can boast of.

This hasty sketch of its progress I felt myself called upon to give,
in order that our neighbors may know what we have done, and learn to
respect us accordingly; and, if the truth must be told, from a principle
of honest pride, arising from the position which our country holds, and
is likely to hold, as an intellectual nation.

Having disposed of this topic, I come now to one of not less importance
as being connected with the other,--the condition and character of the
peasantry of Ireland.

It maybe necessary, however, before entering upon this topic, to give
my readers some satisfactory assurance that the subject is one which
I ought well to understand, not only from my humble position in early
life, and my uninterrupted intercourse with the people as one of
themselves, until I had reached the age of twenty-two years, but from
the fact of having bestowed upon it my undivided and most earnest
attention ever since I left the dark mountains and green vales of my
native Tyrone, and began to examine human life and manners as a citizen
of the world. As it is admitted, also, that there exists no people whose
character is so anomalous as that of the Irish, and consequently so
difficult to be understood, especially by strangers, it becomes a
still more appropriate duty on my part to give to the public, proofs
sufficiently valid, that I come to a subject of such difficulty with
unusual advantages on my side, and that, consequently, my exhibitions of
Irish peasant life, in its most comprehensive sense, may be relied on
as truthful and authentic. For this purpose, it will be necessary that
I should give a brief sketch of my own youth, early station in society,
and general education, as the son of an honest, humble peasant.