When I wrote the stories of which this volume is composed, in common with every other writer concerning Ireland, I had frequent occasion to notice the habitual intemperance of a people naturally excitable. This, more than all their other failings, rendered them liable to misrepresentation: – “an Irishman drunk, and an Irishman sober,” were two distinct beings; but the stranger had little time to inquire into the causes, when he witnessed the effects. And though many efforts have been made to change the bad spirit for the good – though Professor Edgar, in Belfast, the Rev. George Carr, in New Ross, and some excellent men in Cork, had made strenuous exertions to establish Temperance Societies, nothing comparatively had been done to influence the Roman Catholic population. What the Rev. Mr. Mathew has wrought – his untiring perseverance, his disinterested efforts for the regeneration of his countrymen, his labouring unceasingly through evil report, which was, at last, silenced by the overwhelming good that became apparent throughout the country – I need not here record. During the last two years, the difficulty has been, not to find an Irishman sober, but an Irishman intoxicated: the change is wonderful, and must be seen to be believed. I trust the good may be permanent, and see every reason to think that such will be the case. A person who had not visited Ireland for some years, would not know the country again; indeed, I hardly knew the people myself, some of whom I used to lecture after my own fashion; and you may lecture Paddy for ever, without running the risk of an unpleasant answer: he is the most ready of all people in the world to listen to advice – he will agree to the letter with you in everything you state. “Bedad, ma'am, I know that – I often thought so.”