THEIR HEIGHT, FORM, AND STRENGTH. 133 



with astonishment in meeting, at a corner of a road, 

 a poor girl moving on in quite a majestic manner, 

 arrayed theatrically in her tattered clothes, carrying 

 on her head an earthen jug, having for cortege a 

 goat or a lamb, and walking bare-footed on stones 

 with as much ease and dignity as a princess passing 

 in a salon before her courtiers. While contemplat- 

 ing those poor women, for the moment, I confess 

 that their titles of nobility seemed to radiate from 

 their brows, and I gave way to the idea that they 

 were really descended from the blood of kings." 



140. In 1844, Mr. Grant, an Englishman, in his 

 Impressions of Ireland, says : - " Nothing can be 

 more extreme than the poverty of the peasants. Yet 

 I never saw a set of finer looking children than 

 those you meet with in the poorer districts. They 

 far surpass in the comeliness of their little 

 countenances the children of this country (England). 

 I saw hundreds of them whom I thought perfect 

 pictures from the regularity of their feature's and the 

 symmetry of their forms. It is true, as they advance 

 in years, they lose the singular beauty which 

 characterises them in early life. This is to be 

 attributed to the hard destiny of their lives. 

 Englishmen would perish in masses were they 

 compelled to work as hard on such scanty food." 



141. In 1853, Sir Samuel Ferguson, in his sketch 



