No. 3. 



The Galwny Fair 



101 



other circumstance, perfectly unique in its 

 character, to wiiich I shall he pardoned for 

 alluding. There was another species of live 

 stock exhibited at the fair, whicii I cannot 

 say is never seen at such phices, but which 

 does not always present itself under the 

 same frank circumsUnces. The kind noble- 

 man who accompanied me, and who, like 

 many others, noble and simple, whom it has 

 been my good fortune to meet with on this 

 side of the water, letl no effort unessayed 

 for my gratification, after looking at the va 

 rious ejects of the fair, asked me, at last, 

 " if I would like to see the girls." I confess 

 my natural diffidence at once took the alarm; 

 1 and my imagination cast a few furtive glances 

 ! over the sea at some precious objects I had 

 left behind. However, upon a voyage of 

 i| curiosity, why should I not see what was to 

 I be seen ! and, confident that my good friend 

 i{ could have no sinister design, I gave him an 

 li allirmative reply. Upon inquiring of one of 

 ' the trustees, or masters of the fair, " if the 

 H girls had come," we were informed they 

 would be there at twelve o'clock. At twelve 

 o'clock we went, as directed, to a part of 

 the o-round higher than the rest of the field, 

 whel-e we found from sixty to a hundred 

 young women, well dressed, with good looks 

 and good manners, and presenting a specta^ 

 cle quite worth any civil man's looking at, 

 and in which, I can assure my readers, there 

 was nothing to offend any civil or modest 

 : man's feelings. These were the marriage 

 able girls of the country, who had come to 

 ehow themselves on the occasion, to the 

 young men and others who wanted wives; 

 and this was the plain and simple custom of 

 tlie fair. I am free to say that I saw in the 

 custom no very great impropriety. It cer- 

 tainly did not imply that, though they were 

 ready to be had, any body could have them. 

 It was not a Circassian slave-market, where 

 the richest purchaser could make his selec- 

 tion. They were in no sense of the term 

 on sale ; nor did they abandon their own 

 right of choice ; but that which is done con- 

 stantly in more refined society, under vari- 

 ous covers and pretences, — at theatres, balls, 

 and public exhibitions; I will say nothing 

 about churches, — was done by these humble 

 and unpretending people in this straightfor- 

 ward manner. Between the noble duchess, 

 who presents a long train of daughters, rus- 

 tling in silk, and glittering with diamonds, 

 at the queen's drawing-room, or the ladies 

 of rank and fashion, who appear at public 

 places with all the beauty and splendor of 

 dress and ornament which wealth, and taste, 

 and art, and skill, can supply, meaning no- 

 thing else but " Admire me !" and these 

 honest Galway nymphs with their fair com- 



plexions and their bright eyes, with their 

 white frilled caps, and their red cloaks and 

 petticoats, — for this is the picturesque cos- 

 tume of that part of the country, — all wil- 

 ling to endow some good man with tiie rich- 

 est of all the gifts of Heaven, a good and 

 faithful wife, 1 can see no essential differ- 

 ence. 



" Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 

 TliL'ir homely joys, and destiny obscure." 



I hope I shall be excused, if I say some- 

 thing more of these Galway women. I ne- 

 ver saw a more handsome race of people. I 

 have always been a great admirer of beauty ; 

 natural beauty, personal beauty, mental beau- 

 ty, moral beauty. For what did the Creator 

 make things so beautiful as they are made, 

 but to be admired? For what has he en- 

 dowed man. with an exquisite sense of beau- 

 ty, but that he may cultivate it, and find in 

 it a source of pleasure and delight] As I 

 have grown older, this sense of beauty — and 

 I deem it a great blessing from Heaven — has 

 become more acute ; and every day of my 

 life, the world and nature, nature and art, 

 the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral 

 creation, the heavens and the earth, the 

 fields and flowers, men, women, and chil- 

 dren, wit, genius, learning, moral purity and 

 moral loveliness, deeds of humanity, forti- 

 tude, patience, heroism, disinterestedness, 

 have seemed to me continually more and 

 more beautiful, as, at the setting of the sun, 

 man looks out upon a world made richer and 

 more glorious by his lingering radiance, and 

 skies lit up with an unwonted gorgeousness 

 and splendor. But the human countenance 

 seems in many cases to concentrate all of 

 physical, of intellectual, and of moral beau- 

 ty, which can be combined in one bright 

 point. Why should it not, therefore, be ad- 

 mired"? In the commingled beams of kind- 

 ness and good humor brightening up the 

 whole face, like heat-lightning in summer 

 on the western sky ; or in the flashes of ge- 

 nius sparkling in the eyes with a splendor 

 which the fires of no diamond can rival ; or 

 in the whole soul of intelligence, and noble 

 thoughts, and heroic resolution, and strong 

 and lofty passions glowing in the counten- 

 ance, — there is a manifestation of creative 

 power, of divine skill, unrivalled in any spot 

 or portion of the works of God. 



The extraordinary personal beauty of these 

 Galway women was not mere imagination 

 on my part, nor the result of any undue sus- 

 ceptibility. I said to the coachman, as we 

 passed through this part of the country, that 

 [ never saw a handsomer people. "That," 

 said he, "travellers always remark," and 

 when I left the country, in casting my eye 



