Or all the rivers of Ireland, though the Shannon be the mightiest, and the Blackwater the most romantic and picturesque, commend me to the Suir, for quiet, cultivated, rural beauty. The Barrow adorns Carlow, the Nore Kilkenny, and the Suir Clonmell, and as their springs are near, and towards the end of their course, they again approach together, and mingle their waters before flowing into the sea, in a grand estuary below Waterford; they are commonly known to the country people, by the fanciful and pretty name of the three sisters.

Spenser, who has sung the streams of Ireland, in strains as sweet as those in which Milton has celebrated the English rivers, traces the birth of these three linked graces, to the embraces of the giant Blomius with the nymph Rheissa, and thus glances at their course and confluence before reaching the flowings of ocean.

"The first the gentle Shure, that making way By sweet Clonmel, adorns rich Waterford; The next the stuborn Newre, whose waters gray, By fair Kilkenny and Rose-ponte board; The third the goodly Barrow, which doth horde Great heaps of salmon in her deep bosome; All which, long sundred, do at last accord To join in one, ere to the sea they roam, So flowing all from one, all one at last become." It is the Suir, too, which waters the valley of Iverk, or the golden vale in the county of Kilkenny, of which there is a well authenticated tradition preserved among its inhabitants, that, when William the Third, entering the pass at the head of his troops, gazed for some time on the goodly land that lay before him, rich with waving woods and fertile fields, interspersed with small clear rivulets stealing down its verdant banks, like threads of silver on the green enamel, into the placid river, wending its noiseless way beneath, while the fields more near it were sprinkled with sheep and lowing kine; William (albeit unused to dwell with any extraordinary rapture on the beauties of external nature) turned to the officers about his person, and exclaimed, in a tone of delight and admiration, "This is indeed a country worth fighting for!"

Clonmell, the birth place of Larry

Sterne, and the capital, i. e. assize town, of the richest and most riotous shire in Ireland, is a busy, cheerful, dirty-looking town. The approach from the Two-mile Bridge is splendid; the cultivated fertility of the rich lands on either side the river is agreeably relieved by the magnificent range of Galtee mountains, which form the back ground of the scene, and which, though many miles distant, seem, in their dusky and gigantic grandeur, towering almost over the head of the spectator. The best part of Clonmell, like that of most of the good towns in Ireland, is composed of barracks. In the time of war, they used to gather in recruits here from all quarters, and drill them in their military exercise, previously to passing them on to Cork, for embarkation to foreign service. It was likewise a depot for various military stores, and its communication with Waterford by the river, renders it a favourable situation for inland trade.

There is a curious mode of conveyance for land passengers, established in the south of Ireland, by a Signor Bianconi, or, as I usually heard him called, "Misther Byanne," whose head-quarters are at Clonmell. There is a vehicular machine, peculiar, I be lieve, to Ireland, called "an outside jaunting-car!" To those who have never been so fortunate as to see the like, it is not easy to describe it; yet as it is a kind of conveyance greatly and deservedly popular, for journeying in fine weather, it would be unpardonable to omit some attempt at its delineation, in these our Sketches, which purport to have particular reference to the road, and the things which journeying thereupon presents to our observation. Let the Unhibernian reader, then, imagine to himself a low-hung platform, upon small wheels, from either side of which there hangs down a lateral conveniency of wood and leather, projecting over the wheels, like a trunk deprived of its lid and front side. In this the passenger deposits his legs and feet, the latter resting on the bottom of it, and he sits

upon the surface of the platform, which is generally furnished with a stuffed cushion for his greater ease and contentment. Such machines are usually drawn by one horse, and made to carry six persons, who are thus drawn along sideways, sitting dos-à-dos, three and three; the plat form, however, is made of such breadth as to admit of a narrow space being railed off between the backs of those admitted to the honours of the sitting, and this intermediate box, called the well, serves for the conveyance of prog or forage, or other entertainment for man and beast, while the railing on each side of it, which the sons of lux ury also provide with a cushion, serves as a rest for the shoulders of any weary and weak-backed wight. At the fore end of the well abovesaid, and on an elevated single seat corresponding to the breadth of the well, which at the other end is guarded by a rail, the Jehu, who handles the ribbons, sits enthroned. In bygone times, an instrument called a jingle, shaped like a coal-heaver's hat, and set on four wheels, was much in fashion amongst that class of the Irish, who consider a row and a roll in the mud very appropriate episodes to a day's "divarsion," but from the time that a notorious and rather unamiable person, called Crawley, a schoolmaster, who battered his wife's brains out with a hammer, was carried in one of these to be hanged, they rapidly declined in popular esteem. In these latter days, it is obvious that the march of intellect amongst the lower orders, would not permit any vulgar prejudice to arise against a particular mode of conveyance, from a cause which did not logically or mathematically imply its incompetency, or inconvenience; but in the less improved times of which we speak, a most unphilosophic antipathy arose to the whole genus of the vehicle which bore the ferocious phrenologist, Mr Crawley, to that last stage of life, -the gallows; and no sooner did a gingle make its appearance on the road, than the "Rock-boys"* shouted, "There's the machine that bloody Crawley was tuk to be hung in!" add

ing some biting sarcasm on the driver, or the company then in it, insomuch, that ultimately the gingle was almost abandoned for the jaunting-car. It was in such conveyances that the alumni of Ireland's only university, used to take their pleasure jaunts to the bathing village of Black Rock about four miles from Dublin, in search of holiday felicity. There is a story of a party of these dashing youths tilting against a victualler's cart as they whirled along the Rock-road, enveloped in the cloud of dust that always overhangs it, and of their be ing all but canted in among the legs of beef and mutton, which gave rise to a humorous Horatian ode commencing,

Sunt quos vehiculo, pulverem Blackrockium,
College isse juvat, meat aque fervidis,
Evitata rotis, &c.

To return to Clonmel and "Mis ther Byanne."-Taking the hint from the national vehicle I have vainly attempted to describe, he extended its sides so as to carry four on each, removed the shafts, and yoked a second horse abreast of the other, placed awkwardly enough indeed, for the breadth of the machine is not sufficient for the two, and the second animal looks as if he were fastened at one side of the car, to run along with it rather than to draw it after him. The common inconvenience of such a carriage, except in summer, is, that the passen gers' feet and legs, being the surface over which the current of air passes, as it rushes by the side of the car, get miserably cold on a long journey, and this the Signor endeavours to obviate by providing store of hay under the feet, and a rude tarpauline-looking apron, fastened at each end over the legs. Such are the stage cars upon which the country shopkeepers, and persons of that class, are conveyed from town to town in the pursuit of their various callings, at the rate of about six miles an hour including stops, and at an expense of little more than half what it would cost them to travel outside the stage or mail coaches.

From Clonmel, as a centre, they radiate to Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny,

-Mallon, and all the considerable towns of Munster; and their success has been such, that, as I was informed, their projector has already realized a considerable fortune, while he has materially promoted the internal commerce of that part of the country, by the increased facility of intercourse. The Signor himself, a smooth, shaven and shorn, quakerly-looking man, was pointed out to me as a curiosity, in the main street of Clonmell, filling up way-bills, and settling the passengers on a number of his cars which were starting at the same time in different directions, and I was especially called on to observe, that he was more civil and obliging, and earnest to please, than the meanest of his clerks, though he was a very strong, that is to say, rich man now.

"But, t' our tale." The reader who went along with us in our last sketch, will perhaps remember, that we wished him good night, or should have done so, at the conclusion of a social potation of whisky-punch, in the inn at Clonmell, about which town we have just been relating some interesting particulars. The inexperienced toper who takes Irish punch by way of a sleeping-draught, would do well to remember that there are exceptions to the rule of in medio tutissimus ibis. If he take a sufficient quantity, there's no doubt he'll sleep afterwards, though he should lie down on the river's brink, with his feet in the stream, and that almost as soundly, for a limited time, as if he thought proper to reverse this position of his body. What the feelings might be of his body in the one case, or his spirit in the other upon the awaking, which in either must ensue, I shall not, however, pretend to determine. If he take very little, it will of course make very little difference to him in any way, but the effects of a medium quantity are sometimes any thing but somniferous. Such at least did I find my friend the Attorney's most ably compounded mixture, and in vain I called upon the "blessed barrier betwixt day and day," to dull my senses to the quick pulsation of the punchprovoked blood-vessels. In vain I tried to fix my fancy on the cluster of soothing images which Wordsworth strings admirably together with such ingenuity and harmony

"A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by, One after one; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds, and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky."

All these I thought of by turns, but without effect ;-sleep would not come, and in despair of winning rest, by courting it, I jumped up, and paced the room for the sake of the easement of variety. It was yet several hours to day; and, as I looked from my window, scarcely a star could be seen to relieve the heavy deep darkness of an October night; the intensity of the nocturnal silence, too, was painful, only broken by the monotonous return of the tick-tick of the clock, which, although at the bottom of three pair of stairs, I thought I heard as distinctly as if I had been standing inside of it. Then, by degrees, the sense, by attention becoming sharper, I could distinguish the trampling of the horses upon the litter in their stables, and I was grateful when, at distant intervals, the cock put forth his single solitary crow, "piercing the night's dull ear." Suddenly, however, the silence was torn up, by a thundering noise at the street door below, which made me start, as Macbeth may be supposed to have done, when he heard the "knocking at the gate," after the murder of Duncan, there being a great similarity between the effects of whisky punch, and a guilty conscience, upon the nerves. The noise at the door was several times repeated, and I was myself thinking of descending to ascertain the cause, when I heard the shuffle of some one in the hall moving towards the door inside. "Who's there?" called the inside voice. "It's me, Paddy Byrne," said the person outside; "let me in, an' doant be keepin' me."

"An' who the divil are you?" rejoined the angry boots, who judged by the first answer that it was not a person of sufficient consequence to justify his being disturbed at an unseasonable hour: is it drunk you are, or what d'ye mane be risin' a row this a-way in the middle o' the night?"

"Let me in, I tell you, Paddy," said the man outside, with increased earnestness'; "sure you know me well, and me name's Tim Doolan. We're all kilt, and robbed, and ruinated, up at the Mount; an' I'm bruk loose, an' come down for help. Och! is it keep

"Thin bad look (luck) to the same Captain Rock!" rejoined the second voice, which I now more distinctly heard within the house" I wish it was only dramein' of 'im I was this blessed night, instead of seein' him brakein' in an' robbin' our place, an' frightnin' the ould misthress and Miss Louisa out of their seven sinces, an' tied meself up for an hour an'a hayf (half), so they did; only I bruk loose the minute they wint away; an' I'm come down to look for the polis, or some help to go after thim, the ruinatin' thieves."

I had by this time heard enough of the man's communication to induce me to hurry on my clothes, and go down to learn more distinctly what had happened. Two or three people, roused by the noise, had got about him by the time I got down stairs, and then and there I extracted from a long and most confused detail, that the house of a lady, about three miles distant, where he was servant, had been attacked, broken into, and robbed, and that the ladies, without any gentleman in the house, had been left in the most deplorable state of agitation and aların, while he had run into town for assistance.

"Well, well," said I, when the story came to an end, "the less time lost in talking the better-some persons should gallop off instantly. I shall go myself, if you think I could be of any use.'

"Good look to your honour!" said Tim-"Sure you'll be of all the use in life-it's jist what I wanted-some gintleman that could spake a word to comfort the ladies, sir; for there's the ould lady is frightened clane out of her life; and my young mistress isn't much better, I suppose, though she doesn't take on so much; for she's

always as quiet as a lamb, the crethur."

This was enough to fix my determi❤ nation of setting off to the scene of the depredation, and we speedily got ready. A serjeant and two men of "the Peelers," were found somewhere about the house, upon whom we prevailed, in the absence of their officer, who was some five miles off at a ball, to accompany us; and having got some posting horses in the stable, for the due return of which I satisfied the not unwilling hostler, by promising to be accountable, we started off for Mount Evelyn, which I understood to be the name of the place that had been attacked, and guided by Tim, we reached it in half an hour's riding. The heavy darkness of the night was now stealing away with a laggard pace, and just enough of day appeared to give an imperfect view of the dwelling we approached, which seemed to be one that, under different circumstances, one could not have looked upon without much pleasure. A lawn of smooth verdure surrounded it, which, rising regularly and gently to the centre, where the house stood, gave occasion, no doubt, for the name of "the Mount" which it bore. A belt of planting, rising from the skirts of the lawn on either side, thickened as it approached the back of the house, and seemed to conceal the offices from view; while the neatness of the small modern-built mansion itself attracted attention, surrounded by a broad border of pleasure-ground, to which the long low windows, opening like glassdoors, gave ready access.

"Sure enough, it's a sweet purty little place," said Tim, as he guided us through the gate, "an' little I thought to see it all bruck, and smashed to pieces by thim villains."

"What do you mean by smashed to pieces?" I asked.

"Sure, sir," he answered, "didn't they smash in the windy all in one crash wid a big stone, that they brought round from the back yard; and isn't the whole place trampled to pieces?"

We were now near enough to see that Tim's report was at all events

partly true. The pretty little mansion was defaced by the recent marks of lawless violence,-the flowers and little shrubs were trampled down into the clay of the border, in the front of the house, and the fractured glass and sashes of one of the large windows, showed where the robbers had forced their entrance.

Having desired our guide to go for ward and acquaint the inmates of the house that we had come for the purpose of offering whatever assistance was in our power, in circumstances so unpleasant, he soon returned with the ladies' thanks and wishes that we should go in. It is a horrid thing to look at a house that has been violently robbed; the ravages of war are me lancholy to look upon, but they do not bring so immediately and forcibly upon the mind the revolting ideas of ruffian violence, as the devastation of the midnight burglar and plunderer. If the detestation excited by an ordinary scene of this kind is considerable, it was extreme upon the present occasion, on the first view of the objects which presented themselves to my observation. The apartment into which we were shown had evidently been the abode of elegance-vases, in which flowers had been placed, were broken in pieces, and scattered with their contents upon the ground-a harp was overturned upon the floor and the fragments of a lady's work table lay beneath the window along with the huge stone, with which the robbers had broken in. Scraps of paper and broken wood strewed the carpet, and every thing around bore some mark of the violence which had lately been used. Both the ladies of the house were in the room when we entered, and the man had not exaggerated when he told us the elder lady was frightened out of her senses. She walked about looking here and look ing there, talking incoherently to her self and to the younger lady, who appeared to be her daughter, and who seemed to try in vain to bring her to a calm understanding of what had taken place. The young lady was, to my thinking, almost, if not altogether, the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. The agitating circumstances in which she had been placed gave an air of disorder, and a more vivid interest to the expression of features, whose beautiful correctness would have

put to shame the ablest efforts of the statuary; and the beseeching earnestness of her dark blue eyes, and low sweet emphatic voice, when she spoke to her mother, was far more touching than I am able to tell.

I need hardly say, that every topic which I could suggest to reassure the ladies, and dissipate their alarm, was speedily made use of; and the elder lady having been with some difficulty persuaded to retire to rest, and leave the arrangement and protection of the house to us, we began to ascertain rather more distinctly the circumstances of the robbery, and to determine what was proper to be done.

From all we could learn, it appeared that only two of the robbers had been seen inside the house, although many more, or "an army of Captain Rock's men," as Tim Doolan averred, had been heard talking outside. They had taken all the money that was in the house, which was not much; but they had been content with rifling the one room, and had not even gone near the place where the plate was kept; so that, after all, they had destroyed more than they had carried off as booty. I had left the house to consult with the serjeant of police, as to the means to be taken for the pursuit of the robbers, when Tim came after me to say, that "the young misthress wanted to spake to my honor agin, iv I plased." I obeyed the summons as willingly as ever I did any other in all my life, and I was then informed by the young lady that they had sustained a more serious loss than she had ventured to mention before the servants. They were, she said, engaged in a law-suit about a small part of their property, to which a claim had been set up by an adverse party; the deed under which they held the whole, had been intrusted to their solicitor, to make some extracts from it, in the papers he was preparing for counsel on their behalf; and it was only the day before, that as he was about to set off for Dublin, he had ridden over from Clonmel and returned it to them, not wishing to leave a document of such consequence in his office. The deed had been locked up in a bureau, which was the very first that the rob bers had rifled, and every thing in it had been carried off. "It is," she continued, "of the very utmost importance that it should be recovered;