12 PREMONITORY SKETCH. 



declare with rapture, that it was the most perfectly- cultivated 

 territory in Europe. 



'* Further," saith the tourist, " its gentry are a polished 

 and religious race, remarkable for their punctuality in pecu- 

 niary transactions, and their freedom from a litigious or quar- 

 relsome disposition. The prevailing mode of belief among the 

 upper classes is any t king arianism that of the people, pure 

 Popery." 



This premonitory sketch will save you and me, George, an 

 infinity of trouble. You have here the country graphically 

 placed before you, as well as the distinguishing traits of cha- 

 racter, for which the pleasant and virtuous community who 

 abide in this interesting department of the Emerald Isle are so 

 eminently distinguished. 



The town of Ballinasloe is seated on a river, the name of 

 which I neglected to inquire. It is much frequented by saints 

 and cattle dealers, carries on a smart trade in sheep and pro- 

 selytes, and Bibles and bullocks are " thick as leaves in Val- 

 lombrosa." The cabins, moreover, are whitewashed ; pigs 

 and popery are prohibited ; and travellers wayfaring on the 

 seventh day denounced, and, under perilous amercements, en- 

 joined to take their ease in their respective inns. 



While the horses were being brought out, I strolled into the 

 street, and, in a show-room of the Farming Society, discovered 

 a collection of biblicals in full activity. From a short gentle- 

 man with soiled linen and an impeded delivery, I learned the 

 gratifying fact, that the spread of the Gospel was progressive 

 in California ; and, further, that a second-cousin of the King 

 of Siam had been baptized by a Moravian Missionary. This 

 latter annunciation elicited a thunder of applause ; and a young 

 lady with a lisp pinched my elbow playfully, and requested me 

 to propose that a piece of plate be transmitted to the convertee. 

 Now, pinching one's elbow on a five minutes' acquaintance is 

 alarming; I accordingly levanted, leaving Lispy to propose 

 the plate in person. I observed in my retreat a mob assem- 

 bled round the chapel, and, pushing through a crowd of ragged 

 urchins, established myself in the doorway. Within there was 

 a meeting of Radical Reformers, and a tall man was pouring 

 forth a philippic from the altar, in which he made an awful 

 example of the king's English, and, in his syllabic arrange- 

 ments, differed totally from modern orthoepists. The gist of 

 his oration went to prove, that Catholic Emancipation was a 



