woollen a fashion, as our neighbours have made
it a law? What if the ladies would be content with Irish stuffs for the
furniture of their houses, for gowns and petticoats to themselves and
their daughters? Upon the whole, and to crown all the rest: Let a firm
resolution be taken by male and female, never to appear with one single
shred that comes from England; "And let all the people say,
AMEN."

I hope and believe nothing could please His Majesty better than to hear
that his loyal subjects of both sexes in this kingdom celebrated his
birthday (now approaching) universally clad in their own manufacture. Is
there virtue enough left in this deluded people to save them from the
brink of ruin? If the men's opinions may be taken, the ladies will look
as handsome in stuffs as brocades; and since all will be equal, there
may be room enough to employ their wit and fancy in choosing and
matching of patterns and colours. I heard the late Archbishop of Tuam
mention a pleasant observation of somebody's; "that Ireland would never
be happy till a law were made for burning everything that came from
England, except their people and their coals." Nor am I even yet for
lessening the number of those exceptions.[11]

Non tanti mitra est, non tanti judicis ostrum.

But I should rejoice to see a staylace from England be thought
scandalous, and become a topic for censure at visits and tea-tables.

If the unthinking shopkeepers in this town had not been utterly
destitute of common sense, they would have made some proposal to the
Parliament, with a petition to the purpose I have mentioned; promising
to improve the "cloths and stuffs of the nation into all possible
degrees of fineness and colours, and engaging not to play the knave
according to their custom, by exacting and imposing upon the nobility
and gentry either as to the prices or the goodness." For I remember in
London upon a general mourning, the rascally mercers and
woollen-drapers, would in four-and-twenty hours raise their cloths and
silks to above a double price; and if the mourning continued long, then
come whining with petitions to the court, that they were ready to
starve, and their fineries lay upon their hands.

I could wish our shopkeepers would immediately think on this proposal,
addressing it to all persons of quality and others; but first be sure to
get somebody who can write sense, to put it into form.

I think it needless to exhort the clergy to follow this goo