shown by the country people with whom one is thrown in contact during these rambles. Thus, I was directed on this occasion to traverse the long hill which lies near the base of Douce Mountain, and which reaches for at least three miles. How beautiful, clear, and charming was the day, unbroken by a cloud, or aught to dim the serenity of the clear ether. When there are no very striking objects to occupy the sight, I frequently, on a long country walk, take a book, and find I can read as I move along. I was told by a great student, who was also a very good scholar, that when he went out fishing in the country, he-when a young man in college-used to take two or three of the leaves of the book he was engaged in mastering with him and read them, pondering leisurely as he proceeded along by the banks of the river. He said that he invariably found that he could make himself, by this means, easily master of the contents. I know not whether this may be a good method to pursue with regard to abstract or difficult studies, but for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the contents of the Times newspaper it is, certainly, very agreeable to carry a copy in one's pocket and read it as one goes along. Whatever be the name of the mysterious editor who concocts his diurnal treat of information and intellectual disquisition, I am frequently indebted to him for providing me a never-failing store of the pabulum animi. What never-ceasing power of mental lucubration must he possess, who produces continually this ephemeral composition, bearing upon the topics of most absorbing interest, invested by him with the genius of Junius without his malignancy, and the amusing raciness of Macaulay without his inaccuracy. After I had passed the long hill I went on to Roundtown, and after passing this there was no scenery of a peculiar or interesting character till I got to Larragh, which is a village once very wild, where the government had erected a barrack, which has since been converted into a mill, and lies by the bank of a running stream. The character of wildness, which is principally what strikes one on entering the range of hills in this county, is greatly modified by the different residences, the hotels, the churches, chapels, and the diversity of woodland plantation, which is seen both here in the village and on the hills opposite. I remarked a very handsome estate, planted by, and occupied by, a Mr. Frizel. No fewer than three large inns: one at Annamoe, one at Larragh, and one at the Seven Churches, are situated in the neighbourhood. There is also a small inn at Glendalough. From Larragh to the Seven Churches was a short walk. The first of the ruined churches stood by the high road, about a quarter of a mile from the round tower, and was completely covered over with shrubs. It was, like all these ruins, a very small edifice.

On first entering the precincts of the enclosure which contains the ruins of the next three, you come to a large arch of huge stone quite in ruin; you pass onward, and a short distance to your right is a large round tower, exactly similar to the one at Kildare, with a burying-ground around it, and a huge stone cross; then further, on the left, are a cathedral, the only large-sized church in the whole collection, and, near it, one called St. Kevin's Kitchen, which is small and dark. It was situated fully two miles from the saint's bed, and whether intended for a kitchen or a place of meeting, was certainly of very confined limits. Another church, the fourth which I saw, was between the round tower and

the stream which issued from the lake. And, with regard to the other three, the few stones which lie near a small waterfall, which is situated in a wood which bounds the east side of the lesser lake, indicates the remains of a building of some kind, and the two other are said to have stood, one on the opposite mountain-side to that on which St. Kevin's bed is situated, and the other in a valley where now a mine is being worked. This valley lies on the other side of the hill from that which overlooks the oft-mentioned "lake, whose gloomy shore skylark never warbles o'er." But no traces scarcely of the three last-mentioned churches, save only a few stones, are now left remaining. With regard to the hills in their barren loneliness, and their air of secluded gloom, they are certainly most interesting-looking, but they are of no height; and the lakes are both so diminutive, that they scarcely deserve the name of such. To finish off my day's excursion, I went into the cave or hole in the rock which beetles over the larger lake, and it certainly is a perilous-looking position as seen from below, but when one does not direct one's eyes downwards one's nerves do not suffer. The cave is called here St. Kevin's Bed. I was reminded frequently in considering the scene of loneliness, and also the extremely small size of these different churches, in the wilds of these Wicklow hills, of the hermitages and small chapels which one sees so frequently in Greece, where the votaries of the patriarchal religion have invariably chosen a site which is quite apart from the habitations of man for the celebration of their worship; and the idea which is so ably put forth and enlarged upon by the writer of "The Ancient Religion of the old Irish Saints," that the first Christians who settled in Ireland and preached the religion of the blessed Redeemer were not Papists, but of the pure Apostolic Church, was forced upon my mind by reflecting that the choice of such localities and their extremely scanty accommodation were wholly incongruous to the ostentation and repugnant to the general love of display and desire for gathering crowds which distinguishes the Roman Catholic religion.

I was very glad to have an opportunity of seeing the very handsome residence and beautiful grounds of Glanmore, the seat of an ancient family, the Synges. The castle is distant from the Seven Churches eight miles. It is on high ground, which stands over the river, and is surrounded with every sort of the most luxuriant evergreen-the noble mansion peering through the varied foliage. The grounds and gardens, an extensive range lying on the opposite side from the glen, which is here universally called the Devil's Glen, make it, as a baronial site and picturesque locality, the gem of residences in the country. I heard from every one that the goodness shown to the poor by the owner of the domain, and by his sisters, was most laudable to their character as Christians, and their hospitality to all those who have had the advantage of their acquaintance must endear them to the rich also. From the opposite side of the glen to that on which their house stands, I arrived at the entrance to the road which takes one through the glen upwards to a waterfall, which is situated two miles from the first gate. The way to the first entrance lies through a thick wood of evergreens; you then leave your car or conveyance at the gate, and walk alongside the river, and on the way are presented with every phase that you can imagine of

river, rock, and woodland scenery combined: the mountain on each side, either rugged with moss and lichen or studded with oak-trees; the river, either peacefully flowing in its deep placid stillness,

οτε πορφύρη πέλαγος μέγα κύματι κωφώ,

or brawling through huge immovable stones; the trees, of every sort and foliage, some standing on the ridges of the rocks, some forming an awning to your path, and some overhanging the stream. Through this beautiful sylvan dale you walk till you arrive at another gate; after passing this you lose sight of the river, and ascend a hill, from whose top you have a view of the source of the stream, which has its commencement in a rocky waterfall, bursting from the mountains which bound your prospect. Not in all the country round is such a unique picture of beauty as the Devil's Glen. I bid adieu to the lovely place and its hospitable proprietor, not before I had, however, taken some excursions in the demesne, and seen with admiration the numerous sites from which a view of the majestic glen can be obtained to advantage. I was struck by the great number of groves of evergreens in which the place abounds: huge laurels, which must have been the growth of nearly a century; evergreen oaks, in their great richness of branching, whose foliage reminds one of the olive. The owner has charitably established, at his own cost, in the mountains which adjoin his extensive demesne, a shop, which strikes one with wonder, being a collection of the choice assortment of goods which are such as one could only find in a large town. This shop is fitted out with great neatness, and consigned to the charge of a tenant who, doubtless, was the first vendor in such a place of the highly-prized but necessary commodities which the mountaineers are now enabled to procure without moving far from their remote habitations. The owner of the estate also himself repairs to different cottages in the neighbourhood, and holds prayer-meetings during the week, and he and his sisters pay the greatest attention to regulating the schools and the comfort of the peasantry. Such an example as they show, were it imitated throughout the country, it would cease to be called unhappy Ireland.

I determined to take the first opportunity of visiting Wicklow for the purpose of making an excursion to the Meeting of the Waters, or the Vale of Avoca. This place I went to on a car, it being at a considerable distance from Wicklow. The vale is truly lovely. The Devil's Glen is matchless for rock, river, and woodland scenery, the Seven Churches and Glendalough for wildness, but this Vale of Avoca for its peaceful loveliness. Certainly I do not wonder at Moore's apostrophe in praise of it, which is so often quoted. The demesne of Castle Howard, and the river which lies beneath it, seem to me to be the most charming of all its localities. On one side the valley is so well wooded, and the different mansions of the gentry show to such advantage through the woods, that you imagine yourself to be in a much more civilised portion of the world than you would suppose yourself in from your impressions of the dreary mountains of Glendalough. This also is crossed by the coach-road, which leads to Wicklow, so it is not altogether a sequestered lane; indeed, there are few such to be met with now.

I left Wicklow soon after this for Bray, which has now become quite an extensive place, and, thanks to Mr. Dargan's improvements, a great resort for fashionable people. I went there with the intention of taking some country walks in the neighbourbood. My first was to visit the demesne of Kilruddery, famed in the old song:

In seventeen hundred and seventy-four,

On the 6th of December, I think 'twas no more,
At five in the morning, by most of the clocks,
We set off from Kilruddery in search of a fox.

It was very interesting from its antiquity, and one of the finest views in the country is presented of it from Windgates, a small hamlet three miles from Bray, where you have a prospect of the whole of the Little Sugarloaf and the demesne in the foreground, and the sea, Bray, Killiney, Dalkey are in the distance. It is one of the residences of the old noble families. Farther on I crossed the hills and lands of Temple Carrigh, and arrived by the cross-road to that which leads to the Glen of the Downs. The oak-tree, which is seen to grow more abundantly in this part of the country than anywhere else in Ireland, is here to be viewed in great perfection. A road, running through a vast glen for a distance of one mile or more, and which, from its margin up to the lofty tops of the heights on each side in gradual ascent of about three hundred feet, save where it is here and there broken by large granite stones, is one complete mass of oak plantation, where the trees of every age and size, form on the mountain's surface on each side a thick and almost impervious grove, continued in compactness from its opening to its close. In summer, the vast sheet of green foliage delights the eye with its freshness; in winter, the naked, rugged forest reveals the entrance to holes in the rocks and other innumerable hiding-places, where one might fancy such a host as that evoked by Roderick Dhu in the "Lady of the Lake" might find easily their hiding-places.

All this vast and lordly demesne is the property of a gentleman, one whose family have been residents for more than a century. They are connected with several noble families in Dublin. I was told an anecdote of this family by a resident in Dublin, who, in pointing to their name as exhibited in a small church standing on their grounds, informed me that it was "true of one branch, that they owed their greatness to bank-notes." He said that such was the ignorance of the Irish rebels during the time of the outbreak in 1798, that, on one occasion, a body of them, which had lain concealed in some of the numerous ambuscades which are so readily to be found in the caves and mountains of Wicklow, had issued from their lair a short time previous to the passing of the mail coach from Dublin to Wexford; that of t first step was to stop the coach and take down the luggage which oppo. d upon it, and their next to examine it; that they found a box, n breaking open, they discovered to contain bank-notes from the a Touche and Co.; that their wrath at hearing the name of the ad out by one of their number was such, that, lighting a match, they et fire to this pile of notes, saying, that "the rascally Sassanach whose name was on the notes should suffer." This conflagration was

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much to the discomfiture of the agent who was on the coach, and who had just received the notes from the firm, but eventually, of course, a wonderful boon to the banker. Sir J. Hodson's is also a very pretty place, near Bray, and further on from Newtown, Mount Kennedy is an extensively wooded and fine demesne, called Dunran, from which place I obtained a beautiful view of the Murrough of Wicklow, stretched as it was between a short arm of the sea and the Irish Channel, a vast common, on which now a railroad station and its attendant hotel are built. I saw also, in the distance, Wicklow Head, on which stands an old ruin, a castle, called, with great propriety of nomenclature, the Black Castle, built by William Fitzgerald in the year 1375.

The next excursion which I made from Bray was by the train to Kilcool, a small secluded station on the Wicklow line. I wished to have an opportunity of seeing the line of country which the railroad runs through, and the very wonderful circuit which it performs round the precipitous cliff of Bray Head. The train for the first mile ran beside the flat beach. After that, the cut takes place in the solid rock, and winds round its side. Beneath you, on the left-hand side, is the vast sea, and above you a dry barren hill, quite rocky and precipitous, and in some few places grown over with heather. Two long tunnels are excavated in the solid rock, and after a winding course, always keeping the sea immediately beneath you, you descend to a flat level country gradually, and lose the near view of the Sugar-Loaves and upland scenery. From the base of Bray Head downwards there is a gradual inclined plane, which is about a mile and a half in length. I felt very much the truth of what is said by some clever tourist in Ireland with regard to the scenes in the county of Wicklow. There are really as many pleasing sites for viewing nature, and as many pretty and picturesque scenes throughout the country as you may find in a river trip on the Rhine, or in other journeys through Europe; but the tameness of the circumstance of making your autumn tour so near home hinders many from visiting this county. When I got to the next railway station from Bray, I determined to walk to the place where I had decided upon bathing. Just a little past the station I rambled into the country and saw the different gentlemen's places, both those belonging to old landed proprietors and those also which were lately taken by the rich Dublin merchants, which last had in many instances supplanted their more aristocratic brethren. The bathing-place of Greystones is a pleasant summer residence, and nowhere near Dublin is there a place more enjoyable for bathing. I also remarked near Kilcool a handsome Elizabethan mansion, nicely planted, which has been taken lately by a gentleman of large property. It was built by a Mr. Nyams. It struck me as the prettiest. Farther to the interior are several fine places: Woodstock and Ballygannon, the former of whose woods one has a distant view of in taking the path which lies by he sea, along which the railroad runs to Kilcool. It seems extraç th that the railroad directors had not managed to cut the line throu interior of the country, where the communication between Du Wicklow is much nearer than in the line which they have chos Bray Head; but I heard that they had been allowed by the presentLord Meath to cut through the mountain, and to run the line round it, for

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