Cui tulit hesterna gaudiis nocte Venus. L. 2. Eleg. 1.
⸺ From the Altars let him keep,
That in his Lady’s Arms last Night did sleep.
By this Question in the last Chapter of Proverbs, as I take it, Who can find a virtuous Woman? One would be apt to surmise that Solomon had travell’d into this Country; and to see the People eat Clover Grass, a Man might swear ’em all a-kin to grazing Nebuchadnezzar. The Genius of the Irish is not a-whit admirable, for one Age here grows not wiser than another, like other Nations; which gives great Suspicion of a Metempsischosis, or Pythagoras’s Transmigration of the Soul to be true: Seeing, by the Conversation I had among the Bogtrotters, that the younger Folks only inherit the small Sense of their Progenitors; whose profound Knowledge was heretofore so great, as to tye Ploughs to their Horses Tails. Their Bogs are many, whence they have all their Fuel, for they burn nothing but Turf; Spiders are very plentiful, but not venomous; and the common Texture spun out of their Intrails, makes a Sort of Hangings, which the Irish for Cheapness prefer much before good Tapestry. In some Parts they make their Bread with the Bark of Holly, from which tearing off the green Superfluities, they work it up round like a Football, and bake it in the Embers. Their Butter being mixt with Salt and Garlick, and put into the Skin which follows the Calf from the Cow, they bury in a Turf-Pit for 8 or 9 Months together, which does not only make it of a strong Taste, but likewise dies it with all the Colours in the Rainbow: And Briskins, or the Roots of wild Tansie, they love as well. Tho’ the Streets in every Town are very dirty, yet their Scavengers Carts are no bigger than Wheelbarrows; and the Use of Clogs or Pattins is an Abomination with most Women. The most epidemical Distemper among Strangers is the bloody Flux; for which, Eggs fry’d in Brandy is a good Catholicon. Few or no Patients happen among the lying-in Women; for (like the Hebrews, as their pious Midwives pretended) they are brought to Bed without any Help; wash and do all without Nurses; and in less than half a Week do not only go abroad, but also give Earnest for being with Child again. Their newborn Infants are as hardy, and will endure Cold as well as any Laplander; or the strongest Bear subject to the Czar of Muscovy. The Irish Soil mimicks Nature like the vivifying Mud of Nile; for I have seen the Hairs which fall from Horses Tails into Puddles of Water on the Road, transubstantiated (if I may be so bold as to use that Word, without any Offence to his Unholiness the Pope) into Worms; wherefore it is no Wonder that Priests, by the Art of Legerdemain, can convert good Bread and Wine into real Flesh and Blood.
Jack-Daws here are not black, but white and grey, like Royston Crows; and Sea-Gulls are all white, except their Wings, which are tipt at the End with a dark yellow; but the largest Birds in this Kingdom are Whores-Birds and Jay!-Birds. Here is a sort of Vermin breeding near Bogs call’d Man-creepers; in Shape and Bigness like a Lizard, having 4 Legs, the two foremost of which bear the Resemblance of a Human Hand. This Creature’s Property is to creep into a Man’s Belly, if he finds him sleeping with his Mouth open, where he extreamly tortures him, ’till fetch’d out of his internal Habitation; which Operation is thus perform’d. The Patient being kept fasting, his Chyrurgeon baits a Hook with a Piece of Meat, and puts it down his Throat, at which the hungry Insect snapping, he pulls him out with a sudden Jerk, and kills it. Milk will not keep (do what they can) from turning sour in six Hours at any time of the Year; but why this Region can’t preserve this Sweetness longer, is somewhat paradoxical to me; unless the invisible Effluvia’s, which secretly dissipate themselves from the unwholsome Fogs, arising out of the Bogs, by the attractive Power of the Sun’s Beams, assume the Prerogative of forcing the Putrefaction, so common to the liquid Product of the Cow’s Teat. An Ignis fatuus the silly People deem to be a Soul broke out of Purgatory; and on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist’s Nativity they make Bonfires, and run along the Streets and Fields with Wisps of Straw blazing on long Poles to purify the Air, which they think infectious, by believing all the Devils, Spirits, Ghosts, and Hobgoblins fly abroad this Night to hurt Mankind. Farthermore, it is their dull Theology to affirm, the Souls of all People leave their Bodies on the Eve of this Feast, and take a Ramble to that very Place where, by Land or Sea, a final Seperation shall divorce them for evermore in this World. As soon as Death brings his last Summons to any one, the wild Irish (both Men, Women and Children) go before the Corpse, and from his or her House to the Church-yard set up a most hideous Holoo loo loo, which may be heard two or three Miles round the Country. Now when a Virgin (if here’s any such Thing after she’s in the Teens) dies, a Garland, made of all sorts of Flowers and sweet Herbs, is carried by a young Woman on her Head, before the Coffin, from which hang down two black Ribbons, signifying our mortal State; and two white, as an Emblem of Purity and Innocence; the Ends thereof are held by 4 young Maids, which are not so plenty here as Thornbacks, before whom a Basket full of Herbs and Flowers is supported by 2 other Maids, who strew them along the Streets to the Place of Burial: Then after the Deceased follow all her Relations, and Acquaintance. But the Priest being asham’d to walk without his Pontificalibus, he’s as invisible, ’till you come to the Grave, as if he had the Ring of Gyges on his Finger.
Peas, Beans, and Artichoaks are very scarce; but what is worse, their Beef will not take Salt, without all the Fat melting away. The Inhabitants in general thinking Adultery and Fornication more laudable, than drawing the Picture of Posterity in the lawful State of Matrimony, the Morbus gallicus is as fashionable all over the Country, as in any Court in Europe; nevertheless, it is no Miracle to see them look fair to the last, since they drink nothing but what Nature’s Liberality is pleas’d to bestow on ’em at Springs. Children that are troubled with Kibes are always in a sad Condition, because their poor Parents being great Strangers to any sort of salted Meat, they have no Brine to Cure them. When they use Phlebotomy they frequently bleed ill Blood, because it always runs in their Veins; and an Apoplexy seldom kills them, because they are not much pamper’d with high Feeding. A Dropsie does not much hurt an Irishman, by reason he naturally swells with his Rhodomontado’s, and bragging Lies: But a deep Consumption always affects most their Pockets. Tho’ all their Actions are evil, yet are they not much afflicted with the King’s-Evil; nor are they much troubled with the Gout, because their Poverty does not qualifie them for it. I can’t tell what an Imposthume may do, but a Lie will never choak them; nor do they seem to have the Palsie, but when a bad Conscience makes ’em quake and tremble like an Aspin Leaf: But indeed the People are all most grievously infected with the Scurvy and Spleen too. As for their Houses, the Rooms up one pair of Stairs, or higher, are cover’d with Earth 4 or 5 Inches thick; and the Tenent of the Joyces are not put into Mortises, but laid cross-wise into Notches over the Summet. An Irishman and Fool are Correlatives; or at least synonimous Terms: And catch him without a Blunder, which makes him love Bulls, ’tis to be fear’d the World is near its Dissolution. They speak largely of their Antiquity, boasting as if they were a People before the Creation; but, in my Opinion, Ireland could not well be in esse so early, because e’er a powerful Fiat produc’d all Things out of nothing, all Things lay in their original Chaos, so I can’t imagine of what the Irish could exist, unless they derive their Descent from those Atoms, which by a casual Concourse (as the Epicureans hold) jumping together, gave Being to the World. Neither could it be a Country at the first Dawn of Light, by reason when Omnipotency had finisht his stupendious Works, he said, they were good; and the sacred Approbation was glorified by all the Sons of the Morning, who shouted together for Joy. Truly, I should rather impute the Original of this Country to some Judgment, which stirring up the Ocean, to overwhelm some remoter Part of the Globe, whose aggravating Sins too much incensed divine Justice, it left its antient Current, to make room for a Place as wicked: for you may read in divers Authors of a Resurrection of Isles, peeping up in many Parts, where none were ever seen before.
Their Language they do not only reckon older, but also more copious than the Hebrew; however, the Copiousness of their Linguo is easily guess’d at, by not having a Word in their Speech to express Breeches; and many other appellative Words. Like the odious French they put the Substantive before the Adjective, and to embellish their Discourse, too often mixt with Tautology, they frequently use the Figure Hysteron & Proteron, that is, putting the Cart before the Horse. Their Alphabet contains but these 17 Letters, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U; but this literal Paucity (like the Saxon Abecedary) is supply’d with some Abbreviations or Contractions. The Pronunciation of their Tongue being somewhat guttural, it is hard for the Vulgar to speak it; harder to speak it significantly; and hardest to write true. In the late King James’s Reign an Irish Teaguish Priest mightily extolling this Bogland Jargon, he as mightily interceeded with his papistick Majesty to erect publick Schools in Oxford and Cambridge, for professing this Tongue; but an Irish Courtier, who had no great Veneration for this conceited Pedlar in holy Trinkets, requesting the King to command him to translate, Black Ox eat raw Egg, the Priest presently perform’d his Talk thus, Daue dooue ecye ewe ouce; at which inarticulate Sounds (for if you was to hear them rightly pronounc’d, they sound just like a Dog’s barking) his Majesty bursted out a laughing, and calling to his Dog Towser, said, Here’s my Dog can speak your Language already; whereupon the spiritual Jugler drew in his Horns, and sneak’d off like a small Cur that had lost his Tail. In their Discourse it is common for them to use two Negatives, which I’m sure make an Affirmative; unless, after the manner of the Greeks, they use them to make the Negation stronger. It has been a great Dispute among Grammarians, whether an Irishman is a Noun Substantive, or a Noun Adjective; but it is carried in the latter, by reason he cannot stand by himself in Battle; for before the Irish go abroad, you shall not find greater Cowards under the Copes of Heaven.
Why the Men and Women here should be so unmercifully big in the Legs, above any other People, I impute to their mean Food, making no solid Chyle; so what slender Diet they eat, descending into their lower Parts, it there settles in a dropsical sort of a Humour. For all this Climate is reckon’d wholesome, it is rare to see any of the Natives past the climacterical Year; and their Perfidiousness is commonly attended with more Curses, in one respect or another, than are read in the Commination by our Clergy on Ash Wednesday. Such as have Pewter take great Delight to have it furbelow’d with Dust; and to wear clean Linnen they reckon as great a Crime as Loyalty. The People (like Janus) have not two Faces; but that they are double-hearted is confirm’d by the Votes of all moral Men: For thinking a sly deceiving their best Friends meritorious, is a general Rule they hold without any Exception. Here few Women die Martyrs for Love; but if they crave the Affections of a Man, wholly averse to their Inclination, their Endeavour to raise Enjoyment of him is by Art; and to this end they often use Philtres. Likewise, the Spark that’s resolv’d to sacrifice his Youth and Vigour on a Damsel, whose Coyness will not accept of his Love-Oblations; he threads a Needle with the Hair of her Head, and then running it thro’ the most fleshy Part of a dead Man, as the Brawn of the Arms, Thigh, or Calf of the Leg, the Charm has that Virtue in it, as to make her run mad for him whom she so lately slighted. Providence is very admirable in all its Dispensations, of strangely bringing surprising Accidents to pass; but more especially in Ireland, is her Gubernation of Chances wonderful, in preserving a People from starving, whose short Commons, in most Places, make a lively Representation of Famine. Their Skill in painting comes not near the rude Draughts of the boorish Dutch; whose Fancy is more grotesque than natural: And their Churches discover neither any Workmanship after the old Gothick Fashion; nor shew the Dorick, Corinthian, or other Orders of modern Architecture. Also the Spaciousness of them may be soon guess’d at by their Cathedrals, the largest of which scarce exceeds Oliver’s Tabernacle, or Calamy’s Presbyterian Meeting-House in Long Ditch at Westminster.
This Country abounds with Foxes, and some wild Deer; Curlues and Cuckolds; and many Rooms in most Houses having no Chimnies, one would take every Town to be a Vent of Mount Ætna, when the Smoak (which is enough to stifle Charon) makes the Walls as black as Hell: And because Sarah was buried in the Field of Macpelah, some of the Irish have the Ambition to be buried in open Places. The People are so alike for Rags and Jags, that I believe Plautus took his Amphitryo from them.