LIFE IN IRELAND 115 



arm, they sallied out for the rotunda. As they passed 

 on, Sir Shawn assured Brian he would show him 

 plenty of Life in Dublin. 'Now you are broke in 

 you can jog on merrily without a leader. I shall always 

 have the whip-hand to drive you into the circle of 

 fashion, if I find you partial to a more vulgar road.' 

 ' By the faith of my mother ! ' ejaculated Brian, ' I love 

 fun, but your Life in Dublin is so nearly bordering 

 on DEATH, that I fare a Connaught man can't long 

 survive it.' ' A real Irishman,' said Sir Shawn, ' should 

 despise life under any circumstances ; he is lavish of it 

 either in the field of Mars or Venus ; amid the applause 

 of surrounding nations, or a multitude assembled to 

 witness his exit on the wooden suspe?ider, he is still the 

 same thoughtless and indifferent being, whom neither 

 disgrace or death can change; nay, not even the pro- 

 spect of doing penance for a thousand years in purgatory 

 can make him a coward at his dissolution ; I will relate 

 an instance or two within my own knowledge of this 

 hardihood of conscience, or honourable feeling, which- 

 ever you choose to call it : — 



'An Englishman and Irishman were brought to the 

 fatal tree to expiate their sins by a stretch and a kick; 

 the Englishman lamented his fate pathetically, the 

 Irishman in dignified roguery looked on it with in- 

 difference, and reproached his friend for his pusilla- 

 nimity. " Don't you see," he cried, "that I don't care 



a d n about being hanged, and why should you ? " 



" Ah ! " said John Bull, looking up with a piteous sigh, 

 "it is a dreadful thing to me, but you're used to it, 

 Mr. Pat, you 're used to it ! " 



' A captain of a man-of-war and a cook were to be 



