Your Luffs nor Ports can do us now no Good.
Mean while the Chaplain, who shou’d for ’em pray,
Instead of praying, swears as fast as they:
And just on drowning, in one hideous Yell,
They curse their Fate, and swim with speed to Hell.
But being got upon firm Land again, as I said before, I was very glad of visiting the Irish Natives, tho’ they are not yet wholly brought to a civil Course of Life, thro’ the Fathers inflicting an heavy Curse on all their Posterity, if ever they should sow Corn, build Houses, or learn the English Tongue: And the Reason of this inveterate Antipathy is, because heretofore there being but one Freeholder in a whole County, which was the Lord himself, the rest held in Villanage; and being subject to the Lord’s immeasurable Taxations, they had no Encouragement to build, sow, or plant. Ireland is divided into 4 Provinces; namely, Munster; Leinster, where Stonehenge once stood, but by Magick Art Merlin remov’d those ponderous Stones out of this Territory into Wiltshire; Connaught, where are some Vines, but rather serving for Shade than Profit, for in these Parts the Sun entring into Virgo, causeth cold Gales to blow, and in Autumn the Afternoon’s Heat is so faint and short, that it cannot ripen the Clusters; and Ulster, whose antient Custom in making their King was by taking a white Cow, which his Irish Majesty must kill, and seeth the same in Water whole, then must he bath himself therein stark naked; and sitting in the Caldron wherein it is sod, accompanied with the People round about him, he and they eat the Flesh, and drink the Broth (much Good may’t do ’em) without Cup, Dish or Spoon. No sooner was I arriv’d at Dublin, but being in Company with some Collegians of Trinity-College there, which is all the Colleges their University contains, they to shew their extraordinary Parts to me a Stranger in a poetick Way, made Verses ex tempore, and I to Oblige them writ off of Hand the following Lines.
When pious Israel, by Jehovah blest,
Had been four hundred Years and more opprest,
By haughty Pharaoh’s arbitrary Sway,