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and private motives combine to render me anxious to have the honor of inscribing this volume to you, and of availing myself of this opportunity of expressing the esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be,

Sir,

Your much obliged,

Faithful humble Servant,

WM. SHAW MASON.

ALTHOUGH the publication of the present volume has been postponed much beyond the period anticipated by the compiler, it has been to him pleasing reflection, that the delay was not connected with any want of assistance from that highly respectable class, to which it has been so much indebted both at its commencement and during its continuance. Communications have been received from the Clergy to an amount that would supply materials for several volumes; so that should the difficulties that have impeded its progress be removed, accounts could be immediately put to press of a number of parishes sufficient to justify the expectation of a speedy and complete termination of the whole work.

Whatever may be the fate of this attempt, whether the author has been justified in his hope of its ultimate completion, or has overrated the

general desire for acquiring accurate and detailed information respecting this important member of the British empire-and he trusts he may be allowed to say, without an imputation of over-partiality towards a favorite object, that minute and detailed information is the only kind which, in such a case, is truly useful-whether he shall succeed in completing the Statistical Survey of Ireland, or be under the necessity of terminating his labours with the present volume, he has the satisfaction of having already attained some points which, though of comparatively minor estimation, are sufficient to justify him for the step he has taken. One of these is, the proof obtained of the practicability of such an attempt, if carried on under more favorable circumstances. The assertions of those who had pronounced on the impossibility of executing such a work in this country from the disinclination or want of ability in the class that was looked to, in the first instance, as the best source of information; or the want of encouragement from the public; or the excess of the labour and expense above the means of an unassisted individual;-all these, except the last, have been disproved by the event.

A second point anxiously looked to by the compiler has, he trusts, been also attained, namely, that every stage of the work should afford data for forming conclusions as to the circumstances, productions and resources of the entire country.

He might have commenced with a single county or diocess, and having completed it, proceeded in like manner to another; but he thought it better, and public opinion has confirmed him in the correctness of his judgment, by selecting parishes from every part of the country, to make each volume contain descriptive traits of different districts, from which the reader might collect a general view of the whole, incomplete indeed at first, but approximating, as the work advanced, to perfection.

By adhering to this plan the three volumes now published may be considered as a supplement to the series of County Surveys, undertaken by the Dublin Society and both series taken together, may be safely said to be the most extensive and authentic stock of materials, whence future writers can deduce correct inferences, as to the present state of the country in several of its most interesting particulars.

The County Surveys commenced immediately after the Union. It has been the desire of the compiler of the present work, that, at the termination of the twentieth year from that memorable era, the period which the legislature had marked for the complete incorporation of the two islands, the Parochial Survey should have advanced so far as to afford sufficient data for general conclusions affecting the whole country. In this he flatters

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himself that he has also succeeded. Should, therefore, his apprehensions of a premature termination to this his pleasing though laborious task, be unhappily realized, while he is compelled to turn his eyes from the pinnacle of perfection which he has so long and so ardently contemplated, he will do it with the consciousness, that, though he has failed in completing the edifice in its intended dimensions, he has not left it a rude and unshapely mass of materials, but a miniature, a sketch of what he feels confident, will, at no distant period, be completed to the full extent of his most sanguine anticipations.

Under the impression of the circumstances in which this volume of the Survey is presented to the public, the Author feels it his duty to take the opportunity now afforded of acknowledging the many obligations conferred upon him. Among the earliest and most valuable of his correspondents he is proud to mention the name of Sir JOHN SINCLAIR,* whose previous work excited him to this undertaking, and was the model which in

*The best proof of the value of Sir John Sinclair's labours and of the results derivable from the completion of a work like the present survey, may be found in the "Result of the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair's Survey of Scotland," on which the following observations were published in THE DUBLIN JOURNAL, by a gentleman to whom the compiler has other acknowledgements to make in these pages.

"We have this day inserted a very important document,-it is the "Result of the Inquiries regarding the Geographical, Agricultural, and Political state of Scotland," by Sir JOHN SINCLAIR.—This abstract is accompanied by what he calls "The Pyramid of Statistical Inquiry," with an explanation.

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