ncessant siege to the houses of wealthy and even of
struggling small farmers, were such! as scarcely any pen could describe.
Neither can we render anything like adequate justice to the benevolence
and charity--nay, we ought to say, the generosity and magnanimity of
this and the middle classes in general, In no country on earth could
such noble instances of self-denial and sublime humanity be witnessed.
It has happened in thousands of instances that the last miserable
morsel, the last mouthful of nourishing liquid, the last potato, or the
last six-pence, has been divided with wretched and desolate beings who
required it more, and this, too, by persons who, when that was gone,
knew not to what quarter they could turn with a hope of replacing for
themselves that which they had just shared in a spirit of such genuine
and exalted piety.*

* It is as well to state here that the season described
in this tale is the dreadful and melancholy one of
1817; and we may add, that in order to avoid the charge
of having exaggerated the almost incredible sufferings
of the people in that year, we have studiously kept our
descriptions of them within the limits of truth. Dr.
Cokkigan, in his able and very sensible pamphlet on
"Fever and Famine as Cause and Effect in Ireland"--a
pamphlet, by the way, which has been the means of
conveying most important truths to statesmen, and which
ought to be looked on as a great public benefit--has
confirmed the accuracy of the gloomy pictures I was
forced to draw. Here follow an extract or two:

"It is scarcely necessary to call to recollection the
summer of 1810, cold and wet--corn uncut in November,
or rotting in the sheaves on the ground--potatoes not
ripened (and when unripe there cannot be worse food),
containing more water than nutriment--straw at such an
extravagant price as to render the obtaining of it for
bedding almost impossible, and when procured, retaining
from its half-fermented state, so much moisture, that
the use was, perhaps, worse than the want of it. The
same agent that destroyed the harvest spoiled the turf.
Seldom had such a multiplication of evils come
together. In some of the former years, although food
and bedding were deficient, the portion saved was of
good quality, and fuel was not wanting: but in 1815
every comfort that might have c