within a comparatively small space; indeed, this prosperity has extended over all the north-east of Ireland, and Londonderry has long been a thriving seaport. Few of the towns of the rest of Ulster and of the southern provinces have improved; but signs of augmented wealth appear in other directions; in this respect they are striking in the extreme. The places of worship and the religious houses of the Catholic Church of Ireland have been transformed; the mean 'chapels' of the past have largely disappeared; most parishes have a suitable church; fine cathedrals dominate many towns; we often admire monasteries and convents in architectural splendour. The most remarkable phenomenon, however, of this description is the great and fortunate change which has taken place in the habitations of the community throughout the country. The dense and wretched hovels which, sixty years ago, barely sheltered the millions of Irish indigence, if still too frequent, have been, for the most part, effaced; the houses of the better class have greatly increased in numbers, though the population has enormously declined.[2] And the face of the landscape in most counties bears witness, on the whole, to a still perceptible progress. The chief industry of Ireland, indeed, as I shall show afterwards, has certainly retrograded within the last twenty years; her agricultural area and resources have much diminished. The advance, too, which, from about 1853 to 1876, was manifest and rapid in most of her rural districts, has been, to a considerable extent, checked; capital has, for some time, been avoiding her soil. But if the process was stern, nay, appalling, the land has, within the last half century, been thrown open to husbandry, infinitely better and more fruitful than had existed before; the exertions which were made, for a long space of time, to improve cultivation have left far-spreading traces; we still behold the beneficent results. The land over the greater part of its surface is not 'puckered up' in thousands of squalid patches, the holdings of masses of cottar paupers; it has been made more available for real farming; and it has been largely drained, enclosed, and covered with woodland--at least, up to a recent period.