THREE SONGS. BY EDWARD KENEALY, ESQ. A SERENADE. "La creatura bella Bianco vestita, e nella faccia quale Par tremolando matutina stella."-DANTE, Purg. C. xii. THE waters are sleeping-the heavens are shining In light, And a planet-wrought crown the fair head is entwining The winds murmur music-and lo, from the roses A breath, Like the fragrance that hangs round a saint who reposes On her hinds snowy-white the sweet Dian now flieth Through air, And than thee and thy bosom of light nought espieth My light boat is waiting, and longs to convey thee Afar; Descend, then, and hence with thy lover, I pray thee, I have twined, as thou seest, a garland of flowers, Rose-bright, Round my boat's silken awning, where pass shall our hours Of flight. I have brought thee a lute, too, which, waked by thy finger, Shall pour A music like that which made mariners linger Of yore. With ruin those syren strains, flung o'er the water, In thine, love, life, beauty, sweet Italy's daughter, But than music or garland more valued one present Shall be, 'Tis my heart, which is fill'd with devotion incessant To thee. Oh! canst thou those sweet days of sunshine and dances Forget, When our souls, passion-fraught, sparkled forth in our glances, And met? Or hast thou forgotten that moment of heaven, Mine own, When thou said'st that to me was thy virgin soul given Thou art come-O bright Venus, the lover's befriender, Be near! AD DIVAM VIRGINEM. Candida Virgo Ut rosa vernans, Porta sereni; Sidus amicum er- Eripit audax. THREE SONGS. Hymn. TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN. Virgin, like a summer rose, Heaven's portal fair and bright, Virgin holy, Virgin dear,- Aught but blessed to his ear? Like a heaven-refreshing dew And our souls with love imbue ! May He freely on us shower Peace divine and love to man! Ere his radiant reign began. From the miser's golden thirst Nor with sin pollute my breast; May my errors be forgiven, Nor draw down the wrath of Heaven! Mary, Mother, Virgin bear, *** *****. I PLACE not my heart in pomp or power, Shall be ours, if thou wilt be mine, love. A rustic garden of roses fair, A silver stream that glasses the sky, Shall be ours, if thou wilt be mine, love. And the murmur'd music of crystal floods, Shall be ours, if thou wilt be mine, love. Shall be ours, if thou wilt be mine, love. THE CHOLERA IN IRELAND. BY W. FRANCIS AINSWORTH. PART THE FIRST. THE appearance of pestilential cholera at each successive stage of its dark and mournful progress was marked by fear and wonder, disbelief and outrage. The silent sadness under which the oriental fatalists met the scourge, contrasted, however, strongly with the indecent scepticism and brutal opposition offered by many Christian people. The ignorant among the churches, where the intellect is shackled by superstition, manifested the evil propensities to the greatest extent. Spain, Italy, and Ireland, where the same scenes of violence were enacted, and strange to say the same forms of erroneous credulity exhibited, furnish us with the examples. But the enlightened worshippers of Mammon, whose interests were interfered with, did not fail also wilfully to deny the existence of the malady, till they succumbed under its terrible influence. When the cholera broke out at Sunderland, in this country, the local authorities for a long time disowned the visitation; while at Newcastle, toasts were drank to its progress at the neighbouring port, the temporary constraint put upon which gave additional impulse to trade upon the Tyne. Sunderland paid the tribute of its temerity-persons who should have known better, fell victims in the act of even cursing the pestilence; and Newcastle and Gateshead were soon the scene of an inhumanity fearfully chastised. The memory of my connexion with this cruel malady—a connexion which commenced at Sunderland, and continued till it disappeared from our isles-has always been a prolific and painful source of reflection on the folly and frailty of mankind. I am not, however, going to dwell upon the many dark and eventful pages which this history presents. The cholera battling with genius, perverted by the grossest superstitions, among the generous but misguided Irish, is my present theme. My first debut in that country was in the beautiful little town of Westport, whither I was sent by the Marquis of Sligo. Embosomed among undulating hills, shaded by woods and groves, washed by a running stream, opening upon the bay of three hundred islands, and o'ertopped by the lofty mountain of Croagh Patrick, the situation is at once healthy and inviting. Its streets are wide, its houses cleanly, and its inhabitants, thanks to a liberal and resident landlord, of a generally superior order. Report had preceded me here: the priests, as was commonly stated, had denounced me from the pulpit; the press had even repeated the most absurd calumnies-calumnies which time, to a certain degree, rectified, but with which some minds were so imbued, that they may, for what I know to the contrary, be current even to the present day. The chief of these charges, as far as I could gather, were that I held communication with Satan, and that I poisoned the springs; the poison was carried in my snuff-box, and the proof of my connexion with the prince of darkness lay in my cloven feet. The existence of these unenviable claims to a reproachful distinction had been frequently mentioned to me in an indirect manner; but I did not attach any importance to them, as I thought that they were of such a nature as only to be entertained by a few, and those belonging to a class which it was scarcely worth while, had I ever known how, to disabuse upon the subject, till a circumstance occurred which undeceived me in a painful manner on this account. On my first arrival at Westport, the cholera was not very severe in the neighbourhood. There were most cases in the small town of Ballinrobe, about sixteen miles distance, and where the military surgeon belonging to the detachment had been carried off, at the onset. I was consequently in the habit of driving there every other day. The road lay over a wild country, chiefly bog or moorland, backed by bleak hills; and half-way, there was a little inn, where was a young woman long sick, and dying of consumption. The mother wished me, when I first stopped to breathe my horse at this lonely place, to see her. I did so, and her mild manners and patient resignation made me feel much interested in her case. She was naturally very beautiful, and had that additional clear, bright tint, which belongs to the fatal disorder under which she was sinking. From that time, I never passed the house without seeing her, and taking her some little medicine to assuage her more urgent distress. My home at this time, at Westport, was in the hotel, which was a large and commodious building, and well kept. One day I was sitting in my room, when the daughters of my landlord, one of whom was a married woman, came to beg my assistance for a calf that was strangling. I joined the party in the yard, and found the poor animal struggling in convulsions, from a potato having stuck in the oesophagus. I forced it upwards, by dint of squeezing, but at the moment of passing the glottis, the animal made a violent plunge, which threw a heavy weight from some adjacent scales on my foot. I did not feel much pain, yet the blow momentarily sickened me, and made me turn pale. Nothing, in consequence, would satisfy the ladies but that my foot was hurt, and must be bathed. The next day was my turn to Ballinrobe. On arriving at the little inn, the old woman came out as usual to meet me, but with unaccustomed smiles. "My daughter," she said, "will be so glad to see you." I walked into the back room, when the young girl, halfraising herself in her bed, stretched out her hands towards me, saying, "Oh, I am so glad to hear that you have not cloven feet. I never could believe it myself." The whole history of the events of the day before, and the rapidity with which the report had travelled came upon me quicker than they could be narrated, and I need not say that I pursued my journey, my thoughts as dreary as the moorland that lay before me. Shortly after this, the pestilence manifested itself in a more formidable manner at Ballinrobe, and perturbation supplanted hostility. I had now to take up my residence at that place. The barracks were closed, the shops shut up, the streets deserted. I walked to my duty, as if in a town void of inhabitants. Nor did I know where the disease existed, till a door or window was tremulously opened, to call me in. Sometimes a peasant from the country would stroll across the street; if he was half a mile off, he would take off his hat, and not put it on till he was out of sight; sometimes he would kneel a short time and pray. This temporary dread, attendant merely upon a first acquaintance with the pestilence, soon wore off, and affairs assumed in a day or two a less lugubrious aspect. The clergyman residing in the town was a young man of talent and energy-indeed, well known in the theological polemics of the sister island. The priests, of whom there were several, were proportionally in the background. A ridiculous circumstance occurred in illustration of this. I was one morning in company with the clergyman, who frequently went my rounds with me, when we came to a patient who refused all succour, and all medicine. Stop a moment," said the Rev. Mr., "I will get him to take it;" and issuing forth, he bent his steps to where a knot of priests were grouped in desultory conversation, and taking one of them by the collar, he led him to the cottage, to insist on the patient taking the medicine that was ordered for him. There were some difficulties in the service of the hospital at Ballinrobe: men could not be found to bury the dead, but still everything went on pretty favourably; the mortality was not great; the force of the malady was soon spent on a small population; a strict quarantine kept the barracks free from sickness; and after receiving a snuff-box from the local Board of Health for my labours, I returned to Westport, where my services were now more in request. As the disease was here widely spread over the town and neighbourhood, and there were only two medical men—the resident practitioner and myself to do the whole of the duty, the necessity of concentration in the hospital became imminent, the more so as the danger of propagation was thereby diminished, and the rapid progress of the malady demanded assiduous and constant attention. Things were in one respect in Westport the opposite of what they were in Ballinrobethe priests lent me a willing assistance, visited the hospital frequently, informed me where there were sick people, and even accompanied me to their houses. They were surprised that I should pay the same attentions to a Roman Catholic as to a Protestant-as if suffering humanity knew a distinction. The resident clergyman neither visited the hospital nor his suffering flock, but contented himself with expressing his surprise that I should associate with such people! Still the houses of many were shut to assistance. On these occasions, I had to take a party of constabulary, to enforce the orders of the Board of Health; but unauthorized to interfere, and with that dread of the violence of the peasantry which is always paramount with that otherwise most efficient body, they often left me to obtain a contested entrance almost unassisted. On one occasion I went for a patient, whose friends had refused to allow of his being taken to the hospital, and yet did not themselves dare to wait upon him, attended only by a cart and horse. I carried him in my arms down to the cart, and he happily recovered in the hospital. Some curious cases of illness from fear occurred during the panic. Many families had retreated from the town, and also from the interior, to the pleasant villages around Westport. One evening I was sent for in a hurry, to visit a gentleman from Castlebar, who had been suddenly taken ill. I galloped to the village, and was introduced to the bedside of a stout gentleman, whose scarlet face and bloodshot eyes indicated great excitement. After satisfying his mind and that of his friends, that there was no cholera, I bled him freely, to relieve the febrile agitation, and took my departure. I met him the next morning, as he was taking a place by the Castlebar coach, in good health, but not sufficiently recovered to recognise his doctor, who, he thought, might |