WANTED—AN IRISH SIR WALTER.
[To THE EDITOR OE THE " SFECTAT011.1 SIR,—Some years ago an Englishman travelling in Ireland met a countryman towards the end of his travels, and pro- ceeded to lecture him about the many things required in order to make the country attractive to tourists,—more and better hotels, a better railway service, and so forth. " Sorr," replied the Irishman, "what we want is a Walter Scott, to do for Ireland what he has done for Scotland." Pat was right, and by a happy inspiration you have ventilated the same idea in the Spectator of April 18th. I am so old as to remember when you could only get to Callender, and the Trossacks, and Loch Katrine by coach from Stirling, and when the portly form of Mrs. Ferguson more than filled the ample doorway of the once famous hostelry at the Brig o' Turk. It was no
uncommon thing for the coachman to get up on his box and declaim t passage from the " Lady of the Lake " descriptive of the scenery through which we were passing, and the following occurs to me at the moment :-
"High on the south huge Ben Venue Down on the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurled The fragments of an earlier world."
The passengers would pull out their pocket editions of the poem, and very soon the whole coach was aglow with enthusiasm over the graphic descriptions of the " Great Magician." It is amazing that something of this sort has never been done for such " beauty spots " as Killarney, Glen- garriff, the Gap of Dunloe, and ever so many more, for the Irish are by no means wanting in enthusiasm about their country. I am so impressed with the colossal character of Scott's genius that I never expect to see another Scott any more than I expect to see another Shakespeare. But some one even "a little lower than the angels" might come for- ward and try his 'prentice hand in the present dearth of master singers of our country's glory.—I am, Sir, &c., R W. J.
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