Sentiments more conformable, and Friendship restored me to that Esteem in her Breast which I had forfeited by my absurd Attempts. We parted at our Landing; the virtuous Stranger honour'd me with many marks of the most obliging and respectful Acknowledgments. She would fain have bestow'd upon me a share of the Wealth she was carrying home; but I thankfully declin'd her Generosity, and accepted only a few MANUSCRIPTS which she had intrusted to my charge, with the Reading whereof she observ'd me much delighted.

I employ my hours of leisure in Translating them, and am sufficiently repaid for my trouble by the kind of Solace which this Application diffuses over the Discomforts of my present State.

DOCTOR TURLOGH O'FINANE'S

PREFACE

TO HIS ENGLISH TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH.

ALTHOUGH I do not acknowledge myself accountable to any Person or Community whatsoever for my motives to the Translation of this little Piece, yet, that I may comply with the Fashion, which indispensably ordains some sort of a PREFACE to every Book, I will bestow a page or two upon the Reader's Curiosity, and the Stationer's Importunity, to shew that I too had my Reasons for undertaking this Work, and that I did not sit down to translate without KNOWING

WHY.

It was not then an ITCH of SCRIBBLING, as DIDAQUEZ HADECZUCA Complains of, or an EXPEDIENT, like the ABBE du Por a BEURRE'S, to soften the RIGOUR of Vows, too harsh for OBSERVANCE, to elude the STINGS of the FLESH, by amusing and occupying the SPIRIT, which obliged me to take this DOSE of TRANSLATION as a Remedy; my inducements were less Selfish, and consequently more laudable. I considered that my COUNTRYMEN have SENSE enough; but They have not a GRAIN of SENTIMENT, I endeavoured, therefore, to familiarize Them to Modes of Thinking and Acting, which may possibly improve the ONE, and must necessarily excite the OTHER.

Nature has amply done her Part towards them; She has given them, in an eminent degree, broad Shoulders, undaunted Fronts, vigorous Constitutions, and comely Persons; Qualifications which (in a neighbouring Isle where the Essential only of Pleasure is studied) have sometimes raised their Possessors to shining Fortunes. But if EDUCATION were to spread her glossy Varnish over these Endowments, and to embellish them with her Petites Morales; Had They a Court at Home, by whose Example to form, to fashion their Address; Were Sentiment but once insinuated into their Minds, to tame, to sweeten the Impetuosities, the abrupt Sallies of their Character; my beloved Country-Men might soon become as expert in the

Theory as They already are in the Practice of Love; They might change the Opprobrious Nick-name of Fortune-hunters for the envied Title of the Fortune-hunted; British Peers must in their own defence match amongst themselves, and begin to preserve the Nobility pure; The City-Heiresses would prefer solid Joys to vain Honours, and Outbid each other for so valuable a Prize as an accomplished Irish Cavalier; English Beauty, English Wealth, would fill Irish Arms, and swell Irish Purses. Thus by a kind of Providential Retaliation,,

The Importation of the Human Species of Irish Growth is not as yet prohibited in England. Strange neglect! Why do not We take advantage of it? The Road of Traffick is easy and pleasant; The Ports are safe and open; the Benefits considerable and obvious; Our two main Wants supplied, of Wealth and Inhabitants.

If our Neighbours monopolize every other Branch of Commerce; Whether they apply Themselves to Politics, to Trade, to Arms, or to Arts, Their Labours must, in the end, enrich their Females, who (if my Hint be pursued) will of course enrich Us.

With this View, as soon as my Correspondent at Amsterdam had favoured me with a Copy of this admirable little Treatise in French, I determined to Translate it; First into English, that the Better Sort of my Country-Men (who, by an unaccountable Affectation, take pains to unlearn their Mother-Tongue) may proceed, without loss of Time, to the Execution of my happy Project, and afterwards into Irish, (wherein I must say It appears with much more Grace and Elegance,) That the Lower Rank may, in its Turn, reap the Benefit Studies.

of my

Grave Lectures will never teach Politeness; their Formality disgusts the Pupil: Manners are best formed by Example. Where living Examples are wanting, we must have Recourse to such entertaining and well-written Memoirs as most faithfully represent the polished Customs of other Nations. I have chosen for the Imitation of our Natives This Epitome of Japonnese High-Life, as a kind of Panacea against all Rusticity, Foppery, and Absurdity in Behaviour; a powerful Antidote, which, taken secundum Artem, will infallibly disperse their Crudities, Correct their Petulancies, and Purge their Bile; It will give a brisker Flow to their animal Spirits, purify the gross Humours, In short, It will (if I may be pardoned the pun) Japann their rugged Manners.

I had also a secondary Incitement to this Undertaking; I found a whimsical Amusement in Translating from one Language into another; neither of which is native to me. I will not make a merit of the Difficulties which I had to surmount in the Attempt; but will candidly acknowledge that I owe my success, such as it is, entirely to the Assistance of three Friends, whom good Fortune threw in my way; a French Barber, who has the Honour to curl the Grand Signor's Mustachios, a Scotch Pedlar, who has entered into Partnership with some travelling Armenian Merchants; and a Yorkshire Jockey, who sometimes visits Us to buy Horses.

The Public is to decide upon our joint Labours. All the Gentlemen of our Corps extol the Performance; But I dare not grow vain upon their Judgment; for, altho' my Country-Men are allowed (every where except at home) to be the best Soldiers in the World, I fear They are not yet arrived at the Reputation of being the best Criticks.

A TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS

IN THE FIRST PART.

CHAP. I.-Which serves as an Introduction, treating of Customs little known, but necessary to be known.

CHAP. II.-The Election of a Sovereign. Characters not commonly met with.

CHAP. III.-The Beginning of a singular Adventure whereof you will not find the End.

CHAP. IV. Showing the Origine of the Ballad-Lampoon, with its Author's salary.

CHAP. V.-The most necessary to be read, and the least amusing. CHAP. VI. Wherein may be seen that Hatred is sometimes more Advantagious than Love. The Institution of Fillips. CHAP. VII.-The Shortest of this History, containing some Hints very useful towards keeping up a Diffidence between the dearest Friends.

CHAP. VIII.-Shewing that the most probable Conjectures are often the most erroneous and that a forced Behaviour is almost always Rediculous.

GRIGRI,

A TRUE HISTORY.

CHAPTER THE FIRST,

Which serves as an Introduction,
treating of Customs little known,
but necessary to be known.

In an Island, which the Fairies had distinguished by the delightful Epithet of the Fortunate, there reigned neither King nor Queen : Both were Dead. The Grandees pretended, that this double Death was a stroke of Policy, conducted with Address and Veil'd in Secrecy ; the Women pronounced that the tender Royal Pair had fallen Victims to Sympathy: though the Priests preached to the People, that Heaven provoked had permitted this dreadful Event to affray the

VOL. 1. NO. II.

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Earth; the Populace trembling shouted, a Miracle; by its cries implored the Favour of the Gods; sought by Offerings and repeated Vows to disarm the Celestial Wrath, and yet (not to swerve from its inherent consistency) having been frighted, according to laudable Custom, out of its Wits by the appearance of a Comet, which had for three Months past exhausted the supputations of Astronomers and the conjectures of Blockheads, superstitiously attributed to that Phenomen the whole Honour of their unexpected Decease.

Truth is, the King and Queen died, merely because We must all die Chance alone had disposed the Incidents, but the Inhabitants of the Fortunate Island were infatuated with a Notion, that nothing ever falls out by Chance in the Courts of Kings.

This mistake was not the only Singularity that distinguished Them from the rest of the World. That Class of Men amongst them usually denoted by the word Moв, had their own Customs, Worships, and Laws; to which, through a whimsical kind of Prejudice, they were zealously bigotted: Children, with the first dawn of Reason, were instructed in them by their Parents, who inspired them with a scrupulous Attention, an unbounded Veneration, for the God's; an unreserved Love for their Country, and an indefatigable ardour for the defence of their Laws. The Clergy only and the Court enjoy'd the honourable Privilege of daring to consider those Trifles as a necessary Restraint on the Caprices of the Multitude; and of turning to Use or Ridicule, according to occurrences, the Mob's Credulity.

As to the Island, its very name sufficiently implies that its Situation, the Temperature of its Air, and the Verdure of its Herbage, were the most delightful imaginable; its Flowers or Fruits never nipt by the poisonous blasts of the rude North: its Soil was fertile without culture, the Felicity of its Inhabitants consisted in the still calm of a soft Indolence, which They never suffered to be interrupted, except by their Taste for the Polite Arts and for Pleasure.

Their Crown was not hereditary: Whensoever the Throne became Vacant, the States assembled in a vast Plain situate in the center of the Isle. Women only had a right of Voting; They took place according to the Dignity of their Husbands, and, to preserve to them a Liberty of Speaking all at once, Elections were always made by Acclamation.

The first business of the Assembly was to choose a Queen, whom They Crowned upon the spot, and carried in Triumph into Beribi, the Capital of the Island: There She remained for the first Year, without meddling in State Affairs, which were administered by a Council of Regency. Her sole care was to make choice of an Husband amongst the young Lords of her Court; which Choice she was to notify on the last Day of that Year.

Both King and Queen were to be chosen out of the Principal Families of the Realm. The Qualifications required by Law in every Queen were these:

That She be fifteen years old, at least,* and at most eighteen. That

In process of Time, they grew somewhat less strict with regard to Age, in consideration of the Prematurity of the Females, as well as to make up for the Imbecillity of the Males.

she be eminent for Beauty, Wit, Grace, and Gaiety and That she have never Loved.

The King's Age was limited from sixteen to twenty; He must, indispensably, be able to offer to his Queen the homage of a new and unexperienced heart; He must love her with a pure and perfect Tenderness, as she was to feel the sincerest Passion for him; their mutual flame must be first kindled within the Year allotted for Deliberation. This Fortunate Island had originally belonged to the Fairy Oddity, who reigned over a potent neighbouring Kingdom; She had made an Authentick Donative of it to Rose ye Ist., whom she had the goodness to breed up as her own Daughter, after having Publicly declared that she was but her own Niece. At fair Rose's accession to the Crown, the Fairy had dictated all these Laws, and the People, the Clergy, and the Nobility, had solemnly sworn to the observance of them, for Themselves and their Posterity for ever. [Here the manuscript abrubtly breaks off.]

THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY-IRELAND.-No. I.

THE LANDING OF THE SONS OF MILESIUS.

It was a lovely morning in the commencement of April,-one of those delicious spring mornings which immediately succeed the equinox in our western climates, when winter having made his last desperate stand in the equinoctial gales, is finally driven from the field, and the balmy breath of spring thrills every nerve with the consciousness of the "youth" of the year; and one feels as if youth had likewise returned to quicken the current of his blood, and restore to his mind that enviable freshness which gives a charm to every thing. But twenty-four hours the wave had beaten on the shore of the bay now called "Ballinskellig's" with even more than its wintry violence; the "eagle of the north-west" had been abroad in all his terrors, and had strewed the beach with the fragments of vessels, of a size and construction utterly unknown to the Firbolg and Damnonian inhabitants of the country. Now the sea was calm as the sleep of an infant; the tiny wave rippled on the shore with a sound scarce louder than the lulling song of the nursing mother-the breeze scarce sighed among the branches of the primeval forest which clothed the steep acclivities of the surrounding mountains, while, from within the bosom of the little grove, then, as now known by his name, the unusually early song of the cuckoo, struck as an ominous sound upon the ears of those inhabitants, and bade them to expect the arrival of other and less welcome guests from beyond the seas. Their prophecies had told them, when the cuckoo should sing before his time, to expect the ad

*"Irticão:" The field of the cuckoo is the name of a farm on the southern side of Ballinskellig's bay.