500,000 laws to subvert my authority, but preference to any thing of my own; without avail; and perhaps they and, though you may have read could not now do better than listen them before, you will not be the to my counsel. I give it sincerely, worse for a re-perusal. unpurchased, and freely ; and I request the attention of my country. men, against the poorer classes of whom there now exists a prejudice, and, as it would seem, a conspiracy; for, if reports speak truth, two millions of them are to be transported, and the remainder deprived of land if they stay at home.

Taking the population of Ireland at
seven millions, and deducting two for
those who reside in cities, towns, &c.
there will remain five millions, in-
cluding linen manufacturers, as occu-

piers of the soil. The superficial con-
tents of the kingdom, according to
Mr. Wakefield, are 20,437,974 Eng.
lish acres; but he admitted that
Ireland had not yet been surveyed

Small ditto.. 63,000 40
Cottiers

2,520,000

756,000 6 4,914,000

Total. . 840,000 17,934,000 From this scale of farms it will be readily seen that the poor man may possess a potatoe-garden without any disadvantage to large farms; for, after the cottiers are supplied, there would remain, on an average, for each parish, 34 farmers, who would possess from 20 to 1000 acres of land each-farms fully adequate to any system of husbandry which can be advantageously introduced into

22

the day that is passing over him, Ireland. At present it is well known because he can, if the fault is not his to those acquainted with the south own, always possess an annual supthat the most solvent and comfortable people are those who till from 20 to ply of provisions which habit has 50 acres; and that, generally speak-reconciled him to, that places him ing, large farmers, from their want of beyond the reach of absolute want, capital, are seldom able to meet their pauperism, and hunger. pecuniary demands-are slovenly in their method of husbandry-and are the cause of much of that distress which prevailed immediately after the return to peace, by indirectly encouraging that system of Whiteboyism, which served as an apology for the non-payment of rent which they were unable to discharge. This is a well-known fact, and ought to be impressed on every cottier in Ireland; for, though these poor people swelled the number of Captain Rock's adherents, they had no sufficient personal cause to embark into illegal practices, as they were, and always have been, able to pay their rentalmost the only demand upon them, except tithes when their superiors in rank were apprehensive of every shadow that darkened their door being that of a bailiff or sheriff's officer. A brief description of the condition of an Irish cottier will make this apparent.

The word cottier, in Ireland, is synonymous with labourer in all other countries; and those who come under the denomination are composed of that class of society who are doomed, by a wise Providence, literally to earn their bread by the 'sweat of their brow.' We have no right, therefore, to expect in these any thing not found in the major part of the population of all kingdoms-any thing but a perpetual necessity to toil and economize any thing but what are the associates of a poor man-want, worldly want, and a long train of what many will consider privations. Nine-tenths of mankind are necessarily reduced to this condition; and, whatever theorists may say, in this condition they must continue while the economy of this world prevails.

An Irish cottier is to be looked upon as the poorest man in the kingdom; one who, if he was not entitled to the appellation he bears, would be called a labourer, depending on his daily toil for support. At present he enjoys a portion of independence, which he would then lose, and cannot be under the apprehensions of him who has to provide for

A cottier in Ireland is a poor man,
who possesses from one to ten acres
of land, upon which stands his habi-
tation-mean, to be sure; but in
what country do the poor possess
For this hold-
splendid dwellings?
ing he is generally obliged to work
for his landlord-sometimes all, and
sometimes half his time, according
to the quantity of ground he occu-
pies; but frequently he pays a cer-
tain rent, and employs his time in
whatever way he thinks fit. Those
who pay in labour are small cottiers,
who have not more than two or
three acres, which supply them with
oats and potatoes: their employers, in
almost every instance, being bound
to give them feeding for a cow, and
one or more sheep.

The nominal price of labourers
six or eight pence a day-sounds
low; but it should be recollected
that, in Ireland, the farm-servants
are all boarded; and that those who
are thus paid are constantly em-
ployed-in their own words-wet
and dry. The cottier has his work
always provided for him; and for
this, if he has common industry, his
family are put in possession of abso-
lute abundance; for a single acre of
land, properly cultivated, will pro-
duce him at least sixty pounds of
potatoes for every day in the
while his cow supplies him with
milk; and, as he can keep a pig, a
goat, sheep, poultry, &c. he can have
meat, drink, and clothes.

year,

We have been thus particular in describing the condition of the Irish peasant, because it is neither known to himself nor the legislature, to the people of England nor the inhabitants of Ireland. In this, as in many other instances, prejudice has blinded men to facts; and the prevalence of erroneous opinions has produced discontent in one portion, and a disposition in the other to destroy a system which keeps down the price of labour, without making the labourer a pauper.

Leaving you to digest the foregoing facts, I shall take leave of you until this day week. ROCK.

NOCTES LAMBOURNIANÆ. Fœcundi calices quem non facere disertum? HORACE.

་

What man,' asked Horace, has there

ever been,

Who would not speak if plied with Rock's potheen?'

[here, Not one, I own; but nought, alas! we've Save fell blue ruin,' and drug-fermented beer!

Yet mirth is thirsty; aye, and reason too; Then, waiter! gin, since there's no mountain dew.'

SCENE.-A private Room in the Eight Bells, St. Giles's-O'Doherty and M'Shane are disco. vered sitting before a roaring fire, with a table, covered with jugs, pots, glasses, &c. between them.

O'Doherty (filling his glass)— I wonder what keeps the Captain: he promised to be here at eight precisely; it is now near nine.

M'Shane. Och! Inay be he won't come at all; for, sure, is'nt he too great a man to visit spalpeens like us two?

O'Doherty. Spalpeens, indeed! what do you mean, Sir? Is not a gentleman a scholar? ergo, a scholar must be a gentleman; therefore I am a gentleman, because I am a scholar.

Did not I sack all

the teachers in Munster, and larn three boys who are now priests, four that are doctors, and six that are lawyers? Faith, Morgan O'DoTrinity College as Jack Barrett's; herty's name is as well known in for the devil a many Sizers in it but those who went out of my school at Bally ragget. A nice fine school it was, only the rain came through the roof, and the wind through the spy-holes that let in the light.

M'Shane. Then why did you leave it, Mr. O'Doherty?

O'Doherty. I did not leave it, Sir; I only came away of my own accord, for fear of the police, who, confound them, discovered some Rock notices in my settle-bed.

M'Shane. Och, aye, you was secretary to Captain Rock.

O'Doherty. Faith, and sure enough I was; for it was myself

Rock. But why not call on me?
O'Kavanagh. You forget, Cap- Come, Paddy, my hearty, a bumper