Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A63248
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A trip to Ireland being a description of the country, people and manner : as also some select observations on Dublin.
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Ward, Edward, 1667-1731.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing T2285; ESTC R22635
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17,723
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17
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with their Mouths so hard that as one observed 't is very probable that they suck out all their Brains and leave them for ever after empty Skull'd I wonder said one to an Irishman that being Thirty Years of Age and having travel'd through the best Part of the World you should be so great a Fool still That 's no wonder replies another but the greater wonder is that there should be a whole Kingdom of such Fools Shirts are no less out of date among the Teagues than Surplices among the Dissenters so that one may guess what poor shift they make to keep their Bodies sweet and may not this be one reason why they so much dread to hear one break wind at the Postern The intolerable fustiness that must needs lye lurking in their unlined Breeches adding a stench beyond the Devil's Pomander Otherwise they do not appear so over-nice and curious nor would they contradict the Proverb That Every Man's Tayl smells sweet in his own Nose Neither would they let fly so often above-board for they will belch as loud as Pot-guns and as often as a Lover in absence breathes his amorous Sighs But add to the rest the straitness of their Breeches called Trowsers which sit as close as a Jealous Wife to her Husband's Tayl and you need not wonder at their backward Modesty Some count them naturally hospitable but if they are so it is after such an ill-favour'd manner that 't is like the giving an Alms in a nasty Clout which Necessity may make welcome but the greatest Charity cannot account Decent Bonny-Clabber and Mulahaan alias Sower Milk and Choak-Cheese with a Dish of Potatoes boiled is their general Entertainment to which add an Oat cake and it compleats their Bill of Fare unless they intend to shew their excessive Prodigality and tempt your Appetite with a Dozen of Eggs extraordinary which many times instead of being new-laid prove like over-ridden Wenches either rotten or else having a young Chick in the belly of ' em After this comes Tobacco which you must either take in Smoak or Snuff if you will be good Company while they sit Chewing it with as much eagerness and desire as the longing great-bellied Woman did bite at the fat Man's Breech And for a close to all this Treat a la Grandezza the Mistress shall produce her Moornaun of Sower Milk and having stript up her sleeve to the Shoulder she thrusts up to the Arm-pits and stirring the Curds at the bottom with her Hands she then presents you with the Liquor and if you like it you may fill your Belly with her Kindness till you are satisfied I have heard it affirmed also by knowing Persons in this Country that in some Parts of it they have a way of making a Soupe beyond all the French Pottages in Vogue the way is thus A Dame of the better sort having had the good Fortune to boil a piece of very fat Pork till a great part of it is run into an Oil swimming on the top she strips of her Smock dips it therein till it has soaked up all the Grease then puts it on her Body and so wears it some days to smoothen her Skin and supple her Ioints now if afterwards there be occasion and no store of other Provision about the Cabban off comes this anointed Garment again which being boiled in clear Water and a little Oatmeal and a small Faggot of Herbs the melted Fat and those other Ingredients will be converted into a most savoury Mess of Irish-Smock broath and then 't is done in a Dish But let me not forget their Butter made up with so much Filth and Hair it looks like the Lime we prepare to Plaister our Walls withal which being beaten up into as rude a shape as a Spanish Piece of Eight if eaten without Sindging or not melted and strained you shall run as great hazard as one that would swallow the Burr of an over-grown Artichoke without Butter or a pickled Rope without Sauce Hence one may easily guess the difference betwixt this and the Dutch Butter-box the one cutting like Spanish Marmalad the other like untried Kitchin-stuff and having as rank an odour as a Carriers Summer trotters If they had the Wit to put the Hair in one Dish and the Butter in another apart it might be in a Man's Choice to take or leave as he pleased but they are so order'd you must eat both at once And that their Bread may be suitable to their Butter and so stick the closer together the Women grind their Corn on a Stone placed betwixt their naked Thighs upon the Ground in the very same posture as they Churn their Cream Their Mills having this Advantage over others that they are equally supplied both with Wind and Water at the same instant Drinking is not so much their Vice as some of their Neighbouring Nations unless their so excessive Smoaking be reckoned in to which both the Men and Women are so generally addicted yea the very Children too that an Infant of their breeding shall take more delight in handling a Tobacco-Pipe than a Rattle and will sooner learn to make use of it than another shall of its Sucking-bottle Surely this Indian Weed is a very Witch and they have this resemblance that both of them are very nasty and ugly It is an Irish Observation and a notable one too that whenever two Armies meet in Battle the one must run for both cannot conquer and since one must give way why not at the beginning before much Bloodshed rather than after too many lives are lost and since one of them must or generally does run who fitter to run than they whom Nature has provided with better Legs to run than Hands or Hearts to sight therefore they do commonly run and run betimes lest some Wound in their Legs should hinder their nimble Retreat This made an old experienc'd Officer who knew the way of the Reasoning of these Brutes cause some Regiments of Dragoons to march on foot up towards their more numerous Army with Boots on whom when the Irish beheld they straight-way concluded that those English Men being booted would not or could not run and since one Party must go off at last it must needs be themselves and therefore they discreetly ran all away immediately A Stiff-necked Generation they cannot be called they lay them down so readily to every Yoke as if they were born to Servitude and so we find them inclined to have been indifferently under their own Country-men or under their old Friends the Spaniards in former Times and their new Friends the French lately if the English had not prevented it Therefore are they the less to be pitied because by them there is no greater Liberty expected or much desired and struggled for by them Their Language seems to be very ancient indeed being almost worn quite out of Date scarce known in any other Country and not generally used in their own To a Foreigner it sounds so unpleasant
be transplanted into the Territories of the Holy Church as being the most submissive Members thereof But here is enough of the midling sort of People I shall therefore proceed to give him the Prospect of a Place in which he has all the Reason in the World to expect a more agreeable Sight tho' perhaps he may find the resemblance of what he has already seen in it Of DVBLIN WE have hitherto treated of the middle sort of People and those who are to be found in the several Country Towns and Villages but we are now come to a City which is the cheif of the several Provinces and the Capital in respect of the several Courts of Judicature which are held here and where the supream Court of the whole Kingdom viz. the high Court of Parliament is now assembled but which notwithstanding the great Concourse of Nobility who now keep their Residence here bears a proportion in its Inhabitants to the People whose Manners in the foregoing Papers we have submitted to the censure of the publick Dublin is a City situated on an arm of the Sea and might be made very strong did those who are in the supream Power there think it advisable to make it so it gives name to an Arch-Bishoprick and is the place where the Deputies or Lords-justices of Ireland hold their Court At present their Excellencies the Lord Marquiss of Winchester and the Earl of Gallaway have that Character and if the Inhabitants of this City had any disposition to Industry or Vertue they might find such Encouragement from these Two noble Lords as might sufficiently endear it to their Practice But they are People not to be persuaded by Example or Precept and if any of 'em are so lucky as to tread in the Paths of Goodness you may conclude it wholy owing to themselves for they are all too proud to follow one anothers directions By this one might imagine they were excellent at Inventions and might be very serviceable to the Publick by ingenious Acquirments but that Man is mistaken if he expects any such matter from 'em and for several Years we have had but Two or Three Experiments from their whole Royal Society and those so far from being New that they had not been Printed but as a Compliment to Dr. Molineux who perhaps without some such notice taken of him would have made no more Observations than the rest of his Brethren But tho' they are not over successful in the search after Knowledg for the publick Good there is no Body like 'em in things which is against it and they have Twenty ways at least for the breach of one Commandment when their whole study will not furnish 'em with one to keep it Their Buildings partake much of the Constitution of their Owners vast Foundations like their Legs at the bottom but built so very high that he is a rich Man who can furnish one Story whilst the upper Rooms bear proportion to his upper part and are as destitute of Furniture as his Skull The two principal Churches are St. Patricks and Christ-Church Edifices tolerable enough did not the Man in the Pulpit disgrace 'em and unless Dr. King or some eminent Bishop transplanted from England Preaches there you may as soon expect an ingenious Discourse from Dr. Meriton at St. Martins in the Afternoon or a piece of Oratory from the Mendicant Divine who holds forth upon the rails in Moor-Feilds as a sentence worth observation from any Man of God among 'em all To say the Lord's-Prayer and ten Commandments is a sufficient Plea for Holy Orders and that Bishop's Chaplain who shall offer any Text in Greek to be constru'd by the would be a Deacon or examin him as to the sense of the Fathers about Original Sin shall be look'd upon as one not capable of performing the Office of a Priest himself They have but one Colledge here bat yet it bears the Title of an University like a certain Peer in the same Kingdom who has the sonorous Title of an Earl of ten Worlds when his Lordship has scarce a Foot of Land And I think it well enough deserves the Name of University if Vniversal Ignorance Pride and Poverty which has taken Lodgings here may deserve that name The Founder who endow'd it knew well enough the Dispositions of those who should be his Tenants and therefore provided well enough for their Bellies tho' none but the Provost has any Provision for their Backs but for Books he gave 'em none well knowing the little use they would make of 'em tho' the Irish Parliament is contriving Ways and Means for a Library for 'em which some think will be built much about the time as the Students who are design'd to make use of it shall arrive to the knowledge requisite for such Studies and that is never As for the Inhabitants of this place in general we will rank 'em under 2 degrees viz. Lords and Commons The First are Spiritual and Temporal For the Spiritual out of the Veneration I have for the Holy Office they bear I shall say little further than that they may be very knowing Gentlemen tho' I could not edifie by 'em and tho' I never amongst the whole set of 'em could find the Learning of a City Lecturer yet they may be Men of singular Parts and their Devotion may have brought 'em so near Heaven that for all that I know their Heads may be lost in the Clouds For the Nobility the greatest Part of 'em may be compared to their own Mountains who are so very high that they seem to wear the Stars for a Coronet but yet are indeed no better dighted then with a dirty Bog on the top more deep and dangerous then the lowest Road in the Vallies Their Estates for the generality are not greater than an ordinary English Gentlemans yet their Pride so excessively great that Disdain is written on their Brows where you may read I am too good for thee For their Commonality Writing is a rarity among 'em and Reading would be utterly laid aside were it not of great and important Consequence when they are allow'd the Benefit of their Clergy in their Neck-Verse and often-times poor Culprit goes to Pot because Mr. Ordinary and He can't agree which reads truest But I have forgot the Right Honourable his Lordship therefore I must tell you this pitiful City has its Lord Mayor too who is at present much such another as that pious Gentleman who preceded Sir Francis Child in London was and tho' one would think that the better sort of Irish-mens Poverty might entitle 'em to beg this venerable Magistrate will not permit the worser To conclude this is a City powerful in its Privileges but weak in its Exchequer empty in its Churches but full in its Prisons has very few Fortifications for its Security yet has Cowards for its Inhabitants the Nobility which live in it have Titles beyond their Estates the Clergy Benefices beyond their Deserts the Merchants great Houses beyond their Trade and every House-keeper in it Promises beyond Performance If this ben't enough to make me wish my self in England again I am sufficient Proof for any Place whatsoever and so much for the Kingdom of Ireland which I shall describe no otherwise than it deserves if I shall say it is A Land which does no Pois'nous Beast afford But in its Natives with all Poisons stor'd Where Vice is fruitful and Sedition shoots And shews its Head from fix'd and lasting Roots Which often tempts the British Sword and dares The Fate of Caesar who as often spares False to her Promise Insolent and Base Her Friends Dishonour and her Own Disgrace Ready for Change tho' not in Changes long Forsaking what is Right embracing what is Wrong Conquer'd in Fight Vnconquer'd in her Pride Rescu'd tho' never of the Rescuer's Side But if Example may prevail and gain Repute within a Land so False and Vain If Goodness may persuade or Virtue Win A People drown'd in Vice and lost in Sin Ev'n she has those who o're her Sons Preside Whose Lives can Teach her and whose Precepts Guide Instructive in their Actions as their Laws Iust to the People and their Master's Cause And Winchester may yet retrieve her Name Tho' lost to Honour and unknown to Fame Whilst She may practice what her Lord has done And follow England's Virtues in her Son FINIS * Desmond