"The scene was yet further animated by a sweet-looking young woman, whom I discovered in this wild solitude, busied in the humble employment of straw-plaiting. The natural grace of the Irish peasant-women, who are often truly beautiful, is as surprising as their dress, or rather the want of dress; for though it was very cold on these hills, the whole clothing of the young woman before me consisted of a large very coarse straw hat, and literally two or three rags of the coarsest sackcloth, suspended under the breast by a piece of cord, and more than half disclosing her handsome person. Her conversation was cheerful, sportive, and witty; perfectly unembarrassed, and, in a certain sense, free; but you would fall into a great error if you inferred from that any levity or looseness of conduct. The women of this class in Ireland are, almost universally, extremely chaste, and still more disinterested." Truly, indeed, does the illustrious Goethe say, that this prince knew how to put himself on a level with the highest and lowest. We are, however, compelled to quit this rustic, half-clad Venus for brighter scenes and more intellectual pleasures. On his return from his ride, his highness proceeds to call on Lady Morgan, who receives him with much grace and urbanity. "I was very eager (says the distinguished stranger) to make the acquaintance of a woman whom I rate so highly as an authoress. I found her, however, very different from what I had pictured her to myself. She is a little, frivolous, lively woman, apparently between thirty and forty, neither pretty nor ugly, but by no means disposed to resign all claim to the former, and with really fine and expressive eyes. She has no idea of '_mauvaise honte_' or embarrassment; her manners are not the most refined, and affect the 'aisance' and levity of the fashionable world, which, however, do not sit calmly or naturally upon her. She has the English weakness, that of talking incessantly of fashionable acquaintances, and trying to pass for very '_recherchée_,' to a degree quite unworthy of a woman of such distinguished talents; she is not at all aware how she thus underrates herself. "She is not difficult to know, for, with more vivacity than good taste, she instantly professes perfect openness, and especially sets forth on every occasion her liberalism and her infidelity; the latter of the somewhat obsolete school of Helvetius and Condillac. In her writings she is far more guarded and dignified than in her conversation. The satire of the latter is, however, not less biting and dexterous than that of her pen, and just as little remarkable for a conscientious regard to truth."