FAIRY CHILDREN.

The superstitious belief which still prevails to a great extent in Ireland, with regard to fairy children, or changelings as they are called, is of very injurious tendency, and will, we trust, ere long, be extirpated. The entertaining historian of fairy lore, Mr. Crofton Croker, says-" When a child appears delicate, or a young woman consumptive, the conclusion is, that they are carried off to be made a playmate or nurse to the young fairies, and that a substitute, resembling the person taken away, is deposited in their place, which gradually declines, and ultimately dies. The inhuman means used by ignorant parents to discover if an unhealthy child be their offspring or a changeling, (the name given to the illusory image,) is, placing the child, undressed, on the road side, where it is suffered to lie a considerable time exposed to cold. After such ceremony, they conclude a natural disorder has caused the symptoms of decay; and the child is then treated with more tenderness, from an idea, that had it been possessed by a fairy, that spirit would not have brooked such indignity, but made its escape. Paralytic affections are attributed to the same agency, whence the term 'fairy-struck;' and the same cruel treatment is observed towards aged persons thus af

fected."

The following very pleasing ballad, by our talented counryman, Dr. Anster, has been founded on this superstition ; the mother is supposed to speak

"The summer sun was sinking

With a mild light, calm and mellow,
It shone on my little boy's bonny cheeks,
And his loose locks of yellow.

The robin was singing sweetly,

And his song was sad and tender;

And my little boy's eyes as he heard the song, Smiled with sweet soft splendour.

My little boy lay on my bosom,

While his soul the song was quaffing; The joy of his soul had ting'd his cheek, And his heart and his eye were laughing.

I sat alone in my cottage,

The midnight needle plying;

I fear'd for my child, for the rush's light
In the socket now was dying.

There came a hand to my lonely latch,
Like the wind at midnight moaning,

I knelt to pray--but rose again

For I heard my little boy groaning!

I crossed my brow, and I crossed my breast,
But that night my child departed!
They left a weakling in his stead,
And I am broken-hearted!

Oh! it cannot be my own sweet boy, For his eyes are dim and hollow,

My little boy is gone to God,

And his mother soon will follow.

The dirge for the dead will be sung for me,
And the mass be chaunted sweetly;
And I will sleep with my little boy,

In the moonlight church-yard meetly."

ANTIQUITY OF SMOKING IN IRELAND The custom of smoking is of much greater antiquity in Ireland than the introduction of tobacco into Europe. Smoking pipes made of bronze are frequently found in our Irish tumuli, or sepulchral mounds of the most remote antiquity, and similar pipes made of baked clay are discovered daily in all parts of the island. A curious instance of the bathos in sculpture, which also illustrates the antiquity of this custom, occurs on the monument of Donogh O'Brien, king of Thomond, who was killed in 1267, and interred in the abbey of Corcumroe, in the county of Clare, of which his family were the founders. He is represented in the usual recumbent posture, with the short pipe or dudeen of the Irish in his mouth!

P.

FINE ARTS. No. 4.

Historic Sketch of the past and present state of the Fine Arts in Ireland.

(Continued from page 149.)

In the last number of our historical sketch of the past and present state of the Fine Arts in Ireland, page 147, we brought our subject down to the introduction of the pointed, or, as it is popularly called, the Gothic style of Architecture in the twelfth century. Of this beautiful style, we have yet remaining several fine examples, as at Kilkenny, Cashel, Kilmallock, Ierpoint, Holy Cross, Adair, &c.; but the best of them are poor and meagre in comparison with many of the cathedral and abbey churches of England and Scotland. The "flying buttress," one of the most fanciful and striking features of the style, is only, we believe, to be seen in our Metropolitan cathedral-church of St. Patrick. While our comparatively happy sister islands were advancing progressively towards refinement, it was the fate of Ireland to be retrograding into more than her ancient barbarism. If the English, as they "waxed Irish," lost much of their civility, the "mere Irish," gained as little by becoming harrassed and unprotected subjects of the British crown. Misrule and civil war debased and demoralized the island from one extremity to the other; and the Fine Arts appear to have been reduced to a lower ebb, even than they had been by the Danish conquests. The ecclesiastical structures of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, present a melancholy, but interesting commentary on the history of those times. The edifices of each age are more and more barbarous than those of the time preceding; and previous to the reign of Elizabeth, the Fine Arts might be said to have been almost wholly exiled from the country.

The preceding observations have had reference chiefly to the progress of architecture in our island, but they will apply equally to the fate of the sister arts.

The churches

of the thirteenth century were frequently adorned with statues, but the Iconoclastic rage of the reformers has saved us the trouble of speaking on their merits, for it left us only the empty niches in which they had been placed. Not a single statue of those times has survived! We can only judge, therefore, of the sculptors' abilities by monumental effigies, which, as we have already remarked, were introduced into Ireland at the close of the twelfth century. These are chiefly figures of mitred ecclesiastics, or mailed warriors, presenting but little variety in their attitudes or costumes; yet, though generally rude and ungraceful efforts of art, they have often an Egyptian simplicity, and a boldness of relief, not unappropriate to works of their kind, and possibly superior in these respects to the more laboured productions of more recent times.

We have still fewer vestiges left us of the art of Painting. Some remains of frescoes of the fourteenth century, are still to be seen in three or four of our Abbeys, of which those at Knockmoy, in the County of Galway, are the most remarkable; for, though they are rude in design, and faded in colour, they are inestimably interesting to the antiquary as the most authentie memorials of ancient Irish costumes now to be found. An engraving of these paintings has been given by Ledwich in his Antiquities of Ireland, and that learned man, but most unskil ful antiquary, ventures an opinion that they were the work of the confederate catholics of the seventeenth century, and consequently of no authority! This opinion hardly deserves refutation, for the inscriptions on the wall, though they show that the paintings are not of the time of Cathal O'Conor, prove them incontrovertibly to belong to the thirteenth or fourteenth century. As the engraving alluded to has no claim to accuracy, we shall present our readers with faithful representations of those interesting remains, and claim their indulgence to interrupt the course of our little history, while we endeavour to illustrate them.

These paintings are found on the north sideof the chancel of the Abbey, which being vaulted with stone, has hitherto

had the effect of preserving them from total decay, a fate, however, to which they are now unfortunately fast verging. The figures are represented on a scale somewhat larger than life, and are arranged in two lines, one over the other. Those in the upper line consist of six kings, three

deceased and three living; the former who are represented as skeletons, with crowns on their heads, have been conjectured to indicate the most distinguished regal ancestors of the house of O'Conor. The living figures will be best described by the accompanying outline.

In these figures we see genuine examples of the regal costume of the twelfth century. Dr. Ledwich explains them in the following manner: "He in the middle is Roderick O'Conor, monarch of Ireland; he holds in his hand the seam-roge or shamroc, a plant greatly regarded by the Irish, from a legendary tradition, that St. Patrick emblematically set forth to them the mystery of the Trinity by this three-leaved grass. This also expressed his being Lord proprietor of the soil of the kingdom. The princes on each side are his vassals; he with the hawk on his fist is his grand falconer; the other with the sword, is his grand marshall: these held their lands by grand sergeantry." (Antiq. p. 520.) These remarks, as will be seen, are altogether visionary. The bird held in the hand of one of the figures, by no means represents a living hawk, or indicates the figure which holds it to have been a falconer, for, as the truly learned Montfaucon observes, it was the custom, about this period, for the effigies of the nobles to be distinguished, by the emblem of a fighting bird. Harold, the Norman king, is thus distinguished in the representations in the Bayeux tapestries, and our Anglo Norman kings in like manner on their seals. And it will be seen that the three figures in the Knockmoy paintings are all so represented. As to the shamroc in the hand of the middle figure, we see nothing of the kind-it is a bird, not a trefoil that he holds.

If we might venture a conjecture, it would be, that the living figures represent the most distinguished native princes who warred with the adventurers in defence of their country, and that those of the deceased kings were the patriot monarchs of earlier times. This idea seems borne out by the various forms of the crowns represented

on all, for, while those on the living figures are clearly belonging to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, those on the skeletons are evidently of much earlier age. The radiated crown, (No. 1.) which appears, without any difference, on the first and second of those figures, is of very great antiquity, and was much in use in the latter ages of the Roman empire. It occurs on the statues of the French princes of the first or Merovingian race, formerly adorning the gateway of the cathedral church of Chartres, as given below. (No. 3.) This crown has been depicted-but on what authority we know not-ou the figure of Brian Boroimhe in the first edition of Keating's Ireland; and it also occurs on the crozier of Cormac Mac Carthy, king and archbishop of Munster, in the cabinet of the writer. It may probably, therefore, have belonged to the Munster kings. The crown on the third figure is of less ancient form, and approximates to those of the twelfth century. It is similar to that on a fresco painting of William the Conqueror, formerly on the wall of a chapel in the monastery of St. Benoit sur Loire, engraved in Montfaucon's " Monumens de la Monarchie Françoise." vol. 1. (No. 4.)

We now come to the figures on the lower range, in which there is less difficulty of explanation. A youth, represented naked and fastened to a tree, is shot to death by two archers, while a brehon or judge, with a roll of laws in his hand, sits by, after having pronounced sentence. This appears evidently to represent the death of the young son of Dermod Mac Murrough, who was delivered up to Roderick O'Conor, as a hostage for his father's fidelity, and who, according to Cambrensis, and we believe our own annalists, was abandoned by that inhuman and ambitious parent to his fate. In the figures of these

the See of Ossory by provision from the Pope in 1460, it is, perhaps, to him that we are indebted for the most beautiful portions of St. Canice, the finest Gothic cathedral in our island, St. Patricks excepted. There appears to be a striking agreement in the style of its ornamental parts, with those of the Portuguese edifice, and it is certain that he erected the arch of its belfry, which is of squared stone. He also built the castle of Boly.

Hacket died in 1478, and was buried in his own church, near the high altar, but we believe his tomb did not escape the usual desecration of sacred monuments by Cromwell's soldiers. Had his native country afforded him such means and such materials as were freely furnished him in Portugal, we should not have had any occasion to refer to Batalha for a monument of his inventive genius. P.

"What do you sell, Mr. Bolton?" said his Majesty George the third, to the partner of the celebrated James Watt, when he was explaining some new improvement just effected on the Steam Engine. The answer of the engineer was laconic. "What Kings, Sire, are so fond of-POWER."

Yes; the recent improvements in the Arts and Sciences have placed in the hands of man power which he never possessed before; and if ever there was a time when he could peculiarly be termed the lord of creation, it is now, when he commands, in a measure, the elements, ploughs the stormy sea, and brings within reach of each other, nations and countries, and people hitherto wide apart.

But this power should be used with caution. It will be recollected by our readers that, in the article on Machinery, we freely admitted that every improvement of which Machinery was susceptible was a benefit to the world at large. Every thing which diminishes manual labourevery thing which releases man from the drudgery, and the inconvenience, and the weakness of a half civilized state, and which places power, at his disposal, wherewith to bring within his reach whatever might exalt his character as an intellectual being, and release him from physical exertion, is a boon-a great, a glorious boon. But at the same time we reprobated the avarice, the haste, the indiscretion, the short-sightedness, which rushed to acquire wealth by means of newly-invented power, and which, regardless of the interests and rights of men who subsisted by their application of the old power. introduced every new invention without consideration and without remorse into every department of labour into which their skill or their capital could force themselves.

But while we aver that no man has a MORAL right to introduce a newly invented power into a department of labour, without well weighing the consequences, and while we deplore the misery which a reckless introduction of newly invented power has entailed upon the working classes, we, at the same time, must speak, not merely with indignation, but with scorn and contempt, of the wicked and silly efforts which have been made to destroy Machinery. The working classes may be well aware that in a country like Britain any attempt to put down Machinery by brute force, is utterly hopeless; that advance it will, in spite of all the opposition that can be given to it; and that the only way to meet its gigantic strides is to endeavour to take advantage of it, or endeavour to avoid it, by turning into every new field of labour, however apparently untried. We would say to Irish parents, " do not, if it be possible, apprentice your sons to trades into which newly invented power has been brought ;" and so strenuous are we in this advice, that we would press it on them, that even though Machinery should be unknown in the exercise of the particular trade in Ireland, yet if it has been introduced at all, if it is known to be at work in England, depend upon it that it will make its way into this country, sooner or later. And this truth should ever be borne in mind, that Machinery is altering the entire nature of every handicraft, and is sending the ingenuity, and the skill, and the manual labour of the vast bulk of

the people of these islands adrift on voyages of discovery -that in fact it is disorganizing the old system of things, preparatory to putting the world at large in possession of power which will bring about the physical regeneration of the human race.

Proceeding, then, upon the assumption that Machinery is " part and parcel" of our trade and commerce, and that though it may be checked and regulated, it cannot be stopped, we will give a short abstract of the history of Cotton-spinning-a branch of industry which displays, very strikingly, the tremendous power which the inventions of Richard Arkwright and James Watt placed at the disposal of man, and then we will consider briefly what the introduction of the Cotton Manufacture might do for Ireland. The abstract of the history is taken from a very valuable work lately published by John Niven, jun., Glasgow, entitled" The Carding and Spinning Master's Assistant in the Theory and Practice of Cotton Spinning," and which we would recommend to such of our readers (especially our Northern friends) who may be thinking of a speculation in Cotton.

The word cotton is derived from an Arabic word, "cootin." In our language it is a name which is very loosely given to any vegetable substance of a filamentous or fibry nature; but it is correctly appropriated in commerce to one peculiar vegetable matter, consisting of innumerable fine filaments, arranged together within an external coat, and enveloping the seed of the plant.

Cotton was known to the ancients, and is particularly described by Pliny: we have not, however, been able to discover the mode of its manufacture in those early periods. The beauty of the substance, and its obvious practieability to many purposes, would, no doubt, excite early attention to it; but it was not until the wonderful facilities which were introduced into the spinning of the material, that it became an object of extensive cultivation. In India, indeed, where manual labour is cheap, it has long been cultivated, and manufactured into muslins and calicoes by the simple apparatus of the inhabitants. But previous to the year 1793, the cotton used in Britain for the manufacture of the coarser articles was, (with the exception of a small quantity imported from India,) wholly grown in our own and the French West India Islands. The cotton for the better kind of goods was raised in Surinam, or Demerara and Berbice; the wool for the fine goods in Brazil, and for the very few fine muslins which were then manufactured, the wool was grown in the Isle of Bourbon. Had we continued to be confined to these countries for our supply of cotton, the progress of the manufacture would have been greatly retarded, from the difficulty of making the production of the raw material keep pace with the increasing consumption. But fortunately, about the year 1790, the planters in the Southern States of America began to turn their attention to the raising of cotton wool, and besides carrying the cultivation to a great extent, they have produced qualities of cotton before unknown. Cotton is now grown in many parts of the world; it is cultivated to a considerable extent in the East Indies; in Sierra Leone, and other parts of Africa, particularly in Egypt, where, within these few years past, a very superior quality has been raised, and seems to be cultivated to a great extent; it has been tried in Spain and the South of France; in some parts of the vast Russian Empire; and it has been known to ripen its pods or bulbs in sheltered situations in England, and a member of Parliament had a gown made from cotton grown in his own garden, for a dress for his lady to appear at court. The principal supplies of the British market is from South America, the East and West Indies, and the Southern States of the American Union.

It was about the year 1500 that the first attempt was made to introduce cotton goods into England. But the manufacturing of cotton in England was not introduced until long after, though indeed Blone, in his History of Liverpool, (1637) speaks of cotton manufactories in the adjacent parts. It was not, however, until the year 1730 that the first thread of cotton yarn was spun without the intervention of the fingers; and in 1742 the first mill for spinning cotton was erected at Birmingham, which was moved by asses, but the machinery was sold in 1743.

Up to the year 1750, the entire amount of the cotton manufactured in Britain, did not exceed the annual value of two hundred thousand pounds. In the year 1832, about eighty years after, the amount of the cotton goods, manufactured annually, is estimated at forty millions of pounds!! How comes this tremendous, this almost superhuman increase? By the inventions of machinery. The fly shuttle was invented in 1738; in 1750 it began to be generally used; then the spinning wheel, which had superseded the spindle and the distaff, was itself superseded by the spinning jenny; a machine invented by a mechanic of the name of Hargreaves. Happening one day to see a common spinning wheel overturned, which continued its motion for some time while it lay on one side, this ingenious man immediately conceived the idea of making a spinning machine, which, after several attempts, he effected, by making a machine which contained eighty spindles, and which laid the foundation of all the subsequent inventions. Poor Hargreaves was persecuted by those who earned their subsistence by means of the old and slow method of spinning. They broke into his house and destroyed his machine, and he was driven out of Lancashire at the peril of his life. While he was thus suffering and struggling, with poverty and the prejudices of the workmen, a common journeyman barber was busily employed in trying to invent a machine which was destined to change the mode of spinning altogether. Arkwright-afterwards Sir Richard Arkwright-succeeded; he invented a machine which has been the means of changing the very structure of commerce; and which has placed in the hands of Britain a power so tremendous, that one article of manufacture alone has been raised in value, as already stated, from two hundred thousand to forty millions of pounds. The quantity of cotton yarn spun in Britain in one year, is about two thousand two hundred and eighty-three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand yards, a quantity which would cover England, Ireland, and Scotland eleven times over.

After Arkwright's spinning frames had been ten years. in operation, another invention or rather an important improvement was announced to the public, by Mr. Samuel Crompton. This superseded Hargreave's spinning jenny. Then the steam engine was invented by Watt. A host of minor though important inventions and improvements followed; and the commerce of Britain advanced with gigantic strides, until it has attained an extent unparalleled-nay, which mocks comparison with any period of the world's history. One city alone (Glasgow) manufactures annually upwards of an hundred millions of yards of cotton cloth.

We freely admit that machinery has been pushed too rapidly. We deplore the misery which has been occasioned by the rapidity of the introduction of new and unknown power into our trades and manufactures. But Britain now cannot go back. She must continue to be a great manufacturing nation, or she will cease to exist. Hitherto her machinery has been confined. Power so vast requires an ample field to play upon. We have been shut up as it were, in an ark, and the barriers of interdiction have too much hemmed us in. But when the East is fairly thrown open to our machinery-when the market place of the world is given wherein to display and to dispose of the production of that machinery-then, instead of deploring the misery occasioned by excessive production, market gluts, and re-action, we may hope to exult over a wellemployed and well-paid population, and exult in a trade and commerce which commands the resources, and supplies the nations of the earth. Some may term this a visionary prospect: but if it be not realized, Britain will speedily lose her position as the great carrier and manufacturer of the world. She must proceed. She must extend her commerce, or machinery will prove too powerful for her. And as Britain cannot prosper unless Ireland participate in that prosperity, it becomes a matter of serious consideration, to what extent machinery should be introduced into this country, what facilities there are, in the position and nature of the island, what materials there are in the bowels of the earth, and how it would affect her population. This will require a separate article.

F.

ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE.

CORMAC'S INSTRUCTIONS.
(Continued from Page 215)

A ua Chuind, cia badar do gnima in tan robsat Gilla? Búm soilidh Midhchuarta, bam doilidh irguile, bam solam d' foraire bam cendus cairdine, bam liaigh lobhair, bam fann fri h enert, bam trén fri ruanaidh; Nir bam labhair gér sam gaeth, nir bam taircsinach ger bam trén; ni chuidbinn sen gér sam óg; nir bam maeithmhech gér sam gontach; ni luaidhinn nech ina égmais, ni aiscinn is no mholuinn; ár is trés na bésaibh sin ro segoid gur bad sinn seeo riaghlac.

Oh! descendant of Con! what was thy deportment when a youth?

I was cheerful at the banquet of Miodh Chuarta,* fierce in battle, vigilant and circumspect; kind to friends, a physician to the sick, merciful to the weak, stern towards the head-strong. Although possessed of knowledge, I was inclined to taciturnity, although strong I was not haughty; I mocked not the old although I was young; I was not vain although I was valiant, when I spoke of a person in his absence, I praised, not defamed him, for it is by these customs that we are known to be courteous and civilized.

A ua Chuind cid is binne lat at chualais? Ilach iar mbuaidh, moladh iar luadh.

Oh! grandson of Con, what are the sweetest sounds thou hast ever heard?

A shout after victory; praise after desert.
A ua Chuind cid is dech dam?

Ma contuaisi frim' teguse, ni tardha h-oinech na h-anum ar bhiadh na ar cuirm, ár is fearr dinchloth oldas din bídh. -Ni ba riangabhrae cin eocha, ni ba h-eólchobhra cin CUIRM, &c. &c.

Oh! grandson of Con! what is good for me?

If thou attend to my instructions, thou wilt not cast away thy generosity or spirit for food or for cuirmt, for a hospitable name is better than food.-You cannot be splendid without horses, nor festive without Cuirm.

A ua Chuind cid mesa lat ad conarcais?
Gnuis namad i re catha.

Oh! grandson of Con, what is the most detestable sight thou hast ever seen?

The countenance of an enemy in the field of battle.
A ua Chuind! cid is fo dam ?

Ar nach

Ma Contuaisi frim thimna: ni cuidbhinn sen gérsam óg na boct gérsam soma, na noct gérsam édoigh, na lose gerbam luath, na dall ger bam fairgsinach na lobhar gér bam trén, na borb ger bam trebhair :-Nir badh lesc, nir badh lonn, nir badh neoid, nir badh deghoidh, nir badh edoigh. lesc. lonn, neoid, deghoidh as miscas De seeó duine. Oh! grandson of Con, what is good for me? If thou attend to my command thou wilt not mock the old although thou art young, nor the poor although thou art rich, nor the naked although thou art well clad, nor the lame although thou art agile, nor the blind although thou art clear-sighted, nor the feeble although thou art strong, nor the ignorant although thou art learned. Be not slothful nor passionate, nor penurious, nor idle, nor jea

Miodh chuarta was the middle house of the palace of Tara. The splendor of this palace is described in an old Irish poem, beginning: Temhair na righ, Rath Chormaic, Temor of Kings, the Seat of Cormac; but, lest this Poem might be considered a Bardic forgery, we shall give the following extract from Johnston's Translation of an old Scandinavian MS., the historical testimony of which must be received as unquestionable. "In hoc regno etiam locus est THE MOR dictus, olim primaria urbs, regiaque sedes, &c. &c.

In Editiori quopiam Ciritatis loco SPLENDIDUM et tantum non DÆDALEUM CASTELLUM Rex et intra Castelli septa. PALATIUM strusturd et nitore SUPERBUM, habuit, ubi solebat litibus incolorum componendis praeesse." Anti Celt. Scando, Last page.

In this kingdom also there is a place called Themor, formerly the chief city and the royal residence, &c.

In a more elevated part of this city the king had a splendid and almost Dædalean castle, within the precincts of which he had a splendid palace, superb in its structure, where he was accustomed to preside in settling the disputes of the inhabitants.

+ Perhaps an Irishman would now say, "You should not allow yourself to get the name of an inhospitable man, by sparing your whiskey. Cuirm was a kind of malt drink brewed by the ancient Irish and Welsh. Miodh, i. e. mead or metheglin was also used in Ireland. Teach miodh-chuarta the banqueting hall of Tara, was so called from mead being distributed around in it.

Borb in the original, now signifies fierce or surly, and its original meaning has grown obsolete. Duald Mac Firbiss who wrote in 1c66, uses this word in its ancient meaning, amhail a derid boirb, as the ignorant say.