"
There is no country in which the phrases of good-will and affection are
so strong as in Ireland. The Irish language actually flows with the milk
and honey of love and friendship. Sweet and palatable is it to the other
sex, and sweetly can Paddy, with his deluding ways, administer it to
them from the top of his mellifluous tongue, as a dove feeds her young,
or as a kind mother her babe, shaping with her own pretty mouth every
morse of the delicate viands before it goes into that of the infant. In
this manner does Paddy, seated behind a ditch, of a bright Sunday, when
he ought to be at Mass, feed up some innocent girl, not with "false
music," but with sweet words; for nothing more musical or melting than
his brogue ever dissolved a female heart. Indeed, it is of the danger
to be apprehended from the melody of his voice, that the admirable and
appropriate proverb speaks; for when he addresses his sweetheart, under
circumstances that justify suspicion, it is generally said--"Paddy's
feedin' her up wid false music."
What language has a phrase equal in beauty and tenderness to _cushla
machree_--_pulse of my heart?_ Can it be paralleled in the whole
range of all that are, ever were, or ever will be spoken, for music,
sweetness, and a knowledge of anatomy? If Paddy is unrivalled at
swearing, he fairly throws the world behind him at the blarney.
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