A VERY striking characteristic of an Irishman is his unwillingness to be outdone. Some have asserted that this arises from vanity, but I have ever been unwilling to attribute an unamiable motive to my countrymen where a better may be found, and one equally tending to produce a similar result, and I consider a deep-seated spirit of emulation to originate this peculiarity. Phrenologists might resolve it by supposing the organ of the love of approbation to predominate in our Irish craniums, and it may be so; but as I am not in the least a metaphysician and very little of a phrenologist, I leave those who choose, to settle the point in question, quite content with the knowledge of the fact with which I started, viz:-the unwillingness of an Irishman to be outdone. This spirit, it is likely, may sometimes lead men into ridiculous positions; but it is equally probable, that the desire of surpassing one another has given birth to many of the noblest actions and some of the most valuable inventions; let us, therefore, not fall out with it.

Now, having vindicated the motive of my countrymen, I will prove the total absence of national prejudice in so doing, by giving an illustration of the ridiculous consequences attendant upon this Hibernian peculiarity.

Barny O'Reirdon was a fisherman of Kinsale, and a heartier fellow never hauled a net nor cast a line into deep water: indeed Barny, independently of being a merry boy among his companions, a lover of good fun and good whiskey, was looked up to, rather, by his rother-fishermen, as an intelligent fellow, and few boats brought more fish to market than Barny O'Reirdon's; his opinion on certain points in the craft was considered law, and in short, in his own little community, Barny was what is commonly called a leading man. Now, your leading man is always jealous in an inverse ratio to the sphere of his influence, and the leader of a nation is less incensed at a rival's triumph, than the great man of a village. If we pursue this descending scale, what a desperately jealous person the oracle of VOL. I.

oyster-dredgers and cockle-women must be. Such was Barny O'Reirdon.

Seated one night at a public house, the common resort of Barny and other marine curiosities, our hero got entangled in debate with what he called a strange sail-that is to say, a man he had never met before, and whom he was inclined to treat rather magisterially upon nautical subjects, at the same time that the stranger was equally inclined to assume the high hand over him, till at last the newcomer made a regular out-break_by exclaiming, "Ah tare-an-ouns, lave aff your balderdash, Mr. O'Reirdon, by the powdhers o' war its enough, so it is, to make a dog bate his father, to hear you goin an as if you wor Curlumberus or Sir Crustyphiz Wran, whin ivery one knows the divil a farther you iver wor, nor ketchin' crabs or drudgin' oysters."

"Who towld you that, my Watherford wondher?" rejoined Barny, "what the dickens do you know about sayfarin' farther nor fishin' for sprats in a bowl with your grandmother?"

"Oh, baithershin," says the stranger. "And who made you so bowld with my name?" demanded O'Reirdon.

"No matther for that," said the stranger, "but if you'd like for to know, shure its your cousin Molly Mullins knows me well, and maybe I don't konw you and your's as well as the mother that bore you, aye, in throth; and shure I know the very thoughts o' you as well as if I was inside o' you, Barny O'Reirdon."

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By my sowl thin you know better thoughts than your own, Mr. Whippersnapper, if that's the name you go by.”

"No its not the name I go by; I've as good a name as your own, Mr. O'Reirdon, for want of a betther, and that's O'Sullivan.

"Throth there's more than there's good o' them," said Barny.

"Good or bad, I'm a cousin o' your own twice removed by the mother's side."

"And is it the Widda O'Sullivan's boy you'd be that's left this, come Candlemas four years?"

"The same."

"Throth thin you might know bet

D

ther manners to your eldhers, though I'm glad to see you, anyhow, agin; but a little thravellin' puts us beyant ourselves sometimes," said Barny, rather contemptuously.

"Throth I niver bragged out o' myself yit, and its what I say that a man that's only a fishin' aff the land all his life has no business to compare in the regard o' thracthericks wid a man that has sailed to Fingal."

This silenced any further argument on Barny's part. Where Fingal lay was all Greek to him; but unwilling to admit his ignorance, he covered his retreat with the usual address of his countrymen, and turned the bitterness of debate into the cordial flow of congratulation at seeing his cousin again.

The liquor was freely circulated, and the conversation began to take a different turn, in order to lead from that which had nearly ended in quarrel between O'Reirdon and his relation.

The state of the crops, county cess, road jobs, &c. became topics, and various strictures as to the utility of the latter were indulged in, while the merits of the neighbouring farmers were canvassed.

Why thin," said one, "that field o' whate o' Michael Coghlan, is the finest field o' whate mortial eyes was ever set upon-divil the likes iv it myself ever seen far or near."

than

"Throth thin sure enough," said another," it promises to be a fine crap anyhow, and myself cant help thinkin' it that Mickee Coghlan, that's a quare, plain spoken, quite (quiet) man, and simple like, should have finer craps Pether Kelly o' the big farm beyant, that knows all about the great saycrets o' the airth, and is knowledgeable, to a degree, and has all the hard words that iver was coined at his finger's ends."

"Faith he has a power o' blasthogue about him sure enough," said the former speaker, "if that could do him any good, but he isn't fit to howld a candle to Michael Coghlan in the regard o' farmin'." "Why, blur an agers" rejoined the upholder of science, "sure he met the Scotch steward that the Lord beyant has, one day, that I hear is a wondherful edicated man, and was brought over here to show us all a patthern-well, Pether Kelly met him one day, and by gor he discoorsed him to that degree that the Scotch chap hadn't a word left in his jaw."

"Well and what was he the betther having more prate than a Scotchman?" asked the other.

o'

Why," answered Kelly's friend, “ I think it stands to rayson that the man that done out the Scotch steward ought to know somethin' more about farmin' than Mickee Coghlan."

Augh! don't talk to me about knowing," said the other, rather contemptuously. "Sure I gev in to you that he has a power o' prate, and the gift o' the gab, and all to that. I own to you that he has the the-o-ry and the che-mis-thery, but he has not the craps. Now the man that has the craps, is the man for my money."

"You're right, my boy" said O'Reirdon, with an approving thump of his brawny fist on the table, "its a little talk goes far-doin' is the thing."

"Ah, yiz may run down larnin' if yiz like," said the undismayed stickler for theory versus practice, “but larnin' is a fine thing, and sure where would the world be at all only for it, sure where would the staymers (steam boats) be, only for larnin'?"

"Well," said O'Reirdon, "and the divil may care if we never seen them, I'd rather dipind an wind and canvass any day than the likes o' them. What are they good for, but to turn good sailors into kitchen maids, all as one, bilin' a big pot o' wather and oilin' their fire-irons, and throwin' coals an the fire. Augh! thim staymers is a disgrace to the say; they're for all the world like ould fogies, smokin' from mornin' till night and doin' no good."

"Do you call it doing no good to go fasther nor ships iver wint before?"

"Pooh! sure Solomon, queen o' Sheba said there was time enough for all things." "Thrue for you," said O'Sullivan, "fair and aisy goes far in a day," is a good ould sayin'."

"Well maybe you'll own to the improvemint they're makin' in the harbour o' Howth, beyant in Dublin, is some good."

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We'll see whether it 'ill be an improvement first," said the obdurate O'Reirdon.