"And

the-in short, those laborious nothings of which Seneca complained long ago, Operose nihil agendo vitam agimus: a phrase which may be illustrated by the well-known fragment of a modern dialogue: "What are you doing there, Pat?" "Nothing, your honour." " you, Tom ?" "Helping Pat." Even thus doth Miss Thomasina assist Lady Patricia in that most fatiguing of all toils-from morning till night, and from year's end to year's end, doing nothing with various degrees of elaborateness.

There are some who say that there is a special dearth in this city of useful occupation for the class to whom these observations are directed. I know not on what statistics the Liverpool Mercury relied when it ventured to state recently that there is a larger percentage of the population in Dublin whose only business is mere amusement, than in any other town in the empire. The amusement, indeed, is not of a very violent kind for the most part. In a context somewhat similar to the present, I once recalled the memory of that illustrious king of France, who, with fifty thousand men, "marched up the hill and then marched down again ;" and I asked with pathetic indignation, as I would now dare to ask once more, changing the "local habitation and the name:"

"Ah! is it pastime meet for all our fine young men

To stroll up Grafton-street, and then stroll down again?"

The exigency of the rhyme confines this query to "men;" but as, when the shoemaker placarded as his motto, mens conscia recti, his rival in the trade advertised men's and women's conscia recti: so here the poet's question about our "fine young men " may very reasonably receive such an extension as is indicated on the title-page of a useful and entertaining book, "Men of the Time (including the Women)."

It will not be "lost time " to cite the whole of M. Prudhomme's sonnet on this very apposite topic, Le temps perdu :—

This "cardrivingest, teadrinkingest" capital of ours has altered considerably since the era of the old song:

"Oh! Dublin is the darlin' city, the finest city upon the say,

For here's O'Connell making speeches, and Lady Morgan making tay :"

to wit, at no 35, Kildare street, round the corner. Our tea-drinking and our speech-making have become less frequent and less brilliant, but I fear that still too great a number of our adult female population go far towards realising that ideal of youngladyhood which I quoted some time ago-quite too long ago-about "a do-nothing lady, worrying shopmen all morning, and screeching at her pianny all afternoon, and going to bed without having done a good turn to any one of God's creatures but herself."

Would it not be well to vary life a little with some nobler and more inspiriting pursuit? It is pretty generally known, especially since the days of Dr. Isaac Watts, that "the devil still some mischief finds for idle hands to do;" and idle eyes, idle tongues, and idle hearts are equally open to an engagement from that extensive and energetic employer. It is desirable that amongst his employées should be found as few as possible of the hands and hearts of the fair daughters of Catholic Ireland.

O

SONNET.

LOVELY June, sweet giver of young roses,
A wild and tearful spring has vexed us long,

Chiding the opening bud and wood-bird's song,
But now her wilful reign unwilling closes!

O fill thy lap with flowers, and come to us,
Leaning thy face, with soft carnations glowing,
Out of the fragrant boughs, from southward blowing,
And let us see thee in thy beauty thus!

Now we will track thee through mysterious alleys
Of long-enchanted forest greenly dim-

The mossy quire of moonstruck nightingales;
Or, waked by faint notes when the darkness pales,
Fleeing along the ocean's kindling rim,

We'll follow thee across the rose-wreathed valleys!

R. M.

THE CHANCES OF WAR.

BY A. WHITELOCK.

CHAPTER XXXI.

LOST TO IRELAND.

"We thought you would not die-we were sure you would not go,
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's cruel blow-
Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky-
Oh! why did you leave us, Owen? Why did you die?

"Soft as woman's was your voice, O'Neill! bright was your eye,
Oh why did you leave us. Owen? Why did you die?
Your troubles are all over, you're at rest with God on high;
But we're slaves, and we're orphans, Owen!-why did you die?"
Thomas Osborne Davis.

WE linger yet a little longer amid the beautiful scenery that adorns the course of the Annalee. A few miles below the spot at which Owen O'Neill took leave of his troops, the river receives the superfluous waters of a chain of lakes of considerable extent and of great natural beauty. They are of most irregular shape, their sides are indented with innumerable fantastic bays, and they throw out their winding arms in every direction round the conical hills, which, like the colossal tents of some subterranean army, occupy the centre of the county Cavan. Of these lakes, the largest and most picturesque is Lough Oughter. Its waters fill the central basin of a rich and thickly-wooded country. The fertile lands upon its shores have formed the prize for which many a fierce combat has been fought, and the spoil which many successive conquerors have divided. They belonged, in the days of which we write, to the chief of the O'Reillys. This powerful family had, by alternate violence and diplomacy, maintained their hold of the greater portion of their hereditary possessions during the troubled times that had preceded the civil war. When the insurrection spread into their territories they at once repossessed themselves of the lands of which the commissioners of King James had robbed them. Subsequent partitions of the estates of the plundered Irish chiefs brought the lands in the neighbourhood of Lough Oughter into the hands of certain Maxwells and Saundersons, and the descendants of these settlers still retain possession of them.

In the middle of the lake stands a small island almost entirely covered by the ruins of a castle. The water, in some places, washes the old walls, at other points a scanty border of green turf separates the ripples of the lake from the crumbling ruin. Ledges of slaty rock project at regular intervals from that side of the gaunt pile that rises immediately out of the water, and the probable use of these architectural curiosities has long exercised the ingenuity of local antiquarians. The cicerone of the ruins is an old woman whose appearance is thoroughly in harmony with the falling structure of which she is sole guardian. She paddles the visitor across the lake in a rickety "cot," and on the way tells him what she has heard or what she has invented concerning the old castle and its former inhabitants. From the peculiar nature of her avocations and the skill

she displays in them she is known in the neighbourhood by the hardly undeserved sobriquet of "The Waterwitch."

It may be well to state that this description of Lough Oughter is founded on the recollections of a visit paid to it many years ago. Time has made hazy the hurried impressions of a holiday tour, and it is possible that the tourist to-day would not recognise in the sketch here drawn a picture of the ruin as it stands. It is possible, too, that the waves have since encroached upon the grassy border that fringes the walls, or have increased its width by piling up new masses of sediment against it. It may be, also, that "The Waterwitch" plies her trade no more, that she has long ago gone to keep company with the legendary generations whose feats she told, and of which some of her neighbours believed her a survivor. Time has had opportunities to make changes since last the writer saw Lough Oughter, and there is no reason to doubt that time has done his work conscientiously.

In the days of our heroes and heroines, the old castle still stood in all its strength. Its dark turrets rose in gloomy pride above the waves, and looked coldly down upon the tossing and tumbling of their summer playfulness, as upon the seething haste and uproar of their winter anger. The latter unamiable mood was upon the waters now. They could hear "November's surly blast" sweeping across the hills, they caught the groaning and creaking of the aged trees that stood sentinels about their resting-place, they heard the storm gusts growling amongst the turrets and chimneys of the staid old pile in their midst, and they too grew churlish and sullen, and chafed, and foamed, and hurried to and fro in senseless haste, and beat themselves idly against the walls of the castle, and then went off, fretful and indignant, to mutter and sob over their grievances in the quiet nooks in the woods, under the branches, and in their secret chambers among the roots of the old trees. What cared they who was disturbed by their noisiness? Bah! They were angry and they would show it.

"It is a wild night, MacDermott," said a wasted invalid who lay in one of the chambers of the island fortress, to the solitary watcher who sat by his couch. "How the wind roars outside! How chill it is, too, and how dark the room is growing! The fire is burning low, heap fresh logs upon it."

It was not so. The pile of faggots on the hearth was sending out a warm, genial glow through the apartment, and showering upon the rough walls and the heavy vaulted roof a flood of rich purple light. The chill was at the sufferer's heart, the shadow was within his own failing eyes. With a painful sigh the watcher rose from his place by the bedside and obeyed the request of the sick man.

"Now sit you down again," said the invalid, when his command had been fulfilled, "and come close to me; even my voice begins to fail me. It is probably the last time we shall be alone together and I must tell you now a secret I was minded to carry with me to the grave. You remember the incidents of your last adventure on the shores of Lough Ree ?"

"Only too well," responded the attentive listener.

"To my part in that affair I owe the noisome malady of which you see me dying."

"No! by heaven!" exclaimed MacDermott, excitedly, "the villain has not taken your life too ?"

"Listen," pursued the sick man, quietly. "I do not tell you this to stir you up to anger. I am not in a mood to provoke or to indulge such passions now. Hear me calmly to the end. I gave him something to revenge. I tore from his grasp the prize he coveted, at the moment that he believed it irrevocably his. I kept him a prisoner for months, and made him feel that his fate depended entirely upon yours. I inflicted upon him a chastisement which he could never forgive, and which he at length found means to avenge. I was on my guard against him, but he outwitted me. Do not ask me how. I have my reasons for keeping this a secret even from you. I have told you this much for your own safety. It is probable that you will meet him again. For motives which you can now understand I have caused watch to be kept on his movements. He has gone again towards the south, doubtless in search of the prize of which I robbed him. If you encounter him again, beware of his resentment; he is your enemy as much if not more than he has been mine."

"Pray heaven we meet again," cried MacDermott, fiercely. "By the God above us, the instant he comes within reach of my blade his traitor's life shall end."

66

Hush! hush! MacDermott," said the sick man, uneasily, "the language of hatred and revenge should not sound in the ears of dying men. Let us speak no more of him who has betrayed us both. I forgive the wrongs he has done me for the sake of Him from whom I shall soon need mercy myself. May heaven in his need be as forgiving to him as I am! One word about yourself. You have nobly defended Ireland's cause as long as Ireland had a cause to fight for. Very soon she will have one no longer. The armies that oppose Cromwell he will brush from his path. Our Ulster soldiers and Ulster generals alone are capable of withstanding him, but they will be outnumbered by their enemies, and, possibly, betrayed by their friends. I have clearly before me now the dismal ending of all our high hopes. When you see me laid in the grave, sheath the sword you have wielded so well, and let it rest in its scabbard til! better days give more certain promise of our country's deliverance."

There was a pause. O'Neill lay motionless upon his couch, his eyes fixed upon the dingy roof, his chest heaving and throbbing from the lengthened effort his words had cost him. The watcher sat by him, but answered nothing to his leader's parting advice.

"And if," pursued the sick man, when he had gathered strength to proceed, "before you quit this conquered land, you should meet again the orphan girl who, as I have long ago perceived, has won your heart, and who is worthy of the love she has won, offer her a home in your native country; she will soon be destitute here."

Again the speaker paused. His companion was about to reply when he was startled by a prolonged and agonising wail, so wild and piteous, that it drove from his thoughts the absorbing object that