This entire tract of country is rich in interesting and romantic spots and valleys; but the most celebrated of all is the Vale of Avoca, particularly the spot where its principal streams unite their waters, and shortly before it falls into the sea. The Vale of Avoca is as highly prized in Ireland, as is the Vale of Vaucluse in the south of France. It is remarkable that beautiful objects have usually beautiful names. Avoca sounds almost quite Italian, though in the mouth of an Englishman but half so, namely, ‘Aevocae’. A great number of these Italian-sounding names are scattered through Ireland, as Portumna on the Shannon, Liscanor Bay on the coast of Clare, the promontory Brandon, and the town Bandon, Fort Delore on the coast of Kerry, Garomna and Castello in Connemara, Matino and Matilla, and the canal harbour Portobello, near Dublin. Are these sounds the same in the Celtic language of Ireland as in the old original Celtic language of Italy; or are they real Italian names, that have been introduced into Ireland, as into other countries, for the sake of their pleasing and musical sound?
The beautiful foliage is the greatest charm of the Vale of Avoca. There are stately oaks and beeches, which form the most picturesque groups, and are entirely covered with ivy. Indeed all those rocky valleys of the Wicklow mountains, through which rivers flow, are thus adorned with a beautiful foliage; whilst the broad lidges, the pyramidal summits, and the unwatered valleys, are quite bare. On the sides of these beautiful watered valleys there are large tracts perfectly treeless. The Irish oak has a very
The little town of Arklow lies at the mouth of the Avoca, near the sea, and from it the road ascends into the wooded vale, first through Glenart wood, in which Glenart Castle and another handsome and picturesque mansion, Shelton Abbey, stand facing
- There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.
So sings Moore; and these words the Irish interpret literally; for they do not, in fact, consider that a poet, momentarily intoxicated by the wonderful beauties of a place, may declare to the world, without the slightest intention to deceive, that this place is the sweetest in the wide world, but that when a prosaic expounder of the sublime and beautiful delivers such expressions ex cathedra, he is manifestly guilty of exaggeration. There are so many charming vales, and nature is in a hundred thousand spots of the earth so extremely pleasing and beautiful, that it is only allowable to forget this so long as a man lingers in his charming valley, and revels in his enjoyment of nature, but not when he looks out from it and compares it with the rest of the world. ‘The Americans,’ say the Irish, ‘who come hither, assure us they have never beheld any thing like it. A Frenchman too was lately here, and he assured us that there was nothing equal to it in his country.’ The German alone, whom they had now with them, would not thus come out with his ‘the most splendid scenery he ever saw in his life.’ It is often with the inhabitants of a narrow district as with a person in love: the latter has obtained his ideas of the divinity of human nature, and of the fair sex in particular, merely from a single individual of it. As he is now so deeply absorbed with this individual, and studies in her all the beauties which grace the human soul, as well as the human body, he deems all this the personal merit of the individual alone; and, (though in accordance with reason he should love the entire human race with the same affection) he now casts off reason altogether, and ‘falls in love,’ as the English say, that is, into a deep hole, from which he can only see and adore one star of the many millions which stud the vast dome of heaven. Thus have the Irish discovered the breath of heaven in their Vale of Avoca. They and their journalists and poets have laid bare and praised all its beauties: hence they have fallen in love with this vale, as if it were the only one of its kind on the entire globe.
Even those Irish who have not seen this Vale have conceived the most delightful ideas respecting it, and it is more than probable that Moore has largely contributed to this by his continually repeated lines—
- There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
The rest of this poem is very poor, and even ends in commonplace. In the literature of every nation there are short passages like this, which, no one knows why, have found a greater echo, and have exercised a mightier effect on men, than entire great works, or than the deeds of a whole glorious life. Millions of beautiful sentences often pass away unregarded, while two or three words for ever glow and burn bright in the hearts of an entire people. Moore has a multitude of these striking and burning passages, in which he has sung, in short, affecting, and patriotic lays, the beauty of many an Irish glen, castle, and ruin, and in this manner has erected, in the hearts of the people, a monument of their fame more indestructible than brass or stone. Thus, in another famous lay, he has sung of the enchanting lake of Glendalough, at whose ‘gloomy shore’ we arrived the following day; thus also has he sung of Innisfallen island, at Killarney:—
- Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well!
And long may light around thee smile,
Soft as on that evening fell,
When first I saw thy fairy isle.
Thus again of Arranmore, the largest of the isles of Arran, on the east coast21 of Ireland, whose inhabitants, even at the present day, are convinced that from their shores they can behold Hy Brysail, or the enchanted island, the paradise of the heathen Irish;—
Then the waters of the Moyle, over which Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, sails in the form of a swan, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell is to be the signal of her release:—
- O Arranmore, lov'd Arranmore!
How oft I dream of thee,
And of those days when by thy shore
I wander'd young and free;- Or, when the western wave grew bright
With daylight's parting wing
Have sought that Eden in its light,
Which dreaming poets sing.
And many other remarkable spots of the Emerald Isle.
- Silent, O Moyle! be the roar of thy water,
&c
It is a great mistake to consider Moore a great English poet. He is thoroughly an Irish genius, who only uses the English language to clothe his Irish thoughts, feelings, and sentiments. The English can therefore admire but one half of the man—his language; whilst his other half—his sentiments—cannot reach their hearts as they do those of the Irish, who regard him almost as a divinity. If a Sclavonic poet were thus to breathe his Sclavonic sentiments and patriotism in German verse, we could as little look upon him as a German poet as we can upon Moore as an English poet. Moore's patriotism is completely anti-English. His is the bloody motto which O'Connell has prefixed, to his Memoirs of the History of Ireland:—
He frequently calls the English the ‘fiend:’ for instance, in his mournful poem on the battle of the Boyne,
- But onward!—the green banner rearing
Go, flesh ev'ry sword to the hilt!
On our side is Virtue and Erin,
On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt.
and in The Parallel, where he compares the Irish to the enslaved Jews, and marches to battle uttering prophetic warnings against their oppressors. He feels a deep sympathy for the deeds of the old Irish heroes and kings, and sings them like a bard of old. Thus he bids the Irish
- As vanquish'd Erin wept beside;—
Thus he takes the harp from Tara's hall, and plays on it in the manner of the ancient bards:—
- Remember the glories of Brian the brave!
Even against the Danes he goes to battle at the present day, and bids
- The harp that once, through Tara's halls,
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
And in the Ode on Wellington, Ireland's pride, he thus speaks of Erin's history:—
- ——; Erin remember the days of old,
Ere her faithless son betrayed her.
- While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
Yea, even his other little poems, which we in Germany often look on as the outpourings of a general melancholy, or excessive sentiment, and deep love for nature and for man, almost one and
Such beautiful, musical verses as these are written upon the hearts of the Irish, and indelibly stamped upon their memories. They sway the people more than O'Connell's best harangues, which will be entirely forgot long before Moore's verses will cease to be sung by the people from generation to generation. Thomas Moore is a far worse agitator than O'Connell, although he remains quietly at home on his estate, comfortably seated in his easy-chair. He arouses the hearts of the Irish, and with tears, with sighs, with inspired blessings, with curses, and with song and music, he marches to do battle against the English. O'Connell fights in the van; and Moore is his bard, who stands singing at his side, O'Connell, Thomas Moore, and Father Mathew form the great triumvirate which now stands at the head of all moral movements in Ireland, each in his own peculiar field and post. They form the triple leaf of the remarkable shamrock which flourishes fresh and green on the mountain summit of Irish fame, and to which the inhabitants of Erin look up with love and admiration.
- Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay!
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?
It is deserving of remark that these three men are all natives of the south of Ireland, and all from the neighbourhood of the sea coast,—O'Connell from Cahirsiveen, in Kerry, Father Mathew from Cork, and Moore from Wexford, where his father was a
The greatest fault of the Vale of Avoca is, that it is so short, for how gladly would the delighted eye roam over more of those green meadows, those charming groups of rocks, and those ivy-mantled, ivy-draperied trees!
From the Vale of Avoca we arrived at the Vale of Avon, wherein lies the little town of Rathdrum, where we found most excellent, clean, and neat quarters with a small shopkeeper, who is, at the same time, the innkeeper of the place. This reminds me that I have not yet said a single word of all the good, neat, and clean rooms which I found every where during my travels in Ireland. The Irish inns are not so famous as the best in England; nay, even in Ireland, an inn kept by an Englishman is usually recommended with the addition—‘the landlord is an Englishman, sir; you will find yourself very comfortable there.’ There must, of course, be some reason for this; but so much is certain, that I never felt very anxious about the choice of my quarters, and every day I experienced the most perfect conviction that even in the smallest town I would be able to lie down in the evening in a good and clean bed. The bed and the cleanliness are, however, the principal things which a traveller may always depend upon, for the attendance is mostly slow and the fare not to every body's taste. The beds are generally so large that they take up almost the entire room, and leave only space sufficient to walk round, to look for a convenient spot for ascending this mountain of feathers and bed-clothes. The fare usually consists of mutton chops, potatoes, and tea. The latter is always drinkable and good, the potatoes are always only half boiled (I do not remember having ever eaten a perfectly boiled potato in Ireland), and the mutton chops, at least in the opinion of the eulogizing host, are always ‘nice,’ but sometimes so hard and tough that one scarcely ventures to risk his teeth upon them. Of this description were my mutton chops at Rathdrum. I therefore did as the Irish do with their herrings,—I rubbed my potatoes on the mutton chops, and particularly on their brown roasted fat. Thos my potatoes obtained an excellent taste, and formed another description of potatoes au point.
Not far from Rathdrum, in the vale of Avonmore, are coppermines, which threaten to destroy the beautiful trees. It is well said, utile cum dulce; but unfortunately the utile is almost every where waging internecine war with the dulce. Even the salmon, which were formerly very plentiful in the river Avon, have been driven from it by these mines. ‘The sulphureous sulphur-water’