The following lines help us to fulfil one of the chief ends for which man was created-to give praise to God. They appeared originally in the Irish Messenger, and were written by a zealous young lady of Cork (Miss Kathleen Donegan), who has long since gone to receive the reward of her labours for God's poor.

No one worth serving but God,
No one so tender, so grateful,

No one worth trusting but God,
No friend so unchanging, so faithful,
No one worth loving but God,
No heart holds His wealth of affection,
No one worth seeking but God,
In His exquisite endless perfection.

IN ABSENCE

Ah me! These long, slow days of glare and heat,
The scent of clematis and mignonette,

The hum of overburdened bees, the fret

Of petty trade along the village street!

And whither shall I bend these listless feet,
Unto what ends, or what shall save me yet,
From the long agony of this regret,

This vain desire for those I may not meet?

All day I suffocate; but in the night,

When the cool air breathes through the silent room,
I climb in dreams, up the long hill to thee.
And who shall tell the rapture of delight,
While on my face the mountain winds blow free,
And thy dear eyes salute me through the gloom!

CLARA THOMSON.

THE FIFTH PROVINCE

RELAND in very early times was divided into five provinces; the division being made, according to the legend, by the five sons of Dela of the Firbolg colony who partitioned up the country amongst themselves. The five provinces met at the hill of Uisneach in Westmeath which was regarded as the central point in Ireland. The province that we know as Munster was split up into two parts in this division. The two parts of Munster were afterwards united as one, and the number of the provinces was thus reduced to four. Again, in the second century of the Christian era, King Tuathal the Legitimate created a new fifth province, Midhe, by cutting off a portion of the original provinces round the hill of Uisneach. The new province was formed by Tuathal to be the mensal land of the Ard Righ of Ireland. It extended from the Shannon to the sea, and from the Liffey northward to Slieve Gullion in Armagh. Tlacta, Uisneach, Tailten and Tara were the capital places of the kingdom thus formed. Tlacta, the Modern Hill of Ward in Meath, was the seat of worship of the men of the kingdom, Uisneach and Tailten were the scenes of great annual fairs, and at Tara law history and genealogies were preserved.

To realise the picturesque charms of the mensal land of the High Kings of Eirinn, of old called Magh Breagh, one need only survey it from one of these hills consecrated in tradition and legend, Tara, Slane, Uisneach or Allen, or look over it northwards from the slopes of the Dublin Mountains. "For beauty of all beauties near Dublin," writes Mr. Stephen Gwynne, "I would bring any lover of landscape -by choice on a clear day after rain while clouds and their shadows drifted far from west to east over a sunlit plainup to these mountains which give a romantic view to every southward leading street in the city. Even in Winter it is glorious to see from there how,

"The sounding city, rich and warm,
Smoulders and glitters in the plain."

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But in Summer, or still better in Spring, is the time to view central Ireland spread out immeasurably in green fields, with little wooded eminences conspicuous here and there amongst them. And on a lucky day, beyond the glimmering plain whose greenness in the far distance seems to grow translucent, you shall see sixty miles away on the northern horizon the exquisite outline of the Mourne Mountains defined in purest blue from Slieve Gullion standing inland and apart to where Slieve Donard plunges his roots in the sea." It is of the same scene, viewed in the glory of its Autumn colouring, that Sir Samuel Ferguson sings

"The silent pageant grand,

Slow fields of sunshine spread o'er fields of rich, corn bearing land; Red glebe and meadow margin green commingling to the view With yellow stubble, browning woods, and upland tracts of blue." The old fifth province abounds with memorials of our island story in all its epochs, legendary and historical. It is possible, as Wakeman remarks, to find, within easy reach of Dublin, examples, many of them still in a fine state of preservation, of almost every structure of archæological interest to be found in any part of the kingdom. In no other part of Ireland does one meet with so frequently

"The cairn, the dun, the rath, the tower, the keep
That still proclaim

In chronicles of stone and clay, how true, how deep
Was Eire's fame."

Tara has a continuous history extending from the legends of the first people who inhabited Ireland down to the monster meetings of O'Connell in the last century. The Hill of Uisneach has a history that goes back as far as the story of Tara. Tailten, near Kells, was the scene of great annual games that were celebrated, it has been said, more than a thousand years before the advent of Christianity. The tumuli of Brugh na Boinne, the most remarkable structures of their kind in Western Europe, were from time immemorial the burial places of the Kings of Ireland. The Hill of Ward was the site of the old palace of Tlacta, and the scene of a great annual fair. Slieve Gullion, the mountain of enchantment, is frequently mentioned in the stories that have come down to us of the Tuatha de Danaan. Kells, Mellefont and Mon

Trim

asterboice are memorials of the glories of Irish Christianity. Clonmacnoise recalls the great days of Irish learning. has its monuments of the days of the great Norman barons of the Pale.

Throughout the province it will be found that scenery and antiquities are closely allied, and that the finest remains are nearly always found where the surrounding country is of itself striking and beautiful. This has been noted by Petrie as one of the characteristics that confer upon Ireland the peculiar and impressive character it possesses. The relics of past epochs of various classes; the monuments of its Pagan times, as revealed to us in its religious, military and sepulchral remains; the ruins of its primitive Christian ages, as exemplified in its simple and generally unadorned churches, and slender round towers, the more splendid monastic edifices, of later date, and the gloomy castles of still more recent times, are everywhere present to bestow historic interest on the landscape, and bring the successive condition and changes of society in bygone ages forcibly before the mind; so that an additional interest, of a deep and poetical nature, is thus imparted to views in themselves impressive, from their picturesque and wild appearance. "So perfect," he writes, "is this harmony of the natural and artificial characteristics of Irish scenery, so comprehensively do both tell the history of our country, that if we were desirous of giving a stranger a true idea of Ireland, and one that would impress itself on his mind, we should conduct him to one of our green open landscapes, where the dark and ruined castle, seated on some rocky height, or the round tower with its little church in some sequestered valley, would be the only features to arrest his attention; and of such a scene we should emphatically say This is Ireland'." The memory of an old legend will N add the visionary gleam, the light that never was on sea or land' to a fine landscape. The Valley of the Boyne, so lovely of itself, has an added charm when one remembers that, as Sir William Wilde tells us, there is scarcely a ford on the river but was disputed in days gone by; the bardic annais teem with descriptions of its battles; the fairy lore of cther days yet lingers by its tranquil waters; and scarcely a knoll, a mound, or rock or bank in its vicinity, but still retains its

legend. The second great river of the province, too, though not so famed in ancient story as the Boyne, has been the scene of memorable events. The pleasant vale of Chapelizod, the mound at Clane, the wooded glades of Lucan awaken thoughts of old, unhappy far off things.'

"Not all inglorious in thy elder day,

Art thou, Moy Liffey; and the loving mind

Might round thy borders many a gracious lay
And many a tale not unheroic find."

The monuments of the medieval period that are to be found in Midhe are comparatively few, and, with the exception of the splendid old castle of De Lacy at Trim, seem insignificant when compared with similar remains in other countries. It is, however, singularly rich in the monuments of a still earlier age, the heroic period of Irish history. Everywhere throughout it are found the cromlechs, duns, rails, and barrows that recall the morning of the Gaelic race, the Homeric age of our native literature, the splendid dawn of our history that is "thronged with heroic forms of men and women, and terrible with the presence of the "upernatural and its over-arching power." It is a remarkable fact that, while both literature and tradition are so often silent with regard to monuments that were erected in comparatively recent times, we possess abundant and precise information in cur oldest literary records of the uses to which these structures of the mythical and heroic period of our history were intended to serve. One of the most characteristic features of Irish historical legends and poems is the definite localisation of the personages and incidents of the tales, so that we are able to determine with great minuteness and accuracy the scenes in which the events which they relate were enacted. The greater number of the places mentioned in the old legends of the Fifth Province have been identified, and retain their old names to the present day. We find raths, forts, tumuli and cromlechs near the Boyne, and elsewhere throughout it, corresponding exactly with the descriptions that are given in the old narratives. Thus its legendary history, as well as being very full and very interesting, can lay claim to an element of solidity that is seldom found in the story and traditions of other nations. "There is one country in Europe," says Mr.

VOL. XIIII.-No. 505.

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