Various

“ And, more provoking still, no degree of advancement in the world on your part, no acquisition of wealth, will induce one of them, whatever you yourself may think to the contrary, to contemplate you with a whit more respect than they did when you were one of themselves. They insist on considering you merely as having been more fortunate than themselves—not a bit better or a bit cleverer. ”

“ My name is Orohoo (O’Hara) ; I live at Sliev Bawn—the people call me the Fairy man—I can find things that’s stole—and I keep the garvally.”
“Indeed!” said I: “why, you must be a clever fellow: but can you get my butter?” ”

“ It is this class of men that we want—men who seek happiness in their legitimate homes, and the diffusion of blessings among those to whom it is their duty to be protectors—lovers of the arts of refined society, not the gross and generally illiterate pursuers of field sports, which, by hardening the heart towards the lower animals of creation, prepares it for reckless indifference to the wants and sufferings of our fellow men. ”

“ Such architectural works are not merely interesting from the gratifications they afford to the feeling of taste, and the epic dignity and beauty which they contribute to landscape scenery, but have a higher interest as pledges to the nation that those who have erected them have a filial attachment to the soil which gave them birth, and which supplies them, whether for good or evil, with the means of greatness ”

“ Upon the whole, we may truly say of this structure that its beauty is no less striking than its moderate size and pretension are in happy proportion to the rank and means of its owner; nor is it a lesser merit, that—unlike too many of the lordly residences in Ireland—the close propinquity of its situation to the village of which he is lord, is characteristically expressive of the confidence and kindly familiarity which should ever exist between the proprietor and the community holding under him. ”

“ Let us remark here, that the successful in the world are stout deniers of the doctrine of chances. They maintain that there is no such a thing as luck; while the unsuccessful, again, are firm believers in the doctrine, and insist on it that not only is there such a thing as luck, but that luck is every thing. The successful man’s vanity prompts him to attribute his prosperity solely to his talents and merit—the unsuccessful man’s self-love to deny that the want of these qualities has been his hindrance. ”

“ This often caused the morsel to stick in the throat of my poor dear partner, who felt none of the scruples of conscience with which I was affected, and firmly believed, her cow was bewitched. “Here we are day after day losing, our substance, and might have it only for your squeamishness in not letting the fairy man finish his job.” Thus she would argue, and hesitated not to call me a fool, nay, a downright ass; and indeed my neighbours were much of the same opinion: one of them, a respectable farmer’s wife, was particularly pertinacious. ”

“ Very many beautiful creations of the architectural art have recently been erected in Ireland, and we have little apprehension that they [Pg 82] will not increase in number till our island shall rival any other portion of the empire in the possession of such characteristic features of civilization and beauty. Cheered by such pleasing anticipations, we shall endeavour to the best of our ability to make our readers familiar with the architectural styles of the chief residences of our nobility and gentry, as well as with the general features of the scenery in which they are situated ”

“ The difficulty of accomplishing this great manœuvre in a prosperous career, is much increased by the circumstance that as you advance your ancient cronies throng the thicker and closer around you. They in fact cling and cluster about you like so many bees, and with impertinent looks of glee seek to express their satisfaction with your prosperity. ”

“ She was well supplied with good fodder, comfortably lodged, and well attended, and every possible care taken of the milk, but all to no purpose; the butter was not forthcoming; and for my incredulity I was laughed at by my neighbours. “Your cow is bewitched,” cried they; “and you may as well throw chaff against the wind, as think you will get your butter back, till you get the charm.” Some said “the Hawk” had it, some that the gipsy took it away in her can, and others that it followed the piper. ”

“ Had we more of such patriots—more of such domestic architectural buildings starting into existence, evidencing as well their refined tastes and habits as the sincerity of the love they bear their native land, we should soon see the face of our country changed, and peace and happiness smiling around us. ”

“ Nor was this belief held by the uneducated alone; many who moved in respectable situations in society were infected by it; and otherwise sensible and well-informed people on this head were deaf to the voice of reason and the dictates of common sense, and would as soon doubt the truth of Holy Writ as the existence of supernatural agency; and so interwoven was the superstition in the social system, that no event could happen poor mortality from the cradle to the grave, in which the good people were not implicated for good or evil. ”

“ THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
CLONTARF CASTLE, COUNTY OF DUBLIN.
There are few things that afford us a higher pleasure than to observe our metropolis and our provincial cities and towns, despite of adverse circumstances, increasing in the number and splendour of their public buildings, for they are sure evidences of the advance of civilization, with its attendant train of arts, amongst us, and that we are progressing to the rank and dignity of a great nation. ”

“ To the gentleman who is rising in the world there are few things more offensive than the familiarity of old acquaintanceship when presented in the shape of notes and letters. Your old friends, still obstinately overlooking your advancement in the world, will in all probability continue to write to you when they have occasion to do so, in the free-and-easy way of former days. ”

“ General Use of Tea in China.—In China an ardent spirit is made from rice, and called sam-shu, of which punch is made in a coffee-pot, and it is drunk out of China cups; but the natives are not much addicted to its use, a simple infusion of tea being the general beverage of all classes. At all hours of the day the artisan, as he sits at work, has his little tea-pot and miniature cup beside him, out of which he quaffs a little at pleasure, or presents a cup to his visitor. ”

“ We shall only add a few words in respect to its locality.
The Castle of Clontarf is situated in a district rich in pastoral beauty, and at the head or northern extremity of the village of the same name, which consists of a single but wide street composed of houses of a respectable class, and extending from it in a right line to the sea. It is surrounded by forest trees of great age and grandeur, through which by vistas are obtained views of the bay and the mountain scenery of the southern shore. ”

“ In several districts in Ireland, in Connaught especially, an idea is very prevalent that it is in the power of evil-disposed persons to deprive their neighbours of their milk or butter. This is said to be done in various ways, the most usual being the use of a corpse hand, which is kept shrivelled and dried to stir the milk and gather the butter. Another plan is to follow the cows on a May morning, and gather the soil which drops from between their cloots. Another, by collecting the froth which forms on a stream running through their pasture, and milking your own cow on it. ”

“ This discovery will be hailed with pleasure by every person at all acquainted with the benefits derived to society by the labours of those gifted individuals who have devoted their thoughts more particularly to the study of this most abstruse and mysterious branch of physical knowledge. ”

“ Never as long as you live put meat, either fresh or salt, near your milk-vessels; if you do, you will surely spoil your milk and lose your butter.” “This may account for my loss, but what have you to say to its coming back?” “Why, what’s to hinder it, when your bacon is in the chimney and your cow at grass?” ”

“ The unwearied spirit of scientific research which so peculiarly marks the times in which we live, has ascertained the positions of the northern and southern magnetic poles to a degree of almost mathematical precision. ”

“ There may be, ’tis true, some exceptions—a few old women may be still haunted by the sprites of other days, and in some remote districts a belief in witchcraft certainly prevails, ingrafted by early prejudices, and fostered and kept alive by the practices of knaves, who profess to avert the effects by counter-charms, and live, like many others, on the credulity of the public ”

“ Should any of your former friends seek your patronage—a very probable case—take an early opportunity, while doing him some trifling service, of letting him feel sensibly your relative positions, all the while, however, exhibiting towards him the most friendly dispositions. But let him ever and anon feel the bit gently—let him feel that he has got somebody on his back. ”

“ Of the original castle erected here in the twelfth century, a square tower, connected with additions of the sixteenth and subsequent centuries, was preserved as a residence for the proprietors of the manor till the year 1835, when the present noble structure was commenced from the designs and under the superintendence of the late William Morrison, Esq., the most eminent and accomplished architect whom Ireland has possessed within the present century. ”

“ One of the most difficult things a person has to do, who is getting ahead of the friends of his earlier and less prosperous years in the race of fortune, is to rid himself of these friends—to get quit of persons whose want of success in the world renders them no longer fit associates. ”

“ Branching from the northern and eastern sides of the great tower, extensive ranges of building contain the servants’ apartments, and an extensive suite of inferior bed-rooms, and the tower itself contains a study, and above it a nursery, over which, again, a leaded platform with parapets commands most extensive and diversified prospects of the surrounding country. ”

“ The discovery of the extensive line of coast ranging nearly along the south polar circle, serves in some degree to realize the conjectures of former geographers, who, observing that by much the greater mass of known land was in the northern hemisphere, laid down the position that there must lie a countervailing quantity of land somewhere in the southern hemisphere ”

“ His description of the appearance of the coast corresponds with that already given.
Whether any immediate beneficial results, practically applicable to the improvement of commerce and colonization, will accrue from these discoveries, may be doubtful, but the experience of the era in which we live forbids us to reject the prospect of ultimate benefits to society from any discovery tending to enlarge the bounds of science, though the means by which they are to be sought for are still out of sight. ”

“ Yet we confess we enjoy a still higher gratification when we see springing up around us great architectural works of another class—those erected by individuals of the aristocracy as residences for themselves and those who are to come after them. ”

“ No easy matter this, for somehow or other the obtuse creatures, your poor former acquaintance, will not see, what you see very distinctly, that you are now quite a superior sort of person to them, and that they are no longer fit to be ranked amongst your friends. ”

“ First, ‘the Hawk’ coming with her seven-and-sixpenny geese, then the gipsies and the piper, and losing my butter just then.” “’Tis very easy,” said he, “to account for it. In the first place, you took your cow from grass and fed her on hay.” “Yes, but she had plenty of winter cabbage, and we gave her boiled potatoes.” “Just the thing; cabbage is good for plenty of milk, but not for butter. ”

“ On the suppression of the monastic order in the thirty-second year of Henry the Eighth, Sir John Rawson, the Prior of Kilmainham—a very distinguished man, who had at various periods held the office of Treasurer of Ireland—having, with the consent of his Chapter under their common seal, surrendered the hospital with its dependencies into the King’s hands, he was created Viscount of Clontarf in 1541, on a representation made to his majesty by the Lord Deputy, with a pension of five hundred marks, in right of which dignity he sat in the parliament of that year. ”

“ This manor, as well as its castle, appears, however, to have passed very soon after into the possession of the Knights Templars, by whom a commandery of the Order, dependent upon their splendid establishment at Kilmainham, was placed here. Upon the suppression of the Templars, their manor of Clontarf was granted, in 1311, to Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster, the religious edifices upon it remaining in the king’s hands as a royal house ”

“ As few men can stand such treatment as that above alluded to long, we can venture to promise you that by a steady course of proceeding in the way we have pointed out, you will soon clear your hands of your old friends. ”