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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Tour in Ireland, by Arthur Young, Edited by
+Henry Morley
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Tour in Ireland
+       1776-1779
+
+
+Author: Arthur Young
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: August 25, 2007  [eBook #22387]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TOUR IN IRELAND***
+
+
+This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
+
+
+
+
+
+A TOUR IN IRELAND.
+1776-1779.
+
+
+                                    BY
+                              ARTHUR YOUNG.
+
+                       CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
+                _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
+                                  1897.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Arthur Young was born in 1741, the son of a clergyman, at Bradfield, in
+Suffolk.  He was apprenticed to a merchant at Lynn, but his activity of
+mind caused him to be busy over many questions of the day.  He wrote when
+he was seventeen a pamphlet on American politics, for which a publisher
+paid him with ten pounds' worth of books.  He started a periodical, which
+ran to six numbers.  He wrote novels.  When he was twenty-eight years old
+his father died, and, being free to take his own course in life, he would
+have entered the army if his mother had not opposed.  He settled down,
+therefore, to farming, and applied to farming all his zealous energy for
+reform, and all the labours of his busy pen.  In 1768, a year before his
+father's death, he had published "A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern
+Counties of England and Wales," which found many readers.
+
+Between 1768 and 1771 Arthur Young produced also "The Farmer's Letters to
+the People of England, containing the Sentiments of a Practical
+Husbandman on the present State of Husbandry."  In 1770 he published, in
+two thick quartos, "A Course of Experimental Agriculture, containing an
+exact Register of the Business transacted during Five Years on near 300
+Acres of various Soils;" also in the same year appeared "Rural Economy;
+or, Essays on the Practical Part of Husbandry;" also in the same year
+"The Farmer's Guide in Hiring and Stocking Farms," in two volumes, with
+plans.  Also in the same year appeared his "Farmer's Kalendar," of which
+the 215th edition was published in 1862.  There had been a second edition
+of the "Six Weeks' Tour in the South of England," with enlargements, in
+1769, and Arthur Young was encouraged to go on with increasing vigour to
+the publication of "The Farmer's Tour through the East of England: being
+a Register of a Journey through various Counties, to inquire into the
+State of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Population."  This extended to
+four volumes, and appeared in the years 1770 and 1771.  In 1771 also
+appeared, in four volumes, with plates, "A Six Months' Tour through the
+North of England, containing an Account of the Present State of
+Agriculture, Manufactures, and Population in several Counties of this
+Kingdom."
+
+Thus Arthur Young took all his countrymen into counsel while he was
+learning his art, as a farmer who brought to his calling a vigorous
+spirit of inquiry with an activity in the diffusion of his thoughts that
+is a part of God's gift to the men who have thoughts to diffuse; the
+instinct for utterance being almost invariably joined to the power of
+suggesting what may help the world.
+
+Whether he was essentially author turned farmer, or farmer turned author,
+Arthur Young has the first place in English literature as a
+farmer-author.  Other practical men have written practical books of
+permanent value, which have places of honour in the literature of the
+farm; but Arthur Young's writings have won friends for themselves among
+readers of every class, and belong more broadly to the literature of the
+country.
+
+Between 1766 and 1775 he says that he made 3,000 pounds by his
+agricultural writings.  The pen brought him more profit than the plough.
+He took a hundred acres in Hertfordshire, and said of them, "I know not
+what epithet to give this soil; sterility falls short of the idea; a
+hungry vitriolic gravel--I occupied for nine years the jaws of a wolf.  A
+nabob's fortune would sink in the attempt to raise good arable crops in
+such a country.  My experience and knowledge had increased from
+travelling and practice, but all was lost when exerted on such a spot."
+He tried at one time to balance his farm losses by reporting for the
+_Morning Post_, taking a seventeen-mile walk home to his farm every
+Saturday night.
+
+In 1780 Arthur Young published this "Tour in Ireland, with General
+Observations on the Present State of that Kingdom in 1776-78."  The
+general observations, which give to all his books a wide general
+interest, are, in this volume, of especial value to us now.  It is here
+reprinted as given by Pinkerton.
+
+In 1784 Arthur Young began to edit "Annals of Agriculture," which were
+continued through forty-five volumes.  All writers in it were to sign
+their names, but when His Majesty King George III. contributed a
+description of Mr. Duckett's Farm at Petersham, he was allowed to sign
+himself "Ralph Robinson of Windsor."
+
+In 1792 Arthur Young published the first quarto volume, and in 1794 the
+two volumes of his "Travels during the years 1787-8-9 and 1790,
+undertaken more particularly with a view of ascertaining the Cultivation,
+Wealth, Resources and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France."
+This led to the official issue in France in 1801, by order of the
+Directory, of a translation of Young's agricultural works, under the
+title of "Le Cultivateur Anglais."  Arthur Young also corresponded with
+Washington, and received recognition from the Empress Catherine of
+Russia, who sent him a gold snuff-box, and ermine cloaks for his wife and
+daughter.  He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.
+
+In 1793 his labours led to the formation of a Board of Agriculture, of
+which he was appointed secretary.
+
+When he was set at ease by this appointment, with a house and 400 pounds
+a year, Arthur Young had been about to experiment on the reclaiming of
+four thousand acres of Yorkshire moorland.  The Agricultural Board was
+dissolved in 1816, four years before surveys of the agriculture of each
+county were made for the Agricultural Board, Arthur Young himself
+contributing surveys of Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire,
+Norfolk, Suffolk, and Sussex.
+
+Arthur Young's sight became dim in 1808, and blindness gradually
+followed.  He died in 1820 at his native village of Bradfield, in
+Suffolk, at the age of seventy-nine years.
+
+                                                                     H. M.
+
+
+
+
+A TOUR IN IRELAND.
+
+
+June 19, 1776.  Arrived at Holyhead, after an instructive journey through
+a part of England and Wales I had not seen before.  Found the packet, the
+_Claremont_, Captain Taylor, would sail very soon.  After a tedious
+passage of twenty-two hours, landed on the 20th in the morning, at
+Dunlary, four miles from Dublin, a city which much exceeded my
+expectation.  The public buildings are magnificent, very many of the
+streets regularly laid out, and exceedingly well built.  The front of the
+Parliament-house is grand, though not so light as a more open finishing
+of the roof would have made it.  The apartments are spacious, elegant,
+and convenient, much beyond that heap of confusion at Westminster, so
+inferior to the magnificence to be looked for in the seat of empire.  I
+was so fortunate as to arrive just in time to see Lord Harcourt, with the
+usual ceremonies, prorogue the Parliament.  Trinity College is a
+beautiful building, and a numerous society; the library is a very fine
+room, and well filled.  The new Exchange will be another edifice to do
+honour in Ireland; it is elegant, cost forty thousand pounds, but
+deserves a better situation.  From everything I saw, I was struck with
+all those appearances of wealth which the capital of a thriving community
+may be supposed to exhibit.  Happy if I find through the country in
+diffused prosperity the right source of this splendour!  The common
+computation of inhabitants 200,000, but I should suppose exaggerated.
+Others guessed the number 140,000 or 150,000.
+
+June 21.  Introduced by Colonel Burton to the Lord Lieutenant, who was
+pleased to enter into conversation with me on my intended journey, made
+many remarks on the agriculture of several Irish counties, and showed
+himself to be an excellent farmer, particularly in draining.  Viewed the
+Duke of Leinster's house, which is a very large stone edifice, the front
+simple but elegant, the pediment light; there are several good rooms; but
+a circumstance unrivalled is the court, which is spacious and
+magnificent, the opening behind the house is also beautiful.  In the
+evening to the Rotunda, a circular room, ninety feet diameter, an
+imitation of Ranelagh, provided with a band of music.
+
+The barracks are a vast building, raised in a plain style, of many
+divisions; the principal front is of an immense length.  They contain
+every convenience for ten regiments.
+
+June 23.  Lord Charlemont's house in Dublin is equally elegant and
+convenient, the apartments large, handsome, and well disposed, containing
+some good pictures, particularly one by Rembrandt, of Judas throwing the
+money on the floor, with a strong expression of guilt and remorse; the
+whole group fine.  In the same room is a portrait of Caesar Borgia, by
+Titian.  The library is a most elegant apartment of about forty by
+thirty, and of such a height as to form a pleasing proportion; the light
+is well managed, coming in from the cove of the ceiling, and has an
+exceeding good effect; at one end is a pretty ante-room, with a fine copy
+of the Venus de Medicis, and at the other two small rooms, one a cabinet
+of pictures and antiquities, the other medals.  In the collection also of
+Robert Fitzgerald, Esq., in Merion Square, are several pieces which very
+well deserve a traveller's attention; it was the best I saw in Dublin.
+Before I quit that city I observe, on the houses in general, that what
+they call their two-roomed ones are good and convenient.  Mr. Latouche's,
+in Stephen's Green, I was shown as a model of this sort, and I found it
+well contrived, and finished elegantly.  Drove to Lord Charlemont's villa
+at Marino, near the city, where his lordship has formed a pleasing lawn,
+margined in the higher part by a well-planted thriving shrubbery, and on
+a rising ground a banqueting-room, which ranks very high among the most
+beautiful edifices I have anywhere seen; it has much elegance, lightness,
+and effect, and commands a fine prospect.  The rising ground on which it
+stands slopes off to an agreeable accompaniment of wood, beyond which on
+one side is Dublin Harbour, which here has the appearance of a noble
+river crowded with ships moving to and from the capital.  On the other
+side is a shore spotted with white buildings, and beyond it the hills of
+Wicklow, presenting an outline extremely various.  The other part of the
+view (it would be more perfect if the city was planted out) is varied, in
+some places nothing but wood, in others breaks of prospect.  The lawn,
+which is extensive, is new grass, and appears to be excellently laid
+down, the herbage a fine crop of white clover (_trifolium repens_),
+trefoil, rib-grass (_plantago lanceolata_), and other good plants.
+Returned to Dublin, and made inquiries into other points, the prices of
+provisions, etc.  The expenses of a family in proportion to those of
+London are, as five to eight.
+
+Having the year following lived more than two months in Dublin, I am able
+to speak to a few points, which as a mere traveller I could not have
+done.  The information I before received of the prices of living is
+correct.  Fish and poultry are plentiful and very cheap.  Good lodgings
+almost as dear as they are in London; though we were well accommodated
+(dirt excepted) for two guineas and a-half a week.  All the lower ranks
+in this city have no idea of English cleanliness, either in apartments,
+persons, or cookery.  There is a very good society in Dublin in a
+Parliament winter: a great round of dinners and parties; and balls and
+suppers every night in the week, some of which are very elegant; but you
+almost everywhere meet a company much too numerous for the size of the
+apartments.  They have two assemblies on the plan of those of London, in
+Fishamble Street, and at the Rotunda; and two gentlemen's clubs, Anthry's
+and Daly's, very well regulated: I heard some anecdotes of deep play at
+the latter, though never to the excess common at London.  An ill-judged
+and unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the Italian Opera, which
+existed but with scarcely any life for this one winter; of course they
+could rise no higher than a comic one.  _La Buona Figliuola_, _La
+Frascatana_, and _Il Geloso in Cimento_, were repeatedly performed, or
+rather murdered, except the parts of Sestini.  The house was generally
+empty, and miserably cold.  So much knowledge of the state of a country
+is gained by hearing the debates of a Parliament, that I often frequented
+the gallery of the House of Commons.  Since Mr. Flood has been silenced
+with the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland, Mr. Daly, Mr. Grattan, Sir
+William Osborn, and the prime serjeant Burgh, are reckoned high among the
+Irish orators.  I heard many very eloquent speeches, but I cannot say
+they struck me like the exertion of the abilities of Irishmen in the
+English House of Commons, owing perhaps to the reflection both on the
+speaker and auditor, that the Attorney-General of England, with a dash of
+his pen, can reverse, alter, or entirely do away the matured result of
+all the eloquence, and all the abilities of this whole assembly.  Before
+I conclude with Dublin I shall only remark, that walking in the streets
+there, from the narrowness and populousness of the principal
+thoroughfares, as well as from the dirt and wretchedness of the canaille,
+is a most uneasy and disgusting exercise.
+
+June 24.  Left Dublin, and passed through the Phoenix Park, a very
+pleasing ground, at the bottom of which, to the left, the Liffey forms a
+variety of landscapes: this is the most beautiful environ of Dublin.
+Take the road to Luttrel's Town, through a various scenery on the banks
+of the river.  That domain is a considerable one in extent, being above
+four hundred acres within the wall, Irish measure; in the front of the
+house is a fine lawn bounded by rich woods, through which are many
+ridings, four miles in extent.  From the road towards the house they lead
+through a very fine glen, by the side of a stream falling over a rocky
+bed, through the dark woods, with great variety on the sides of steep
+slopes, at the bottom of which the Liffey is either heard or seen
+indistinctly.  These woods are of great extent, and so near the capital,
+form a retirement exceedingly beautiful.  Lord Irnham and Colonel Luttrel
+have brought in the assistance of agriculture to add to the beauties of
+the place; they have kept a part of the lands in cultivation in order to
+lay them down the better to grass; one hundred and fifty acres have been
+done, and above two hundred acres most effectually drained in the covered
+manner filled with stones.  These works are well executed.  The drains
+are also made under the roads in all wet places, with lateral short ones
+to take off the water instead of leaving it, as is common, to soak
+against the causeway, which is an excellent method.  Great use has been
+made of limestone gravel in the improvements, the effect of which is so
+considerable, that in several spots where it was laid on ten years ago,
+the superiority of the grass is now similar to what one would expect from
+a fresh dunging.
+
+Leaving Luttrel's Town I went to St. Wolstan's, which Lord Harcourt had
+been so obliging as to desire I would make my quarters, from whence to
+view to the right or left.
+
+June 25.  To Mr. Clement's, at Killadoon, who has lately built an
+excellent house, and planted much about it, with the satisfaction of
+finding that all his trees thrive well.  I remarked the beech and larch
+seemed to get beyond the rest.  He is also a good farmer.
+
+June 26.  Breakfasted with Colonel Marlay, at Cellbridge, found he had
+practised husbandry with much success, and given great attention to it
+from the peace of 1763, which put a period to a gallant scene of service
+in Germany.  Walked through his grounds, which I found in general very
+well cultivated; his fences excellent; his ditches five by six and seven
+by six; the banks well made, and planted with quicks; the borders dug
+away, covered with lime till perfectly slacked, them mixed with dung and
+carried into the fields, a practice which Mr. Marlay has found of very
+great benefit.
+
+Viewed Lucan, the seat of Agmondisham Vesey, Esq., on the banks of the
+Liffey.  The house is rebuilding, but the wood on the river, with walks
+through it, is exceedingly beautiful.  The character of the place is that
+of a sequestered shade.  Distant views are everywhere shut out, and the
+objects all correspond perfectly with the impression they were designed
+to raise.  It is a walk on the banks of the river, chiefly under a
+variety of fine wood, which rises on varied slopes, in some parts gentle,
+in others steep, spreading here and there into cool meadows, on the
+opposite shore, rich banks of wood or shrubby ground.  The walk is
+perfectly sequestered, and has that melancholy gloom which should ever
+dwell in such a place.  The river is of a character perfectly suited to
+the rest of the scenery, in some places breaking over rocks, in other
+silent, under the thick shade of spreading wood.  Leaving Lucan, the next
+place is Leixlip, a fine one, on the river, with a fall, which in a wet
+season is considerable.  Then St. Wolstan's, belonging to the Dean of
+Derry, a beautiful villa, which is also on the river; the grounds gay and
+open, though not without the advantage of much wood, disposed with
+judgment.  A winding shrubbery quits the river, and is made to lead
+through some dressed ground that is pretty and cheerful.
+
+Mr. Conolly's, at Castle Town, to which all travellers resort, is the
+finest house in Ireland, and not exceeded by many in England.  It is a
+large handsome edifice, situated in the middle of an extensive lawn,
+which is quite surrounded with fine plantations disposed to the best
+advantage.  To the north these unite into very large woods, through which
+many winding walks lead, with the convenience of several ornamented
+seats, rooms, etc.  On the other side of the house, upon the river, is a
+cottage, with a shrubbery, prettily laid out; the house commands an
+extensive view, bounded by the Wicklow mountains.  It consists of several
+noble apartments.  On the first floor is a beautiful gallery, eighty feet
+long, elegantly fitted up.
+
+June 27.  Left Lord Harcourt's, and having received an invitation from
+the Duke of Leinster, passed through Mr. Conolly's grounds to his Grace's
+seat at Cartown.  The park ranks among the finest in Ireland.  It is a
+vast lawn, which waves over gentle hills, surrounded by plantations of
+great extent, and which break and divide in places so as to give much
+variety.  A large but gentle vale winds through the whole, in the bottom
+of which a small stream has been enlarged into a fine river, which throws
+a cheerfulness through most of the scenes: over it a handsome stone
+bridge.  There is a great variety on the banks of this vale; part of it
+consists of mild and gentle slopes, part steep banks of thick wood.  In
+another place they are formed into a large shrubbery, very elegantly laid
+out, and dressed in the highest order, with a cottage, the scenery about
+which is uncommonly pleasing: and farther on this vale takes a stronger
+character, having a rocky bank on one side, and steep slopes scattered
+irregularly, with wood on the other.  On one of the most rising grounds
+in the park is a tower, from the top of which the whole scenery is
+beheld; the park spreads on every side in fine sheets of lawn, kept in
+the highest order by eleven hundred sheep, scattered over with rich
+plantations, and bounded by a large margin of wood, through which is a
+riding.
+
+From hence took the road to Summerhill, the seat of the Right Hon. H. L.
+Rowley.  The country is cheerful and rich; and if the Irish cabins
+continue like what I have hitherto seen, I shall not hesitate to
+pronounce their inhabitants as well off as most English cottagers.  They
+are built of mud walls eighteen inches or two feet thick, and well
+thatched, which are far warmer than the thin clay walls in England.  Here
+are few cottars without a cow, and some of them two.  A bellyful
+invariably of potatoes, and generally turf for fuel from a bog.  It is
+true they have not always chimneys to their cabins, the door serving for
+that and window too.  If their eyes are not affected with the smoke, it
+may be an advantage in warmth.  Every cottage swarms with poultry, and
+most of them have pigs.
+
+Went in the evening to Lord Mornington's at Dangan, who is making many
+improvements, which he showed me.  His plantations are extensive, and he
+has formed a large water, having five or six islands much varied, and
+promontories of high land shoot so far into it as to form almost distant
+lakes; the effect pleasing.  There are above a hundred acres under water,
+and his lordship has planned a considerable addition to it.  Returned to
+Summerhill.
+
+June 29.  Left it, taking the road to Slaine, the country very pleasant
+all the way; much of it on the banks of the Boyne, variegated with some
+woods, planted hedgerows, and gentle hills.  The cabins continue much the
+same, the same plenty of poultry, pigs, and cows.  The cattle in the road
+have their fore legs all tied together with straw to keep them from
+breaking into the fields; even sheep, and pigs, are all in the same
+bondage.
+
+Lord Conyngham's seat, Slaine Castle, on the Boyne, is one of the most
+beautiful places I have seen; the grounds are very bold and various,
+rising round the castle in noble hills or beautiful inequalities of
+surface, with an outline of flourishing plantations.  Under the castle
+flows the Boyne, in a reach broken by islands, with a very fine shore of
+rock on one side, and wood on the other.  Through the lower plantations
+are ridings, which look upon several beautiful scenes formed by the
+river, and take in the distant country, exhibiting the noblest views of
+waving Cultinald hills, with the castle finely situated in the midst of
+the planted domain, through which the Boyne winds its beautiful course.
+
+Under Mr. Lambert's house on the same river is a most romantic and
+beautiful spot; rocks on the side, rising in peculiar forms very boldly;
+the other steep wood, the river bending short between them like a
+land-locked basin.
+
+Lord Conyngham's keeping up Slaine Castle, and spending great sums,
+though he rarely resides there, is an instance of magnificence not often
+met with; while it is so common for absentees to drain the kingdom of
+every shilling they can, so contrary a conduct ought to be held in the
+estimation which it justly deserves.
+
+June 30.  Rode out to view the country and some improvements in the
+neighbourhood: the principal of which are those of Lord Chief Baron
+Foster, which I saw from Glaston hill, in the road from Slaine to
+Dundalk.
+
+In conversation with Lord Longford I made many inquiries concerning the
+state of the lower classes, and found that in some respects they were in
+good circumstances, in others indifferent; they have, generally speaking,
+such plenty of potatoes as always to command a bellyful; they have flax
+enough for all their linen, most of them have a cow, and some two, and
+spin wool enough for their clothes; all a pig, and numbers of poultry,
+and in general the complete family of cows, calves, hogs, poultry, and
+children pig together in the cabin; fuel they have in the utmost plenty.
+Great numbers of families are also supported by the neighbouring lakes,
+which abound prodigiously with fish.  A child with a packthread and a
+crooked pin will catch perch enough in an hour for the family to live on
+the whole day, and his lordship has seen five hundred children fishing at
+the same time, there being no tenaciousness in the proprietors of the
+lands about a right to the fish.  Besides perch, there is pike upwards of
+five feet long, bream, tench, trout of ten pounds, and as red as salmon,
+and fine eels.  All these are favourable circumstances, and are very
+conspicuous in the numerous and healthy families among them.
+
+Reverse the medal: they are ill clothed, and make a wretched appearance,
+and what is worse, are much oppressed by many who make them pay too dear
+for keeping a cow, horse, etc.  They have a practice also of keeping
+accounts with the labourers, contriving by that means to let the poor
+wretches have very little cash for their year's work.  This is a great
+oppression, farmers and gentlemen keeping accounts with the poor is a
+cruel abuse: so many days' work for a cabin; so many for a potato garden;
+so many for keeping a horse, and so many for a cow, are clear accounts
+which a poor man can understand well, but farther it ought never to go;
+and when he has worked out what he has of this sort, the rest of his work
+ought punctually to be paid him every Saturday night.  Another
+circumstance mentioned was the excessive practice they have in general of
+pilfering.  They steal everything they can lay their hands on, and I
+should remark, that this is an account which has been very generally
+given me: all sorts of iron hinges, chains, locks, keys, etc.; gates will
+be cut in pieces, and conveyed away in many places as fast as built;
+trees as big as a man's body, and that would require ten men to move,
+gone in a night.  Lord Longford has had the new wheels of a car stolen as
+soon as made.  Good stones out of a wall will be taken for a fire-hearth,
+etc., though a breach is made to get at them.  In short, everything, and
+even such as are apparently of no use to them; nor is it easy to catch
+them, for they never carry their stolen goods home, but to some bog-hole.
+Turnips are stolen by car-loads, and two acres of wheat plucked off in a
+night.  In short, their pilfering and stealing is a perfect nuisance.
+How far it is owing to the oppression of laws aimed solely at the
+religion of these people, how far to the conduct of the gentlemen and
+farmers, and how far to the mischievous disposition of the people
+themselves, it is impossible for a passing traveller to ascertain.  I am
+apt to believe that a better system of law and management would have good
+effects.  They are much worse treated than the poor in England, are
+talked to in more opprobrious terms, and otherwise very much oppressed.
+
+Left Packenham Hall.
+
+Two or three miles from Lord Longford's in the way to Mullingar the road
+leads up a mountain, and commands an exceeding fine view of Lock
+Derrevaragh, a noble water eight miles long, and from two miles to half a
+mile over; a vast reach of it, like a magnificent river, opens as you
+rise the hill.  Afterwards I passed under the principal mountain, which
+rises abruptly from the lake into the boldest outline imaginable.  The
+water there is very beautiful, filling up the steep vale formed by this
+and the opposite hills.
+
+Reached Mullingar.
+
+It was one of the fair days.  I saw many cows and beasts, and more
+horses, with some wool.  The cattle were of the same breed that I had
+generally seen in coming through the country.
+
+July 5.  Left Mullingar, which is a dirty ugly town, and taking the road
+to Tullamore, stopped at Lord Belvidere's, with which place I was as much
+struck as with any I had ever seen.  The house is perched on the crown of
+a very beautiful little hill, half surrounded with others, variegated and
+melting into one another.  It is one of the most singular places that is
+anywhere to be seen, and spreading to the eye a beautiful lawn of
+undulating ground margined with wood.  Single trees are scattered in some
+places, and clumps in others; the general effect so pleasing, that were
+there nothing further, the place would be beautiful, but the canvas is
+admirably filled.  Lake Ennel, many miles in length, and two or three
+broad, flows beneath the windows.  It is spotted with islets, a
+promontory of rock fringed with trees shoots into it, and the whole is
+bounded by distant hills.  Greater and more magnificent scenes are often
+met with, but nowhere a more beautiful or a more singular one.
+
+From Mullingar to Tullespace I found rents in general at twenty shillings
+an acre, with much relet at thirty shillings, yet all the crops except
+bere were very bad, and full of weeds.  About the latter-named place the
+farms are generally from one hundred to three hundred acres; and their
+course: 1. fallow; 2. bere; 3. oats; 4. oats; 5. oats.  Great quantities
+of potatoes all the way, crops from forty to eighty barrels.
+
+The road before it comes to Tullamore leads through a part of the bog of
+Allen, which seems here extensive, and would make a noble tract of
+meadow.  The way the road was made over it was simply to cut a drain on
+each side, and then lay on the gravel, which, as fast as it was laid and
+spread, bore the ears.  Along the edges is fine white clover.
+
+In conversation upon the subject of a union with Great Britain, I was
+informed that nothing was so unpopular in Ireland as such an idea; and
+that the great objection to it was increasing the number of absentees.
+When it was in agitation, twenty peers and sixty commoners were talked of
+to sit in the British Parliament, which would be the resident of eighty
+of the best estates in Ireland.  Going every year to England would, by
+degrees, make them residents; they would educate their children there,
+and in time become mere absentees: becoming so they would be unpopular,
+others would be elected, who, treading in the same steps, would yield the
+place still to others; and thus by degrees, a vast portion of the kingdom
+now resident would be made absentees, which would, they think, be so
+great a drain to Ireland, that a free trade would not repay it.
+
+I think the idea is erroneous, were it only for one circumstance, the
+kingdom would lose, according to this reasoning, an idle race of country
+gentlemen, and in exchange their ports would fill with ships and
+commerce, and all the consequences of commerce, an exchange that never
+yet proved disadvantageous to any country.
+
+Viewed Mount Juliet, Lord Carrick's seat, which is beautifully situated
+on a fine declivity on the banks of the Nore, commanding some extensive
+plantations that spread over the hills, which rise in a various manner on
+the other side of the river.  A knoll of lawn rises among them with
+artificial ruins upon it, but the situation is not in unison with the
+idea of a ruin, very rarely placed to effect, unless in retired and
+melancholy spots.
+
+The river is a very fine one, and has a good accompaniment of well grown
+wood.  From the cottage a more varied scene is viewed, cheering and
+pleasing; and from the tent in the farther plantation a yet gayer one,
+which looks down on several bends of the river.
+
+July 11.  Left Kilsaine.  Mr. Bushe accompanied me to Woodstock, the seat
+of Sir W. Fownes.  From Thomastown hither is the finest ride I have yet
+had in Ireland.  The road leaving Thomastown leads on the east side of
+the river, through some beautiful copse woods, which before they were cut
+must have had a most noble effect, with the river Nore winding at the
+bottom.  The country then opens somewhat, and you pass most of the way
+for six or seven miles to Innisteague, on a declivity shelving down to
+the river, which takes a varied winding course, sometimes lively,
+breaking over a rocky bottom, at others still and deep under the gloom of
+some fine woods, which hang down the sides of steep hills.  Narrow slips
+of meadow of a beautiful verdure in some places form the shore, and unite
+with cultivated fields that spread over the adjoining hills, reaching
+almost the mountain tops.  These are large and bold, and give in general
+to the scenes features of great magnificence.  Passed Sir John Hasler's
+on the opposite side of the river, finely situated, and Mr. Nicholson's
+farm on this side, who has very extensive copses which line the river.
+Coming in sight of Sir W. Fownes's, the scenery is striking; the road
+mounts the side of the hill, and commands the river at the bottom of the
+declivity, with groups of trees prettily scattered about, and the little
+borough of Innisteague in a most picturesque situation, the whole bounded
+by mountains.  Cross the bridge, and going through the town, take a path
+that leads to a small building in the woods, called Mount Sandford.  It
+is at the top of a rocky declivity almost perpendicular, but with brush
+wood growing from the rocks.  At the bottom is the river, which comes
+from the right from behind a very bold hanging wood, that seems to unite
+with the hill on the opposite shore.  At this pass the river fills the
+vale, but it widens by degrees, and presents various reaches, intermixed
+with little tufts of trees.  The bridge we passed over is half hid.
+Innisteague is mixed with them, and its buildings backed by a larger
+wood, give variety to the scene.  Opposite to the point of view there are
+some pretty enclosures, fringed with wood, and a line of cultivated
+mountain sides, with their bare tops limit the whole.
+
+Taking my leave of Mr. Bushe, I followed the road to Ross.  Passed
+Woodstock, of which there is a very fine view from the top of one of the
+hills, the house in the centre of a sloping wood of five hundred English
+acres, and hanging in one noble shade to the river, which flows at the
+bottom of a winding glen.  From the same hill in front it is seen in a
+winding course for many miles through a great extent of enclosures,
+bounded by mountains.  As I advanced the views of the river Nore were
+very fine, till I came to Ross, where from the hill before you go down to
+the ferry is a noble scene of the Barrow, a vast river flowing through
+bold shores.  In some places trees on the bank half obscure it, in others
+it opens in large reaches, the effect equally grand and beautiful.  Ships
+sailing up to the town, which is built on the side of a hill to the
+water's edge, enliven the scene not a little.  The water is very deep and
+the navigation secure, so that ships of seven hundred tons may come up to
+the town; but these noble harbours on the coast of Ireland are only
+melancholy capabilities of commerce: it is languid and trifling.  There
+are only four or five brigs and sloops that belong to the place.
+
+Having now passed through a considerable extent of country, in which the
+Whiteboys were common, and committed many outrages, I shall here review
+the intelligence I received concerning them throughout the county of
+Kilkenny.  I made many inquiries into the origin of those disturbances,
+and found that no such thing as a leveller or Whiteboy was heard of till
+1760, which was long after the landing of Thurot, or the intending
+expedition of M. Conflans.  That no foreign coin was ever seen among
+them, though reports to the contrary were circulated; and in all the
+evidence that was taken during ten or twelve years, in which time there
+appeared a variety of informers, none was ever taken, whose testimony
+could be relied on, that ever proved any foreign interposition.  Those
+very few who attempted to favour it, were of the most infamous and
+perjured characters.  All the rest, whose interest it was to make the
+discovery, if they had known it, and who concealed nothing else,
+pretended to no such knowledge.  No foreign money appeared, no arms of
+foreign construction, no presumptive proof whatever of such a connection.
+They began in Tipperary, and were owing to some inclosures of commons,
+which they threw down, levelling the ditches, and were first known by the
+name of Levellers.  After that, they began with the tithe-proctors (who
+are men that hire tithes of the rectors), and these proctors either
+screwed the cottars up to the utmost shilling, or relet the tithes to
+such as did it.  It was a common practice with them to go in parties
+about the country, swearing many to be true to them, and forcing them to
+join by menaces, which they very often carried into execution.  At last
+they set up to be general redressers of grievances, punished all
+obnoxious persons who advanced the value of lands, or hired farms over
+their heads; and, having taken the administration of justice into their
+hands, were not very exact in the distribution of it.  Forced masters to
+release their apprentices, carried off the daughters of rich farmers, and
+ravished them into marriages, of which four instances happened in a
+fortnight.  They levied sums of money on the middling and lower farmers
+in order to support their cause, by paying attorneys, etc., in defending
+prosecutions against them; and many of them subsisted for some years
+without work, supported by these contributions.  Sometimes they committed
+several considerable robberies, breaking into houses, and taking the
+money, under pretence of redressing grievances.  In the course of these
+outrages they burnt several houses, and destroyed the whole substance of
+men obnoxious to them.  The barbarities they committed were shocking.
+One of their usual punishments (and by no means the most severe) was
+taking people out of their beds, carrying them naked in winter on
+horseback for some distance, and burying them up to their chin in a hole
+filled with briars, not forgetting to cut off their ears.  In this manner
+the evil existed for eight or ten years, during which time the gentlemen
+of the country took some measures to quell them.  Many of the magistrates
+were active in apprehending them; but the want of evidence prevented
+punishments, for many of those who even suffered by them had no spirit to
+prosecute.  The gentlemen of the country had frequent expeditions to
+discover them in arms; but their intelligence was so uncommonly good by
+their influence over the common people, that not one party that ever went
+out in quest of them was successful.  Government offered large rewards
+for informations, which brought a few every year to the gallows, without
+any radical cure for the evil.  The reason why it was not more effective
+was the necessity of any person that gave evidence against them quitting
+their houses and country, or remaining exposed to their resentment.  At
+last their violence arose to a height which brought on their suppression.
+The popish inhabitants of Ballyragget, six miles from Kilkenny, were the
+first of the lower people who dared openly to associate against them;
+they threatened destruction to the town, gave notice that they would
+attack it, were as good as their word, came two hundred strong, drew up
+before a house in which were fifteen armed men, and fired in at the
+windows; the fifteen men handled their arms so well, that in a few rounds
+they killed forty or fifty.  They fled immediately, and ever after left
+Ballyragget in peace: indeed, they have never been resisted at all
+without showing a great want of both spirit and discipline.  It should,
+however, be observed, that they had but very few arms, those in bad
+order, and no cartridges.  Soon after this they attacked the house of Mr.
+Power in Tipperary, the history of which is well known.  His murder
+spirited up the gentlemen to exert themselves in suppressing the evil,
+especially in raising subscriptions to give private rewards to whoever
+would give evidence or information concerning them.  The private
+distribution had much more effect than larger sums which required a
+public declaration; and Government giving rewards to those who resisted
+them, without having previously promised it, had likewise some effect.
+Laws were passed for punishing all who assembled, and (what may have a
+great effect) for recompensing, at the expense of the county or barony,
+all persons who suffered by their outrages.  In consequence of this
+general exertion, above twenty were capitally convicted, and most of them
+executed; and the gaols of this and the three neighbouring counties,
+Carlow, Tipperary, and Queen's County, have many in them whose trials are
+put off till next assizes, and against whom sufficient evidence for
+conviction, it is supposed, will appear.  Since this all has been quiet,
+and no outrages have been committed: but before I quit the subject, it is
+proper to remark that what coincided very much to abate the evil was the
+fall in the price of lands which has taken place lately.  This is
+considerable, and has much lessened the evil of hiring farms over the
+heads of one another; perhaps, also, the tithe-proctors have not been
+quite so severe in their extortions: but this observation is by no means
+general; for in many places tithes yet continue to be levied with all
+those circumstances which originally raised the evil.
+
+July 15.  Leaving Courtown, took the Arklow road; passed a finely wooded
+park of Mr. Ram's, and a various country with some good corn in it.  Flat
+lands by the coast let very high, and mountain at six or seven shillings
+an acre, and some at eight shillings or ten shillings.  Passed to
+Wicklow, prettily situated on the sea, and from Newrybridge walked to see
+Mr. Tye's, which is a neat farm, well wooded, with a river running
+through the fields.
+
+Reached in the evening Mount Kennedy, the seat of General Cunninghame,
+who fortunately proved to me an instructor as assiduous as he is able.
+He is in the midst of a country almost his own, for he has 10,000 Irish
+acres here.  His domain, and the grounds about it, are very beautiful;
+not a level can be seen; every spot is tossed about in a variety of hill
+and dale.  In the middle of the lawn is one of the greatest natural
+curiosities in the kingdom: an immense arbutus tree, unfortunately blown
+down, but yet vegetating.  One branch, which parts from the body near the
+ground, and afterwards into many large branches, is six feet two inches
+in circumference.  The General buried part of the stem as it laid, and it
+is from several branches throwing out fine young shoots: it is a most
+venerable remnant.  Killarney, the region of the arbutus, boasts of no
+such tree as this.
+
+July 16.  Rode in the morning to Drum; a large extent of mountains and
+wood on the General's estate.  It is a very noble scenery; a vast rocky
+glen; one side bare rocks to an immense height, hanging in a thousand
+whimsical yet frightful forms, with vast fragments tumbled from them, and
+lying in romantic confusion; the other a fine mountain side covered with
+shrubby wood.  This wild pass leads to the bottom of an amphitheatre of
+mountain, which exhibits a very noble scenery.  To the right is an
+immense sweep of mountain completely wooded; taken as a single object it
+is a most magnificent one, but its forms are picturesque in the highest
+degree; great projections of hill, with glens behind all wooded, have a
+noble effect.  Every feature of the whole view is great, and unites to
+form a scene of natural magnificence.  From hence a riding is cut through
+the hanging wood, which rises to a central spot, where the General has
+cleared away the rubbish from under the wood, and made a beautiful waving
+lawn with many oaks and hollies scattered about it: here he has built a
+cottage, a pretty, whimsical oval room, from the windows of which are
+three views, one of distant rich lands opening to the sea, one upon a
+great mountain, and a third upon a part of the lawn.  It is well placed,
+and forms upon the whole a most agreeable retreat.
+
+July 17.  Took my leave of General Cunninghame, and went through the glen
+of the downs in my way to Powerscourt.  The glen is a pass between two
+vast ridges of mountains covered with wood, which have a very noble
+effect.  The vale is no wider than to admit the road, a small gurgling
+river almost by its side, and narrow slips of rocky and shrubby ground
+which part them.  In the front all escape seems denied by an immense
+conical mountain, which rises out of the glen and seems to fill it up.
+The scenery is of a most magnificent character.  On the top of the ridge
+to the right Mr. La Touche has a banqueting-room.  Passing from this
+sublime scene, the road leads through cheerful grounds all under corn,
+rising and falling to the eye, and then to a vale of charming verdure
+broken into inclosures, and bounded by two rocky mountains, distant
+darker mountains filling up the scene in front.  This whole ride is
+interesting, for within a mile and a half of "Tinnyhinch" (the inn to
+which I was directed), you come to a delicious view on the right: a small
+vale opening to the sea, bounded by mountains, whose dark shade forms a
+perfect contrast to the extreme beauty and lively verdure of the lower
+scene, consisting of gently swelling lawns rising from each other, with
+groups of trees between, and the whole so prettily scattered with white
+farms, as to add every idea of cheerfulness.  Kept on towards
+Powerscourt, which presently came in view from the edge of a declivity.
+You look full upon the house, which appears to be in the most beautiful
+situation in the world, on the side of a mountain, half-way between its
+bare top and an irriguous vale at its foot.  In front, and spreading
+among woods on either side, is a lawn whose surface is beautifully varied
+in gentle declivities, hanging to a winding river.
+
+Lowering the hill the scenery is yet more agreeable.  The near inclosures
+are margined with trees, through whose open branches are seen whole
+fields of the most lively verdure.  The trees gather into groups, and the
+lawn swells into gentle inequalities, while the river winding beneath
+renders the whole truly pleasing.
+
+Breakfasted at the inn at Tinnyhinch, and then drove to the park to see
+the waterfall.  The park itself is fine; you enter it between two vast
+masses of mountain, covered with wood, forming a vale scattered with
+trees, through which flows a river on a broken rocky channel.  You follow
+this vale till it is lost in a most uncommon manner; the ridges of
+mountain, closing, form one great amphitheatre of wood, from the top of
+which, at the height of many hundred feet, bursts the water from a rock,
+and tumbling down the side of a very large one, forms a scene singularly
+beautiful.  At the bottom is a spot of velvet turf, from which rises a
+clump of oaks, and through their stems, branches and leaves, the falling
+water is seen as a background, with an effect more picturesque than can
+be well imagined.  These few trees, and this little lawn, give the
+finishing to the scene.  The water falls behind some large fragments of
+rock, and turns to the left, down a stony channel, under the shade of a
+wood.
+
+Returning to Tinnyhinch, I went to Inniskerry, and gained by this detour
+in my return to go to the Dargle, a beautiful view which I should
+otherwise have lost.  The road runs on the edge of a declivity, from
+whence there is a most pleasing prospect of the river's course through
+the vale and the wood of Powerscourt, which here appear in large masses
+of dark shade, the whole bounded by mountains.  Turn to the left into the
+private road that leads to the Dargle, and presently it gives a specimen
+of what is to be expected by a romantic glen of wood, where the high
+lands almost lock into each other, and leave scarce a passage for the
+river at bottom, which rages as if with difficulty forcing its way.  It
+is topped by a high mountain, and in front you catch a beautiful plat of
+inclosures bounded by the sea.  Enter the Dargle, which is the name of a
+glen near a mile long, come presently to one of the finest ranges of wood
+I have anywhere seen.  It is a narrow glen or vale formed by the sides of
+two opposite mountains; the whole thickly spread with oak wood.  At the
+bottom (and the depth is immense), it is narrowed to the mere channel of
+the river, which rather tumbles from rock to rock than runs.  The extent
+of wood that hangs to the eye in every direction is great, the depth of
+the precipice on which you stand immense, which with the roar of the
+water at bottom forms a scene truly interesting.  In less than a quarter
+of a mile, the road passing through the wood leads to another point of
+view to the right.  It is the crown of a vast projecting rock, from which
+you look down a precipice absolutely perpendicular, and many hundred feet
+deep, upon the torrent at the bottom, which finds its noisy way over
+large fragments of rock.  The point of view is a great projection of the
+mountain on this side, answered by a concave of the opposite, so that you
+command the glen both to the right and left.  It exhibits on both immense
+sheets of forest, which have a most magnificent appearance.  Beyond the
+wood to the right, are some inclosures hanging on the side of a hill,
+crowned by a mountain.  I knew not how to leave so interesting a spot;
+the impressions raised by it are strong.  The solemnity of such an extent
+of wood unbroken by any intervening objects, and the whole hanging over
+declivities, is alone great; but to this the addition of a constant roar
+of falling water, either quite hid, or so far below as to be seen but
+obscurely, united to make those impressions stronger.  No contradictory
+emotions are raised; no ill-judged temples appear to enliven a scene that
+is gloomy rather than gay.  Falling or moving water is a lively object;
+but this being obscure the noise operates differently.  Following the
+road a little further, there is another bold rocky projection from which
+also there is a double view to the right and left.  In front so immense a
+sweep of hanging wood, that a nobler scene can hardly be imagined; the
+river as before, at the bottom of the precipice, which is so steep and
+the depth so great as to be quite fearful to look down.  This horrid
+precipice, the pointed bleak mountains in view, with the roar of the
+water, all conspire to raise one great emotion of the sublime.  You
+advance scarcely twenty yards before a pretty scene opens to the left--a
+distant landscape of inclosures, with a river winding between the hills
+to the sea.  Passing to the right, fresh scenes of wood appear; half-way
+to the bottom, one different from the preceding is seen; you are almost
+inclosed in wood, and look to the right through some low oaks on the
+opposite bank of wood, with an edging of trees through which the sky is
+seen, which, added to an uncommon elegance in the outline of the hill,
+has a most pleasing effect.  Winding down to a thatched bench on a rocky
+point, you look upon an uncommon scene.  Immediately beneath is a vast
+chasm in the rock, which seems torn asunder to let the torrent through
+that comes tumbling over a rocky bed far sunk into a channel embosomed in
+wood.  Above is a range of gloomy obscure woods, which half overshadow
+it, and rising to a vast height, exclude every object.  To the left the
+water rolls away over broken rocks--a scene duly romantic.  Followed the
+path: it led me to the water's edge, at the bottom of the glen, where is
+a new scene, in which not a single circumstance hurts the principal
+character.  In a hollow formed of rock and wood (every object excluded
+but those and water) the torrent breaks forth from fragments of rock, and
+tumbles through the chasm, rocks bulging over it as if ready to fall into
+the channel and stop the impetuous water.  The shade is so thick as to
+exclude the heavens; all is retired and gloomy, a brown horror breathing
+over the whole.  It is a spot for melancholy to muse in.
+
+Return to the carriage, and quit the Dargle, which upon the whole is a
+very singular place, different from all I have seen in England, and I
+think preferable to most.  Cross a murmuring stream, clear as crystal,
+and, rising a hill, look back on a pleasing landscape of inclosures,
+which, waving over hills, end in mountains of a very noble character.
+Reach Dublin.
+
+July 20.  To Drogheda, a well-built town, active in trade, the Boyne
+bringing ships to it.  It was market-day, and I found the quantity of
+corn, etc., and the number of people assembled, very great; few country
+markets in England more thronged.  The Rev. Mr. Nesbit, to whom
+recommended, absent, which was a great loss to me, as I had several
+inquiries which remained unsatisfied.
+
+To the field of battle on the Boyne.  The view of the scene from a rising
+ground which looks down upon it is exceedingly beautiful, being one of
+the completest landscapes I have seen.  It is a vale, losing itself in
+front between bold declivities, above which are some thick woods and
+distant country.  Through the vale the river winds and forms an island,
+the point of which is tufted with trees in the prettiest manner
+imaginable; on the other side a rich scenery of wood, among which is Dr.
+Norris's house.  To the right, on a rising ground on the banks of the
+river, is the obelisk, backed by a very bold declivity.  Pursued the road
+till near it, quitted my chaise, and walked to the foot of it.  It is
+founded on a rock which rises boldly from the river.  It is a noble
+pillar, and admirably placed.  I seated myself on the opposite rock, and
+indulged the emotions which, with a melancholy not unpleasing, filled my
+bosom, while I reflected on the consequences that had sprung from the
+victory here obtained.  Liberty was then triumphant.  May the virtues of
+our posterity secure that prize which the bravery of their ancestors won!
+Peace to the memory of the Prince to whom, whatever might be his
+failings, we owed that day memorable in the annals of Europe!
+
+Returned part of the way, and took the road to Cullen, where the Lord
+Chief Baron Forster received me in the most obliging manner, and gave me
+a variety of information uncommonly valuable.  He has made the greatest
+improvements I have anywhere met with.  The whole country twenty-two
+years ago was a waste sheep-walk, covered chiefly with heath, with some
+dwarf furze and fern.  The cabins and people as miserable as can be
+conceived; not a Protestant in the country, nor a road passable for a
+carriage.  In a word, perfectly resembling other mountainous tracts, and
+the whole yielding a rent of not more than from three shillings to four
+shillings an acre.  Mr. Forster could not bear so barren a property, and
+determined to attempt the improvement of an estate of five thousand acres
+till then deemed irreclaimable.  He encouraged the tenants by every
+species of persuasion and expense, but they had so ill an opinion of the
+land that he was forced to begin with two or three thousand acres in his
+own hands; he did not, however, turn out the people, but kept them in to
+see the effects of his operations.
+
+To Dundalk.  The view down on this town also very beautiful: swelling
+hills of a fine verdure, with many rich inclosures backed by a bold
+outline of mountain that is remarkable.  Laid at the Clanbrassil Arms,
+and found it a very good inn.  The place, like most of the Irish towns I
+have been in, full of new buildings, with every mark of increasing wealth
+and prosperity.  A cambric manufacture was established here by
+Parliament, but failed; it was, however, the origin of that more to the
+north.
+
+July 22.  Left Dundalk, took the road through Ravensdale to Mr.
+Fortescue, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately he was in the South
+of Ireland.  Here I saw many good stone and slate houses, and some bleach
+greens; and I was much pleased to see the inclosures creeping high up the
+sides of the mountains, stony as they are.  Mr. Fortescue's situation is
+very romantic--on the side of a mountain, with fine wood hanging on every
+side, with the lawn beautifully scattered with trees spreading into them,
+and a pretty river winding through the vale, beautiful in itself, but
+trebly so on information that before he fixed there it was all a wild
+waste.  Rents in Ravensdale ten shillings; mountain land two shillings
+and sixpence to five shillings.  Also large tracts rented by villages,
+the cottars dividing it among themselves, and making the mountain common
+for their cattle.
+
+Breakfasted at Newry--the Globe, another good inn.  This town appears
+exceedingly flourishing, and is very well built; yet forty years ago, I
+was told, there were nothing but mud cabins in it.  This great rise has
+been much owing to the canal to Loch Neagh.  I crossed it twice; it is
+indeed a noble work.  I was amazed to see ships of one hundred and fifty
+tons and more lying in it, like barges in an English canal.  Here is a
+considerable trade.
+
+Reached Armagh in the evening, and waited on the Primate.
+
+July 23.  His Grace rode out with me to Armagh, and showed me some of the
+noble and spirited works by which he has perfectly changed the face of
+the neighbourhood.  The buildings he has erected in seven years, one
+would suppose, without previous information, to be the work of an active
+life.  A list of them will justify this observation.
+
+He has erected a very elegant palace, ninety feet by sixty, and forty
+high, in which an unadorned simplicity reigns.  It is light and pleasing,
+without the addition of wings or lesser parts, which too frequently
+wanting a sufficient uniformity with the body of the edifice, are
+unconnected with it in effect, and divide the attention.  Large and ample
+offices are conveniently placed behind a plantation at a small distance.
+Around the palace is a large lawn, which spreads on every side over the
+hills, and is skirted by young plantations, in one of which is a terrace,
+which commands a most beautiful view of cultivated hill and dale.  The
+view from the palace is much improved by the barracks, the school, and a
+new church at a distance, all which are so placed as to be exceedingly
+ornamental to the whole country.
+
+The barracks were erected under his Grace's directions, and form a large
+and handsome edifice.  The school is a building of considerable extent,
+and admirably adapted for the purpose: a more convenient or a better
+contrived one is nowhere to be seen.  There are apartments for a master,
+a school-room fifty-six feet by twenty-eight, a large dining-room, and
+spacious, airy dormitories, with every other necessary, and a spacious
+playground walled in; the whole forming a handsome front: and attention
+being paid to the residence of the master (the salary is four hundred
+pounds a year), the school flourishes, and must prove one of the greatest
+advantages to the country of anything that could have been established.
+This edifice entirely at the Primate's expense.  The church is erected of
+white stone, and having a tall spire makes a very agreeable object in a
+country where churches and spires do not abound--at least, such as are
+worth looking at.  Three other churches the Primate has also built, and
+done considerable reparations to the cathedral.
+
+He has been the means also of erecting a public infirmary, which was
+built by subscription, contributing amply to it himself.
+
+A public library he has erected at his own expense, given a large
+collection of books, and endowed it.  The room is excellently adapted,
+forty-five feet by twenty-five, and twenty high, with a gallery, and
+apartments for a librarian.
+
+He has further ornamented the city with a market-house and shambles, and
+been the direct means, by giving leases upon that condition, of almost
+new-building the whole place.  He found it a nest of mud cabins, and he
+will leave it a well-built city of stone and slate.  I heard it asserted
+in common conversation that his Grace, in these noble undertakings, had
+not expended less than thirty thousand pounds, besides what he had been
+the means of doing, though not directly at his own expense.
+
+In the evening reached Mr. Brownlow's at Lurgan, to whom I am indebted
+for some valuable information.  This gentleman has made very great
+improvements in his domain.  He has a lake at the bottom of a slight
+vale, and around are three walks, at a distance from each other; the
+centre one is the principal, and extends two miles.  It is well conducted
+for leading to the most agreeable parts of the grounds, and for
+commanding views of Loch Neagh, and the distant country.  There are
+several buildings, a temple, green-house, etc.  The most beautiful scene
+is from a bench on a gently swelling hill, which rises almost on every
+side from the water.  The wood, the water, and the green slopes, here
+unite to form a very pleasing landscape.  Let me observe one thing much
+to his honour; he advances his tenants money for all the lime they
+choose, and takes payment in eight years with rent.
+
+Upon inquiring concerning the emigrations, I found that in 1772 and 1773
+they were at the height; that some went from this neighbourhood with
+property, but not many.  They were in general poor and unemployed.  They
+find here that when provisions are very cheap, the poor spend much of
+their time in whisky-houses.  All the drapers wish that oatmeal was never
+under one penny a pound.  Though farms are exceedingly divided, yet few
+of the people raise oatmeal enough to feed themselves; all go to market
+for some.  The weavers earn by coarse linens one shilling a day, by fine
+one shilling and fourpence, and it is the same with the spinners--the
+finer the yarn, the more they earn; but in common a woman earns about
+threepence.  For coarse linens they do not reckon the flax hurt by
+standing for seed.  Their own flax is much better than the imported.
+
+This country is in general beautiful, but particularly so about the
+straits that lead into Strangford Loch.  From Mr. Savage's door the view
+has great variety.  To the left are tracts of hilly grounds, between
+which the sea appears, and the vast chain of mountains in the Isle of Man
+distinctly seen.  In front the hills rise in a beautiful outline, and a
+round hill projects like a promontory into the strait, and under it the
+town amidst groups of trees; the scene is cheerful of itself, but
+rendered doubly so by the ships and herring-boats sailing in and out.  To
+the right the view is crowned by the mountains of Mourne, which, wherever
+seen, are of a character peculiarly bold, and even terrific.  The shores
+of the loch behind Mr. Savage's are bold ground, abounding with numerous
+pleasing landscapes; the opposite coast, consisting of the woods and
+improvements of Castle Ward, is a fine scenery.
+
+Called at Lord Bangor's, at Castle Ward, to deliver a letter of
+recommendations but unfortunately he was on a sailing party to England;
+walked through the woods, etc.  The house was built by the present lord.
+It is a very handsome edifice, with two principal fronts, but not of the
+same architecture, for the one is Gothic and the other Grecian.  From the
+temple is a fine wooded scene: you look down on a glen of wood, with a
+winding hill quite covered with it, and which breaks the view of a large
+bay.  Over it appears the peninsula of Strangford, which consists of
+enclosures and wood.  To the right the bay is bounded by a fine grove,
+which projects into it.  A ship at anchor added much.  The house well
+situated above several rising woods; the whole scene a fine one.  I
+remarked in Lord Bangor's domains a fine field of turnips, but unhoed.
+There were some cabbages also.
+
+Belfast is a very well built town of brick, they having no stone quarry
+in the neighbourhood.  The streets are broad and straight, and the
+inhabitants, amounting to about fifteen thousand, make it appear lively
+and busy.  The public buildings are not numerous nor very striking, but
+over the exchange Lord Donegal is building an assembly room, sixty feet
+long by thirty broad, and twenty-four high; a very elegant room.  A
+card-room adjoining, thirty by twenty-two, and twenty-two high; a
+tea-room of the same size.  His lordship is also building a new church,
+which is one of the lightest and most pleasing I have anywhere seen: it
+is seventy-four by fifty-four, and thirty high to the cornice, the aisles
+separated by a double row of columns; nothing can be lighter or more
+pleasing.  The town belongs entirely to his lordship.  Rent of it 2,000
+pounds a year.  His estate extends from Drumbridge, near Lisburn, to
+Larne, twenty miles in a right line, and is ten broad.  His royalties are
+great, containing the whole of Loch Neagh, which is, I suppose, the
+greatest of any subject in Europe.  His eel fishery at Tome, and Port
+New, on the river Ban, lets for 500 pounds a year; and all the fisheries
+are his to the leap at Coleraine.  The estate is supposed to be 31,000
+pounds a year, the greatest at present in Ireland.  Inishowen, in
+Donegal, is his, and is 11,000 pounds of it.  In Antrim, Lord Antrim's is
+the most extensive property, being four baronies, and one hundred and
+seventy-three thousand acres.  The rent 8,000 pounds a year, but re-let
+for 64,000 pounds a year, by tenants that have perpetuities, perhaps the
+cruellest instance in the world of carelessness for the interests of
+posterity.  The present lord's father granted those leases.
+
+I was informed that Mr. Isaac, near Belfast, had four acres, Irish
+measure, of strong clay land not broken up for many years, which being
+amply manured with lime rubbish and sea shells, and fallowed, was sown
+with wheat, and yielded 87 pounds 9s. at 9s. to 12s. per cwt.  Also that
+Mr. Whitley, of Ballinderry, near Lisburn, a tenant of Lord Hertford's,
+has rarely any wheat that does not yield him 18 pounds an acre.  The
+tillage of the neighbourhood for ten miles round is doubled in a few
+years.  Shall export one thousand tons of corn this year from Belfast,
+most of it to the West Indies, particularly oats.
+
+August 1.  To Arthur Buntin's, Esq., near Belfast; the soil a stiff clay;
+lets at old rents 10s., new one 18s., the town parks of that place 30s.
+to 70s., ten miles round it 10s. to 20s., average 13s.  A great deal of
+flax sown, every countryman having a little, always on potato land, and
+one ploughing: they usually sow each family a bushel of seed.  Those who
+have no land pay the farmers 20s. rent for the land a bushel of seed
+sows, and always on potato land.  They plant many more potatoes than they
+eat, to supply the market at Belfast; manure for them with all their
+dung, and some of them mix dung, earth, and lime, and this is found to do
+better.  There is much alabaster near the town, which is used for stucco
+plaster; sells from 1 pound 1s. to 25s. a ton.
+
+On my way to Antrim, viewed the bleach green of Mr. Thomas Sinclair; it
+is the completest I have seen here.  I understood that the bleaching
+season lasted nine months, and that watering on the grass was quite left
+off.  Mr. Sinclair himself was not at home, or I should probably have
+gained some intelligence that might have been useful.
+
+Crossed the mountains by the new road to Antrim, and found them to the
+summits to consist of exceeding good loam, and such as would improve into
+good meadow.  It is all thrown to the little adjoining farms, with very
+little or any rent paid for it.  They make no other use of it than
+turning their cows on.  Pity they do not improve; a work more profitable
+than any they could undertake.  All the way to Antrim lands let, at an
+average, at 8s.  The linen manufacture spreads over the whole country,
+consequently the farms are very small, being nothing but patches for the
+convenience of weavers.
+
+From Antrim to Shanes Castle the road runs at the end of Loch Neagh,
+commanding a noble view of it; of such an extent that the eye can see no
+land over it.  It appears like a perfect sea, and the shore is broken
+sand-banks, which look so much like it, that one can hardly believe the
+water to be fresh.  Upon my arrival at the castle, I was most agreeably
+saluted with four men hoeing a field of turnips round it, as a
+preparation for grass.  These were the first turnip-hoers I have seen in
+Ireland, and I was more pleased than if I had seen four emperors.
+
+The castle is beautifully situated on the lake, the windows commanding a
+very noble view of it; and this has the finer effect, as the woods are
+considerable, and form a fine accompaniment to this noble inland sea.
+
+Rode from Mr. Lesly's to view the Giant's Causeway.  It is certainly a
+very great curiosity as an object for speculation upon the manner of its
+formation; whether it owes its origin to fire, and is a species of lava,
+or to crystallisation, or to whatever cause, is a point that has employed
+the attention of men much more able to decide upon it than I am; and has
+been so often treated, that nothing I could say could be new.  When two
+bits of these basalts are rubbed together quick, they emit a considerable
+scent like burnt leather.  The scenery of the Causeway, nor of the
+adjacent mountains, is very magnificent, though the cliffs are bold; but
+for a considerable distance there is a strong disposition in the rocks to
+run into pentagonal cylinders, and even at a bridge by Mr. Lesly's is a
+rock in which the same disposition is plainly visible.  I believe the
+Causeway would have struck me more if I had not seen the prints of
+Staffa.
+
+Returned to Lesly Hill, and on August 5th departed for Coleraine.  There
+the Right Hon. Mr. Jackson assisted me with the greatest politeness in
+procuring the intelligence I wished about the salmon fishery, which is
+the greatest in the kingdom, and viewed both fisheries, above and below
+the town, very pleasantly situated on the river Ban.  The salmon spawn in
+all the rivers that run into the Ban about the beginning of August, and
+as soon as they have done, swim to the sea, where they stay till January,
+when they begin to return to the fresh water, and continue doing it till
+August, in which voyage they are taken.  The nets are set in the middle
+of January, but by Act of Parliament no nets nor weirs can be kept down
+after the 12th of August.  All the fisheries on the river Ban let at
+6,000 pounds a year.  From the sea to the rock above Coleraine, where the
+weirs are built, belongs to the London companies; the greatest part of
+the rest to Lord Donegal.  The eel fisheries let at 1,000 pounds a year,
+and the salmon fisheries at Coleraine at 1,000 pounds.  The eels make
+periodical voyages, as the salmon, but instead of spawning in the fresh
+water, they go to the sea to spawn, and the young fry return against the
+stream; to enable them to do which with greater ease at the leap straw
+ropes are hung in the water for them.  When they return to sea they are
+taken.  Many of them weigh nine or ten pounds.  The young salmon are
+called _grawls_, and grow at a rate which I should suppose scarce any
+fish commonly known equals; for within the year some of them will come to
+sixteen and eighteen pounds, but in general ten or twelve pounds.  Such
+as escape the first year's fishery are salmon; and at two years old will
+generally weigh twenty to twenty-five pounds.  This year's fishery has
+proved the greatest that ever was known, and they had the largest haul,
+taking 1,452 salmon at one drag of one net.  In the year 1758 they had
+882, which was the next greatest haul.  I had the pleasure of seeing 370
+drawn in at once.  They have this year taken 400 tons of fish; 200 sold
+fresh at a penny and three-halfpence a pound, and two hundred salted, at
+18 pounds and 20 pounds per ton, which are sent to London, Spain, and
+Italy.  The fishery employs eighty men, and the expenses in general are
+calculated to equal the rent.
+
+The linen manufacture is very general about Coleraine, coarse ten-hundred
+linen.  It is carried to Dublin in cars, one hundred and ten miles, at
+5s. per cwt. in summer, and 7s. 6d. in winter.
+
+From Limavady to Derry there is very little uncultivated land.  Within
+four miles of the latter, rents are from 12s. to 20s.; mountains paid for
+but in the gross.  Reached Derry at night, and waited two hours in the
+dark before the ferry-boat came over for me.
+
+August 7.  In the morning went to the bishop's palace to leave my letters
+of recommendation; for I was informed of my misfortune in his being out
+of the kingdom.  He was upon a voyage to Staffa, and had sent home some
+of the stones of which it consists.  They appeared perfectly to resemble
+in shape, colour, and smell, those of the Giant's Causeway.
+
+August 8.  Left Derry, and took the road by Raphoe to the Rev. Mr.
+Golding's at Clonleigh, who favoured me with much valuable information.
+The view of Derry at the distance of a mile or two is the most
+picturesque of any place I have seen.  It seems to be built on an island
+of bold land rising from the river, which spreads into a fine basin at
+the foot of the town; the adjacent country hilly.  The scene wants
+nothing but wood to make it a perfect landscape.
+
+August 11.  Left Mount Charles, and passing through Donegal took the road
+to Ballyshannon; came presently to several beautiful landscapes, swelling
+hills cultivated, with the bay flowing up among them.  They want nothing
+but more wood, and are beautiful without it.  Afterwards likewise to the
+left they rise in various outlines, and die away insensibly into one
+another.  When the road leads to a full view of the bay of Donegal, these
+smiling spots, above which the proud mountains rear their heads, are
+numerous, the hillocks of almost regular circular forms.  They are very
+pleasing from form, verdure, and the water breaking in their vales.
+
+Before I got to Ballyshannon, remarked a bleach green, which indicates
+weaving in the neighbourhood.  Viewed the salmon-leap at Ballyshannon,
+which is let for 400 pounds a year.  The scenery of it is very beautiful.
+It is a fine fall, and the coast of the river very bold, consisting of
+perpendicular rocks with grass of a beautiful verdure to the very edge.
+It projects in little promontories, which grew longer as they approach
+the sea, and open to give a fine view of the ocean.  Before the fall in
+the middle of the river, is a rocky island on which is a curing house,
+instead of the turret of a ruined castle for which it seems formed.  The
+town prettily situated on the rising ground on each side of the river.
+To Sir James Caldwell's.  Crossing the bridge, stopped for a view of the
+river, which is a very fine one, and was delighted to see the salmon
+jump, to me an unusual sight; the water was perfectly alive with them.
+Rising the hill, look back on the town; the situation beautiful, the
+river presents a noble view.  Come to Belleek, a little village with one
+of the finest water-falls I remember anywhere to have seen; viewed it
+from the bridge.  The river in a very broad sheet comes from behind some
+wood, and breaks over a bed of rocks, not perpendicular, but shelving in
+various directions, and foams away under the arches, after which it grows
+more silent and gives a beautiful bend under a rock crowned by a fine
+bank of wood.  Reached Castle Caldwell at night, where Sir James Caldwell
+received me with a politeness and cordiality that will make me long
+remember it with pleasure.
+
+August 15.  To Belleisle, the charming seat of the Earl of Ross.  It is
+an island in Loch Earne, of two hundred Irish acres, every part of it
+hill, dale, and gentle declivities; it has a great deal of wood, much of
+which is old, and forms both deep shades and open, cheerful groves.  The
+trees hang on the slopes, and consequently show themselves to the best
+advantage.  All this is exceedingly pretty, but it is rendered trebly so
+by the situation.  A reach of the lake passes before the house, which is
+situated near the banks among some fine woods, which give both beauty and
+shelter.  This sheet of water, which is three miles over, is bounded in
+front by an island of thick wood, and by a bold circular hill which is
+his lordship's deer park; this hill is backed by a considerable mountain.
+To the right are four or five fine clumps of dark wood--so many islands
+which rise boldly from the lake; the water breaks in straits between
+them, and forms a scene extremely picturesque.  On the other side the
+lake stretches behind wood in a strait which forms Belleisle.  Lord Ross
+has made walks round the island, from which there is a considerable
+variety of prospect.  A temple is built on a gentle hill, commanding the
+view of the wooded islands above-mentioned, but the most pleasing
+prospect of them is coming out from the grotto.  They appear in an
+uncommon beauty; two seem to join, and the water which flows between
+takes the appearance of a fine bay, projecting deep into a dark wood:
+nothing can be more beautiful.  The park hill rises above them, and the
+whole is backed with mountains.  The home scene at your feet also is
+pretty; a lawn scattered with trees that forms the margin of the lake,
+closing gradually in a thick wood of tall trees, above the tops of which
+is a distant view of Cultiegh mountain, which is there seen in its
+proudest solemnity.
+
+They plough all with horses three or four in a plough, and all abreast.
+Here let it be remarked that they very commonly plough and harrow with
+their horses drawing by the tail: it is done every season.  Nothing can
+put them beside this, and they insist that, take a horse tired in traces
+and put him to work by the tail, he will draw better: quite fresh again.
+Indignant reader, this is no jest of mine, but cruel, stubborn, barbarous
+truth.  It is so all over Cavan.
+
+At Clonells, near Castlerea, lives O'Connor, the direct descendant of
+Roderick O'Connor, who was king of Connaught six or seven hundred years
+ago; there is a monument of him in Roscommon Church, with his sceptre,
+etc.  I was told as a certainty that this family were here long before
+the coming of the Milesians.  Their possessions, formerly so great, are
+reduced to three or four hundred pounds a year, the family having fared
+in the revolutions of so many ages much worse than the O'Niels and
+O'Briens.  The common people pay him the greatest respect, and send him
+presents of cattle, etc., upon various occasions.  They consider him as
+the prince of a people involved in one common ruin.
+
+Another great family in Connaught is Macdermot, who calls himself Prince
+of Coolavin.  He lives at Coolavin, in Sligo, and though he has not above
+one hundred pounds a year, will not admit his children to sit down in his
+presence.  This was certainly the case with his father, and some assured
+me even with the present chief.  Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr.
+O'Hara, Mr. Sandford, etc., came to see him, and his address was curious:
+"O'Hara, you are welcome!  Sandford, I am glad to see your mother's son"
+(his mother was an O'Brien): "as to the rest of ye, come in as ye can."
+Mr. O'Hara, of Nymphsfield, is in possession of a considerable estate in
+Sligo, which is the remains of great possessions they had in that
+country.  He is one of the few descendants of the Milesian race.
+
+To Lord Kingston's, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately for me he
+was at Spa.  Walked down to Longford Hill to view the lake.  It is one of
+the most delicious scenes I ever beheld; a lake of five miles by four,
+which fills the bottom of a gentle valley almost of a circular form,
+bounded very boldly by the mountains.  Those to the left rise in a noble
+slope; they lower rather in front, and let in a view of Strand mountain,
+near Sligo, above twenty miles off.  To the right you look over a small
+part of a bog to a large extent of cultivated hill, with the blue
+mountains beyond.  Were this little piece of bog planted, the view would
+be more complete; the hill on which you stand has a foliage of well-grown
+trees, which form the southern shore.  You look down on six islands, all
+wooded, and on a fine promontory to the left, which shoots far into the
+lake.  Nothing can be more pleasing than their uncommon variety.  The
+first is small (Rock Island), tufted with trees, under the shade of which
+is an ancient building, once the residence of Macdermot.  The next a
+mixture of lawn and wood.  The third, which appears to join this, is of a
+darker shade, yet not so thick but you can see the bright lawn under the
+trees.  House Island is one fine, thick wood, which admits not a gleam of
+light, a contrast to the silver bosom of the lake.  Church Island is at a
+greater distance; this is also a clump, and rises boldly.  Rock Island is
+of wood; it opens in the centre and shows a lawn with a building on it.
+It is impossible to imagine a more pleasing and cheerful scene.  Passed
+the chapel to Smithfield Hill, which is a fine rising ground, quite
+surrounded with plantations.  From hence the view is changed; here the
+promontory appears very bold, and over its neck you see another wooded
+island in a most picturesque situation.  Nothing can be more picturesque
+than Rock Island, its ruin overhung with ivy.  The other islands assume
+fresh and varied outlines, and form upon the whole one of the most
+luxuriant scenes I have met with.
+
+The views of the lake and environs are very fine as you go to Boyle; the
+woods unite into a large mass, and contrast the bright sheet of water
+with their dark shades.
+
+The lands about Kingston are very fine, a rich, dry, yellow, sandy loam,
+the finest soil that I have seen in Ireland; all grass, and covered with
+very fine bullocks, cows, and sheep.  The farms rise to five hundred
+acres, and are generally in divisions, parted by stone walls, for oxen,
+cows, young cattle, and sheep separate.  Some of the lands will carry an
+ox and a wether per acre; rents, 15s. to 20s.
+
+Dined at Boyle, and took the road to Ballymoat.  Crossed an immense
+mountainy bog, where I stopped and made inquiries; found that it was ten
+miles long, and three and a half over, containing thirty-five square
+miles; that limestone quarries were around and in it, and limestone
+gravel in many places to be found, and used in the lands that join it.
+In addition to this I may add that there is a great road crossing it.
+Thirty-five miles are twenty-two thousand four hundred acres.  What an
+immense field of improvement!  Nothing would be easier than to drain it
+(vast tracts of land have such a fall), that not a drop of water could
+remain.  These hilly bogs are extremely different from any I have seen in
+England.  In the moors in the north the hills and mountains are all
+covered with heath, like the Irish bogs, but they are of various soils,
+gravel, shingle, moor, etc., and boggy only in spots, but the Irish bog
+hills are all pure bog to a great depth without the least variation of
+soil; and the bog being of a hilly form, is a proof that it is a growing
+vegetable mass, and not owing merely to stagnant water.  Sir Laurence
+Dundass is the principal proprietor of this.
+
+Reached Ballymoat in the evening, the residence of the Hon. Mr.
+Fitzmaurice, where I expected great pleasure in viewing a manufactory, of
+which I heard much since I came to Ireland.  He was so kind as to give me
+the following account of it in the most liberal manner:--
+
+"Twenty years ago the late Lord Shelburne came to Ballymoat, a wild
+uncultivated region without industry or civility, and the people all
+Roman Catholics, without an atom of a manufacture, not even spinning.  In
+order to change this state of things, his lordship contracted with people
+in the north to bring Protestant weavers and establish a manufactory, as
+the only means of making the change he wished.  This was done, but
+falling into the hands of rascals he lost 5,000 pounds by the business,
+with only seventeen Protestant families and twenty-six or twenty-seven
+looms established for it.  Upon his death Lady Shelburne wished to carry
+his scheme into execution, and to do it gave much encouragement to Mr.
+Wakefield, the great Irish factor in London, by granting advantageous
+leases under the contract of building and colonising by weavers from the
+north, and carrying on the manufactory.  He found about twenty looms
+working upon their own account, and made a considerable progress in this
+for five years, raising several buildings, cottages for the weavers, and
+was going on as well as the variety of his business would admit,
+employing sixty looms.  He then died, when a stand was made to all the
+works for a year, in which everything went much to ruin.  Lady Shelburne
+then employed a new manager to carry on the manufacture upon his own
+account, giving him very profitable grants of lands to encourage him to
+do it with spirit.  He continued for five years, employing sixty looms
+also, but his circumstances failing, a fresh stop was put to the work.
+
+"Then it was that Mr. Fitzmaurice, in the year 1774, determined to exert
+himself in pushing on a manufactory which promised to be of such
+essential service to the whole country.  To do this with effect, he saw
+that it was necessary to take it entirely into his own hands.  He could
+lend money to the manager to enable him to go on, but that would be at
+best hazardous, and could never do it in the complete manner in which he
+wished to establish it.  In this period of consideration, Mr. Fitzmaurice
+was advised by his friends never to engage in so complex a business as a
+manufacture, in which he must of necessity become a merchant, also engage
+in all the hazard, irksomeness, etc., of commerce, so totally different
+from his birth, education, ideas, and pursuits; but tired with the
+inactivity of common life, he determined not only to turn manufacturer,
+but to carry on the business in the most spirited and vigorous manner
+that was possible.  In the first place he took every means of making
+himself a complete master of the business; he went through various
+manufactures, inquired into the minutiae, and took every measure to know
+it to the bottom.  This he did so repeatedly and with such attention in
+the whole progress, from spinning to bleaching and selling, that he
+became as thorough a master of it as an experienced manager; he has wove
+linen, and done every part of the business with his own hands.  As he
+determined to have the works complete, he took Mr. Stansfield the
+engineer, so well known for his improved saw-mills, into his pay.  He
+sent him over to Ballymoat in the winter of 1774, in order to erect the
+machinery of a bleach mill upon the very best construction; he went to
+all the great mills in the north of Ireland to inspect them, to remark
+their deficiencies, that they might be improved in the mills he intended
+to erect.  This knowledge being gained, the work was begun, and as water
+was necessary, a great basin was formed by a dam across a valley, by
+which means thirty-four acres were floated, to serve as a reservoir for
+dry seasons, to secure plenty at all times."
+
+August 30.  Rode to Rosshill, four miles off, a headland that projects
+into the Bay of Newport, from which there is a most beautiful view of the
+bay on both sides; I counted thirty islands very distinctly, all of them
+cultivated under corn and potatoes, or pastured by cattle.  At a distance
+Clare rises in a very bold and picturesque style; on the left Crow
+Patrick, and to the right other mountains.  It is a view that wants
+nothing but wood.
+
+September 5.  To Drumoland, the seat of Sir Lucius O'Brien, in the county
+of Clare, a gentleman who had been repeatedly assiduous to procure me
+every sort of information.  I should remark, as I have now left Galway,
+that that county, from entering it in the road to Tuam till leaving it
+to-day, has been, upon the whole, inferior to most of the parts I have
+travelled in Ireland in point of beauty: there are not mountains of a
+magnitude to make the view striking.  It is perfectly free from woods,
+and even trees, except about gentlemen's houses, nor has it a variety in
+its face.  I do not, however, speak without exception; I passed some
+tracts which are cheerful.  Drumoland has a pleasing variety of grounds
+about the house; it stands on a hill gently rising from a lake of
+twenty-four acres, in the middle of a noble wood of oak, ash, poplar,
+etc.; three beautiful hills rise above, over which the plantations spread
+in a varied manner; and these hills command very fine views of the great
+rivers Fergus and Shannon at their junction, being each of them a league
+wide.
+
+There is a view of the Shannon from Limerick to Foynes Island, which is
+thirty miles, with all its bays, bends, islands, and fertile shores.  It
+is from one to three miles broad, a most noble river, deserving regal
+navies for its ornament, or, what are better, fleets of merchantmen, the
+cheerful signs of far-extended commerce, instead of a few miserable
+fishing-boats, the only canvas that swelled upon the scene; but the want
+of commerce in her ports is the misfortune not the fault of
+Ireland--thanks for the deficiency to that illiberal spirit of trading
+jealousy, which has at times actuated and disgraced so many nations.  The
+prospect has a noble outline in the bold mountains of Tipperary, Cork,
+Limerick, and Kerry.  The whole view magnificent.
+
+At the foot of this hill is the castle of Bunratty, a very large edifice,
+the seat of the O'Briens, princes of Thomond; it stands on the bank of a
+river, which falls into the Shannon near it.  About this castle and that
+of Rosmanagher the land is the best in the county of Clare; it is worth 1
+pound 13s. an acre, and fats a bullock per acre in summer, besides winter
+feed.
+
+To Limerick, through a cheerful country, on the banks of the river, in a
+vale surrounded by distant mountains.  That city is very finely situated,
+partly on an island formed by the Shannon.  The new part, called Newtown
+Pery, from Mr. Pery the speaker, who owns a considerable part of the
+city, and represents it in Parliament, is well built.  The houses are new
+ones, of brick, large, and in right lines.  There is a communication with
+the rest of the town by a handsome bridge of three large arches erected
+at Mr. Pery's expense.  Here are docks, quays, and a custom-house, which
+is a good building, faces the river, and on the opposite banks is a large
+quadrangular one, the house of industry.  This part of Limerick is very
+cheerful and agreeable, and carries all the marks of a flourishing place.
+
+The exports of this port are beef, pork, butter, hides, and rape-seed.
+The imports are rum, sugar, timber, tobacco, wines, coals, bark, salt,
+etc.  The customs and excise, about sixteen years ago, amounted to 16,000
+pounds, at present 32,000 pounds, and rather more four or five years ago.
+
+Whole revenue           1751                    16,000 pounds
+"      "                1775                    51,000 pounds
+
+             _Revenue of the Port of Limerick.  Year ending_
+
+March 25, 1759                      20,494 pounds
+   "     1760                       29,197
+   "     1761                       20,727
+   "     1762                       20,650
+   "     1763                       20,525
+   "     1764                       32,635
+   "     1765                       31,099
+      _Com. Jour_.,                 vol. xiv., p. 71.
+
+                          _Price of Provisions_.
+
+Wheat, 1s. 1d. a stone              Wild ducks, 20d. to 2s. a couple.
+Barley and oats, 5.75d. to 6d.      Teal, 10d. a couple.
+Scotch coals, 18s.; Whitehaven,     Plover, 6d. a couple.
+20s.
+A boat-load of turf, 20 tons,       Widgeon, 10d. ditto.
+45s.
+Salmon, three-halfpence.            Hares, 1s. each, commonly sold all
+                                    year.
+Trout, 2d., very fine, per lb.      Woodcocks, 20d. to 2s. 2d. a brace.
+Eels, 2d. a pound.                  Oysters, 4d. to 1s. a 100.
+Rabbits, 8d. a couple.              Lobsters, 1s. to 1s. 6d., if good.
+
+Land sells at twenty years' purchase.  Rents were at the highest in 1765;
+fell since, but in four years have fallen 8s. to 10s. an acre about
+Limerick.  They are at a stand at present, owing to the high price of
+provisions from pasture.  The number of people in Limerick is computed at
+thirty-two thousand; it is exceedingly populous for the size, the chief
+street quite crowded; many sedan chairs in town, and some hackney
+chaises.  Assemblies the year round, in a new assembly-house built for
+the purpose, and plays and concerts common.
+
+Upon the whole, Limerick must be a very gay place, but when the usual
+number of troops are in town much more so.  To show the general expenses
+of living, I was told of a person's keeping a carriage, four horses,
+three men, three maids, a good table, a wife, three children, and a
+nurse, and all for 500 pounds a year:
+
+                        l.   s.  d.             l.   s.  d.
+A footman               4   4   0 to            6   6   0
+A professed                                     6   6   0
+woman-cook
+A house-maid                                    3   0   0
+A kitchen-maid                                  2   0   0
+A butler                10   0   0 to           12   0   0
+
+A barrel of beef or pork, 200lb. weight.  Vessels of 400 tons can come up
+with spring tides, which rise fourteen feet.
+
+September 9.  To Castle Oliver; various country, not so rich to
+appearance as the Caucasus, being fed bare; much hilly sheep walk, and
+for a considerable way a full third of it potatoes and corn: no sign of
+depopulation.  Just before I got to the hills a field of ragwort
+(_senesio jacoboea_) buried the cows.  The first hill of Castle Oliver
+interesting.  After rising a mountain so high that no one could think of
+any house, you come in view of a vale, quite filled with fine woods,
+fields margined with trees, and hedge plantations climbing up the
+mountains.  Having engaged myself to Mr. Oliver, to return from Killarney
+by his house, as he was confined to Limerick by the assizes, I shall omit
+saying anything of it at present.
+
+September 16.  To Cove by water, from Mr. Trent's quay.  The view of Lota
+is charming; a fine rising lawn from the water, with noble spreading
+woods reaching on each side; the house a very pleasing front, with lawn
+shooting into the woods.  The river forms a creek between two hills, one
+Lota, the other opening to another hill of inclosures well wooded.  As
+the boat leaves the shore nothing can be finer than the view behind us;
+the back woods of Lota, the house and lawn, and the high bold inclosures
+towards Cork, form the finest shore imaginable, leading to Cork, the city
+appearing in full view, Dunkettle wooded inclosures, a fine sweep of
+hill, joining Mr. Hoare's at Factory Hill, whose woods have a beautiful
+effect.  Dunkettle House almost lost in a wood.  As we advance, the woods
+of Lota and Dunkettle unite in one fine mass.  The sheet of water, the
+rising lawns, the house in the most beautiful situation imaginable, with
+more woods above it than lawns below it, the west shore of Loch Mahon, a
+very fine rising hill cut into inclosures but without wood, land-locked
+on every side with high lands, scattered with inclosures, woods, seats,
+etc., with every cheerful circumstance of lively commerce, have
+altogether a great effect.  Advancing to Passage the shores are various,
+and the scenery enlivened by fourscore sail of large ships; the little
+port of Passage at the water's edge, with the hills rising boldly above
+it.  The channel narrows between the great island and the hills of
+Passage.  The shores bold, and the ships scattered about them, with the
+inclosures hanging behind the masts and yards picturesque.  Passing the
+straits a new basin of the harbour opens, surrounded with high lands.
+Monkstown Castle on the hill to the right, and the grounds of
+Ballybricken, a beautiful intermixed scene of wood and lawn.  The high
+shore of the harbour's mouth opens gradually.  The whole scene is
+land-locked.  The first view of Haulbowline Island and Spike Island, high
+rocky lands, with the channel opening to Cove, where are a fleet of ships
+at anchor, and Rostellan, Lord Inchiquin's house, backed with hills, a
+scenery that wants nothing but the accompaniment of wood.  The view of
+Ballybricken changes; it now appears to be unfortunately cut into right
+lines.  Arrived at the ship at Cove; in the evening returned, leaving Mr.
+Jefferys and family on board for a voyage to Havre, in their way to
+Paris.
+
+Dunkettle is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Ireland.  It
+is a hill of some hundred acres broken into a great variety of ground by
+gentle declivities, with everywhere an undulating outline and the whole
+varied by a considerable quantity of wood, which in some places is thick
+enough to take the appearance of close groves, in others spreads into
+scattered thickets and a variety of single groups.  This hill, or rather
+cluster of hills, is surrounded on one side by a reach of Cork Harbour,
+over which it looks in the most advantageous manner; and on the other by
+an irriguous vale, through which flows the river Glanmire; the opposite
+shore of that river has every variety that can unite to form pleasing
+landscapes for the views from Dunkettle grounds; in some places narrow
+glens, the bottoms of which are quite filled with water, and the steep
+banks covered with thick woods that spread a deep shade; in others the
+vale opens to form the site of a pretty cheerful village, overhung by
+hill and wood: here the shore rises gradually into large inclosures,
+which spread over the hills, stretching beyond each other; and there the
+vale melts again into a milder variety of fields.  A hill thus situated,
+and consisting in itself of so much variety of surface, must necessarily
+command many pleasing views.  To enjoy these to the better advantage, Mr.
+Trent (than whom no one has a better taste, both to discover and describe
+the beauties of natural scenes) is making a walk around the whole, which
+is to bend to the inequalities of the ground, so as to take the principal
+points in view.  The whole is so beautiful, that if I were to make the
+regular detour, the description might be too minute; but there are some
+points which gave me so much pleasure that I know not how to avoid
+recommending to others that travel this way to taste the same
+satisfaction.  From the upper part of the orchard you look down a part of
+the river, where it opens into a regular basin, one corner stretching up
+to Cork, lost behind the hill of Lota, the lawn of which breaks on the
+swelling hills among the woods; the house obscured, and therefore seeming
+a part of your home scene; the losing the river behind the beautiful
+projection of Lota is more pleasing than can be expressed.  The other
+reach, leading to the harbour's mouth, is half hidden by the trees, which
+margin the foot of the hill on which you stand; in front a noble range of
+cultivated hills, the inclosures broken by slight spots of wood, and
+prettily varied with houses, without being so crowded as to take off the
+rural effect.  The scene is not only beautiful in those common
+circumstances which form a landscape, but is alive with the cheerfulness
+of ships and boats perpetually moving.  Upon the whole, it is one of the
+most luxuriant prospects I have anywhere seen.  Leaving the orchard, pass
+on the brow of a hill which forms the bank of the river of Glanmire,
+commanding the opposite woods of Lota in all their beauty.  Rise to the
+top of the high hill which joins the deer park, and exhibits a scene
+equally extensive and beautiful; you look down on a vale which winds
+almost around at your feet, finishing to the left in Cork river, which
+here takes the appearance of a lake, bounded by wood and hills, and sunk
+in the bottom of a vale, in a style which painting cannot imitate; the
+opposite hills of Lota, wood, and lawn, seem formed as objects for this
+point of view: at your feet a hill rises out of the vale, with higher
+ones around it, the margins scattered wood; to the right, towards
+Riverstown, a vale; the whole backed by cultivated hills to Kallahan's
+field.  Milder scenes follow: a bird's-eye view of a small vale sunk at
+your feet, through which the river flows; a bridge of several arches
+unites two parts of a beautiful village, the meadow grounds of which rise
+gently, a varied surface of wood and lawn, to the hills of Riverstown,
+the whole surrounded by delicious sweeps of cultivated hills.  To the
+left a wooded glen rising from the vale to the horizon, the scenery
+sequestered, but pleasing; the oak wood which hangs on the deer-park
+hills, an addition.  Down to the brow of the hill, where it hangs over
+the river, a picturesque interesting spot.  The inclosures of the
+opposite bank hang beautifully to the eye, and the wooded glen winds up
+the hill.  Returning to the house I was conducted to the hill, where the
+grounds slope off to the river of Cork, which opens to view in noble
+reaches of a magnitude that fills the eye and the imagination; a whole
+country of a character truly magnificent, and behind the winding vale
+which leads between a series of hills to Glanmire.
+
+
+
+Pictures at Dunkettle.
+
+
+A St. Michael, etc., the subject confused, by Michael Angelo.  A St.
+Francis on wood, a large original of Guido.  A St. Cecilia, original of
+Romanelli.  An Assumption of the Virgin, by L. Carracci.  A Quaker's
+meeting, of above fifty figures, by Egbert Hemskerk.  A sea view and rock
+piece, by Vernet.  A small flagellation, by Sebastian del Piombo.  A
+Madonna and Child, small, by Rubens.  The Crucifixion, many figures in
+miniature, excellent, though the master is unknown.  An excellent copy of
+the famous Danae of Titian, at Monte Cavallo, near Naples, by Cioffi of
+Naples.  Another of the Venus of Titian, at the Tribuna in Florence.
+Another of Venus blinding Cupid, by Titian, at the Palazzo Borghese in
+Rome.  Another of great merit of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael, at
+the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, by Stirn, a German, lately at Rome.
+Another of a Holy Family, from Raphael, of which there are said to be
+three originals, one at the king's palace in Naples, one in the Palais
+Royal in Paris, and the third in the collection of Lord Exeter, lately
+purchased at Rome.  A portrait of Sir Patrick Trent, by Sir P. Lely.  An
+excellent portrait of a person unknown, by Dahl.
+
+September 17.  To Castlemartyr, the seat of the Earl of Shannon, one of
+the most distinguished improvers in Ireland; in whom I found the most
+earnest desire to give me every species of information, with a knowledge
+and ability which enabled him to do it most effectually.  Passed through
+Middleton, a well-built place, which belongs to the noble lord to whom it
+gives title.  Castlemartyr is an old house, but much added to by the
+present earl; he has built, besides other rooms, a dining one thirty-two
+feet long by twenty-two broad, and a drawing one, the best rooms I have
+seen in Ireland, a double cube of twenty-five feet, being fifty long,
+twenty-five broad, and twenty-five high.  The grounds about the house are
+very well laid out; much wood well grown, considerable lawns, a river
+made to wind through them in a beautiful manner, an old castle so
+perfectly covered with ivy as to be a picturesque object.  A winding walk
+leads for a considerable distance along the banks of this river, and
+presents several pleasing landscapes.
+
+From Rostellan to Lota, the seat of Frederick Rogers, Esq.  I had before
+seen it in the highest perfection from the water going from Dunkettle to
+Cove, and from the grounds of Dunkettle.  Mrs. Rogers was so obliging as
+to show me the back grounds, which are admirably wooded, and of a fine
+varied surface.
+
+Got to Cork in the evening, and waited on the Dean, who received me with
+the most flattering attention.  Cork is one of the most populous places I
+have ever been in; it was market-day, and I could scarce drive through
+the streets, they were so amazingly thronged: on the other days the
+number is very great.  I should suppose it must resemble a Dutch town,
+for there are many canals in the streets, with quays before the houses.
+The best built part is Morrison's Island, which promises well; the old
+part of the town is very close and dirty.  As to its commerce, the
+following particulars I owe to Robert Gordon, Esq., the surveyor-general:
+
+       _Average of Nineteen Years' Export, ending March_ 24, 1773.
+
+Hides, at 1 pounds each                 64,000 pounds
+Bay and woollen yarn                    294,000
+Butter, at 30s. per cwt. from 56s. to   180,000
+72s.
+Beef, at 20s. a barrel                  291,970
+Camlets, serges, etc.                   40,000
+Candles                                 34,220
+Soap                                    20,000
+Tallow                                  20,000
+Herrings, 18 to 35,000l. all their      21,000
+own
+Glue 20 to 25,000                       22,000
+Pork                                    64,000
+Wool to England                         14,000
+Small exports, Gottenburg herrings,     35,000
+horns, hoofs, etc., feather-beds,
+palliasses, feathers, etc.
+                                        1,100,190
+
+Average prices of the nineteen years on the custom books.  All exports on
+those books are rated at the value of the reign of Charles II.; but the
+imports have always 10 per cent. on the sworn price added to them.
+Seventy to eighty sail of ships belong to Cork.  Average of ships that
+entered that port in those nineteen years, eight hundred and seventy-two
+per annum.  The number of people at Cork mustered by the clergy by
+hearth-money, and by the number of houses, payments to minister, average
+of the three, sixty-seven thousand souls, if taken before the 1st of
+September, after that twenty thousand increased.  There are seven hundred
+coopers in the town.  Barrels all of oak or beech, all from America: the
+latter for herrings, now from Gottenburg and Norway.  The excise of Cork
+now no more than in Charles the Second's reign.  Ridiculous!
+
+Cork old duties, in 1751,           62,000 pounds
+produced
+Now the same                        140,000
+
+Bullocks, 16,000 head, 32,000 barrels; 41,000 hogs, 20,000 barrels.
+Butter, 22,000 firkins of half a hundredweight each, both increase this
+year, the whole being
+
+240,000 firkins of butter,
+   120,000 barrels of beef.
+
+Export of woollen yarn from Cork, 300,000 pounds a year in the Irish
+market.  No wool smuggled, or at least very little.  The wool comes to
+Cork, etc., and is delivered out to combers, who make it into balls.
+These balls are bought up by the French agents at a vast price, and
+exported; but even this does not amount to 40,000 pounds a year.
+
+
+
+Prices.
+
+
+Beef, 21s. per cwt., never so high by 2s. 6d.; pork, 30s., never higher
+than 18s. 6d., owing to the army demand.  Slaughter dung, 8d. for a horse
+load.  Country labourer, 6d.; about town, 10d.  Milk, seven pints a
+penny.  Coals, 3s. 8d. to 5s. a barrel, six of which make a ton.  Eggs,
+four a penny.
+
+Cork labourers.  Cellar ones, twenty thousand; have 1s. 1d. a day, and as
+much bread, beef, and beer as they can eat and drink, and seven pounds of
+offals a week for their families.  Rent for their house, 40s.  Masons'
+and carpenters' labourers, 10d. a day.  Sailors now 3 pounds a month and
+provisions: before the American war, 28s.  Porters and coal-heavers paid
+by the great.  State of the poor people in general incomparably better
+off than they were twenty years ago.  There are imported eighteen
+thousand barrels annually of Scotch herrings, at 18s. a barrel.  The salt
+for the beef trade comes from Lisbon, St. Ube's, etc.  The salt for the
+fish trade from Rochelle.  For butter English and Irish.
+
+Particulars of the woollen fabrics of the county of Cork received from a
+manufacturer.  The woollen trade, serges and camlets, ratteens, friezes,
+druggets, and narrow cloths, the last they make to 10s. and 12s. a yard;
+if they might export to 8s. they are very clear that they could get a
+great trade for the woollen manufactures of Cork.  The wool comes from
+Galway and Roscommon, combed here by combers, who earn 8s. to 10s. a
+week, into balls of twenty-four ounces, which is spun into worsteds of
+twelve skeins to the ball, and exported to Yarmouth for Norwich; the
+export price, 30 pounds a pack to 33 pounds, never before so high;
+average of them, 26 pounds to 30 pounds.  Some they work up at home into
+serges, stuffs, and camlets; the serges at 12d. a yard, thirty-four
+inches wide; the stuffs sixteen inches, at 18d., the camlets at 9.5d. to
+13d.; the spinners at 9d. a ball, one in a week; or a ball and half 12d.
+a week, and attend the family besides; this is done most in Waterford and
+Kerry, particularly near Killarney; the weavers earn 1s. a day on an
+average.  Full three-fourths of the wool is exported in yarn, and only
+one-fourth worth worked up.  Half the wool of Ireland is combed in the
+county of Cork.
+
+A very great manufacture of ratteens at Carrick-on-Suir; the bay worsted
+is for serges, shalloons, etc.  Woollen yarn for coarse cloths, which
+latter have been lost for some years, owing to the high price of wool.
+The bay export has declined since 1770, which declension is owing to the
+high price of wool.
+
+No wool smuggled, not even from Kerry; not a sloop's cargo in twenty
+years, the price too high; the declension has been considerable.  For
+every eighty-six packs that are exported, a licence from the Lord
+Lieutenant, for which 20 pounds is paid.
+
+From the Act of the last sessions of Great Britain for exporting woollen
+goods for the troops in the pay of Ireland, Mr. Abraham Lane, of Cork,
+established a new manufacture of army clothing for that purpose, which is
+the first at Cork, and pays 40 pounds a week in labour only.  Upon the
+whole there has been no increase of woollen manufacture within twenty
+years.  Is clearly of opinion that many fabrics might be worked up here
+much cheaper than in France, of cloths that the French have beat the
+English out of; these are, particularly, broadcloths of one yard and half
+yard wide, from 3s. to 6s. 6d. a yard for the Levant trade.  Friezes
+which are now supplied from Carcassone in Languedoc.  Friezes, of
+twenty-four to twenty-seven inches, at 10d. to 13d. a yard.  Flannels,
+twenty-seven to thirty-six, from 7d. to 14d.  Serges of twenty-seven to
+thirty-six inches, at 7d. to 12d. a yard; these would work up the coarse
+wool.  At Ballynasloe Fair, in July, 200,000 pounds a year bought in
+wool.  There is a manufactory of knit-stocking by the common women about
+Cork, for eight or ten miles around; the yarn from 12d. to 18d. a pair,
+and the worsted from 16d. to 20d., and earn from 12d. to 18d. a week.
+Besides their own consumption, great quantities are sent to the north of
+Ireland.
+
+All the weavers in the country are confined to towns, have no land, but
+small gardens.  Bandle, or narrow linen, for home consumption, is made in
+the western part of the county.  Generally speaking, the circumstances of
+all the manufacturing poor are better than they were twenty years ago.
+The manufactures have not declined, though the exportation has, owing to
+the increased home consumptions.  Bandon was once the seat of the stuff,
+camlet, and shag manufacture, but has in seven years declined above
+three-fourths.  Have changed it for the manufacture of coarse green
+linens, for the London market, from 6d. to 9d. a yard, twenty-seven
+inches wide; but the number of manufactures in general much lessened.
+
+Rode to the mouth of Cork Harbour; the grounds about it are all fine,
+bold, and varied, but so bare of trees, that there is not a single view
+but what pains one in the want of wood.  Rents of the tract south of the
+river Caragoline, from 5s. to 30s.; average, 10s.  Not one man in five
+has a cow, but generally from one to four acres, upon which they have
+potatoes, and five or six sheep, which they milk, and spin their wool.
+Labour 5d. in winter, 6d. in summer; many of them for three months in the
+year live on potatoes and water, the rest of it they have a good deal of
+fish.  But it is remarked, at Kinsale, that when sprats are most
+plentiful, diseases are most common.  Rent for a mere cabin, 10s.  Much
+paring and burning; paring twenty-eight men a day, sow wheat on it and
+then potatoes; get great crops.  The soil a sharp, stony land; no
+limestone south of the above river.  Manure for potatoes, with sea-weed,
+for 26s., which gives good crops, but lasts only one year.  Sea-sand much
+used; no shells in it.  Farms rise to two or three hundred acres, but are
+hired in partnership.
+
+Before I quit the environs of Cork, I must remark that the country on the
+harbour I think preferable, in many respects, for a residence, to
+anything I have seen in Ireland.  First, it is the most southerly part of
+the kingdom.  Second, there are very great beauties of prospect.  Third,
+by much the most animated, busy scene of shipping in all Ireland, and
+consequently, fourth, a ready price for every product.  Fifth, great
+plenty of excellent fish and wild fowl.  Sixth, the neighbourhood of a
+great city for objects of convenience.
+
+September 25.  Took the road to Nedeen, through the wildest region of
+mountains that I remember to have seen; it is a dreary but an interesting
+road.  The various horrid, grotesque, and unusual forms in which the
+mountains rise and the rocks bulge; the immense height of some distant
+heads, which rear above all the nearer scenes, the torrents roaring in
+the vales, and breaking down the mountain sides, with here and there a
+wretched cabin, and a spot of culture yielding surprise to find human
+beings the inhabitants of such a scene of wildness, altogether keep the
+traveller's mind in an agitation and suspense.  These rocks and mountains
+are many of them no otherwise improvable than by planting, for which,
+however, they are exceedingly well adapted.
+
+Sir John Colthurst was so obliging as to send half a dozen labourers with
+me, to help my chaise up a mountain side, of which he gave a formidable
+account: in truth it deserved it.  The road leads directly against a
+mountain ridge, and those who made it were so incredibly stupid, that
+they kept the straight line up the hill, instead of turning aside to the
+right to wind around a projection of it.  The path of the road is worn by
+torrents into a channel, which is blocked up in places by huge fragments,
+so that it would be a horrid road on a level; but on a hill so steep,
+that the best path would be difficult to ascend--it may be supposed
+terrible: the labourers, two passing strangers, and my servant, could
+with difficulty get the chaise up.  It is much to be regretted that the
+direction of the road is not changed, as all the rest from Cork to Nedeen
+is good enough.  For a few miles towards the latter place the country is
+flat on the river Kenmare, much of it good, and under grass or corn.
+Passed Mr. Orpine's at Ardtilly, and another of the same name at
+Killowen.
+
+Nedeen is a little town, very well situated, on the noble river Kenmare,
+where ships of one hundred and fifty tons may come up; there are but
+three or four good houses.  Lord Shelburne, to whom the place belongs,
+has built one for his agent.  There is a vale of good land, which is here
+from a mile and a half to a mile broad; and to the north and south, great
+ridges of mountains said to be full of mines.
+
+At Nedeen, Lord Shelburne had taken care to have me well informed by his
+people in that country, which belongs for the greatest part to himself,
+he has above one hundred and fifty thousand Irish acres in Kerry; the
+greatest part of the barony of Glanrought belongs to him, most of
+Dunkerron and Ivragh.  The country is all a region of mountains, inclosed
+by a vale of flat land on the river; the mountains to the south come to
+the water's edge, with but few variations, the principal of which is
+Ardee, a farm of Lord Shelburne's to the north of the river, the flat
+land is one-half to three-quarters of a mile broad.  The mountains to the
+south reach to Bear-haven, and those to the north to Dingle Bay; the soil
+is extremely various; to the south of the river all are sandstones, and
+the hills loam, stone, gravel, and bog.  To the north there is a slip of
+limestone land, from Kilgarvon to Cabbina-cush, that is six miles east of
+Nedeen, and three to the west, but is not more than a quarter of a mile
+broad, the rest, including the mountains, all sandstone.  As to its
+rents, it is very difficult to tell what they are; for land is let by the
+plough-land and gineve, twelve gineves to the plough-land; but the latter
+denomination is not of any particular quantity, for no two plough-lands
+are the same.  The size of farms is various, from forty acres to one
+thousand; less quantities go with cabins, and some farms are taken by
+labourers in partnership.
+
+Soon entered the wildest and most romantic country I had anywhere seen; a
+region of steep rocks and mountains which continued for nine or ten
+miles, till I came in view of Mucruss.  There is something magnificently
+wild in this stupendous scenery, formed to impress the mind with a
+certain species of terror.  All this tract has a rude and savage air, but
+parts of it are strikingly interesting; the mountains are bare and rocky,
+and of a great magnitude; the vales are rocky glens, where a mountain
+stream tumbles along the roughest bed imaginable, and receives many
+torrents, pouring from clefts, half overhung with shrubby wood; some of
+these streams are seen, and the roar of others heard, but hid by vast
+masses of rock.  Immense fragments, torn from the precipices by storms
+and torrents, are tumbled in the wildest confusion, and seem to hang
+rather than rest upon projecting precipices.  Upon some of these
+fragments of rock, perfectly detached from the soil, except by the side
+on which they lie, are beds of black turf, with luxuriant crops of heath,
+etc., which appeared very curious to me, having nowhere seen the like;
+and I observed very high in the mountains--much higher than any
+cultivation is at present, on the right hand--flat and cleared spaces of
+good grass among the ridges of rock, which had probably been cultivated,
+and proved that these mountains were not incapable from climate of being
+applied to useful purposes.
+
+From one of these heights I looked forward to the Lake of Killarney at a
+considerable distance, and backward to the river Kenmare; came in view of
+a small part of the upper lake, spotted with several islands, and
+surrounded by the most tremendous mountains that can be imagined, of an
+aspect savage and dreadful.  From this scene of wild magnificence, I
+broke at once upon all the glories of Killarney; from an elevated point
+of view I looked down on a considerable part of the lake, which gave me a
+specimen of what I might expect.  The water you command (which, however,
+is only a part of the lake) appears a basin of two or three miles round;
+to the left it is inclosed by the mountains you have passed, particularly
+by the Turk, whose outline is uncommonly noble, and joins a range of
+others, that form the most magnificent shore in the world: on the other
+side is a rising scenery of cultivated hills, and Lord Kenmare's park and
+woods; the end of the lake at your feet is formed by the root of
+Mangerton, on whose side the road leads.  From hence I looked down on a
+pretty range of inclosures on the lake, and the woods and lawns of
+Mucruss, forming a large promontory of thick wood, shooting far into the
+lake.  The most active fancy can sketch nothing in addition.  Islands of
+wood beyond seem to join it, and reaches of the lake, breaking partly
+between, give the most lively intermixture of water; six or seven isles
+and islets form an accompaniment: some are rocky, but with a slight
+vegetation, others contain groups of trees, and the whole thrown into
+forms, which would furnish new ideas to a painter.  Farther is a chain of
+wooded islands, which also appear to join the mainland, with an offspring
+of lesser ones scattered around.
+
+Arrived at Mr. Herbert's at Mucruss, to whose friendly attention I owed
+my succeeding pleasure.  There have been so many descriptions of
+Killarney written by gentlemen who have resided some time there, and seen
+it at every season, that for a passing traveller to attempt the like
+would be in vain; for this reason I shall give the mere journal of the
+remarks I made on the spot, in the order I viewed the lake.
+
+September 27.  Walked into Mr. Herbert's beautiful grounds, to Oroch's
+Hill, in the lawn that he has cleared from that profusion of stones which
+lie under the wall; the scene which this point commands is truly
+delicious; the house is on the edge of the lawn, by a wood which covers
+the whole peninsula, fringes the slope at your feet, and forms a
+beautiful shore to the lake.  Tomys and Glena are vast mountainous masses
+of incredible magnificence, the outline soft and easy in its swells,
+whereas those above the eagle's nest are of so broken and abrupt an
+outline, that nothing can be imagined more savage, an aspect horrid and
+sublime, that gives all the impressions to be wished to astonish rather
+than please the mind.  The Turk exhibits noble features, and Mangerton's
+huge body rises above the whole.  The cultivated tracts towards Killarney
+form a shore in contrast to the terrific scenes I have just mentioned;
+the distant boundary of the lake, a vast ridge of distant blue mountains
+towards Dingle.  From hence entered the garden, and viewed Mucruss Abbey,
+one of the most interesting scenes I ever saw; it is the ruin of a
+considerable abbey, built in Henry VI.'s time, and so entire, that if it
+were more so, though the building would be more perfect, the ruin would
+be less pleasing; it is half obscured in the shade of some venerable ash
+trees; ivy has given the picturesque circumstance, which that plant alone
+can confer, while the broken walls and ruined turrets throw over it
+
+    "The last mournful graces of decay;"
+
+heaps of skulls and bones scattered about, with nettles, briars, and
+weeds sprouting in tufts from the loose stones, all unite to raise those
+melancholy impressions, which are the merit of such scenes, and which can
+scarcely anywhere be felt more completely.  The cloisters form a dismal
+area, in the centre of which grows the most prodigious yew-tree I ever
+beheld, in one great stem, two feet diameter, and fourteen feet high,
+from whence a vast head of branches spreads on every side, so as to
+perform a perfect canopy to the whole space.  I looked for its fit
+inhabitant; it is a spot where
+
+    "The moping owl doth to the moon complain."
+
+This ruin is in the true style in which all such buildings should appear;
+there is not an intruding circumstance, the hand of dress has not touched
+it, melancholy is the impression which such scenes should kindle, and it
+is here raised most powerfully.
+
+From the abbey we passed to the terrace, a natural one of grass, on the
+very shore of the lake; it is irregular and winding; a wall of rocks
+broken into fantastic forms by the waves: on the other side a wood,
+consisting of all sorts of plants, which the climate can protect, and
+through which a variety of walks are traced.  The view from this terrace
+consists of many parts of various characters, but in their different
+styles complete; the lake opens a spreading sheet of water, spotted by
+rocks and islands, all but one or two wooded; the outlines of them are
+sharp and distinct; nothing can be more smiling than this scene, soft and
+mild, a perfect contrast of beauty to the sublimity of the mountains
+which form the shore: these rise in an outline, so varied, and at the
+same time so magnificent, that nothing greater can be imagined; Tomys and
+Glena exhibit an immensity in point of magnitude, but from a large
+hanging wood on the slope, and from the smoothness of the general
+surface, it has nothing savage, whereas the mountains above and near the
+eagle's nest are of the most broken outlines; the declivities are bulging
+rocks, of immense size, which seem to impend in horrid forms over the
+lake, and where an opening among them is caught, others of the same rude
+character rear their threatening heads.  From different parts of the
+terrace these scenes are viewed in numberless varieties.
+
+Returned to breakfast, and pursued Mr. Herbert's new road, which he has
+traced through the peninsula to Dynis Island, three miles in length; and
+it is carried in so judicious a manner through a great variety of ground,
+rocky woods, lawns, etc., that nothing can be more pleasing; it passes
+through a remarkable scene of rocks, which are covered with woods.  From
+thence to the marble quarry, which Mr. Herbert is working, and where he
+gains variety of marbles, green, red, white, and brown, prettily veined;
+the quarry is a shore of rocks, which surround a bay of the lake, and
+forms a scene consisting of but few parts, but those strongly marked; the
+rocks are bold, and broken into slight caverns; they are fringed with
+scattered trees, and from many parts of them wood shoots in that romantic
+manner so common at Killarney.  Full in front Turk Mountain rises with
+the proudest outline, in that abrupt magnificence which fills up the
+whole space before one, and closes the scene.
+
+The road leads by a place where copper-mines were worked; many shafts
+appear; as much ore was raised as sold for twenty-five thousand pounds,
+but the works were laid aside, more from ignorance in the workmen than
+any defects in the mine.
+
+Came to the opening on the great lake, which appears to advantage here,
+the town of Killarney on the north-east shore.  Look full on the mountain
+Glena, which rises in very bold manner, the hanging woods spread half
+way, and are of great extent, and uncommonly beautiful.  Two very
+pleasing scenes succeed; that to the left is a small bay, hemmed in by a
+neck of land in front; the immediate shore rocks, which are in a
+picturesque style, and crowned entirely with arbutus, and other wood; a
+pretty retired scene, where a variety of objects give no fatigue to the
+eye.  The other is an admirable mixture of the beautiful and sublime: a
+bare rock of an almost regular figure projects from a headland into the
+lake, which, with much wood and highland, forms one side of the scene;
+the other is wood from a rising ground only; the lake open between, in a
+sheet of no great extent, but in front is the hanging wood of Glena,
+which appears in full glory.
+
+Mr. Herbert has built a handsome Gothic bridge, to unite the peninsula to
+the island of Brickeen, through the arch of which the waters of the north
+and south lake flow.  It is a span of twenty-seven feet, and seventeen
+high, and over it the road leads to that island.  From thence to Brickeen
+nearly finished, and it is to be thrown across a bottom into Dynis.
+
+Returned by the northern path through a thick wood for some distance, and
+caught a very agreeable view of Ash Island, seen through an opening,
+inclosed on both sides with wood.  Pursued the way from these grounds to
+Keelbeg, and viewed the bay of the Devil's Island, which is a beautiful
+one, inclosed by a shore, to the right of very noble rocks in ledges and
+other forms, crowned in a striking manner with wood; a little rocky islet
+rises in front; to the left the water opens, and Turk Mountain rises with
+that proud superiority which attends him in all these scenes.
+
+The view of the promontory of Dindog, near this place, closes this part
+of the lake, and is indeed singularly beautiful.  It is a large rock,
+which shoots far into the water, of a height sufficient to be
+interesting, in full relief, fringed with a scanty vegetation; the shore
+on which you stand bending to the right, as if to meet that rock,
+presents a circular shade of dark wood: Turk still the background, in a
+character of great sublimity, and Mangerton's loftier summit, but less
+interesting outline, a part of the scenery.  These views, with others of
+less moment, are connected by a succession of lawns breaking among the
+wood, pleasing the eye with lively verdure, and relieving it from the
+fatigue of the stupendous mountain scenes.
+
+September 28.  Took boat on the lake, from the promontory of Dindog
+before mentioned.  I had been under a million of apprehensions that I
+should see no more of Killarney; for it blew a furious storm all night,
+and in the morning the bosom of the lake heaved with agitation,
+exhibiting few marks but those of anger.  After breakfast it cleared up,
+the clouds dispersed by degrees, the waves subsided, the sun shone out in
+all its splendour; every scene was gay, and no ideas but pleasure
+possessed the breast.  With these emotions sallied forth, nor did they
+disappoint us.
+
+Rowed under the rocky shore of Dindog, which is romantic to a great
+degree.  The base, by the beating of the waves, is worn into caverns, so
+that the heads of the rocks project considerably beyond the base, and
+hang over in a manner which makes every part of it interesting.
+Following the coast, open marble quarry bay, the shore great fragments of
+rock tumbled about in the wildest manner.
+
+The island of rocks against the copper-mine shore a remarkable group.
+The shore near Casemilan is of a different nature; it is wood in some
+places, in unbroken masses down to the water's edge, in others divided
+from it by smaller tracts of rock.  Come to a beautiful land-locked bay,
+surrounded by a woody shore, which, opening in places, shows other woods
+more retired.  Tomys is here viewed in a unity of form, which gives it an
+air of great magnificence.  Turk was obscured by the sun shining
+immediately above him, and, casting a stream of burning light on the
+water, displayed an effect to describe which the pencil of a Claude alone
+would be equal.  Turn out of the bay, and gain a full view of the Eagle's
+Nest, the mountains above it, and Glena; they form a perfect contrast;
+the first are rugged, but Glena mild.  Here the shore is a continued
+wood.
+
+Pass the bridge, and cross to Dynis, an island Mr. Herbert has improved
+in the most agreeable manner, by cutting walks through it that command a
+variety of views.  One of these paths on the banks of the channel to the
+upper lake is sketched with great taste; it is on one side walled with
+natural rocks, from clefts of which shoot a thousand fine arbutuses, that
+hang in a rich foliage of flowers and scarlet berries; a turf bench in a
+delicious spot; the scene close and sequestered, just enough to give
+every pleasing idea annexed to retirement.
+
+Passing the bridge, by a rapid stream, came presently to the Eagle's
+Nest: having viewed this rock from places where it appears only a part of
+an object much greater than itself, I had conceived an idea that it did
+not deserve the applause given it, but upon coming near I was much
+surprised; the approach is wonderfully fine, the river leads directly to
+its foot, and does not give the turn till immediately under, by which
+means the view is much more grand than it could otherwise be; it is
+nearly perpendicular, and rises in such full majesty, with so bold an
+outline, and such projecting masses in its centre, that the magnificence
+of the object is complete.  The lower part is covered with wood, and
+scattered trees climb almost to the top, which (if trees can be amiss in
+Ireland) rather weaken the impression raised by this noble rock.  This
+part is a hanging wood, or an object whose character is perfect beauty;
+but the upper scene, the broken outline, rugged sides, and bulging
+masses, all are sublime, and so powerful, that sublimity is the general
+impression of the whole, by overpowering the idea of beauty raised by the
+wood.  This immense height of the mountains of Killarney may be estimated
+by this rock; from any distant place that commands it, it appears the
+lowest crag of a vast chain, and of no account; but on a close approach
+it is found to command a very different respect.
+
+Pass between the mountains called the Great Range, towards the upper
+lake.  Here Turk, which has so long appeared with a figure perfectly
+interesting, is become, from a different position, an unmeaning lump.
+The rest of the mountains, as you pass, assume a varied appearance, and
+are of a prodigious magnitude.  The scenery in this channel is great and
+wild in all its features; wood is very scarce; vast rocks seem tossed in
+confusion through the narrow vale, which is opened among the mountains
+for the river to pass.  Its banks are rocks in a hundred forms; the
+mountain-sides are everywhere scattered with them.  There is not a
+circumstance but is in unison with the wild grandeur of the scene.
+
+Coleman's Eye, a narrow pass, opens a different scenery.  Came to a
+region in which the beautiful and the great are mixed without offence.
+The islands are most of them thickly wooded.  Oak Isle in particular
+rises on a pretty base, and is a most beautiful object: Macgillicuddy
+Reeks, with their broken points; Baum, with his perfect cone; the Purple
+Mountain, with his broad and more regular head; and Turk, having assumed
+a new and more interesting aspect, unite with the opposite hills, part of
+which have some wood left on them, to form a scene uncommonly striking.
+Here you look back on a very peculiar spot; it is a parcel of rocks which
+cross the lake, and form a gap that opens to distant water, the whole
+backed by Turk, in a style of the highest grandeur.
+
+Come to Derry Currily, which is a great sweep of mountain, covered partly
+with wood, hanging in a very noble manner, but part cut down, much of it
+mangled, and the rest inhabited by coopers, boat-builders, carpenters,
+and turners, a sacrilegious tribe, who have turned the Dryads from their
+ancient habitations.  The cascade here is a fine one; but passed quickly
+from hence to scenes unmixed with pain.
+
+Row to the cluster of the Seven Islands, a little archipelago; they rise
+very boldly from the water upon rocky bases, and are crowned in the most
+beautiful manner with wood, among which are a number of arbutuses; the
+channels among them opening to new scenes, and the great amphitheatre of
+rock and mountain that surround them unite to form a noble view.
+
+Into the river, at the very end of the lake, which winds towards
+Macgillicuddy Reeks in fanciful meanders.
+
+Returned by a course somewhat different, through the Seven Islands, and
+back to the Eagle's Nest, viewing the scenes already mentioned in new
+positions.  At that noble rock fired three cannon for the echo, which
+indeed is prodigious; the report does not consist of direct
+reverberations from one rock to another with a pause between, but has an
+exact resemblance to a peal of thunder rattling behind the rock, as if
+travelling the whole scenery we had viewed, and lost in the immensity of
+Macgillicuddy Reeks.
+
+Returning through the bridge, turn to the left round Dynis Island, under
+the woods of Glena; open on the cultivated country beyond the town of
+Killarney, and come gradually in sight of Innisfallen and Ross Island.
+
+Pass near to the wood of Glena, which here takes the appearance of one
+immense sweep hanging in the most beautiful manner imaginable, on the
+side of a vast mountain to a point, shooting into the great lake.  A more
+glorious scene is not to be imagined.  It is one deep mass of wood,
+composed of the richest shades perfectly dipping in the water, without
+rock or strand appearing, not a break in the whole.  The eye passing upon
+the sheet of liquid silver some distance, to meet so entire a sweep of
+every tint that can compose one vast mass of green, hanging to such an
+extent as to fill not only the eye but the imagination, unites in the
+whole to form the most noble scene that is anywhere to be beheld.
+
+Turn under the north shore of Mucruss; the lake here is one great expanse
+of water, bounded by the woods described, the islands of Innisfallen,
+Ross, etc., and the peninsula.  The shore of Mucruss has a great variety;
+it is in some places rocky; huge masses tumbled from their base lie
+beneath, as in a chaos of ruin.  Great caverns worn under them in a
+variety of strange forms; or else covered with woods of a variety of
+shades.  Meet the point of Ardnagluggen (in English where the water
+dashes on the rocks) and come under Ornescope, a rocky headland of a most
+bold projection hanging many yards over its base, with an old
+weather-beaten yew growing from a little bracket of rock, from which the
+spot is called Ornescope, or yew broom.
+
+Mucruss gardens presently open among the woods, and relieve the eye,
+almost fatigued with the immense objects upon which it has so long gazed;
+these softer scenes of lawn gently swelling among the shrubs and trees
+finished the second day.
+
+September 29.  Rode after breakfast to Mangerton Cascade and Drumarourk
+Hill, from which the view of Mucruss is uncommonly pleasing.
+
+Pass the other hill, the view of which I described the 27th, and went to
+Colonel Huffy's monument, from whence the scene is different from the
+rest; the foreground is a gentle hill, intersected by hedges, forming
+several small lawns.  There are some scattered trees and houses, with
+Mucruss Abbey half obscured by wood, the whole cheerful and backed by
+Turk.  The lake is of a triangular form, Ross Island and Innisfallen its
+limits; the woods of Mucruss and the islands take a new position.
+
+Returning, took a boat again towards Ross Isle, and as Mucruss retires
+from us, nothing can be more beautiful than the spots of lawn in the
+terrace opening in the wood; above it the green hills with clumps, and
+the whole finishing in the noble group of wood about the abbey, which
+here appears a deep shade, and so fine a finishing one, that not a tree
+should be touched.  Rowed to the east point of Ross, which is well
+wooded; turn to the south coast.  Doubling the point, the most beautiful
+shore of that island appears; it is the well-wooded environs of a bay,
+except a small opening to the castle; the woods are in deep shades, and
+rise on the regular slopes of a high range of rocky coast.  The part in
+front of Filekilly point rises in the middle, and sinks towards each end.
+The woods of Tomys here appear uncommonly fine.  Open Innisfallen, which
+is composed at this distance of the most various shades, within a broken
+outline, entirely different from the other islands, groups of different
+masses rising in irregular tufts, and joined by lower trees.  No pencil
+could mix a happier assemblage.  Land near a miserable room, where
+travellers dine.  Of the isle of Innisfallen, it is paying no great
+compliment to say it is the most beautiful in the king's dominions, and
+perhaps in Europe.  It contains twenty acres of land, and has every
+variety that the range of beauty, unmixed with the sublime, can give.
+The general feature is that of wood; the surface undulates into swelling
+hills, and sinks into little vales; the slopes are in every direction,
+the declivities die gently away, forming those slight inequalities which
+are the greatest beauty of dressed grounds.  The little valleys let in
+views of the surrounding lake between the hills, while the swells break
+the regular outline of the water, and give to the whole an agreeable
+confusion.  The wood has all the variety into which nature has thrown the
+surface; in some parts it is so thick as to appear impenetrable, and
+secludes all farther view; in others, it breaks into tufts of tall
+timber, under which cattle feed.  Here they open, as if to offer to the
+spectator the view of the naked lawn; in others close, as if purposely to
+forbid a more prying examination.  Trees of large size and commanding
+figure form in some places natural arches; the ivy mixing with the
+branches, and hanging across in festoons of foliage, while on one side
+the lake glitters among the trees, and on the other a thick gloom dwells
+in the recesses of the wood.  The figure of the island renders one part a
+beautiful object to another; for the coast being broken and indented,
+forms bays surrounded either with rock or wood: slight promontories shoot
+into the lake, whose rocky edges are crowned with wood.  These are the
+great features of Innisfallen; the slighter touches are full of beauties
+easily imagined by the reader.  Every circumstance of the wood, the
+water, the rocks, and lawn, are characteristic, and have a beauty in the
+assemblage from mere disposition.  I must, however, observe that this
+delicious retreat is not kept as one could wish.
+
+Scenes that are great and commanding, from magnitude or wildness, should
+never be dressed; the rugged, and even the horrible, may add to the
+effect upon the mind: but in such as Innisfallen, a degree of dress, that
+is, cleanliness, is even necessary to beauty.  I have spoken of lawn, but
+I should observe that expression indicates what it ought to be rather
+than what it is.  It is very rich grass, poached by oxen and cows, the
+only inhabitants of the island.  No spectator of taste but will regret
+the open grounds not being drained with hollow cuts; the ruggedness of
+the surface levelled, and the grass kept close shaven by many sheep
+instead of beasts.  The bushes and briars, where they have encroached on
+what ought to be lawn, cleared away; some parts of the isle more opened;
+in a word no ornaments given, for the scene wants them not, but
+obstructions cleared, ruggedness smoothed, and the whole cleaned.  This
+is what ought to be done; as to what might be made of the island, if its
+noble proprietor (Lord Kenmare) had an inclination, it admits of being
+converted into a terrestrial paradise; lawning with the intermixture of
+other shrubs and wood, and a little dress, would make it an example of
+what ornamented grounds might be, but which not one in a thousand is.
+Take the island, however, as it is, with its few imperfections, and where
+are we to find such another?  What a delicious retreat! an emperor could
+not bestow such a one as Innisfallen; with a cottage, a few cows, and a
+swarm of poultry, is it possible that happiness should refuse to be a
+guest here?
+
+Row to Ross Castle, in order to coast that island; there is nothing
+peculiarly striking in it; return the same way around Innisfallen.  In
+this little voyage the shore of Ross is one of the most beautiful of the
+wooded ones in the lake; it seems to unite with Innisfallen, and projects
+into the water in thick woods one beyond another.  In the middle of the
+channel a large rock, and from the other shore a little promontory of a
+few scattered trees; the whole scene pleasing.
+
+The shore of Innisfallen has much variety, but in general it is woody,
+and of the beautiful character which predominates in that island.  One
+bay, at taking leave of it, is exceedingly pretty; it is a semicircular
+one, and in the centre there is a projecting knoll of wood within a bay;
+this is uncommon, and has an agreeable effect.
+
+The near approach to Tomys exhibits a sweep of wood, so great in extent,
+and so rich in foliage, that no person can see without admiring it.  The
+mountainous part above is soon excluded by the approach; wood alone is
+seen, and that in such a noble range as to be greatly striking; it just
+hollows into a bay, and in the centre of it is a chasm in the wood; this
+is a bed of a considerable stream, which forms O'Sullivan's cascade, to
+which all strangers are conducted, as one of the principal beauties of
+Killarney.  Landed to the right of it, and walked under the thick shade
+of the wood, over a rocky declivity, close to the torrent stream, which
+breaks impetuously from rock to rock, with a roar that kindles
+expectation.  The picture in your fancy will not exceed the reality; a
+great stream bursts from the deep bosom of a wooded glen, hollowed into a
+retired recess of rocks and trees, itself a most pleasing and romantic
+spot, were there not a drop of water: the first fall is many feet
+perpendicularly over a rock; to the eye it immediately makes another, the
+basin into which it pours being concealed; from this basin it forces
+itself impetuously between two rocks.  This second fall is also of a
+considerable height; but the lower one, the third, is the most
+considerable; it issues in the same manner from a basin hid from the
+point of view.  These basins being large, there appears a space of
+several yards between each fall, which adds much to the picturesque
+scenery; the whole is within an arch of wood, that hangs over it; the
+quantity of water is so considerable, as to make an almost deafening
+noise, and uniting with the torrent below, where the fragments of rock
+are large and numerous, throw an air of grandeur over the whole.  It is
+about seventy feet high.  Coast from hence the woody shores of Tomys and
+Glena; they are upon the whole much the most beautiful ones I have
+anywhere seen; Glena woods having more oak, and some arbutuses, are the
+finer and deeper shades; Tomys has a great quantity of birch, whose
+foliage is not so luxuriant.  The reader may figure to himself what these
+woods are, when he is informed that they fill an unbroken extent of six
+miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile and a half in breadth,
+all hanging on the sides of two vast mountains, and coming down with a
+full robe of rich luxuriance to the very water's edge.  The acclivity of
+these hills is such, that every tree appears full to the eye.  The
+variety of the ground is great; in some places great swells in the
+mountain-side, with corresponding hollows, present concave and convex
+masses; in others, considerable ridges of land and rock rise from the
+sweep, and offer to the astonished eye yet other varieties of shade.
+Smaller mountains rise regularly from the immense bosom of the larger,
+and hold forth their sylvan heads, backed by yet higher woods.  To give
+all the varieties of this immense scenery of forest is impossible.  Above
+the whole is a prodigious mass of mountain, of a gently swelling outline
+and soft appearance, varying as the sun or clouds change their position,
+but never becoming rugged or threatening to the eye.
+
+The variations are best seen by rowing near the shore, when every stroke
+of the oar gives a new outline, and fresh tints to please the eye: but
+for one great impression, row about two miles from the shore of Glena; at
+that distance the inequalities in the surface are no longer seen, but the
+eye is filled with so immense a range of wood, crowned with a mountain in
+perfect unison with itself, that objects, whose character is that of
+beauty, are here, from their magnitude, truly magnificent, and attended
+with a most forcible expression.--Returned to Mucruss.
+
+September 30.  This morning I had dedicated to the ascent of Mangerton,
+but his head was so enshrouded in clouds, and the weather so bad, that I
+was forced to give up the scheme: Mr. Herbert has measured him with very
+accurate instruments, of which he has a great collection, and found his
+height eight hundred and thirty-five yards above the level of the sea.
+The Devil's Punch-bowl, from the description I had of it, must be the
+crater of an exhausted volcano: there are many signs of them about
+Killarney, particularly vast rocks on the sides of mountains, in streams,
+as if they had rolled from the top in one direction.  Brown stone rocks
+are also sometimes found on lime-quarries, tossed thither perhaps in some
+vast eruption.
+
+In my way from Killarney to Castle Island, rode into Lord Kenmare's park,
+from whence there is another beautiful view of the lake, different from
+many of the preceding; there is a broad margin of cultivated country at
+your feet, to lead the eye gradually in the lake, which exhibits her
+islands to this point more distinctly than to any other, and the
+backgrounds of the mountains of Glena and Tomys give a bold relief.
+
+Upon the whole, Killarney, among the lakes that I have seen, can scarcely
+be said to have a rival.  The extent of water in Loch Earne is much
+greater, the islands more numerous, and some scenes near Castle Caldwell
+of perhaps as great magnificence.  The rocks at Keswick are more sublime,
+and other lakes may have circumstances in which they are superior; but
+when we consider the prodigious woods of Killarney, the immensity of the
+mountains, the uncommon beauty of the promontory of Mucruss and the Isle
+of Innisfallen, the character of the islands, the singular circumstance
+of the arbutus, and the uncommon echoes, it will appear, upon the whole,
+to be in reality superior to all comparison.
+
+Before I quit it I have one other observation to make, which is relative
+to the want of accommodations and extravagant expense of strangers
+residing at Killarney.  I speak it not at all feelingly, thanks to Mr.
+Herbert's hospitality, but from the accounts given me: the inns are
+miserable, and the lodgings little better.  I am surprised somebody with
+a good capital does not procure a large well-built inn, to be erected on
+the immediate shore of the lake, in an agreeable situation, at a distance
+from the town; there are very few places where such a one would answer
+better; there ought to be numerous and good apartments.  A large
+rendezvous-room for billiards, cards, dancing, music, etc., to which the
+company might resort when they chose it; an ordinary for those that like
+dining in public; boats of all sorts, nets for fishing, and as great a
+variety of amusements as could be collected, especially within doors; for
+the climate being very rainy, travellers wait with great impatience in a
+dirty common inn, which they would not do if they were in the midst of
+such accommodations as they meet with at an English spa.  But above all,
+the prices of everything, from a room and a dinner to a barge and a band
+of music, to be reasonable, and hung up in every part of the house.  The
+resort of strangers to Killarney would then be much increased, and their
+stay would be greatly prolonged; they would not view it post-haste, and
+fly away the first moment to avoid dirt and imposition.  A man with a
+good capital and some ingenuity would, I think, make a fortune by fixing
+here upon such principles.
+
+The state of the poor in the whole county of Kerry represented as
+exceedingly miserable, and owing to the conduct of men of property, who
+are apt to lay the blame on what they call land pirates, or men who offer
+the highest rent, and who, in order to pay this rent, must and do re-let
+all the cabin lands at an extravagant rise, which is assigning over all
+the cabins to be devoured by one farmer.  The cottars on a farm cannot go
+from one to another, in order to find a good master, as in England; for
+all the country is in the same system, and no redress to be found.  Such
+being the case, the farmers are enabled to charge the price of labour as
+low as they please, and rate the land as high as they like.  This is an
+evil which oppresses them cruelly, and certainly has its origin in its
+landlords when they set their farms, setting all the cabins with them,
+instead of keeping them tenants to themselves.  The oppression is, the
+farmer valuing the labour of the poor at fourpence or fivepence a day,
+and paying that in land rated much above its value.  Owing to this the
+poor are depressed; they live upon potatoes and sour milk, and the
+poorest of them only salt and water to them, with now and then a herring.
+Their milk is bought; for very few keep cows, scarce any pigs, but a few
+poultry.  Their circumstances are incomparably worse than they were
+twenty years ago; for they had all cows, but then they wore no linen: all
+now have a little flax.  To these evils have been owing emigrations,
+which have been considerable.
+
+To the west of Tralee are the Mahagree Islands, famous for their corn
+products; they are rock and sand, stocked with rabbits; near them a sandy
+tract, twelve miles long, and one mile broad, to the north, with the
+mountains to the south, famous for the best wheat in Kerry; all under the
+plough.
+
+Arriving at Ardfert, Lord Crosby, whose politeness I have every reason to
+remember, was so obliging as to carry me by one of the finest strands I
+ever rode upon, to view the mouth of the Shannon at Ballengary, the site
+of an old fort.  It is a vast rock, separated from the country by a chasm
+of prodigious depth, through which the waves drive.  The rocks of the
+coast here are in the boldest style, and hollowed by the furious Atlantic
+waves into caverns in which they roar.  It was a dead calm, yet the swell
+was so heavy, that the great waves rolled in and broke upon the rocks
+with such violence as to raise an immense foam, and give one an idea of
+what a storm would be; but fancy rarely falls short in her pictures.  The
+view of the Shannon is exceedingly noble; it is eight miles over, the
+mouth formed by two headlands of very high and bold cliffs, and the reach
+of the river in view very extensive; it is an immense scenery: perhaps
+the noblest mouth of a river in Europe.
+
+Ardfert is very near the sea, so near it that single trees or rows are
+cut in pieces with the wind, yet about Lord Glendour's house there are
+extensive plantations exceedingly flourishing, many fine ash and beech;
+about a beautiful Cistercian abbey, and a silver fir of forty-eight
+years' growth, of an immense height and size.
+
+October 3.  Left Ardfert, accompanying Lord Crosby to Listowel.  Called
+in the way to view Lixnaw, the ancient seat of the Earls of Kerry, but
+deserted for ten years past, and now presents so melancholy a scene of
+desolation, that it shocked me to see it.  Everything around lies in
+ruin, and the house itself is going fast off by thieving depredations of
+the neighbourhood.  I was told a curious anecdote of this estate; which
+shows wonderfully the improvement of Ireland.  The present Earl of
+Kerry's grandfather, Thomas, agreed to lease the whole estate for 1,500
+pounds a year to a Mr. Collis for ever, but the bargain went off upon a
+dispute whether the money should be paid at Cork or Dublin.  Those very
+lands are now let at 20,000 pounds a year.  There is yet a good deal of
+wood, particularly a fine ash grove, planted by the present Earl of
+Shelburne's father.
+
+Proceeded to Woodford, Robert Fitzgerald's, Esq., passing Listowel
+Bridge; the vale leading to it is very fine, the river is broad, the
+lands high, and one side a very extensive hanging wood, opening on those
+of Woodford in a pleasing style.
+
+Woodford is an agreeable scene; close to the house is a fine winding
+river under a bank of thick wood, with the view of an old castle hanging
+over it.
+
+In 1765, Mr. Fitzgerald was travelling from Constantinople to Warsaw, and
+a waggon with his baggage heavily laden overset; the country people
+harnessed two buffaloes by the horns, in order to draw it over, which
+they did with ease.  In some very instructive conversation I had with
+this gentleman on the subject of his travels, this circumstance
+particularly struck me.
+
+October 4.  From Woodford to Tarbat, the seat of Edward Leslie, Esq.,
+through a country rather dreary, till it came upon Tarbat, which is so
+much the contrary that it appeared to the highest advantage; the house is
+on the edge of a beautiful lawn, with a thick margin of full grown wood,
+hanging on a steep bank to the Shannon, so that the river is seen from
+the house over the tops of this wood, which being of a broken irregular
+outline has an effect very striking and uncommon; the river is two or
+three miles broad here, and the opposite coast forms a promontory which
+has from Tarbat exactly the appearance of a large island.  To the east,
+the river swells into a triangular lake, with a reach opening at the
+distant corner of it to Limerick.  The union of wood, water, and lawn
+forms upon the whole a very fine scene; the river is very magnificent.
+From the hill on the coast above the island, the lawn and wood appear
+also to great advantage.  But the finest point of view is from the higher
+hill on the other side of the house, which looking down on all these
+scenes, they appear as a beautiful ornament to the Shannon, which spreads
+forth its proud course from two to nine miles wide, surrounded by
+highlands; a scenery truly magnificent.
+
+The state of the poor is something better than it was twenty years ago,
+particularly their clothing, cattle, and cabins.  They live upon potatoes
+and milk; all have cows, and when they dry them, buy others.  They also
+have butter, and most of them keep pigs, killing them for their own use.
+They have also herrings.  They are in general in the cottar system, of
+paying for labour by assigning some land to each cabin.  The country is
+greatly more populous than twenty years ago, and is now increasing; and
+if ever so many cabins were built by a gradual increase, tenants would be
+found for them.  A cabin and five acres of land will let for 4 pounds a
+year.  The industrious cottar, with two, three, or four acres, would be
+exceedingly glad to have his time to himself, and have such an annual
+addition of land as he was able to manage, paying a fair rent for it;
+none would decline it but the idle and worthless.
+
+Tithes are all annually valued by the proctors, and charged very high.
+There are on the Shannon about one hundred boats employed in bringing
+turf to Limerick from the coast of Kerry and Clare, and in fishing; the
+former carry from twenty to twenty-five tons, the latter from five to
+ten, and are navigated each by two men and a boy.
+
+October 5.  Passed through a very unentertaining country (except for a
+few miles on the bank of the Shannon) to Altavilla, but Mr. Bateman being
+from home, I was disappointed in getting an account of the palatines
+settled in his neighbourhood.  Kept the road to Adair, where Mrs. Quin,
+with a politeness equalled only by her understanding, procured me every
+intelligence I wished for.
+
+Palatines were settled here by the late Lord Southwell about seventy
+years ago.
+
+They preserve some of their German customs: sleep between two beds.  They
+appoint a burgomaster, to whom they appeal in case of all disputes; and
+they yet preserve their language, but that is declining.  They are very
+industrious, and in consequence are much happier and better fed, clothed,
+and lodged than the Irish peasants.  We must not, however, conclude from
+hence that all is owing to this; their being independent farmers, and
+having leases, are circumstances which will create industry.  Their crops
+are much better than those of their neighbours.  There are three villages
+of them, about seventy families in all.  For some time after they settled
+they fed upon sour-crout, but by degrees left it off, and took to
+potatoes; but now subsist upon them and butter and milk, but with a great
+deal of oat bread, and some of wheat, some meat and fowls, of which they
+raise many.  They have all offices to their houses, that is, stables and
+cow-houses, and a lodge for their ploughs, etc.  They keep their cows in
+the house in winter, feeding them upon hay and oat straw.  They are
+remarkable for the goodness and cleanliness of their houses.  The women
+are very industrious, reap the corn, plough the ground sometimes, and do
+whatever work may be going on; they also spin, and make their children do
+the same.  Their wheat is much better than any in the country, insomuch
+that they get a better price than anybody else.  Their industry goes so
+far, that jocular reports of its excess are spread.  In a very pinching
+season, one of them yoked his wife against a horse, and went in that
+manner to work, and finished a journey at plough.  The industry of the
+women is a perfect contrast to the Irish ladies in the cabins, who cannot
+be persuaded, on any consideration, even to make hay, it not being the
+custom of the country, yet they bind corn, and do other works more
+laborious.  Mrs. Quin, who is ever attentive to introduce whatever can
+contribute to their welfare and happiness, offered many premiums to
+induce them to make hay, of hats, cloaks, stockings, etc. etc., but all
+would not do.
+
+Few places have so much wood about them as Adair; Mr. Quin has above one
+thousand acres in his hands, in which a large proportion is under wood.
+The deer park of four hundred acres is almost full of old oak and very
+fine thorns, of a great size; and about the house, the plantations are
+very extensive, of elm and other wood, but that thrives better than any
+other sort.  I have nowhere seen finer than vast numbers here.  There is
+a fine river runs under the house, and within view are no less than three
+ruins of Franciscan friaries, two of them remarkably beautiful, and one
+has most of the parts perfect, except the roof.
+
+In Mr. Quin's house there are some very good pictures, particularly an
+Annunciation by Domenichino, which is a beautiful piece.  It was brought
+lately from Italy by Mr. Quin, junior.  The colours are rich and mellow,
+and the hairs of the heads inimitably pleasing; the group of angels at
+the top, to the left of the piece, is very natural.  It is a piece of
+great merit.  The companion is a Magdalen; the expression of melancholy,
+or rather misery, remarkably strong.  There is a gloom in the whole in
+full unison with the subject.  There are, besides these, some others
+inferior, yet of merit, and two very good portraits of Lord Dartry (Mrs.
+Quin's brother), and of Mr. Quin, junior, by Pompeio Battoni.  A piece in
+an uncommon style, done on oak, of Esther and Ahasuerus; the colours
+tawdry, but the grouping attitudes and effect pleasing.
+
+Castle Oliver is a place almost entirely of Mr. Oliver's creation; from a
+house, surrounded with cabins and rubbish, he has fixed it in a fine
+lawn, surrounded by good wood.  The park he has very much improved on an
+excellent plan; by means of seven feet hurdles, he fences off part of it
+that wants to be cleaned or improved; these he cultivates, and leaves for
+grass, and then takes another spot, which is by much the best way of
+doing it.  In the park is a glen, an English mile long, winding in a
+pleasing manner, with much wood hanging on the banks.  Mr. Oliver has
+conducted a stream through this vale, and formed many little water-falls
+in an exceedingly good taste, chiefly overhung with wood, but in some
+places open with several little rills, trickling over stones down the
+slopes.  A path winds through a large wood and along the brow of the
+glen; this path leads to a hermitage, a cave of rock, in a good taste,
+and to some benches, from which the views of the water and wood are in
+the sequestered style they ought to be.  One of these little views, which
+catches several falls under the arch of the bridge, is one of the
+prettiest touches of the kind I have seen.  The vale beneath the house,
+when viewed from the higher grounds, is pleasing; it is very well wooded,
+there being many inclosures, surrounded by pine trees, and a thick fine
+mass of wood rises from them up the mountain-side, makes a very good
+figure, and would be better, had not Mr. Oliver's father cut it into
+vistas for shooting.  Upon the whole, the place is highly improved, and
+when the mountains are planted, in which Mr. Oliver is making a
+considerable progress, it will be magnificent.
+
+In the house are several fine pictures, particularly five pieces by Seb.
+Ricci, Venus and AEneas; Apollo and Pan; Venus and Achilles; and Pyrrhus
+and Andromache, by Lazzerini; and the Rape of the Lapithi by the
+Centaurs.  The last is by much the finest, and is a very capital piece;
+the expression is strong, the figures are in bold relief, and the
+colouring good.  Venus and Achilles is a pleasing picture; the continence
+of Scipio is well grouped, but Scipio, as in every picture I ever saw of
+him, has no expression.  Indeed, chastity is in the countenance so
+passive a virtue as not to be at all suited to the genius of painting;
+the idea is rather that of insipidity, and accordingly Scipio's
+expression is generally insipid enough.  Two fine pieces, by Lucca
+Jordano, Hercules and Anteus; Samson Killing the Lion: both dark and
+horrid, but they are highly finished and striking.  Six heads of old men,
+by Nagori, excellent; and four young women, in the character of the
+seasons.
+
+October 9.  Left Castle Oliver.  Had I followed my inclination, my stay
+would have been much longer, for I found it equally the residence of
+entertainment and instruction.  Passed through Kilfennan and
+Duntreleague, in my way to Tipperary.  The road leads everywhere on the
+sides of the hills, so as to give a very distinct view of the lower
+grounds; the soil all the way is the same sort of sandy reddish loam I
+have already described, incomparable land for tillage: as I advanced it
+grew something lighter, and in many places free from gravel.  Bullocks
+the stock all the way.  Towards Tipperary I saw vast numbers of sheep,
+and many bullocks.  All this line of country is part of the famous golden
+vale.  To Thomas Town, where I was so unfortunate as not to find Mr.
+Matthew at home; the domain is one thousand five hundred English acres,
+so well planted that I could hardly believe myself in Ireland.  There is
+a hill in the park from which the view of it, the country and the
+Galties, are striking.
+
+October 12.  To Lord de Montalt's, at Dundrum, a place which his lordship
+has ornamented in the modern style of improvement: the house was situated
+in the midst of all the regular exertions of the last age.  Parterres,
+parapets of earth, straight walks, knots and clipped hedges, all which he
+has thrown down, with an infinite number of hedges and ditches, filled up
+ponds, etc., and opened one very noble lawn around him, scattered
+negligently over with trees, and cleared the course of a choked-up river,
+so that it flows at present in a winding course through the grounds.
+
+October 13.  Leaving Dundrum, passed through Cashel, where is a rock and
+ruin on it, called the Rock of Cashel, supposed to be of the remotest
+antiquity.  Towards Clonmel, the whole way through the same rich vein of
+red sandy loam I have so often mentioned: I examined it in several
+fields, and found it to be of an extraordinary fertility, and as fine
+turnip land as ever I saw.  It is much under sheep; but towards Clonmel
+there is a great deal of tillage.
+
+The first view of that town, backed by a high ridge of mountains, with a
+beautiful space near it of inclosures, fringed with a scattering of
+trees, was very pleasing.  It is the best situated place in the county of
+Tipperary, on the Suir, which brings up boats of ten tons burthen.  It
+appears to be a busy populous place, yet I was told that the manufacture
+of woollens is not considerable.  It is noted for being the birthplace of
+the inimitable Sterne.
+
+To Sir William Osborne's, three miles the other side Clonmel.  From a
+character so remarkable for intelligence and precision, I could not fail
+of meeting information of the most valuable kind.  This gentleman has
+made a mountain improvement which demands particular attention, being
+upon a principle very different from common ones.
+
+Twelve years ago he met with a hearty-looking fellow of forty, followed
+by a wife and six children in rags, who begged.  Sir William questioned
+him upon the scandal of a man in full health and vigour, supporting
+himself in such a manner: the man said he could get no work: "Come along
+with me, I will show you a spot of land upon which I will build a cabin
+for you, and if you like it you shall fix there."  The fellow followed
+Sir William, who was as good as his word: he built him a cabin, gave him
+five acres of a heathy mountain, lent him four pounds to stock with, and
+gave him, when he had prepared his ground, as much lime as he would come
+for.  The fellow flourished; he went on gradually; repaid the four
+pounds, and presently became a happy little cottar: he has at present
+twelve acres under cultivation, and a stock in trade worth at least 80
+pounds; his name is John Conory.
+
+The success which attended this man in two or three years brought others
+who applied for land, and Sir William gave them as they applied.  The
+mountain was under lease to a tenant, who valued it so little, that upon
+being reproached with not cultivating, or doing something with it, he
+assured Sir William that it was utterly impracticable to do anything with
+it, and offered it to him without any deduction of rent.  Upon this
+mountain he fixed them; gave them terms as they came determinable with
+the lease of the farm, so that every one that came in succession had
+shorter and shorter tenures; yet are they so desirous of settling, that
+they come at present, though only two years remain for a term.
+
+In this manner Sir William has fixed twenty-two families, who are all
+upon the improving hand, the meanest growing richer; and find themselves
+so well off, that no consideration will induce them to work for others,
+not even in harvest: their industry has no bounds; nor is the day long
+enough for the revolution of their incessant labour.  Some of them bring
+turf to Clonmel, and Sir William has seen Conory returning loaded with
+soap ashes.
+
+He found it difficult to persuade them to make a road to their village,
+but when they had once done it, he found none in getting cross roads to
+it, they found such benefit in the first.  Sir William has continued to
+give whatever lime they come for: and they have desired one thousand
+barrels among them for the year 1766, which their landlord has
+accordingly contracted for with his lime-burner, at 11d. a barrel.  Their
+houses have all been built at his expense, and done by contract at 6
+pounds each, after which they raise what little offices they want for
+themselves.
+
+October 15.  Left New Town, and keeping on the banks of the Suir, passed
+through Carrick to Curraghmore, the seat of the Earl of Tyrone.  This
+line of country, in point of soil, inferior to what I have of late gone
+through: so that I consider the rich country to end at Clonmel.
+
+Emigrations from this part of Ireland principally to Newfoundland: for a
+season they have 18 or 20 pounds for their pay, and are maintained, but
+they do not bring home more than 7 to 11 pounds.  Some of them stay and
+settle; three years ago there was an emigration of indented servants to
+North Carolina of three hundred, but they were stopped by contrary winds,
+etc.  There had been something of this constantly, but not to that
+amount.  The oppression which the poor people have most to complain of is
+the not having any tenures in their lands, by which means they are
+entirely subject to their employers.
+
+Manufactures here are only woollens.  Carrick is one of the greatest
+manufacturing towns in Ireland.  Principally for ratteens, but of late
+they have got into broadcloths, all for home consumption; the manufacture
+increases, and is very flourishing.  There are between three and four
+hundred people employed by it in Carrick and its neighbourhood.
+
+Curraghmore is one of the finest places in Ireland, or indeed that I have
+anywhere seen.  The house, which is large, is situated upon a rising
+ground, in a vale surrounded by very bold hills, which rise in a variety
+of forms and offer to the eye, in rising through the grounds, very noble
+and striking scenes.  These hills are exceedingly varied, so that the
+detour of the place is very pleasing.  In order to see it to advantage, I
+would advise a traveller to take the ride which Lord Tyrone carried me.
+Passed through the deer-park wood of old oaks, spread over the side of a
+bold hill, and of such an extent, that the scene is a truly forest one,
+without any other boundary in view than what the stems of trees offer
+from mere extent, retiring one behind another till they thicken so much
+to the eye, under the shade of their spreading tops, as to form a distant
+wall of wood.  This is a sort of scene not common in Ireland; it is a
+great extent alone that will give it.  From this hill enter an evergreen
+plantation, a scene which winds up the deer-park hill, and opens on to
+the brow of it, which commands a most noble view indeed.  The lawns round
+the house appear at one's feet, at the bottom of a great declivity of
+wood, almost everywhere surrounded by plantations.  The hills on the
+opposite side of the vale against the house consist of a large lawn in
+the centre of the two woods, that to the right of an immense extent,
+which waves over a mountain-side in the finest manner imaginable, and
+lead the eye to the scenery on the left, which is a beautiful vale of
+rich inclosures, of several miles extent, with the Suir making one great
+reach through it, and a bold bend just before it enters a gap in the
+hills towards Waterford, and winds behind them; to the right you look
+over a large plain, backed by the great Cummeragh Mountains.  For a
+distinct extent of view, the parts of which are all of a commanding
+magnitude, and a variety equal to the number, very few prospects are
+finer than this.
+
+From hence the boundary plantation extends some miles to the west and
+north-west of the domain, forming a margin to the whole of different
+growths, having been planted, by degrees, from three to sixteen years.
+It is in general well grown, and the trees thriven exceedingly,
+particularly the oak, beech, larch, and firs.  It is very well sketched,
+with much variety given to it.
+
+Pass by the garden across the river which murmurs over a rocky bed, and
+follow the riding up a steep hill, covered with wood from some breaks, in
+which the house appears perfectly buried in a deep wood, and come out,
+after a considerable extent of ride, into the higher lawn, which commands
+a view of the scenery about the house; and from the brow of the hill the
+water, which is made to imitate a river, has a good effect, and throws a
+great air of cheerfulness over the scene, for from hence the declivity
+below it is hid.  But the view, which is the most pleasing from hence,
+the finest at Curraghmore, and indeed one of the most striking that is
+anywhere to be seen, is that of the hanging wood to the right of the
+house, rising in so noble a sweep as perfectly to fill the eye, and leave
+the fancy scarce anything to wish: at the bottom is a small semicircular
+lawn, around which flows the river, under the immediate shade of very
+noble oaks.  The whole wood rises boldly from the bottom, tree above
+tree, to a vast height, of large oak.  The masses of shade are but tints
+of one colour; it is not chequered with a variety.  There is a majestic
+simplicity, a unity in the whole, which is attended with an uncommon
+impression, and such as none but the most magnificent scenes can raise.
+
+Descending from hence through the roads, the riding crosses the river,
+and passes through the meadow which has such an effect in the preceding
+scene, from which also the view is very fine, and leads home through a
+continued and an extensive range of fine oak, partly on a declivity, at
+the bottom of which the river murmurs its broken course.
+
+Besides this noble riding, there is a very agreeable walk runs
+immediately on the banks of the river, which is perfect in its style; it
+is a sequestered line of wood, so high on the declivities in some places,
+and so thick on the very edge in others, overspreading the river, that
+the character of the scene is gloom and melancholy, heightened by the
+noise of the water falling from stone to stone.  There is a considerable
+variety in the banks of it, and in the figures and growth of the wood,
+but none that hurts the impression, which is well preserved throughout.
+
+October 17.  Accompanied Lord Tyrone to Waterford; made some inquiries
+into the state of their trade, but found it difficult, from the method in
+which the custom-house books are kept, to get the details I wished; but
+in the year following, having the pleasure of a long visit at
+Ballycanvan, the seat of Cornelius Bolton, Esq., his son, the member for
+the city, procured me every information I could wish, and that in so
+liberal and polite a manner, that it would not be easy to express the
+obligations I am under to both.  In general, I was informed that the
+trade of the place had increased considerably in ten years, both the
+exports and imports--the exports of the products of pasturage, full
+one-third in twelve years.  That the staple trade of the place is the
+Newfoundland trade.  This is very much increased; there is more of it
+here than anywhere.  The number of people who go as passengers in the
+Newfoundland ships is amazing: from sixty to eighty ships, and from three
+thousand to five thousand annually.  They come from most parts of
+Ireland, from Cork, Kerry, etc.  Experienced men will get eighteen to
+twenty-five pounds for the season, from March to November.  A man who
+never went will have five to seven pounds and his passage, and others
+rise to twenty pounds; the passage out they get, but pay home two pounds.
+An industrious man in a year will bring home twelve to sixteen pounds
+with him, and some more.  A great point for them is to be able to carry
+out all their slops, for everything there is exceedingly dear, one or two
+hundred per cent. dearer than they can get them at home.  They are not
+allowed to take out any woollen goods but for their own use.  The ships
+go loaded with pork, beef, butter, and some salt; and bring home
+passengers, or get freights where they can; sometimes rum.  The Waterford
+pork comes principally from the barony of Iverk, in Kilkenny, where they
+fatten great numbers of large hogs; for many weeks together they kill
+here three to four thousand a week, the price fifty shillings to four
+pounds each; goes chiefly to Newfoundland.  One was killed in Mr.
+Penrose's cellar that weighed five hundredweight and a quarter, and
+measured from the nose to the end of the tail nine feet four inches.
+
+There is a foundry at Waterford for pots, kettles, weights, and all
+common utensils; and a manufactory by Messrs. King and Tegent of anvils
+to anchors, twenty hundredweight, etc., which employs forty hands.
+Smiths earn from 6s. to 24s. a week.  Nailers from 10s. to 12s.  And
+another less considerable.  There are two sugar-houses, and many
+salt-houses.  The salt is boiled over lime-kilns.
+
+There is a fishery upon the coast of Waterford, for a great variety of
+fish, herrings particularly, in the mouth of Waterford Harbour, and two
+years ago in such quantities there, that the tides left the ditches full
+of them.  There are some premium boats both here and at Dungarvan, but
+the quantity of herrings barrelled is not considerable.
+
+The butter trade of Waterford has increased greatly for seven years past;
+it comes from Waterford principally, but much from Carlow; for it comes
+from twenty miles beyond Carlow, for sixpence per hundred.  From the 1st
+of January, 1774, to the 1st of January, 1775, there were exported
+fifty-nine thousand eight hundred and fifty-six casks of butter, each, on
+an average, one hundredweight, at the mean price of 50s.  Revenue of
+Waterford, 1751, 17,000 pounds; 1776, 52,000 pounds.  The slaughter trade
+has increased, but not so much as the butter.  Price of butter now at
+Waterford, 58s.; twenty years' average, 42s.  Beef now to 25s.; average,
+twenty years, 10s. to 18s.  Pork, now 30s.; average, twenty years, 16s.
+to 22s.  Eighty sail of ships now belonging to the port, twenty years ago
+not thirty.  They pay to the captains of ship of two hundred tons 5
+pounds a month; the mate 3 pounds 10s.  Ten men at 40s., five years ago
+only 27s.  Building ships, 10 pounds a ton.  Wear and tear of such a
+ship, 20 pounds a month.  Ship provisions, 20s. a month.
+
+The new church in this city is a very beautiful one; the body of it is in
+the same style exactly as that of Belfast, already described: the total
+length one hundred and seventy feet, the breadth fifty-eight.  The length
+of the body of the church ninety-two, the height forty; breadth between
+the pillars, twenty-six.  The aisle (which I do not remember at Belfast)
+is fifty-eight by forty-five.  A room on one side the steeple, space for
+the bishop's court, twenty-four by eighteen; on the other side, a room of
+the same size for the vestry; and twenty-eight feet square left for a
+steeple when their funds will permit.  The whole is light and beautiful.
+It was built by subscription, and there is a fine organ bespoke at
+London.  But the finest object in this city is the quay, which is
+unrivalled by any I have seen.  It is an English mile long; the buildings
+on it are only common houses, but the river is near a mile over, flows up
+to the town in one noble reach, and the opposite shore a bold hill, which
+rises immediately from the water to a height that renders the whole
+magnificent.  This is scattered with some wood, and divided into pastures
+of a beautiful verdure by hedges.  I crossed the water, in order to walk
+up the rocks on the top of this hill.  In one place, over against
+Bilberry quarry, you look immediately down on the river, which flows in
+noble reaches from Granny Castle on the right past Cromwell's rock, the
+shores on both sides quite steep, especially the rock of Bilberry.  You
+look over the whole town, which here appears in a triangular form.
+Besides the city the Cummeragh mountains, Slein-a-man, etc., come in
+view.  Kilmacow river falls into the Suir, after flowing through a large
+extent of well-planted country.  This is the finest view about the city.
+
+From Waterford to Passage, and got my chaise and horses on board the
+_Countess of Tyrone_ packet, in full expectation of sailing immediately,
+as the wind was fair, but I soon found the difference of these private
+vessels and the Post-Office packets at Holyhead and Dublin.  When the
+wind was fair the tide was foul; and when the tide was with them the wind
+would not do.  In English, there was not a complement of passengers, and
+so I had the agreeableness of waiting with my horses in the hold, by way
+of rest, after a journey of above one thousand five hundred miles.
+
+October 18.  After a beastly night passed on shipboard, and finding no
+signs of departure, walked to Ballycanvan, the seat of Cornelius Bolton,
+Esq.; rode with Mr. Bolton, jun., to Faithleghill, which commands one of
+the finest views I have seen in Ireland.  There is a rock on the top of a
+hill which has a very bold view on every side down on a great extent of
+country, much of which is grass inclosures of a good verdure.  This hill
+is the centre of a circle of about ten miles diameter, beyond which
+higher lands rise, which, after spreading to a great extent, have on
+every side a background of mountain: in a northerly direction Mount
+Leinster, between Wexford and Wicklow, twenty-six miles off, rises in
+several heads far above the clouds.  A little to the right of this,
+Sliakeiltha (_i.e._ "the woody mountain"), at a less distance, is a fine
+object.  To the left, Tory Hill, only five miles, in a regular form,
+varies the outline.  To the east, there is the Long Mountain, eighteen
+miles distant, and several lesser Wexford hills.  To the south-east, the
+Saltees.  To the south, the ocean, and the Colines about the bay of
+Tramore.  To the west, Monavollagh rises two thousand one hundred and
+sixty feet above the level of the sea, eighteen miles off, being part of
+the great range of the Cummeragh mountains: and to the north-west
+Slein-a-man, at the distance of twenty-four miles; so that the outline is
+everywhere bold and distinct, though distant.  These circumstances would
+alone form a great view, but the water part of it, which fills up the
+canvas, is in a much superior style.  The great river Suir takes a
+winding course from the city of Waterford, through a rich country,
+hanging on the sides of hills to its banks, and, dividing into a double
+channel, forms the lesser island, both of which courses you command
+distinctly.  United, it makes a bold reach under the hill on which you
+stand, and there receives the noble tribute of the united waters of the
+Barrow and Nore in two great channels, which form the larger island.
+Enlarged by such an accession of water, it winds round the hill in a
+bending course, of the freest and most graceful outline, everywhere from
+one to three miles across, with bold shores that give a sharp outline to
+its course to the ocean.  Twenty sail of ships at Passage gave animation
+to the scene.  Upon the whole, the boldness of the mountain outline, the
+variety of the grounds, the vast extent of river, with the declivity to
+it from the point of view, altogether form so unrivalled a scenery, every
+object so commanding, that the general want of wood is almost forgotten.
+
+Two years after this account was written I again visited this enchanting
+hill, and walked to it, day after day, from Ballycanvan, and with
+increasing pleasure.  Mr. Bolton, jun., has, since I was there before,
+inclosed forty acres on the top and steep slope to the water, and begun
+to plant them.  This will be a prodigious addition; for the slope forming
+the bold shore for a considerable space, and having projections from
+which the wood will all be seen in the gentle hollows of the hill, the
+effect will be amazingly fine.  Walks and a riding are tracing out, which
+will command fresh beauties at every step.  The spots from which a
+variety of beautiful views are seen are numerous.  All the way from
+Ballycanvan to Faithleg, the whole, to the amount of one thousand two
+hundred acres, is the property of Mr. Bolton.
+
+Farms about Ballycanvan, Waterford, etc., are generally small, from
+twenty and thirty to five hundred acres, generally about two hundred and
+fifty.  All above two hundred acres are in general dairies; some of the
+dairy ones rise very high.  The soil is a reddish stony or slaty gravel,
+dry, except low lands, which are clay or turf.  Rents vary much--about
+the town very high, from 5 pounds 5s. to 9 pounds, but at the distance of
+a few miles towards Passage, etc., they are from 20s. to 40s., and some
+higher, but the country in general does not rise so high, usually 10s. to
+20s. for dairying land.
+
+The poor people spin their own flax, but not more, and a few of them wool
+for themselves.  Their food is potatoes and milk; but they have a
+considerable assistance from fish, particularly herrings; part of the
+year they have also barley, oaten, and rye bread.  They are incomparably
+better off in every respect than twenty years ago.  Their increase about
+Ballycanvan is very great, and tillage all over this neighbourhood is
+increased.  The rent of a cabin 10s.; an acre with it 20s.  The grass of
+a cow a few years ago 20s., now 25s. or 30s.
+
+An exceeding good practice here in making their fences is, they plant the
+quick on the side of the bank in the common manner, and then, instead of
+the dead hedge we use in England on the top of the bank, they plant a row
+of old thorns, two or three feet high, which readily grow, and form at
+once a most excellent fence.  Their way also of taking in sand-banks from
+the river deserves notice.  They stake down a row of furzes at low water,
+laying stones on them to the height of one or two feet; these retain the
+mud, which every tide brings in, so as to fill up all within the furze as
+high as their tops.  I remarked, on the strand, that a few boatloads of
+stones laid carelessly had had this effect, for within them I measured
+twelve inches deep of rich blue mud left behind them, the same as they
+use in manuring, full of shells, and effervesced strongly with vinegar.
+
+Among the poor people the fishermen are in much the best circumstances.
+The fishery is considerable; Waterford and its harbour have fifty boats
+each, from eight to twelve tons, six men on an average to each, but to
+one of six tons five men go.  A boat of eight tons costs 40 pounds; one
+of twelve, 60 pounds.  To each boat there is a train of nets of six pair,
+which costs from 4 pounds 4s. to 6 pounds 6s.; tan them with bark.  Their
+only net fishery is that of herrings, which is commonly carried on by
+shares.  The division of the fish is, first, one-fourth for the boat; and
+then the men and nets divide the rest, the latter reckoned as three men.
+They reckon ten maze of herrings an indifferent night's work; when there
+is a good take, forty maze have been taken, twenty a good night; the
+price per maze from 1s. to 7s., average 5s.  Their take in 1775, the
+greatest they have known, when they had more than they could dispose of,
+and the whole town and country stunk of them, they retailed them
+thirty-two for a penny; 1773 and 1774 good years.  They barrelled many,
+but in general there is an import of Swedish.  Besides the common
+articles I have registered, the following are: pigeons, 1s. a couple; a
+hare, 1s.; partridges, 9d.; turbots, fine ones, 4s. to 10s.; soles a
+pair, large, 1s. 6d to 1s.; lobsters, 3d. each; oysters, 6s. per hundred;
+rabbits, 1s. to 1s. 4d. a couple; cod, 1s. each, large; salmon, 1.25d. to
+2d.
+
+A very extraordinary circumstance I was told--that within five or six
+years there has been much hay carried from Waterford to Norway, in the
+Norway ships that bring deals.  As hay is dear here, it proves a most
+backward state of husbandry in that northerly region, since the
+neighbourhood of sea-ports to which this hay can alone go is generally
+the best improved in all countries.
+
+October 19, the wind being fair, took my leave of Mr. Bolton, and went
+back to the ship.  Met with a fresh scene of provoking delays, so that it
+was the next morning, October 20, at eight o'clock, before we sailed, and
+then it was not wind, but a cargo of passengers that spread our sails.
+Twelve or fourteen hours are not an uncommon passage, but such was our
+luck that, after being in sight of the lights on the Smalls, we were by
+contrary winds blown opposite to Arklow sands.  A violent gale arose,
+which presently blew a storm that lasted thirty-six hours, in which,
+under a reefed mainsail, the ship drifted up and down wearing in order to
+keep clear of the coasts.
+
+No wonder this appeared to me, a fresh-water sailor, as a storm, when the
+oldest men on board reckoned it a violent one.  The wind blew in furious
+gusts; the waves ran very high; the cabin windows burst open, and the sea
+pouring in set everything afloat, and among the rest a poor lady, who had
+spread her bed on the floor.  We had, however, the satisfaction to find,
+by trying the pumps every watch, that the ship made little water.  I had
+more time to attend these circumstances than the rest of the passengers,
+being the only one in seven who escaped without being sick.  It pleased
+God to preserve us, but we did not cast anchor in Milford Haven till
+Tuesday morning, the 22nd, at one o'clock.
+
+It is much to be wished that there were some means of being secure of
+packets sailing regularly, instead of waiting till there is such a number
+of passengers as satisfies the owner and captain.  With the Post-Office
+packets there is this satisfaction, and a great one it is.  The contrary
+conduct is so perfectly detestable that I should suppose the scheme of
+Waterford ones can never succeed.
+
+Two years after, having been assured this conveyance was put on a new
+footing, I ventured to try it again, but was mortified to find that the
+_Tyrone_, the only one that could take a chaise or horses (the _Countess_
+being laid up), was repairing, but would sail in five days.  I waited,
+and received assurance after assurance that she would be ready on such a
+day, and then on another.  In a word, I waited twenty-four days before I
+sailed.  Moderately speaking, I could by Dublin have reached Turin or
+Milan as soon as I did Milford in this conveyance.  All this time the
+papers had constant advertisements of the _Tyrone_ sailing regularly,
+instead of letting the public know that she was under a repair.  Her
+owner seems to be a fair and worthy man; he will therefore probably give
+up the scheme entirely, unless assisted by the corporation with at least
+four ships more, to sail regularly with or without passengers.  At
+present it is a general disappointment.  I was fortunate in Mr. Bolton's
+acquaintance, passing my time very agreeably at his hospitable mansion;
+but those who, in such a case, should find a Waterford inn their
+resource, would curse the _Tyrone_, and set off for Dublin.  The expenses
+of this passage are higher than those from Dublin to Holyhead: I paid--
+
+                                                       l.  s. d.
+A four-wheel chaise                                    3  3  0
+Three horses                                           3  3  0
+Self                                                   1  1  0
+Two servants                                           1  1  0
+Custom-house at Waterford, hay, oats, etc.             2  1  7
+Ditto at Pembroke and Hubberston                       3  0  0
+Sailors, boats, and sundry small charges               1 15  5
+                                                       15  5  0
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+1777.  Upon a second journey to Ireland this year, I took the opportunity
+of going from Dublin to Mitchelstown, by a route through the central part
+of the kingdom, which I had not before sufficiently viewed.
+
+Left Dublin the 24th of September, and taking the road to Naas, I was
+again struck with the great population of the country, the cabins being
+so much poorer in the vicinity of the capital than in the more distant
+parts of the kingdom.
+
+To Kildare, crossing the Curragh, so famous for its turf.  It is a
+sheep-walk of above four thousand English acres, forming a more beautiful
+lawn than the hand of art ever made.  Nothing can exceed the extreme
+softness of the turf, which is of a verdure that charms the eye, and
+highly set off by the gentle inequality of surface.  The soil is a fine
+dry loam on a stony bottom; it is fed by many large flocks, turned on it
+by the occupiers of the adjacent farms, who alone have the right, and pay
+very great rents on that account.  It is the only considerable common in
+the kingdom.  The sheep yield very little wool, not more than 3lb. per
+fleece, but of a very fine quality.
+
+From Furness to Shaen Castle, in the Queen's County, Dean Coote's; but as
+the husbandry, etc., of this neighbourhood is already registered, I have
+only to observe that Mr. Coote was so kind as to show me the improved
+grounds of Dawson's Court, the seat of Lord Carlow, which I had not seen
+before.  The principal beauties of the place are the well-grown and
+extensive plantations, which form a shade not often met with in Ireland.
+There is in the backgrounds a lake well accompanied with wood, broken by
+several islands that are covered with underwood, and an ornamented walk
+passing on the banks which leads from the house.  This lake is in the
+season perfectly alive with wild-fowl.  Near it is a very beautiful spot,
+which commands a view of both woods and water; a situation either for a
+house or a temple.  Mr. Dawson is adding to the plantations, an
+employment of all others the most meritorious in Ireland.  Another work,
+scarcely less so, was the erecting a large handsome inn, wherein the same
+gentleman intends establishing a person who shall be able to supply
+travellers post with either chaises or horses.
+
+From Shaen Castle to Gloster, in the King's County, the seat of John
+Lloyd, Esq., member for that county, to whose attention I owe the
+following particulars, in which he took every means to have me well and
+accurately informed.  But first let me observe that I was much pleased to
+remark, all the way from Naas quite to Rosscrea, that the country was
+amongst the finest I had seen in Ireland, and consequently that I was
+fortunate in having an opportunity of seeing it after the involuntary
+omission of last year.  The cabins, though many of them are very bad, yet
+are better than in some other counties, and chimneys generally a part of
+them.  The people, too, have no very miserable appearance; the breed of
+cattle and sheep good, and the hogs much the best I have anywhere seen in
+Ireland.  Turf is everywhere at hand, and in plenty; yet are the bogs not
+so general as to affect the beauty of the country, which is very great in
+many tracts, with a scattering of wood, which makes it pleasing.  Shaen
+Castle stands in the midst of a very fine tract.  From Mountrath to
+Gloster, Mr. Lloyd's, I could have imagined myself in a very pleasing
+part of England.  The country breaks into a variety of inequalities of
+hill and dale; it is all well inclosed with fine hedges; there is a
+plenty of wood, not so monopolised as in many parts of the kingdom by
+here and there a solitary seat, but spread over the whole face of the
+prospect: look which way you will, it is cultivated and cheerful.
+
+The Shannon adds not a little to the convenience and agreeableness of a
+residence so near it.  Besides affording these sorts of wild-fowl, the
+quantity and size of its fish are amazing: pikes swarm in it, and rise in
+weight to fifty pounds.  In the little flat spaces on its banks are small
+but deep lochs, which are covered in winter and in floods.  When the
+river withdraws, it leaves plenty of fish in them, which are caught to
+put into stews.  Mr. Holmes has a small one before his door at Johnstown,
+with a little stream which feeds it.  A trowling-rod here gets you a bite
+in a moment, of a pike from twenty to forty pounds.  I ate of one of
+twenty-seven pounds so taken.  I had also the pleasure of seeing a
+fisherman bring three trout, weighing fourteen pounds, and sell them for
+sixpence-halfpenny a piece.  A couple of boats lying at anchor, with
+lines extended from one to the other, and hooks in plenty from them, have
+been known to catch an incredible quantity of trout.  Colonel Prittie, in
+one morning, caught four stone odd pounds, thirty-two trout.  In general
+they rise from three to nine pounds.  Perch swarm; they appeared in the
+Shannon for the first time about ten years ago, in such plenty that the
+poor lived on them.  Bream of six pounds; eels very plentiful.  There are
+many gillaroos in the river; one of twelve pounds weight was sent to Mr.
+Jenkinson.  Upon the whole, these circumstances, with the pleasure of
+shooting and boating on the river, added to the glorious view it yields,
+and which is enough at any time to cheer the mind, render this
+neighbourhood one of the most enviable situations to live in that I have
+seen in Ireland.  The face of the country gives every circumstance of
+beauty.  From Killodeernan Hill, behind the new house building by Mr.
+Holmes, the whole is seen to great advantage.  The spreading part of the
+Shannon, called Loch Derg, is commanded distinctly for many miles.  It is
+in two grand divisions of great variety: that to the north is a reach of
+five miles leading to Portumna.  The whole hither shore a scenery of
+hills, checkered by enclosures and little woods, and retiring from the
+eye into a rich distant prospect.  The woods of Doras, belonging to Lord
+Clanricarde, form a part of the opposite shore, and the river itself
+presents an island of one hundred and twenty acres.  Inclining to the
+left, a vale of rough ground, with an old castle in it, is backed by a
+bold hill, which intercepts the river there, and then the great reach of
+fifteen miles, the bay of Sheriff, spreads to the eye, with a
+magnificence not a little added to by the boundary, a sharp outline of
+the county of Clare mountains, between which and the Duharrow hills the
+Shannon finds its way.  These hills lead the eye still more to the left,
+till the Keeper meets it, presenting a very beautiful outline that sinks
+into other ranges of hill, uniting with the Devil's Bit.  The home
+scenery of the grounds, woods, hills, and lake of Johnstown, is
+beautiful.
+
+Dancing is very general among the poor people, almost universal in every
+cabin.  Dancing-masters of their own rank travel through the country from
+cabin to cabin, with a piper or blind fiddler, and the pay is sixpence a
+quarter.  It is an absolute system of education.  Weddings are always
+celebrated with much dancing, and a Sunday rarely passes without a dance.
+There are very few among them who will not, after a hard day's work,
+gladly walk seven miles to have a dance.  John is not so lively, but then
+a hard day's work with him is certainly a different affair from what it
+is with Paddy.  Other branches of education are likewise much attended
+to, every child of the poorest family learning to read, write, and cast
+accounts.
+
+There is a very ancient custom here, for a number of country neighbours
+among the poor people to fix upon some young woman that ought, as they
+think, to be married.  They also agree upon a young fellow as a proper
+husband for her.  This determined, they send to the fair one's cabin to
+inform her that on the Sunday following "she is to be horsed," that is,
+carried on men's backs.  She must then provide whisky and cider for a
+treat, as all will pay her a visit after mass for a hurling match.  As
+soon as she is horsed, the hurling begins, in which the young fellow
+appointed for her husband has the eyes of all the company fixed on him.
+If he comes off conqueror, he is certainly married to the girl; but if
+another is victorious, he as certainly loses her, for she is the prize of
+the victor.  These trials are not always finished in one Sunday; they
+take sometimes two or three, and the common expression when they are over
+is, that "such a girl was goaled."  Sometimes one barony hurls against
+another, but a marriageable girl is always the prize.  Hurling is a sort
+of cricket, but instead of throwing the ball in order to knock down a
+wicket, the aim is to pass it through a bent stick, the end stuck in the
+ground.  In these matches they perform such feats of activity as ought to
+evidence the food they live on to be far from deficient in nourishment.
+
+In the hills above Derry are some very fine slate quarries, that employ
+sixty men.  The quarrymen are paid 3s. a thousand for the slates, and the
+labourers 5d. a day.  They are very fine, and sent by the Shannon to
+distant parts of the kingdom; the price at the quarry 6s. a thousand, and
+at the shore 6s. 8d.  Four hundred thousand slates are raised to pay the
+rent only, from which some estimate may be made of the quantity.
+
+Mr. Head has a practice in his fences which deserves universal imitation;
+it is planting trees for gate-posts.  Stone piers are expensive, and
+always tumbling down; trees are beautiful, and never want repairing.
+Within fifteen years this gentleman has improved Derry so much, that
+those who had only seen it before would find it almost a new creation.
+He has built a handsome stone house, on the slope of a hill rising from
+the Shannon, and backed by some fine woods, which unite with many old
+hedges well planted to form a woodland scene beautiful in the contrast to
+the bright expanse of the noble river below.  The declivity on which
+these woods are finishes in a mountain, which rises above the whole.  The
+Shannon gives a bend around the adjoining lands, so as to be seen from
+the house both to the west and north, the lawn falling gradually to a
+margin of wood on the shore, which varies the outline.  The river is two
+miles broad, and on the opposite shore cultivated inclosures rise in some
+places almost to the mountain top, which is very bold.
+
+It is a very singular demesne; a stripe of very beautiful ground,
+reaching two miles along the banks of the river, which forms his fence on
+one side, with a wall on the other.  There is so much wood as to render
+it very pleasing; adding to every day by planting all the fences made or
+repaired.  From several little hills, which rise in different parts of
+it, extensive views of the river are commanded quite to Portumna; but
+these are much eclipsed by that from the top of the hill above the slate
+quarry.  From thence you see the river for at least forty miles, from
+Portumna to twenty miles beyond Limerick.  It has the appearance of a
+fine basin, two miles over, into which three great rivers lead, being the
+north and south course and the Bay of Sheriff.  The reaches of it one
+beyond another to Portumna are fine.  At the foot of the mountain Mr.
+Head's demesne extends in a shore of rich woodland.
+
+October 7.  Took my leave of Mr. Head, after passing four days very
+agreeably.  Through Killaloe, over the Shannon, a very long bridge of
+many arches; went out of the road to see a fall of that river at Castle
+Connel, where there is such an accompaniment of wood as to form a very
+pleasing scenery.  The river takes a very rapid rocky course around a
+projecting rock, on which a gentleman has built a summer-house, and
+formed a terrace: it is a striking spot.  To Limerick.  Laid at Bennis's,
+the first inn we had slept in from Dublin.  God preserve us this journey
+from another!
+
+It is not uncommon, especially in mountainous countries, to find objects
+that much deserve the attention of travellers entirely neglected by them.
+There are a few instances of this upon Lord Kingsborough's estate, in the
+neighbourhood of Mitchelstown.  The first I shall mention is a cave at
+Skeheenrinky, on the road between Cahir and that place.  The opening to
+it is a cleft of rock in a limestone hill, so narrow as to be difficult
+to get into it.  I descended by a ladder of about twenty steps, and then
+found myself in a vault of a hundred feet long, and fifty or sixty high.
+A small hole on the left leads from this a winding course of I believe
+not less than half an Irish mile, exhibiting a variety that struck me
+much.  In some places the cavity in the rock is so large that when well
+lighted up by candles (not flambeaux; Lord Kingsborough once showed it me
+with them, and we found their smoke troublesome) it takes the appearance
+of a vaulted cathedral, supported by massy columns.  The walls, ceiling,
+floor, and pillars, are by turns composed of every fantastic form; and
+often of very beautiful incrustations of spar, some of which glitters so
+much that it seems powdered with diamonds; and in others the ceiling is
+formed of that sort which has so near a resemblance to a cauliflower.
+The spar formed into columns by the dropping of water has taken some very
+regular forms; but others are different, folded in plaits of light
+drapery, which hang from their support in a very pleasing manner.  The
+angles of the walls seem fringed with icicles.  One very long branch of
+the cave, which turns to the north, is in some places so narrow and low,
+that one crawls into it, when it suddenly breaks into large vaulted
+spaces, in a thousand forms.  The spar in all this cave is very
+brilliant, and almost equal to Bristol stone.  For several hundred yards
+in the larger branch there is a deep water at the bottom of the declivity
+to the right, which the common people call the river.  A part of the way
+is over a sort of potter's clay, which moulds into any form, and is of a
+brown colour; a very different soil from any in the neighbouring country.
+I have seen the famous cave in the Peak, but think it very much inferior
+to this; and Lord Kingsborough, who has viewed the Grot d'Aucel in
+Burgundy, says that it is not to be compared with it.
+
+But the commanding region of the Galtees deserves more attention.  Those
+who are fond of scenes in which Nature reigns in all her wild
+magnificence should visit this stupendous chain.  It consists of many
+vast mountains, thrown together in an assemblage of the most interesting
+features, from the boldness and height of the declivities, freedom of
+outline, and variety of parts, filling a space of about six miles by
+three or four.  Galtymore is the highest point, and rises like the lord
+and father of the surrounding progeny.  From the top you look down upon a
+great extent of mountain, which shelves away from him to the south, east,
+and west; but to the north the ridge is almost a perpendicular declivity.
+On that side the famous golden vale of Limerick and Tipperary spreads a
+rich level to the eye, bounded by the mountains of Clare, King's and
+Queen's Counties, with the course of the Shannon, for many miles below
+Limerick.  To the south you look over alternate ridges of mountains,
+which rise one beyond another, till in a clear day the eye meets the
+ocean near Dungarvan.  The mountains of Waterford and Knockmealdown fill
+up the space to the south-east.  The western is the most extensive view;
+for nothing stops the eye till Mangerton and Macgillicuddy Reeks point
+out the spot where Killarney's lake calls for a farther excursion.  The
+prospect extends into eight counties--Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick,
+Clare, Queen's, Tipperary, King's.
+
+A little to the west of this proud summit, below it in a very
+extraordinary hollow, is a circular lake of two acres, reported to be
+unfathomable.  The descriptions which I have read of the craters of
+exhausted volcanoes leave very little doubt of this being one; and the
+conical regularity of the summit of Galtymore speaks the same language.
+East of this respectable hill, to use Sir William Hamilton's language, is
+a declivity of about one-quarter of a mile, and there Galtybeg rises in a
+yet more regular cone; and between the two hills is another lake, which
+from its position seems to have been once the crater which threw up
+Galtybeg, as the first mentioned was the origin of Galtymore.  Beyond the
+former hill is a third lake, and east of that another hill; I was told of
+a fourth, with another corresponding mountain.  It is only the mere
+summits of these mountains which rise above the lakes.  Speaking of them
+below, they may be said to be on the tops of the hills.  They are all of
+them at the bottom of an almost regularly circular hollow.  On the side
+next the mountain-top are walls of perpendicular rocks, in regular
+strata, and some of them piled on each other, with an appearance of art
+rather than nature.  In these rocks the eagles, which are seen in numbers
+on the Galtees, have their nests.  Supposing the mountains to be of
+volcanic origin, and these lakes the craters, of which I have not a
+doubt, they are objects of the greatest curiosity, for there is an
+unusual regularity in every considerable summit having its corresponding
+crater.  But without this circumstance, the scenery is interesting in a
+very great degree.  The mountain summits, which are often wrapped in the
+clouds, at other times exhibit the freest outline; the immense scooped
+hollows which sink at your feet, declivities of so vast a depth as to
+give one terror to look down; with the unusual forms of the lower region
+of hills, particularly Bull Hill, and Round Hill, each a mile over, yet
+rising out of circular vales, with the regularity of semi-globes, unite
+upon the whole to exhibit a scenery to the eye in which the parts are of
+a magnitude so commanding, a character so interesting, and a variety so
+striking, that they well deserve to be examined by every curious
+traveller.
+
+Nor are these immense outlines the whole of what is to be seen in this
+great range of mountains.  Every glen has its beauties: there is a
+considerable mountain river, or rather torrent, in every one of them; but
+the greatest are the Funcheon, between Sefang and Galtymore; the
+Limestone river, between Galtymore and Round Hill, and the Grouse river,
+between Coolegarranroe and Mr. O'Callaghan's mountain; these present to
+the eye, for a tract of about three miles, every variety that rock,
+water, and mountain can give, thrown into all the fantastic forms which
+art may attempt in ornamented grounds, but always fails in.  Nothing can
+exceed the beauty of the water, when not discoloured by rain; its lucid
+transparency shows, at considerable depths, every pebble no bigger than a
+pin, every rocky basin alive with trout and eels, that play and dash
+among the rocks as if endowed with that native vigour which animates, in
+a superior degree, every inhabitant of the mountains, from the bounding
+red deer and the soaring eagle down even to the fishes of the brook.
+Every five minutes you have a water-fall in these glens, which in any
+other region would stop every traveller to admire it.  Sometimes the vale
+takes a gentle declivity, and presents to the eye at one stroke twenty or
+thirty falls, which render the scenery all alive with motion; the rocks
+are tossed about in the wildest confusion, and the torrent bursts by
+turns from above, beneath, and under them; while the background is always
+filled up with the mountains which stretch around.
+
+In the western glen is the finest cascade in all the Galtees.  There are
+two falls, with a basin in the rock between, but from some points of view
+they appear one: the rock over which the water tumbles is about sixty
+feet high.  A good line in which to view these objects is either to take
+the Killarney and Mallow road to Mitchelstown and from thence by Lord
+Kingsborough's new one to Skeheenrinky, there to take one of the glens to
+Galtybeg and Galtymore, and return to Mitchelstown by the Wolf's Track,
+Temple Hill, and the Waterfall; or, if the Cork road is travelling, to
+make Dobbin's inn, at Ballyporeen, the head-quarters, and view them from
+thence.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Having heard much of the beauties of a part of the Queen's County I had
+not before seen, I took that line of country in my way on a journey to
+Dublin.
+
+From Mitchelstown to Cashel, the road leads as far as Galbally in the
+route already travelled from Cullen.  Towards Cashel the country is
+various.  The only objects deserving attention are the plantations of
+Thomastown, the seat of Francis Mathew, Esq.; they consist chiefly of
+hedgerow trees in double and treble rows, are well grown, and of such
+extent as to form an uncommon woodland scene in Ireland.  Found the widow
+Holland's inn, at Cashel, clean and very civil.  Take the road to
+Urlingford.  The rich sheep pastures, part of the famous golden vale,
+reach between three and four miles from Cashel to the great bog by Botany
+Hill, noted for producing a greater variety of plants than common.  That
+bog is separated by only small tracts of land from the string of bogs
+which extend through the Queen's County, from the great bog of Allen; it
+is here of considerable extent, and exceedingly improvable.  Then enter a
+low marshy bad country, which grows worse after passing the sixty-sixth
+milestone, and successive bogs in it.  Breakfast at Johnstown, a regular
+village on a slight eminence, built by Mr. Hayley.  It is near the spa of
+Ballyspellin.
+
+Rows of trees are planted, but their heads all cut off, I suppose from
+their not thriving, being planted too old.  Immediately on leaving these
+planted avenues, enter a row of eight or ten new cabins, at a distance
+from each other, which appear to be a new undertaking, the land about
+them all pared and burnt, and the ashes in heaps.
+
+Enter a fine planted country, with much corn and good thriving quick
+hedges for many miles.  The road leads through a large wood, which joins
+Lord Ashbrook's plantations, whose house is situated in the midst of more
+wood than almost any one I have seen in Ireland.  Pass Durrow; the
+country for two or three miles continues all inclosed with fine quick
+hedges, is beautiful, and has some resemblance to the best parts of
+Essex.  Sir Robert Staple's improvements join this fine tract.  They are
+completed in a most perfect manner, the hedges well grown, cut, and in
+such excellent order that I can scarcely believe myself to be in Ireland.
+His gates are all of iron.  These sylvan scenes continue through other
+seats, beautifully situated amidst gentle declivities of the finest
+verdure, full-grown woods, excellent hedges, and a pretty river winding
+by the house.  The whole environs of several would be admired in the best
+parts of England.
+
+Cross a great bog, within sight of Lord de Vesci's plantations.  The road
+leads over it, being drained for that purpose by deep cuts on either
+side.  I should apprehend this bog to be among the most improvable in the
+country.  Slept at Ballyroan, at an inn kept by three animals who call
+themselves women; met with more impertinence than at any other in
+Ireland.  It is an execrable hole.  In three or four miles pass Sir John
+Parnel's, prettily situated in a neatly dressed lawn, with much wood
+about it, and a lake quite alive with wild fowl.
+
+Pass Monstereven, and cross directly a large bog, drained and partly
+improved; but all of it bearing grass, and seems in a state that might
+easily be reduced to rich meadow, with only a dressing of lime.  Here I
+got again into the road I had travelled before.
+
+I must in general remark, that from near Urlingford to Dawson Court, near
+Monstereven, which is completely across the Queen's County, is a line of
+above thirty English miles, and is for that extent by much the most
+improved of any I have seen in Ireland.  It is generally well planted,
+has many woods, and not consisting of patches of plantation just by
+gentlemen's houses, but spreading over the whole face of the country, so
+as to give it the richness of an English woodland scene.  What a country
+would Ireland be had the inhabitants of the rest of it improved the whole
+like this!
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+SECTION I.--Soil, Face of the Country, and Climate.
+
+
+To judge of Ireland by the conversation one sometimes hears in England,
+it would be supposed that one-half of it was covered with bogs, and the
+other with mountains filled with Irish ready to fly at the sight of a
+civilised being.  There are people who will smile when they hear that, in
+proportion to the size of the two countries, Ireland is more cultivated
+than England, having much less waste land of all sorts.  Of uncultivated
+mountains there are no such tracts as are found in our four northern
+counties, and the North Riding of Yorkshire, with the eastern line of
+Lancaster, nearly down to the Peak of Derby, which form an extent of
+above a hundred miles of waste.  The most considerable of this sort in
+Ireland are in Kerry, Galway, and Mayo, and some in Sligo and Donegal.
+But all these together will not make the quantity we have in the four
+northern counties; the valleys in the Irish mountains are also more
+inhabited, I think, than those of England, except where there are mines,
+and consequently some sort of cultivation creeping up the sides.  Natural
+fertility, acre for acre over the two kingdoms, is certainly in favour of
+Ireland; of this I believe there can scarcely be a doubt entertained,
+when it is considered that some of the more beautiful, and even best
+cultivated counties in England, owe almost everything to the capital,
+art, and industry of the inhabitants.
+
+The circumstance which strikes me as the greatest singularity of Ireland
+is the rockiness of the soil, which should seem at first sight against
+that degree of fertility; but the contrary is the fact.  Stone is so
+general, that I have great reason to believe the whole island is one vast
+rock of different strata and kinds rising out of the sea.  I have rarely
+heard of any great depths being sunk without meeting with it.  In general
+it appears on the surface in every part of the kingdom; the flattest and
+most fertile parts, as Limerick, Tipperary, and Meath, have it at no
+great depth, almost as much as the more barren ones.  May we not
+recognise in this the hand of bounteous Providence, which has given
+perhaps the most stony soil in Europe to the moistest climate in it?  If
+as much rain fell upon the clays of England (a soil very rarely met with
+in Ireland, and never without much stone) as falls upon the rocks of her
+sister island, those lands could not be cultivated.  But the rocks are
+here clothed with verdure; those of limestone, with only a thin covering
+of mould, have the softest and most beautiful turf imaginable.
+
+Of the great advantages resulting from the general plenty of limestone
+and limestone gravel, and the nature of the bogs, I shall have occasion
+to speak more particularly hereafter.
+
+The rockiness of the soil in Ireland is so universal that it predominates
+in every sort.  One cannot use with propriety the terms clay, loam, sand,
+etc.; it must be a stony clay, a stony loam, a gravelly sand.  Clay,
+especially the yellow, is much talked of in Ireland, but it is for want
+of proper discrimination.  I have once or twice seen almost a pure clay
+upon the surface, but it is extremely rare.  The true yellow clay is
+usually found in a thin stratum under the surface mould, and over a rock;
+harsh, tenacious, stony, strong loams, difficult to work, are not
+uncommon: but they are quite different from English clays.
+
+Friable, sandy loams, dry but fertile, are very common, and they form the
+best soils in the kingdom for tillage and sheep.  Tipperary and Roscommon
+abound particularly in them.  The most fertile of all are the bullock
+pastures of Limerick, and the banks of the Shannon in Clare, called the
+Corcasses.  These are a mellow, putrid, friable loam.
+
+Sand which is so common in England, and yet more common through Spain,
+France, Germany, and Poland, quite from Gibraltar to Petersburg, is
+nowhere met with in Ireland, except for narrow slips of hillocks, upon
+the sea coast.  Nor did I ever meet with or hear of a chalky soil.
+
+The bogs, of which foreigners have heard so much, are very extensive in
+Ireland; that of Allen extends eighty miles, and is computed to contain
+three hundred thousand acres.  There are others also, very extensive, and
+smaller ones scattered over the whole kingdom; but these are not in
+general more than are wanted for fuel.  When I come to speak of the
+improvement of waste lands, I shall describe them particularly.
+
+Besides the great fertility of the soil, there are other circumstances
+which come within my sphere to mention.  Few countries can be better
+watered by large and beautiful rivers; and it is remarkable that by much
+the finest parts of the kingdom are on the banks of these rivers.
+Witness the Suir, Blackwater, the Liffey, the Boyne, the Nore, the
+Barrow, and part of the Shannon, they wash a scenery that can hardly be
+exceeded.  From the rockiness of the country, however, there are few of
+them that have not obstructions, which are great impediments to inland
+navigation.
+
+The mountains of Ireland give to travelling that interesting variety
+which a flat country can never abound with.  And, at the same time, they
+are not in such number as to confer the usual character of poverty which
+attends them.  I was either upon or very near the most considerable in
+the kingdom.  Mangerton, and the Reeks, in Kerry; the Galties in Cork;
+those of Mourne in Down; Crow Patrick, and Nephin in Mayo, these are the
+principal in Ireland, and they are of a character, in height and
+sublimity, which should render them the objects of every traveller's
+attention.
+
+Relative to the climate of Ireland, a short residence cannot enable a man
+to speak much from his own experience; the observations I have made
+myself confirm the idea of its being vastly wetter than England; from the
+20th of June to the 20th of October I kept a register, and there were, in
+one hundred and twenty-two days, seventy-five of rain, and very many of
+them incessant and heavy.  I have examined similar registers I kept in
+England, and can find no year that even approaches to such a moisture as
+this.  But there is a register of an accurate diary published which
+compares London and Cork.  The result is, that the quantity at the latter
+place was double to that at London.  See Smith's "History of Cork."
+
+From the information I received, I have reason to believe that the rainy
+season sets in usually about the first of July and continues very wet
+till September or October, when there is usually a dry fine season of a
+month or six weeks.  I resided in the county of Cork, etc., from October
+till March, and found the winter much more soft and mild than ever I
+experienced one in England.  I was also a whole summer there (1778), and
+it is fair to mention that it was as fine a one as ever I knew in
+England, though by no means so hot.  I think hardly so wet as very many I
+have known in England.  The tops of the Galty mountains exhibited the
+only snow we saw; and as to frosts, they were so slight and rare that I
+believe myrtles, and yet tenderer plants, would have survived without any
+covering.  But when I say that the winter was not remarkable for being
+wet, I do not mean that we had a dry atmosphere.  The inches of rain
+which fell in the winter I speak of would not mark the moisture of the
+climate.  As many inches will fall in a single tropical shower as in a
+whole year in England.  See Mitchel's "Present State of Great Britain and
+North America."  But if the clouds presently disperse, and a bright sun
+shines, the air may soon be dry.  The worst circumstance of the climate
+of Ireland is the constant moisture without rain.  Wet a piece of
+leather, and lay it in a room where there is neither sun nor fire, and it
+will not in summer even be dry in a month.  I have known gentlemen in
+Ireland deny their climate being moister than England, but if they have
+eyes let them open them, and see the verdure that clothes their rocks,
+and compare it with ours in England--where rocky soils are of a russet
+brown however sweet the food for sheep.  Does not their island lie more
+exposed to the great Atlantic; and does not the west wind blow
+three-fourths of a year?  If there was another island yet more westward,
+would not the climate of Ireland be improved?  Such persons speak equally
+against fact, reason, and philosophy.  That the moisture of a climate
+does not depend on the quantity of rain that falls, but on the powers of
+aerial evaporation, Dr. Dobson has clearly proved.  "Phil. Trans." vol.
+lxvii., part i., p. 244.
+
+
+Oppression.
+
+
+Before I conclude this article of the common labouring poor in Ireland, I
+must observe, that their happiness depends not merely upon the payment of
+their labour, their clothes, or their food; the subordination of the
+lower classes, degenerating into oppression, is not to be overlooked.
+The poor in all countries, and under all governments, are both paid and
+fed, yet there is an infinite difference between them in different ones.
+This inquiry will by no means turn out so favourable as the preceding
+articles.  It must be very apparent to every traveller through that
+country, that the labouring poor are treated with harshness, and are in
+all respects so little considered that their want of importance seems a
+perfect contrast to their situation in England, of which country,
+comparatively speaking, they reign the sovereigns.  The age has improved
+so much in humanity, that even the poor Irish have experienced its
+influence, and are every day treated better and better; but still the
+remnant of the old manners, the abominable distinction of religion,
+united with the oppressive conduct of the little country gentlemen, or
+rather vermin of the kingdom, who never were out of it, altogether bear
+still very heavy on the poor people, and subject them to situations more
+mortifying than we ever behold in England.  The landlord of an Irish
+estate, inhabited by Roman Catholics, is a sort of despot who yields
+obedience, in whatever concerns the poor, to no law but that of his will.
+To discover what the liberty of the people is, we must live among them,
+and not look for it in the statutes of the realm: the language of written
+law may be that of liberty, but the situation of the poor may speak no
+language but that of slavery.  There is too much of this contradiction in
+Ireland; a long series of oppressions, aided by many very ill-judged
+laws, have brought landlords into a habit of exerting a very lofty
+superiority, and their vassals into that of an almost unlimited
+submission: speaking a language that is despised, professing a religion
+that is abhorred and being disarmed, the poor find themselves in many
+cases slaves even in the bosom of written liberty.  Landlords that have
+resided much abroad are usually humane in their ideas, but the habit of
+tyranny naturally contracts the mind, so that even in this polished age
+there are instances of a severe carriage towards the poor, which is quite
+unknown in England.
+
+A landlord in Ireland can scarcely invent an order which a servant,
+labourer, or cottar dares to refuse to execute.  Nothing satisfies him
+but an unlimited submission.  Disrespect, or anything tending towards
+sauciness, he may punish with his cane or his horsewhip with the most
+perfect security; a poor man would have his bones broke if he offered to
+lift his hands in his own defence.  Knocking-down is spoken of in the
+country in a manner that makes an Englishman stare.  Landlords of
+consequence have assured me that many of their cottars would think
+themselves honoured by having their wives and daughters sent for to the
+bed of their master; a mark of slavery that proves the oppression under
+which such people must live.  Nay, I have heard anecdotes of the lives of
+people being made free with without any apprehension of the justice of a
+jury.  But let it not be imagined that this is common; formerly it
+happened every day, but law gains ground.  It must strike the most
+careless traveller to see whole strings of cars whipped into a ditch by a
+gentleman's footman to make way for his carriage; if they are overturned
+or broken in pieces, no matter, it is taken in patience; were they to
+complain they would perhaps be horsewhipped.  The execution of the laws
+lies very much in the hands of justices of the peace, many of whom are
+drawn from the most illiberal class in the kingdom.  If a poor man lodges
+a complaint against a gentleman, or any animal that chooses to call
+itself a gentleman, and the justice issues out a summons for his
+appearance, it is a fixed affront, and he will infallibly be called out.
+Where manners are in conspiracy against law, to whom are the oppressed
+people to have recourse?  It is a fact, that a poor man having a contest
+with a gentleman, must--but I am talking nonsense, they know their
+situation too well to think of it; they can have no defence, but by means
+of protection from one gentleman against another, who probably protects
+his vassal as he would the sheep he intends to eat.
+
+The colours of this picture are not charged.  To assert that all these
+cases are common would be an exaggeration, but to say that an unfeeling
+landlord will do all this with impunity, is to keep strictly to truth:
+and what is liberty but a farce and a jest, if its blessings are received
+as the favour of kindness and humanity, instead of being the inheritance
+of right?
+
+Consequences have flowed from these oppressions which ought long ago to
+have put a stop to them.  In England we have heard much of White-boys,
+Steel-boys, Oak-boys, Peep-of-day-boys, etc.  But these various
+insurgents are not to be confounded, for they are very different.  The
+proper distinction in the discontents of the people is into Protestant
+and Catholic.  All but the White-boys were among the manufacturing
+Protestants in the north: the White-boys Catholic labourers in the south.
+From the best intelligence I could gain, the riots of the manufacturers
+had no other foundation but such variations in the manufacture as all
+fabrics experience, and which they had themselves known and submitted to
+before.  The case, however, was different with the White-boys, who being
+labouring Catholics met with all those oppressions I have described, and
+would probably have continued in full submission had not very severe
+treatment in respect of tithes, united with a great speculative rise of
+rent about the same time, blown up the flame of resistance; the atrocious
+acts they were guilty of made them the object of general indignation;
+acts were passed for their punishment, which seemed calculated for the
+meridian of Barbary.  This arose to such a height that by one they were
+to be hanged under circumstances without the common formalities of a
+trial, which, though repealed the following session, marks the spirit of
+punishment; while others remain yet the law of the land, that would if
+executed tend more to raise than quell an insurrection.  From all which
+it is manifest that the gentlemen of Ireland never thought of a radical
+cure from overlooking the real cause of the disease, which in fact lay in
+themselves, and not in the wretches they doomed to the gallows.  Let them
+change their own conduct entirely, and the poor will not long riot.
+Treat them like men who ought to be as free as yourselves.  Put an end to
+that system of religious persecution which for seventy years has divided
+the kingdom against itself; in these two circumstances lies the cure of
+insurrection; perform them completely, and you will have an affectionate
+poor, instead of oppressed and discontented vassals.
+
+A better treatment of the poor in Ireland is a very material point of the
+welfare of the whole British Empire.  Events may happen which may
+convince us fatally of this truth; if not, oppression must have broken
+all the spirit and resentment of men.  By what policy the Government of
+England can for so many years have permitted such an absurd system to be
+matured in Ireland is beyond the power of plain sense to discover.
+
+
+Emigrations.
+
+
+Before the American war broke out, the Irish and Scotch emigrations were
+a constant subject of conversation in England, and occasioned much
+discourse even in parliament.  The common observation was, that if they
+were not stopped, those countries would be ruined, and they were
+generally attributed to a great rise of rents.  Upon going over to
+Ireland I determined to omit no opportunities of discovering the cause
+and extent of this emigration, and my information, as may be seen in the
+minutes of the journey, was very regular.  I have only a few general
+remarks to make on it here.
+
+The spirit of emigration in Ireland appeared to be confined to two
+circumstances, the Presbyterian religion, and the linen manufacture.  I
+heard of very few emigrants except among manufacturers of that
+persuasion.  The Catholics never went; they seem not only tied to the
+country, but almost to the parish in which their ancestors lived.  As to
+the emigration in the north it was an error in England to suppose it a
+novelty which arose with the increase in rents.  The contrary was the
+fact; it had subsisted perhaps forty years, insomuch that at the ports of
+Belfast, Derry, etc., the passenger trade, as they called it, had long
+been a regular branch of commerce, which employed several ships, and
+consisted in carrying people to America.  The increasing population of
+the country made it an increasing trade, but when the linen trade was
+low, the passenger trade was always high.  At the time of Lord Donegan
+letting his estate in the north, the linen business suffered a temporary
+decline, which sent great numbers to America, and gave rise to the error
+that it was occasioned by the increase of his rents.  The fact, however,
+was otherwise, for great numbers of those who went from his lands
+actually sold those leases for considerable sums, the hardship of which
+was supposed to have driven them to America.  Some emigration, therefore,
+always existed, and its increase depended on the fluctuations of linen;
+but as to the effect there was as much error in the conclusions drawn in
+England as before in the cause.
+
+It is the misfortune of all manufactures worked for a foreign market to
+be upon an insecure footing; periods of declension will come, and when in
+consequence of them great numbers of people are out of employment, the
+best circumstance is their enlisting in the army or navy, and it is the
+common result; but unfortunately the manufacture in Ireland (of which I
+shall have occasion to speak more hereafter) is not confined as it ought
+to be to towns, but spreads into all cabins of the country.  Being half
+farmers, half manufacturers, they have too much property in cattle, etc.,
+to enlist when idle; if they convert it into cash it will enable them to
+pay their passage to America, an alternative always chosen in preference
+to the military life.  The consequence is, that they must live without
+work till their substance is quite consumed before they will enlist.  Men
+who are in such a situation that from various causes they cannot work,
+and won't enlist, should emigrate; if they stay at home they must remain
+a burthen upon the community.  Emigration should not, therefore, be
+condemned in states so ill-governed as to possess many people willing to
+work, but without employment.
+
+
+
+SECTION II.--Roads, Cars.
+
+
+For a country, so very far behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so
+much the start of us in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot
+fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly.  But from this
+commendation the turnpikes in general must be excluded; they are as bad
+as the bye-roads are admirable.  It is a common complaint that the tolls
+of the turnpikes are so many jobs, and the roads left in a state that
+disgrace the kingdom.
+
+The following is the system on which the cross-roads are made.  Any
+person wishing to make or mend a road has it measured by two persons, who
+swear to the measurement before a justice of the peace.  It is described
+as leading from one market-town to another (it matters not in what
+direction), that it will be a public good, and that it will require such
+a sum per perch of twenty-one feet, to make or repair the same.  A
+certificate to this purpose (of which printed forms are sold), with the
+blanks filled up, is signed by the measurers, and also by two persons
+called overseers, one of whom is usually the person applying for the
+road, the other the labourer he intends to employ as an overseer of the
+work, which overseer swears also before the justice the truth of the
+valuation.  The certificate thus prepared is given by any person to some
+one of the grand jury, at either of the assizes, but usually in the
+spring.  When all the common business of trials is over, the jury meets
+on that of roads; the chairman reads the certificates, and they are all
+put to the vote, whether to be granted or not.  If rejected, they are
+torn in pieces and no further notice taken; if granted, they are put on
+the file.
+
+This vote of approbation, without any further form, enables the person
+who applied for the presentment immediately to construct or repair the
+road in question, which he must do at his own expense; he must finish it
+by the following assizes, when he is to send a certificate of his having
+expended the money pursuant to the application; this certificate is
+signed by the foreman, who also signs an order on the treasurer of the
+county to pay him, which is done immediately.  In like manner are
+bridges, houses of correction, gaols, etc. etc., built and repaired.  If
+a bridge over a river which parts two counties, half is done by one and
+the other half by the other county.
+
+The expense of these works is raised by a tax on the lands, paid by the
+tenant; in some counties it is acreable, but in others it is on the
+plough land, and as no two plough lands are of the same size, is a very
+unequal tax.  In the county of Meath it is acreable, and amounts to one
+shilling per acre, being the highest in Ireland; but in general it is
+from threepence to sixpence per acre, and amounts of late years through
+the whole kingdom to one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.
+
+The juries will very rarely grant a presentment for a road which amounts
+to above fifty pounds, or for more than six or seven shillings a perch,
+so that if a person wants more to be made than such a sum will do, he
+divides it into two or three different measurements or presentments.  By
+the Act of Parliament, all presentment-roads must be twenty-one feet wide
+at least from fence to fence, and fourteen feet of it formed with stone
+or gravel.
+
+As the power of the grand jury extends in this manner to the cutting new
+roads where none ever were before, as well as to the repairing and
+widening old ones, exclusive, however, of parks, gardens, etc., it was
+necessary to put a restriction against the wanton expense of it.  Any
+presentment may be traversed that is opposed, by denying the allegations
+of the certificate; this is sure of delaying it until another assizes,
+and in the meantime persons are appointed to view the line of road
+demanded, and report on the necessity or hardship of the case.  The
+payment of the money may also be traversed after the certificate of its
+being laid out; for if any person views and finds it a manifest
+imposition and job, he has that power to delay payment until the cause is
+cleared up and proved.  But this traverse is not common.  Any persons are
+eligible for asking presentments; but it is usually done only by resident
+gentlemen, agents, clergy, or respectable tenantry.  It follows
+necessarily, that every person is desirous of making the roads leading to
+his own house, and that private interest alone is considered in it, which
+I have heard objected to the measure; but this I must own appears to me
+the great merit of it.  Whenever individuals act for the public alone,
+the public is very badly served; but when the pursuit of their own
+interest is the way to benefit the public, then is the public good sure
+to be promoted; such is the case of presentment of roads: for a few years
+the good roads were all found leading from houses like rays from a
+centre, with a surrounding space, without any communication; but every
+year brought the remedy, until in a short time, those rays pointing from
+so many centres met, and then the communication was complete.  The
+original Act passed but seventeen years ago, and the effect of it in all
+parts of the kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable
+to travel upon wheels by a map; I will go here; I will go there; I could
+trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate, and everywhere I
+found beautiful roads without break or hindrance, to enable me to realise
+my design.  What a figure would a person make in England, who should
+attempt to move in that manner, where the roads, as Dr. Burn has well
+observed, are almost in as bad a state as in the time of Philip and Mary.
+In a few years there will not be a piece of bad road except turnpikes in
+all Ireland.  The money raised for this first and most important of all
+national purposes, is expended among the people who pay it, employs
+themselves and their teams, encourages their agriculture, and facilitates
+so greatly the improvement of waste lands, that it ought always to be
+considered as the first step to any undertaking of that sort.
+
+At first, roads, in common with bridges, were paid out of the general
+treasure of the county, but by a subsequent act the road tax is now on
+baronies; each barony pays for its own roads.  By another act juries were
+enabled to grant presentments of narrow mountain roads, at two shillings
+and sixpence a perch.  By another, they were empowered to grant
+presentments of footpaths, by the side of roads, at one shilling a perch.
+By a very late act, they are also enabled to contract at three-halfpence
+per perch per annum from the first making of a road, for keeping it in
+repair, which before could not be done without a fresh presentment.
+Arthur King, Esq. of Moniva, whose agriculture is described in the
+preceding minutes, and who at that time represented the county of Galway,
+was the worthy citizen who first brought this excellent measure into
+parliament: Ireland, and every traveller that ever visits it ought, to
+the latest time, to revere the memory of such a distinguished benefactor
+to the public.  Before that time the roads, like those of England,
+remained impassable, under the miserable police of the six days' labour.
+Similar good effects would here flow from adopting the measure, which
+would ease the kingdom of a great burthen in its public effects
+absolutely contemptible; and the tax here, as in Ireland, ought to be so
+laid, as to be borne by the tenant whose business it is at present to
+repair.
+
+Upon the imperfections of the Irish system I have only to remark, that
+juries should, in some cases, be more ready than they are to grant these
+presentments.  In general, they are extremely liberal, but sometimes they
+take silly freaks of giving none, or very few.  Experience having proved,
+from the general goodness of the roads, that abuses cannot be very great,
+they should go on with spirit to perfect the great work throughout the
+kingdom; and as a check upon those who lay out the money, it might
+perhaps be advisable to print county maps of the presentment roads, with
+corresponding lists and tables of the names of all persons who have
+obtained presentments, the sums they received, and for what roads.  These
+should be given freely by the jurymen, to all their acquaintance, that
+every man might know, to whose carelessness or jobbing the public was
+indebted for bad roads, when they had paid for good ones.  Such a
+practice would certainly deter many.
+
+At 11,042,642 acres in the kingdom, 140,000 pounds a year amounts to just
+threepence an acre for the whole territory: a very trifling tax for such
+an improvement, and which almost ranks in public ease and benefit with
+that of the post-office.
+
+
+
+SECTION III.--Manners and Customs.
+
+
+    Quid leges sine moribus,
+    Vana proficiunt!
+
+It is but an illiberal business for a traveller, who designs to publish
+remarks upon a country to sit down coolly in his closet and write a
+satire on the inhabitants.  Severity of that sort must be enlivened with
+an uncommon share of wit and ridicule, to please.  Where very gross
+absurdities are found, it is fair and manly to note them; but to enter
+into character and disposition is generally uncandid, since there are no
+people but might be better than they are found, and none but have virtues
+which deserve attention, at least as much as their failings; for these
+reasons this section would not have found a place in my observations, had
+not some persons, of much more flippancy than wisdom, given very gross
+misrepresentations of the Irish nation.  It is with pleasure, therefore,
+that I take up the pen on the present occasion; as a much longer
+residence there enables me to exhibit a very different picture; in doing
+this, I shall be free to remark, wherein I think the conduct of certain
+classes may have given rise to general and consequently injurious
+condemnation.
+
+There are three races of people in Ireland, so distinct as to strike the
+least attentive traveller: these are the Spanish which are found in
+Kerry, and a part of Limerick and Cork, tall and thin, but well made, a
+long visage, dark eyes, and long black lank hair.  The time is not remote
+when the Spaniards had a kind of settlement on the coast of Kerry, which
+seemed to be overlooked by government.  There were many of them in Queen
+Elizabeth's reign, nor were they entirely driven out till the time of
+Cromwell.  There is an island of Valentia on that coast, with various
+other names, certainly Spanish.  The Scotch race is in the north, where
+are to be found the feature which are supposed to mark that people, their
+accent and many of their customs.  In a district near Dublin, but more
+particularly in the baronies of Bargie and Forth in the county of
+Wexford, the Saxon tongue is spoken without any mixture of the Irish, and
+the people have a variety of customs mentioned in the minutes, which
+distinguish them from their neighbours.  The rest of the kingdom is made
+up of mongrels.  The Milesian race of Irish, which may be called native,
+are scattered over the kingdom, but chiefly found in Connaught and
+Munster; a few considerable families, whose genealogy is undoubted,
+remain, but none of them with considerable possessions except the
+O'Briens and Mr. O'Neil; the former have near twenty thousand pounds a
+year in the family, the latter half as much, the remnant of a property
+once his ancestors, which now forms six or seven of the greatest estates
+in the kingdom.  O'Hara and M'Dermot are great names in Connaught, and
+O'Donnohue a considerable one in Kerry; but I heard of a family of
+O'Drischal's in Cork, who claim an origin prior in Ireland to any of the
+Milesian race.
+
+The only divisions which a traveller, who passed through the kingdom
+without making any residence could make, would be into people of
+considerable fortune and mob.  The intermediate division of the scale, so
+numerous and respectable in England, would hardly attract the least
+notice in Ireland.  A residence in the kingdom convinces one, however,
+that there is another class in general of small fortune--country
+gentlemen and renters of land.  The manners, habits, and customs of
+people of considerable fortune are much the same everywhere, at least
+there is very little difference between England and Ireland, it is among
+the common people one must look for those traits by which we discriminate
+a national character.  The circumstances which struck me most in the
+common Irish were, vivacity and a great and eloquent volubility of
+speech; one would think they could take snuff and talk without tiring
+till doomsday.  They are infinitely more cheerful and lively than
+anything we commonly see in England, having nothing of that incivility of
+sullen silence with which so many Englishmen seem to wrap themselves up,
+as if retiring within their own importance.  Lazy to an excess at work,
+but so spiritedly active at play, that at hurling, which is the cricket
+of savages, they shew the greatest feats of agility.  Their love of
+society is as remarkable as their curiosity is insatiable; and their
+hospitality to all comers, be their own poverty ever so pinching, has too
+much merit to be forgotten.  Pleased to enjoyment with a joke, or witty
+repartee, they will repeat it with such expression, that the laugh will
+be universal.  Warm friends and revengeful enemies; they are inviolable
+in their secrecy, and inevitable in their resentment; with such a notion
+of honour, that neither threat nor reward would induce them to betray the
+secret or person of a man, though an oppressor, whose property they would
+plunder without ceremony.  Hard drinkers and quarrelsome; great liars,
+but civil, submissive, and obedient.  Dancing is so universal among them,
+that there are everywhere itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottars
+pay sixpence a quarter for teaching their families.  Besides the Irish
+jig, which they can dance with a most luxuriant expression, minuets and
+country-dances are taught; and I even heard some talk of cotillions
+coming in.
+
+Some degree of education is also general, hedge schools, as they are
+called, (they might as well be termed ditch ones, for I have seen many a
+ditch full of scholars,) are everywhere to be met with where reading and
+writing are taught; schools are also common for men; I have seen a dozen
+great fellows at school, and was told they were educating with an
+intention of being priests.  Many strokes in their character are
+evidently to be ascribed to the extreme oppression under which they live.
+If they are as great thieves and liars as they are reported, it is
+certainly owing to this cause.
+
+If from the lowest class we rise to the highest, all there is gaiety,
+pleasure, luxury, and extravagance; the town life at Dublin is formed on
+the model of that of London.  Every night in the winter there is a ball
+or a party, where the polite circle meet, not to enjoy but to sweat each
+other; a great crowd crammed into twenty feet square gives a zest to the
+_agrements_ of small talk and whist.  There are four or five houses large
+enough to receive a company commodiously, but the rest are so small as to
+make parties detestable.  There is however an agreeable society in
+Dublin, in which a man of large fortune will not find his time heavy.
+The style of living may be guessed from the fortunes of the resident
+nobility and great commoners; there are about thirty that possess incomes
+from seven to twenty thousand pounds a year.  The court has nothing
+remarkable or splendid in it, but varies very much, according to the
+private fortune or liberality of disposition in the lord lieutenant.
+
+In the country their life has some circumstances which are not commonly
+seen in England.  Large tracts of land are kept in hand by everybody to
+supply the deficiencies of markets; this gives such a plenty, that,
+united with the lowness of taxes and prices, one would suppose it
+difficult for them to spend their incomes, if Dublin in the winter did
+not lend assistance.  Let it be considered that the prices of meat are
+much lower than in England; poultry only a fourth of the price; wild fowl
+and fish in vastly greater plenty; rum and brandy not half the price;
+coffee, tea, and wines far cheaper; labour not above a third; servants'
+wages upon an average thirty per cent. cheaper.  That taxes are
+inconsiderable, for there is no land-tax, no poor-rates, no window tax,
+no candle or soap tax, only half a wheel-tax, no servants' tax, and a
+variety of other articles heavily burdened in England, but not in
+Ireland.  Considering all this, one would think they could not spend
+their incomes; they do contrive it, however.  In this business they are
+assisted by two customs that have an admirable tendency to it, great
+numbers of horses and servants.
+
+In England such extensive demesnes would be parks around the seats for
+beauty as much as use, but it is not so in Ireland; the words deer-park
+and demesne are to be distinguished; there are great demesnes without any
+parks, but a want of taste, too common in Ireland, is having a deer-park
+at a distance from the house; the residence surrounded by walls, or
+hedges, or cabins; and the lawn inclosure scattered with animals of
+various sorts, perhaps three miles off.  The small quantity of corn
+proportioned to the total acres, shows how little tillage is attended to
+even by those who are the best able to carry it on; and the column of
+turnips proves in the clearest manner what the progress of improvement is
+in that kingdom.  The number of horses may almost be esteemed a satire
+upon common sense; were they well fed enough to be useful, they would not
+be so numerous, but I have found a good hack for a common ride scarce in
+a house where there were a hundred.  Upon an average, the horses in
+gentlemen's stables throughout the kingdom are not fed half so well as
+they are in England by men of equal fortune; yet the number makes the
+expense of them very heavy.
+
+Another circumstance to be remarked in the country life is the
+miserableness of many of their houses; there are men of five thousand a
+year in Ireland, who live in habitations that a man of seven hundred a
+year in England would disdain; an air of neatness, order, dress, and
+_proprete_, is wanting to a surprising degree around the mansion; even
+new and excellent houses have often nothing of this about them.  But the
+badness of the houses is remedying every hour throughout the whole
+kingdom, for the number of new ones just built, or building, is
+prodigiously great.  I should suppose there were not ten dwellings in the
+kingdom thirty years ago that were fit for an English pig to live in.
+Gardens were equally bad, but now they are running into the contrary
+extreme, and wall in five, six, ten, and even twenty Irish acres for a
+garden, but generally double or treble what is necessary.
+
+The tables of people of fortune are very plentifully spread; many
+elegantly, differing in nothing from those of England.  I think I
+remarked that venison wants the flavour it has with us, probably for the
+same reason, that the produce of rich parks is never equal to that of
+poor ones; the moisture of the climate, and the richness of the soil,
+give fat but not flavour.  Another reason is the smallness of the parks,
+a man who has three or four thousand acres in his hands, has not perhaps
+above three or four hundred in his deer-park, and range is a great point
+for good venison.  Nor do I think that garden vegetables have the flavour
+found in those of England, certainly owing to the climate; green peas I
+found everywhere perfectly insipid, and lettuce, etc., not good.  Claret
+is the common wine of all tables, and so much inferior to what is drunk
+in England, that it does not appear to be the same wine; but their port
+is incomparable, so much better than the English, as to prove, if proof
+was wanting, the abominable adulterations it must undergo with us.
+Drinking and duelling are two charges which have long been alleged
+against the gentlemen of Ireland, but the change of manners which has
+taken place in that kingdom is not generally known in England.
+Drunkenness ought no longer to be a reproach, for at every table I was at
+in Ireland I saw a perfect freedom reign, every person drank just as
+little as they pleased, nor have I ever been asked to drink a single
+glass more than I had an inclination for; I may go farther and assert
+that hard drinking is very rare among people of fortune; yet it is
+certain that they sit much longer at table than in England.  I was much
+surprised at first going over to find no summons to coffee, the company
+often sitting till eight, nine, or ten o'clock before they went to the
+ladies.  If a gentleman likes tea or coffee, he retires without saying
+anything; a stranger of rank may propose it to the master of the house,
+who from custom contrary to that of England, will not stir till he
+receives such a hint, as they think it would imply a desire to save their
+wine.  If the gentlemen were generally desirous of tea, I take it for
+granted they would have it, but their slighting is one inconvenience to
+such as desire it, not knowing when it is provided, conversation may
+carry them beyond the time, and then if they do trifle over the coffee it
+will certainly be cold.  There is a want of attention in this, which the
+ladies should remedy, if they will not break the old custom and send to
+the gentlemen, which is what they ought to do, they certainly should have
+a salver fresh.  I must, however, remark, that at the politest tables,
+which are those of people who have resided much out of Ireland, this
+point is conducted exactly as it is in England.
+
+Duelling was once carried to an excess, which was a real reproach and
+scandal to the kingdom; it of course proceeded from excessive drinking;
+as the cause has disappeared, the effect has nearly followed; not
+however, entirely, for it is yet far more common among people of fashion
+than in England.  Of all practices, a man who felt for the honour of his
+country would wish soonest to banish this, for there is not one
+favourable conclusion to be drawn from it: as to courage, nobody can
+question that of a polite and enlightened nation, entitled to a share of
+the reputation of the age; but it implies uncivilised manners, an
+ignorance of those forms which govern polite societies, or else a brutal
+drunkenness; the latter is no longer the cause or the pretence.  As to
+the former, they would place the national character so backward, would
+take from it so much of its pretence to civilisation, elegance and
+politeness of manners, that no true Irishman would be pleased with the
+imputation.  Certain it is, that none are so captious as those who think
+themselves neglected or despised; and none are so ready to believe
+themselves either one or the other as persons unused to good company.
+Captious people, therefore, who are ready to take an affront, must
+inevitably have been accustomed to ill company, unless there should be
+something uncommonly crooked in their natural dispositions, which is not
+to be supposed.  Let every man that fights his one, two, three, or
+half-a-dozen duels, receive it as a maxim, that every one he adds to the
+number is but an additional proof of his being ill-educated, and having
+vitiated his manners by the contagion of bad company; who is it that can
+reckon the most numerous rencontres? who but the bucks, bloods,
+landjobbers, and little drunken country gentlemen?  Ought not people of
+fashion to blush at a practice which will very soon be the distinction
+only of the most contemptible of the people? the point of honour will and
+must remain for the decision of certain affronts, but it will rarely be
+had recourse to in polite, sensible, and well-bred company.  The practice
+among real gentlemen in Ireland every day declining is a strong proof
+that a knowledge of the world corrects the old manners, and consequently
+its having ever been prevalent was owing to the causes to which I have
+attributed it.
+
+There is another point of manners somewhat connected with the present
+subject, which partly induced me to place a motto at the head of this
+section.  It is the conduct of juries; the criminal law of Ireland is the
+same as that of England, but in the execution it is so different as
+scarcely to be known.  I believe it is a fact, at least I have been
+assured so, that no man was ever hanged in Ireland for killing another in
+a duel: the security is such that nobody ever thought of removing out of
+the way of justice, yet there have been deaths of that sort, which had no
+more to do with honour than stabbing in the dark.  I believe Ireland is
+the only country in Europe, I am sure it is the only part of the British
+dominions, where associations among men of fortune are necessary for
+apprehending ravishers.  It is scarcely credible how many young women
+have even of late years been ravished, and carried off in order (as they
+generally have fortunes) to gain to appearance a voluntary marriage.
+These actions, it is true, are not committed by the class I am
+considering at present; but they are tried by them, and acquitted.  I
+think there has been only one man executed for that crime, which is so
+common as to occasion the associations I mentioned; it is to this supine
+execution of the law that such enormities are owing.  Another
+circumstance which has the effect of screening all sorts of offenders, is
+men of fortune protecting them, and making interest for their acquittal,
+which is attended with a variety of evil consequences.  I heard it
+boasted in the county of Fermanagh, that there had not been a man hanged
+in it for two-and-twenty years; all I concluded from this was, that there
+had been many a jury who deserved it richly.
+
+Let me, however, conclude what I have to observe on the conduct of the
+principal people residing in Ireland, that there are great numbers among
+them who are as liberal in all their ideas as any people in Europe; that
+they have seen the errors which have given an ill character to the
+manners of their country, and done everything that example could effect
+to produce a change: that that happy change has been partly effected, and
+is effecting every hour, insomuch that a man may go into a vast variety
+of families which he will find actuated by no other principles than those
+of the most cultivated politeness, and the most liberal urbanity.
+
+But I must now come to another class of people, to whose conduct it is
+almost entirely owing that the character of the nation has not that
+lustre abroad, which I dare assert it will soon very generally merit:
+this is the class of little country gentlemen; tenants, who drink their
+claret by means of profit rents; jobbers in farms; bucks; your fellows
+with round hats, edged with gold, who hunt in the day, get drunk in the
+evening, and fight the next morning.  I shall not dwell on a subject so
+perfectly disagreeable, but remark that these are the men among whom
+drinking, wrangling, quarrelling, fighting, ravishing, etc. etc. are
+found as in their native soil; once to a degree that made them a pest of
+society; they are growing better, but even now, one or two of them got by
+accident (where they have no business) into better company are sufficient
+very much to derange the pleasures that result from a liberal
+conversation.  A new spirit; new fashions; new modes of politeness
+exhibited by the higher ranks are imitated by the lower, which will, it
+is to be hoped, put an end to this race of beings; and either drive their
+sons and cousins into the army or navy, or sink them into plain farmers
+like those we have in England, where it is common to see men with much
+greater property without pretending to be gentlemen.  I repeat it from
+the intelligence I received, that even this class are very different from
+what they were twenty years ago, and improve so fast that the time will
+soon come when the national character will not be degraded by any set.
+
+That character is upon the whole respectable: it would be unfair to
+attribute to the nation at large the vices and follies of only one class
+of individuals.  Those persons from whom it is candid to take a general
+estimate do credit to their country.  That they are a people learned,
+lively, and ingenious, the admirable authors they have produced will be
+an eternal monument; witness their Swift, Sterne, Congreve, Boyle,
+Berkeley, Steele, Farquhar, Southerne, and Goldsmith.  Their talent for
+eloquence is felt, and acknowledged in the parliaments of both the
+kingdoms.  Our own service both by sea and land, as well as that
+(unfortunately for us) of the principal monarchies of Europe, speak their
+steady and determined courage.  Every unprejudiced traveller who visits
+them will be as much pleased with their cheerfulness, as obliged by their
+hospitality; and will find them a brave, polite, and liberal people.
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TOUR IN IRELAND***
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