When the English had drawn a pale round their conquests in this country, such of the inhabitants as were compelled to drag on their existence beyond the barrier, could no longer afford to cover their heads with metal, and were necessitated to rely on the resistance of their matted locks. At length this necessity became “the fashion of their choice.” The partiality of the ancient Irish to long hair is still to be traced in their descendants of both sexes, the women in particular; for I observed that the young ones only wore their “native ornament of _hair_,” which sometimes flows over their shoulders, sometimes is fastened up in tresses, with a pin or bodkin. A fashion more in unison with grace and nature, though less in point of formal neatness, than the round-eared caps and large hats of our rustic fair of England. Almost every word of Murtoch’s lamentation was accompanied by the sighs and mournful lamentations of his auditors, who seemed to sympathize as tenderly in the sufferings of their progenitors, as though they had themselves been the victims of the tyranny which had caused them. The arch policy of “the ruthless king,” who destroyed at once the records of a nation’s woes, by extirpating “the tuneful race,” whose art would have perpetuated them to posterity, never appeared to me in greater force than at that moment. In the midst, however, of the melancholy which involved the mourning auditors of Murtoch, a piper entered and seated himself by the fire, _sans façon_, drew his pipes from under his coat, and struck up an Irish lilt of such inspiring animation, as might have served St. Basil of Limoges, the merry patron of dancing, for a jubilate. In a moment, in the true pliability of Irish temperament, the whole pensive group cheered up, flung away their stools, and as if bit to merry madness by a tarantula, set to dancing jigs with all their hearts, and all their _strength_ into the bargain. Murtoch appeared not less skilled in the dance than song; and every one (according to the just description of Goldsmith, who was a native of this province,) seemed “To seek renown, By holding out to tire each other down.” Although much amused by this novel style of devotion at the shrine of Terpsichore, yet as the night was now calm, and an unclouded moon dispersed the gloom of twilight obscurity, I arose to pursue my journey. Murtoch would accompany me, though our hospitable friends did their utmost to prevail on both to remain for the night.