SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

MAMIERS MID Commas. The Irish Sketch-Book. By Mr. M. A. Titmarsh. With numerous Engravings on wood, drawn by the Author. In two volumes Chapman and Hall. Rryns Srow-s.

Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed ; with a short Account of the Natural History and Habits of the Salmon. Distractions to Sportsmen. Anecdotes, Sm. By William Scrape, Esq. Author of "the Art of Deer-Stalking."

illustrated by Lithographs and Wood-Engravings Manny. Etymon,

The Earl of Eases; a Romance. By Charles Whitehead, Author of "Richard

Savage," "The Solitary." In three volumes Bentley. 'Navels. Canada, Nova Scotia. New Bruuswiek, and other British Provinces in North

America; with a Plan of National Colonization. By James S. Buckingham. Fisher and Co.

THE IRISH SBETCH-BOOH.

THIS is one of the most readable books of travelling sketches that have been published for many a day ; and, excepting Irisms's, it presents the best idea of Ireland and the Irish that we have met with. Not that it contains any elaborate disquisitions on politics, religion, anarchy, -or distress, or any deep proposals for their remedy ; but the reader has set before him as graphic a picture of Irish manners, character, and modes of living, as if he himself had made the tour of Mr. TITMARSH. In one sense the impression is stronger; for the reader has the most striking points presented to his mind's eye without the encumbrance of lumbering or distract- ing commonplaces, often with the author's comments, and mostly with the conclusion they contain may clearly indicated. Besides this peculiarity, Mr. Timelier' is an Englishman, and assumes to be a Londoner travelling in Ireland for the first time: so that the claracteristics of the Emerald Isle are observed, and observed upon, through an English medium; or rather, the test of comparison, to which every traveller's remark secretly refers, is an English standard. The lively and graphic character of The Irish Sketch-Book is the result of art. The author, who takes the pseudonyme of TITMARSH, is well known as a popular contributor to periodical literature of a rattling, off-hand, facetious kind ; and he possesses a cultivated ability, that, if turned out into the streets or suburbs of London, would bring in something that should be telling if not new even to a Cockney. This habit of looking at points with a view to their literary effect is liable, indeed, to degenerate into a forced smartness of manner, and an exaggeration as it were of the matter—not so much an exaggeration of the thing described, as of the whole by the undue prominence given to a par- ticular section. Traces of this fault may undoubtedly be found in the book ; and objections may be made to passages here and there that partake of the claptrap sentimentality of the man about town. These, however, are few in number ; detracting nothing from the readableness of the work, and little perhaps from its correctness, as they are chiefly in the reflections. Taken as a whole, the book is capital—the work of a littgrateur so clever that he can draw pleasantry from any thing ; but exercised in Ireland on new ground, where the matter is so ample and fresh, we have the results of habitual art rather than the laboured efforts of an artist to im- part more value to the material than it possesses. It must, how- ever, be admitted, that The Irish Sketch-Book has somewhat of a dramatic air : compared with many jog-trot travels, it is as the stage to actual life. The•tours of Mr. TITMARSH extended from Dublin through the South and West of Ireland to Westport, and thence back direct to the capital, where he appears to have sojourned awhile, making a trip to Wicklow before his dep.:are for the Giant's Causeway. The chief places he touched at in his first tour were Carlow, Water- ford, Cork, Limerick, and Gal way, including a visit to Connemara : his second embraced Armagh, Belfast, Londonderry, &c. : so that he saw the extremes of Catholicism and Protestantism, and received a very unfavourable impression of both, though of the two the Catholics seem the best for a stranger or neutral to live among. His subjects are various, and some of them such as only a literary artist could venture upon with effect : the external aspect of towns, (Mr. TITMARSH rather affects town than country) ; the characters or characteristics of landlords, inns, waiters, beggars, and per- sons casually encountered on the road; sights of different de- scriptions—as infant-schools, agricultural shows and dinners, the new workhouses, a proprietary school or two, and such convivial or social incidents as suited his purpose and could be exhibited without trenching upon hospitable confidence. The Irish Sketch-Book requires to be read in large passages to be appreciated, because the author's subjects often require deve- lopment: hence the shorter extracts at our disposal may probably have an appearance of want of matter.

IRISH INNS.

If these comforts and reminiscences of three days' date are enlarged upon at some length, the reason is simply this—this is written at what is supposed to be the best inn at one of the best towns of Ireland, Waterford : dinner is just over; it is Assize-week, and the table d'hote was surrounded for the chief part by English attornies—the cyouncillors (as the bar are pertinaciously called) dieing up stairs in private. Well, on going to the public room, and being about to lay down my hat on the sideboard, I was obliged to pause—out of regard to a fine thick coat of dust, which had been kindly left to gather for sonic days past, I should think, and which it seemed a shame to misplace. Yonder is a chair basking quietly in the sunshine ; some round object has evidently reposed upon it, (a hat or plate probably,) for you see a clear circle of black horse-hair in the middle of the chair and dust all round it. Not one of those dirty napkins that the four waiters carry would wipe away the grime from the chair, and take to Wel( a little dust more The people in the room are shouting out for the waiters; who cry, "Yea, Sir!" peevishly, and don't ellna, bat stand bawling and jangling, and calling each other names, at the sideboard. The dinner is plentiful and nasty : raw ducks, raw peas, on a crumpled tablecloth, over which a waiter has just spirted a pint of obstre- perous cider. The windows are open, to give free view of a crowd of old beggar-women, and of a fellow playing a cursed Irish pipe. Presently this delectable apartment fills withchoking peat-smoke: and on asking what is the cause of this agreeable addition to the pleasures of the plaoe, you are told that they are lighting a fire in a back-room.

IRISH LADIES AND IRISH DBASHING.

A word with regard to the ladies so far. Those I have seen appear to the full as well educated and refined, and far more frank and cordial, than the generality of the fair creatures on the other side of the Cha.nneL I have not heard any thing about poetry, to be sure, and in only one house have seen an album; but I have heard some capital music, of an excellent family sort—that sort which is used, namely, to set young people dancing, which they have done merrily for some nights. In respect of drinking, among the gentry, teetotalism does not, thank 'leaven 1 as yet appear to prevail; but, although the claret has been invariably good, there has been no improper use of it. Let all English be recommended to be very careful of whisky, which experience teaches to be a very deleterious drink. Natives say that it is wholesome, and may be some- times seen to use it with impunity ; but the whisky-fever is naturally more fatal to strangers than inhabitants of the country ; and whereas an Irishman will sometimes imbibe a half-dozen tumblers of the poison, two glasses will often be found sufficient to cause headaches, heartburn., and fevers, to a person newly arrived in the country. The said whisky is always to be had for the asking, but is not produced at the bettermost sort of tables.

DEALINGS IN CORK.

That the city contains mach wealth, is evidenced by the number of hand- some villas round about it, where the rich merchants dwell; but the ware- houses of the wealthy provision-merchants make no show to the stranger walking the streets ; and of the retail-shops, if some are spacious and hand- some, most look as if too big for the business carried on within: The want of ready money was quite curious. In three of the principal shops I purchased articles, and tendered a pound in exchange—not one of them had silver enough: and as for a five-pound note, which I presented at one of the topping book- sellers, his boy went round to various places in vain, and finally set forth to the bank, where change was got. In another small shop I offered half-a-crown to pay for a sixpenny article—it was all the same. "Tim," says the good woman, "run out in a hurry and fetch the gentleman change." Two of the shopmen, seeing an Englishman, were very particular to tell me in what years they them- selves had been in London. It seemed a merit in these gentlemen's eyes to have once dwelt in that city ; and I see in the papers continually ladies adver- tising as governesses, and specifying particularly that they are "English ladies." I received six M. Post-office orders : I called four times on as many different days at the Post-office before the capital could be forthcoming, getting on the third application 201., (after making a great clamour, and vowing that such things were unheard of in England,) and on the fourth call the remaining l01. I saw poor people who may have come from the country with their orders, re- fused payment of an order of some 40s.; and a gentleman who tendered a pound-note in payment of a foreign letter, told to "leave his letter and pay some other time.' Such things could not take place in the hundred and' second city in England ; and, as I do not pretend to doctrinize at all, I leave the reader to draw his own deductions with regard to the commercial condition and prosperity of the second city in Ireland.

Perhaps there is also a deduction as regards Post-office-manage.. ment. A postmaster indeed cannot be expected to change a one- pound note for payment of a letter as a matter of right ; but he is bound to be able to pay Post-office orders.

IR/SH DISTRESS.

In the midst of your pleasure, three beggars have hobbled up, and are howl- ing supplications to the Lord. One is old and blind, and so diseased and hideous, that straightway all the interposing of the sight round about vaniehee from you—that livid ghastly face between you sad it. And so it is throughout the South and West of Ireland : the traveller is haunted by the face of the popular starvation. It is not the exception, it is the condition of the people. In this fairest and richest of countries, men are suffering and starving by millions. There are thousands of them at this minute stretched in the sunshine at their cabin-doors, with no work, scarcely any food, no hope seemingly. Strong countrymen are lying in bed "for the hunger "—because a man lying on his back does not need so much food as a person a-foot. Many of them have torn up the unripe potatoes from theirlittle gardens, and to exist now must look to winter, when they shall have to suffer starvation and cold too. The epicurean and traveller for pleasure had better travel anywhere than here—where there are miseries that one does not dare to think of—where one is always feeling how helpless pity is, and how hopeless relief; and is per- petually made ashamed of being happy.

CHANGE IN THE NORTH.

The ride of ten miles from Armagh to Portadown was not the prettiest, but one of the pleasantest drives I have had in Ireland; for the country is well cultivated along the whole of the road, the trees in plenty, and villages and neat houses always in sight. The little farms, with their orchards and com- fortable buildings, were as clean and trim as could be wished : they are mostly of one story, with long thatched roofs and shining windowe such as those that may be seen in Normandy and Picardy. As it was Sunday eveniug, all the people seemed to be abroad; some sauntering quietly down the roads—a pair of girls here and there pacing leisurely in a field—a little group seated under the trees of an orchard, which pretty adjunct to the farm is very common in this district ; and the crop of apples seemed this year to be extremely plenty. The physiognomy of the people too has quite changed the girls have their hair neatly braided up, not loose over their faces, as in the South; and not only are bare feet very rare, and stockings extremely neat and white, but I am sure I saw at least a dozen good silk gowns upon the women along the road, and scarcely one which was not clean and in good order. The men for the most part figured in Jackets, caps, and trousers, eschewing the old well of a hat which covers the popular head at the other end of the island, the breeches, and the long ill-made tail-coat. The people's faces are sharp and neat ; not broad, lazy, knowing. looking, like that of many a shambling Diogenes who may be seen lounging before his cabin in Cork or Kerry. As for the cabins, they have disappeared; and the houses of the people may rank decidedly as cottages. The accent, too, is quite different ; but this is hard to describe in print. The people speak with a Scotch twang, and, as I fancied, much more simply and to the point; a man gives you a downright answer, without any grin or joke, or attempt at flattery. To be sure, these are rather early days to begin to judge of national characteristics; and very likely the above distinctions have been drawn after profoundly studying a Northern and a Southern waiter at the inn at Armagh.

SERIOUSNESS AT COLERAINE.

The town of Coleraine, with a number of cabin suburbs belonging to it, lies picturesquely grouped on the Bann river ; and the whole of the little city wee echoing with psalms as I walked through it on the Sunday morning. The piety of the people seems remarkable : some of the inns even will not receive travellers on Sunday ; and this is written in an hotel of which every room is provided wiffi a Testament, containing an injunction on the part of the land- lord to consider this world itself as only a passing abode. Is it well that Boni-

face should furnish his guests with Bibles as well as bills, and sometimes shut his door on a traveller who has no other choice but to read it on a Sunday ? I heard of a gentleman arriving from ship-board at Rilrush on a Sunday, when the pious hotel-keeper refused him admittance; and some more tales, which to go into would require the introduction of private names and circumstances, but would tend to show that the Protestant of the North is as much priest-ridden as the Catholic of the South,—priest and old-woman-ridden, for there are cer- tain expounders of doctrine in our church, who are not, I believe, to be found in the church of Rome ; and wo betide the stranger who comes to settle in these pads, if his "seriousness" be not satisfactory to the heads (with false fronts to most of them) of the congregations.

I have had the pleasure of sitting under a minister in Ireland who insulted the very patron who gave him his -living; discoursing upon the sinfulness of partridge-shooting, and threatening hell-fire as the last " meet " for fox- hunters ; until the squire, one of the best and most charitable resident land- lords in Ireland, was absolutely driven out of the church where his fathers had worshipped for hundreds of years, by the insults of this howling evangelical inquisitor.