2IO LIFE IN IRELAND 



' The opposition candidate was a man whom — 

 Take for all in all we ne'er shall look upon his like again. 



But he had not the peivter, and relied upon popular 

 good opinion. D— n popular opinion ; if I beheved 

 in its virtue I should think myself a rogue— for popular 

 opinion pronounced me one fifteen years ago, and to 

 this day have not recanted their opinion. 



' Well, Sir, 'twas all in vain that the excisemen, and 

 tax-gatherers, hearth-money collectors, poured up to the 

 hustings in shoals— we might as well have polled for 

 the Z)^z/// against God Almighty— it wouldn't do. The 

 thing closed, Colonel Maggs beat us out and out; 

 and I, as a reward for my exertions in the cause, was 

 made an extra Dublin Exciseman. It was true that 

 during this contest I had suffered severely: I had 

 manfully suffered seventeen ^^^^— right good beatings, 

 besides fillips and kicks wanting number.. I had also 

 lost my reputation and my ears, which the Green Boys 

 cut off and put in my Orange waistcoat pocket ; these 

 things fell upon me like 



' Dust on wind, or dew upon the flower ' 



5 



and, like Brutus of old, I regarded them not. 



'You may be sure I was not a little vain, when I 

 became a Dublin City Officer', and in the Custom- 

 House Passages none cut a greater swell than Timothy 

 Swan. I could strut up to the Collector's door, and 

 receive a very respectful answer from his Lordship's 



Clerk. The seizing store was filled with the effects ot 



my vigilance in broken stills, empty kegs, cakes of musty 



