happier lot in the world to come. This, he is taught, can be done, and done only, by the most perfect submission to his spiritual guides; and whither such guidance may lead—has led—every spot of ground about me bears awful witness; for, I am in Wexford !

The original plotters of the rebellion in 1798, as far as it can be traced, were nominal Protestants, infected by the revolutionary mania of France, and blindly expecting to find in their Romish countrymen, not only ready instruments for their murderous work, but fellow-helpers in abolishing all systems of religion together. The latter, on the other hand, practised what their republican allies had projected, and made efficient tools of the men who thought to do the same by them. This was speedily discovered, only too late for the wretched dupes thus taken in their own snare. The insurrectionary war, commenced on political ground, quickly assumed its natural character of a religious contest: and no victims were more readily sacrificed to the bigotry of the priest-led troops, than the nominal Protestants who had incited them to rebellion. Bagenal Harvey, the nominee of the Dublin Directory, whom they affected to recognize as general-in-chief in this his native county, possessed not half the real authority or influence that any private Romanist

in the ranks could boast: while Father Murphy, Father Roche, Father Redmond, Father Kavenagh, and the rest of the priests, numbers of whom personally led their flock to combat, held the power of life and death so despotically that a written line or a spoken word from any one of them was a safeguard through the whole sanguinary host; while a frown, or an averted look, delivered up the hapless suppliant to a terrible death. That the same absolute authority is enjoyed by the Romish priesthood at this day, no one can venture to doubt: and that it is now directed to the loosening of all other bonds, as regards their poor victims, I have already beheld a proof. I have passed some years in the south of Ireland, and that too in very troublous times, yet I never witnessed a lack of respectful courtesy on the part of the poor peasant towards the gentry. It seems, however, that an order has lately been issued by their priests is some of these districts, forbidding the usual recognition of a superior, should he happen to be a Protestant, and this of course is obeyed: but at what expence of feeling to many of the poor people, their looks betray, as they steal past with a mortified air, or strut by with one of assumed bravado. The present policy of their leaders is to superadd contempt to their long-cherished hatred of the Saxons; while flat

tering them that the land will, ere long, be again their own, and their cherished superstition the established, the exclusive religion.

And now let me give you some insight into the actual condition of the people, on whose vivid imagination and poverty-stricken spirits these golden dreams are brought to bear. The Irish peasant is a being so totally dissimilar from the same class in England, that your knowledge of the latter can only assist in obtaining a right view of the former, by the force of contrast. Our rural labourer takes a small cottage, cultivates the piece of ground attached to it, and by his earnings in husbandry, or whatever branch of industry he may have embraced, pays his rent and provides for his family. Should sickness, or the failure of work, or any other real calamity reduce the latter to actual want, a measure of relief is granted by the parochial authorities; and should he become disabled, or utterly destitute of subsistence, the workhouse affords an asylum to him and to his helpless dependents. The possession of land is an object of secondary importance to the English labourer: settled employment being easily obtained in his own neighbourhood. Bread is his staff of life, and the day's work that gives him means to purchase a loaf in the evening is more productive than he could render it, by raising a crop on his own ground. Among

our peasantry, no one would think of taking land for cultivation, unless he held some little capital that would admit of a present outlay, in the prospect of a distant market for its subsequent produce. He pays, perhaps, some thirty shillings or two pounds per annum, for a small but substantial cottage, well glazed and weather-proof, with its little slip of garden, and outhouse. He has his tenement at a fair valuation: so long as his rent is forthcoming he may safely calculate on the continuance of these comforts; and when all fails, a resource is left, and he is under no apprehension of perishing by the road side.

But the poor Irish cottier, or labourer, knows nothing of this independence. You must imagine, first, a state of society where the individual past work has no public asylum, no gratuitous provision of any sort whatever in store: the only prospect is that of having children grown up, who, through the powerful influence of natural feelings, cherished as most sacred among these people, will be constrained to shelter and sustain an infirm parent. Go where will among the Irish poor, you you may hear this motive expressly assigned for the very early marriages that they contract. they deferred the engagement until they might have realized some little matter to begin the world with, their children would not be sufficiently

If

grown to take charge of them, on the approach of the premature old age induced by their severe privations and over-work. Accordingly, they hasten to form an alliance. The mere boy, anticipating the period when he shall no longer be able to labour for himself, determines to provide betimes against the evil day, and looks about for a girl to suit him, when, in all probability, the connexions of both parties can scarcely muster among them the means for paying the exorbitant marriage fee which the priest never omits to demand. They must have a habitation, and the youthful settler is not long in finding a cabin with its single apartment, mud walls, ceiling of thatch, and floor of earth. Chimney it has probably none; the window is merely an aperture in the side; the door a few broken boards patched together, and the fireplace a stone laid on the bare ground. For furniture, there is a straw palliasse, or very likely only a litter of straw shaken down in one corner, to form the bed, and perhaps a blanket or so. A thick block, hewed from a tree, serves as the table; the householder, if ingenious, may have fashioned out a couple of stools; or some wealthy friend may present him with a wooden chair. An iron pot to boil potatoes, and a mug of any material, complete the necessary furniture of this abode. Plates, knives, and such appendages, are