rest; and pressing her to my heart, received from her rosy lips the soft kiss of affection and acceptance. She had resolved to fly with me from the home of her parents, rather than fulfil the promise they had made. My prescribed ignorance of my own fate, and of my own affairs, hindered my knowing that her intended husband had overheard this confession. We had fixed the hour for flight the evening following that on which she owned her love, and preceding the day intended for his marriage. The blow was too powerful for him to resist; rage, jealousy, disappointment, and vengeance, occupied his whole mind; and the moment that my individual and particular conduct was disconnected from his proceedings, I discovered his desperate intention towards poor Mary.

That evening-the next she would be mine-that evening we had agreed that Mary should take her usual walk with her lover; and although he had appeared gloomy during the day, I had detected nothing in his thoughts which could justly alarm me; but when the evening closed in, and he by appointment came to fetch her for their ramble, then my power enabled me to foresee the train of circumstances which were to follow. The weapon was concealed in one of his pockets, which was to give his victim her death blow; its companion, which was to rid him of life, rested in the other. The course of his thoughts, of his intentions, was before me; the spot where he intended to commit the double murder, evident to my sight. As she was quitting the garden to meet him, I rushed after her; I entreated, I implored her not to stir. I foretold a storm-I suggested a thousand probable ills which might befal her if she went; but she told me that she had promised to meet Charles, and go she must; it was for the last time, she said she must go. Was I jealous of her?

"No, no, my sweet girl!" said I, "your life, dearer to me than my own, depends upon your compliance with my desire, that you will stay.

"My life," said Mary,

"Yes, beloved of my heart!" exclaimed I; "your cruel lover would be your murderer!"

"Charles murder me!" said she, half wild, and quite incredulous, "you are mad." "No, no, I know it," said I, still holding

her.

"This is the height of folly," replied Mary, calmly: "pray let me go-I have promised-it will lull suspicions am I not

yours?

Mary," said I, "I have a supernatural knowledge of events-I surrender itstay!"

At that instant the report of a pistol, near the place of appointment, roused our attention from ourselves; and running to the place whence the noise proceeded, we found the unhappy victim of jealousy stone dead, and weltering in his blood: the pistol intended to take my Mary's life, was yet clenched in his cold hand.

From this moment my power was gone, and I began again to see the world as my fellow-creatures do. Mary became my wife with the consent of her parents; and as I was returning from church, I saw amongst the crowd, before the village inn, my old friend in green, who accosted me with great goodnature, and congratulated me upon my

enviable situation.

"Sir," said I, "I thank you; and I thank you for having by some means, inexplicable to me, gratified the ruling passion of my heart. In the ignorance of my nature, I desired to possess a power incompatible with the finite character of the human mind. I have now learnt by experience, that a limit is set to human knowledge for the happiness of man, and in future I shall be perfectly satisfied with the blessings which a wise and good Providence has afforded us, without daring to presume upon the bounty by which we are placed so pre-eminently above all other living creatures."

"A very moral and proper observation," said my friend, evidently displeased with my moralizing

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

Saying which, he turned upon his heel, and was lost among the throng.

I have several times since seen the old

gentleman walking about London, looking as hale, and as hearty as ever, but I have always believe he has seen me, more than once, by avoided him; and although I have reason to a sort of tacit consent we never acknowledge each other. I returned to my home blessed with an affectionate wife; hoping for the best, and putting our trust in God for the future.➡ profiting by the past, enjoying the present, Keepsake.

IRISH AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES.

(From Blackwood's Mag.-No. CXLVI.)

THERE is nothing in which the Irish are more behind the English than in farming; yet their material-the ground, is in general better than ours, and their winters are considerably more mild. Agricultural matters are commonly managed in such a wretched make-shift way, as would appear at once savage and ridiculous to an English farmer. We mean as to the general management of the whole farm, not only in the field, but in the farm yard. The crops, when grown up, appear very well, for they cover the cobbling work beneath; but in the preparation for the crop, and in the management of the ground after it is taken off, the greatest slovenliness prevails. It is not so much ignorance as want of means, and a perverse addictation to old habits, which are the cause of this. Great numbers of the peasantry come to England every year to reap the harvest, and many substantial farmers and graziers come yet oftener, to sell their cattle, and they see a better system; but the first class are exposed to all manner of ridicule (a weapon, in the use of which the common people in Ireland are singularly expert), if they give up their old customs, however barbarous; while the old women fail not to call up some wise saw of superstition, to exhibit the danger of improvement and things go on in the old way. The second class do not like, or cannot afford to go to the expense of important improvements, and they argue, with perhaps a good deal of truth, that their system is so much cheaper, that they save in the outlay as much as they would gain in produce, by a better and more expensive method. Here, we feel that something more than the mere profit at the end of the year should be considered, if a man wish to be comfortable and respectable. These ends can never be obtained by a mean slovenly system of miserable economy. the misfortune of these people in Ireland is, that they have no taste for comfort and respectability; and they are but too often cursed with landlords, who take no pains to encourage such a taste. In England a farmer has a direct interest in employing all the labour upon the farm which the land is capable of receiving with profit; for the more labourers he employs, the fewer he will have to support at the workhouse; but in Ireland there is no such stimulus, and the ground is lamentably unwrought. It is common to take three crops from one manuring, and so good is the land, that sometimes it will yield five. The favourite plan, when it is permitted by the landlord, is to pare the surface, and burn it in small heaps, which are then spread over the land. This manure

But

produces excellent potatoes, and good aftercrops-probably because the weeds being all destroyed by the burning, the ground is not obliged to nourish any thing but the seed sown in it. They always either burn the surface, or provide manure for potatoes, which are generally both planted, and taken out of the ground with the spade, or "fack," as they term the instrument with which they dig, and which differs from the common spade, in being longer and narrower, with the handle at one side, instead of in the centre. Although planting potatoes in drills, which admits of their being covered, and afterwards as they shoot up, earthed with the plough, and finally turned out of the ground with the same instrument, is sometimes practised; yet planting in what they call "lazy beds" is much more common. The cut potatoes are laid upon long beds, between each of which a narrow trench is dug, and the earth taken out is thrown on either side upon the seed which has been spread out. In this way, it is obvious that the plough cannot be used, either in planting or taking them up, but the crops are in general very good. They have no notion, however, of storing them with the care and neatness which the English farmer bestows upon this much used and much abused root. The Irishman commonly tumbles them into a pit, as broad as it is long, piles them as high as he can, and beats the earth close over them, often without putting any thing between the earth and the potatoes. In England a long trench is dug, about two feet deep, and four or five broad, into which the potatoes are thrown, and piled up to about four feet from the surface, with a gradual slope on each side like the roof of a house; sheaves of straw are then laid against the pile on both sides, the ends projecting above the top of the ridge; the earth is beaten down over the straw up to the ridge, but not on it, so that the straw forms a kind of chimney, by which air is admitted to the potatoes inside, yet gets so far warmed in its passage, as to avoid the risk of frost.*

The Irish fields are excessively unsheltered; perhaps the mildness of the climate makes shelter less necessary, but it is a sad deficiency in appearance. They are rarely divided by hedges, and even when they are, the hedges are stunted, loose, and ragged, without any standard trees studding them at intervals, as in England. All this we must again attribute in a great measure, to the shameful neglect of landlords, who, beyond their own demesne, seem to take no more interest in the beauty

* We have been informed, that in Essex, where potatoes are more extensively grown than in any thod of storing them. A pit is dug of considerable other English county, they have a peculiar medimensions, and filled with water; into this the potatoes are tumbled, and piled up as high as can be accomplished above the surface, in a pyramidal form. Clay is then beaten on the heap, over straw, and then the whole is thatched, and so left.

of their estate, than if it were a mere convenience to obtain rent from, and not a portion of their country under their immediate guardianship, which they should feel themselves bound in honour to treat with some care and attention.

The owners of land in Ireland have to answer to God and their country for an enormous deal of evil, of which, actively or passively, they have been the occasion. We wish we could arouse in them that sense of shame, which should make any landed gen. tleman blush to see his estate in the beggarly condition in which the greater part of Irish estates are to be found. We wish we could make them feel, that to have bare, scald, starved-looking acres, is as unbecoming as to wear a shabby thread-bare coat, and that to have their estates inhabited by hungry, halfclothed wretches, is not less disgraceful than a crowd of ragged menials would be about their doors in the squares of London.

It is absolutely necessary that those, who would improve their estates, should lay out a considerable portion of capital upon them; and if they have not money to do so, they should sell some of their acres, and improve the rest with the purchase-money. There is in Ireland a paltry pride of poor gentility, which Englishmen scorn and laugh at, that

makes a man rather be called the lord of a thousand wretched starved acres, than of the more valuable property of five hundred acres well cultivated; and this is an absurdity which often stands in the way of improvement. Landlords must get capital, and lay it out, if they expect to improve. In fact, if they do not, they will not receive so much rent from the estate when set in large divisions, as they do from the small tenants, for these latter look for such an exceedingly small portion for themselves, that they pay more rent than the respectable tenants of larger portions could pay. Except, however, upon the very narrowest principles of gain, this should not induce a landlord to prefer small tenants. The proprietor of a house in London would probably get more rent by letting it in separate rooms, than by letting it altogether; but he would have a disgraceful troublesome tenantry, who would soon wear out his house; and so far, what is true of a house, is also true of the divisions of an

estate.

We must take leave of this part of our subject, that we may turn to another very important branch; namely, the causes which tend, to retard the progress of manufactures and commerce in Ireland. One of these is decidedly, absenteeism; but it cannot be denied that the character of the Irish people themselves has always been unfavourable to their advancement in manufacturing and commercial greatness, to which frugality, patience, perseverance, industry, and strict attention, are very requisite; and for the

possession of which good qualities, the Irish are by no means remarkable. While an English tradesman or shopkeeper would be up early at his business, dine in the middle of the day, and work hard afterwards, and hardly ever bestow a thought on any thing but his business; an Irishman, without the tenth-part of the means, would endeavour to combine the life of the gentleman with that of the tradesman; make his appearance in his shop after breakfast, attend to business till five or six in the evening, and be no more seen till the morning. If, notwithstanding he should be so fortunate as to make a few thousands, which would cause an Englishman to extend his business and begin to work harder than ever, he will retire to his country house, and waste in hospitable profusion the profits which should have gone to augment his capital. This is no exaggerated statement; it is the common practice of the Irish, and most certainly, it is one great cause of capital not accumulating among the trading classes. It is a very rare thing in Ireland to find a man absorbed in business; he dashes through it in careless haste, that he may have time afterwards for amusement. Indeed, a looseness and carelessness, in every department of life, from the highest to the lowest of the people, is an important characteristic of the Irish nation, and is extremely unfavourable to their advancement in the greater number of the affairs of life, where order and discipline are the surest heralds of success. Their sanguine temperament, too, is frequently the cause of great rashness in their enterprises, and of consequent disappointment and miscarriage. The story of the Irishman who laid out all his money on a splendid purse, quite forgetting that he had nothing left to put in it, is not an inapt illustration of many important undertakings in Ireland. Of this nature were the two great canals from Dublin. The grand canal is a magnificent work for mean purposes. It is of great breadth, and has noble docks communicating with the sea, where almost the trade of Liverpool might be accommodated, but where there is absolutely nothing done; a single vessel may occasionally be seen in them, perhaps a pleasure boat

"Tossing upon the waters listlessly,"

but the din of busy life-the crush of waggons, and the hurrying to and fro of men, are never seen there. The docks are noble sheets of water bound in by deep quays of cut stone, with a warehouse here and there on the banks, dropping into decay. We need hardly add, that the concern is in a state of bankruptcy; the original stockholders got nothing at all, and those who lent money to carry on the works, got only two-thirds of the promised interest, without any chance of being able to get back the principal. The