ould take so much pains, and incur so much
expense, just for the sake of mystifying generations then unborn. Still,
I was led to this conclusion by observing and reflecting on a
somewhat similar phenomenon in our own day; and indeed it was the only
explanation I was ever able to come to, respecting those great mansions
that we Irish gentlemen are so fond of rearing on our estates, "totally
regardless of expense," and just as indifferent to all the circumstances
of our fortune, and all the requirements of our station,--the only real
difference being, that our forefathers were satisfied with quizzing
their descendants, whereas we, with a livelier appreciation of fun,
prefer enjoying the joke in our own day.

Perhaps I am a little too sensitive on this point; but my reader will
forgive any excess of irritability when I tell him that to this national
ardor for brick and mortar--this passion for cutstone and stucco--it is
I owe, not only some of the mischances of my life, but also a share of
what destiny has in store for those that are to come after me. We came
over to Ireland with Cromwell; my ancestor, I believe, and I don't
desire to hide the fact, was a favorite trumpeter of Old Noll. He was a
powerful, big-boned, slashing trooper, with a heavy hand on a sabre, and
a fine deep, bass voice in the conventicle; and if his Christian
name was a little inconvenient for those in a hurry,--he was called
Bind-your-kings-in-chains-and-your-nobles-in-links-of-iron Carew,--it
was of the less consequence, as he was always where he ought to
be, without calling. It was said that in the eyes of his chief his
moderation was highly esteemed, and that this virtue was never more
conspicuous than in his choice of a recompense for his services; since,
instead of selecting some fine, rich tract of Meath or Queen's County,
some fruitful spot on the Shannon or the Blackwater, with a most
laudable and exemplary humility he pitched upon a dreary and desolate
region in the County Wicklow,--picturesque enough in point of scenery,
but utterly barren and uncultivated. Here, at a short distance from the
opening of the Vale of Arklow, he built a small house, contiguous
to which, after a few years, was to be seen an outlandish kind of
scaffolding,--a composite architecture between a draw-well and a
gallows; and which, after various conjectures about its use,--some even
suggesting that it was a new apparatus "to raise the Devil,"--turned
out to be the mac