And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, and who
forgets his country and tries to forget his accent, or to smother the
taste of it, as it were? 'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of
O'Dowdstown: 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he tells you with
a brogue as broad as from here to Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear
Mrs. Captain Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of her
'fawther's esteet?' Very few men have rubbed through the world without
hearing and witnessing some of these Hibernian phenomena--these twopenny
splendours.

And what say you to the summit of society--the Castle--with a sham
king, and sham lords-in-waiting, and sham loyalty, and a sham Haroun
Alraschid, to go about in a sham disguise, making believe to be affable
and splendid? That Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A COURT
CIRCULAR is bad enough, with two columns of print about a little baby
that's christened--but think of people liking a sham COURT CIRCULAR!

I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those of any
country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's the highest
mountain in all Ireland;' a gentleman tells you he is descended from
Brian Boroo and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year; or Mrs. Macmanus
describes her fawther's esteet; or ould Dan rises and says the Irish
women are the loveliest, the Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the
most fertile in the world: and nobody believes anybody--the latter does
not believe his story nor the hearer:--but they make-believe to believe,
and solemnly do honour to humbug.

O Ireland! O my country! (for I make little doubt I am descended from
Brian Boroo too) when will you acknowledge that two and two make four,
and call a pikestaff a pikestaff?--that is the very best use you can