BARROW'S TOUR ROUND IRELAND.

THE previous volumes of Mr. BARROW have chiefly derived their interest from the nature of the people and the scenery amongst which he travelled, and the distinct though not egotistical develop- ment of the personal character of the author. The wild and rugged grandeur of Nature in the North of Europe, and her bare magnificence (if such a phrase may be allowed) in Iceland, had the zest of novelty to recommend them, although the matter of the descriptions was confined to very obvious points, and the manner was not very striking. The same remark applies to the people. It was the peculiar and primitive simplicity of their habits and character which interested us, not any extraordinary skill in the delineation. At the same time, something of charm was derived from what may be called the manner of the writer's mind. In his judgments, his reflections, his opinions, nay even in many of his narratives, you were as distinctly impresed with the individual cha- racter of the author as if you had been personally acquainted with him. You saw at once that you were conversing, by means of the pen, with the beau idial of that very respectable, amiable, and well-meaning class, the official gentlemen. The writer evidently belonged to a set, which he conceived the centre of the social system, and by whose standard be measured every other. If he encoun- tered a prince, he might be very affable—or a foreign noble, he might be very agreeable and well-informed—or a member of any of those numerous species which are included in the generic term of gentleman, he might be pleasant, respectable, or any other cha- racteristic : but, be they what they would, it was clear from the de- scription, that they did not belong to " our circle." In this there was nothing exclusive in the common acceptation of the term, nor was there a particle of pride in Mr. BARROW. He communed with the people amongst whom he was thrown, with as much frankness as he would address a horse, with as much kindness as he would fondle a spaniel ; but, in the popular phrase, lie could ttot' enter into their feelings." This, however, was not his fault. He was as anxious to make himself agreeable as to see life; and -to accomplish this last-named purpose, he had clearly taken ad- -vantage of every annual holyday to scamper over all the more fashionable parts of Europe, and had acquired as much knowledge 4sf the world and of human nature by t4is process as a man may learn of anatomy by passing through a dissecting-room. Even the little he might have gained in these trips evaporated under the routine of daily official duty, and the equally narrowing routine of coterie parties.

The points of the peculiar character we have been indicating are soon exhausted, and the owner is a better companion for one journey than for two. But a third becomes something too much, especially when the ground over which we are to be taken has been pretty well beaten by men of more enlarged mind and more cultivated understanding than Mr. BARROW'S, and who possessed, moreover, a wider acquaintance and a closer sympathy with man. Ireland, too, was ill-chosen ground for a person with his opinions, which turn out to be Tory of the most childish and effete kind ; such a thing as GEORGE the Third's apocryphal speech to Lord GRENVILLE in 1807, printed "on parchmentin gilt letters and framed," sufficing to throw him into raptures. But even without these drawbacks, our tourist passed through the country too rapidly and uncomfortably (for it rained nearly the whole of his journey) to have been able to catch any save the most super- ficial features. He seems to have arrived at Belfast on the 29th August ; his last letter is dated from Dublin on the 13th October. During those six weeks, he traversed, in a jaunting-car or on the top of the mail, the greater part of the Northern, Western, and Southern coasts; visiting the principal cities, seats, and natural curiosities in his route; describing with some liveliness, but with no particular force, the prospects he saw, the general aspect of the country, the appearance of the peasantry and their hovels, together with the nature of his vehicular conveyances and the ac- commodation he met with at inns. Sometimes he rises a shade above this, and sketches the characters he fell in with ; sometimes he picks up a few on dins connected with the persons, politics, and business of the neighbourhood; and he generally draws upon Mr. MARSHALL'S Statistical Tables to describe the population of the principal towns both in their present and former state. Besides which, although professedly disclaiming politics and polemics, he frequently contrives to introduce his own crude notions on ques- tions of church, state, and doctrine.

But it is only theoretically that his prejudices operate. Mr. BARROW is too honourable to distort the actual truths that pass before his eyes. The following pictures are instances of this; and although they tell us nothing but what was known before from other sources, yet, as the pictures of an eye-witness directly con- veying his impressions, they may stand as useful pendants to the more massy and generalized statements of the Pour-Law Com- missioners.

WESTPORT HOVELS.

I had here the pleasure of making an acquaintanace with Captain Shallard' chief officer of the Coast Guard Service. In taking a drive in his car to the foot of the Reek (as Croagh Patrick is familiarly called), we passed some of the most miserable hovels that I have yet seen, even in the flats of Mayo ;—so bad that, without having convinced myself of the fact, I should scarcely have sup- posed them to be habitations of tounan beings, but rather as sheds for the cattle, the more certainly so had I seen the head of a cow or store other four- footed beast peeping out of the doorway, which I understand is no uncommon occurrence. Many of these cabins are built of stones, loosely heaped together, with no window ; and the only place for the light to come in at and the smoke to go out, is through a small hole in the miserably-thatched and sometimes sodded roof at all times pervious to the rain, and through the doorway. No picture drawn by the pencil—none by the pen—can possibly convey an idea of the sad reality. The inmates, as may be supposed, arc wretchedly clad in rags and tatters, and the children almost in a state of nudity.

MAYO IA BOFRERs.

Whole families arc reduced to a state bordering on starvation, and take refuge in the miserable hovels, as daily labourers, with which Mayo and, 1 understand, most of the middle and southern counties are strewed over and disfigured. It is most melancholy to look into one of these abodes of wretchedness, to see a whole family win n down be disease and famine; not a chair nor a stool to rest their wearied limbs upon, not a bed to lie down upon, except a little straw, often wetted with the rain that drips from the roof, and a blanket, and that not always, sometimes an old tarpaulin, thrown over the whole family, to serve as a substitute for bed.clothes. Frown the almost coustant rain that falls in this climate, the floor of these hovels is generally broken into mud-holes; a pool of water stagnates before the door, am', after a heavy shower, enters the hovel, there being generally a step down from the door. A few cold potatoes fre- quently serve as their daily and only food ; for many of them are unable to purchase a constant supply of turf to cook them at such times as they may be wanted. This is the melancholy, and, I believe, true picture of a family re- duced to the condition of labouring cottiers, who are satisfied to take such em- ployment as they can get, when famine and disease have not yet reduced them to a state of weaknes which disables them from work altogether.

MAYO FARMERS.

Even while the small farmer is able, from his surplus produce, to pay his rent, his condition is far from enviable, but might with a little management be improved. If he can afford to keep a cow and a pig, he generally admits both to be partakers of the same apartment; and though his cottage may be a degree better than that of the labourer, yet it is kept equally filthy ; every thing within it being soiled with smoke and soot, and the puddle and the dunghill invariably found before the door. The rent of such a cottage, if built by the landlord, may be about 2/. a year ; turf, :30s. ; the man's clothing, 40s. ; the woman's, :30s. ; and four children, say 30s. ; making altogether t'1. 10s. The rent, say of three acres and a cow-grass, 0/. The routine of his crops is potatoes, bailey, and oats. The barley is sold to be distille dinto whisky, and this and the pig contribute to the payment of rent end fuel ; and the potatoes, the cow, and the oatmeal, supply the family with food. The females are employed in spinning linen and woollen yarn, and in knitting worsted stockings; of the woollen yarn is manufactured a kind of frieze, druggets, and flannels, the com- mon wear of the peasantry after supplying the family clothing, the surplus helps to pay the rent.

IRISH PAUPERS.

There is still another class of paupers, the most destitute and helpless of all —the aged, the sick, and the infirm—dependent wholly on the charity of the neighbouring poor, and on the alms they or their younger corupamons m misery are able to raise from passing travellers. In some few places a scanty fund is raised for the sick, but wholly inadequate ; "the gentry and landlords seldom subscribing." These poorest of all creatures find their only shelter from the weather in the most wretched of hovels, made of sods, stuck generally by the side of the public roads, thatched over with heaths, shrubby branches, rushes, or any thing they can get, but which are so wretchedly constructed as to be in every corner pervious to the rain ; and even hovels of this kind are frequently demolished by some heartless farmers, on whose grounds they intrude. How these unhappy creatures contrive to subsist, or even to drag through the winter season a miserable existence, is quite inexplicable : the it is, they die unnoticed, disregarded, unregretted, and no inquiry made about them.. There is soothes amidry on the face of the earth where such extreme naineeli 'rends as in Ireland. The negro slave, if only from interestel motives, is well taken care of; even the American Indian, the Esquimaux, the Hottentot, live and die in luxury, compared with this descriptiou of Irish paupers ; yet, notwith- standing all the misery the peasants suffer, their numbers go on increasing to a frightful degree : one would almost be led to conclude, that the nearer the approach to a state of destitution, the more favourable is it for an increase of population.

The most useful part of the book is some remarks on the capa- bilities of the Irish fisheries ; the most informing, the account of the Irish bogs ; the most gratifying, the picture of the general condition and appearance of Ulster ; the newest, we think, these

CHARACTERISTICS OF CORK.

Every thing about Cork bears an appearance of wealth. The gentlemen, the ladies, and the tradespeople dress much the same as in London ; but among the common people the eternal great-coat hanging down to the heels, and the women's cloak with the hood over the head, are worn even in the hottest wea- ther ; under the cloak is generally a brown gown, a green petticoat, and blue stockings, if any of the latter be worn, which is not often the case : under the hood they sometimes wear a mob-cap.

The equipages are numerous and handsome. I went over a large coach. ma- nufactory of Mr. Eddens, an establishment nut at all inferior to some of our best manufactories in town. The most common vehicle is the jingle, of which I have already made mention; they are very numerous in the streets; indeed, there are so many of them, that I can searely imagine how they can answer the purpose of the owners. The charge is sixpence from any one part of the town to another. Besides these, there are plenty of Travellers, as they are termed, which carry in the same manner for one shilling : they very much resemble " Brighton flys." You can form little idea of .the aux' - endeavours displayed by these jingle-men and traveller-drivers to secure a fare From time

moment the slightest intimation is made, or a supposed intention of engaging a a vehicle, one is immediately beset on all sides with open mouths, proclaiming the superiority of their respective jingles, and pointing to the miserable horses, so much on a par, that it would puzzle the most learned in horse flesh to come to a decision. To do so, however, is a matter of necessity, for so long as you hesitate you are almost torn to pieces; but the moment you have fixed upon your jingle, the squabbling is immediately at an end.

In addition to the controversial matter in the body of the volume, there is a letter from an "intelligent and accomplished lady," giving an account of a Protestant mission at Achill. With the homely specificality of a tract, it has much of its sectarian spirit : the writer, moreover, is too much occupied in regarding the beam in the eye of her brother to attend to the mote in her own. At the same time that we admit the unchristian spirit of all this, we do not think, with a contemporary, that it is likely to be very mischievous. So far from the volume containing " aqua fortis,' we discover nothing but very weak vinegar.