matters somewhat above the superstitious absurdities of the people.

"If you wish your daughter to be cured," said he to her father," leave the house you are now living in. Take her to some part of the country where she can have companions of her own class and state of life to mingle with; bring her away from the place altogether; for you may rest assured that so long as there are objects before her eyes to remind her of what happened, she will not mend on your hands."

The father, although he sat rent free, took this excellent advice, even at a sacrifice of some comfort: for nothing short of the temptation of easy circumstances could have induced any man to reside in so wild and remote a solitude. In the course of a few days he removed from it with his family, and came to reside amidst the cheerful aspect and enlivening intercourse of human life. The consequences were precisely as the man had told him. In the course of a few weeks the little girl began to find that the visits of the spectre were like those of angels, few and far between. She was sent to school, and what with the confidence derived from human society, and the substitution of new objects and images, she soon perfectly recovered, and ere long was thoroughly set free from the fearful creation of her own brain.

Now, there is scarcely one of the people in my native parish who does not believe that the spirit of this man came back to the world, and actually appeared to this little girl. The time, however, is fast coming when these empty bugbears will altogether disappear, and we shall entertain more reverend and becoming notions of God than to suppose such senseless pranks could be played by the soul of a departed being under his permission. We might as well assert that the imaginary beings which surround the couch of the madman or hypochondriac have a real existence, as those that are conjured up by terror, weak nerves, or impure blood.

The spot where the body of M'Kenna was found is now marked by a little heap of stones, which has been collected since the melancholy event of his death. Every person who passes it throws a stone upon the heap; but why this old custom is practised, or what it means, I do not know, unless it be simply to mark the spot as a visible means of preserving the memory of the occurrence.

Daly's house, the scene of the supposed apparition, is now a shapeless ruin, which could scarcely be seen were it not for the green spot that was once a garden, and which now shines at a distance like an emerald, but with no agreeable or pleasing associations. It is a spot which no solitary schoolboy will ever visit, nor indeed would the unflinching believer in the popular nonsense of ghosts wish to pass it without a companion. It is under any circumstances a gloomy and barren place, but when looked upon in connection with what we have just recited, it is lonely, desolate, and awful.

consider superstitious prejudices can better be extinguished than by inducing accuracy of observation of natural phenomena, which shows that nothing supernatural exists. The second charge, that the hedgehog is a robber of orchards, is a very old one. Pliny, as translated by Holland, states "Hedgehogs make their provision beforehand of meat for winter in this wise: they wallow and roll themselves upon apples and such fruit lying under foot, and so catch them up with their prickles, and one more besides they take in their mouth, and so carry them into hollow trees."

Now, this has no foundation in fact. True it is that the hedgehog is very often found in the neighbourhood of orchards; but then this may be accounted for by the fact that the fences of such places are usually of exactly the thick and unfrequented kind the animal best likes to inhabit. Our repeated experience has never enabled us to discover that a hedgehog will eat apples; on the contrary, in early youth, when imbued with the general belief that this fruit was their diet, we have in more than one or two instances (most cruelly as we now believe) starved to death unfortunate specimens, which we shut up in a box with an ample supply of apples, not one of which they ever ate. That a magpie will steal and hide silver spoons, or a raven silk stockings, we know, and may use it as an argument that animals steal what they do not want; but that a hedgehog steals apples in the way stated, experiment will at once prove to be untrue, for, from the varied position of the points of the spines when fixed, it is impossible to fasten an apple upon them; and when they are not fixed, they yield at once to the pressure made in the attempt. Though domesticated hedgehogs can easily be brought to feed on bread and milk or dressed vegetables, yet all our observation goes to prove that in a state of nature, or when permitted to stray in a garden, they never eat any but animal food. This is at variance with the generally received opinion, which is supported by the authority of White, who, in his admirable History of Selborne, complains that hedgehogs injured his garden by boring with their long snouts under the plantain that grew in his grass walks, eating off the root upwards, leaving the tufts of leaves untouched, and defacing his grounds by making unsightly holes. He then immediately goes on to prove that these identical animals used beetles as no inconsiderable portion of their food. Now, it strikes us that his previous observation was not made with his usual accuracy, and that the hedgehogs did not eat the roots of plantain, but dug up where they had been to catch the larvae of beetles that had just devoured them. Thus rooks have been charged with wantonly plucking up grass, while the truth is, that they only pull up plants attacked at the root by the larva of the cockchaffer or some other of the Phytophagous coleop tera (as vegetable-eating beetles are called), catch in the fact the destructive insect, and so stop its ravages; thus rendering important services to those who, for lack of accurate observation, falsely accuse and mischievously shoot them. Trusting we have satisfied you that the hedgehog does not steal apples, we come to the next charge, that he sucks cows. To refute this we have the best possible evidence in the animal's mouth, the structure of which is completely unsuited to the accomplishment of such an object. That he will drink milk with avidity when domesticated, is certain, but this is only a taste he acquires in common with hundreds of other animals: there is scarcely one that may not be induced to relish such diet. Having thus cleared our hero (a name he fully deserves, as he wins battles by passive resistance) from the charges brought against him, we proceed to give some anecdotes of our personal knowledge, and shall finish with a few interesting facts in his history, for the information of those who take pleasure in accurate acquaintance with nature's works.

We have before mentioned our starving of hedgehogs by endeavouring to make them eat apples. In one of these cases we suffered no small retribution. We were at school in these days, and a practice existed amongst us called "slating." It was an innocent imitation of the murderous attacks made in Dublin by short-sighted combinators on such of their fellow tradesmen as refused obedience to their mischievous laws. With us it consisted in waylaying each other in the dark passages, and striking with the open palms the hats or caps of the surprised over the eyes. Having been thus treated many times, we bethought ourselves of turning our starved hedge hog to account, and proceeded to skin him with the intent of making a cap; so that when again "slated," the attacking party would find reason to call out in the words of Chaucer, "Like sharpe urchins his hair was growe."

Accordingly, having hanged the animal up against a tree, we were essaying, by pulling, to effect a solution of continuity, as a surgeon would call it, between his body and skin, when the nail gave way, and he came down with considerable force on our forehead, accupuncturating us most awfully. The pain at the time was very great, and considerable soreness continued for several days, so much so that we were induced to suspect that some poisonous virus existed. We introduce this story for the purpose of calling attention to the effects of the spines when brought into action. Though experience induces us to believe that their punctures are more painful than those of pins and needles, we have not been able to ascertain why they should be so. Disabled in our attempt, we abandoned the skin, and it became common property. It was for some time used as one of the instruments for initiating the Johnny Newcomes into the mysteries of school life. Not a few will recollect how, when chilled by a previous salting or seasoning, as we called it, of snow crammed into the mouth, eyes, nose, and down the back, their sense of vitality was aroused, when escaping to bed they threw themselves on its thorny pre-occupant. Many, doubtless, then heartily wished themselves again within the zone of mamma's apron-string; but the affair usually ended by storing up vengeance for, and the implement for executing it on, the next comer. A few years afterwards we procured another hedgehog, and provided him with earthworms, which he munged with great gusto. We mixed a few of them with bread and milk, and thus initiated him into this new diet. We tried him with frogs, mice, sparrows, and various other animal matters, of all of which he partook freely, and he soon became quite domesticated. We provided him a bed made in an old footstool in the kitchen; in this he remained during daylight rolled up in a ball of hay, from which it was quite a troublesome matter to extricate him; he could not be disentangled from it at all, without picking it carefully from his spines. Yet when he pleased himself to move, he came forth quite free, and did not drag a single filament out with him. He soon acquired a habit of making his appearance when tea was being served; the hissing of the water in the urn seemed to be his signal that his only meal was ready, for he regularly followed the servant who bore it into the tea-room, where he was indulged with a saucer of bread and milk on the rug before the fire. Having eaten as much as he desired, he commenced trotting about the room, taking precisely the same course round the legs of chairs and tables each time; and so he continued without a moment's cessation to the latest hour the household remained up. Like the Guinea-pig, he seemed to have the greatest dislike to running across the room. In the morning he was always found snug in his bed. At length he disappeared, but previously did good service by devouring the cockroaches and beetles which infested the house. The desire of the hedgehog to pursue a beaten track was further evidenced by one we kept in a garden, which continued for months the course he first took, though a portion of it consisted in climbing with difficulty over some tiles, which a few inches on either side would have avoided. We often put things in his path, and watched his proceedings: he shrunk at first on finding the obstruction, and then tumbled over it in the best way he could.

Again we got another, and having heard that he may be at once tamed by indulging him in whisky, we mixed some in a saucer with sugar, and dipping his nose into it, he licked his chops, then ventured to make a lap at the enticing material, and, "startled at the sound himself had made," he shrunk in, but came out again presently and lapped away most eagerly. The spirit soon showed its power, and like other beasts that indulge in it, he was any thing but himself; and his lacklustre leaden eye was rendered still less pleasing by its inane drunken expression. He staggered towards us in a ridiculously get-out-of-my-way sort of manner; however, he had not gone far before his potation produced all its effects; he tottered, then fell on his side; he was drunk in the full sense of the word; he could not even hold by the ground. We could then pull him about by the feet, open his mouth, twitch his whiskers, &c. : he was unresisting. There was a strange expression in his face of that self-confidence which we see in cowards when inspired by drinking. We put him away, and some twelve hours afterwards found him running about, and, as was predicted, quite tame, his spines lying so smoothly and regularly that he could be stroked down the back, and handled freely. We turned him into the kitchen to kill the cockroaches, and know nothing further of him.

Having given you so much of his manners, let us turn to his structural peculiarities. He is a small animal, not much larger than a rat when stripped of his spines and the muscular apparatus connected with them. It is this that enables him to roll himself up so as to present a chevaux-de-frize-like defence, impregnable to all ordinary enemies; and as there is much singularity in it, we will endeavour to describe it. On the back of the animal, between the skin and ribs, there is a large oval muscle with thickened edges, partially attached to the skin and spines. From this spring certain muscular bands, which are fixed firmly at the other ends to the head, tail, breast, and other parts of the body. The whole may be likened to a sort of elastic mantle, kept on the back by straps. When the owner wishes to roll up, he bends his body, then tightening the straps, he pulls the edge of the elastic mantle over, which contracting, draws it in as if it were a running string in a bag; at the same time the spines are fixed rigidly for defence by the straining of the muscles. There are many other interesting points in his anatomy. He possesses, as we do, well developed clavicles or collar-bones, which only exist in a rudimentary form in many quadrupeds. The peculiarities of his structure have exposed him to much, we will not say wanton cruelty, as its object was the increase of knowledge; it therefore should not be heavily censured, while so many unmeaning barbarities exist under the name of sports. It is stated as a proof of his endurance, that he has died without a groan under the slow process of zootomy inflicted upon him while nailed to a table. Such practices are seldom if ever engaged in at the present time.

The hedgehog is certainly a very apathetic creature, and at a low temperature becomes torpid; when in this condition he is doubtless devoid of feeling. Torpidity in many animals seems to stand in the place of migration in others, as a necessary condition when provision of food depends on season: in this case the fact seems to argue in favour of our position—that the hedgehog is in a state of nature strictly insectivorous; were it not so, torpidity would not seem necessary, as roots of vegetables could be had with facility as well at one season as the other. The hedgehog while torpid loses weight rather rapidly, so that the power of its remaining in this state is limited perhaps to a very few months.

The French academicians maintained long since that there were two species of hedgehog in their country. In reference to this, Ray, with his usual sagacity, after describing the common species, expresses a disbelief of there being another in Europe; a doubt since fully confirmed: for the dog and hog urchin, as the supposed species were called, have no more existence than the dog and hog badgers of our sportsmen have as distinct animals. Old authors notice several species under the name of hedgehog; but it appears by more accurate observation that but two of the animals mentioned by them are entitled to this name, viz. the one in question and the longeared urchin of Siberia.

Since 1832, at least three other species have been enrolled in the records of science. It is said that when hedgehogs are born, their ears as well as their eyes are closed, and the former circumstance is noticed as a unique fact; however, another instance of imperforate ears occurred to us, in the case of a black bear cubbed at the gardens of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland: it lived but a few hours. The ear of the hedgehog, in the structure of its bony parts, presents some peculiarities strikingly different from most other quadrupeds. The hedgehog is said to feed occasionally on cantharides; a single beetle of which would occasion death or serious injury to most animals. If this be true, it is only another example of what often occurs in nature, illustrating the old proverb "what is one's meat is another's poison." In addition to the use of the hedgehog as the destroyer of cockroaches, his skin was an important monopoly in the time of the Romans, being used both as a clothes-brush and an instrument for hackling hemp. His calcined eyes formed part of an ointment which the ancients tell us had such a wonderful efficacy as to enable persons using it to see in the dark. His gall was used to take off hair, his fat to put it on, &c.

He is still eaten in the south of Europe; but, judging from his food and appearance, we would not recommend the prac tice here. The hedgehog, or urchin, as he is sometimes called, belongs to the order of Insectivora, and possesses much of the character and habits of shrews. His scientific name is Erinaceus Europæus; but we have headed this article with his Irish appellation, which is perhaps the only one not inserted in our popular authors,

B,

WATERPROOFING OF CLOTH, SILK, &c.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

SIR-I would feel happy should the few remarks I will at present offer be found worthy of insertion in your columnsit is on the subject of waterproofing cloth, or other fabrics, cotton, silk, leather, &c.

When the matter first came before the public, being determined if possible to ascertain the secret, after many unsuccessful experiments I found all the requisite properties to consist in a concentrated solution of acetate of alumina, which can be procured at a cheap and a moderate rate, by mixing equal quantities of sulphate of alum (common alum) and acetate of lead (sugar of lead), and dissolving them in water: one pound of each may be purchased for one shilling, which may be dissolved in one gallon and a half of boiling water, and well mixed; when cold, the supernatant liquid should be removed from the sediment, which consists of sulphates of lead, potash, &c. Any article of dress, no matter how slight the fabric, if well saturated in it, and allowed to dry slowly, will bear the action of boiling water, and not permit it to pass through: it is a remarkable fact, and there are many others connected with the same solution well worthy of investigation. I should be glad if some of your learned correspondents would favour us with the reason why the boiling water will not pass through, and the steam of the water will. Thinking it a subject not totally unworthy of examination, I remain, Sir, your THOMAS IRWIN, Apothecary and Chemist, 48 Cuffe St.

most obedient servant,

A SCENE AT SEA.

"I saw the ship go dancing on before the favouring gale,
And like the pinions of a swan was spread each swelling sail;
But ere again uprose the sun, rose many a shriek and wail;
Ere morn the gallant ship was gone-vanished the snowy sail!"
The ship rode far upon the silent main; 'twas night,
A beautiful, still night; no moon was there,
But the bright stars were hanging overhead
In golden clusters; and the breathless sea

Gave them all back; while the tall vessel seemed
A fairy home, suspended 'twixt two heavens.
And there were happy hearts within her then:
That eve they had descried the distant shore
Of their own land; and all had gone to rest

In the dear hope that ere another day
Their feet would press again their native soil:
Then the rich merchant dreamed how his gay stores
Would well reward his exile; and the youth
Thought of his loved one, and in fancy touch'd
Already her rose-lips; while the fond sire
Dreamed of his wife and children, and his hearth
With their bright faces gathered round, like stars,
To hearken to the marvels of his voyage.

There is a stillness over sea and heaven-
A placid calm, a holy peace: alas!
Whence is that sudden cry--that rising flame
That bursts from the fair vessel? 'Tis no fire
Of heaven, no angry lightning, that hath struck
And blasted it! A moment, and the scene
That was so fair is changed: the heavens above
And still as ever; but the death-fire glows
Upon the burnished waters! Groans and prayers
Rise up all vainly! There's a sudden shriek,
Like to an earthquake; and the hopes and fears
Of many hearts, the vessel and its freight,
Are vanished-scattered into nameless things,
And all is swallowed up and lost!

From the Knickerbocker.

TRUE CHARITY.-The lowest order of charity is that which is satisfied with relieving the immediate pressure of distress in individual cases. A higher is, that which makes provision on a large scale for the relief of such distress; as when a nation passes on from common almsgiving to a general provision for the destitute. A higher still is, when such provision is made in the way of anticipation, or for distant objects; as when the civilization of savages, the freeing of slaves, the treatment of the insane, or the education of the blind and deaf and mutes, is undertaken. The highest charity of all is, that

which aims at the prevention rather than the alleviation of evil. It is a nobler charity to prevent destitution, crime, and ignorance, than to relieve individuals who never ought to have been made destitute, criminal, and ignorant.

EMPLOYMENT FOR THE UNHAPPY.-The unhappy are indisposed to employment: all active occupations are wearisome and disgusting in prospect, at a time when every thing, life itself, is full of weariness and disgust. Yet the unhappy must be employed, or they will go mad. Comparatively blessed are they, if they are set in families, where claims and duties abound, and cannot be escaped. In the pressure of business there is present safety and ultimate relief. Harder is the lot of those who have few necessary occupations, enforced by other claims than their own harmlessness and profitableness. Reading often fails. Now and then it may beguile; but much oftener the attention is languid, the thoughts wander, and associations with the subject of grief are awakened. Women who find that reading will not do, will obtain no relief from sewing. Sewing is pleasant enough in moderation to those whose minds are at ease the while; but it is an employment which is trying to the nerves when long continued, at the best; and nothing can be worse for the harassed, and for those who want to escape from themselves. Writing is bad. The pen hangs idly suspended over the paper, or the sad thoughts that are alive within write themselves down. The safest and best of all occupations for such sufferers as are fit for it, is intercourse with young children. An infant might have beguiled Satan and his peers the day after they were couched on the lake of fire, if the love of children had chanced to linger amidst the ruins of their angelic nature. Next to this comes honest, genuine acquaintanceship among the poor; not mere charity-visiting, grounded on soup-tickets and blankets, but intercourse of mind, with real mutual interest between the parties. Gardening is excellent, because it unites bodily exertion with a sufficient engagement of the faculties, while sweet, compassionate nature is ministering cure in every sprouting leaf and scented blossom, and beckoning sleep to draw nigh, and be ready to follow up her benignant work. Walking is good, not stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbour to neighbour, but stretching out far into the country, to the freshest fields, and the highest ridges, and the quietest lanes. However sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheers up and smiles. However listless the limbs may have been when sustaining a too heavy heart, here they are braced, and the lagging gait becomes buoyant again. However perverse the memory may have been in presenting all that was agonizing, and insisting only on what cannot be retrieved, here it is first disregarded, and then it sleeps; and the sleep of the memory is the day in Paradise to the unhappy. The mere breathing of the cool wind on the face in the commonest highway is rest and comfort which must be felt at such times to be believed. It is disbelieved in the shortest intervals between the seasons of onjoyment; and every time the sufferer has resolution to go forth to meet it, it penetrates to the very heart in glad surprise. The fields are better still for there is the lark to fill up the hours with mirthful music; or, at worst, the robin and the flocks of fieldfares, to show that the hardest day has its life and hilarity. But the calmest region is the upland, where human life is spread out beneath the bodily eye, where the mind roves from the peasant's nest to the spiry town, from the schoolhouse to the churchyard, from the diminished team in the patch of fallow, or the fisherman's boat in the cove, to the viaduct that spans the valley, or the fleet that glides ghostlike on the horizon. This is the perch where the spirit plumes its ruffled and drooping wings, and makes ready to let itself down any wind that heaven may send.-From Deerbrook, a Tale, by Harriet Martineau.

CHILDHOOD.-Childhood is like a mirror, catching and reflecting images from all around it. Remember that an impious or profane thought, uttered by a parent's lips, may operate on the young heart like a careless spray of water thrown upon polished steel, staining it with rust which no after scouring can efface.

Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the Office

of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.Agents:-R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street, Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; J. DRAKE, Birmingham; SLOCOMBE & SIMMS, Leeds; FRAZER and CRAWFORD, George Street, Edinburgh; and DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate, Glasgow.

architectual structures dedicated to the services of religion, In the variety, if not the number of such monuments here found, the Boyne is without a rival in any Irish river, nor do we think it could be paralleled by any river in the empire; and we might truly add, that it is on its luxuriant banks, amid so many instructive memorials of past ages, that the history of our country, as traced in its monuments would be best studied.

It is from amongst these interesting remains that we have selected the subject of our prefixed illustration-the Church and Round Tower of Donaghmore, situated a little more than a mile from Navan, on the road to Slane.

This religious establishment, which was anciently called Domnach-mor muighe Echnach, owes its origin to St Patrick, as will appear from the following passage translated from the life of the Irish apostle, attributed to St Evin :

"While the man of God was baptising the people called Luaignii, at a place where the church of Domnach-mor in the plain of Echnach stands at this day, he called to him his disciple Cassanus, and committed to him the care of the church recently erected there, preadmonishing him, and with prophetic mouth predicting that he might expect that to be the place of his resurrection; and that the church committed to his care would always remain diminutive in size and structure, but great and celebrated in honour and veneration. The event has proved this prophecy to be a true one, for St Cassanus's relics are there to be seen in the highest veneration among the people, remarkable for great miracles, so that scarcely any of the visitors go away without recovering health, or receiving other gifts of grace sought for."-Tr. Th. p. 130.

But though the existing ruins of the Church of Donaghmore sufficiently indicate it to have been a structure "diminutive in size," its architectural features clearly prove that it is not the original church of St Patrick's erection, but a re-edification of the thirteenth century, in the usual style of the parish churches erected by the Anglo-Norman settlers within the Pale. Neither can the Round Tower, though unquestionably a structure of much higher antiquity than the present church, be referred to the time of the Irish apostle, or perhaps to an earlier age than the ninth or tenth century. At all events, its erection cannot be ascribed to an earlier date than that of the Tower of the Church of Kells—a religious establishment founded by St Columbkille in the sixth century -as these towers so perfectly agree in architectural style and masonwork, that they appear to have been constructed by the same architects or builders.

This very beautiful tower is built entirely of limestone undressed, except around the doorway and other apertures, and is of admirable masonry. It has two projecting ledges or steps at its base, and six rests for stories, with intermediate projecting stones or brackets in its interior. These stories are each, as usual, lighted by a single aperture, with the exception of the upper one, which has two openings, one facing the east, and the other the west; and the apertures present all the architectural varieties of form observable in our most ancient churches. The circumference of this tower, near its base, is 66 feet 6 inches, and its height, to the slant of the roof, which is wanting, is about 100 feet. The wall is 3 feet 9 inches in thickness, and the doorway is 12 feet from the ground. This doorway-which is of very beautiful execution, and, as usual, faces the west end of the church-is 5 feet 2 inches in height, and has inclined sides, and a semicircularly arched top. It is 2 feet 3 inches wide at bottom, and 2 feet beneath the spring of the arch at top. Over the door there is a figure of the Saviour sculptured in relief, partly on the keystone and partly on the stone over it; and on each side of the architrave there is a human head also in relief, as on the doorway of the church of Kells.

Some antiquaries, in their zeal to support the theory of the Pagan origin and the antiquity of the Round Towers, have asserted that this doorway is not the original one, but an "after work." But there is not the slightest ground for such a supposition, and this sculpture, as a profoundly skilled architectural antiquary, the late Sir Richard Colt Hoare, well observed, furnishes "a decided proof that these buildings were not (as some writers have conjectured) built by the Pagans.'

A similar argument against the application of the Round Towers to the purposes of a belfry, has been grounded on the circumstance of the western front of the church having three apertures for bells above its gable. But it should not be forgotten that this structure has no claim to an earlier date than

the thirteenth century, when a variety of bells, and a different mode of hanging them, were brought into use by the AngloNorman settlers.

The Church of Donaghmore has been confounded by Archdall and subsequent writers with the ancient church of Domnach-Tortain, also founded by St Patrick, but which was situated near Ardbraccan. P.

THE DRUNKARDS,

A TOO TRUE STORY.

IN one of those admirable tales which Mrs Hall is now publishing with the praiseworthy object of the melioration of the Irish character, the ordinary effects of a too faint resistance to the fascinations of strong drink are faithfully detailed. The moral which our generous country woman intended to convey is undoubtedly of universal application, but I am afraid that the circumstances I am about to relate will convey no moral. It is the simple and true record of an appalling calamity which befell the subjects of my story, with all the melancholy unaccountableness and fatality of lunacy. No one would warn his fellow-creatures against the danger of madness-against any unforeseen dispensation of God's wrath: it is in this sense, then, that I am afraid I have no moral to convey in narrating an event of which I was all but a spectator.

It must have struck every observer of human character that there are two classes of drunkards in this country. One class is composed of those persons, who, at first being well enough disposed to be temperate in all things, are insensibly led on by the charm of good fellowship to create for themselves an artificial want, which in the end leaves them the helpless victims of a miserable disease: they begin with a little-they continue the draught under the self-deceiving sophism "it's only a drop"-they fall into excess-they lose all sense of decorum and proper spirit-they become mean and unbashful in their craving after spirituous liquor, which condition unfits them for an upright and honourable course of thought and action in any of the details of daily existence a mental dissipation accompanies the bodily languor: while the hand trembles, the brain wanders, and the last scene of the tragedy is delirium tremens.

But there is another class of drunkards-God forbid that I should attribute any thing to the decrees of Providence inconsistent with mercy and justice-but I am almost tempted to designate this class the drunkards by necessity. However worldly condition, education, or other causes, may modify the result in individual cases, it is not the less certain that there are persons-very many of them-who appear to have come into the world predisposed to an inordinate desire for intoxicating liquors. These wretched people do not begin with thimblesful, and end with gills-the stroke seizes them like a thief in the night-sometimes in the prime of manhood-sometimes in the flush of youth-sometimes (it is a fearful truth) in the thoughlessness of boyhood. It is a passion with thema madness. You may know one of these unhappy beings, especially if he be a very young man, by the sullen and dogged air with which, early in the morning, he enters the public house, and sits down in solitude and silence to his doubleshotted measure of undiluted whisky-whisky is the only drink for one of this calibre-alas ! the worst and fiercest stuff that can be made is the most acceptable to him—his palate is too long palled to distinguish between tastes and flavours-it is the liquid fire he wants; you may know him at other times by the pitiable imbecility which prompts him in his awful craving to reach his tumbler to his lips with both his hands, till he finishes the draught with all the apparent eagerness of intense thirst; you may know such a one by his frightful sleeps, begun, continued, and closed in terrific dreams! The wife and family of the progressive or occasional drunkard are wretched enough, as every body knows; but, oh! who can possibly estimate the amount of misery which the wife and children of a madman like this are destined to endure.

I have not overdrawn the picture in the abstract-take an individual instance :

In the spring of 18-I was living, on a visit with a friend, in the neighbourhood of a small country town in one of the most fertile and prosperous districts of the island. The population was almost entirely free from that abject and squalid poverty which is the lot of the Irish peasantry beyond that of all other descriptions of civilized people. I remarked parti cularly of this neighbourhood that it had a larger proportion of respectable farmers and of that species of country gentle