IRELAND. 403 



prove that the young men of Trinity College, Dublin, do not yield in stature or 

 strength to their rivals of Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, or Edinburgh ; nay, that 

 they are even slightly their superiors. Even Englishmen* admit that most Irish- 

 women who are able to lead a life of ease and nourish their beauty are of more dis- 

 tinguished appearance than their own countrywomen ; they are at the same time 

 full of grace and open-hearted gaiety, and exhibit considerable taste in their 

 dress. There are few countries in Europe whose women possess so much true 

 dignity and self-respect. In many districts of Ireland even the peasant women, 

 notwithstanding the arduous labour which has fallen to their lot, are indebted to 

 their race for noble features and a proud carriage which would attract attention 

 anywhere. 



It is wrong to judge all Irishmen from those amongst them who have been 

 depraved by years of oppression and hereditary poverty ; to reproach them with 

 their obsequious language and the profuse flattery they lavish upon their 

 superiors ; or to subscribe the cruel saying that you need only " put an Irishman 

 on a spit, and you will always find another Irishman to turn it." Even the 

 poorest Irishmen, notwithstanding their abject condition, still retain excellent 

 qualities. They love each other, assist one another in misfortune, and always keep 

 the door of their cabin hospitably open. Little suffices for their wants, and they are 

 gay even when deprived of all that renders life easy. The least benefit conferred 

 upon them lives ever after in their memory. Though great braggarts and not 

 very careful of the truth, owing to an excess of imagination, they are nevertheless 

 sincere and ingenuous at bottom, and religiously keep their word when once it has 

 been pledged. They love fighting for fighting's sake. In many respects they have 

 remained children, notwithstanding the hard experience of their lives. They are 

 full of natural spirits, and subject to fits of transport ; easily carried away by their 

 imagination, and addicted to idle fancies. They lack a sense of order, and are not 

 sufficiently persevering in their enterprises. Drunkenness is a vice no less general 

 in Ireland than in England. Between 1839 and 1845 there existed a prospect of 

 all Irishmen taking pledges of temperance and forswearing the use of usque- 

 baugh. At the time when the fervour evoked through the preaching of Father 

 Mathew was at its height, about half the population of the country pledged itself 

 to abstain from strong drinks. In a single day 13,000 persons turned teetotalers, 

 and in several districts all public-houses were closed. But in a poor country 

 the temptation to drink is strong, and the pledges were soon forgotten. Drunken- 

 ness received, indeed, a fresh impulse from the great famine. In many localities 

 the persons charged with the distribution of the charitable funds were at the same 

 time dealers in spirits, and what they gave with one hand they took back with 

 the other. 



To Englishmen Irish " bulls " are often a source of amusement, but for all 

 this, and notwithstanding their assumption of ingenuousness. Irishmen are, as a rule, 

 very shrewd. They are cunning when in dread of violence, but respond frankly 

 to kind words. Naturally intelligent and of inquiring mind, they attend the 



* Thackeray, " Irish Sketch-Book." 



