We of Wexford, though we have the advantage of our neighbours’ mountains, as terminations to our landscape, have but one that we can call our own – the mountain of Forth. I cannot, with all my love for it, style it handsome; though it is, certainly, picturesque – rugged, jagged, rough, and rocky: and I remember when not a single green field, or cultivated plot, was to be seen on its sides. It has undergone changes.

Year after year I have watched patches of oats, potatoes, and even barley, creeping along, and civilizing its sturdy steeps; while, both in sheltered and unsheltered spots, cottages have sprung up – cottages, filled with a bold race of mountain “squatters,” who, I hope, may never be dispossessed of the “estates” obtained by their industry.

I have spent some happy, sunny hours on the rocks of my own dear mountain looking round and round, and climbing from crag to crag, to recognise the dwellings that shelter in the valley. There is Johnstown Castle, embedded in its own woods – the gaily-waving flag on its highest tower, intimating that those who “possess the land,” are at home, bestowing blessings on all around them! I can see the curling smoke from the trim school-house, and fancy Mr. Shelly's, the good master's face, pale and anxious, lest his pupils’ improvement should not keep pace with the wishes of his liberal patroness. There go the mottled deer, in the noble park, scudding right over the mound where that everlasting Oliver Cromwell is said to have reviewed his troops: there, the labourers’ cottages, clustered like honeycombs in the thrifty hive. All look happy and cheerful, and are what they appear. The spire of the little church of Rathaspeck is clearly defined by the blue sky; I can see the ruins in the park, and the stream, like a silver thread, where the mill's revolving wheel turns it into mimic foam –