CURIOSITIES OF IRISH LITERATURE. 697 



were three feet under low-water mark, and that the cod and salmon 

 might disport themselves over the fairest fields of Ulster. He must 

 have had an eye to Mr. Fintan's exploits, but the mystery is, where 

 the deuce he could have heard of them. 



The credulity of the Irish has been at all times a source of great 

 amusement to our matter-of-fact masters in England. Stanihurst, 

 and after him Campion, relates the following Irish anecdote : " One 

 office in the house of great men is a tale-teller, who bringeth 

 his lord on sleepe with tales vaine and frivolous, whereunto the num- 

 ber give sooth and credence. So light they are in believing whatso- 

 ever is with any countenance of gravitie affirmed by their superiours, 

 whom they esteeme and honour, that a lewde prelate, within these 

 few yeares, needy of money, was able to persuade his parish that St. 

 Patrick, in striving with St. Peter to let an Irish galloglass into 

 heaven, had his head broken with the keyes; for whose relief he 

 obtained a collation." 



Falstaff's encomium of sack is the perfection of bacchanalian eulogy. 

 The very page smacks of the liquor which it immortalizes. Here, 

 however, is almost a match for it a description of our Irish nectar 

 from the pen of a grave churchman, which, for minuteness of ana- 

 lysis, and a true native relish of the subject, far transcends Walter de 

 Mapes, and may challenge a comparison with any thing out of 

 Shakspeare. The author ought to have been canonized long ago, and 

 his picture hung up in the parlour of every public house in the land, 

 as the patron saint of vintners and dram-drinkers : " One Theoricus 

 (Episcopus Hermenensis) wrote a proper treatise of aqua vitce, 

 wherein he praises it unto the ninth degree. He distinguished three 

 sorts thereof simplex, composita, and perfectissima. He declareththe 

 simples and ingredients thereto belonging. He wisheth it to be taken 

 as well before meat as after. Being moderately taken (saith he), it 

 floweth age, it strengthened youth, it helpeth digestion, it cutteth 

 phlegm, it abandonneth melancholy, it relisheth the heart, it lighten- 

 eth the mind, it quickeneth the spirits, it cureth the hydropsie, it 

 healeth the strangury, it pounceth the stone, it expelleth gravel, it 

 puffeth away all ventosity, it keepeth and preserveth the head from 

 whirling, the eyes from dazzling, the tongue from lisping, the mouth 

 from maffling, the teeth from chattering, and the throat from rattling ! 

 It keepeth the weason from stifling, the stomach from wambling, the 

 heart from swelling, the belly from wirtching, the hands from 

 shrinking, the veins from crumpling, the bones from aking, and 

 the marrow from soaking ! " 



Here is a joyous account of a coronation : Cf In Ulster thus they 

 they used to crown their king. A white cow was brought forth, 

 which the king must kill and seethe in water whole, and bathe 

 himselfe therein starke naked ; then, sitting in the same caldron, his 

 people about him, together with them he must eat the flesh and 

 drinke the broath wherein he sitteth, without cuppe, or dish, or use of 

 his hand." 



What an august and truly Agamemnonian ceremony an unction 

 of the whole majesty from top to toe. What a broth of a boy ! 



Now for a chronicle of a very respectable Irish gentleman in days 



M. M. No, 90. 4 M 



