, with a true
appreciation of the daughters of the west, it inundates the land with
red-coats.

These observations were forced upon me as I looked about the room, and
saw on every side how completely the gallant Seventy-something had
cut out the country gentry. Poor fellows! you are great people at the
assizes--you are strong men at a road-sessions--but you're mighty small
folk indeed before your wives and daughters when looked at to the
music of 'Paddy Carey,' and by the light of two hundred and fifty
mutton-candles.

The country-dance was at length formed, and poor Mr. Harkin, the master
of the ceremonies and Coryphaeus-in-ordinary of Loughrea, had, by dint
of scarce less fatigue than I experienced in my steeplechase, by running
hither and thither, imploring, beseeching, wheedling, coaxing, and even
cursing, at length succeeded in assembling sixty-four souls in a double
file upon the floor. Poor fellow! never was there a more disorderly
force. Nobody would keep his own place, but was always trying to get
above his neighbour. In vain did he tell the men to stand at their own
side. Alas! they thought that side their own where the ladies were also.
Then the band added to his miseries; for scarcely had he told them to
play 'The Wind that shakes the Barley,' when some changed it to 'The
Priest in his Boots,' and afterwards to 'The Dead March in Saul.' These
were heavy afflictions; for be it known that he could not give way,
as other men would in such circumstances, to a good outbreak of
passion--for Mr. Harkin was a public functionary, who, like all other
functionaries, had a character to sustain before the world. When kings
are angry, we are told by Shakespeare, Schiller, and others, they
rant it in good royal style. Now, when a dancing-master is excited by
passion, he never loses sight of the unities. If he flies down the floor
to chide the little fat man that is talking loudly, he contrives to do
it with a step, a spring, and a hop, to the time of one, two, three.
Is there a confusion in the figure, he advances to rectify it with a
_chasse_ rigadoon. Does Mr. Somebody turn his toes too much out, or is
Miss So-and-so holding her petticoats too high, he fugles the correction
in his own person--first imitating the deformity he would expose, and
then displaying the perfection he would point to.

On the evening in question, this gentleman afforded me by far the most
of the amusement of the ball. Nearly half the company ha