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VIEW

OF

SOCIETY AND MANNERS,

IN THE

NORTH OF IRELAND,

IN THE

SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1812.

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By J. GAMBLE, Esq.

AUTHOR OF SKETCHES OF HISTORY, POLITICS, &c.

TAKEN IN DUBLIN, &c. IN 1810.

JJ

"Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame,

Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame;

Averse alike to flatter or offend,

Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend."

Pore.

London:

PRINTED FOR C. CRADOCK AND W. JOY,

32, PATERNOSTER ROW;

DOIG AND STIRLING, EDINBURGH; AND MARTIN KEENE, Dublin.

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ADVERTISEMENT.

THE favourable opinion which some have been pleased to express of a former volume on the North of Ireland, encourages me to lay before the public the present one. It is written nearly in a similar manner, and by hasty sketch, by short tale, and brief dialogue, rather than by formal dissertation, it endeavours to make better known to the inhabitants of England, a people well deserving to be known. It makes no pretensions to science, and touches but little on topography, or the natural curiosities of the country. Men and women, however, are of more importance than pillars or columns, and it gives (I trust) human passions, human actions, and human beings, with all their imperfections on their heads. I know not that I have any where extenuated, and surely I would not set down aught in malice.

The mingled gloom and levity of

my man

ner, will doubtless be as disagreeable to some, as it may be agreeable to others. To the former I would remark, that I describe incidents as they arise, and that incidents do not arise regular and homogeneous, but sudden and changing, as the fleeting colours of the rainbow, or the transient hues of a summer's cloud. The business of the morn ing is followed by the banquet of the evening, and the ball of night. Sadly and wildly is the day of business and of pleasure, succeeded by the sorrowful bed of sickness, the last struggle of expiring nature, the long procession, the lighted taper, and funeral of midnight. Nature herself writes Tragi comedy, and those who follow her will always please the longest, though there may be times when they will not please the most. The Tragi-comedies of Shakespeare, which for a season were displaced by thes cumbersome pomp, and unnatural dignity of the French tragedy, are now almost universal favourites, and are the legitimate parents of the modern melo-drama.

Should farther vindication be necessary, I have an apology to offer, which I dare

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