or the celebrated “Purgatory of St. Patrick,” would not be omitted.  Neither was it; and nothing can exceed the accuracy and truthful vigor with which he describes its situation and appearance.  In the course of conversation, however, I discovered that he had never been present during the season of making the Pilgrimages, and was consequently ignorant of the religious ceremonies which take place in it.  In consequence, I gave him a pretty full and accurate account I of them, and of the Station which I myself had made there.  After I had concluded, he requested me to put what I had told him upon paper, adding, “I will dress it up and have it inserted in the next edition.”

I accordingly went home, and on the fourth evening afterwards brought him the Sketch of the Lough Derg Pilgrim as it now appears, with the exception of some offensive passages which are expunged in this edition.  Such was my first introduction to literary life.

And here I cannot omit paying my sincere tribute of grateful recollection to a man from whom I have received so many acts of the warmest kindness.  To me he was a true friend in every sense of the word.  In my early trials his purse and his advice often supported, soothed, and improved me.  In a literary point of view I am under the deepest obligations to his excellent judgment and good taste.  Indeed were it not for him, I never could have struggled my way through the severe difficulties with which in my early career I was beset.

     “Green be the turf above thee,
     Friend of my early days;
     None knew thee but to love thee,
     Or named thee but to praise.”

But to my theme, which will be better understood, as will my description of the wild rites performed on the shores of its most celebrated island, by the following extracts, taken from this able and most vivid describer of Irish scenery: 

“The road from the village of Petigo leading towards Lough Derg, runs along a river tumbling over rocks; and then after proceeding for a time over a boggy valley, you ascend into a dreary and mountainous tract, extremely ugly in itself, but from which you have a fine view indeed of the greatest part of the lower lake of Lough Erne, with its many elevated islands, and all its hilly shores, green, wooded, and cultivated, with the interspersed houses of its gentry, and the comfortable cottages of its yeomanry—­the finest yeomanry in Ireland—­men living in comparative comfort, and having in their figures and bearing that elevation of character which a sense of loyalty and independence confers.  I had at length, after traveling about three miles, arrived where the road was discontinued, and by the direction of my guide, ascended a mountain-path that brought me through a wretched village, and led to the top of a hill.  Here my boy left me, and went to look for the man who was to ferry us to Purgatory, and on the ridge where I stood I had leisure to look around.  To