Mr. URBAN, Feb. 26. PRESUMING a fecond view of Am berley castle, taken from the oppofite direction, might be acceptable to your readers, I fend you the inclofed ketch (plate III.), which fhews the principal entrance of the cafile. The clump of trees, feen on the top of the hill in the back ground, is called Fittleworth tilt, and ferves as a fea-maik. P. 13, for Silfea read Selfea. Yours, &c. Mr. URBAN, T. Feb 27. Crowborough, over which you pafs Mr. URBAN, Doncafier, May 14. 15 F you think the inclosed sketch of Drogheda gate (fig. 3) worth pubfhing, it is at your service. Pailing lately through Scunthorp, a village in Lincolnire, I obferved the following infcription on a stone built in a low brick building, which, I fuppofe, was put in there from fome other, of which no veftiges remain. The inhabitants could give me no account of it. Perhaps fome of your ingenious correfpondents may be able to trace its origin. ALBANICUS (p. 124) must have Ireland, or in a very jocular humour, avor/biping fire and Baal. 64 was gratified by a fight of this ceremony;" and then tells you, he "only faw the fires from the leads of the house, wherein he was entertained, affording him a view through a great extent of country, not lefs than thirty miles." We find, therefore, Albanicus gives this account, not from what he himself faw (although he wishes to be underftood that he did fee the ceremony,) but from what he "learned" from others. So much for his authority. Now, M: Urban, fuppofe this writer had been informed, as many Englishmen and ftrangers in Ireland have been, that fome of the Irish have wings, and can fly; would he, or any fenfible man, give credit to fuch a story, and even commit it to writing, and endeavour to perfuade mankind that it was true? There are, Sir, in Ireland, a number of humourous people, who are fond of, and ever are ready at what is called, "putting tricks upon travellers;” travellers, who, foolishly believing all they bear, return home, and entertain the world with fome very marvellous accounts of what they had SEEN, and LEARNED, in the courfe of their travels. And I am inclined to believe, that thefe kinds of mifreprefentations and fully are not confined to defcriptions of any country; but, as Ireland is the only country in which I bave travelled out of my own native country England, to that country, and the mifieprefentations concerning it, I will confine myfelf; and, if a refidence amongst the Irish during fourteen years, traverfing every county in Ireland, fome twice, three, and four times over, can be thought to afford me an opportunity of forming a judgement about what I am writing, I thall, I truft, be entitled to more 202 The Fires in Ireland on St. John's Eve accounted for. more credit from your numerous readers than Albanicus. The Irish have certainly a number of peculiarities attached to their religion, fome good, and others deteftable; for inftance, when a woman has milked her cow, the dips her finger into the milk, with which the croffes the beaft, and piously ejaculates a prayer, faving, "Mary, and our Lord, preferve thee, until I come to thee again !" and again, in going to bed, and on blowing or putting out the candle, " May the Lord renew, or fend us, the light of heaven!" A rite, which I call deteftable, is that on Candlemas day, when the people affemble at mafs, and bring with them fuch a quantity of candle as they think they fhall have occafion for for the year. Thefe candles are bleffed by the pricfts in high mafs; after which they are difperfed, as occafion requires, in the cure of wounds, aches, and difeafes, and other purposes equally abfurd and fuperftitious. Hence Albanicus might as well conclude, that the Irish people are idolaters, and worship cows and candles, as that, because they make a bonfire on a rejoicing night, merely to ufher in, what they term, a great feftival, they "worship the fire and Baal." Upon Christmas eve, it has ever been the custom to ufher in the birth of our Saviour by the ringing of bells, which all good Chriftians are delighted to hear, and many will even fit up until midnight on purpose to partake of the general joy: hence will any man fay, that we worship thefe inftruments of religious joy, the bells? As my bufinefs in Ireland required my attending all parts of it, I fixed my refidence near the centre of the king dom. Upon the hill of Mullingar (known in the map by the name of Petitfwood, being part of the eftate belonging to George Rochforte efq.) I refided feveral years. On this beautiful eminence, on St. John's eve, fires were always made by the natives, (Proteftants as well as Roman Catholics,) and from this eminence we could fee other fires, even to Cloghan hill, in the King's county, and also thofe in the county of Rofcommon. But I never faw, or heard, nor any one elfe I believe, until Albanicus in formed us, that any religious rite was ever performed at thefe fires; no fon, nor daughter, nor cattle, were ever forced to pafs through the fire with religious folemnity!! Pagan rites are, in Ireland, totally unknown; the priests [Mar. are too watchful over the people's minds P. S. Geographical writers have greatly erred with respect to their defcriptions of Ireland. Bufching fays, Ardee, in the county of Louth, is a feaport town: he might, with as much truth, have faid, that the town of Barnet was a fea-port; for, just in fuch a fituation is Ardee, between Drogheda and Dundalk, and as far from the fea as Barnet is between London and Gravelend. See the map. Guthrie, amongst the principal sexports for commerce in Ireland, mentions Derry, Belfaft, Strangford, and Dundalk; omitting in his chart the great and opulent fea-port town of Newry. Strangford has, indeed, a confiderable commerce for oifters, but has no trade, or veffel, belonging to it, larger than a fifhing boat; Dundalk has two or three coafters, of twenty or thirty tons each, employed principally in the kelp trade. In Dundalk, however, he might have faid, is a very curious manufactory for cambricks. Guthrie proceeds from the great commercial town of Dundalk to the capital, Dublin, omitting Drogheda, a port of equal trade with any port north of Dublin, not, I believe, excepting even Belfaft. In fhort, there are fuch numerous errors and omiffions in the printed accounts of Ireland, that, had leifure to point out all of them, I could fill a volume; and I am convinced that neither Busching nor Guthrie wrote from what they faw; but, like Albanicus, from what they were told; and if they have been as erroneous in defcribing other countries as in their defcription of Ireland, very little can be really acquired by reading their productions. With refpect to Guthrie, he fays, or fome one for him has faid, that Ireland abounds with forefts. With forefts! forefs! I fuppofe he muft mean the under-ground forefs, the bogs, where the trees lie borizontally, from five to thirty feet below the furfare; not in trees, or woods, growing perpendicular, for travellers to view and take fhelter under occafionally. The truth is, Sir, there is not, that I ever faw or heard of, one foot of forefi-land in the whole kingdom; nor are there many woods throughout the country. Crown lands are totally unknown there, except the Phoenix park; the king has not a foot of land in Ireland; the knowledge of that only came out on a recent trial concerning a houfe built in the park for a late fecretary to a late lord lieutenant. See a trial, City of Dublin verfus Sir John Blacquier. Guthrie likewife fays the lands of Ireland are naturally preferable to the lands of England. Thofe who read Young's Tour in Ireland muft, upon a fair comparison, have feen the contrary. Befides Mr. Young, as to this fact, I refer the curious to a ftill more competent authority. I mean, the agricultural tracts of Mr. Baker, the late experimental farmer, appointed by the Dublin fociety to improve certain bad lands with English implements in the town of Celbridge *, or, as fpelt in an edition of Swift's life, Silbridge, fix only, not twelve, miles from Dublin. The difficulties Mr. Baker had to furmount in this bufinefs were aftonishing; and which, after all his induftry, he could not effect, and he died of a broken heart and ruined fortune, without accomplishing it. The lands through the kingdom are, like our own, a mixture of good and bad; fome lands are totally unimprovable, whift the major part throughout the kingdom will cost from 15 to 30l. per acre before they will produce a courfe of crops. W. B *Col. Marley is now, I believe, in poffeffion of Mr. Baker's farm at Celbridge, and lives in the houfe wherein Vanella Vanbomrigh refided and died. About twelve years ago, I vifited the Colonel; and, amongst other curiofities, he fhewed me the rural feat where this victim to Swift's duplicity used to repofe, and make her verfes: it is fituated on the fide of a running brook, fhaded with lofty trees; the form of this feat was preferved with the utmost care; every part of it was covered with ivy, and altogether it formed a moft, venerable appearance. The Colonel and I fat on it fome time; and upon it I had the honour to partake of a cool tankard in the accomplished Vanbomrig b's fequeftered bower. ** The SCOTCH Beltein, celebrated May 1, old ftyle, is.a rural facrifice, when the herdsmen partake of a dish of caudle, and throw over their heads a piece of cake to each, being the fuppofed preferver, or to fome animal, the real deftrover of their flocks and herds. Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1769, p 97. The herds of feveral farmers gather wood, put fire to it, and dance three times fouthways round the pile, p. 291. Mr. Vallancey, collating the Japanefe with the Irish language, (Collect, Hib. x. 168.) fays, the day of fummer folftice, when the fun was at the head or beginning of the circle, they celebrated with fires in honour of Bual or Panga Sank, that is, the globular fire, which fires are ftill made all over Ireland, in honour of St. John, whose festival fails on that day. D. H. Mr. URBAN, Southwell, Feb. 8. THE many abfurd and ridiculous opinions on the fubject of hydrophobia, which have appeared in fome numbers of your Magazine, fcarcely merit the trouble of confutation, inaf much as they have not contained any fentiment bearing the most distant appearance of argument founded on rational principles; yet, as they may posfibly be the conductors of erroneous ideas, and confequently of injudicious practice, they fo far deferve our attention. One correfpondent denies the exiftence of fuch a complaint as the hydrophobia. Another condemns the most judicious treatment of the difeafe; and, at the fame time, illiberally attempts to condemn the character of his coadjutor: and I felt well pleafed that fo able a pen as that of Dr. Lettfom had undertaken the kind office of vindicating the practice of the young injured furgeon. I fhall pafs over the fubjects of the letters of Mr. Robin fon and Verax et Benevolus; and fhall now only notice the epiftle of your correfpondent J. P. p. 11, which contains an opinion equally abfurd, and equally difficult to fupport. Your correfpondent brings forward the fentiments of his friend: "A physician regularly educated at Oxford, whence he took his degree; he studied abroad, and has been in full practice near fixteen years; stands high in rank as a mem ber of the College; has read the Culstonian lecture; and is very generally confidered to have a great share of knowledge, and to be free from all affectation of fingularity or whim." Your |