herself of the arrangement), with her eyes closed, rocking her body backward and forward, as if keeping time to the measure of the verse. She then commenced in a kind of whining recitative; but, as she proceeded, and as the composition required it, her voice assumed a variety of deep and fine tones, and the energy with which many passages were delivered, proved her perfect comprehension and strong feeling of the subject; but her eyes always continued shut, perhaps to prevent interruption to her thoughts, or her attention being engaged by any surrounding object. From the keens which I took down after this woman's recitation, literal translations of four were published in "Researches in the South of Ireland." In November 1818 the editor left Ireland, and with the exception of a short excursion in the summer of 1821, did not revisit that country until the spring of 1825, when he made enquiries after Mrs. Harrington. He was told that she had been dead four or five years; but, added the woman who gave him this information, "there was a gathering of all the keeners of Munster at her funeral, and they all to be sure keened their best, for the loss of their queen as one might call Mrs. Harrington over them-and one strove again' the other, and above all there was a widow woman-one Mrs. Leary that none of them could come near." с The editor eagerly sought an introduction to Mrs. Leary, which however was not accomplished until 1829, when upon paying her travelling expenses from Bantry to Cork, and promising her a new shawl, she was induced to attend him, and to recite keens and "old talk" for him. She had a peculiarly sharp and quick expression of countenance-exactly the reverse of Mrs. Harrington, who was far more dignified and solemn in her manner. Mrs. Leary's memory was much less retentive, but her utterance was wonderfully rapid; it was evident that Mrs. Harrington adopted an artificial system for the arrangement of her thoughts, and also that she had studied the keen as a poetical composition, and possessed to a certain extent a cultivated mind; but Mrs. Leary appeared to recite completely independant of memory, and her extemporaneous verses, which in cases of a break down she fluently supplied, always appeared to me to be far superior to those she had learned and attempted to repeat. She seldom succeeded in getting beyond three or four verses, but if urged to proceed would improvise interminably. Through Mrs. Leary's instrumentality the editor subsequently became acquainted with an old man named Murray, who styled himself “ land surveyor and philomath," and who had some knowledge of the Irish language.-From these oral a sources and from three or four manuscripts, for the communication of which the editor is indebted to Dr. Lee of Hartwell, to Sir Lucius O'Brien, Bart., and to Sir William Betham, the present selection of specimens of the keen of the South of Ireland has been made, and is now with some diffidence submitted for the indulgent consideration of the members of the Percy Society. As some apology for various defects and blemishes in the translations made by the editor, he has to plead that the versification has been hastily executed amid active public employment, so much so as scarcely to permit a second reading before the passage was committed to the press. There are many lines which the editor could have improved, such as the line at p. 27, "If by them one could gain," which would unquestionably read better"If by them there was gain." But this and similar blemishes he hopes will not be severely criticized. The notes might readily have been extended, and possibly with advantage. The passage, p. 19, "On stormy Slieve Mis Spread the cry far and wide,” will remind the reader of Stanihurst's translation of Virgil: "And nymphs in mountains high typ doe squeak hullelo yearning, That day cros and dismal," &c. Some keens which have come into my possession are so spirit-stirring, that I do not consider it prudent to print them under the sanction of the Council of the Percy Society; enough, it is presumed, will be fonnd in the present collection of specimens to shew that private and political feeling are often strongly infused into these compositions; and a reference to a manuscript volume, chiefly of Irish poetry (about 300 pages), which is in the possession of Sir William Betham, will at once illustrate this assertion. It appears to have been principally written in the years 1773 and '74, and contains, among other curious verses, a keen in Irish upon Thomas Maude, which is followed by a very poor translation into English by Patrick Reddan, who was probably the author of the original, and seems to have been a schoolmaster. My translation is made from another copy, in which Thomas Maude is styled Sir; and there seems little doubt that the person keened was Lord de Montalt. Sir Thomas Maude (the second baronet of that name), resided at Dundrum in the county of Tipperary, and represented that county in parliament in 1761. He was made governor of the county in June 1770, and in 1776 was created a peer, with the title of Baron de Montalt, of Hovenden, in the county of Tipperary. He died 17th of May, 1777. Hail, happy year! hail, happy day That Maude's vile corse consigned to clay; In Dundrum's vale his mansion stood, Thro' iron bars, and walls of stone, Disgorge, fair earth, his filthy frame, The sparkling rills proclaim their joy, By angels wafted to the skies, The martyred Sheehy "Vengeance” cries,— Pluto and Nero, fiend and man, |