chapter, the company at Bahoss had drawn much more copiously on the water-jars than on the wine decanters; a circumstance which naturally led to the subject of Father Mathew and his useful labours.

"In my young days," said O'Connell," it was deemed an essential point of hospitality to make guests drink against their will-drink till they were sick. I was myself the first person who rebelled against this custom in Iveragh. After I returned from the Temple, I introduced the fashion of resistance, and I soon had abettors enough. It was fortunate for me that I never, while a youth, could drink more than three glasses of wine without being sick; so that I had my personal convenience to consult in aid of temperance. To be sure, I have seen some rare drinking-bouts! In 1785, when less than ten years old, I was at the house of a friend near the sea side, and a sloop came in, of which the whole crew got drunk every night; Monday night on wine, Tuesday night on punch; Wednesday night on wine, Thursday night on punch, and so on; the only variety consisting in the alternation. What a change in our social habits since those days! a most happy change in this respect! I believe there is no nation under heaven save our own, in which the Apostle of a great moral move

ment could meet the success that has attended Father Mathew."

"A success," observed one of the company, "highly honourable to the Catholics, and probably destined to be one of the means of extending the Catholic religion."

"Oh," exclaimed O'Connell," that extension is daily making progress-it receives an impulse from various and opposite quarters. Among the devout and religious members of the Anglican Church, the Puseyites hold a distinguished place both in numbers and importance; they have grafted upon their own species of Protestantism, many of the leading principles and practices of Catholicity. The evidence they thus bear to the truth of those principles and practices is placed beyond suspicion, by the fact that they often have indulged in gross abuse of the Catholic religion. Then-look at that powerful article on Ranke's Lives of the Popes' in the last 'Edinburgh Review'-evidently written by some philosophical Protestant inquirer, some honorary member of Christianity; who, while he manifestly dissents from the Catholic Church, is yet compelled by his own candour to admit that she contains within herself the imperishable germ of perpetual vitality. It is no trivial feature in the intellectual aspect of England at present, that these involuntary

6

tributes to the truth of Catholicity should be borne by the most powerful, and at the same time the most dissimilar Protestant intellects."

Ere we adjourned to the drawing-room, Mr. O'Connell announced that he would hunt across the mountains to Darrynane on the morrow. Some person complimented him on his undecaying personal activity.

"Yes," he answered, "activity is with me a habit. I was always active, and my brother John was always active. I remember one morning when John was a lad, seeing him prepare to set off on a walk of several miles at sunrise, after having sat up the whole night dancing, and without having gone to bed at all. I said to him, John, you had better

take your mare.' 'Oh,' said John, I'll spare my mare; the walk will do me good.' So off he set, and his mare expired of fat in the stable the very same day! How often have I heard the voice of old John O'Connell calling out at cockcrow under our gate, Cur a maugh Shane O'Connell agus

an cu!'"*

"Send out John O'Connell and the greyhound."

CHAPTER XVII.

Darrynane-Scenery-The House-The Hunting-The Collegians-O'Connell's Description of his Home-Two Things

at a Time-Arboriculture.

NEXT day we arrived at Darrynane.

The dwelling-house is situated within a few hundred yards of a little bay, which is separated from the harbour of Ballinskelligs, by a rocky promontory, called the Abbey Island. This promontory is sometimes insulated in particularly high tides. It contains the ruins of an ancient abbey, amongst which are the graves of many of the O'Connell family.

Much of the adjacent coast appears to have been upheaved in some desperate agony of nature. It consists of patches of unprofitable boggy surface, alternating with débris of naked rock. But there are some grand and romantic scenes among the hills and on the cliffs.

The house is sheltered to the north and west, by

mountains ranging from 1500 to 2000 feet in height. On the east, the view is bounded by a chain of high rocks, that divide the bay of Darrynane from that of Kenmare. Close to the house is a thriving plantation called the shrubbery, covering some ten or twelve acres of a most rocky and irregular tract, through the irregularities of which there are many very pretty winding walks. In the midst of this shrubbery, perched high aloft upon an ivied rock, is a small circular turret, commanding over the tops of the young trees, a view of the ocean and of the neighbouring hills. To this turret, Mr. O'Connell frequently retired to cogitate in solitude over his future political movements. He had also a favourite walk in the garden, which is picturesquely situated amongst rocks, and contains some of the finest old hollies I have ever seen.

Darrynane house possesses tolerable accommodation, although it often proved scarcely sufficient for the numbers attracted by the hospitable habits and political celebrity of the owner. It was built at different periods, and without the slightest regard to any uniform plan of architecture; a room was added whenever there arose a demand for increased accommodation; so that the whole mass presents a curious cluster of small buildings of different dates, heights, and sizes. In the dining-room are por