LIFE IN IRELAND 223 



paltry hundreds, he remains here : he lives in style, 

 has all his meals sent from the coffee-house, and drinks 

 Faulkner's best wines : there are a few here whom he 

 treats, and is altogether a brutish being. 



That lady whom you see clad in the costume of the 

 eighteenth century, with a servant at her back, is taking 

 her morning's walk ; she had three husbands, all of 

 whom left her large fortunes : the fourth died, and she 

 administered to his will ; when lo, it appeared that he 

 had left four thousand pounds, and owed twenty-five ; 

 she refused to compromise in any way, and has been 

 fourteen years incarcerated in these walls ; she has two 

 rooms, a man and a maid servant, whom she had placed 

 here under fictitious arrests, in order that they may be 

 always with her. She is very charitable, and suffers 

 no poor prisoner to want if he is of good character : 

 she reads constantly, and that the worst description of 

 novels ; and once threatened to turn away her maid, 

 because she caught her with a prayer-book in her hand. 

 She says there is neither heaven nor hell, but that the 

 souls of men and women are changed into birds and 

 beasts. Altogether she is a strange compound of good 

 and evil ; in truth, she is a good Christian, and does 

 not know that she is so : she does good without know- 

 ing why, and practises all the virtues of religion, whilst 

 her mouth belies the doctrine : and she declares re- 

 ligion to be a political imposition, and all its advocates 

 impostors. It may be said of her, as Churchill^ the 

 satirist, said of an eminent performer, when she rails at 

 all that is good, kind, and beneficent — 



Her honest features the disguise defy, 



And her face loudly gives her tongue the lie. 



