ddy is, in his ejaculatory, as well as in all his other mock oaths, a
kind, of smuggler in morality, imposing as often as he can upon his own
conscience, and upon those who exercise spiritual authority over him.
Perhaps more of his oaths are blood-stained than would be found among
the inhabitants of all Christendom put together.

Paddy's oaths in his amours are generally rich specimens of humorous
knavery and cunning. It occasionally happens--but for the honor of
our virtuous countrywomen, we say but rarely--that by the honey of his
flattering and delusive tongue, he succeeds in placing some unsuspecting
girl's reputation in rather a hazardous predicament. When the priest
comes to investigate the affair, and to cause him to make compensation
to the innocent creature who suffered by his blandishments, it is almost
uniformly ascertained that, in order to satisfy her scruples as to
the honesty of his promises, he had sworn marriage to her on a book
of ballads!!! In other cases blank books have been used for the same
purpose.

If, however, you wish to pin Paddy up in a corner, get him a Relic, a
Catholic prayer-book, or a Douay Bible to swear upon. Here is where the
fox--notwithstanding all his turnings and windings upon heretic Bibles,
books, or ballads, or mock oaths--is caught at last. The strongest
principle in him is superstition. It may be found as the prime mover in
his best and worst actions. An atrocious man, who is superstitious, will
perform many good and charitable actions, with a hope that their merit
in the sight of God may cancel the guilt of his crimes. On the other
hand, a good man, who is superstitiously the slave of his religious
opinions, will lend himself to those illegal combinations, whose object
is, by keeping ready a system of organized opposition to an heretical
government, to fulfil, if a political crisis should render it
practicable, the absurd prophecies of Pastorini and Columbkil. Although
the prophecies of the former would appear to be out of date to a
rational reader, yet Paddy, who can see farther into prophecy than any
rational reader, honestly believes that Pastorini has left for those who
are superstitiously given, sufficient range of expectation in several
parts of his work.

We might enumerate many other oaths in frequent use among the peasantry;
but as our object is not to detail them at full length, we trust that
those already specified may be considered sufficient to enable our
re