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Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 28, January 9, 1841

Author: Various

Release date: April 28, 2017 [eBook #54624]

Language: English

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                        THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

        NUMBER 28.      SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1841.      VOLUME I.

[Illustration: CASTLE-CAULFIELD, COUNTY OF TYRONE.]

The subject of our prefixed illustration is one of no small interest,
whether considered as a fine example--for Ireland--of the domestic
architecture of the reign of James I, or as an historical memorial of the
fortunes of the illustrious family whose name it bears--the noble house
of Charlemont, of which it was the original residence. It is situated
near the village of the same name, in the parish of Donaghmore, barony of
Dungannon, and about three miles west of Dungannon, the county town.

Castle-Caulfield owes its erection to Sir Toby Caulfield, afterwards
Lord Charlemont--a distinguished English soldier who had fought in Spain
and the Low Countries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and commanded a
company of one hundred and fifty men in Ireland in the war with O’Neill,
Earl of Tyrone, at the close of her reign. For these services he was
rewarded by the Queen with a grant of part of Tyrone’s estate, and other
lands in the province of Ulster; and on King James’s accession to the
British crown, was honoured with knighthood, and made governor of the
fort of Charlemont, and of the counties of Tyrone and Armagh. At the
plantation of Ulster he received further grants of lands, and among them
1000 acres called Ballydonnelly, or O’Donnelly’s town, in the barony of
Dungannon, on which, in 1614, he commenced the erection of the mansion
subsequently called Castle-Caulfield. This mansion is described by Pynnar
in his Survey of Ulster in 1618-19, in the following words:--

“Sir Toby Caulfield hath one thousand acres called Ballydonnell [_recte_
Ballydonnelly], whereunto is added beside what was certified by Sir
Josias Bodley, a fair house or castle, the front whereof is eighty feet
in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth from outside to outside, two
cross ends fifty feet in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth: the
walls are five feet thick at the bottom, and four at the top, very good
cellars under ground, and all the windows are of hewn stone. Between
the two cross ends there goeth a wall, which is eighteen feet high, and
maketh a small court within the building. This work at this time is but
thirteen feet high, and a number of men at work for the sudden finishing
of it. There is also a strong bridge over the river, which is of lime and
stone, with strong buttresses for the supporting of it. And to this is
joined a good water-mill for corn, all built of lime and stone. This is
at this time the fairest building I have seen. Near unto this Bawne there
is built a town, in which there is fifteen English families, who are able
to make twenty men with arms.”

The ruins of this celebrated mansion seem to justify the opinion
expressed by Pynnar, that it was the fairest building he had seen, that
is, in the counties of the plantation, for there are no existing remains
of any house erected by the English or Scottish undertakers equal to
it in architectural style. It received, however, from the second Lord
Charlemont, the addition of a large gate-house with towers, and also of a
strong keep or donjon.

From the ancient maps of Ulster of Queen Elizabeth’s time, preserved in
the State Paper Office, Castle-Caulfield appears to have been erected
on the site of a more ancient castle or fort, called Fort O’Donallie,
from the chief of the ancient Irish family of O’Donghaile or O’Donnelly,
whose residence it was, previously to the confiscation of the northern
counties; and the small lake in its vicinity was called Lough O’Donallie.
This family of O’Donnelly were a distinguished branch of the Kinel-Owen,
or northern Hy-Niall race, of which the O’Neills were the chiefs in the
sixteenth century; and it was by one of the former that the celebrated
Shane or John O’Neill, surnamed the proud, and who also bore the cognomen
of Donghailach, or the Donnellian, was fostered, as appears from the
following entry in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1531:--

“Ballydonnelly was assaulted by Niall Oge, the son of Art, who was the
son of Con O’Neill. He demolished the castle, and having made a prisoner
of the son of O’Neill, who was the foster-son of O’Donnelly, he carried
him off, together with several horses and the other spoils of the place.”

We have felt it necessary to state the preceding facts relative to the
ancient history of Ballydonnelly, or Castle-Caulfield, as it is now
denominated, because an error of Pynnar’s, in writing the ancient name as
Ballydonnell--not Ballydonnelly, as it should have been--has been copied
by Lodge, Archdall, and all subsequent writers; some of whom have fallen
into a still more serious mistake, by translating the name as “the town
of O’Donnell,” thus attributing the ancient possession of the locality
to a family to whom it never belonged. That Ballydonnelly was truly,
as we have stated, the ancient name of the place, and that it was the
patrimonial residence of the chief of that ancient family, previously
to the plantation of Ulster, must be sufficiently indicated by the
authorities we have already adduced; but if any doubt on this fact could
exist, it would be removed by the following passage in an unpublished
Irish MS. Journal of the Rebellion of 1641, in our own possession,
from which it appears that, as usual with the representatives of the
dispossessed Irish families on the breaking out of that unhappy conflict,
the chief of the O’Donnellys seized upon the Castle-Caulfield mansion as
of right his own:--

“October 1641. Lord Caulfield’s castle in Ballydonnelly (_Baile I
Donghoile_) was taken by Patrick Moder (the gloomy) O’Donnelly.”

The Lord Charlemont, with his family, was at this time absent from
his home in command of the garrison of Charlemont, and it was not his
fate ever to see it afterwards; he was treacherously captured in his
fortress about the same period by the cruel Sir Phelim O’Neill, and was
barbarously murdered while under his protection, if not, as seems the
fact, by his direction, on the 1st of March following. Nor was this
costly and fairest house of its kind in “the north” ever after inhabited
by any of his family; it was burned in those unhappy “troubles,” and left
the melancholy, though picturesque memorial of sad events which we now
see it.

                                                                       P.




THE LAKE OF THE LOVERS, A LEGEND OF LEITRIM.


How many lovely spots in this our beautiful country are never embraced
within those pilgrimages after the picturesque, which numbers
periodically undertake, rather to see what is known to many, and
therefore should be so to them, than to visit nature, for her own sweet
sake, in her more devious and undistinguished haunts! For my part, I
am well pleased that the case stands thus. I love to think that I am
treading upon ground unsullied by the footsteps of the now numerous
tribe of mere professional peripatetics--that my eyes are wandering over
scenery, the freshness of which has been impaired by no transfer to the
portfolio of the artist or the tablets of the poetaster: that, save
the scattered rustic residents, there is no human link to connect its
memorials with the days of old, and, save their traditionary legends, no
story to tell of its fortunes in ancient times. The sentiment is no doubt
selfish as well as anti-utilitarian; but then I must add that it is only
occasional, and will so far be pardoned by all who know how delightful
it is to take refuge in the indulgent twilight of tradition from the
rugged realities of recorded story. At all events, a rambler in any of
our old, and especially mountainous tracts, will rarely lack abundant
aliment for his thus modified sense of beauty, sublimity, or antiquarian
fascination; and scenes have unexpectedly opened upon me in the solitudes
of the hills and lakes of some almost untrodden and altogether unwritten
districts, that have had more power to stir my spirit than the lauded and
typographed, the versified and pictured magnificence of Killarney or of
Cumberland, of Glendalough or of Lomond. It may have been perverseness
of taste, or the fitness of mood, or the influence of circumstance, but
I have been filled with a feeling of the beautiful when wandering among
noteless and almost nameless localities to which I have been a stranger,
when standing amid the most boasted beauties with the appliances of
hand-book and of guide, with appetite prepared, and sensibilities on the
alert. It is I suppose partly because the power of beauty being relative,
a high pitch of expectancy requires a proportionate augmentation of
excellence, and partly because the tincture of contrariety in our
nature ever inclines us to enact the perverse critic, when called on to
be the implicit votary. This in common with most others I have often
felt, but rarely more so than during a casual residence some short
time since among the little celebrated, and therefore perhaps a little
more charming, mountain scenery of the county, which either has been,
or might be, called Leitrim of the Lakes; for a tract more pleasantly
diversified with well-set sheets of water, it would I think be difficult
to name. Almost every hill you top has its still and solitary tarn, and
almost every amphitheatre you enter, encompasses its wild and secluded
lake--not seldom bearing on its placid bosom some little islet, linked
with the generations past, by monastic or castellated ruins, as its
seclusion or its strength may have invited the world-wearied anchorite to
contemplation, or the predatory chieftain to defence.

On such a remote and lonely spot I lately chanced to alight, in the
course of a long summer day’s ramble among the heights and hollows of
that lofty range which for a considerable space abuts upon the borders
of Sligo and Roscommon. The ground was previously unknown to me, and
with all the zest which novelty and indefiniteness can impart, I started
staff in hand with the early sun, and ere the mists had melted from the
purple heather of their cloud-like summits, was drawing pure and balmy
breath within the lonely magnificence of the hills. About noon, as I was
casting about for some pre-eminently happy spot to fling my length for
an hour or two’s repose, I reached the crest of a long gradual ascent
that had been some time tempting me to look what lay beyond; and surely
enough I found beauty sufficient to dissolve my weariness, had it been
tenfold multiplied, and to allay my pulse, had it throbbed with the
vehemence of fever. An oblong valley girdled a lovely lake on every side;
here with precipitous impending cliffs, and there with grassy slopes of
freshest emerald that seemed to woo the dimpling waters to lave their
loving margins, and, as if moved with a like impulse, the little wavelets
met the call with the gentle dalliance of their ebb and flow. A small
wooded island, with its fringe of willows trailing in the water, stood
about a furlong from the hither side, and in the centre of its tangled
brake, my elevation enabled me to descry what I may call the remnants of
a ruin--for so far had it gone in its decay--here green, there grey, as
the moss, the ivy, or the pallid stains of time, had happened to prevail.
A wild duck, with its half-fledged clutch, floated fearless from its
sedgy shore. More remote, a fishing heron stood motionless on a stone,
intent on its expected prey; and the only other animated feature in the
quiet scene was a fisherman who had just moored his little boat, and
having settled his tackle, was slinging his basket on his arm and turning
upward in the direction where I lay. I watched the old man toiling up
the steep, and as he drew nigh, hailed him, as I could not suffer him to
pass without learning at least the name, if it had one, of this miniature
Amhara. He readily complied, and placing his fish-basket on the ground,
seated himself beside it, not unwilling to recover his breath and recruit
his scanty stock of strength almost expended in the ascent. “We call it,”
said he in answer to my query, “the Lake of the Ruin, or sometimes, to
such as know the story, the Lake of the Lovers, after the two over whom
the tombstone is placed inside yon mouldering walls. It is an old story.
My grandfather told me, when a child, that he minded his grandfather
telling it to him, and for anything he could say, it might have come down
much farther. Had I time, I’d be proud to tell it to your honour, who
seems a stranger in these parts, for it’s not over long; but I have to go
to the Hall, and that’s five long miles off, with my fish for dinner, and
little time you’ll say I have to spare, though it be down hill nearly all
the way.” It would have been too bad to allow such a well-met chronicler
to pass unpumped, and, putting more faith in the attractions of my pocket
than of my person, I produced on the instant my luncheon-case and
flask, and handing him a handsome half of the contents of the former,
made pretty sure of his company for a time, by keeping the latter in my
own possession till I got him regularly launched in the story, when, to
quicken at once his recollection and his elocution, I treated him to an
inspiring draught. When he had told his tale, he left me with many thanks
for the refection; and I descending to his boat, entered it, and with the
aid of a broken oar contrived to scull myself over to the island, the
scene of the final fortunes of Connor O’Rourke and Norah M’Diarmod, the
faithful-hearted but evil-fated pair who were in some sort perpetuated in
its name. There, in sooth, within the crumbled walls, was the gravestone
which covered the dust of him the brave and her the beautiful; and
seating myself on the fragment of a sculptured capital, that showed
how elaborately reared the ruined edifice had been, I bethought me how
poorly man’s existence shows even beside the work of his own hands, and
endeavoured for a time to make my thoughts run parallel with the history
of this once-venerated but now forsaken, and, save by a few, forgotten
structure; but finding myself fail in the attempt, settled my retrospect
on that brief period wherein it was identified with the two departed
lovers whose story I had just heard, and which, as I sat by their lowly
sepulchre, I again repeated to myself.

This lake, as my informant told me, once formed a part of the boundary
between the possessions of O’Rourke the Left-handed and M’Diarmod the
Dark-faced, as they were respectively distinguished, two small rival
chiefs, petty in property but pre-eminent in passion, to whom a most
magnificent mutual hatred had been from generations back “bequeathed from
bleeding sire to son”--a legacy constantly swelled by accruing outrages,
for their paramount pursuits were plotting each other’s detriment or
destruction, planning or parrying plundering inroads, inflicting or
avenging injuries by open violence or secret subtlety, as seemed more
likely to promote their purposes. At the name of an O’Rourke, M’Diarmod
would clutch his battle-axe, and brandish it as if one of the detested
clan were within its sweep: and his rival, nothing behind in hatred,
would make the air echo to his deep-drawn imprecation on M’Diarmod
and all his abominated breed when any thing like an opportunity was
afforded him. Their retainers of course shared the same spirit of mutual
abhorrence, exaggerated indeed, if that were possible, by their more
frequent exposure to loss in cattle and in crops, for, as is wont to be
the case, the cottage was incontinently ravaged when the stronghold was
prudentially respected. O’Rourke had a son, an only one, who promised
to sustain or even raise the reputation of the clan, for the youth knew
not what it was to blench before flesh and blood--his feet were over
foremost, in the wolf-hunt or the foray, and in agility, in valour, or
in vigour, none within the compass of a long day’s travel could stand
in comparison with young Connor O’Rourke. Detestation of the M’Diarmods
had been studiously instilled from infancy, of course; but although the
youth’s cheek would flush and his heart beat high when any perilous
adventure was the theme, yet, so far at least, it sprang more from
the love of prowess and applause than from the deadly hostility that
thrilled in the pulses of his father and his followers. In the necessary
intervals of forbearance, as in seed-time, harvest, or other brief
breathing-spaces, he would follow the somewhat analogous and bracing
pleasures of the chase; and often would the wolf or the stag--for shaggy
forests then clothed these bare and desert hills--fall before his spear
or his dogs, as he fleetly urged the sport afoot. It chanced one evening
that in the ardour of pursuit he had followed a tough, long-winded stag
into the dangerous territory of M’Diarmod. The chase had taken to the
water of the lake, and he with his dogs had plunged in after in the
hope of heading it; but having failed in this, and in the hot flush of
a hunter’s blood scorning to turn back, he pressed it till brought down
within a few spear-casts of the M’Diarmod’s dwelling. Proud of having
killed his venison under the very nose of the latter, he turned homeward
with rapid steps; for, the fire of the chase abated, he felt how fatal
would be the discovery of his presence, and was thinking with complacency
upon the wrath of the old chief on hearing of the contemptuous feat, when
his eye was arrested by a white figure moving slowly in the shimmering
mists of nightfall by the margin of the lake. Though insensible to the
fear of what was carnal and of the earth, he was very far from being so
to what savoured of the supernatural, and, with a slight ejaculation half
of surprise and half of prayer, he was about changing his course to give
it a wider berth, when his dogs espied it, and, recking little of the
spiritual in its appearance, bounded after it in pursuit. With a slight
scream that proclaimed it feminine as well as human, the figure fled, and
the youth had much to do both with legs and lungs to reach her in time to
preserve her from the rough respects of his ungallant escort. Beautiful
indignation lightened from the dark eyes and sat on the pouting lip of
Norah M’Diarmod--for it was the chieftain’s daughter--as she turned
disdainfully towards him.

“Is it the bravery of an O’Rourke to hunt a woman with his dogs? Young
chief, you stand upon the ground of M’Diarmod, and your name from the
lips of her”--she stopped, for she had time to glance again upon his
features, and had no longer heart to upbraid one who owned a countenance
so handsome and so gallant, so eloquent of embarrassment as well as
admiration.

Her tone of asperity and wounded pride declined into a murmur of
acquiescence as she hearkened to the apologies and deprecations of the
youth, whose gallantry and feats had so often rung in her ears, though
his person she had but casually seen, and his voice she had never before
heard. The case stood similar with Connor. He had often listened to the
praises of Norah’s beauty; he had occasionally caught distant glimpses of
her graceful figure; and the present sight, or after recollection, often
mitigated his feelings to her hostile clan, and, to his advantage, the
rugged old chief was generally associated with the lovely dark-eyed girl
who was his only child.

Such being their respective feelings, what could be the result of
their romantic rencounter? They were both young, generous children
of nature, with hearts fraught with the unhacknied feelings of youth
and inexperience: they had drunk in sentiment with the sublimities
of their mountain homes, and were fitted for higher things than the
vulgar interchange of animosity and contempt. Of this they soon were
conscious, and they did not separate until the stars began to burn above
them, and not even then, before they had made arrangements for at least
another--one more secret interview. The islet possessed a beautiful
fitness for their trysting place, as being accessible from either side,
and little obnoxious to observation; and many a moonlight meeting--for
the _one_ was inevitably multiplied--had these children of hostile
fathers, perchance on the very spot on which my eyes now rested, and
the unbroken stillness around had echoed to their gladsome greetings or
their faltering farewells. Neither dared to divulge an intercourse that
would have stirred to frenzy the treasured rancour of their respective
parents, each of whom would doubtless have preferred a connexion with
a blackamoor--if such were then in circulation--to their doing such
grievous despite to that ancient feud which as an heirloom had been
transmitted from ancestors whose very names they scarcely knew. M’Diarmod
the Dark-faced was at best but a gentle tiger even to his only child; and
though his stern cast-iron countenance would now and then relax beneath
her artless blandishments, yet even with the lovely vision at his side,
he would often grimly deplore that she had not been a son, to uphold the
name and inherit the headship of the clan, which on his demise would
probably pass from its lineal course; and when he heard of the bold
bearing of the heir of O’Rourke, he thought he read therein the downfall
of the M’Diarmods when he their chief was gone. With such ill-smothered
feelings of discontent he could not but in some measure repulse the
filial regards of Norah, and thus the confiding submission that would
have sprung to meet the endearments of his love, was gradually refused
to the inconsistencies of his caprice; and the maiden in her intercourse
with her proscribed lover rarely thought of her father, except as one
from whom it should be diligently concealed.

But unfortunately this was not to be. One of the night marauders of his
clan chanced in an evil hour to see Connor O’Rourke guiding his coracle
to the island, and at the same time a cloaked female push cautiously
from the opposite shore for the same spot. Surprised, he crouched among
the fern till their landing and joyous greeting put all doubt of their
friendly understanding to flight; and then, thinking only of revenge or
ransom, the unsentimental scoundrel hurried round the lake to M’Diarmod,
and informed him that the son of his mortal foe was within his reach.
The old man leaped from his couch of rushes at the thrilling news, and,
standing on his threshold, uttered a low gathering-cry, which speedily
brought a dozen of his more immediate retainers to his presence. As he
passed his daughter’s apartment, he for the first time asked himself who
can the woman be? and at the same moment almost casually glanced at
Norah’s chamber, to see that all there was quiet for the night. A shudder
of vague terror ran through his sturdy frame as his eye fell on the low
open window. He thrust in his head, but no sleeper drew breath within; he
re-entered the house and called aloud upon his daughter, but the echo of
her name was the only answer. A kern coming up put an end to the search,
by telling that he had seen his young mistress walking down to the
water’s edge about an hour before, but that, as she had been in the habit
of doing so by night for some time past, he had thought but little of it.
The odious truth was now revealed, and, trembling with the sudden gust of
fury, the old chief with difficulty rushed to the lake, and, filling a
couple of boats with his men, told them to pull for the honour of their
name and for the head of the O’Rourke’s first-born.

During this stormy prelude to a bloody drama, the doomed but unconscious
Connor was sitting secure within the dilapidated chapel by the side
of her whom he had won. Her quickened ear first caught the dip of an
oar, and she told her lover; but he said it was the moaning of the
night-breeze through the willows, or the ripple of the water among the
stones, and went on with his gentle dalliance. A few minutes, however,
and the shock of the keels upon the ground, the tread of many feet, and
the no longer suppressed cries of the M’Diarmods, warned him to stand on
his defence; and as he sprang from his seat to meet the call, the soft
illumination of love was changed with fearful suddenness into the baleful
fire of fierce hostility.

“My Norah, leave me; you may by chance be rudely handled in the scuffle.”

The terrified but faithful girl fell upon his breast.

“Connor, your fate is mine; hasten to your boat, if it be not yet too
late.”

An iron-shod hunting pole was his only weapon; and using it with his
right arm, while Norah hung upon his left, he sprang without further
parley through an aperture in the wall, and made for the water. But his
assailants were upon him, the M’Diarmod himself with upraised battle-axe
at their head.

“Spare my father,” faltered Norah; and Connor, with a mercifully
directed stroke, only dashed the weapon from the old man’s hand, and
then, clearing a passage with a vigorous sweep, accompanied with the
well-known charging cry, before which they had so often quailed, bounded
through it to the water’s brink. An instant, and with her who was now
more than his second self, he was once more in his little boat; but,
alas! it was aground, and so quickly fell the blows against him, that he
dare not adventure to shove it off. Letting Norah slip from his hold,
she sank backwards to the bottom of the boat; and then, with both arms
free, he redoubled his efforts, and after a short but furious struggle
succeeded in getting the little skiff afloat. Maddened at the sight, the
old chief rushed breast-deep into the water; but his right arm had been
disabled by a casual blow, and his disheartened followers feared, under
the circumstances, to come within range of that well-wielded club. But
a crafty one among them had already seized on a safer and surer plan.
He had clambered up an adjacent tree, armed with a heavy stone, and now
stood on one of the branches above the devoted boat, and summoned him to
yield, if he would not perish. The young chief’s renewed exertions were
his only answer.

“Let him escape, and your head shall pay for it,” shouted the infuriated
father.

The fellow hesitated. “My young mistress?”

“There are enough here to save her, if I will it. Down with the stone, or
by the blood----”

He needed not to finish the sentence, for down at the word it came,
striking helpless the youth’s right arm, and shivering the frail timber
of the boat, which filled at once, and all went down. For an instant
an arm re-appeared, feebly beating the water in vain--it was the young
chief’s broken one: the other held his Norah in its embrace, as was seen
by her white dress flaunting for a few moments on and above the troubled
surface. The lake at this point was deep, and though there was a rush of
the M’Diarmods towards it, yet in their confusion they were but awkward
aids, and the fluttering ensign that marked the fatal spot had sunk
before they reached it. The strength of Connor, disabled as he was by
his broken limb, and trammelled by her from whom even the final struggle
could not dissever him, had failed; and with her he loved locked in his
last embrace, they were after a time recovered from the water, and laid
side by side upon the bank, in all their touching, though, alas, lifeless
beauty! Remorse reached the rugged hearts even of those who had so
ruthlessly dealt by them; and as they looked on their goodly forms, thus
cold and senseless by a common fate, the rudest felt that it would be
an impious and unpardonable deed to do violence to their memory, by the
separation of that union which death itself had sanctified. Thus were
they laid in one grave; and, strange as it may appear, their fathers,
crushed and subdued, exhausted even of resentment by the overwhelming
stroke--for nothing can quell the stubborn spirit like the extremity of
sorrow--crossed their arms in amity over their remains, and grief wrought
the reconciliation which even centuries of time, that great pacificator,
had failed to do.

The westering sun now warning me that the day was on the wane, I gave but
another look to the time-worn tombstone, another sigh to the early doom
of those whom it enclosed, and then, with a feeling of regret, again left
the little island to its still, unshared, and pensive loneliness.




ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE--No. IV.


The composition which we have selected as our fourth specimen of the
ancient literature of Ireland, is a poem, more remarkable, perhaps,
for its antiquity and historical interest, than for its poetic merits,
though we do not think it altogether deficient in those. It is ascribed,
apparently with truth, to the celebrated poet Mac Liag, the secretary of
the renowned monarch Brian Boru, who, as our readers are aware, fell at
the battle of Clontarf in 1014; and the subject of it is a lamentation
for the fallen condition of Kincora, the palace of that monarch,
consequent on his death.

The decease of Mac Liag, whose proper name was Muircheartach, is thus
recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1015:--

“Mac Liag, i. e. Muirkeartach, son of Conkeartach, at this time laureate
of Ireland, died.”

A great number of his productions are still in existence; but none of
them have obtained a popularity so widely extended as the poem before us.

Of the palace of Kincora, which was situated on the banks of the Shannon,
near Killaloe, there are at present no vestiges.


LAMENTATION OF MAC LIAG FOR KINCORA.

A Chinn-copath carthi Brian?

    Oh, where, Kincora! is Brian the Great?
    And where is the beauty that once was thine?
    Oh, where are the princes and nobles that sate
    At the feast in thy halls, and drank the red wine?
                            Where, oh, Kincora?

    Oh, where, Kincora! are thy valorous lords?
    Oh, whither, thou Hospitable! are they gone?
    Oh, where are the Dalcassians of the Golden Swords?[1]
    And where are the warriors that Brian led on?
                            Where, oh, Kincora?

    And where is Morogh, the descendant of kings--
    The defeater of a hundred--the daringly brave--
    Who set but slight store by jewels and rings--
    Who swam down the torrent and laughed at its wave?
                            Where, oh, Kincora?

    And where is Donogh, King Brian’s worthy son?
    And where is Conaing, the Beautiful Chief?
    And Kian, and Corc? Alas! they are gone--
    They have left me this night alone with my grief!
                            Left me, Kincora!

    And where are the chiefs with whom Brian went forth,
    The never-vanquished son of Evin the Brave,
    The great King of Onaght, renowned for his worth,
    And the hosts of Baskinn, from the western wave?
                            Where, oh, Kincora?

    Oh, where is Duvlann of the Swiftfooted Steeds?
    And where is Kian, who was son of Molloy?
    And where is King Lonergan, the fame of whose deeds
    In the red battle-field no time can destroy?
                            Where, oh, Kincora?

    And where is that youth of majestic height,
    The faith-keeping Prince of the Scots?--Even he,
    As wide as his fame was, as great as was his might,
    Was tributary, oh, Kincora, to me!
                            Me, oh, Kincora!

    They are gone, those heroes of royal birth,
    Who plundered no churches, and broke no trust,
    ’Tis weary for me to be living on the earth
    When they, oh, Kincora, lie low in the dust!
                            Low, oh, Kincora!

    Oh, never again will Princes appear,
    To rival the Dalcassians of the Cleaving Swords!
    I can never dream of meeting afar or anear,
    In the east or the west, such heroes and lords!
                            Never, Kincora!

    Oh, dear are the images my memory calls up
    Of Brian Boru!--how he never would miss
    To give me at the banquet the first bright cup!
    Ah! why did he heap on me honour like this?
                            Why, oh, Kincora?

    I am Mac Liag, and my home is on the Lake:
    Thither often, to that palace whose beauty is fled,
    Came Brian to ask me, and I went for his sake.
    Oh, my grief! that I should live, and Brian be dead!
                            Dead, oh, Kincora!

                                                         M.

[1] _Coolg n-or_, of the swords _of gold_, i. e. of the _gold-hilted_
swords.




COLUMN FOR THE YOUNG.

Biography of a mouse.


“Biography of a mouse!” cries the reader; “well, what shall we have
next?--what can the writer mean by offering such nonsense for our
perusal?” There is no creature, reader, however insignificant and
unimportant in the great scale of creation it may appear to us,
short-sighted mortals that we are, which is forgotten in the care of
our own common Creator; not a sparrow falls to the ground unknown and
unpermitted by Him; and whether or not you may derive interest from the
biography even of a mouse, you will be able to form a better judgment,
after, than before, having read my paper.

The mouse belongs to the class _Mammalia_, or the animals which rear
their young by suckling them; to the order _Rodentia_, or animals whose
teeth are adapted for _gnawing_; to the genus _Mus_, or Rat kind, and the
family of _Mus musculus_, or domestic mouse. The mouse is a singularly
beautiful little animal, as no one who examines it attentively, and
without prejudice, can fail to discover. Its little body is plump and
sleek; its neck short; its head tapering and graceful; and its eyes
large, prominent, and sparkling. Its manners are lively and interesting,
its agility surprising, and its habits extremely cleanly. There are
several varieties of this little creature, amongst which the best known
is the common brown mouse of our granaries and store-rooms; the Albino,
or white mouse, with red eyes; and the black and white mouse, which is
more rare and very delicate. I mention these as _varieties_, for I think
we may safely regard them as such, from the fact of their propagating
unchanged, preserving their difference of hue to the fiftieth generation,
and never accidentally occurring amongst the offspring of differently
coloured parents.

It is of the white mouse that I am now about to treat, and it is an
account of a tame individual of that extremely pretty variety that is
designed to form the subject of my present paper.

When I was a boy of about sixteen, I got possession of a white mouse; the
little creature was very wild and unsocial at first, but by dint of care
and discipline I succeeded in rendering it familiar. The principal agent
I employed towards effecting its domestication was a singular one, and
which, though I can assure the reader its effects are speedy and certain,
still remains to me inexplicable: this was, ducking in cold water; and by
resorting to this simple expedient, I have since succeeded in rendering
even the rat as tame and as playful as a kitten. It is out of my power to
explain the manner in which _ducking_ operates on the animal subjected to
it, but I wish that some physiologist more experienced than I am would
give his attention to the subject, and favour the public with the result
of his reflections.

At the time that I obtained possession of this mouse, I was residing at
Olney, in Buckinghamshire, a village which I presume my readers will
recollect as connected with the names of Newton and Cowper; but shortly
after having succeeded in rendering it pretty tame, circumstances
required my removal to Gloucester, whither I carried my little favourite
with me. During the journey I kept the mouse confined in a small wire
cage; but while resting at the inn where I passed the night, I adopted
the precaution of enveloping the cage in a handkerchief, lest by some
untoward circumstance its active little inmate might make its escape.
Having thus, as I thought, made all safe, I retired to rest. The moment
I awoke in the morning, I sprang from my bed, and went to examine the
cage, when, to my infinite consternation, I found it empty! I searched
the bed, the room, raised the carpet, examined every nook and corner, but
all to no purpose. I dressed myself as hastily as I could, and summoning
one of the waiters, an intelligent, good-natured man, I informed
him of my loss, and got him to search every room in the house. His
investigations, however, proved equally unavailing, and I gave my poor
little pet completely up, inwardly hoping, despite of its ingratitude
in leaving me, that it might meet with some agreeable mate amongst its
brown congeners, and might lead a long and happy life, unchequered by
the terrors of the prowling cat, and unendangered by the more insidious
artifices of the fatal trap. With these reflections I was just getting
into the coach which was to convey me upon my road, when a waiter came
running to the door, out of breath, exclaiming, “Mr R., Mr R., I declare
your little mouse is in the kitchen.” Begging the coachman to wait an
instant, I followed the man to the kitchen, and there, on the hob,
seated contentedly in a pudding dish, and devouring its contents with
considerable _gout_, was my truant protegé. Once more secured within
its cage, and the latter carefully enveloped in a sheet of strong brown
paper, upon my knee, I reached Gloucester.

I was here soon subjected to a similar alarm, for one morning the cage
was again empty, and my efforts to discover the retreat of the wanderer
unavailing as before. This time I had lost him for a week, when one
night, in getting into bed, I heard a scrambling in the curtains, and on
relighting my candle found the noise to have been occasioned by my mouse,
who seemed equally pleased with myself at our reunion. After having thus
lost and found my little friend a number of times, I gave up the idea
of confining him; and, accordingly, leaving the door of his cage open,
I placed it in a corner of my bedroom, and allowed him to go in and out
as he pleased. Of this permission he gladly availed himself, but would
regularly return to me at intervals of a week or a fortnight, and at such
periods of return he was usually much thinner than ordinary; and it was
pretty clear that during his visits to his brown acquaintances he fared
by no means so well as he did at home.

Sometimes, when he happened to return, as he often did, in the
night-time, on which occasions his general custom was to come into bed to
me, I used, in order to induce him to remain with me until morning, to
immerse him in a basin of water, and then let him lie in my bosom, the
warmth of which, after his cold bath, commonly ensured his stay.

Frequently, while absent on one of his excursions, I would hear an
unusual noise in the wainscot, as I lay in bed, of dozens of mice
running backwards and forwards in all directions, and squeaking in much
apparent glee. For some time I was puzzled to know whether this unusual
disturbance was the result of merriment or quarrelling, and I often
trembled for the safety of my pet, alone and unaided, among so many
strangers. But a very interesting circumstance occurred one morning,
which perfectly reassured me. It was a bright summer morning, about four
o’clock, and I was lying awake, reflecting as to the propriety of turning
on my pillow to take another sleep, or at once rising, and going forth to
enjoy the beauties of awakening nature. While thus meditating, I heard a
slight scratching in the wainscot, and looking towards the spot whence
the noise proceeded, perceived the head of a mouse peering from a hole.
It was instantly withdrawn, but a second was thrust forth. This latter I
at once recognised as my own white friend, but so begrimed by soot and
dirt that it required an experienced eye to distinguish him from his
darker-coated entertainers. He emerged from the hole, and running over
to his cage, entered it, and remained for a couple of seconds within
it; he then returned to the wainscot, and, re-entering the hole, some
scrambling and squeaking took place. A second time he came forth, and on
this occasion was followed closely, to my no small astonishment, by a
brown mouse, who followed him, with much apparent timidity and caution,
to his box, and entered it along with him. More astonished at this
singular proceeding than I can well express, I lay fixed in mute and
breathless attention, to see what would follow next. In about a minute
the two mice came forth from the cage, each bearing in its mouth a large
piece of bread, which they dragged towards the hole they had previously
left. On arriving at it, they entered, but speedily re-appeared, having
deposited their burden; and repairing once more to the cage, again loaded
themselves with provision, and conveyed it away. This second time they
remained within the hole for a much longer period than the first time;
and when they again made their appearance, they were attended by three
other mice, who, following their leaders to the cage, loaded themselves
with bread as did they, and carried away their burdens to the hole. After
this I saw them no more that morning, and on rising I discovered that
they had carried away every particle of food that the cage contained. Nor
was this an isolated instance of their white guest leading them forth to
where he knew they should find provender. Day after day, whatever bread
or grain I left in the cage was regularly removed, and the duration of my
pet’s absence was proportionately long. Wishing to learn whether hunger
was the actual cause of his return, I no longer left food in his box; and
in about a week afterwards, on awaking one morning, I found him sleeping
upon the pillow, close to my face, having partly wormed his way under my
cheek.

There was a cat in the house, an excellent mouser, and I dreaded lest she
should one day meet with and destroy my poor mouse, and I accordingly
used all my exertions with those in whose power it was, to obtain her
dismissal. She was, however, regarded by those persons as infinitely
better entitled to protection and patronage than a mouse, so I was
compelled to put up with her presence. People are fond of imputing to
cats a supernatural degree of sagacity: they will sometimes go so far
as to pronounce them to be genuine _witches_; and really I am scarcely
surprised at it, nor perhaps will the reader be, when I tell him the
following anecdote.

I was one day entering my apartment, when I was filled with horror at
perceiving my mouse picking up some crumbs upon the carpet, beneath
the table, and the terrible cat seated upon a chair watching him with
what appeared to me to be an expression of sensual anticipation and
concentrated desire. Before I had time to interfere, Puss sprang from
her chair, and bounded towards the mouse, who, however, far from being
terrified at the approach of his natural enemy, scarcely so much as
favoured her with a single look. Puss raised her paw and dealt him a
gentle tap, when, judge of my astonishment if you can, the little mouse,
far from running away, or betraying any marks of fear, raised himself
on his legs, cocked his tail, and with a shrill and angry squeak, with
which any that have kept tame mice are well acquainted, sprang at and
positively _bit_ the paw which had struck him. I was paralysed. I could
not jump forward to the rescue. I was, as it were, petrified where I
stood. But, stranger than all, the cat, instead of appearing irritated,
or seeming to design mischief, merely stretched out her nose and smelt
at her diminutive assailant, and then resuming her place upon the chair,
purred herself to sleep. I need not say that I immediately secured the
mouse within his cage. Whether the cat on this occasion knew the little
animal to be a pet, and as such feared to meddle with it, or whether its
boldness had disarmed her, I cannot pretend to explain: I merely state
the fact; and I think the reader will allow that it is sufficiently
extraordinary.

In order to guard against such a dangerous encounter for the future,
I got a more secure cage made, of which the bars were so close as to
preclude the possibility of egress; and singularly enough, many a morning
was I amused by beholding brown mice coming from their holes in the
wainscot, and approaching the cage in which their friend was kept, as if
in order to condole with him on the subject of his unwonted captivity.
Secure, however, as I conceived this new cage to be, my industrious pet
contrived to make his escape from it, and in doing so met his death. In
my room was a large bureau, with deep, old-fashioned, capacious drawers.
Being obliged to go from home for a day, I put the cage containing my
little friend into one of these drawers, lest any one should attempt to
meddle with it during my absence. On returning, I opened the drawer,
and just as I did so, heard a faint squeak, and at the same instant my
poor little pet fell from the back of the drawer--lifeless. I took up
his body, and, placing it in my bosom, did my best to restore it to
animation. Alas! it was to no purpose. His little body had been crushed
in the crevice at the back part of the drawer, through which he had been
endeavouring to escape, and he was really and irrecoverably gone.

       *       *       *       *       *

NOTE ON THE FEEDING, &C., OF WHITE MICE.--Such of my juvenile readers
as may be disposed to make a pet of one of these interesting little
animals, would do well to observe the following rules:--Clean the cage
out daily, and keep it dry; do not keep it in too cold a place; in
winter it should be kept in a room in which there is a fire. Feed the
mice on bread steeped in milk, having first squeezed the milk out, as
too moist food is bad for them. Never give them cheese, as it is apt to
produce fatal disorders, though the more hardy brown mice eat it with
impunity. If you want to give them a treat, give them grains of wheat
or barley, or if these are not to be procured, oats or rice. A little
tin box of water should be constantly left in their cage, but securely
fixed, so that they cannot overturn it. Let the wires be not too slight,
or too long, otherwise the little animals will easily squeeze themselves
between them, and let them be of iron, never of copper, as the animals
are fond of nibbling at them, and the rust of the latter, or _verdigris_,
would quickly poison them. White mice are to be procured at most of the
bird-shops in Patrick’s Close, Dublin; of the wire-workers and bird-cage
makers in Edinburgh; and from all the animal fanciers in London,
whose residences are to be found chiefly on the New Road and about
Knightsbridge. Their prices vary from one shilling to two-and-sixpence
per pair, according to their age and beauty.

                                                                 H. D. R.




THE PROFESSIONS.


If what are called the liberal professions could speak, they would
all utter the one cry, “we are overstocked;” and echo would reply
“overstocked.” This has long been a subject of complaint, and yet nobody
seems inclined to mend the matter by making any sacrifice on his own
part--just as in a crowd, to use a familiar illustration, the man who is
loudest in exclaiming “dear me, what pressing and jostling people do keep
here!” never thinks of lightening the pressure by withdrawing his own
person from the mass. There is, however, an advantage to be derived from
the utterance and reiteration of the complaint, if not by those already
in the press, at least by those who are still happily clear of it.

There are many “vanities and vexations of spirit” under the sun, but this
evil of professional redundancy seems to be one of very great magnitude.
It involves not merely an outlay of much precious time and substance to
no purpose, but in most cases unfits those who constitute the “excess”
from applying themselves afterwards to other pursuits. Such persons are
the primary sufferers; but the community at large participates in the
loss.

It cannot but be interesting to inquire to what this tendency may be
owing, and what remedy it might be useful to apply to the evil. Now, it
strikes me that the great cause is the exclusive attention which people
pay to the great prizes, and their total inconsideration of the number of
blanks which accompany them. Life itself has been compared to a lottery;
but in some departments the scheme may be so particularly bad, that it is
nothing short of absolute gambling to purchase a share in it. So it is in
the professions. A few arrive at great eminence, and these few excite the
envy and admiration of all beholders; but they are only a few compared
with the number of those who linger in the shade, and, however anxious to
enjoy the sport, never once get a rap at the ball.

Again, parents are apt to look upon the mere name of a profession as a
provision for their children. They calculate all the expenses of general
education, professional education, and then of admission to “liberty to
practise;” and finding all these items amount to a tolerably large sum,
they conceive they have bestowed an ample portion on the son who has cost
them “thus much monies.” But unfortunately they soon learn by experience
that the elevation of a profession, great as it is, does not always
possess that homely recommendation of causing the “pot to boil,” and that
the individual for whom this costly provision has been made, cannot be so
soon left to shift for himself. Here then is another cause of this evil,
namely, that people do not adequately and fairly calculate the whole cost.

Of our liberal professions, the army is the only one that yields a
certain income as the produce of the purchase money, But in these “piping
times of peace,” a private soldier in the ranks might as well attempt to
verify the old song, and

    “Spend half a crown out of sixpence a-day,”

as an ensign to pay mess-money and band-money, and all other regulation
monies, keep himself in dress coat and epaulettes, and all the other et
ceteras, upon his mere pay. The thing cannot be done. To live in any
comfort in the army, a subaltern should have an income from some other
source, equal at least in amount to that which he receives through the
hands of the paymaster. The army is, in fact, an expensive profession,
and of all others the least agreeable to one who is prevented, by
circumscribed means, from doing as his brother officers do. Yet the
mistake of venturing to meet all these difficulties is not unfrequently
admitted, with what vain expectation it is needless to inquire. The usual
result is such as one would anticipate, namely, that the rash adventurer,
after incurring debts, or putting his friends to unlooked-for charges, is
obliged after a short time to sell out, and bid farewell for ever to the
unprofitable profession of arms.

It would be painful to dwell upon the situation of those who enter other
professions without being duly prepared to wait their turn of employment.
It is recognised as a poignantly applicable truth in the profession of
the bar, that “many are called but few are chosen;” but with very few and
rare exceptions indeed, the necessity of _biding_ the time is certain.
In the legal and medical professions there is no fixed income, however
small, insured to the adventurer; and unless his circle of friends and
connections be very wide and serviceable indeed, he should make up his
mind for a procrastinated return and a late harvest. But how many from
day to day, and from year to year, do launch their bark upon the ocean,
without any such prudent foresight! The result therefore is, that vast
proportion of disastrous voyages and shipwrecks of which we hear so
constantly.

Such is the admitted evil--it is granted on all sides. The question
is, what is to be done?--what is the remedy? Now, the remedy for an
overstocked profession very evidently is, that people should forbear to
enter it. I am no Malthusian on the subject of population: I desire no
unnatural checks upon the increase and multiplication of her Majesty’s
subjects; but I should like to drain off a surplus from certain
situations, and turn off the in-flowing stream into more profitable
channels. I would advise parents, then, to leave the choice of a liberal
profession to those who are able to live without one. Such parties can
afford to wait for advancement, however long it may be in coming, or to
bear up against disappointment, if such should be their lot. With such
it is a safe speculation, and they may be left to indulge in it, if they
think proper. With others it is not so. But it will be asked, what is to
be done with the multitudes who would be diverted from the professions,
if this advice were acted upon? I answer, that the money unprofitably
spent upon their education, and in fees of admission to these expensive
pursuits, would insure them a “good location” and a certain provision
for life in Canada, or some of the colonies; and that any honourable
occupation which would yield a competency ought to be preferred to
“professions” which, however “liberal,” hold out to the many but a very
doubtful prospect of that result.

It is much to be regretted that there is a prevalent notion among
certain of my countrymen that “trade” is not a “genteel” thing, and
that it must be eschewed by those who have any pretensions to fashion.
This unfortunate, and I must say unsound state of opinion, contributes
also, I fear, in no small degree, to that professional redundancy of
which we have been speaking. The supposed absolute necessity of a high
classical education is a natural concomitant of this opinion. All our
schools therefore are eminently classical. The University follows, as a
matter of course, and then the University leads to a liberal profession,
as surely as one step of a ladder conducts to another. Thus the evil is
nourished at the very root. Now, I would take the liberty of advising
those parents who may concur with me in the main point of over-supply in
the professions, to begin at the beginning, and in the education of their
children, to exchange this superabundance of Greek and Latin for the less
elegant but more useful accomplishment of “ciphering.” I am disposed to
concur with that facetious but shrewd fellow, Mr Samuel Slick, upon the
inestimable advantages of that too much neglected art--neglected, I mean,
in our country here, Ireland. He has demonstrated that they do every
thing by it in the States, and that without it they could do nothing.
With the most profound respect to my countrymen, then, I would earnestly
recommend them to cultivate it. But it may perhaps be said that there is
no encouragement to mercantile pursuits in Ireland, and that if there
were, there would be no necessity for me to recommend “ciphering” and
its virtues to the people. To this I answer, that merchandize offers
its prizes to the ingenious and venturous much rather than to those who
wait for a “highway” to be made for them. If people were resolved to
live by trade, I think they would contrive to do so--many more, at least,
than at present operate successfully in that department. If more of
education, and more of mind, were turned in that direction, new sources
of profitable industry, at present unthought of, would probably discover
themselves. Much might be said on this subject, but I shall not enter
further into the speculation, quite satisfied if I have thrown out a hint
which may be found capable of improvement by others.

                                                                       F.




GEESE.

BY MARTIN DOYLE.


The rearing of geese might be more an object of attention to our small
farmers and labourers in the vicinity of bogs and mountain tracts than it
is.

The general season for the consumption of fat geese is from Michaelmas to
Christmas, and the high prices paid for them in the English markets--to
which they can be so rapidly conveyed from many parts of Ireland--appear
to offer sufficient temptation to the speculator who has the capital and
accommodation necessary for fattening them.

A well-organized system of feeding this hardy and nutritious species of
poultry, in favourable localities, would give a considerable impulse to
the rearing of them, and consequently promote the comforts of many poor
Irish families, who under existing circumstances do not find it worth
while to rear them except in very small numbers.

I am led to offer a few suggestions on this subject from having
ascertained that in the Fens of Lincolnshire, notwithstanding a great
decrease there in the breeding of geese from extensive drainage, one
individual, Mr Clarke of Boston, fattens every year, between Michaelmas
and Christmas, the prodigious number of seven thousand geese, and that
another dealer at Spalding prepares for the poultry butcher nearly as
many: these they purchase in lots from the farmers’ wives.

Perhaps a few details of the Lincolnshire practice may be acceptable to
some of the readers of this Journal:--

The farmers in the Fens keep breeding stocks proportioned to the extent
of suitable land which they can command; and in order to insure the
fertility of the eggs, they allow one gander to three geese, which is a
higher proportion of males than is deemed necessary elsewhere. The number
of goslings in each brood averages about ten, which, allowing for all
casualties, is a considerable produce.

There have been extraordinary instances of individual fecundity, on
which, however, it would be as absurd for any goose-breeder to calculate,
as it is proverbially unwise to reckon chickens before they are hatched;
and this fruitfulness is only attainable by constant feeding with
stimulating food through the preceding winter.

A goose has been known to lay seventy eggs within twelve months,
twenty-six in the spring, before the time of incubation, and (after
bringing out seventeen goslings) the remainder by the end of the year.

The white variety is preferred to the grey or party-coloured, as the
birds of this colour feed more kindly, and their feathers are worth three
shillings a stone more than the others: the quality of the land, however,
on which the breeding stock is to be maintained, decides this matter,
generally strong land being necessary for the support of the white or
larger kind. Under all circumstances a white gander is preferred, in
order to have a large progeny. It has been remarked, but I know not if
with reason, that ganders are more frequently white than the females.

To state all the particulars of hatching and rearing would be
superfluous, and mere repetition of what is contained in the various
works on poultry. I shall merely state some of the peculiarities of the
practice in the county of Lincoln.

When the young geese are brought up at different periods by the great
dealers, they are put into pens together, according to their age, size,
and condition, and fed on steamed potatoes and ground oats, in the ratio
of one measure of oats to three of potatoes. By unremitting care as to
cleanliness, pure water, and constant feeding, these geese are fattened
in about three weeks, at an average cost of one penny per day each.

The _cramming_ system, either by the fingers or the forcing pump,
described by French writers, with the accompanying barbarities of
blinding, nailing the feet to the floor, or confinement in perforated
casks or earthen pots (as is said to be the case sometimes in Poland),
are happily unknown in Lincolnshire, and I may add throughout England,
with one exception--the nailing of the feet to boards. The unequivocal
proofs of this may occasionally, but very rarely, be seen in the geese
brought into the London markets: these, however, may possibly be imported
ones, though I fear they are not so.

The Lincolnshire dealers do not give any of those rich greasy pellets
of barley meal and hot liquor, which always spoil the flavour, to their
geese, as they well know that oats is the best feeding for them; barley,
besides being more expensive, renders the flesh loose and insipid, and
rather _chickeny_ in flavour.

Every point of economy on this subject is matter of great moment, on the
vast scale pursued by Mr Clarke, who pays seven hundred pounds a-year
for the mere conveyance of his birds to the London market; a fact which
gives a tolerable notion of the great extent of capital employed in this
business, the extent of which is scarcely conceivable by my agricultural
countrymen.

Little cost, however, is incurred by those who breed the geese, as the
stock are left to provide for themselves, except in the laying season,
and in feeding the goslings until they are old enough to eat grass or
feed on the stubbles. I have no doubt, however, that the cramp would be
less frequently experienced, if solid food were added to the grass, when
the geese are turned out to graze, although Mr Clarke attributes the
cramp, as well as gout and fever, to too close confinement alone. This
opinion does not correspond with my far more limited observation, which
leads me to believe that the cramp attacks goslings most frequently when
they are at large, and left to shift for themselves on green food alone,
and that of the poorest kind. I should think it good economy to give
them, and the old stagers too, all spare garden vegetables, for loss of
condition is prejudicial to them as well as to other animals. Mr Cobbett
used to fatten his young geese, from June to October, on Swedish turnips,
carrots, white cabbages, or lettuces, with some corn.

Swedish turnips no doubt will answer very well, but not so well as
farinaceous potatoes, when immediate profit is the object. The experience
of such an extensive dealer as Mr Clarke is worth volumes of theory
and conjecture as to the mode of feeding, and he decides in favour of
potatoes and oats.

The treatment for cramp and fever in Lincolnshire is bleeding--I know not
if it be hazarded in gout--but as it is not successful in the cases of
cramp in one instance out of twenty, it may be pronounced inefficacious.

I have had occasion lately to remark in this Journal on the general
disinclination in England to the barbarous custom of plucking geese
alive. In Lincolnshire, however, they do so with the breeding stock three
times in the year, beginning at midsummer, and repeating the operation
twice afterwards, at intervals of six weeks between the operations.

The practice is defended on the plea, that if the feathers be matured,
the geese are better for it, while it is of course admitted that the
birds must be injured more or less--according to the handling by the
pluckers--if the feathers be not ripe. But as birds do not moult three
times in the year, I do not understand how it should be correctly said
that the feathers _can_ be ripe on these three occasions. How does nature
suggest the propriety of stripping the feathers so often? Where great
numbers are kept, the loss by allowing the feathers to drop on the ground
would be serious, and on this account alone can even one stripping be
justified.

In proof of the general opinion that the goose is extremely long-lived,
we have many recorded facts; among them the following:--“In 1824 there
was a goose living in the possession of Mr Hewson of Glenham, near
Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, which was then upwards of a century old. It
had been throughout that term in the constant possession of Mr Hewson’s
forefathers and himself, and on quitting his farm he would not suffer
it to be sold with his other stock, but made a present of it to the
in-coming tenant, that the venerable fowl might terminate its career on
the spot where its useful life had been spent such a length of days.”

The taste which has long prevailed among gourmands for the liver of a
goose, and has led to the enormous cruelties exercised in order to cause
its enlargement by rendering the bird diseased in that organ through high
and forced feeding in a warm temperature and close confinement, is well
known; but I doubt if many are aware of the influence of _charcoal_ in
producing an unnatural state of the liver.

I had read of charcoal being put into a trough of water to sweeten it for
geese when cooped up; but from a passage in a recent work by Liebig it
would appear that the charcoal acts not as a sweetener of the water, but
in another way on the constitution of the goose.

I am tempted to give the extract from its novelty:--“The production of
flesh and fat may be artificially increased: all domestic animals, for
example, contain much fat. We give food to animals which increases the
activity of certain organs, and is itself capable of being transformed
into fat. We add to the quantity of food, or we lessen the progress
of respiration and perspiration by preventing motion. The conditions
necessary to effect this purpose in birds are different from those in
quadrupeds; and it is well known that charcoal powder produces such an
excessive growth in the liver of a goose as at length causes the death of
the animal.”

We are much inferior to the English in the art of preparing poultry for
the market; and this is the more to be regretted in the instance of
geese, especially as we can supply potatoes--which I have shown to be
the chief material of their fattening food--at half their cost in many
parts of England. This advantage alone ought to render the friends of our
agricultural poor earnest in promoting the rearing and fattening of geese
in localities favourable for the purpose.




IRISH MANUFACTURES.


The encouragement of our native manufactures is now a general topic of
conversation and interest, and we hope the present excitement of the
public mind on this subject will be productive of permanent good. We also
hope that the encouragement proposed to be given to articles of Irish
manufacture will be extended to the productions of the head as well as to
those of the hands; that the manufacturer of Irish wit and humour will be
deemed worthy of support as well as those of silks, woollens, or felts;
and, that Irishmen shall venture to estimate the value of Irish produce
for themselves, without waiting as heretofore till they get “the London
stamp” upon them, as our play-going people of old times used to do in the
case of the eminent Irish actors.

We are indeed greatly inclined to believe that our Irish manufactures
are rising in estimation in England, from the fact which has come to
our knowledge that many thousands of our Belfast hams are sold annually
at the other side of the water as genuine Yorkshire, and also that many
of those Belfast hams with the Yorkshire stamp find their way back into
“Ould Ireland,” and are bought as English by those who would despise
them as Irish. Now, we should like our countrymen not to be gulled in
this way, but depend upon their own judgment in the matter of hams, and
in like manner in the matter of articles of Irish literary manufacture,
without waiting for the London stamp to be put on them. The necessity
for such discrimination and confidence in their own judgment exists
equally in hams and literature. Thus certain English editors approve so
highly of our articles in the Irish Penny Journal, that they copy them
by wholesale, not only without acknowledgment, but actually do us the
favour to father them as their own! As an example of this patronage, we
may refer to a recent number of the Court Gazette, in which its editor
has been entertaining his aristocratic readers with a little piece of
_badinage_ from our Journal, expressly written for us, and entitled “A
short chapter on Bustles,” but which he gives as written for the said
Court Gazette! Now, this is really very considerate and complimentary,
and we of course feel grateful. But, better again, we find our able and
kind friend the editor of the _Monitor_ and _Irishman_, presenting, no
doubt inadvertently, this very article to his Irish readers a few weeks
ago--not even as an Irish article that had got the London stamp upon it,
but as actually one of true British manufacture--the produce of the Court
Gazette.

Now, in perfect good humour, we ask our friend, as such we have reason to
consider him, could he not as well have copied this article from our own
Journal, and given us the credit of it--and would it not be worthy of the
consistency and patriotism of the _Irishman_, who writes so ably in the
cause of Irish manufactures, to extend his support, as far as might be
compatible with truth and honesty, to the native literature of Ireland?

       *       *       *       *       *

    Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at
    the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane,
    College Green, Dublin.--Sold by all Booksellers.







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 28, JANUARY 9, 1841 ***


    

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