On the picturesque Lake Foyle[50] in Ireland, whose shores are studded with ancient mansions, and whose waters are diversified with fertile islands, inhabited by little colonies of aged fishermen, a young man of eccentric manners, but whose appearance denoted a being of a superior class to those around him, had for two years fixed his residence. His only habitation was his boat: fishing, hunting, and violent exercises, filled up his time; and in the evening, surrounded by the fishermen, he made them relate to him all the old legendary tales of the country, and, in his turn, instructing the inhabitants of the district, he drew up laws respecting fishing, and hunting, as if he were the sovereign of this watery republic. No one could exhibit more intrepidity than did this singular being. Upon one occasion he set sail in his frail bark, in the strait that separates Ireland from England; and his shipwreck on the Isle of Man, where he had alone managed his yacht in a stormy sea, like one of the Ossianic heroes, was long recorded by the peasantry. His dreams were of the legends of the lake; and being deeply enamoured of the daughter of one of the fishermen named Nelly, he sacrificed every thing to this ardent and romantic passion, wearing simply the dress of the children of the lake, for he loved and was desirous of being beloved again. Enthusiastic and passionate in his feelings, he would endure no contradiction; and an attempt having one day been made to deprive him of his mistress, he defied his rival to a duel after the Scandinavian fashion--that is to say with battle-axes--and conducted himself with a degree of intrepidity that was celebrated all over Great Britain. [50] Quære, Coyne?--_Editor._ This young man, whose eccentricity took so poetical a form, for his youth was like a ballad, was Robert Stewart, afterwards Viscount Castlereagh and Marquess of Londonderry. His family was not originally Irish, but came from Scotland. James I., as every one is aware, created some great fiefs in Ireland, and bestowed them upon some of his most faithful subjects, in the hope of more closely uniting Ireland to the British empire. Eight of these fiefs, with a kind of _suzeraineté_, fell to the share of the Duke of Lennox; and the Stewarts, that noble name in Scotland, no doubt allied to the royal line, held some of the lands subject to the Lennox family. It has always been the fate of Ireland to be under the dominion of strangers to her soil; the yoke of conquest becomes more heavy after each impatient tumult. Her oppression arises from her disturbed condition; each unsuccessful revolt produces additional servitude, and much of her suffering is owing to the crime of the popular agitators, who are instigated by nothing but their own insatiable vanity to endeavour to destroy all old and respectable national feeling.