bable), will it be a bloodless victory? Will you suffer
no loss? will no Catholic blood be shed? You can-
not think this will it be a joyful victory, even-no,
not joyful, for you are men, and when unwarped by
prejudice, have humane and benevolent hearts. You
would not rejoice over thousands, and tens of thousands
of your countrymen, whose livid corpses, whose stream-
ing blood, and gaping wounds, would rise up in judg-
ment to Heaven against you. Revenge dies with what
it feeds on.
Hatred would be buried in the graves of
the Protestants, but remorse would survive to gnaw
your own hearts. Your ancestors suffered much misery
in the last century: I regret as much as you that they
did; but men were barbarous then, you should be
now more civilized. It would be no consolation to
you to inflict misery in your turn. The real evils of
life are many,
and we cannot escape from them; do
not disquiet yourselves too much about artificial ones.
That you greatly exaggerate yours, is to me evident;
they wound your pride, but they do little other injury;
they would break little on the sober current of life, if
you would let it flow its course; cultivate domestic
virtues; enjoy present blessings; forgive, if you can-
not forget former wrongs. Happy are they, if they
knew their own happiness, who have no greater mis-
fortunes to complain of, than that they cannot command
armies, preside as judges, or have seats in parliament.

"In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,

Our own felicity we make or find:

With secret course which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy."

CHAPTER XXIV.

English and Irish vices contrasted-Mavey Cann's parlour-
Murderer haunted by a spectre-Bulls-Caricatures of the
Irish character-Mutual conduct of Ireland and England
towards each other.

Strabane.

FOR reasons it is unnecessary to mention, I stay longer here than I originally proposed: beside motives of propriety, I have some of inclination: like the rich man in the parable, I fare sumptuously every day; I hope there the comparison ends, and that I am not to go farther and fare worse. The inhabitants of Strabane possess, I hope, the industry of their Scottish ancestors; they certainly possess a virtue of genuine Irish growth, more acceptable perhaps to the traveller than either they are as hospitable as if they were descended from the ancient Milesians, or King Brian Borrome himself. I have been frequently invited both to dinner and evening parties: though the company sit long at table on those occasions, I saw little disposition to excess; every person was at liberty to drink as he pleased. The hour on such occasions is five o'clock, and the dinner is in a profusion that is extraordinary: this is the more astonishing, as the men in general seem very temperate eaters; many of them dined off one dish, and very few tasted the confectionary, which was in a very great abundance. Virtue and vice, as well as good and evil, are pretty equally balanced; drunkenness is the vice of Irishmen,

as gluttony is of Englishmen; which is the worst? an Englishman will say drunkenness of course; but he is a party, and cannot be admitted a judge. I do not say that gluttony is the worst, but certainly it is the most degrading:

"The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines

To seem but mortal e'en in sound divines."

The wines on the table were Teneriffe, Sherry, and Port, yet very little of them was drunk; punch is the national liquor: wine is taken, without pleasure, as a matter of course; but the approach of the whiskey is hailed with rapture, as it makes its appearance immediately after the cloth is removed. Most unaccountable is the prepossession of nationality, and influence of habit, on the mind of man. This liquor has a strong and disagreeable flavour of the turf, or peat, by which it is distilled; yet, to the initiated, this smoky flavour is one of its choicest, indeed its choicest perfection.

It is pleasing to find that the irritation of party I have seen so much of elsewhere is hardly known in this town: yet it is but a short-lived pleasure; for, alas ! of what avail is one grain of sense in a bushel of folly? one pebble of beauty on a strand of deformity? Like a fertile spot in the deserts of Arabia, it only serves to make the surrounding wilderness more hideous.

The Repeal of the Union (a question which so much agitates the public mind in Dublin) is neither talked of, nor wished for here, nor, I believe, in any other part of the north of Ireland. The presbyterians of Ulster are fond of trade and of quietness, and

are again, I hope, beginning to be fond of England and of Englishmen. Beside this, there is no community of feeling in Ireland, no continuity of substance; the Catholic is one, the Protestant is one, Dublin is one: they must be amalgamated together, either by good government, or by blood; I fear it is to be by the

latter.

Routs are frequent in Strabane, and, as in London, the rooms are as full as they can hold: folly flies with the wings of an eagle, while wisdom travels with the pace of a snail: turnpike-roads and mail-coaches whirl the fashions of London, with their newest gloss, to the most remote parts of these kingdoms; and, in a few years, if we wish to contemplate pastoral innocence, we must seek it in the wilds of America.

There are some sweet romantic walks about this town: I soon tire of the society of the people, and wander for hours amidst rocks and solitary glens; I climb mountains, I dive into valleys, I overleap precipices, I worship the great Author of Nature, who, shadowed in darkness, presides over this gloomy and terrific sublime. I was seated, about two hours ago, in a deep glen, by the side of a sparkling brook, and in sight of an immense cataract, which broke into white foam on the rocks below. The projection of rock, under which I sat, forms the covering of what is called Mavey Cann's Parlour. Mavey in Irish signifies old witch. Witches were formerly well known iu England, and are still in great vogue in this country. With the usual inaccuracy of village narration, Mavey Cann is said to have drunk tea here long before it was known in Ireland: I do not know what sort of tea she made, but I am sure she has excellent

water I stooped down, and quenched my thirst at the fountain in front of her abode.

About half a mile from Strabane, on the opposite side of the river, is the beautifully-situated little town of Lifford: it would be called a village in England; but, by the courtesy of Ireland, every assemblage of houses is a town, as almost every woman is a lady, and every man, when written to, an esquire. This is an English colony, and some remains of the accent may even yet be found: until a few years ago, they retained the name of English, and frequent battles took place between them and the Scotch laddies, as the young men of Strabane were called.

About three miles beyond Lifford is a little hill, called Stumpy's Bray. A pedler was murdered in a house near this, with circumstances of the most atrocious cruelty he struggled long against the assassin, and the marks of his fingers in blood were imprinted on the walls; his legs were cut off, and he was crammed into a box for the purpose of concealment : he haunted the murderer every where. "Go where you will," said the apparition, "I'll follow you; where you'll be to-night I'll be to-morrow-night." The conscience-struck villain, appalled by the spectre of his own imagination, fled to America. The night after his arrival, he looked fearfully through his bedcurtains-the mutilated figure, pale as the tomb, in his blood-stained garments, stood on the hearth: "Go where you will," said he, "I'll follow you; where you 'll be to-night I'll be to-morrow-night." The man, the next morning, confessed his crime to a magistrate, was sent over to Ireland, and executed.

I went into a public-house near Lifford to have