surmounted, he hesitated, and feared, and doubted. Whilst roaming through the demesne of Woodstock, whilst revelling mentally amongst the various scenes of sylvan loveliness of the landscapes around Inistiogue, he spoke of all his hopes and fears to his brother Michael. Michael was all courage and trustful aspiration. From the period at which he had ceased to be a pupil of Mr. Buchanan's "English Academy," he had been engaged in business as an assistant to his father. He had been, as we already seen, the constant correspondent and adviser of John: he knew little of books, but much of the men who formed the world in which he lived. These were precisely the men who were to make up the characters of John's projected novels. Michael urged his brother to proceed he knew nothing of the literary jealousies, the carping, the injustice which must be encountered in working one's way to the public eye. He believed in John's genius; he had gloried in his progress; he had been his confident in his unhappy first love;† he had been his nurse in the long and terrible sickness succeeding the death of Anne D; and now he was his best and truest friend, for he kept him firmly fixed to one plan, of many, promising success. They talked of plots and scenes; they repeated old stories, and criticized their adaptability for the novel or romance; and thus Michael became confirmed in his estimate of his brother's genius, and John learned the great advantage to be derived from the judgement, and kind, but honest criticism of Michael. And he learned more in discussing their plans, and in relating the country tales that seemed most suited for John's purpose, Michael related one particular story so well, so clearly, so graphically, and with so genuine a pathos, that John determined upon venturing all his hopes of success in an Irish Novel-a novel to be written in separate tales-one, at least, of which should be written by Michael-and thus, amid the green fields of Inistiogue, were the Tales By The O'Hara Family planned, and a joint system of writing commenced, which rivalled in popularity the Canterbury Tales of the Sisters Lee. Michael was unwilling to join his brother

:

*See IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. IV. No. 14, p. 278. Art. "John Banim. Part 1."

See IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. IV. No. 14, p. 296. Art. "John Banim. Part I."

in this plan; he doubted his ability; a book, and printers, were awful things in his eyes-but John insisted-implored: he would correct; he would be in London, Michael would serve him by shortening his work-the "filling stuff" of the volumes would be supplied by Michael's story if it served no other purpose; the story was a good one, he might depend on John's judgment for the truth of the opinion, and at length it was agreed that each should commence composing forthwith, Michael to write the story he had told to John, John to prepare the other tales necessary to complete the ordinary three volumes-and each was to submit his work to the judgement and correction of the other.

This joint plan having been arranged, another joint plan was to be undertaken, in which John was to appear as chief actor. In his wanderings around the neighbourhood of Inistiogue he had selected, as his chief resting place, the house of John Ruth of Cappagh, a very old and steady friend of his father. John Ruth was what is, or used to be, called a "gentleman farmer;" one of those who with good land and low rents made up the somewhat spendthrift race of Irish "strong farmers." His house was well built, and warmly thatched; it had its fool; its lame cook; its herd of hangers on; its guests whose days were idleness and whose nights were too frequently drunken revels. He was amongst the last of his class, and as many of our readers in this age of staid, sober, Incumbered Estates purchased farms may not be aware of the causes which conduced to make Irish "gentlemen farmers," incumbered landholders, we here insert from The Nowlans, Banim's sketch of Aby Nowlan, the original being a cousin and neighbour of John Ruth :

"He was the first Roman Catholic 'gentleman farmer' of the district, inheriting, almost undividedly, the profit rents of many farms taken from time to time by his father, at very low terms and on very long leases, tilled and cultivated with skill and industry, and at last brought to such perfection, as on his death-bed to leave the premature old man the willing of almost a real estate of about one thousand a year. And, by the will he made, old Nowlan seemed perfectly to understand the importance of his acquisitions: for, in imitation of the proprietors of real estates around him, he would have, in his eldest son, a representative also; while three other sons, Daniel among the number, were left but scantily portioned; Murrough, the second, being apprenticed to a sadler in Limerick, and, when out of his time, turned off to shift for himself upon three hundred pounds and a blessing; Davy, the third, similarly disposed

of in the grocery line;' and Daniel, the youngest, favoured, at the same rent under which the old man himself held it, with a lease of part of the ground on which we now see him living and thriving, and which, indeed, was the beginning of his prosperity.

In fact, a gentleman, a real gentleman,' old Nowlan would leave behind him in the person of Masther Aby;' and it was not by independence alone, but by education and accomplishments too, he sought to confer this character. For himself, who had the making of the estate, with his own two hands, late and early, through fair weather and foul, the larnin' would have been no use to him, and might have proved an injury; but the son who was to get all ready made to his hand and live the life of any gentleman upon it, why it well became him to put something besides his mark to a lease or a receipt, and to be able to read any book that might come in the way, and to keep his accounts in pin-writin,' rather than on a tally,' and to have a word in his cheek before the best in the land; nay, to understand the soggarth's Latin itself, and not to have it thrun away upon him, like a cow or a horse.'

But old Nowlan's endeavours, in this second view, were not as successful as his previous industry; he found it easier to make a thousand a year for his son, than to make that son a scholar or a gentleman. In vain did he send him to the best schools in Limerick; Masther Aby' either learned nothing in them, or did not stay in them long enough to learn any thing. Sometimes he was turned home, like an incurable out of an hospital; sometimes he came home of his own accord, and, without speaking a word, or showing the least change in a face always, from youth to old age, unchangeable, sat down to dinner in his father's parlour; and, more than once when the old fellow thought that by dint of a good horsewhip, he had succeeded in prevailing upon him to return to his 'schoolin,' that is, when after a sound flogging he had shut the door in his face, the young master' has been discovered, months after, quietly passing his days under the roof of some distant tenant; eating, drinking, and sleeping; whenever it was possible, riding a horse; and scarcely ever opening his heavy-lipped mouth to a creature

around him.

In wrath and stern resolve, old Nowlan fell upon a plan, suggested by an action he had seen performed by the blockhead himself. At about twelve years of age, Aby was well skilled in dogs of all degree, and there was a certain pointer of his kennel which took an objection to breakfast on stirabout,' just at the very time, when in consequence of the animal's real or supposed state of body, stirabout was deemed, by good judges, its best diet. So soon as, after repeated efforts, Aby saw that the dog would not share the breakfast of its brother-and-sister dogs, he was observed silently to unchain it, lead it out into the middle of the yard, secure it to a large stone, place before it a platter of the objectionable food, stand by until a reasonable time was afforded for dog or man to form a decided opinion, and then flog it with a steady hand, again adjust the platter, again stand inactive, again flog, flog, and so continue, until some kinder-hearted person beguiled him from his employment,

or until his father, at last recognizing the matter, came out with another horsewhip in his hand, not for the dog, but for the dog's

master.

And on this hint, old Nowlan acted in resolute prosecution of his plan to make his eldest son a scholar. Mounting a good horse, he rode, not to the ablest, but to the severest pedagogue in Limerick, and proposed an unusual pension for Aby's board and education, on the following provisioes; that, first, Aby should get neither breakfast nor dinner until he had previously breakfasted dacently' on his morning and afternoon tasks, or else upon three distinct whippings, morning and evening; second, that, to prevent elopement during the day, he should be chained by the neck and leg to a block of wood sufficiently large and heavy to hinder him from running, or even walking fast; and, thirdly, that to guard against the like accident at night, all his clothes, except his shirt, should be taken from him, as he lay down in bed, and not restored until the chain and log were in waiting for re-adjustment at the hour of getting up an if the bouchal won't ate his stirabout now,' said old Nowlan, when the bargain was ended, and Aby regularly installed in his log and fetters, why, he may just folly his own likins. And, notwithstanding the boasted wisdom of the arrangement, and the unremitting watchfulness and attentions of the pedagogue, the bouchal' did contrive to folly his own likins:' for, upon a winter's morning, about eight o'clock, and about a fortnight after his father had left him in the school, a vision of the young masther,' habited solely in a draggle-tailed shirt, appeared walking up to the house, just as the old farmer was on his way to a fair at Nenagh; so they met in the little avenue, and Aby's first salute from his affectionate parent was a lash across his shoulders, at which, wincing somewhat, he turned down the avenue again, and showed symptoms of a retreat to a tenant's house; but the father spurring his horse, intercepted, and by words and continued lashes, exhorted him into the Limerick road, kept him in it for miles, always foiling his efforts to double to the right or left, until, as Limerick came in view, Aby, roused to a dogged despair, rushed through a gap, down a descent to the Shannon, gained the river's edge before his father could baffle his sudden movement, plunged headlong in, and, as he had ever been too lazy to learn to swim, would most certainly have been drowned, but that a fisherman's cot paddled to his assistance, picked him up, and returned him to the arms of his now afflicted and remorseful parent.

This was his last trial. From this day out, Aby never saw the loathsome interior of a school; though, to the hour of his death, his dreams often surrounded him with its villanous circumstantiality. Old Nowlan, in addition to his caution of his former pertinacity, consoled his heart with various reflections; such as, when he was cross-hard to make a silk purse out iv a sow's ear ;-hard to dhraw blood from a turnip; man proposes, God disposes:' or, when he recollected that Aby could indeed write a tolerably fair hand, and read a book without much coughing and hemming, and, fair time being allowed, and no hurry-work out a sum upon a slate to the

effect of what would six sacks of wheat come to at the sack?' and find out London and Dublin upon any map he was used to, with other considerable things ;-why, when the old man took this to mind, he would comfort himself with half a loaf is betther nor no bread;-take an inch if you can't get an ell ;-too much of one thing is good for nothing;' &c. &c.

The stupid harmlessness of Aby's character had further influence on the natural feelings of the parent: avoch, poor boy, there wasn't a bit of bad in him; an' the heart was in the right place, any how ;-an' he was no sich omadhaun, neither; smooth water runs deep: he could see as far into a mill-stone as another he knew more nor a cow did of a bad shillin'; lave him to himself; jist let well enough alone; you'll never see him atin' pavin'-stones for phayties;'-and in time, this negative admiration amounted to real love; even of the dolt's clumsy person, set features, and staring eyes, the father became fond; nor was Aby's taciturnity any check on their fire-side communions; for, just as one can talk for hours to a dog, in imaginary reply to its set gaze, or the wagging of its tail, old Nowlan easily managed long conferences with his eldest son.

In a word, Masther Aby' was a mere animal of a very inoffensive, and perhaps amiable class; not a fool, that gives no idea of him ; an animal is the word. An animal with an animal's wants, and with no mental stimulus to strive for any thing beyond their gratification; and with an animal's passions, of course. For example; he was but eighteen when one of his father's-(dairy-maids we were about to say, but that it involves a usual contradiction,)—one of his father's dairy-women, then, went to the priest to make a certain acknowledgment in which he was concerned; within the next year old Nowlan became the grandsire of two more children, by different mothers; soon after his death, the new masther,' at five-andtwenty, had installed in his kitchen, as servants, those three women, while a finer lady played sultana over them all, and the sultan's visits were known to be extended to the dwellings of more than one other pretty woman, girl or wife, on his farms; in the lapse of years, the whole set, with their whole brood, were to be found ejected out of his house or their father's houses, and established, rent free, and more than that, in separate cottages, all around, while a new and younger set, still with a temporary Mrs. Nowlan,' supplied their places, only, in turn to share their destiny; and this system, until about fifty, when we have most to do with him, Masther Aby', as all the country-people of his own age, or older, still called him, formally kept up; and, on account of the wear and tear, resulting from it, this was the system that gave cause for some of the doubts expressed by the neighbours as to John Nowlan's chance of being much the better of an adoption into the graces of his uncle.

Other domestic courses added to such doubts. Aby Nowlan had, in common with his father, an ambition to be thought a gentleman; but he manifested it in a tamer and more slavish way than his father would have done. To wear, like Square Adams,' (meaning Squire Adams) of Mount-Nelson,'-(or some such ridiculous name conferred on a bit of barren ground once called Killavochery, or Bally