PAD DIANA.
RENOVATED in health by his visits to the German spas, and probably feeling a little set up in literary reputation by the praise bestowed on A Hot Water Cure, the author of that lively work has turned his former experience of Ireland to account and produced Paddiana. It appears that we were right in our former conjecture as to this writer's vocation : he is a military man; and his knowledge of Ireland and the Irish has been gained by long service in that country, in still-hunting, field-sports, jovialities, pic-nic parties, excursions, and various other doings connected with military life in country quarters. The greater part of Paddiana, like A Hot Water Cure, is essentially a picture of manners and character; wanting the connected narrative of a tour, but admitting of much greater variety, as well as of a development of the matter by means of a story and a dramatic exhibition of incidents and persons. Considered in this point of view, the first volume of Paddiana may be praised as a capital miscellany of good stories or sketches, abounding in broadly humorous incidents, and displays of Irish character. There is, however, a deeper value about it than what arises from amusing reading. We do not think we ever saw the Irish character, both in its good and had qualities so completely brought out and inextricably blended, so as to-defy conclusion just as much as Irish questions themselves. The best Irish novelists have generally some artistical object in view, even if inaccessible to patriotism. In order to carry on their story after the usual recipe for fictions, their persons, however Milesian, must have some distinct markings either of good or evil, and pursue their designs with consistency to the end. The tales in Paddiana generally con- sist of a single incident; and some of the papers are only sketches of a particular subject, illustrated by a fund of anecdote and ob- servation. The author, therefore, having no critical consistency of the kind we have mentioned to maintain, can depict the Irishman without any attempt to explain him. And very ably this is done, in the degrees of peasant, squire, and town gentry. The mixture of charity, good-nature' and as far as the mere feeling goes, of humanity in the people, with reckless and gratuitous cruelty and crime—the wit, the shrewdness, and in such matters as practical jokes, field-sports, or steeple- chases, the untiring energy of the gentry, with their total want of plan or prudence in the management of their affairs—the puzzling in- consistency and boundless confidence of all classes—are distinctly brought before the reader, without effort or apparent consciousness. The writer is simply describing what he sees and knows ; and though the incongruity and shamelessness may strike him, he treats them with the tolerant good- nature of a man of the world, except in some occasional general remarks. The matter in Paddiana is somewhat slight, but the power of amuse- ment is considerable. Everything comes out rich and laughable, from the smart and pointed style of the writer, and the traits of his subjects. Irish beggars would seem to be a topic pretty well exhausted ; yet the follow- ing is a feature new to us.
I know not whether any former scribbler has taken note of a class of beggars who are continually travelling about the country at the expense of the inhabit- ants, and are actually moved from place to place by them: these are helpless cripples deprived of the use of their limbs. They are usually placed in a sort of hand-barrow, or sometimes a small car, their own property, and carried from house to house: the inmates, after supplying them with a small quantity of food, carry them on to the next house; from whence they are forwarded to the next, and so on. In this way they traverse the country during their whole lives; the inmates of the house at which they may be left at night hospitably affording them the shelter of the roof, and carrying them forward at the earliest dawn. It would be curious to trace on a map the journeying& of one of these involuntary travellers."
One of the best things in the book is "A Quiet Day at Farrelstown," a bachelor's place, where a sentimental poetaster during the game of " knock " gets his trousers taken in exchange against a hat as the even- ing advances, and goes in that condition with a "full skin" to visit his lady love. It should be read as a whole to preserve its effect ; but the letter of invitation may stand by itself as a sample of the true Milesian : the coolness of the demands seems a transcript from the actual. "'Dear —. We will have a few friends to dine with us Thursday, and hope you will give us the pleasure too at six. Don't dress, but come any way: it's only Hurd, and the Magas, and Harty Kavanagh, and perhaps the Murphys, any how, Dan. I would like to persuade the Slopers and Dunn, and we'll get Arahrose Casan and his cousins. .?dy, brother has asked a few; but well have a quiet party,
and perhaps some spoiled-five and a knock. If you can oblige us with your smwa and forks and some plates, and the tureen, and your servant if he's doing nothinz we would be glad; and as our tables are short, he might bring one with him. You'fj not be late. We'll have great fun with Ambrose. "Yours Yours very truly, Mamsr CYDWYRR FARRELL. "You could not lend your castors, for our sauce is all done?
LETTING LAND IN IRELAND.
The Farrells were an ancient family, originally wealthy; but somehow the es- tate, though retaining its full amount of acreage, was becoming, as men said, more a nomial than a real property. It was well eaten into by all sorts of claim- ants; and though its ring fence, as was the boast of the owner, remained unbroken, yet it rather resembled a curiously preserved old cheese, with a nest of mortgagee mice for ever preying upon its entrails. The land was let and sublet to the extent of three or four removes between the owner and the occupier; and the rent having to be filtered through so many sponges, flowed into the landlord's pocket a mere dribblet compared to the stream it had originally set forth. But this was the custom of the country: it saved trouble and obliged friends. The squire let the land to his friend the squireen, over a bottle of claret; the squireen let it again to his friend the attorney, over sing of punch; the lawyer let it to Tim Mahoney, or Jack Lynch, or Pat Murphy; who finally retailed it out in small patches to the actual holders; who again divided their portions with their sons when they married and settled. Was there ever such a system as this in any other country? In Ire- land, however, it is the case with nine tenths of the property.
IRISH CHARACTERISTICS.
An Irishman may be called, par excellence, "the bone-breaker" amongst men, the homo ossifragus of the human family; and in the indulgence of this their na- tural propensity there is a total and systematic disregard of fair play; there is no such thing known, whether at a race or a fight. Let an unfortunate stranger, a man not known in the town or village, get into a scrape, and the whole popula- tion are ready to fall upon him, right or wrong, and beat him to the ground; when his life depends upon the strength of his skull or the interference of the police. There is no ring, no scratch, no bottle-holder: to set a man upon his legs after a fall is a weakness never thought of. "Faith, we were hard set to get him down; and why would we let him up again?' expresses the feeling on such an occasion.
"Sure, it's a Moynehan ! " was repeated by fifty voices in a row at Killarney, where all who could come near enough were employed in hitting with their long black-thorn sticks at an unfortunate wretch lying,prostrate and disabled amongst them. Fortunately, the eagerness of his enemies proved the salvation of the man; for they crowded so furiously together that their blows fell upon each other, and scarcely any reached their intended victim on the ground. It was ridiculous to see the wild way in which they hit one another; but so infuriated were they, that no heed was taken of the blows, or probably in their confusion the hurts were ascribed to the agency of the man on the ground. It was no uncommon thing to see columns of many hundreds strong march into Killarney from opposite points for the sole purpose of fighting on a market-day. Why they fought nobody could tell—they did not know themselves; but the quarrel was a very pretty quarrel "; and no people in the best of causes could go to work more heartily than they did. The screams and yells and savage fury of the combatants would have done credit to an onslaught of Blackfeet or New Zealanders while the dan- cing madness was peculiarly their own. But in spite of the vocal efforts of the combatants and the constant accompaniment of the sticks, you could hear the dull thud which told when a black-thorn fell upon an undefended skull. * * *
The jockey who rides against a popular horse undertakes a service of some danger, for there are no means however unfair which they will not adopt to cause him to lose the race: they will hustle him throw sticks and hats in his way, in the hope of throwing over horse and rider. * * • But when the popular horse wins, then indeed the scene is fine. No sooner did a certain chestnut get ahead of the rest, than there arose a cry from ten thousand people of "The Doctor's harse! the foxey harse ! the Doctor's harse !" accom- pained by such a rush as fairly swept the winner off the course towards the weighing-stand; and when after the weighing the favourite was walked to a dis- tant part of the ground, he was accompanied by the same thousands, shouting "The Doctor's harse ! the forey hares!" &c. &c. Never except on this occa- sion have I seen five hundred persons trying to rub down one horse at one time, with ten times that number anxious to assist, and only prevented by the evident impossibility of getting .near enough. Hats, handkerchiefs, coats, liandfulls of grass, all were in requisition while the vast mass of excited people roared, screeched, vociferated the endless virtues of the horse and master, though pro- bably not one in a hundred knew anything of either, only that the horse opposed to him was owned by an Anti-Repealer.'
The tales and sketches in the second volume are inferior to those in the first. A good part of the second, however, consists of a species of answer to the late Mr. O'Connell's Irish history; in which O'Connell's falsehoods are exposed, and the ancient crimes of the native Irish exhibited, ere they could have been corrupted by the guilt of the Saxon. In this part the writer is severe enough.
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