A spot so striking to the imagination could not be, in Ireland, without its legends of a romantic and singular character; and some of these are of a most remote antiquity, and connected with the earliest legendary history of our country. In the ancient topographical tract called the Dinnseanchus, which gives the origin, according to the poets, of the names of the most remarkable mountains, lakes, rivers, caves, forts, &c. in Ireland, we are told that Corran received its name from the harper of Diancecht, to whom that magical race, called the Tuátha de Danann, gave the territory as a reward for his musical skill; and popular tradition still points to the cave of Kish-Corran as his residence, according to the ancient form quoted in the Dinnseanchus:-- "Here used to dwell the gentle Corann, whose hand was skilled in playing on the harp; Corann was the only ollave of Drancich (with whom he lived), in free and peaceable security. To Corann of the soft music, the Tuátha De gave with great honour a free territory for his skilful playing, his knowledge, and his astrology. Here was he, this generous man, not without literature or in a churlish fortress, but in a place where the stranger was at liberty to a free sojournment with him, this liberal prosperous man." The same authority accounts for the prefix _Ceis_, or, as it is pronounced, _Kish_, which is applied to the mountain by a very singular legend, according to which it would appear that it was originally the name of a lady, who with five others were, by a charm compounded with the nut-fruit, metamorphosed into pigs, the unhappy Ceis herself being here subsequently slain. However this may be, there is nothing improbable in the supposition that the caves of Kish-Corran were in former times the favourite dens of the wild boar, the wolf, and many other animals now extinct; they furnish a secure retreat to the fox and many other wild animals at the present day. P. ON BENEVOLENCE OF CHARACTER. BY MARTIN DOYLE. If it be afflictive, on one side, to reflect upon the deeds of cruelty and oppression which prevail upon earth, through the instrumentality of man, it is delightful, on the other, to perceive that human reason, instead of being abused and perverted into a source of tyrannical oppression, is occasionally exercised, as it ought to be, in promoting happiness and social harmony, even among brutes; in producing that degree of peaceful concord, which it has been proved may exist among animals whose natural antipathies are the most violent imaginable--that feeling which disarms the strong among them of all desire to tyrannise over and destroy the weak, and is brought into exercise by a steady and persevering _system_ of early training (and consequent acquirement of abiding habits), directly opposed to _that_ which prompts us to place a whip in the hand of a child.