90 REPORT—1852. 
with the Assembly, we shall find that fully one-half of all the congregations in 
Ireland are situated in these two counties, or connected with Presbyteries that cen- 
tralize in them. More than one-half of these are in rural districts, unconnected 
with towns or villages, and called by the names of townlands; showing that the 
Scotch were in general agriculturists, and less settled in towns than the English. In 
the English districts the church-and-king feeling is strong, but, from the magnitude 
of the parishes and the distance of churches from particular points, the people are 
less attentive than they should be to their religious duties. In the Irish districfs 
the Roman Catholic congregations are large, and those of the two branches of the 
Protestant Church are small. In the English and Scotch districts, several parishes 
are united to form one in the Roman Catholic arrangements; and again, Drumgoo- 
land, where Protestants are few in number, is divided into two Roman Catholic 
parishes. This is in the neighbourhood of Dolly’s Brae, and it is said that in two 
townlands of Backaderry and Magheramayo, as well as in several others, there are 
scarcely any Protestant families. 
The habits of the people, as well as their creed, indicate their origin. In the 
English districts there is more comfort and tidiness than we find elsewhere; for the 
man of Scottish ancestry does not enjoy life so well, though he may be actually 
richer. The Scotchman is often more intelligent than his English neighbour, but he 
rarely excels him in weight of character. In the English districts the farms are 
large, and there is a better kind of house, furniture, stock, food, clothing, &e. The 
man of English origin will live and let live. In the markets of Lurgan, Lisburn, 
Moira, and Portadown, the Down farmer is known from the Antrim one, or rather 
the Scotchman from the English, by his hardness in driving a bargain. The old 
English sports and pastimes were kept up till recently at Lambeg; the May-pole is 
still known in Holywood, and tradition leads us to believe that certain mystery 
plays have been performed in the district. The custom of hiring servants at stated 
fairs is followed in Antrim, as is the case in many other towns and places of England ; 
and while those who attend for the purpose at Carlisle carry a straw in the mouth, 
those at Antrim carry a little white rod in the hand. The settlers on the Marquis 
of Hertford’s estate were in general natives of the shires adjoining the Bristol Chan- 
nel, and as their ancestral district is the apple district of England, so the barony of 
Upper Massareene is the apple district of Ireland. After the lapse of 250 years, the 
ancient custom is preserved as if it were of yesterday. The superstitions of May- 
eve and Hallow-e’en are still practised, and not one of the ceremonies in Burns’s 
poem is neglected, even by those to whom the poem is utterly unknown. 
The names of persons and of places are also highly illustrative of the people. In 
the English districts, we meet with such names as Turner, Standfield, Hull, Moore, 
Shields; in the Scottish, Dunbar, Edgar, Livingstone, Kennedy, Douglas, and 
sometimes they undergo curious transformations. In the Irish districts, a few names 
are used with distinctive terms and epithets, and sometimes Irish names are trans- 
jated into English or Anglicised; M‘Shane becomes Johnston, and Ginnif, Sands, 
while M‘Gurnaghan is altered to the more euphonious Gordon. Names of places 
are often derived from those of persons, as Hill-town, Hill-hall, and Hills-borough, 
from the Downshire family ; Gill-hall and Gilford from the M‘Gills; and similarly 
Warings-town, Ross-trevor, Echlin-ville, Mount-stewart. Grooms-port is Graemes’- 
port, and Ballymcarrett the village of M‘Art. Many names are less distinctly 
known, as Bryan’s-ford, Lyle-hill, Randals-town; others allude to the original pos- 
sessors, as Acre M‘Cricket, Taggart’s-land, Douglas-land, Dobbin’s-land, Bally- 
copeland, Bally-french, Bally-gilbert. 
Dr. Hume concluded his remarks with a vivd voce description of the Hyberno- 
English dialect in these two counties, and showed, by various quotations, its local 
characteristics, and also its usefulness. From the fusion of many peculiarities and 
the mingling of provincialisms from various parts of the United Kingdom, it is par- 
ticularly useful in the illustration of our old English literature. 
Heads of a Paper “ On the present state of Medo-Persie Philology.” 
By Professor MacDova tt, M.A., Queen’s College, Belfast. 
Tendencies have been lately exhibited, in works treating of comparative philology, 
to disturb, whether by contraction or by enlargement, the relations which profound 
vesearchs was upposed to have definitively settled between the Indo-European 

