the Virgin, formerly held in the greatest reverence in Ireland,71 which arrived there in a miraculous manner. The tide brought a piece of wood on to the sands opposite the town,72 which several fishermen tried to carry off, the wood being rare in this country, but they could not move it; they harnessed ten horses to it without effect, and the reflux of the tide brought it near the Dominican convent. Two monks raised it on their shoulders and put it in the court-yard of the convent; and the prior had in the night a vision that the image of our Lady was in this piece of wood; which was found there. So say the Catholics, who have still a great devotion towards it; but the Dominicans having been persecuted by the English settlers carried it elsewhere.73

From Johol I came by sea to Dongarvan 74 [Dun

71 "An image of the Virgin Mary, held in the utmost veneration, was preserved in this Monastery; and the general chapter held at Rome in 1644, [the year of our traveller's visit] mention it in their acts. This image, says Bourke, [p. 272] in the possession of the present Dominicans of Youghall." Archdale's Monas. Hib.-C. 72 The expression in the original is, "la place de la ville.”—T. 73 Our traveller's account of this image of the Virgin is, I believe, quite erroneous. It is the image now in the possession of the Dominicans of Cork, and appears from the inscription to have been the donation of a Countess of Desmond; the same I apprehend, who, according to Sir Walter Raleigh, lived to the age of 140.-R. See Note XV. in Appendix.-C.

74 In the County of Waterford. Under the Articles of Cessation of 15th Sept. 1643, (8th Art.) the entire of the County of Waterford, except ten garrisons, (upon and in the vicinity of the river Blackwater) was in the hands of the Irish confederate party.-C.

garvan], a small town, where there is a fine castle of which the Irish were masters. The harbour is very bad, and this year Captain Antonia, a Spaniard, an excellent seaman, lost there a handsome frigate, with which he was chasing the small Parliamentary vessels. I slept at Casteltames [Kilmacthomas], eight miles from Dongarvan, and eighteen from Johal.

The next day I came to Waterfort [Waterford], in French the fort of water, a fine town, extremely populous, of the size of Tours. It has a small river which brings shipping within five miles, to a place called Passage, where I crossed the river, and pursued my way to Wachefort [Wexford], in French the washed fort, where I arrived in one day.

This town is very populous, owing to its great commerce. The fortress is a small square, regularly enough fortified and washed by the sea. At the foot of this castle are many ruins of old churches, amongst others that of the Holy Trinity, towards which the women have great reverence, and come there in solemn procession. The oldest march first and the others follow, then take three turns round the ruins, make a reverence to the remains, kneel and recommence this ceremony many times. I have noticed them at this devotion three and four hours.

The people of Wachefort came principally from France,75 when Guillaume le Conquereur, (whom

75"The barony of Gaultièrre [the extreme eastern barony of the County of Waterford] takes its name from two Irish words, called

the English call William the Conqueror,) a natural son of the Duke of Normandy, conquered England, made himself king of it, and gave the Norman code of laws to the inhabitants.

Tire-na-Gaul, i. e. the land of foreigners; this being among the early settlements of the English in Ireland;" so says Dr. Smith. History of Waterford, p. 83.-C. Gaultier is the French for Walter; may it not refer to the Fitz-Walters? who in Henry II. and Richard I.'s time spoke nothing but French.-M.

CHAP. VII.

IRELAND Or Hibernia has always been called the Island of Saints, owing to the number of great men who have been born there. The natives are known to the English under the name of Iriche, to the French under that of Hibernois, which they take from the Latin, or of Irois, from the English, or Irlandois from the name of the island, because land signifies ground. They call themselves Ayrenake, in their own language, a tongue which you must learn by practice, because they do not write it,76 they learn Latin in English characters, with which character they also write their own language; and so I have seen a monk write, but in such a way as no one but himself could read it.

Saint Patrick was the apostle of this island, who according to the natives blessed the land, and gave his malediction to all venomous things; and it cannot be denied, that the earth and the timber77 of Ireland, being transported, will contain neither serpents,

76 See Note XVI. in Appendix.-C.

77 The roof of Westminster Hall, said to be composed of Irish oak, is adduced in corroboration of the fact; and several of the town-halls of the Netherlands can testify the same, if tradition speaks truly, as gathered by a recent writer, Mr. George St. George, in his "Saunter through Belgium."-M.

E

worms, spiders, nor rats, as one sees in the west of England and in Scotland, where all particular persons have their trunks and the boards of their floors of Irish wood; and in all Ireland there is not to be found a serpent nor toad.78

The Irish of the southern and eastern coasts, follow the customs of the English; those of the north, the Scotch. The others are not very polished, and are called by the English, savages.79 The English colonists were of the English Church, and the Scotch were Calvinists, but at present they are all Puritans. The native Irish are very good Catholics,

78 The purgation of Ireland from noxious animals has been the subject of the old alliteration-" Ubi nulla venena veniunt, nec serpens serpit in herbâ."-R. See Note XVII. in Appendix.-W. C.

79 The author's general review of the customs, manners, &c. of Ireland is more favourable than that of contemporaneous writers. Stanihurst, although an Irishman, Fynes Moryson, and Rinuccini, draw a less advantageous picture of the people; and La Motte Le Vayer, preceptor of Louis XIV. in his "Dialogues à la Manière des Anciens," published at this very period, quotes Solinus and others, who describe the early Irish as savages and cannibals, as if the representation was applicable to the country in his own time, that is about 1645. Every one will recollect the lines of Tasso

"Questi de l'alte selve hirsuti manda

La divisa dal mondo ultima Irlanda."

Giraldus Cambrensis, at the period of the English invasion (I will not call it conquest for fear of Mr. O'Connell) is far from partial to Ireland, and it is possible that the graphic relation of the French Ambassador's Secretary under Henry VIII. of his visit to O'Donnell, by order of Francis I. as given by MacGeoghegan, will be remembered. It certainly does not place the civilization of Ireland at that age in a favourable light.-R.