as follows:-For breakfast each adult had eight ounces of Indian meal made into stir-about, with one pint of buttermilk; for dinner, one pound of brown bread, and one pint of buttermilk. I tasted the bread it was coarse and heavy, being composed of equal proportions of rye-meal, Indian corn, and old flour. For supper the children are allowed a quarter of a pound of white bread, and (added my conductor) a reasonable quantity of new milk.' The beds in the dormitories were not too crowded, and were all neatly rolled up during the day, and the floors swept and well scoured. The mattresses are stuffed with oat-straw: each bed had one sheet, one double blanket, and a rug. The children are taught to read and write; but no instruction of any kind is, I believe, offered to adults. I requested that a few of the boys who had just entered the house, and a few of those who had been inmates more than six months, might be placed in juxta-position, so that I might judge of their relative appearance. The distinction was remarkably in favour of the latter. This may, however, be accounted for by the fact that nothing but the extremity of destitution and want will induce these poor creatures to enter the union-house. Though there was nothing peculiar to complain of in the arrangements, except indeed that one could have wished for a more varied and generous diet, yet it was on the whole a painful visit to me. Symptoms of dissatisfaction at their position were but too visible among some, and there was a desponding tone in several that I addressed which went to my heart. With the world before them-with one-half of their own country a mere uncultivated waste-it struck me as a strange anomaly to see so many fine specimens of the human stock living in unwilling idleness, and at the expense, too, of a suffering and impoverished community" (130-132). or The inhabitants of Ireland may be regarded as deriving their origin from at least four distinct sources-viz., the Celts, Milesians, Danes, and Anglo-Saxons. There is usually a perceptible difference between the descendants of the Danes and Saxons, to whom the appellation of Anglo-Irish is commonly given, and the rest of the natives. The Celts and Milesians unitedly form the more numerous division of Ireland's occupants. An Englishman visits Dublin Ulster, and then returns home with the mistaken notion that he has had an opportunity for discerning the peculiarities of the Irish character. He might quite as well have explored Saint Giles's in London, or a few streets within the precincts of Glasgow. Unfortunately for Ireland, there are among those popularly regarded as Irishmen differences of origin and language as well as religion. The descendants of the Danes and Saxons are, in some respects, almost as dissimilar from those of the Celts and Milesians as a citizen of the United States is from an American Aboriginal. We will accompany our author to the abode of a purely Irish farmer, who seems to have had more than a moiety of Milesian blood in his veins, and whose circumstances were more prosperous than those of many of his class :- "This man, whose name was Sweeny, proved a good specimen of the Irish hill-farmer, and I was much interested during our stay in eliciting from him the particulars of his situation. No easy matter, by the bye, to elicit anything from these men which they wish to conccal they have a power of evasion wonderfully amusing, too, if it were not sometimes provoking. They will steer their way on the narrow verge between truth and falsehood with singular facility and adroitness; and I have seen a friend of mine obliged sometimes to lift his stick and put on a fierce determined look before he could extract, even from sundry of his own tenants, a direct answer to the plainest question. The house of Mr. Terry Sweeny was a long low building, snugly enough thatched, with sundry small square windows. A door of unplaned fir hung upon posts of rude bog-oak by a single hinge, for the other was broken, and it was shut only at night-time. You first entered into a spacious room, with a chimney that was large enough below, but so small at the top as not to suffer one-half of the smoke to escape, which therefore curled in dusky wreaths along the rafters, making its escape through windows or doors, or any aperture communicating with the light of day. The floor was of the thick, uneven, coarse flagstone of the neighbourhood, with so many chinks and crevices as to defy the utmost power of an English housemaid, with her brush and pail or busy broom, to keep it decent. The room, however, had the advantage of being high overhead; and accordingly, across the girders that tied the rude thick walls together, was thrown an accumulation of every implement and every sort of stuff (I have no other word for it) useful to the worthy inmates, male or female, in time present or to come. Near the huge turf fire-and such turf, too, quite equal to Walsend or Hetton coals-matters were a trifle more tidy for here in the recess was the calliough,' or bed for the master and mistress; but at the further end of the room was a general repository for live and dead stock of all sorts. Into this corner dust and dirt of all kinds were carefully swept, the inmates seeming to have no idea that it would have been just as easy to sweep such refuse out of doors. Upon the left side of the fire was a small low door, which opened, I suppose, into a dormitory, but I did not penetrate into its mysteries. Here, probably, the sleeping was managed in the true primitive mode known as 'sleeping in stradogue.' The floor is covered with fresh rushes, and the whole family lie down 'decently,' in a certain order, covered with their blankets. Terry Sweeny had a large family: the two elder boys were out on the mountain' (by which he meant the neighbouring bog) tending the cattle. Three girls with their mother were at home, as well as two fine little boys, with faces less smoke-dried than might have been expected. One of the daughters, about eighteen, assisted the mother in the hospitable preparations for dinner: the other two, squatting close to the ground in that peculiar attitude so common in Ireland, particularly among the very young or very aged, silently gazed at us as if we were beings dropped down from another planet. The long dark hair and bright black eyes of these young females betokened Milesian origin; and I could not fail remarking the physical differences in form, complexion, and features, between the mixed race of the Western districts and the pure Celtic of the central and eastern counties. The elder sister was decidedly handsome: her dress, indeed, was scanty, but there was such an artlessness and blushing modesty about her, and something so deliberate and graceful in all her motions, that I could not help fancying her one of the dark-eyed maidens of Granada. Not one word of English could our hostess or her progeny speak; and, in truth, Sweeny himself jabbered so quick, and so ran his words into one another, that his English was almost Erse to me. The hospitable reception we met with in this lonely cabaret I shall not easily forget. There were, indeed, no delicacies-if we except a large dish of trout taken that morning in a river some miles distant by one of the boys,' and not contemptibly prepared by the fair hands of Kathleen: a large tray of praties,' boiled in their skins; and a wooden bowl full of boiled eggs, some of which from their size were undoubtedly the production of a fine flock of geese which were gabbling outside at that instant. The feast was prefaced by a glass of something, not disagreeable but very warming, from a huge black bottle just dug up out of the garden ;* and after our repast was over the punch was brewed, there being an ample supply, to my great surprise, of white sugar. Is it the lemon you're looking at (said Sweeny to me)? Sure it's mighty handy when the gentlefolks pass, seeing there's no inn in these quarters, to have a good glass of punch to offer them; and what is punch without the lemon? So when I go to Newport, Pratt, or to Belmullet or to Ballina, I always bring one or two of the yellow craturs in my pocket.' After thus refreshing ourselves I was anxious to inspect the premises, and to inform myself as to the mode in which Mr. Terry Sweeny conducted his farm. Adjoining the house, and surrounded by a high wall of large irregular stones cemented and well splashed with lime, was the cattle-yard. A slanting roof from nearly the top of this wall in the interior formed a long range of sheds; but the thatch was so thin, and in many places so much out of repair, as to let in the rain when it fell at all heavily. The yard was empty, with the exception only of a few goats and the geese aforesaid, and some common looking poultry. The manure was scattered about and seemed to be little thought of. I was accompanied in this survey by the owner, Terry Sweeny, whom I should have described before as a dark, frieze-coated, hoarse man, who moreover was tall, and for his age extremely active. There was little to amuse or instruct in his arrangements; and, though lovely sites abounded in the neighbourhood, there was no beauty in the locality 6 The natives think that the flavour of their favourite beverage is much im. proved by keeping it in the earth. he had chosen; for his dwelling stood close upon a red bog, through which sluggishly flowed a stream strongly impregnated with iron. He had eight milch cows, twenty-six heifers, thirty sheep and lambs, and a large flock of goats-all of which are fed upon the wild hills a round. The man seemed, however, to thrive in spite of himself. It was manifest that nature did everything for him, and that he never exerted himself beyond the supply of his immediate wants. His wife, a thin, intelligent-looking, delicate woman, seemed bowed down with anxiety and fatigue. They had all been down in the 'faver' (Sweeny said); but it pleased the Almighty not to afflict him till the others were recovered, so that they had a chance of being looked after. Though he lived many a long mile from his landlord, the blessing of God rest upon him,' yet he sent them all they wanted, and more too, over the mountains; and when the faver' was gone, and they were all left weak and sickly, my lady sent them the port wine and the jelly, and, soonly three died among them all, God rest their souls." Much as it is the fashion to run down the landlords of Ireland, and to dilate upon their indifference to the sufferings of their poorer neighbours, I have heard of too many exceptions to allow this imputation to be made the rule. There is a great amount of social kindness, as well as hospitality, among high and low; but quiet benevolence is generally its own reward: it may be felt and appreciated by the objects, but it is too often unknown to the public; whereas rumour's brazen trumpet is sounded loud and clear wherever injury or injustice is inflicted" (191-195). The author visited Achill, and bears very ample testimony to the great utility of the mission in that district. He is a witness by no means biassed in favour of such operations: he has no sympathy with the efforts that are being made for the spread of Protestantism in Ireland. We are surprised at this, not merely because he considers himself a Protestant, but especially because we should have supposed that his knowledge of Ireland would have convinced him that the Irish peasantry cannot be prosperous as long as they remain priest-ridden by MacHale and Co. Apropos to that turbulent personage. Our traveller had the good fortune at one of the doctor's official visitations to witness a motley procession that could not at the present time have been seen in any country but Ireland : A num "At a distance the scene was animated and picturesque. ber of persons, whether inhabitants or not I could not tell, followed the carriage or crowded round it, in which sat the doctor and his chaplains, I presume. Another carriage followed, containing priests also, as I was informed: then the cortege. At a distance all appeared gay-banners waved and hats were raised; but when the cavalcade passed, all the romance was gone. Achill contains six thousand in habitants, but of these scarce a hundred were there. The appearance too, of these people was wretched in the extreme; a few, certainly, rode horses, or rather ponies of the rough hill breed; but otherwise they had no air of substance about them. Most were on foot, keeping up as best they might; and the gay banners, when seen nearer, turned out to be ragged handkerchiefs of coloured cotton, or gaudy remnants of whilom clothing" (165). The volume before us is more instructive than amusing. We think that few can attentively peruse its pages without coming to the conclusion that skilled British agriculturists possessing moderate capital, if contemplating emigration, are quite as likely to improve their circumstances by a removal to Ireland as by a tedious voyage to any of our Colonies. -- ART. IV. The Jewish War of Flavius Josephus. A New Translation by the late Rev. ROBERT TRAILL, D.D., M.R.I.A. Edited, with Notes, by ISAAC TAYLOR. With Pictorial Illustrations. Two Volumes. London: Houlston and Stoneman. 1852. THIS is the age of illustrations; and, as there is scarcely any work to be named better deserving copious illustration than the Jewish war of Josephus, so it would be difficult to point out any volumes which have been more ably and judiciously illustrated than the volumes now before us. The plates are not got up for the occasion by the help of former publications; but an able artist was sent out for the express purpose of making drawings of the various localities to which the history refers, and the engravings convince us that no unwarrantable liberties have been taken to produce striking artistic effects; but that we have in these illustrations what every reader of Josephus would most desire-namely, a faithful representation of the present aspect of those several places, rendered memorable as the scenes of some of the most remarkable events that have ever taken place in the course of the world's history-events which were predicted by our Lord and spoken of by him as unparalleled in the history of past times, and only to be exceeded in time to come by that last tribulation in which the present dispensation shall be concluded, and of which final destruction the destruction of Jerusalem was a type. Even the text of Josephus the English reader has only had in the rough and crabbed version of Whiston, and of collateral helps, none. Traill has had two objects in view-first, to present the history Dr. |