but all is suggestive of that indomitable energy that has elevated Ulster to the foremost place among the provinces of Ireland.

I have before me while I write an ancient pictorial map of the city of Limerick, given in the "Pacata Hibernia; or, History of the Wars in Ireland in the time of Elizabeth. Taken from the original Chronicles.” The place seems to have been depicted with a regard to the minutiæ which renders the map invaluable to the archæologist, and is most creditable to the old world worthy who executed the work.

The city itself was on an island, and was surrounded by a battlemented wall, with fourteen towers, on some of which heavy ordnance was placed. On the side of the river, a little to the east, I should think, of what is now NewtownPery, is "the base towne," also walled and guarded by twelve strong towers. The towns are connected by a bridge, defended by a tower at each end, with portcullises and by a drawbridge. The bridge alluded to is not on the site of the present one, but farther up the river. About the site of the present transpontine communication between NewtownPery and the "English town" there was a myll" in the middle of the river, joined by a bridge or mole to the southern shore. From the bridge connecting the "base" and English towns, a street intersects the latter. From this leading thoroughfare side streets run off: two to the right, dividing into three blocks that quarter of the city; two to the left, similarly intersecting that quarter of the town,-one of these leading down to the Cathedral, which stands apart and surrounded by a wall, the other to Thomond Bridge.

Thomond Bridge is defended, in like manner, by towers with portcullises, and by a drawbridge at

the gate of the tower at the Clare end.

The "Queenes Castell" is on the site of the present one. This royal fortress appears to have undergone considerable alterations, judging from the several representations given in the "Pacata." One, however, shows it almost in its present form.

There are several "mylls," rising like towers, in the river, and joined to the town by bridges.

Boats with nets are busy off the town. A couple of ships are given

-one fastened by chains from bow and stern to two of the towers; the other, with sails set, outward bound. Quaint old ships, three-masted and "a' that," with high poops and forecastles, and rig about as like that of our modern ocean clippers, as Nelson's ships were like our modern floating batteries. Flags are flying on the ships; there is a flag even on a boat sailing down the river; flags are flying on many of the houses. It seems a gala-day in Limerick !

There, at the farther end of Thomond Bridge, is the famous

Treaty Stone." We are looking from St. Mary's tower, and not at the map. We shall descend, cross the bridge, and take a look at the precious relic.

It is an unhewn block, say two feet square, elevated on a pedestal. Round it gather many memories! But it is not by mourning over the irrevocable past, nor by dreaming of a probably impossible future, that we will advance the interests of our land. What the country needs is rest-rest from agitation and political excitement; rest to gather up her energies that she may concentrate her strength to achieve that social amelioration which we believe is possible under existing political institutions. And, as for us, whose lot is cast in the Emerald Isle, let men of every race and of every creed

BESIDES the financial problem which was dealt with in our last essay, there is another, carrying the same principle to a still greater extent, and therefore even more difficult of solution; namely, how it is that many persons manage not only to live, but to speculate upon nothing. I am not alluding to bubble companies, which are problems easily solved by the clue Gullibility, but to speculations of a different sort, wherein the public are not invited to share, save by such support as they can give as consumers of the article manufactured.

I have mentioned that my occasional acquaintance, Mr. Strayshot, is of no profession, but he belongs to that large miscellaneous population which inhabits the borders of the literary world. For, besides the vast number of persons who are a prey to the consuming desire of getting into print, I find there is another wide class almost as sanguine and unpractical-the commercial literary projectors. appears to be the goal of many persons' ambition to "start a paper;" to call themselves the proprietors of the Daily, or Weekly, or Monthly

It

SHAKESPEARE.

So-and-so, which they look upon as a title conferring at once wealth, fame, and influence. As, however, I am given to understand that this kind of speculation is the most uncertain possible, and requires immense sums to "float it," and "work up a circulation," I am often a little puzzled when Strayshot informs me that somebody he knows is going to "start a paper," and, in the same breath, that the aforesaid somebody has no capital of his own. When I ask for an explanation, Strayshot, with a profoundly knowing expression, says— "Man with money, you know, in the background."

Half the journals in London, by Strayshot's account, are supported by that mysterious being in the background, who never by any chance comes to the foreground, so that we might have a chance of seeing what he is like.

Strayshot the (frequently) Impecunious is himself a confirmed literary speculator. With him the complaint breaks out at intervals, and rages with more or less violence till it wears itself out, although in many cases it does not go beyond

the premonitory symptoms. In other words, Strayshot is always on the eve of “starting a paper," or magazine, or journal of some description. For instance, I am pursuing my philosophical meditations in the London streets, when I meet Strayshot. His manner is more than usually mysterious, and, under the seal of rigid secrecy, he informs me that he has a "splendid idea," which, when carried out, will make his fortune and that of all who assist him. What do I think of the Weekly Dash ?—a glorious title, isn't it? But I must remember to keep it dark, to breathe it not in the busy street, nor on the open plain, nor even within the walls of my hermetic cell; for if some piratical publisher were to get scent of it before it could be ENT. STA. HALL," he would snap it up as a cat does a mouse. But this is not all; Strayshot's fertile imagination is not to be bounded by one periodical; he intends to start another, though of rather humbler pretensions—the Monthly Blank, a sort of pendant to the grand one, and destined to grow up under the shadow of its superabundant prosperity.

"You see," proceeds Strayshot, "if I devote 3000l. to the Weekly Dash, and reserve 15007. for the Monthly Blank, why, of course, what with the sale of the first number, the advertisements—" and so forth, and so forth.

I listen in astonishment, knowing by his own confession that Strayshot just now finds it as much as he can do to make his private ends meet symmetrically, much more to plunge into such vast speculations. But evading further explanations, he emphatically assures me that I shall see the paper come out with grand éclat very soon. I receive this assertion somewhat sceptically, for I have seldom met Strayshot

*

but what he had some new and gigantic scheme which never attained even the solidity of an airbubble. Even when he shows me the "heading" and prospectus, I hold it no convincing proof that the publication will actually follow, for persons of Strayshot's order seem to take an almost childish delight in getting up these preliminaries-considering them important evidences of the progress of the enterprise itself—which they are not, any more than the name painted over a shop door is an infallible sign that the establishment is duly stocked and in working order.

By-and-by, however, I am taken by surprise; the Weekly Dash does come out ay, and the Monthly Blank also-and both are advertized heavily, and make certain energetic strainings to obtain publicity, which Strayshot, in the peculiar jargon of the profession, calls “a splash at starting." When I meet him next, he is a man of influence and importance the autocrat of the editor's room, and lives in a style proportionate to his new dignity. Were I not a hermit, he would invite me to indulge in costly vinous beverages. He speaks of the great source of all this as My paper," and certainly seems to have full control and possession. As for the Man in the Background, he seems to have faded away into the merest abstraction, or, if he still exists, is never taken into the slightest account, but is treated as a mere money-bag for the manager to dip his hand into at pleasure. To ask, just out of curiosity, if it is possible anywhere to get sight of this mysterious personage, is considered as unreasonable as desiring an introduction to John Doe, Richard Roe, or the Grand Lama of Thibet.

confusion worse confounded by taking me aside and telling me, in confidence,

"Yes; it is a splendid success, though at present the paper is carried on at a loss of 407. a week."

When I tell him that I cannot reconcile these two statements, he jauntily replies, "Oh, they all lose a bit at first, you know; but we don't mind that; WE shall pull through! and he rattles his rattles his pockets as if he had a Fortunatus' purse in each. "Number Four has gone off like a rocket, and I've another splendid idea that is sure to double the circulation next week. Mark my words some day the paper will be a PROPERTY!”

(This last expression, you must understand, denotes the very highest point of journalistic success.)

After a space, I see and hear less of the Weekly Dash, and its satellite the Monthly Blank, and there is a vague rumour floating about that they have changed hands for a sum variously stated from a few hundreds to several thousands. Strayshot is still in power, but scarcely seems so hopeful and prosperous as at first. Still he tells me that the paper is "going up." Next, I hear that Strayshot. himself has by some means got the

..66

"" PROPERTY into his possession altogether. The next act of the drama is, that the Monthly Blank expires of slow inanition, while the Weekly Dash, having again changed hands, migrates to a new office over the way, and Strayshot, for a time, fades away into an invisibility as inscrutable as that of the Man in the

a

Background. He turns up at last, however, in rather depressed circumstances, and when I ask about the Weekly Dash, shrugs his shoulders and says it is " gone to the deuce, adding that it has been more than thousand pounds out of his pocket." When I gently hint that the sum mentioned never was in his pocket, but in that of the Man in the Background, he intimates that though he had no capital himself, his valuable services, "by arrangement," were considered equivalent ; and that if something or other, which seems to be the fault of nobody in particular, but depends upon. some other circumstances equally inexplicable, hadn't happened, all would have gone well, and the paper would still have been a "PROPERTY. As it was, the shrug of the shoulders best expressed the conclusion of the whole matter.

In all this mystification, there are two points which I utterly fail to solve-namely, who really provided the money (and consequently lost it); and how he, being presumably of sane mind, could place a large capital and unlimited credit at the disposal of another person for purposes of the wildest speculation, attended, obviously, with heavy losses from the first. I leave these questions to be answered by those who are initiated into the mysteries of "starting journals," and conclude by merely observing that similar cases to that I have described are said to be perpetually recurring in the commercial literary world.