Reader, have you ever read Southey's poem of Roderick, the last of the Goths? and if so, don't you recollect his awful description of the vale of Covadonga, in the Asturias. By the bye, fine as it is, and good as is the story of the destruction of the Moors there, I believe he has taken his outline from Hofer's overthrow of a French army in one of the passes of the Tyrol. At all events, good reader, read if you can get it, Southey's poem of Roderick, and if this little tour in no other respect pleases you, you will owe it thanks for directing you to one of the most delightful poems of modern times. What Southey says of Covadonga may be well applied to the pass of Cooleagh.

"Here amidst heaps

Of mountain wrecks, on either side thrown high,
The wide spread traces of its watery might

The tortuous channel wound."

"No fields of waving corn were here,

Vineyard, nor bowering fig, nor fruitful vine,
Only the rocky vale. The mountain stream,
Incumbent crags, and hills that over hills
Arose on either hand. Here hung the yew-

Here the rich heath that o'er some smooth ascent

Its purple glory spread-or golden gorse—
Bare here, and striated with many a hue
Scored by the wintry rain, by torrents here,
And with o'erhanging rocks abrupt.

Here crags loose hanging o'er the narrow pass
Impended.

This deep and extraordinary chasm, which nature has excavated through these mountains, and which, within these last ten years, has been taken advantage of, in order to make an excellent road between Macroom and Bantry, is really one of the most picturesque things in Ireland. It is well worth a journey to see its rocks and precipices: its cliffs clothed with ivy, and here and there interspersed through the masses of rock, old holly aud yew trees, and occasionally an arbutus :-And then its strange and sudden windings. You look back, and you cannot find out how you got in—before you, and you cannot imagine how you are to get forward. You might imagine that the spirit of the mountain had got you into his strong hold, and here you were impounded by everlasting enchantment. Then the surpassing loneliness of the place

"I never

So deeply felt the force of solitude.

High over head the eagle soared serene,

And the grey lizard on the rocks below
Basked in the sun."

The

And now I had arrived at one part of the Pass where an immense square castellated rock, a keep of nature's own construction, seemed to stop up the road for ever. sides of this natural fortress were clothed and garnished with ivy, maiden hair, feathery ferns, and London pride; and on the very top of the crag, as if its warder, on the very extreme beetling point, a goat, a highhorned shaggy fellow, stood and how he stood I could not explain, or scarcely imagine-but there he was in all bearded solemnity. Salvator Rosa would have painted for a month gratis, to be indulged with an opportunity of fixing such a characteristic scene, and such accompaniments on his canvass. My companion in the gig in which I travelled, was an orderly and well conducted servant; he had journeyed with me over many a hill, and along many a coast, and yet

so imperturbable and so unsusceptible was he, that hitherto in all my journeyings he had never ventured to make a remark on scenes so sublime or so beautiful, that they used to make me wild with delight and noisy admiration. But here the soul of the man could not contain itself, and he cried out "Oh, dear Sir, what a mighty grand place ;-this flogs all we have seen yet. But then, Master, take care you don't stay too long here, looking at it, for sure enough Munster has no readier place for cutting a throat." " I declare, George, you are quite right as to the grandeur of this wondrous spot, and you are not wrong in saying, that it is a close convenient place for cutting throats." And this brought to my mind that this very spot was, not very long ago, a scene of blood and battle. It was the strong hold of the poor misguided Rockites, in the winter of the year 1822, when instigated by incendiaries, and deluded by dark and curtained men, who put forth amongst them Pastorini's and Columkill's prophecies, and

"Trusting to the strength of these wild hills,"

hither the deluded peasantry retired, as to a strong hold, where they imagined

"That nature for the free and brave prepared
A'sanctuary, where no oppressor's power-
No might of human tyranny could pierce."

And from hence, as from an insurrectionary centre, they made incursions in search of arms towards Bantry, Macroom," and Dunmanway. After an incursion of this kind, and an attack on a gentleman's house near Bantry, Lord By, and his brother, Cap tain We, of Glengariff, attended by about forty mounted gentlemen, and a party of the 39th foot, commanded by an officer, pursued the insurgents, who retreated before them, and sought the recesses of the moun tains that surround the Pass. On arriving at the defile, the pursuers halted and held council; the hills were found inaccessible to horsemen, and the officer commanding the military, declared, that unless the heights were scoured by a large body of troops, he would not enter such a man-trap as the glen.

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