leading roads you would have found, as I often did, but very sorry accommodation. but travelling in the province of Ulster, I have frequently, in apparently unfrequented places and out of the line of the direct roads, found small inns, where the proprietor was partly farmer or partly shopkeeper as well as host, in which ascending up a pair of stairs leading from the kitchen, you found yourself in a clean and tidy sitting room, with one or two comfortable bed-chambers off it. This shows that there is amongst the middling classes, a greater circulation of business and a more prosperous intercourse, than in other parts of Ireland; or in other words it shews that the plantation of Ulster, has infused into this province somewhat of a British character. After satisfying myself as to the comfort of my apartments, I returned to the kitchen, the common room of the half farm-house, half inn; where was sitting under the hob, which stretched out far into the apartment-one of the largest, and at the same time comeliest women that could be seen,

she was, as the phrase is, "fat, fair, and forty;" and a little slim, rat-eyed, sour-faced maid, was busy rubbing one of her immense ancles, as it reclined on a stool. The good woman, for good nature beamed from her rotund and placid countenance, had sprained her leg. st On the other side of the kitchen fire stood a man in a rusty black coat, whose whole air bespoke what is termed a shabby genteel personage he was tall, and so spare that his body seemed to have retreated from his clothes, and his maudlin eye, and paralytic gestures, bespoke the confirmed dram drinker. While I was admiring the contrast between the healthy heap of a hostess, and this shred of a man—the back door opened, and in came a bustling impudent looking man, who answered the salutation of the landlady, of "you 're welcome Colonel," with a ready and condescending-thank you, thank you, mistress-Now this fresh addition to the inmates of our "hostelrie," presented another, and a different specimen of the effects of proof poteen-the force of whose stimulus instead

of invading and debilitating his frame had ascended to his countenance, reddened his cheeks, blossomed on his forehead, and aggravated and enflamed his nose-altogether he personified a sanguine Bardolfian character. In a short time a conversation, which ripened into controversy, arose between the soldier and the spare man, who long and ill-favoured like a bill of costs, was the village attorney. The colonel boasted of his own and his horse's freshness after their morning ride-"and what 's your ride to my walk this morning?"-I have just come ten miles, and it 's often I have walked forty.""You walk forty miles!-why my good man it must be with another body's legs you went, for sure such spindle shanks, that seem to play hide and go seek with their lankiness, within the folds of your trowsers, would fall asunder after a walk of ten miles." "Compare yourself with ME!-I that have undergone the hardships of a peninsular campaign -I that have hunted the French from Cadiz to the Pyranees-I that have marched all day

under sun and shower, and sheltered my head at night under the soft side of a cold stoneyou Sir, to presume to compare yourself to me-you who never saw any battle but a cockfight-Sir, I tell you that you must be mad or drunk-and Sir, let me tell you, that it is highly indecorous for a person pretending to the character of a gentleman, to be overtaken in liquor so early in the morning—and you master," says the angry Captain, turning to the host who had just come in, "You Sir, deserve to have your license taken from you, for permitting people to intoxicate them-, selves at so early an hour in your inn; and Sir, let me tell you, that as one of the justices of petty sessions, I am strongly inclined to lay'your irregular conduct before the bench." With this the angry hero made his exit towards the stable, and I went up to my breakfast, which as soon as I finished I applied myself to the inn-keeper in order to ascertain the facilities of reaching Lough Derg; mine host was a little, lively, goodhumoured man, who at once entered into my

views,-"Oh, indeed Sir, it would be a pity for a gentleman like you to come to Petigo without seeing the sacred Lough—hundreds and thousands come here for that purpose." "Well Sir, and do pilgrims stop at

your inn ?" "Why, sometimes they that

are rich come-I had one here not long ago, that came all the ways from the back settlements of Maryland in the United States." "Well, and was he satisfied with the results of his pilgrimage ?" "Why, Sir, I happen to be a Protestant, and it is not to me that such a man would open his mind; but I think at the same time I could gather from the man, that the wisest act of his life was not the very expedition in which he had been engaged." "Well, my good Sir, how can I get to Lough Derg, which you say is four miles off?" "Why Sir, your gig cannot go, that 's certain, there being no road; and your horse, unless very surefooted and accustomed to rocks and bogs, may not find it easy either." "Well then, can I hire a horse?" "No Sir, this is harvest time, and