for him. He went to Killanny, Co Louth, and for six months acted as
tutor in the family of a farmer named Piers Murphy, and after some other
experiments he set out for Dublin, and arrived in the metropolis with 2s
9d. in his pocket. He first sought occupation as a bird-stuffer, but a
proposal to use potatoes and meal as stuffing failed to recommend him.
He then determined to become a soldier, but the colonel of the regiment
in which he desired to enlist persuaded him--Carleton had applied in
Latin--to give up the idea. He obtained some teaching and a clerkship in
a Sunday School office, began to contribute to the journals, and his
paper "The Pilgrimage to Lough Derg," which was published in the
_Christian Examiner_, excited great attention. In 1830 appeared the
first series of _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_ (2 vols.),
which at once placed the author in the first rank of Irish novelists. A
second series (3 vols.), containing, among other stories, "Tubber Derg,
or the Red Well," appeared in 1833, and _Tales of Ireland_ in 1834. From
that time till within a few years of his death Carleton's literary
activity was incessant. "Fardorougha the Miser, or the Convicts of
Lisnamona" appeared in 1837-1838 in the _Dublin University Magazine_.
Among his other famous novels are: _Valentine McClutchy, the Irish
Agent, or Chronicles of the Castle Cumber Property_ (3 vols., 1845);
_The Black Prophet, a Tale of the Famine_, in the _Dublin University
Magazine_ (1846), printed separately in the next year; _The Emigrants of
Ahadarra_ (1847); _Willy Reilly and his dear Colleen Bawn_ (in _The
Independent_, London, 1850); and _The Tithe Proctor_ (1849), the
violence of which did his reputation harm among his own countrymen. Some
of his later stories, _The Squanders of Castle Squander_ (1852) for
instance, are defaced by the mass of political matter with which they
are overloaded. In spite of his very considerable literary production
Carleton remained poor, but his necessities were relieved in 1848 by a
pension of L200 a year granted by Lord John Russell in response to a
memorial on Carleton's behalf signed by numbers of distinguished persons
in Ireland. He died at Sandford, Co. Dublin, on the 30th of January
1869.

Carleton's best work is contained in the _Traits and Stories of the
Irish Peasantry_. He wrote from intimate acquaintance with the scenes he
described; and he drew with a sure hand a series of pictures of peasant
life,