CHAPTER VIII.

Belfast. THE little town of Dromore appeared to me to be situated in a valley; yet it derives its name from Druim, a back,-and Mor, great; the great back of a hill. It was about ten in the morning when I approached it. The town was in shade, as was the lower part of the green hill beyond it. The upper part was cheerly illuminated by a radiant sun, and looked most gay and verdant.

Dromore is a very ancient town, and bears all the marks of its antiquity. I clambered over a parcel of pig-sties to have a look at an old castle, of which nothing remains, but two roofless walls, and a court overrun with nettles. The cathedral is very small, it is neither in form of

a cross like others, nor has it

any revenues for

I was looking

I was

through one of the windows at the inside, when a woman who had observed me, came running with the key. This was disinterested civility, for she would accept of no recompence; it was useless civility likewise, for there was nothing to see beyond the usual ornaments of a parish church.

I walked afterwards to the Bishop's palace, which is about a quarter of a mile from the town. It stands on an elevated situation, and seems a very comfortable and commodious habi

The

tation. A living bishop occupies a great deal of room, a dead one not more than a much less reverend person. Four bishops of this see are interred in the vault of the chancel. The grounds are not extensive, but prettily laid out. hedges are filled with roses, delightful emblem of their late mild and benevolent possessor, t perfume of whose name will long shed fragrance over his sepulchre.

the

Doctor Percy was greatly beloved in his diocese; and, though an Englishman, never left his residence during the late unfortunate rebellion. In his younger days he had lived much in the learned world, and was one of the Stella minores of the literary club. In general he moved quietly in the orbit of its great constellation, Doctor Johnson. Accidents, however, would sometimes occur to interrupt their harmony; of one of which an amusing account is given by Mr. Boswell, Doctor Percy was not only a namesake, but a relation of the duke of Northumberland, and, it appears, sufficiently alive to the honour. Bishops and philosophers have their fullshare of the weaknesses of common men I was going to add, poets, but checked myself; they I fear have more than their share. His lordship was blind for several years before his death. Afflicting as this circumstance was to himself, it was a fortunate one for many young men, whom he took

into his house as readers, and afterwards brought forward in life. I had the honour of dining with him some years ago. There was a large party. Among others the titular bishop and and all his clergy. It was, I understand, his unvaried custom to invite them, whenever they had a meeting at Dromore. I shall never forget with what pleasure, on our going to the drawing room, he listened to a young lady singing his own beautiful song of "O Nanny wilt thou gang with me." The piano was not in the best tune, nor was the young lady's voice the most harmonious. But, ah! what discord ever reached a poet's ear, whose works were sung or said before him.

Dromore was likewise then, and probably is still, the residence of another poet, not of an: humbler name, but of an humbler rank in life. Mr. Stutt, a linen merchant, better known by the name of Hafiz, who never has allowed the dazzling corruscations of the imagination to seduce him far from the sober round of his bleach-green.

The distance from Dromore to Hillsborough, is three miles. Of the latter, which is the paragon of Irish towns, it is needless to say much-its: fame is so universal, that my praise can neither increase nor diminish it. It stretches out in the form of an oblong square, on the top of a hill. The extensive demesne of the Marquis of Down

shire is so close to the town, that the great gate opens on the market place. Lord Downshire is not very popular, if I am to credit the accounts of those I have conversed with. They say he has made a great rise in his rents, and that if he continues as he has begun, the country will shortly lose that appearance of comfort, for which it is now so remarkable. It is fair, however, to mention, that so much was expected from him, that even moderate merit would not suffice. He is probably not a bad landlord, but the people look for a phoenix. Lord Castlereagh and he, or rather Lord Castlereagh and the Downshire family, are the Castor and Pollux of northern popularity, and when one sets the other rises. Lord Castlereagh seems at present lord of the ascendant. The service he lately rendered the people, by freeing them from the discount charged by their landlords, is, I believe, the great cause of this. Greivous, indeed, must the exaction have been to their feelings, when the removal of it reconciled them to a man whom they had a short time before so much disliked. Not disliked, it should be understood, for the share he had in bringing about the union, for, disappointed in their beloved parliamentary reform, all political questions became of little consequence to the people of this part of the north of Ireland; but on account of his having turned renegado to all those professions of patriotism he had so

fluently and profusely made on his entrance on public life. Lord Castlereagh has explained, as great men generally do with their promises, many of those professions away-and certainly he ap pears to have been so wary and cunning, even in extreme youth as (like his great prototype, Mr. Pitt) to leave himself a number of loop-holes to creep out at. Statesmen may think this sort of cunning necessary, and for ordinary ones in ordinary times perhaps it is. But it should be remembered, that no really great man ever was a cunning one; still less should it be forgotten, that a great man or great men only, can rescue England from the shoals and quicksands of her present perilous

situation.

There are two inns in Hillsborough. I stopt at the second, kept by a person of the name of M'Garry. The first, I understand, is an excellent house for those who travel in chaises; but I never, when I can avoid it, enter with unhallowed foot the precincts of a first inn. Insolence is every where disagreeable, but the insolence of inns is particularly so. I got a comfortable dinner at M'Garry's. I asked him if he had any good beer. "As good as any in England," he replied. Shortly afterwards I asked the waiter some questions about the church. He was credibly informed, he said, that it was as handsome as an English one, It is impossible to travel in Ireland without re