LETTER XII.

LONDONDERRY.

Derry, August, 1837. HERE I am, hemmed in by the maiden walls of Derry. Sundry misgivings had assailed me, lest a disappointment in highly raised expectations might cast a damp where all was disposed to glow with delight. The dread of a modernized town was uppermost; but how vain were such thoughts! I am revelling in the fullest realization of the vision that has charmed me from childhood: and if I can succeed in giving you but a faint sketch of this most unique, most spirit-stirring spot, you will say there is good reason for so doing.

But I suppose you will expect to come in regularly by the mail, according to promise: we must therefore return to Belfast. After an early breakfast, our kind friend Mr. M'C. sent us to the coach; and we rapidly passed through the

still tranquil streets, so soon to be thronged with political combatants flocking to the hustings. The road, bordered on the left by high and picturesque hills, commands on the right, a continued view of the harbour, or lough, a beautiful piece of water, bearing many a tall vessel on its advancing tide towards the quays. We had one fellow-traveller, a lively, pleasant military officer, whose recent return from foreign duty in a regiment where I have many friends, and a still more recent recruiting expedition among the Mourne mountains, afforded subjects of mutual interest, not lessened by an equally mutual love for Ireland. The road is, in some places, eminently beautiful, adorned with rich seats, and noble plantations. At Antrim we saw one of the fine old round towers; and soon after we had some momentary glimpses, through openings of the thick plantations of Shane's Castle, of the famous Lough Neagh, the pride of Irish lakes; equalled in size only by three others throughout Europe. It is twenty miles in length, fifteen in breadth, receives the streams of six large rivers, and includes an area of 100,000 acres. I longed to pause, and to take a survey of this inland sea; but mail coaches are unfriendly to the indulgence of such hankerings after the picturesque, and had not the prospect of Derry been before my mind's eye, I should have regretted

abandoning the more accommodating mode of private travelling. As it was, I could only repeat the well-remembered stanza founded on one of the wild legends of these imaginative people,

On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays

When the clear cool eve's declining,

He sees the round towers of other days
In the wave beneath him shining:

Thus shall memory often in dreams sublime
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over,
Thus, sighing, look through the waves of time
For the long faded glories they cover.

And this I had to write down in pencil for my fellow-traveller, so much did it please his fancy. At Ballymoney, to our sincere regret, this gentleman's journey terminated, his recruiting party being stationed near it; and we bade him a very reluctant farewell. Independent of the pleasure one always enjoys in polished, intellectual society, we had derived so much information from his exact knowledge of the places through which our route lay, that it was doubly a loss. But this is Ireland, as I had no reason to forget; a very gentlemanly youth, an outside passenger, overhearing me express something of the latter cause of lamentation, without saying a word about it took the vacant place, and most obligingly told us the name, history, and local associations connected with each

spot; regretting that he was going no farther himself than Coleraine. I love to record these little instances of a courtesy that is absolutely inherent in these Irishmen. The quiet watchfulness, or whatever you please to term it, by which they contrive to anticipate whatever wish a stranger might form as to an increase of his comforts, and the easy, unaffected, unostentatious manner of shewing kindness, which enhances the value while it precludes an oppressive sense of the obligation-this is what throws such a charm over Irish society, whether during a lengthened domestication under the hospitable roof, or an hour's casual acquaintance in a stage coach. When I meet with an English traveller whose experience does not tally with mine, I am sure that he has to thank his own impenetrable reserve, want of frankness and good humour, or else an insulting appearance-I may say affectation-of contempt for the people and their country. Not a day has passed since our landing in Waterford, in the course of which I have not experienced some practical illustration of that beautiful injunction, "Brethren, by love serve one another."

Coleraine is a substantial town, with a very fine sheet of water, the Bann river, flowing through, or rather past it. Here too we found all the bustle and excitement of an election going on,

with indications of very turbulent feelings on the part of those whom Dr. Blake would distinguish as dear Christians;' which in his parlance means, bibbers of whiskey, and breakers of heads. Newtown-Limavady, with its long street succeeded; this was one of the garrisoned places that held out against the rebels, in 1641; and it bore an important relationship to Derry during the memorable epoch of the defence. At this place my young companion chose to mount the outside of the coach, leaving me with an humble fellow-traveller, an elderly domestic of a noble family, who had already exhausted her little stock of information in the details of a death and a marriage, and the present state of her venerable master's gouty foot. I knew enough of the family to take some interest in what it gratified her to tell.

The region on which we had last entered was wild and barren; a sort of moorland, swelling and falling; while now and then the indistinct outline of some object of which I could not decide whether it was a cloud or a mountain, appeared on the horizon, overtopping the irregular hills that skirted our left. To the right, I knew we were not very far from the sea; in fact we had enjoyed at one point a fine view of it near Coleraine, and were within a few miles of the Giant's Causeway. On that side, I was watching what I thought a