ned and destroyed, lest they may
appear to posterity as so many monuments of these wicked barbarians.
This was a glorious resolution; and I am sorry to think, that the
poverty of my countrymen will not let the world suppose, they have acted
upon such a generous principle; yet upon this occasion I cannot but
observe, that there is a fatality in some nations, to be fond of those
who have treated them with the least humanity. Thus I have often heard
the memory of Cromwell, who has depopulated, and almost wholly destroyed
this miserable country, celebrated like that of a saint, and at the same
time the sufferings of the royal martyr turned into ridicule, and his
murder justified even from the pulpit, and all this done with an intent
to gain favour, under a monarchy; which is a new strain of politics that
I shall not pretend to account for.

"Examine all the eastern towns of Ireland, and you will trace this
horrid instrument of destruction, in defacing of Churches, and
particularly in destroying whatever was ornamental, either within or
without them. We see in the several towns a very few houses scattered
among the ruins of thousands, which he laid level with their streets;
great numbers of castles, the country seats of gentlemen then in being,
still standing in ruin, habitations for bats, daws, and owls, without
the least repairs or succession of other buildings. Nor have the country
churches, as far as my eye could reach, met with any better treatment
from him, nine in ten of them lying among their graves and God only
knows when they are to have a resurrection. When I passed from Dundalk
where this cursed usurper's handy work is yet visible, I cast mine eyes
around from the top of a mountain, from whence I had a wide and a waste
prospect of several venerable ruins. It struck me with a melancholy, not
unlike that expressed by Cicero in one of his letters which being much
upon the like prospect, and concluding with a very necessary reflection
on the uncertainty of things in this world, I shall here insert a
translation of what he says: 'In my return from Asia, as I sailed from
AEgina, towards Megara, I began to take a prospect of the several
countries round me. Behind me was AEgina; before me Megara; on the right
hand the Piraeus; and on the left was Corinth; which towns were formerly
in a most flourishing condition; now they lie prostrate and in ruin.

"'Thus I began to think with myself: Shall we who have but a trifling
e