LIFE IN IRELAND 291 



known an Irish Dow7ishire ballad run through forty 

 stanzas, and all ending in rhymes of the same sound, 

 with little meaning, beyond what could be found in the 

 first two lines, or the prose title of the piece. 



Brian had a little talent at verse, but he often 

 descended to nonsense, merely for the sake of a joke, 

 as in the present instance. 



He bad the precedent of the great Dean Swift to go 

 by : no man ever wrote more stuff than he did, but 

 then he knew what stuff he ridiculed, or meant to 

 amuse, and cared nothing for it after it had gone from 

 his hands. Apropos, a word of Dean Swift : no man 

 is more talked of by all ranks of Irish-;//*?;/ and women 

 too, yet no man had a more contemptible opinion of 

 his countrymen ; he satirized them unmercifully upon 

 all opportunities, and held them up to the scorn of the 

 world as barbarians and savages. His letters teem 

 with complaints against Ireland, and he calls his resi- 

 dence amongst the Irish 'his banishment' : for my part 

 I should gladly be banished to such a favoured land, 

 in point of climate more mild than Great Britain, in 

 hospitality and friendship superior ; and with men who, 

 in all the nobler virtues of the heart, as much exceed 

 the E7iglish, as the Irish General Wellington does 

 the English General Chatham ; the sleepy descen- 

 dant of a man who was ever awake to the glories and 

 interests of his king and country. 



Dean Swift had no mercy upon the ladies : he broke 

 the heart of the beautiful and amiable Mrs. Johnson, 

 who had no fault but that of loving a heartless and 

 self-opinionated brute ; and he did the same by Mrs. 

 Vand : his 'Closet of Celia' never was equalled, even 



