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. 21, 1861.] agent was out of sight, now, at a shilling a-day, took no such rest till his work was done. Boys took the stranger to see a curiosity with much pride; and, when in presence of the marvel, told him that the plant was called a turnip. The women and girls, who had supported the men after the dislocation of industry from the famine, were still sewing away, morning, noon, and night, on their door-sills, at the embroidery sent them from Scotland, as well as from Belfast; and 400,000 of them were earning between 80,000l. and 90,000l. per week. The rural families all over the country showed the effects in their faces of better diet than they had known in the days of the dear old potato; and in their spirits they testified to a new experience of hope and comfort having fairly set in.

There were still occasional agrarian murders; and strangers formed their opinion of the priests accordingly, as cognisant of the whole mind of the Catholic peasantry; but by that time the explanation was ready that the power of the priests was no longer what it had been: in fact, the men did not, as a general rule, go to confession, if the women did; and if the women were not told secrets, the priests did not know them. On dark hillsides, and in wide wastes, everything was brightening. Prostrate fences were set up again; mansions were rebuilt; weedy fallows were manured and tilled, and stock was turned in upon the neglected pastures. There was certainly a plague of ragwort and loosestrife over the land; and the stench of steeping flax showed that wasteful old methods were still in use; but a Scotch farmer here and there was waging war against unthrift of every kind; and flax-dressing by machinery was making its way.

The best thing was that the Scotch and Englishmen were so few, though the released estates were daily taken in hand by new owners. The Irish capital in the imperial funds was flowing back, and spreading fertility like a stream in India which has gone astray, and is led back to irrigate a desert, and make it blossom as the rose.

It was at that time that the Queen made her first visit to Ireland. Smith O’Brien, Meagher, and Mitchel, were undergoing their exile, and were supposed to have many sympathisers at home. The royal authority had been insulted and defied by the existing generation; and there had been reckless people, at home and abroad, to assure the credulous Irish that the famine and the pestilence had been somehow the work of England. Every gift from England had been haughtily despised as a mere instalment of a right. Every scheme of relief had been clamoured against; and all that insolence could say and do through an ignorant Catholic hierarchy had been tried by the priests, and imitated by the people within their influence. No wonder the Queen was nervous on landing. She who, like her brave race, is absolutely dauntless on all emergencies, and when she comprehends the elements of the case, was fluttered by the uncertainty as to her footing in Ireland; and her first steps on Irish soil were somewhat unsteady; her glance was anxious, and her countenance full of solicitude. But it was all right. The people had once more an idol. Reverence and love greeted her whichever way she turned. None of us will ever forget her departure. She was worshipped as she went to the pier, and as she stepped on board her yacht; and cheers broke forth again and again as she stood on deck while the vessel moved off. When the distance increased, the sudden sense crossed her of the contrast between her feelings in arriving and departing, and she ran along the deck, and up the paddle-box where her husband was standing, and threw out her handkerchief to the wind. Never was there such a roar of delight, among her many greetings from her subjects, as went up when the act was seen from the far distance. The Irish and their Queen felt that they must and should meet again.

They have now met again. In the eight years that have intervened the progress of the country in all ways has been very great. Some complain of the diminution of numbers since the census of 1851; but there has been a due increase of people, though they are living far away. They are prosperous in the colonies; and, as for those in the United States, they are coming back now that their new, and not their old, country is the scene of civil war and social hardship. We hear of sixty embarking by one ship, and of hundreds converging towards the ports, to get back to their families at home, instead of following the fashion of bringing them out. There is plenty of work and wage for them in the old country; and they will find affairs wearing a new face. The workhouses half empty or more, and a demand for labourers from the remnant there; the towns showing new markets and shops, and improved public buildings; the ports full of shipping; the tillage expanded by a million of acres in ten years, and the live stock by five millions of money; the wretched cabins gone by thousands and replaced by decent dwellings; the people ashamed of rags, and accustomed to a varied diet; the constabulary lessened in number, the military barracks standing empty, the prisons not half full, and the judges of assize putting on white gloves instead of the black cap; these are the features which will surprise the returned emigrants, and make them ask whether this is indeed Old Ireland.

The Queen landed this time with gravity and amidst silence; but it was because her subjects sympathised with her personal griefs, betokened by the deep mourning which she wore. When they discovered how pleased she was to meet them they gave her the heartiest of greetings; and the enthusiasm knew no bounds while she remained in sight. It is said that she contemplates having a residence among the beautiful scenery of the west—and we shall all desire that she may. If she had twenty palaces elsewhere, it would still be wise to have another in Ireland. Her mere presence and sympathy are a sufficient ruling power in the stage which Ireland has reached. She smiles upon the comely Ireland in her state of buxom health and comfort; and comely Ireland modestly clasps the royal hand, and looks into the Queen’s kindly face. Such a meeting every year or nearly would cheer the hearts of both.

What the historical commentators and political critics of France and Austria, and Russia and America, think of this meeting, I do not know;