weeks, and gave me only a seven shilling piece. This I'll say, and have a right to say, that our own gemmen are no more nor nothing at all compared to you Hirish gemmen. I'd rather, for my part, see one of your countrymen come to this here house than ten on un." At the weak side again, said I; but she succeeded, and whether from the flattery or service she had rendered, (my pride would say the latter) I gave her a sovereign, though I was not five weeks in the lodging, and relieved her and myself from her expectant attentions. PISCATOR. ANGLING EXCURSIONS IN IRELAND. CHAP. I. "No life, my honest scholar, no life is so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslips' banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us." ISAAC WALTON. HAVING, as mentioned in my last, dismissed my loquacious female attendant, to study the beauties of St. George and the Dragon, I untied the parcel she gave me, and the first page of a voluminous manuscript presented the title, as above; and the next a preface. What followed was divided into “Excursions," taken at different times, through various parts of Ireland, and written in a neat steady hand, looking as if the writer took care that, in his beverage, the element which supplied his sport should always predominate. At the conclusion of all, was the following note, written with a pencil: "I have taken much trouble to prepare this manuscript for publication, urged thereto by the, perhaps, too partial opinion of my friends; and yet, after all, I very much doubt whether I shall ever suffer it to see the light. There are so many things necessary to insure to a book any thing like a favorable reception with the world. One should think that its own intrinsic merits would be first and chiefest; but no such thing. Although the matter of every page deserved to be printed in letters of gold, it won't be read, unless "The river of text flow through meadows of margin;' unless 'a new type, cast for the occasion,' on 'wove paper, hot-pressed,' dazzle the eye; unless 'plates finely engraved by Heath, from designs by Westall,” illustrate the text; unless some fashionable dramatic writer, whose force and meaning consist in a, and whose dialogue, therefore, may be literally considered as composed in blank verse; unless he, or some equally fashionable scrip-scrap poet, whose feeble pinion can never take a longer flight than a sonnet or fragment, have the kindness, or rather the vanity, to patronize it; unless it shall be PUFFED by the thousand and one gazetteers, reviewers and journalists, who place themselves in the judgment seat of literary destiny, "damning with faint praise," or more direct and honest hatred, the poor aspirant after fame, who is unwilling, or has not the effective means of propitiating their favor; and, finally, unless the combined company of booksellers determine on cramming the work down the public throat, a book, whatever its merit, has little chance of making its way in the world, and that little is reduced to none, if its author be proud and modest." I must own that, although there may be something of a querulous spirit in the foregoing note, there appears to me a great deal of truth in it also. But, be that as it may, after having, on my arrival here, freed my Venus and Apollo from their bondage, placed them at a modest distance from each other in my cabinet, and put the manuscript, which had been used to pack them, in order, and looking deliberately over it, I thought I saw some good stuff in it, and that I might as the saying is, "kill two birds with one stone;" fulfil the author's half-formed desire to have his work published, and, by making a penny, bring home the expense I was at by my trip to London. PREFACE AND DEDICATION. Pr'ythee, friend, Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear, "" SHAKESPEARE. "My visit to Ireland was altogether one of pleasure; the particular indulgence of my favorite amusement of angling, which, I had often heard, could, in no part of the united kingdom, be so well enjoyed as in Ireland; where the rivers and lakes abound with the finest trout, pike, and salmon. My little tour, therefore, not having been undertaken with the deliberate purpose of making a book, my readers would be unreasonable and, indeed, unjust, were they to expect all from me that they have a right to, from a man pre-determined to make them pay for his amusements and his observations. What of Irish scenery and living manners that have fallen under my observation, I describe as I felt them at the moment, and my pen, faithful to those impressions, will probably best show what an Englishman thinks of Ireland and its people, on his first acquaintance with them. "Although angling was my first object, it will appear but secondary in the following pages, and occupy but a small proportionate share of their contents. The subject has been so largely and variously treated by numerous writers, from the venerable and delighting Isaac Walton, our great 'father of the angle,' down to Bainbridge, that little remains to be said upon it. Whatever has appeared to me novel in the art, or interesting in the |