like most pictures, many men, and some women, appears to most advantage at a distance. The streets are mean and narrow, the houses (with a few exceptions) very indifferent; in the extremities of the town, carelessness and want, misery and neglect, are too apparent. This only applies to the habitations. The police of the town, as far as its power extends, seems to be excellent, and reflects credit on the magistrate who presides over it. About the centre of the town is the market-house, a neat, plain building, erected about a hundred years ago. There is a large clock placed on the top of it, which proclaims the hour with more noise than veracity, as it is universally known over the country by the title of the lying clock of Strabane. Considerably lower down, and nearly opposite each other, are the two principal inns: they were formerly gentlemen's houses, but have now shared what Goldsmith calls "the usual fate of a large mansion: having first ruined the master by good housekeeping, it at last comes to levy contributions as an inn." They are both, I believe, good houses; but of this I can only speak by hearsay: when in Strabane, I do not live at an inn.

CHAPTER XXII.

Psalm-singing-Massacre at Strabane in 1641-Catholics and Protestants compared-The river Mourne-InundationsHazards of travelling.

Strabane.

I SPENT the evening of my arrival in a solemn but pleasing manner. A few years ago, Sunday, in the north of Ireland, was a day of gloom and mortifica

tion: the morning was passed in listening to long sermons, and the evening in saying long prayers; to smile was criminal, or even to chat on indifferent subjects. This has passed away, and a decent observance of Sunday only remains. After tea, which is always drunk at seven o'clock, one of the family read a sermon of Dr. Blair's, after which we had some psalms. About a year ago, a travelling psalm-singer set up a school here, under the patronage of the Bishop of Derry. When a man has the good fortune to be patronized by a bishop, he seldom fails of success. He got a prodigious number of scholars of all ages and sexes; grey age and youth, people who had voices, and others who had none: psalm-singing became a kind of rage; Grammachree, Granua Uile, and the Blue Bells of Scotland, were no longer remembered. The milliner at her cap, the tailor on his board, and the smith at his anvil, chanted hymns and anthems; the choristers of Westminster, one should have thought, had emigrated to the north of Ireland. This, however, was a temporary frenzy. The rage of psalm-singing seems to have given way to the rage of cards. Cards seem a necessary step in the stage of civilization; as society gets further civilized, they are cast aside.

Strabane consists of one very long street, two or three short ones, and a few lanes of such unpromising aspect, that I contented myself with viewing them at a distance. In the upper part of the town, it will admit of no greater extension; as it is bounded on the east side by a steep ridge of hill, and on the west by the precipice which overhangs the river. Building in the lower part has long been discontinued, on ac

count of the floods to which it is exposed. The name is compounded of two Irish words, Stragh and Ban, which signifies white-home or level. Why it was called white, I cannot conjecture, unless it was christened when the snow was on the ground. It is now lucus à non lucendo. It is a town of some antiquity, and was burned in the grand rebellion (1641) by Sir Phelim O'Neile. The Protestant inhabitants were cruelly massacred: a number fled for protection into the castle, and defended it for some time; the barbarous ruffian ordered it to be set on fire, and these unfortunate Protestants were consumed. The lady of Strabane, as she was called, by some extraordinary means alone escaped. She lived to appear afterwards in evidence against Sir Phelim, who was justly executed for his innumerable atrocities. He was a man of violent passions, mean parts, and little education. He communicated much of his own diabolical disposition to the rebellion which he guided: perhaps, however, this was unavoidable; men of humane dispositions will seldom be at the head of revolutions; I am sure they will never be at the head of them long. The ground on which the castle stood was long considered unhallowed and accursed: imagination peopled the spot with spirits which murder had deprived of men; shrieks of woe were heard in the blast, as it passed sullen over the roofless walls; apparitions clad in white, wringing their hands and breathing the soft notes of sorrow, were seen gliding among the ruins; angels, in flowing robes and crowns of glory, were seen descending to console them; and the spectres of the blood-stained dæmons, who had inflicted such misery, fled howling at their approach.

The houses of the respectable inhabitants are generally two stories, nor are any higher than three: they do not inherit, therefore, the predilection of their Scottish ancestors in favour of lofty houses; the post of honour, in an Edinburgh house, is well known to be the fourth or fifth story. Though many of these houses are old, they have a modern appearance: leaded windows have given place to sash ones, and the projecting buttresses and old-fashioned turrets have disappeared like the hands that reared them. It is curious to remark the thickness of the walls, as well as of the timber. Our ancestors built for posterity; the present generation build (as they live) for themselves: they trouble themselves little about those who are to follow, who, in return, I suppose, will trouble themselves as little about them. It was customary, formerly, to put the date, carved on a large stone, over the door: it is astonishing to what perfection this must have been brought, in early times, in Ireland: the letters on one I have seen are exquisitely well cut, and in perfect preservation; the date is 1646.

In a periodical publication, the inhabitants of this town are made to amount to five thousand; this strikes me as a mistake, as well as the number of houses: I might inform myself with tolerable accuracy, but do not, in truth, think it worth my while to inquire counting heads, and reckoning houses, is an equally wise method of giving an idea of a country, as that of a man of old who had a house to dispose of, and carried a brick of it in his pocket as a specimen. The proportion of Catholics and Protestants is of more importance: I should suppose more than half are presbyterians; the remainder are Ca

tholics and members of the established church, in nearly equal numbers. As the weavers in the north of Ireland seldom reside in towns, the lower class of inhabitants are mostly mechanics and labourers: I should suppose, when they are industrious, they must earn nearly as much as people of the same description in England: but whiskey and party are the great banes of industry in Ireland, though less, perhaps, in this town, than in any other. It is, I fear, a rare occurrence, for any assemblage of Protestants and Catholics to take place, without disputing about religion first, and fighting about it afterwards. On these occasions, the Protestant generally has the advantage; many reasons concur to give him it, without attributing to him either superior strength or superior courage he is of higher rank and importance in the community; he has been taught to value himself on his exertions in favour of government; he prides himself on being a Protestant and a freeman. The Catholic is depressed and dispirited; he hates the Protestant, but he fears him for the party to which he belongs, which is powerful, and which he thinks is supported by the magistrate and the state; but he fears the Protestant for himself by the force of habit, by the tale of his ancestors' sufferings, his misfortunes, his bloody and everlasting defeats. It would not be in human nature, that such a combination of circumstances should not produce some sense of inferiority; that, opposed to him, it should not operate, to a certain degree, in relaxing his exertions and damping his heart. A French sailor has not less natural bravery than an English one; but he fights without hope, though not without courage: he is defeated by his former defeats: