286 LIFE IN IRELAND 



CHAPTER XXIV 



Foolish Charity — Morning reflections — Presents for Lady Maca- 

 nalty — A letter to a parish priest— A letter written with a wooden 

 leg — An interpreter on half- pay — An invitation to a review — 

 Irish Poetry — Dean Swift and his hatred of Ireland — A 

 meeting— Remember to forget, a song — Virtues of a demirep 

 —Reasons for being a militia colonel, and soldiers that w^ear 

 their leggins about th^'ir hands. 



SINCE the misfortune of Brian Boru in being led 

 astray by Sally Stephenson, his friend did not 

 like much to leave him to himself: he possessed strong 

 natura.1 good sense, and but for his attachment to the 

 female sex, would have been a very moral man ; he 

 would not injure any human being, and if he had a 

 fault, it was of being too generous ; in truth, he had 

 no discrimination, and gave alike to the hardy and 

 persevering mendicant, and the modest retiring suppli- 

 cant, who never repeated a request a second time, but 

 retired, dejected and broken hearted. 



When Brian rose in the morning, he sat down to 

 breakfast, and ordered Mooney to bring him pen, ink, 

 and paper : as he took his coffee, he wrote to his 

 tenants separately, and told them he would renew all 

 their leases at the same rent they now held them, for 

 one and twenty years to come : out of gratitude for 

 their goodness in his recent misfortunes he could do 



