eloquence and pathos, that, in spite of my firmness,
occasioned me to feel the prevailing sorrow. They spoke, or chaunted
mournfully, in Irish; but the substance of what they said was as
follows:--

"Oh, Denis, Denis, avourneen! you're lying low, this morning of
sorrow!--lying low are you, and does not know who it is (alluding to me)
that is standing over you, weeping for the days you spent together in
your youth! It's yourself, _acushla agus asthore machree_ (the pulse and
beloved of my heart), that would stretch out the right hand warmly to
welcome him to the place of his birth, where you had both been so often
happy about the green hills and valleys with each other! He's here now,
standing over you; and it's he, of all his family, kind and respectable
as they are, that was your own favorite, Denis, _avourneen dhelish!_
He alone was the companion that you loved!--with no other could you be
happy!--For him did you fight, when he wanted a friend in your young
quarrels! and if you had a dispute with him, were you not sorry for it?
Are you not now stretched in death before him, and will he not forgive
you?"

All this was uttered, of course, extemporaneously, and without the least
preparation. They then passed on to an enumeration of his virtues as
a father, a husband, son, and brother--specified his worth as he stood
related to society in general, and his kindness as a neighbor and a
friend.

An occurrence now took place which may serve, in some measure, to throw
light upon many of the atrocities and outrages which take place in
Ireland. Before I mention it, however, I think it necessary to make
a few observations relative to it. I am convinced that those who are
intimately acquainted with the Irish peasantry will grant that there is
not on the earth a class of people in whom the domestic affections of
blood-relationship are so pure, strong, and sacred. The birth of a child
will occasion a poor man to break in upon the money set apart for his
landlord, in order to keep the christening, surrounded by his friends
and neighbors, with due festivity. A marriage exhibits a spirit of joy,
an exuberance of happiness and delight, to be found only in the Green
Island; and the death of a member of a family is attended with a
sincerity of grief, scarcely to be expected from men so much the
creatures of the more mirthful feelings. In fact, their sorrow is a
solecism in humanity--at once deep and loud--mingled up, even in its
deepe