which, with its various beauties of wood and water, recalled to my mind the description which the younger Pliny gives of his villa. Within and near the lake there are a great many petrifactions, or, as Delille says,

"Les bois que les eaux ont transformés en pierre:
Soit qu'un limon durci les couvre au dehors,

Soit que des sues pierreux aient pénétré leurs corps."

You know that the best hones are made of the wood petrified in this lake. In the Rebellion of '98, Lough Neagh resounded with the cries of massacre, and the father of Lord O'Neal was one of the victims:

"Alas! thou lovely lake, that e'er
Thy banks should echo sounds of fear!
The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep
So stilly on thy bosom deep,

The lark's blithe carol, from the cloud,
Seems for the scene too gayly loud."

Yesterday morning early I hired a boat and made a delightful excursion on the lake: during the whole time, I was favoured with a beautiful sky, such as Claude would have painted, and such as he alone knew how to represent; the day resembled one of those so finely described by Madame de Sevigne, "des jours files d'or et de soie." As soon as "light's first blushes tinged the distant hills," I descended to the bank of the river, and stretched myself in a sequestered grot: the noise of the billows lashing the shore, and the agitation of the rippled surface of the stream, made me

feel the pleasure of existence, as it were, with out taking the trouble of thinking; and the transiency of the waves presented a melancholy image of the instability of fortune and happiness. I entered the boat, and rowed for some distance, in order to gaze on the scenery on shore; then I laid up the oars, and let the bateau glide along the stream of its own accord. I gazed on the crystal abyss, and watched the fish darting like arrows through the water, displaying their golden oars through the transparent waves, or leaping from the bosom of the stream, and skimming along its glassy surface. The nightingales on the surrounding trees, had been rocked to sleep by the zephyrs, gently agitating the limbs on which they rested; but as nature dawned into strength and brightness, they poured forth torrents of melody from their mossy boughs. Now and then the shrill voice of the dove filled the wide groves; while the lark springing up from a neighbouring meadow, towered into an invisible speck, leaving a strain of music in its rapid career.

As I walked towards the town, I stepped into a rustic grave-yard, reading as I went along, the beautiful elegy of Gray, which appeared illustrated in the objects before me. Some of the old tomb-stones were sunk below the surface of the earth, by the weight of time and oblivion. On the new-made graves had been scattered, by some pious hand, dew drops like the recent tears of grief, and daisies which lay withering on the fresh clods. The silence,

the utter loneliness and solemnity of the scene, produced a melancholy reverie, which was interrupted by a funeral procession advancing to a new dug grave. The coffin was soon deposited in the chasm that appeared to yawn for it; the hollow sound produced by the clods falling on the bier, made an impression on my mind which I will never forget. Upon inquiry of one of the attendants, I learned that a young peasant girl, who had fallen a victim to the arts of an accomplished villain, was the person who had just been "in her narrow cell for ever laid." Some months ago she was happy in the innocent tranquillity of rural occupations:

"Her life, as free from thought as sin,
Slept like a lake, till Love threw in
His talisman, and woke the tide,

And spread its trembling circles wide."

The hopeful son of a mighty fox-" hunter before the Lord," saw her at a village fairbut why should I detail all the circumstances of his baseness: the "sad eventful history" of this poor girl, was similar to that of Marmontel's Laurette; only it ended more unhappily.

The melancholy impressions made on my mind, lighted up a long train of awful reflections, and, for a while, I was deaf to all the 16 melodies of the morn." I retired to the hotel, and, after breakfast, sallied out in quest of objects to overcome my mournful thoughts, and force my heart into the expansion of happiness; but the heat was so great, that my garment stuck to me like the envenomed present

of Dejanira to the back of Alcides. I returned to my room, and sat down from a praiseworthy habit which I have got into, of committing every day my thoughts to paper:

"Chaque jour de ma vie est une feuille dans mon livre."

But I am not quite so particular as certain Scotch and German tourists, who describe the size of church doors and windows, copy inscriptions from "storied urns," and sketch old shattered towers and Gothic monuments.

In the afternoon, I resumed my solitary wandering in quest of "fresh scenes and pastures new.' The sun had nearly sunk below the horizon, when I walked along a path as it winded, like a serpent, to the top of a hill fringed with the richest foliage. The last rays of the sun seemed to kindle the lake into billows of living fire; the magnificent expanse gleamed in its pellucid beauty, and gently rippled before the soft evening zephyrs. Overcome by the sensations produced by the enjoyment of this prospect, I sunk into one of those delicious reveries which are a sort of shadow of the pleasures of Paradise. From this state I was started by the croaking of a raven, whose wild cry thrilled through the heart of the wood; then flapping its "funeral wing," it directed its flight, like a spirit of darkness, to its solitary cove.

After spending a day and a night at Antrim, I proceeded through Ballymenagh to the Giants' Causeway. Some thousands of acres are

covered with erect basaltic pillars, of different shapes,*

"Which, like giants stand To centinel enchanted land."

It is generally described as a mole, or quay, projecting into the sea; the columns stand in contact with each other, and somewhat resemble the appearance of a solid honey-comb. The angles of one frequently shoot over those of the other, so that they are completely locked together, and can never be separated without a fracture of these parts. Rowing round the promontory, I enjoyed a scenery magnificent beyond description

"Around its base the bare rocks stood
Like naked giants in the flood"

I was filled with astonishment on viewing the columns which seemed to have been erected, in parallel ranges, with architectural regularity. The space between the upright masses is as accurately filled up as in the honeycomb, and so closely as to hold water when a hollow in the surface suffers it to collect! This beautiful and curious arrangement extends itself through a large tract of country in every direction; insomuch, that several of the smaller

*These immense blocks of stone stood in the gray light, like the phantom forms of antedeluvian giants, who, shrouded in the habiliments of the dead, came to revisit the earth, which they had plagued by their oppression and polluted by their sins, till they brought down upon it the vengeance of alk-suffering Heaven." The Pirate