number, sitting in a carrier's dray, looking back upon the numerous and willing followers-would afford a graphic picture for a Cruikshank or a Lover, were not the ludicrous unsuited to such sad solemnity. Still, apart from this oddness of the scene, and of the queries to deceased, “Why did you die ?" there is a melancholy beauty in the melody and harmony that, despite of every circumstance so contradictory, strikes home to the hearts of all those who have souls for music. I once stood upon a court-house steps in a county-town in Connaught, when the wail of funeral music fell upon my ear, and rang through halls and passages. I might almost say, in the words of Pope,— "The pomp was darken'd and the day o'ercast; At all events, the court was pretty nearly cleared. Orpheus had charmed the beasts that growled, and snarled, and wrangled; but, amongst the real admirers of the plaintive strain, the Doctors Spray and Smith, of musical celebrity, engaged on business there, were the most anxious and excited. We left Dromoland with impressions I shall never lose, and, from the heights above the Fergus, we first saw "The mighty Shenon, spreading like a sea,” for sea it appears to be from Clare; and Spenser must have meant its junction with the Fergus, where it first spreads out, when thus he wrote so truly. Our stay was short in Limerick, that fine but, I think, rather overbuilt city, of which some notes, on subsequent tours, will speak more largely; and of Castleconnell, suffice it now to say, it was on our route again to Tipperary, where only can be met those rare compounds of vice and virtue, magnanimity and murder, and melancholy music! A short sojourn at the house of one of Ireland's most accomplished minstrels enabled us to hear her purest strains poured forth upon a harp of rarest power, yet of Irish manufacture. We also had even still a greater treat or curiosity in the musical way. A harp, precisely similar in all its parts with that so celebrated as the instrument of a minstrel king, some ages back, and to be seen in our University Museum, was found, well preserved, in a peatbog near Castle Fogarty; and having been at once consigned to Egan, of Dublin, a man of singular ability in harp construction,-cleansed, tuned, and strung by him,-it produced, to the feminine touch that now awaked its slumbers, marvellously quaint music. It was just the harp that "the minstrel boy" could have slung behind him," and, not impossible, the very one of which "he tore the chords asunder." A midnight drive by Cashel and Clonmel brought us, some hours before the day, to the celebrated “ Urbs intacta,” as Waterford is called; but here, those sometimes necessary plagues, the lawyers, as it was assizes time, had got possesion,-not nine points in law alone, but every point and place a weary traveller might hope to rest in. As, however, we had a dormitory to the chariot, and our valet on the box, my companion, with perfect coolness, directed the carriage to be rolled into a comfortable coachhouse, well knowing that the lawyer class will never wait to pick their bones too clean, when slaughter fresh awaits them. Accordingly, we prepared to sleep as we had travelled, the faithful valet holding watch and ward on his box-seat, with directions to call us forth, as could find a fitting room for us to dress in. soon as he A mounted and, to all appearance, armed horseman had challenged us, not far from Cashel's well-known rock, but whether by accident or purpose, when the carriage-window fell, a dark map-roll, presented at him by my friend, caused the challenger to fly! Travelling then was certainly most dangerous, but now, when the risk was over, we joined in hearty laughter at the pleasantry of our escape. By our midnight tramp, we had lost some most enchanting scenery; for the mountain peaks of Knockmeledown and Knockenafferin, looming to the southward in the shades of night, and, occasionally, the "Glens of Glenahiry," were all but visible, with the silvery river-line beneath them; we therefore made amends, after a day of rest, by starting with the daylight the next morning on our return. Few persons can believe, who have not travelled along its course, the varying beauties of the Valley of the Suir. Here were almost never-ending woods, on height, in dale, on copse, and glen, and mountain, like panoramic sketches unfolded to us, as we rolled along our several stages; the base and foreground filled almost to superfluity with tableaux formed of fertile meadows, picturesque villas, populous towns, and castles of most ancient structure, as if to check the |