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say will be thought a sufficient one. I have somewhere mentioned that I am remarkably short-sighted I am more--I was once assailed by almost total blindness, and am still liable to frequent attacks of it. Even at the best I can take little share in the bu siness or the amusements of life, and while feeble is the light that shines on the present, I have the past to remember, and the future to apprehend. Inevitable blindness, like all other inevitable misfortunes, may be borne, and we know that Homer and Milton composed those grand works which, beyond all others, required the most perfect concentration of the mind, in that situation. But neither to be wholly blind nor entirely to see, to vibrate as it were between light and darkness, may well throw the mind off its balance, and cause joy and sadness, mirth and melancholy, to struggle together, and contend for mastery, like the elemental particles of chaos.

Having said this much, I commit my little work, without apprehension, to its fate, in the confident hope that its deficiences will be overlooked, when the circumstances un

der which it was written are considered, and that if darkness sometimes shadows my page, it will be remembered that darkness often times shadowed myself, and that like the great names I have just mentioned, whom only in their defects I can ever resemble;

So thick a drop serene had quench'd these orbs,

Or dim suffusion veil'd.

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A VIEW

OF

SOCIETY AND MANNERS,

&c. &c.

د

CHAPTER I.

Newry.

THERE is nothing more unaccountable than the fatality which at times governs men, and impels them into situations of danger in opposition to their judgment. I have all my life had a dread of the passage from Liverpool to this country; and, guided by circumstances, have rarely come by any other. I shall, I trust, be wiser for the future; and to make my experience of service to others, I shall give an account of my present voyage.

bound to Newry,

I went on board the about six o'clock on the evening of the second of July, and sailed immediately afterwards. There were three vessels in company, bound like

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wise to Ireland. I was hardly on board before I wished myself back again; the evening was dark and lowering, the wind every moment becoming more unfavourable, and the captain evidently intoxicated. From that moment I had a presentiment of all that was to follow. The whole of the morning, indeed, I had felt a most extraordinary depression of spirits, and twice was proceeding to the Talbot to engage a seat and return to London. On the second of those occasions I met the captain-he laughed heartily at my fears said the weather was fine, and the wind fair-besides, he was a lucky captain, for he was once shipwrecked, and every body on board perished but himself-moreover, there was the Honourable Captain K had just

taken his passage, who had been in three great battles in Spain, and was now going to join the second battalion of his regiment in Ireland. This latter argument was so powerful that I resolved likewise to venture with this lucky Captain, and ran a greater risk than if I had been, Uriah like, placed in the front of the worst of the above mentioned battles.

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On getting round the rock, the Captains of our little fleet had a consultation whether to proceed or put back-three were of opinion it was wisest to put back the fourth (ours) was obstinate, and swore he would go on by himself the others.

I suppose, lest their courage should be called in question, resolved to follow him. I have remarked that in almost all consultations, weak or wicked councils generally prevail-no great argument by the bye in favour of popular assemblies.

The first two days the weather, though rough, was not very unfavourable, and at ten of the third morning we had a distant view of the mountain of Mourne, dimly seen through the dusky vapour that gathered round its head, and mocking us with a sight of the promised land which we were doomed to view afar off, and not to enter. I was standing, or rather endeavouring to stand, on the deck at the time, and gazed upon it with heart-sinking fondness; gloomy and dreary as it appeared, I am sure it was dearer to my imagination than the most sun-decked hill or sheltered valley, ever feigned by a writer of romance. I would have given " a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, or any thing."

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About noon the wind suddenly shifted and blew a tremendous gale from the westward. At four we were driving rapidly to the southward, the sea in the common, but expressive phrase, running mountains high. As the evening advanced the horror increased; the gale became still more terrific, and our frail bark laboured so 2- much that each time she sunk, we thought she

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