to all Christians except themselves; to that which their fathers had followed, and subscribed to in a great council; in short, to that which Dr. Ledwich himself, with all those of his communion, adopt at the present day! See, Sir, into what disorders and contradictions this bewildered antiquary has plunged, in order to prove that catholicity was not the ancient religion of Ireland!

I have run to this length upon a controversy, comparatively trivial, because I could not more briefly dispel the mist in which Dr. Ledwich has involved it, for the sake of misrepresenting one of the most important subjects of Irish antiquity, the ancient religion of the island..

I am, &c.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XVII.

Cork, July 27, 1807.

My road from Cashel to this

city led me through Cahir, Balliporeen, and Fermoy. The last mentioned town is a new

creation, having started up, all at once, at the command of its proprietor, Mr. Anderson. It is pleasantly situated on the banks of the Blackwater River, over which a firm and elegant stone bridge is thrown. The town itself being uniformly built of neat houses of stone, overcast with a white composition, and the streets standing in parallel and perpendicular lines, being also well paved, and kept exceedingly clean, few, if any towns of the same size in England, can be compared with it in exterior beauty. With respect, however, to the face of the country in general, speaking of it as far as I have yet seen it, I cannot agree with a late able writer, that Ireland is, "the fairest island in the world *;" especially while her elder sister stands by her side. This I am sure of, that I have not yet seen in Ireland such a garden as the Vale of Evesham, such hills and dales as those of Derbyshire and South Wales, nor such forest scenery as that of Windsor or the New Forest. True it is, this country appears to a disadvantage in consequence of its relative poverty and unsettled state, which cannot but have proved unfavourable to the planting of hedges, trees, and woods; as also to the building of neat villages, elegant churches, and comfortable farm-houses, with the other numerous ornaments and conveniencies to be met with in every well inhabited part of England. I

* See Pannell's Historical Apology for the Irish Catholics, p. 107.

Z

may add that, as far as I am able to judge, the soil and climate of this island, though perhaps better adapted to pasturage, are not so favourable to the growth of large timber trees and wheat corn, nor to the ripening of fruit, as those under the same parallels of latitude in our own.

As I approached, however, to this city of Cork, I found the country surprisingly improve in all these respects, till reaching the Vale of Glanmire, by what is called the lower road, I was quite enchanted with the beauties, natural and artificial, of the scenery which opened to my view; particularly with the grand expanse of water in the center of it, skirted as it is on each side with verdant meadows, and enclosed by lofty hills, whose groves, at the tops of them, seem to reach the clouds. That view, however, was but a foretaste of the delight which I experienced when I beheld this sheet of water disemboguing itself into the grand estuary of Cork. As my eye wandered up and down the delightful scene, surveying by turns the majestic tide, covered with ships and boats, moving in various directions; the aspiring hills and rocks, crowned with elegant villas and plantations; and the magnificent city itself, with the back ground of vast mountains, I concluded in my mind, that neither the Severn at Chepstow, nor the sea at Southampton, were to be compared with it.

The renowned emporium of Cork owes its foundation to St. Finbar, its first bishop, and his disciple St. Nessan, who about the end of the

sixth century established a school there, which soon became exceedingly celebrated and numerous. By this means a hollow marsh, as the name Cork implies, soon grew up to be a bishop's see and a flourishing city. It is still remarkable for the numerous well regulated schools it contains for instructing the youth of both sexes, especially the poor, in the several branches of literature proper for them, but chiefly in the religi ous doctrine and morality originally taught here by St. Finbar. Indeed, no pains are spared for this purpose by the bishops and priests in every part of Ireland which I have visited; and I confidently assert that a more glaring and calumnious falsehood never was published against any set of men, than that which is constantly propagated in England against the Irish Catholic Clergy, that they keep the lower order of the people uninstructed, in order to attach it more firmly to themselves and their religion, under an idea that ignorance is the mother of devotion.

This very morning, Sir, I have visited a catholic school, formed upon Mr. Lancaster's plan, for the education of poor boys; and I could not but admire the method by which two hundred children are taught to read, write, and cast accounts, besides their christian duty, under one master, and in less time than a tenth part of their number could acquire equal learning by the ordi

* Corcach.

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nary method. A larger school is now preparing for this establishment, when the 200 boys will be augmented to 600. There are other schools in the city, at which from 600 to 700 poor catholic boys are educated, by means of a subscription , amongst the bishop, clergy, gentry, and opulent tradesmen of their religion. In other parts of Ireland, where there are few or no Catholics of these descriptions, I found that the poorschools were supported by the pence and halfpence collected for this purpose every week by the parish priest.

For the education of poor girls there are two houses in different parts of the city, of the institute founded by my respectable friend, called the Presentation, in each of which there are seven or eight mistresses, who educate gratis as many hundreds of poor children in constant succession for the nature of the institute requires that its members should receive no gratuity whatsoever for their trouble, but should devote themselves during life to the instruction of poor children, from pure motives of charity and religion. There are already five other houses of this new institute; one at Kilkenny, another at Killarney, a third at Waterford, and two others

How well these ladies succeed in their patriotic as well as pious undertaking, the public has heard from Sir John Carr, who asserts that "the children educated at the Convent of the Presenta “tion at Killarney are universally sought after as servants, by Pro"testants as well as by Catholics, on account of their irreproachable conduct." Stranger in Ireland, p. 384.