his best and worst actions. An atrocious man, who is superstitious, will
perform many good and charitable actions, with a hope that their merit
in the sight of God may cancel the guilt of his crimes. On the other
hand, a good man, who is superstitiously the slave of his religious
opinions, will lend himself to those illegal combinations, whose object
is, by keeping ready a system of organized opposition to an heretical
government, to fulfil, if a political crisis should render it
practicable, the absurd prophecies of Pastorini and Columbkil. Although
the prophecies of the former would appear to be out of date to a
rational reader, yet Paddy, who can see farther into prophecy than any
rational reader, honestly believes that Pastorini has left for those who
are superstitiously given, sufficient range of expectation in several
parts of his work.

We might enumerate many other oaths in frequent use among the peasantry;
but as our object is not to detail them at full length, we trust that
those already specified may be considered sufficient to enable our
readers to get a fuller insight into their character, and their moral
influence upon the people.

The next thing which occurs to us in connection with the present
subject, is cursing; and here again Paddy holds the first place. His
imprecations are often full, bitter, and intense. Indeed, there is more
poetry and epigrammatic point in them than in those of any other country
in the world.

We find it a difficult thing to enumerate the Irish curses, so as to do
justice to a subject so varied and so liable to be shifted and improved
by the fertile genius of those who send them abroad. Indeed, to reduce
them into order and method would be a task of considerable difficulty.