and over all, it has measured and hollowed out many a last sleeping bed for a darling child, a beloved husband or wife, and in the dark days of the famine it has often been the only companion to accompany the father, mother, husband, wife, or child, who has had the corpse of a hunger-stricken relative in a sack or tied to the back, to convey it to the dread uncoffined pit, where are tumbled, in horrid confusion, the starved dead of all ages.
The sickle has not that claim to the affections of what is genteelly called the "lower order." It is more aristocratic in its station and occupation. It has been used in the hands of the poor, to reap down the fields of the rich "for naught;" it has cut the wheat and the barley for the tax-gatherer, the landlord, and the surpliced "hireling," who "reaps where he sowed not," and "gathers where he has not strewed."
With all these considerations, it must be expected that this instrument will be approached with caution, if not suspicion; and wonder not if they feel like David, when the armor of Saul was put on him, to go out and meet Goliath: "I cannot go with these, for I have not proved them." He who would reform, must not only know what is to be done, but how it is best to do it effectually. The Irish will never be laughed or preached out of their relish for the potato, neither should it be attempted; let them love it—let them cultivate it, but let it not be like the grass of the field for the bullock, who is adapted entirely to that food, and which has never failed to give him a supply. Learn the Irish by
