of martyrs, or in the relation of the massacre of Amboyna."

The effect produced on the minds of the Irish Catholics, by this infernal transaction, was indelible. The general who commanded it was an Englishman; the troops who perpetrated it were Protestants and Englishmen likewise: with Englishmen, therefore, they associated the idea of all that was horrid, brutal, and barbarous: they considered them no longer as enemies to contend with, but as fiends and executioners, whose delight was in torturing, and whom it was their duty, therefore, to torture in return. The blood-stained Englishman who shut his ears to mercy, who stabbed the suppliant who kneeled before him, and plunged his weapon into subdued and undefended bosoms, was, for upwards of a century, the never-ending theme of wonder and conversation among the lower Irish: their imaginations were overpowered and disordered by the recollection of his tortures and butchery; and every tale of horror was eagerly received, and every suggestion of melancholy believed implicitly. The superstition natural to an illiterate people contributed to heighten and continue the impression; and the most marvellous stories were propagated and received as incontestable.. Lakes and rivers of blood, visions of spirits in flowing robes, and ghosts rising from rivers, and shrieking REVENGE, were said to be seen and heard by every lonely traveller.

The Irish and English have mutually much to forgive each other: each party condemns the conduct of the other, and a dispassionate man will find enough to condemn in the conduct of both. Englishmen of the present day, who pronounce the Irish cruel, barbarous,

:

and disloyal, will do well to recollect what the conduct of their own ancestors has been in the contemplation of their excesses, they may learn indulgence for the excesses of others. Often has the earth groaned with the wickedness and folly of her sons; but I know of nothing, in modern times, equal to the sacking of Drogheda, or in ancient history superior to it, except, perhaps, the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus: nor did the sufferings of the Jews exceed those of the illfated inhabitants of Drogheda, except by being of longer duration. Sorry am I to have it to say, that such a parallel is to be found in Ireland, and that the actors in it were ENGLISHMEN.

CHAPTER XI.

Remarks on the catholic service-Obelisk on the Boyne-Battle of the Boyne-Subsequent oppression of the Catholics-Hill of Donore-Convivial party.

Drogheda.

I AROSE on Sunday at six o'clock; it was a beautiful morning, and the sun shone in cloudless brightness. I wandered into a delicious meadow behind the house, which, from its silence and solitude, might have been a hundred miles from the habitations of men. It was bordered by a row of lofty trees; the violet and daisy enamelled the surface, and mingled their light tints with the rich verdure of the grass; a little brook gurgled through one extremity of it, and I seated myself by its side. It was the place a poet would have chosen for the visit of his muse; and though not a poet, it inspired me with a wish of becoming one. I

had full in view the ruined towers of Drogheda; its fallen porches, its dilapidated and moss-grown walls. I invoked the assistance, therefore, of the Dryades and Hamadryades of the grove, and commenced my ode. Like other holiday friends, however, they came but slowly, and I had got but four lines forward, when a more powerful divinity came, uninvited, and threw a whole arm-full of poppies over my eyelids. Whether the reader is a gainer or loser by this interruption, it does not become me to decide; but it is not impossible that my sleep has saved him from one.

I was awaked by my friend hallooing to me to come to breakfast. I told him I meant to write an ode on the destruction of Drogheda, and as he was the only inhabitant I was acquainted with, I would dedicate it to him. If it was in favour of King William and the Protestants, he said he would be glad to listen to it; but if it was on the other side, as, from the sentiments I delivered the night before, he feared it might possibly be, he begged to be excused having his name in it; as it would do him no credit among his relations, who hated the papists, and cared no more about the siege of Drogheda than the destruction of Troy. Though no admirer of some of the doctrinal points of the Romish church, I like its external form of worship: I have been several times at the celebration of high mass, which I look upon as a lofty and magnificent spectacle, which elevates the soul, in some degree, to the Deity it addresses. I have been equally struck with the less glaring pomp, the chastened dignity, the plaintive melody, and exquisite harmony of their evening service, It is impossible, I think, for any person of sensibility to be present at vespers, without feeling his affections

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kindled, and his heart humanized. I do not wonder that Catholics, whose worship is endeared to them, not only by its beauty but by habit and association with the early days in which it was first heard, remain so unalterably attached to their religion; and turn with so much disgust from our cold and less ornamented It would not be much unlike what those are said to experience in dreams, who think to clasp swelling and voluptuous beauty, and find a hideous skeleton, a mass of dry and withered bones in their arms. As Drogheda is a great catholic town, I expected to hear mass in perfection: I asked Mr.

ones.

to go along with me to some place of worship of that persuasion. He started as if a culverin had been let off at his ear. He is a proper-conducted man, fond of his wife and children: yet, had I asked him to go to a house of ill fame, it could not have astonished him more. He would do much to gratify me, he said, but to be seen in a mass-house was a species of degradation no Protestant should be guilty of. The Protestants of Drogheda are mostly the descendants of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers, and retain much of the zeal, though I hope they do not the other bad qualities, of Oliver himself.

My next proposal, being a truly protestant one, was readily acceded to; it was to visit the obelisk erected on the river Boyne in commemoration of King William, and the glorious victory he obtained there. I had no reason to regret not going to mass; the day was charming, the country beautiful, and the company, which consisted of my host and his two brothers, highly agreeable. They seemed all to have that necessary qualification for a companion, as well as for a wife, perfect good-humour. They had likewise, in no mean

degree, the qualification necessary for guides-an acquaintance with the place we were going to visit: they know every dell and valley, every height and hollow of this ever memorable field; which is the classic ground of Ireland, and as high in reputation as the plains of Pharsalia. They pointed out to me the ground which was occupied by each army, and described the whole progress of the battle with a minuteness that would have astonished Duke Schomberg himself; they led me to the spot where King William was wounded the evening before the battle; and showed me the distant hill from which the wretched James, in alternate hope and fear, beheld the tide of war alternately advance and recede, and from which, with a soul subdued to his fortunes, he fled the moment he saw the battle declare against him. I am afraid, however, my friends are partial historians: not only was the river deepened, but little hills were swelled to mighty mountains, and superficial bogs to immense morasses, all to do the more honour to the great protestant hero, who has so long been the idol of every loyal Irishman. With a licence more akin to poetry than history, they diminished his army to twenty thousand men; while they augmented that of James to sixty thousand, exactly double their real number.

It must be admitted, however, in excuse for their partiality, that the conduct of James that day was as contemptible and dastardly, as that of his rival was magnanimous and deserving the crown he contended for. When wounded, he lost neither his fortitude nor presence of mind: every bullet, coolly remarked he to those that surrounded him, has its billet. William, it is well known, was a predestinarian; a doctrine,