The Press.
London, England, 1854-11-11 00:00:00

treat with the splendid sensuousness and sumptuousness
of Titian's " Diana and her Nymphs interrupted at the
Bath by Acuson ; " " Diana and Calisto ; ' " Venus
rising from the Sea." Titian, it seems to me, was
essentially a heathen painter, revelling iu all the refine-
ments of natural and physical beauty, his highest raptures
seldom rising above the half-sensual, half poetic joys of
Olympus, and his noblest visions taking in but the nude
graces and entrancing beauties of goddesses and nymphs.
His colouring is so wondrously soft, yet rich and radiant.,
his figures are of such surpassing grace and voluptuous
loveliness, that I should suppose the young, passionate, and
impressible, must, iu gazing on them long, feel the moral
sense grow bewildered, and reel with the intoxication of
their subtle sensuality. How different is it with the works
of Raphael, over which the religious master's reverent
genius threw a calm and heavenly purity !
From London she starts for a tour through
Ireland, and visits Dublin, Cork,Limerick, Kil-
larney, and Belfast. While staying in Cork she
inspects several of the country cottages of the
working peasants, in company with one of the
landed proprietors. The old story is still to
be told of the misery and idleness of this
class :
In but one out of six did I find a regular fireplace and
chimney ; in but one was there a window of glass, and that
clnsisted of a single pane. The others had—with the ex-
ception of the door, and a hole in the roof, from which
the smoke, after wandeting at its own sweet will through
the cabin, found its way out—no opening whatever for
light or ventilation. But I forget—we did remark a sort
of improvised window in one other. In a low, miserable
hovel, belonging to a carman, we found a horse occupying
full a third of the scanty room; and above his manger a
small opening had been made through the mudwall, the
good man having found that the health of the animal re-
quired what himself and his family lived without—air. To
the mistress of this unique habitation, whose one apart-
ment served for kitchen, sleeping-room, stable, and hall, I
said, in horrified amazement, " How is it possible you can
live with that horse ?" "Sure, miss, he's no throuble," she
replied ; " and its little room he takes, after all; for the
childer can sleep on the straw, under him, just, and creep
between his legs, and he niver harming them at all, the
sinsible crater." It is a common thing to see hens drying
their feathers by the genial peat glow, and pigs enjoying
the pleasures of the domestic hearth.
At Limerick, again, she remarks :
Ah, there is little need for the tourist to pass through
this part of Ireland, " spying oat the nakedness of the
land ; ' it is thrust upon him at every turn. Yet you must
not believe that all this outward wretchedness is real, ne-
cessary, and helpless. By far the larger number of those
who apply to the traveller for charity are vagabondish in
their instincts and indolent in their habits, and prefer to
beg rather than to labour, either in or out of the work-
house. The professional beggar dresses for his part with
as much care and skill as any other actor ; and the whine,
the limp, the melancholy tale, the blindness, palsy, widow's
tears, and orphan's wails, are often the results of laborious
practice and splendid triumphs of art. You must bear this
n mind, and "set your face as a flint," if you would enjoy
Ireland.

The contrast which has struck all travel-
lers between the south and the north of Ire-
land is eloquently described by this fair
tourist :

It were scarcely possible to express the feeling of relief,
consolation, and cheering pleasure which I experienced on
visiting the north of Ireland, after my tour in the south.
The difference is wondrous to behold. I could scarcely
believe such utterly different sights and scenes to exist in
one and the sante country ; but, as if by some potent en.
chantment I had been transported, in a single night, to
another, a fairer, and a happier realm, I gazed about me in
a sort of pleasant bewilderment. The north-east portion
of Ireland, in the cultivation of the country, the prosperous
and businesslike appearance of the towns, and the condi-
tion of the working people, to a casual observer, at least,
falls but little behind England.

Crossing from Belfast to Ardrossan, Miss
Greenwood visited Scotland, and is enchanted
with the laud of " mountain and of flood."
Upon the drive to Stirling she tells a capital
story of Scotch precaution:—
Crossing the bridge over the. Forth, on entering the
ancient town of Stirling, reminded me of a characteristic
anecdote I had lately heard of a sturdy Scotch dame, who
once, during a stormy season, bad occasion to cross the
river at a ferry some twenty miles below. The ferryman
told her that the waters ran high, and the wind promised a
hard blow, but that, as her business was pressing, he would
do his best to get her safely across• "Is there muckle
danger, mon ?" she asked. " Ay, woman, the passage wad
he perilous, but ye maun put your trust in Providence."
"Na, na," says the prudent dame, drawing back, " I'll no'
trust in Providence so lang as there's a brig at Stirling,"
and actually set forth to walk the whole distance round.
There is a volume of national character in this little story
An Irish woman would have trusted in Providence, or rather
in Saint Patrick and the " holy virgin," and told her heads
across the perilous passage, rather than wearied her bones
by taking the safe, roundabout way.
Passing rapidly through Scotland, she re-
turns once more to London, and ultimately
starts for the Continent, where we have scarce
spaco to follow her. At Paris, during her few
days' residence, she moved in an atmosphere