MRS. WEST'S SUMMER VISIT TO IRELAND. Dias. WEST, accompanied by
her husband, paid a visit to Ireland during the summer of last year, confining her excursion chiefly to the Southern and South-western parts of the country; Killarney, Cork, and.Limerick, being her most noted points of visit. She performed her tour rapidly, in a carriage with post-horses ; made her observations on the country from the windows, on the people front what she saw and heard at inns, or during her perambulations of a town, assisted occasionally by discus-
sions that took place at the houses of her friends or the information of her guides. The materials thus accumulated she has presented to the public, interspersed with historical and antiquarian discussions derived from authorities like Moore, and political views that have been drawn from the more general and milder spirit of Mr. Duffy's "Library for Ire- land." Without being an actual Repealer, or perhaps a politician at all, Mts. West's Irish views are of the Liberal-Whig school, without exactly comprehending the philosophy of the matter, or seeing that a people too numerous to be overwhelmed generally get as good a government as they deserve.
A better book upon Ireland might be produced than one written under Mrs. West's circumstances ; but a very much worse might easily have been turned out. She has a painter's eye for externals ; and though this faculty often shows itself in mere description of her friend's grounds or common show-places, it as frequently brings before the reader the culti- vation or non-cultivation of the country—the appearance of the people— the lazy, listless, do-nothing groups into which they congregate—and the dirt and discomfort of their dwellings, remediable to some extent at least. Mrs. West was favourably circumstanced for hearing the opinions of others ; and she travelled through the country at a time when " the dis- tress " was felt, though the actual famine had not appeared. She also appears to have sought for knowledge, and to have had something about her that attracted the Irish. Her composition is lively, with a good deal of feminine and fashionable elegance, in the Young England style of fashion. Hence, though very slight and even jejune, the book has an in- terest in its pictures and its opinions. It also contains the last travelling sketches of the country.
A greater value of the book, however, arises from the favourable lean- ing of the writer towards the Irish, yet the utter impossibility of concealing their recklessness, idleness, want of care to do anything well, and the total absence of honest pride—the tendency to vegetate in any way rather than live by their own exertions. PI om the first sight she caught of the "finest peasantry in the world," till her farewell, these traits in some shape are the burden of her song. The more tangible and direct form in which Sir Robert Peel distributed the scanty sum he furnished for relief, would seem to be the source of his Irish popularity ; for where he gave tens, Lord John Russell has spent thousands. Yet so it is.
" Clonmel was all astir with the assizes: the poor wretches under trial were those who stopped and robbed the supplies of flour; and so full was the principal inn, the Globe, we were necessitated to eat our luncheon in a small bed-chamber. An excellent cold duck furnished forth our repast, which was quickly despatched; and we were again en route. I must notice that the people here seemed to us a restless wild set. Waiters hurrying to and fro were heard in the passages, loud in favour of' standing up to fight for their connthry'; and murmuring voiced came up from the inn-door and streets, showering blessings upon Peel, the breads giver. Thanks be to him, and praise ! for now the flour won't go out of our land: 'tis he has given us bread.' " "Tis out he is,' chorussed one kettle of men; but, by the. blessing of God, %isn't for long. Sure, 'tis Sir Robert we wish to see in power agin."
The picture of the country with few exceptions, and of the people with still fewer, is one of unmitigated neglect and wretchedness. Here are views in Kilkenny. "I experienced some disappointment faille want of beauty amongst the Irish generally. They are not a handsome race; and the faces that smile upon you in childhood, wear a hollinv-ebeeked, sallow, miserable aspect, in after life. Nothing is so fatal to beauty, as premature pain, care, and toil; and these poor creatures marry early, and live on ins perpetual struggle with poverty and want. From all I afterwards witnessed if .*tggpeml. distress, I only wonder they do not rob as well as murder. The hagga amine-stricken countenances I have seen glaring upon me out of their gloomy htrager-latrs, as we drove past those human sties, those most miserable of all abodes, their cabins, called with horrible facetiousness, cottages. Huts composed of loose stones, sometimes with, oftener without, a win- dow; if a chimney, of thatch or wattling, preserved by a standing miracle from fire. The donkey foddered up comfortably in one corner, fowls, ducks, geese, often turkies, pigs, and children, swarming in and out of the opened door; a pool of moist filth on one side, a pile of dry abominations on the other., [all this cers tainly remediable,] and the females of the family sitting with their legs dangling over these, talking, knitting, or doing nothing, with short pipes in their months, and arms folded over rags that once put off could never be put on. The men you see, lazy tatterdemalions, lowing about the roads, hands in breeches-pockets, the usual mode in Ireland, or if at work, leaving off to watch the unwonted passing of a carriage till we were out of sight." • • • * "Every mile of the way is cultivated; but such cultivation! I will here de- scribe the general mode, as it will serve for that of the whole face of the country, except in a few instances, which shall be particularized as they occur. "Wheat, barley, and oats, as fine as heart could wish to see, potatoes, with tremendous trenches, turnips, clover, and rich pasturage, but the hedges broken and irregular-' the stone walls loose and crumbling that mostly divide the fields; and every third patch of grass-land choked with rag-weed in full growth, which ought to have been plucked out by the roots and consigned to the dunghill, with the thistles and ox-eyes that flourish among the barley. The people say the cattle will rather eat the rag-weed than starve in winter; so they leave it to luxu- riate. At intervals, a sycamore uplifts its bushy black head ; but over so gene- rally treeless and dreary country I never before journeyed. Yet is it wonderfully fertile, and the very hogs may be made productive; witness the reclaimed patches planted with promising-looking potatoes and oats, and very deeply drained: and these bogs enable the poor to have fuel for nothing but the labour of digging in many parts; so that it would perhaps be small charity to reclaim the whole of them.
"One cannot call the people idle either, who have cultivated all the arable land we traversed. But there seems to be no method; things are left half finished; the cart in the middle of the road on its beam-ends, the wells dropping down, the hedges untrimmed, ditches uncleared; the gates, mostly of solid iron, have stone pillars on each side but are fenced with brambles below, because they don't fit close: oftener are ;hey supported between a couple of logs of black wood dug out of the bog, and invariably one of these is long the other short. It is the ' 4scia fare' system from the beginning to the end."
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