Cashel, Oct. 12th, 1828.

Dearest Friend,

Why do I like so much to write to you? Certainly because it gives you pleasure to hear from me from afar: but also, because you understand me, which nobody else does. This alone would suffice to enchain me to you for ever, for I live in the world, but with you alone,—as much alone, as if we were on a desert island. Thousands of beings swarm around me, but I can speak only with you. If I attempt it with others, my habit and disposition, always to speak the truth, often cost me dear; or I blunder in some way or other. Worldly wisdom is as decidedly and unattainably denied to my nature, as to the swan—who in winter waddles clumsily across the frozen lake before your window—the power of running races with the sledges that glide over it. However, his time too comes, when he cleaves his own free and beautiful element, or sails through the blue Æther. Then he is himself again.

But back to Cashel.—I used my good friend’s horses, which daily stand at my disposal, for a second excursion to the ruins of Holy Cross, six miles off, the worthy rival of the Devil’s Rock. We amused ourselves by riding across the country, and leaping some stone enclosures; and reached a height from which ‘The Rock,’ as it is here briefly called, presents the most imposing aspect. The circle of distant blue mountains encircling the rock, which stands alone in the midst of the fruitful plain; the castle, abbey, and cathedral,—which, forming a majestic group, look down from the summit, and in silent and sublime language relate the history of successive ages; lastly, the town at its foot, so wretched, although the seat of two archbishops, (a Protestant and a Catholic,) and which also tells its own mute but intelligible tale concerning the present times,—combine to awaken varied and contradictory emotions.

Holy Cross is of a totally different character.—Cashel stands in solitary grandeur, all rock and stone, barren and black, with only here and there a straggling ivy-branch creeping feebly through a crevice. Holy Cross, on the contrary, lies in a valley on the banks of the Suir, buried in copsewood, and clothed with ivy of such luxuriant growth that hardly a wall can be seen: and even the lofty cross, the last which still remains standing,[141] is so enwreathed with it, that it seems as if it clung fondly to shelter it from every profane touch. The interior is magnificent, and contains the beautiful monument of Donough O’Brien, king of Limerick, who founded this abbey in the twelfth century; and a canopy, exquisitely carved in stone, under which repose the ashes of the abbots,—both in perfect preservation. The view from the tower is beautiful. You are very near the Devil’s Bite, whose grotesque form is too striking not to have furnished matter for legends to the Irish, who have a story ready fitted to every extraordinary natural object.

We hastened back sooner than I wished, in consequence of an invitation I had received from the Catholic dean to meet the archbishop and sixteen other clergymen at dinner: no layman but myself was invited. The table did honour to a chaplain of the Holy Father. “You never were at a dinner, I dare say,” said the archbishop to me, “at which all the guests were clerical.” “Yes, indeed, my lord,” replied I; “and what is more, I myself was a sort of bishop a little while ago.” “How is that possible?” said he, surprised. I explained to him, that I * * *

* * * * * * *

“We are, therefore,” said I, “eighteen priests here assembled; and I can assure you, that I make no distinction between Catholics and Protestants;—that I see in both only Christians.”

The conversation then turned on religious subjects, and was in a perfectly free and impartial spirit. Never did I perceive the least trace of bigotry or of the disgusting affectation of puritanical rigour. At the dessert, several sang their national songs, some of which had no pretension to sanctity. As the one who sat next me remarked some little surprise on my countenance, he said in my ear, “Here we forget the foreign * * * *, the archbishop, and the priest,—at table, we are only gentlemen, and meet to enjoy ourselves.” This man was the undisputed descendant of an Irish royal line; and although no trace of it remained about him, he was not the less proud of it. “I have a strange abode for a clergyman,” said he; “if ever you visit Ireland again, I hope you will allow me the pleasure of doing the honours of it to you. It lies immediately under the Devil’s Bite, and a finer view than this same Bite commands does not exist in all Ireland.” He afterwards remarked, that to be a Catholic in this country is almost a proof of noble blood: as only the new families are Protestant, the Catholics must of necessity be the old ones; for since the reformation they have made no proselytes.

The melodies which were sung had a striking resemblance to those of the Wendish nations. This is one of the many features of similarity which strike me between those nations and the Irish. Both manufacture, and have an exclusive taste for, spirit distilled from corn; both live almost entirely on potatoes; both have the bagpipe; both are passionate lovers of singing and dancing, and yet their national airs are of a melancholy character; both are oppressed by a foreign nation, and speak a gradually expiring language, which is rich and poetical, though possessed of no literature; both honour the descendants of their ancient princes, and cherish the principle that what is not renounced is not utterly lost; both are superstitious, cunning, and greatly given to exaggeration; rebellious where they can, but somewhat cringing to decided and established power; both like to go ragged, even when they have the means of dressing better; and lastly, spite of their miserable living, both are capable of great exertion, though they prefer indolence and loitering; and both alike enjoy a fertile soil, which the Wendish phrase calls “the roast meat of poor people.” The better qualities which distinguish the Irish are theirs alone.

I took advantage of the acquaintance I made to-day, to gain more information respecting the actual proportion in number between Catholics and Protestants. I found all I had heard fully confirmed, and have gained some further details: among others, the official list of a part of the present parishes and livings in the diocese of Cashel, which is too remarkable not to send it to you, though the matter is somewhat dry, and seems almost too pedantic for our correspondence.

In thirteen districts, 78,182 Catholics and 2,379 Protestants.

Each of these districts has only one Catholic priest, but often four or five Protestant clergymen; so that, on an average, there are scarcely twenty persons to each Protestant congregation. Kilcummin is the place I mentioned to you where there is not a single parishioner, and the service, which according to law must be performed once a year, is enacted in the ruin with the help of a Catholic clerk. In another, called Tollamane, the same farce takes place. But not a whit the less must the non-attending parishioners pay the uttermost farthing of their tithes and other dues; and no claims are so bitterly enforced as those of this Christian church:—there is no pity, at least none for Catholics. A man who cannot pay the rent of the church-land he farms, or his tithes to the parson, inevitably sees his cow and his pig sold, (furniture, bed, &c. he has long lost,) and himself, his wife, and probably a dozen children, (‘car rien n’engendre comme les pommes de terre et la misÈre,’) thrust out into the road, where he is left to the mercy of that Providence who feeds the fowls of the air and clothes the lilies of the field. ‘Quelle excellente chose qu’une religion d’État!’ So long as such exist, and every individual is not permitted, as in the United States, to worship God in his own way, without any civil disability or loss,—so long the age of barbarism has not ceased. The time must come when in the state, as in nature, laws alone must rule. Religion will then be left to her appropriate functions: she will console us in misfortune, and heighten our pleasures; but she will cease to wield the sceptre or the sword. The laws alone should employ inflexible restraint; opinion should enjoy unbounded freedom. The civilized portion of mankind have a right to demand this at the stage to which they have attained, and to which they have fought their way through so much suffering and blood. What frantic folly, to want to prescribe to men what is to become of them after death, or what they shall believe about it! It is bad enough that here on earth the best institutions, the wisest laws, must ever be defective;—let the invisible future at least shape itself out to every mind according to that mind’s power and comprehension! And yet have great and wise and good men thought themselves justified in exercising this sort of despotism. But such is human frailty! the same individual will prove himself sublime in eleven things, and in the twelfth think and act like an idiot.

While Cardinal Richelieu afforded to all succeeding ages the model of a great and sagacious minister, his chief solicitude was to be thought a good poet; and he tortured himself to write wretched tragedies, which after his death were waste paper. The great Louis, who might be called the absolute king ‘par excellence,’ seriously exclaimed after the battle of Malplaquet, ‘Et Dieu, a-t-il donc oubliÉ ce que j’ai fait pour lui?’ Cromwell, at once an enthusiast and the most audacious and most cunning of dissemblers, after heaping murder on murder and violence on violence, found his conscience tranquillized, when in answer to his interrogatories a clergyman assured him, that a man who had once felt assured of the motions of grace within him, must be eternally blessed, let him have done what he would. “Then I am saved,” cried the Protector joyfully, “for I know to a certainty that once, at least, I felt myself in a state of grace.” Such are men! and therefore is it that human authority will never have weight with me, when it is not confirmed by my own judgment, exercised to the best of my power after mature reflection. Nay, were even all mankind opposed to me, it could not alter an opinion so formed. Thank God! we are all individual minds, and not sheep who must follow one leader. And what is universal opinion? One is tempted to think it is only another name for universal error, so frequently does it alter. It seems to depend only on time and place. If you are born in Constantinople you swear by Mahomet; in the rest of Europe by Moses or Christ; in India, by Brama. Had you come into the world a subject of Augustus, you would have been a Pagan. In the Middle Ages you would have advocated fist-law (Faust-recht;) and now you clamour for the liberty of the press, as the one thing without which it is impossible to exist.[142] You yourself, in the course of your short life,—how different is your being! how different your modes of thinking, as a child, as a youth, as an old man! Herder was right when he said, “No two drops of water are alike,—and yet you would give to all mankind the same belief!” We might add, No atom remains unchanged, and you would bid the human mind stand still!

Before the archbishop retired, he said to me in a most obliging manner, “You are, as you tell us, a bishop, consequently you owe obedience to the archbishop. I employ this my authority to command you to dine here to-morrow with your colleague the Bishop of Limerick, whom we expect to-day;—I must hear of no excuse.” I answered, taking up the jest, “I readily confess that it does not beseem me to withstand the discipline of the Church, and Your Grace[143] and the Dean know so well how to sweeten obedience, that I submit the more willingly.”

I passed the evening in the society of the * * *. I have seldom found Protestant clergymen so frank and sincere as these Catholics. We came to the conclusion, that we must either receive blindly the hereditary faith the Church prescribes; or, if this be not in our power, from our own religious system as the result of individual thoughts and individual feelings,—which may rightly be called the religion of philosophers. The * * * spoke French most fluently, I therefore quote his own words: “Heureusement on peut en quelque sorte combiner l’un et l’autre; car, au bout du compte, il faut une religion positive au peuple.” “Et dites surtout,” replied I, “qu’il en faut une aux rois et aux prÊtres; car aux uns elle fournit le ‘par la grÂce de Dieu, et aux autres, de la puissance, des honneurs, et des richesses; le peuple se contenterait, peut-Être, de bonnes lois et d’un gouvernement libre.” “Ah,” interrupted he, “you think like Voltaire,

“Ma foi,” said I, “si tous les prÊtres vous ressemblaient je penserais bien autrement.”

October, 13th: Evening.

I was unfortunately unable to keep my word with my friendly Amphitryon. A ‘megrim’ confined me all day to my bed. The archbishop sent me word that he would cure me; and, if I would but bring firm faith, would be sure to drive away the headache-fiend by a well-applied exorcism. I was, however, obliged to reply, that this devil was one of the most tractable, and that he respected no one but Nature, who sends and recalls him at her pleasure, which, alas! is seldom in less than four-and-twenty hours. I must therefore cut off even you, dearest Julia, with a few words.

October 14th.

‘AprÈs la pluie le soleil!’ This day has indemnified me for the last. I was on horseback by six o’clock, on my way to breakfast at Captain S—— ‘s country-house, where the sportsmen were to rendezvous for a hare-hunt. I found six or seven sturdy squires assembled: they do not think much, but their life is all the more gay and careless. After we had eaten and drank the most heterogeneous things,—coffee, tea, whiskey, wine, eggs, beef-steaks, honey, mutton-kidneys, cakes, and bread and butter, one after another,—the company seated themselves on two large cars, and took the direction of the Galtee mountains; where, at a distance of about eight miles, the hounds and horses were waiting for us. The weather was fine, and the ride very pleasant, along a ridge of hills commanding a full view of the fruitful plain, enclosed by mountains and richly varied by a multitude of gentlemen’s seats and ruins which are scattered over the whole level country. I enjoyed these beauties, as usual, alone; my companions had only dogs and horses in their heads. A spot was pointed out to me where a strange phenomenon took place ten years ago. A bog which lay at a considerable elevation, forced up probably by subterranean springs, was completely loosened from its bottom, and travelled on in a mass, sixteen feet high and three or four acres in extent. It moved on in a continual zigzag, according to the nature of the objects it encountered; and thus passed over a distance of nine miles till it reached the nearest river, into which it slowly discharged itself, causing an overflow of the waters. The rate of its progress was about three miles an hour. It laid waste every thing in its course. Houses were levelled with the earth at its touch; trees torn up at once by the roots; the fields completely covered, and the valleys filled with bog. An immense multitude had assembled at the end of its course, without the power of offering the slightest resistance to the progress of this awful and majestic phenomenon.

On our arrival at the appointed place of meeting, the horses were there, but no dogs. There were, however, a great many gentlemen, and instead of hunting hares we now all traversed the fields in every direction in search of the stray hounds. The sort of riding on these occasions is a thing of which people in our country can form no idea. Although most of the fields are enclosed by stone hedges from three to six feet high, and either piled loosely together or regularly cemented, and some of them edged by ditches; or strong walls of earth and stones pointed at the top, from five to seven feet high, with a ditch on one, sometimes on both sides;—all this is not admitted as any pretext whatever for the riders to deviate from a straight line. If I mistake not, I have already described to you how wonderfully the horses here leap; the sagacity is also admirable with which they distinguish a loose hedge from a firm one; one recently thrown up, from one hardened by time. The loose ones they spring over at one leap,—‘clear them,’ according to the technical expression; but they take the firm ones more easily, making a sort of halt at the top. All this takes place equally well in a full gallop, or, with the utmost coolness, at a foot pace, or with a very short run. Some gentlemen fell, but were only laughed at; for a man who does not break his neck on the spot must look for no pity, but on the contrary, ridicule. Others dismounted at very bad places, and their docile steeds leaped without them, and then stood still, grazing while their riders climbed over. I can assure you I very often thought I should be compelled to follow their example; but Captain S——, who knew the excellent horse on which he had mounted me, and was always by my side, encouraged me to trust with perfect security to the admirable creature; so that at the end of the day I had acquired a very considerable reputation even among ‘fox-hunters.’ Certainly it is only in Ireland one sees all that horses are capable of; the English are far behind them in this respect. Wherever a man could get through, my horse found means to do so in one way or other, leaping, crawling, or scrambling. Even in swampy places where he sank up to his girths, he laboured through without the least hurry or agitation, where a more lively and timorous horse, though equally strong, would certainly never have made his way. Such a horse on a field of battle would be beyond all price: but only very early and perfect training, joined to the excellence of the breed, can produce such an one. Experience shows that a peculiar bent of education, continued through centuries, ends in rendering the superinduced qualities natural even in animals. I saw pointers in England, which without any training, stood still and pointed as decidedly the first time they were taken out shooting, as if they had been ever so carefully trained.

The price of these admirable horses was extremely reasonable ten years ago, but since the English have begun to buy them for hunting, it is greatly raised, and an Irish hunter of the quality of the one I rode to-day, would fetch from a hundred and fifty to two hundred guineas. At the Galway races I saw a celebrated blood-hunter, for which Lord Cl—— had given the latter sum. He had won every ‘steeple-chase’ he had ever run; was as light as he was powerful, swift as the wind, a child could manage him, and no hedge was too high, no ditch too wide for him.

At length we found the dogs: the men who had the care of them having got completely drunk. Our hunt did not end till the approach of twilight. It was become excessively cold, and the flickering fire, with the table spread before it, shone most agreeably upon us on our arrival at Captain S——’s house. A genuine sportsman’s and bachelor’s feast followed. There was no attempt at show or elegance. Glasses, dishes, and all the furniture of the table, were of every variety of form and date: one man drank his wine out of a liqueur glass, another out of a champagne glass, the more thirsty out of tumblers. One ate with his great-grandfather’s knife and fork, his neighbour with a new green-handled one which the servant had just bought at Cashel fair. There were as many dogs as guests in the room: every man waited on himself; and the meats and potables were pushed on the table in abundance by an old woman and a heavy-fisted groom. The fare was by no means to be despised, nor the wine either, nor the potheen clandestinely distilled in the mountains, which I here tasted for the first time genuine and unadulterated. For sweetening a pudding, two large lumps of sugar were handed about, and we rubbed them together as the savages do sticks for kindling the fire. That the drinking was on a vast and unlimited scale you may safely presume: but though many at last could not speak very articulately, yet no one attempted any thing indecorous or ill-bred; and the few who were much excited, enhanced the merriment by many a ‘bon mot’ or droll story.

I am indebted for the great cordiality, I might say enthusiasm, with which I am received here, to my visit to the ‘Man of the People,’ with whom the curious believe me to be in God-knows-what connection. I am greeted with hurrahs in every village I ride through; and in Cashel, the market-place, in which my inn stands, is daily filled with people, who congregate at an early hour, and cheer me every time I go out. Many press forward and ask leave to shake my hand, (a no very gentle operation,) and are quite happy when they have accomplished this.

We rose from table very late. I was packed into my host’s car with another gentleman, and set off for Cashel through an icy fog. Every individual ran out to my assistance. One would draw a pair of furred gloves on my hands; another lent me a cloak; a third tied a handkerchief round my neck;—every man insisted on doing me some little service: and with many a ‘God bless his Highness!’ I was at length suffered to depart. The gentleman with me, Mr. O’R—, was the most original, and the most drunk of any. Equally bent on doing me some kindness, he invariably made the matter worse than he found it. He unfastened my cloak, in trying to fasten it; tore off my handkerchief, instead of tying it; and fell upon me, in his efforts to make room. His poetical humour displayed itself as characteristically when we reached the Rock of Cashel. It was dreadfully cold, and the cloudless firmament twinkled and glittered as if bestrewn with diamonds. Between the road and the rock, however, a thick mist lay along the earth, and covered the whole surrounding country as with a veil, though it did not rise higher than to the foot of the ruin. Its base was invisible, and it appeared as if it stood built on a cloud in the blue Æther, and in the midst of the stars. I had been admiring this striking night-scene some time, when my neighbour, whom I thought asleep, suddenly cried aloud, “Ah, there is my glorious rock! look, how grand! and above all, the sacred place where all my ancestors repose, and where I too shall lie in peace!” After a pause he tried in a fit of greater ecstasy to stand up, which but for me would probably have ended in his falling from the carriage. As soon as he was firm on his legs, he took off his hat reverently, and with a sort of devotion, at once affecting and burlesque, called out with tears in his eyes, “God bless Almighty God, and glory to him!” Notwithstanding the nonsense, I was touched by the feeling which broke through it, and in this at least I sympathized with my whole soul.

October 15th.

Lord H——, whom I knew in London, invited me to spend some days at his beautiful residence in this neighbourhood. This invitation I was obliged to refuse, but went to-day to dine with him. The well-kept pleasure-ground, and the excavation of a hollow for a little lake, recalled to me but too strongly the castle where you, my dear! are now living, to be able to look at it without emotion. When shall we see each other again! when shall we breakfast under the three lime-trees with the swans who so trustingly fed out of our hands, while your tame doves picked up the crumbs at our feet, and the little coco, surprised and jealous, looked at the audacious birds with his wise eyes,—a picture at which the ‘blasÉ’ man of the world shrugs his shoulders contemptuously, but which touches our hearts in all its native simplicity.

Lord H—— is not one of those Irish nobles who withdraw the whole of their revenues from their country: he sometimes resides there: but he understands his interest so ill, that instead of placing himself at the head of the people, he sets himself in opposition to them. The natural consequence ensues: Lord Llandall, though a Protestant, is beloved:—Lord H—— is hated, though personally he does not appear to me to deserve it. I heard much of his excessive cruelties towards the Catholics, and I was indeed witness to his violent temper on this subject. I think, however, that in this case, as in so many others, the mere change of one’s own point of view alters all the relations of things. This is a grand rule of the practical philosophy of life, and the effect is certain: for the objects are only raw material matter; every thing depends on the manner in which the individual understands and shapes them. How many situations may thus be transformed from black into rose-coloured, as soon as one resolutely takes off the black spectacles, or puts on the rose-coloured ones. With what spectacles will you read my letter?—I hear your answer, and kiss you for it.

Heaven guard you, and keep you in this mind!

Your devoted

L——.