[ 45 ] 



Hence premiums now vainly tempt the growth of hemp, 

 which formerly peafants, in the moft northern counties in Ire- 

 land, cultivated without reward around their cabbins for domef- 

 tic ufe : And hence the ancient apiaries of our ifland, once fo 

 celebrated, and guarded with fuch fpecial and minute attention 

 by the Brehon laws *, are now extind ; and honey, from being 

 a common article of popular conAimption, ha& become a rare 

 luxury, or an expenfive medicine. 



Winter has likewife felt the general influence of this Atlantic 

 temperature ; our graffes fcarcely droop beneath the frofts ; wheat 

 and oats vegetate in the open fields during the very folftice itfelf $ 

 myrtles and laurels, in (heltered fituations, brave the feverity of 

 winter : The Foyle, and other large rivers of the northern pro- 

 vince, frequently fubjecS to the icy chains of former ages, now run 

 in uninterrupted freedom f. 



Facts, fuch asthefe, are to be confidered as the bafis of general 

 opinion concerning the alteration of our climate ; while old age, 

 conneding thefe appearances with the fragility of declining life, 

 and a decayed conftitution, has become querulous in proportion to 

 its feelings, and, judging of external phaenomena by the exaggerated 

 teft of its own acute fenfations, emphatically pronounces, that 

 the feafons are now lefs favourable than formerly. 



On 



* See Colleftanea de Reb. Hib. Tranfl. Brehon Laws. 



t Fifty years have elapfed fince the River Foyle has been effedually frozen over at 

 Derry : It is alfo obferved, that the River Thames, in Britain, is lefs frequently frozen 

 of late years than formerly. See Archseologia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 55. 



