Moll Kelly's Primer," or "By the piper that played afore Moses," you
are, perhaps, as strongly inclined to believe him as when he draws upon
a more serious oath; that is, you almost regret the thing is not the
gospel that Paddy asserts it to be. In the former sense, the humorous
narrative which calls forth the laughable burlesque of "By the piper o'
Moses," is usually the richest lie in the whole range of fiction.

Paddy is, in his ejaculatory, as well as in all his other mock oaths, a
kind, of smuggler in morality, imposing as often as he can upon his own
conscience, and upon those who exercise spiritual authority over him.
Perhaps more of his oaths are blood-stained than would be found among
the inhabitants of all Christendom put together.

Paddy's oaths in his amours are generally rich specimens of humorous
knavery and cunning. It occasionally happens--but for the honor of
our virtuous countrywomen, we say but rarely--that by the honey of his
flattering and delusive tongue, he succeeds in placing some unsuspecting
girl's reputation in rather a hazardous predicament. When the priest
comes to investigate the affair, and to cause him to make compensation
to the innocent creature who suffered by his blandishments, it is almost
uniformly ascertained that, in order to satisfy her scruples as to
the honesty of his promises, he had sworn marriage to her on a book
of ballads!!! In other cases blank books have been used for the same
purpose.

If, however, you wish to pin Paddy up in a corner, get him a Relic, a
Catholic prayer-book, or a Douay Bible to swear upon. Here is where the
fox--notwithstanding all his turnings and windings upon heretic Bibles,
books, or ballads, or mock oaths--is caught at last. The strongest
principle in him is superstition. It may be found as the prime mover in