ally savages!" said Sir Marmaduke, as he threw his
spectacles over his forehead, and dropped his pen from his fingers in
mute amazement; "I never heard--I never read of such a people."

"They're Ballyvourney men," chimed in Wylie, assentively.

"D---- d---"

Sir Marmaduke checked himself suddenly, for the idea flashed on him that
he ought at least to know what he was cursing, and so he abstained from
such a perilous course, and resumed his search in the big volume. Alas!
his pursuit of information was not more successful as he proceeded:
every moment disclosed some case, where, in his honest efforts to
improve the condition of the people, from ignorance of their habits,
from total unconsciousness of the social differences of two nations,
essentially unlike, he discovered the failure of his plans, and
unhesitatingly ascribed to the prejudices of the peasantry, what with
more justice might have been charged against his own unskilfulness. He
forgot that a people long neglected cannot at once be won back--that
confidence is a plant of slow growth; but more than all, he lost
sight of the fact, that to engraft the customs and wants of richer
communities, upon a people sunk in poverty and want--to introduce among
them new and improved modes of tillage--to inculcate notions which
have taken ages to grow up to maturity, in more favoured lands, must be
attended with failure and disappointment. On both sides the elements
of success were wanting. The peasantry saw--for, however strange it may
seem, through every phase of want and wretchedness their intelligence
and apprehension suffer no impairment--they saw his anxiety to serve
them, they believed him to be kind-hearted and well-wishing, but they
knew him to be also wrong-headed and ignorant of the country, and what
he gained on the score of good feeling, he lost on the score of good
sense; and Paddy, however humble his lot, however hard his condition,
has an innate reverence for ability, and can rarely feel attachment
to the heart, where he has not felt respect for the head. It is not a
pleasant confession to make, yet one might explain it without detriment
to the character of the people, but assuredly, popularity in Ireland
would seem to depend far more on intellectual resources, than on moral
principle and rectitude. Romanism has fostered this feeling, so natural
is it to the devotee to regard power and goodness as inseparable, and to
associate the holiness of religion, with