Then there was a set of women called Goyng women, blasphemers of God, who ran from country to country, sowing sedition among the people.'[1] [Footnote 1: Froude's History, of England, vol.viii.chap.

vii.] Mr.Froude says that this 'picture of Ireland' was given by some half Anglicised, half Protestantised Celt, who wrote what he had seen around him, careless of political philosophy, or of fine phrases with which to embellish his diction.

But if he was a Celt, I think his description clearly proves that he must have been a Celt of some other country than the one upon whose state he reports.

Judging from internal evidence, I should say that he could not be a native; for an Irishman, even though a convert to Anglicanism, and anxious to please his new masters, could scarcely betray so much ignorance of the history of his country, so much bigotry, such a want of candour and discrimination.

If Mr.Froude's great work has any fault, it is his unconscious prejudice against Ireland.