we get the drop within us; Och, long life to them that lightened the tax on the whiskey, for by my safe conscience, if they had left it on another year we should have forgotten how to drink it.”      

       I shall make no comment on Murtoch’s unconscious phillippic against the legislature, but surely a government has little right to complain of those popular disorders to which in a certain degree it may be deemed accessory, by removing the strongest barrier that confines within moral bounds the turbulent passions of the lower orders of society.     

       To my astonishment, I found that Murtoch had only purchased for his sick wife a little wine and a small piece of bacon: * both, he assured me, were universal and sovereign remedies, and better than any thing the phisicianers could prescribe, to keep the disorder from the heart ** The spirits of Murtoch were now quite afloat, and during the rest of our journey the vehemence, pliancy, and ardour of the Irish character strongly betrayed itself in the manners of this poor unmodified Irishman; while the natural facetiousness of a temperament “complexionably pleasant,” was frequently succeeded by such heartrending accounts of poverty and distress, as shed involuntary tears on those cheeks which but a moment before were distended by the exertions of a boisterous laugh.     

      * It is common to see them come to gentlemen’s houses with a little vial bottle to beg a table spoonful of wine (for a sick relative,) which they esteem the elixir of life.       ** To be able to keep any disorder from the heart, is supposed, (by the lower orders of the Irish,) to be the secret of longevity. 

       Nothing could be more wildly sweet than the whistle or song of the ploughman or labourer as we passed along; it was of so singular a nature, that I frequently paused to catch it; it is a species of voluntary recitative, and so melancholy, that every plaintive note breathes on the heart of the auditor a tale of hopeless despondency or incurable woe. By heavens! I could have wept as I listened, and found a luxury in tears. *     

      * Mr. Walker, in his Historical Memoir of the Irish Bards, has given a specimen of the Irish plough-tune? and adds,      “While the Irish ploughman drives his team, and the female peasant milks her cow, they warble a succession of wild notes which bids defiance to the rules of composition, yet 

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