All this served very well to amuse the juvenile minds of our grand parents, but in these days when the wandering jewish propensity to travel over the face of the earth, has attained its full development, we find it to be a well-ascertained fact that there are Englishmen who affect fricassees more than roast beef, drink French wines, and dress in the French fashion; that Scotchmen may be found, even in Scotland, who have neither caution in their heads, avarice in their hearts, nor kilts round their bodies. Facility of intercourse has done this. The ancient prophecy is being daily fulfilled:—“Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Railways have rounded off the sharp angles of national dislikes, by promoting social attrition. The locomotive engine is the steam-plough which tears up local prejudices by the roots. Thus the Rose and the Thistle are vindicated, but the tiny shamrock still droops its green leaf in the atmosphere of public estimation. In judging of Irish character, a very useful distinction drawn in the days of good Queen Bess is overlooked. It divided the nation into “the Irish, the wild Irish, and the extreme wild Irish.” In justice, these distinctions ought to be preserved; for the “Irish” of the present day are, upon the whole, pretty much like other well-bred, well-educated members of the civilised world; eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, and living much as their neighbours do. But it must be owned that the lower orders,—the “wild Irish” of the towns, and the “extreme wild Irish” of the bogs and mountains,—present some striking and picturesque peculiarities to justify the conventional Irishman of the old novel: the most prominent being that mingled love of fun and fighting, which would make one believe that the atmosphere of the four fair provinces is compounded in equal portions of inflammable and laughing gas. Very deplorable, indeed, must be the state of an Irishman—he must “be gone to the bad entirely,” when he can neither smile nor quarrel; and often even “under the ribs of death” is “an appetite created” for these excitements. He loves fun; but fighting is his pride and his glory. For fighting he forswears name and wealth. You may call him by all the uncomplimentary names in the vocabulary of censure, and he hears you meekly; but cast an imputation on his courage or his prowess, and—“Hah! Whoo!”—you will feel his shillelagh whizzing around your ears like a fire-work in a state of explosion.