some spirits and water: an old woman was reading at the kitchen fire; she civilly took her spectacles off, and laid the book down; perhaps it was not so much civility, as the cacoethes loquendi; an old woman, who preferred reading to talking, would indeed be a phenomenon. I threw my eyes over the book; it was a London magazine, and, with a great deal of other silly matter, contained the following bull: "After

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the battle of Fontenoy, Louis the Fifteenth observed to an Irish officer, Dillon's regiment behaved well; several were wounded.' Yes,' replied the officer; ‹ but Clarke's did better still, for we were all killed.' Does the inventor of this bull know that he is himself guilty of one, or at least that he labours under a most lamentable confusion of ideas? From some peculiarity in his native language, the low Irishman, in speaking English, uses the word kil't in a ridiculous manner. But the king of France and the Irish officer did not converse in English, surely; and the mistake, which was barely possible in it, could never have occurred in any other language.

That the Irish, formerly, more frequently made bulls than their neighbours, I think is probable, as well from the universality of the observation, as for the following reasons: English was long to the Irish a foreign language, acquired after they had arrived at years of manhood, spoken with difficulty, and reluctantly; they translated, therefore; they thought in one language, and they expressed themselves in another. Every person acquainted with French knows how ridiculous an Englishman's mode of speaking it generally is; but the construction of the Irish differs much more from the English than the English does

from the French; it is more poetical, more animated, more glowing; it abounds in interrogation and hyperbole; almost universally (it is said), the subject or substantive is mentioned first, and the quality or attribute afterwards; this latter is one of the great beauties of the Irish, as it is of the Latin and Greek languages; but it is preposterous in English, and is called, in derision of the Irish, putting the cart before the horse.

Independent of language, however, the peculiar disposition and temperament of the Irish may make them more liable, than many other nations, to commit blunders they have great vivacity, acute feelings, and warm fancies; they may therefore be supposed to burst out in those quick sallies, which overleap the regular concordance of words, oftener than their more cold-blooded neighbours: but, having made these allowances, it is but justice to add, that there has been much mischievous misrepresentation on this subject; and that well-educated Irishmen, at present, make bulls nearly as seldom as the English. English is the language which they speak from infancy, and the warm tide of their boiling veins has been cooled by the mixture of English blood; but when a particular character has been affixed to a country, or a town, they hardly ever get rid of it: thus, Edinburgh is still described as dirty, though it is actually one of the cleanest cities in Europe; Irishmen of all classes still make blunders, because it is probable the lower class of them once did so authors serve up the repast which suits the public taste, and manufacture Irish bulls in their garrets, as vintners do port in their cellars, as unlike Irish modes of expression, as the latter

is to the real wine of Oporto. I think I cannot use a stronger simile.

- For a dramatic writer there is some excuse; his trade is fiction, and his purpose is amusement; "he lives to please, and therefore must please to live:" the audience come to see the Irishman they have been accustomed to; a being of the stage, and not of nature; and he must quarrel, make love, make bulls, and swear by Jasus: but for a tourist there is no such apology; he must be a man of some fortune, and therefore does not write from mere necessity: he professes to give a picture, not a caricature; he comes abroad to observe men and manners, and proposes to instruct, not to amuse; he may be deceived in his judgement, but he is bound to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I am sorry

to remark that the conduct of most Irish tourists has been very different from this: they follow the lead of those who preceded them; they find it easier to copy than inquire, more lucrative to gratify prejudice than to correct it; they go about, therefore, twisting and perverting the most innocent expressions, and when they cannot find bulls, they make them.

The effects of these misrepresentations have been most mischievous; they have served to feed the arrogance of the English, to increase their contempt of Irishmen, to make them heedless of their clamours, their wrongs, and their claims, because they have rendered them blind to their talents, their virtues, and their strength. On the other hand, they have wounded deeply the feelings of a proud and highspirited people, who can bear injury better than contempt. This at all times would be a very great evil,

but it is particularly so at the present time.

England wages war for her existence; a great proportion of her army and navy must necessarily be Irish; kind treatment will make them subjects; ill usage, insult, and contempt, will make them mercenaries: what the fate of all countries, who depended on mercenaries, has been, I need not say.

England and Ireland have inflicted much misery on each other, and are probably nearly equally to blame. England was proud in strength, Ireland was obstinate in independence; she struggled till she was exhausted, and even then she bit at the hand which held her to the ground. England inflicted misery, but she conferred kindness; and had Ireland consented to become English, she would have given happiness but Ireland forgot the kindness, and only remembered the injury. Let us hope, however, that some means may speedily be found to make Ireland happy in her own way, since she will not in the way England would have had her; let us hope that concord may be attained, at this moment, when discord may be ruin-of both the ruin; for, could Ireland succeed in pulling down the edifice of English freedom, she may rest assured that, like Samson, she would herself be buried in the ruins. Oh! what a pity that two nations so well adapted to each other, which were so cut and tallied, that the protuberances of the one seemed to fit the notches of the other, should thus, by unlucky circumstances, by melancholy misconceptions, be repelled and alienated from each other that Ireland should be Catholic when England was Protestant; that Ireland should be royalist when England was republican; that Ireland

should be revolutionary when England was steadily loyal: united by nature, like man and wife, to sweeten each other's cup in life, that they should have been always opposite when they should have agreed the most; that the virtues of one should become vices to the other; that the blessings of England should be the curses of Ireland; and that now, when England struggles (greatly struggles) for her name and independence as a nation, that Ireland should hail her wounds as her own balsam, her danger as her own escape, her present misery as her own future happiness.

CHAPTER XXV.

Mountain scenery-Character and intelligence of the peasantry -Irish music and poetry-Sonnet.

A.

I WRITE this from a farm-house sixteen miles from Strabane it might be six hundred, the change in climate, soil, and manners, is so great. In England, a man may travel much and see little: Gloucester is Lincoln, and a man or maid of Kent little different from a man or maid of Salop; but in the north of Ireland we have every progression of climate, soil, and manners, in the course of a few hours' riding, or even walking.

The people with whom I am are Presbyterians; they are industrious and wealthy; their house is what a farm-house ought to be, comfortable and neat, with