weakness, and to call out that he must stop " to spit on his hands -that he can howld on no longer, unless his fee is double; and the unhappy dog in suspense pledges himself to a treat. Our guide assured me that the new Blarney stone was quite as good as the "rale" that a certain "widdy lady" made a pilgrimage all the way from the North of England, kissed the spurious stone most rapturously, and made a great match soon after. The question arises, Lay the virtue in the stone, or in the pilgrim's faith?

Our return drive was very charming-the rain was past, and sunlight and fresh breezes poured beauty and gladness on our way. I cannot remember to have seen anywhere, within so short a distance, so many wild flowers. The shrubbery was most luxuriant, the trees finer and more abundant, than we had before seen-every thing on our path was beautiful and gracious save the humanity, which was wretched and poverty-stricken in the extreme. From the miserable little mud-huts along the road ran scores of children, of all sizes, bareheaded, barefooted, and barelegged, with rags of all imaginable hues and textures fluttering in the wind, and attached to their bodies by some unknown and mysterious law of attraction -certainly by no visible bond or support. With faces begrimed by smoke, and wild eyes overhung with wilder locks, they stretched out their dirty, beseeching palms, and assailed us on all sides of our outside car-most assailable of vehicles-fit contrivance for a beggared land.

Irish carmen are a race of Jehus-driving with eccentric flourishes of the whip, and, when more than usually excited, with strange barbaric whoops and hellos, making their odd little vehicles jump along at an astonishing rate. They are commonly communicative and amusing, though by no means the quaint, cunning, delightful, inimitable wags and wits your Lovers and Levers, your Edgeworths and Halls, have pictured. It is a singular thing, that, though they are from the first free and easy in word and manner, they are never offensively so. Native tact, good humour, and warmth of heart take from their advances all appearance of boldness or impertinence. Our driver on this occasion was disposed to be particularly sociable, though not in the jocular way. He was a man of much intelligence for his station, of a serious, even sad, expression of face; and he talked powerfully and with intense bitterness of the wrongs and sorrows of the Irish peasantry. I was struck by hearing him ascribe most of their sufferings, not to the English government, but to the native Irish proprietors, who, he averred, had revelled in heartless, wasteful extravagance, while the people starved, until since the failure of the potato, when many of them have been reduced to absolute want. It was almost fearful to mark the wild gleam in the man's eye as he spoke his fierce joy in this retributive justice.

We were truly fortunate in having letters to Mr. Shaw, of Monkstown, on the beautiful Bay of Cork, and received from him and his family every possible kindness, and enjoyed in his charming house most gracious hospitality. Mr. Shaw has on his property the ruins of two castles-the one at Monkstown, an exceedingly pic

turesque structure, dating only from the time of Elizabeth; but the other, Belvelly Castle, upon Cove Island, at least eight hundred years old. We spent much of our time, while with these friends, on the water, rowing from shore to shore, and point to point, of this noble bay, feasting our sight and storing our memory with glorious pictures. We one day rowed to Cove Island, and dined in a hall of the old castle, which had rung to the clang of rude armour, and the wassail songs of Erin's princes and knights, and to the wild war-notes of Irish harpers, eight hundred years ago.

I had much pleasure in visiting, with Mr. Shaw, two or three of the cottages of his tenants; for I found them all neat, orderly, and comfortable. I have since seen nothing to compare with them.

During our stay at Cork we were twice at the Exhibition, and were interested and gratified far beyond our expectation. One can no longer despair for Ireland, surrounded by such proofs of the taste, talent, and industry of her people. On our last visit we were accompanied by Sir Thomas Dean, who may count among his honours that of having been the chief projector and most able and faithful supporter of this noble work. God speed him, and such as he, in all worthy efforts to develope and encourage art and uplift honest industrial pride in Ireland.

Belfast, September 5.

On the morning of August 16 we left Cork for Killarney, by way of Bantry and Glengariff. After a short run on the rail we took a stage-coach, choosing outside seats, like enthusiastic tourists as we are, though the day was dark and showery. There was little in the scenery, and less in the condition of the country and people, to repay us for our exposure to wind and weather, until we reached Bantry. I can never forget the forlorn, unmitigated wretchedness of the people who thronged round us at the little town of Dunmanway. Among the crowd appealing to us, in all possible variations of the whine mendicious and mendacious, we saw not one man or woman in the national costume and cover-all-the double-caped greatcoat and the hooded cloak; all was squalor and tatters, soul-sickening and disgusting. Here was infancy, nude and needy, reaching out its dirty little hands; and second childhood, bent and tottering, with palsied palm extended, eyeing you with all the mute wistfulness of a starved spaniel. There was a full assortment of the halt, the hump-backed, and the crippled-all degrees of sightlessness and unsightliness. I turned away from the miserable creatures with a heart heavy with hopeless sympathy and vain pity, and with a conscience stricken for all my own sins of unthankfulness and discontent. And here I may as well pause to remark briefly on the condition and appearance of the peasants in the south of Ireland. Knowing that I could not fairly judge of this class by the idle and ragged crowd who gather round the coach or car in the towns and hamlets, I took occasion, during my stay at Cork, to visit several of the country cottages of the working peasants, in company with one of the landed proprietors. In but one out of six did I find a regular fire-place and chimney; in but one was there a window of glass, and that consisted of a single pane.

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The others had-with the exception of the door, and a hole in the roof, from which the smoke, after wandering at its own sweet will through the cabin, found its way out-no opening whatever for light or ventilation. But I forget-we did remark a sort of improvised window in one other. In a low, miserable hovel, belonging to a carman, we found a horse occupying full a third of the scanty room; and above his manger a small opening had been made through the mud-wall, the good man having found that the health of the animal required what himself and his family lived without-air. To the mistress of this unique habitation, whose one apartment served for kitchen, sleeping-room, stable, and hall, I said, in horrified amazement, "How is it possible you can live with that horse?" "Sure, miss, he's no throuble," she replied; "and it's little room he takes, after all; for the childer can sleep on the straw, under him, just, and creep between his legs, and he niver harming them at all, the sinsible cratur." It is a common thing to see hens drying their feathers by the genial peat glow, and pigs enjoying the pleasures of the domestic hearth. In another cabin we found two curious old crones, living together on apparently nothing, who loaded us with blessings in the original tongue, and actually went on their knees to offer up thanksgiving for a few halfpence, which we gave as a consideration for intruding on their retirement.

Yet, though living in low, smoky, ill-ventilated cabins,-often with mouldering thatches, and always with damp earth floors, with a pool of stagnant water or a dunghill before the door-though themselves ill fed and but half clad, it is a singular fact, that the peasants of southern Ireland are apparently a healthful and hardy race. You occasionally see fine specimens of manly and childish beauty among them; but a pretty Irish peasant girl we found the rarest of rara avises. There are some families of Spanish origin about Bantry, and of these we encountered one or two dark-eyed, olive-cheeked beggar boys, who seemed to have leaped out of one of Murillo's pictures. The policemen everywhere are a particularly fine-looking set of fellows; indeed, none but well-made, tall, and powerful men have any chance of enrolment in this honourable terror-inspiring, omnipresent corps. The professional beggars of Ireland seem a peculiarly hopeless and irredeemable class-not because of the poverty of the country alone, but from their own nherent and inherited idleness and viciousness. They are persistent, pertinacious, sometimes impudent, and often quick-witted and amusing. A friend of ours was waylaid by a certain "widdy" woman, with an unlimited amount of ragged responsibilities at her heels. On hearing her doleful story, our friend advised the fair mendicant to take refuge in the poor-house. "The poor-house!" she exclaimed; sure it's meself that keeps the poorest house in all Cork, yer honor." I was amused by an appeal made by an elderly dame to one of our fellow-passengers: "Here's a fine fat gentleman: sure he'll give a sixpence to a poor bony body that hasn't broken her fast all the day."

OMER PACHA, AND THE REGENERATION OF

TURKEY.

THE life of Omer Pacha is connected with perhaps the most important period in the history of Turkey-an epoch of transition from the old state of things to the new. We shall not stop, however, to relate the various events of his life, as they are familiar to all readers of the daily press; but shall simply recite such leading circumstances of his career, as we think may satisfy the curiosity of our readers.

Of his early life but little is known. His family name is Latkes, his origin is Croatian, his native place Vlaski, a village in the district of Ogulini, thirteen leagues from Fiume on the Adriatic Sea. He was born in 1801; the religion of his forefathers, and of his youthful years, was the Greek united faith, namely, that branch of the Greek worship, subject to the Roman Pontiff. He received a liberal education. His father enjoyed the important charge of lieutenant administrator of the district, and his uncle was invested with ecclesiastical functions. His instruction in mathematics and military engineering he received at the military school of Thurm, near Carlstadt in Transylvania; and, in 1822, when twenty-one years of age, after having distinguished himself in his studies, he entered the corps of Ponts et Chaussées in the Austrian service, with the rank of lieutenant, that body having just been organised by the government.

At twenty-nine he left the Austrian service; but the true cause of his taking this step has always remained a mystery. Many attributed it to a family misfortune; some to a quarrel he had with his superiors, followed by acts that would have subjected him to a court-martial.

Having made his escape, he passed into Bosnia, in 1830, where he arrived wholly unknown, and it was only with difficulty he was able to engage himself as a servant in Kosrew Pacha's house, who was then at Bosna-Serai. Bosnia was, at the time, infested by hordes of Janissaries, who had been dispersed and banished into Asia Minor and a few European provinces, where they nursed revenge against the Government for the injuries inflicted upon them.

The second Giaour Padisciak* had of late organised his troops on a principle of reform, not only as to discipline, but also as to the mode of equipment. Only a year ago the wide and overflowing dress, the majestic turbans, the silken shawls, and rich furs had

The old school, the adversaries of European reform, have numbered the reforming Sultans under the name of Giaour Padisciak (Infidel Sultans). The first was Selim III.; the second was Mahmud; the third is Abdul Medjid. The name of Giaour is not very exactly rendered by the European term Infidel -it is something more; it also implies a hearty detestation and contempt.

given way to the more simple fez, and to the European pantaloon. He began himself to assume that costume. The Khatti-Sherif ordering this change was only promulgated on the 3rd of March 1829, and the sensation which the new dress occasioned among the people did not fail, according to eye-witnesses, to draw forth tears and public mourning.

All the regular troops of the army he had formed, among which were the Asakir Muhammediè (Mahomet's soldiers), who were organised after the destruction of the Janissaries, in order, by a religious name, to flatter the popular sentiments; and the Asakiri-redifei mensure (a new militia), abandoned, whether they liked it or not, the picturesque and rich costume, adopted the new uniform, and accepted the command of foreign officers. An indispensable condition to the advancement of a foreigner in the Turkish service was conversion to Islamism, and Latkes became a Mussulman, under the cognomen of Omer.

Meanwhile old Turkey was clamorous in its protests against the progress of reform; nor was it long before its indignation broke out into acts of violence and bloodshed. Popular fury was often directed against Europeans, who were regarded as abettors of reform; and in August, 1831, 10,000 houses belonging to Europeans were a prey to the flames. The trombagis (firemen) called on to put down the conflagration, remained aloof indifferent; the old men, caressing their beards as a mark of satisfaction, balanced themselves in the kaicks to enjoy the spectacle, or prostrated themselves in the direction of Mecca, and cried, "It is the punishment of the crime of Navarino. Let the renegade look and learn how the Prophet treats the infidels, his allies."

It was full time that these seditious demonstrations, and the sanguinary scenes enacted under Sultan Selim, Sultan Mustapha, and Barakdar Mustapha Pacha, should teach prudence to the fortunate, but daring and impetuous Mahmud. He felt the necessity of surrounding himself with faithful and vigorous-minded friends, rather than with blind Seids. He chose men qualified both as intelligent advisers and men of action. He invited to a great banquet in his palace of Top-Kapù his Ridjals (great state functionaries), the Muderris (the teachers of the law), the Khodjas (professors), the Zabitan (officers), the seven generals of the Empire, the magnates of the nation, and the warmest partisans of his reforms. With glowing confidence and enthusiasm he spoke in the name of the national interest and the public cause, and called upon all to sacrifice personal feelings, party spirit, and internal divisions, to the fortune and the destinies of the Empire. Mahmud's unusual familiarity astonished the greater number of the bystanders. It was an innovation at variance with the dignity of the " Shade of Allah on earth," but all felt themselves individually flattered by it. When the salams that Oriental courtesy prescribes had been multiplied to a countless number, at a hint given to the Techrifatgi (great master of the ceremonies), a large piece of tapestry was raised, a gate was thrown open, and the Sultan invited all to enter. It was a vast hall magnificently lighted. A large