feelings; but Dan took it in good part, and devil of a bit did he relish his potatoe the worse for the scolding which accompanied it: though it must be owned that Dan would rather have encountered half a dozen boys from Tipperary, any day in the week, than a little member which occasionally showed itself between the teeth of his darling Biddy; and, although probably no reader of Kit Marlowe, comforted himself with the assurance of that ancient dramatist—

"All women's tongues are tortures unto men."

Death had just laid low O'Rourke's old comrade, Teddy O'Toologan, than whom, as he upon hearing of the sad event, with his usual propriety of diction, declared," there was not, in the county of Cork, another better behaved boy, alive and kicking." Was it possible, therefore, that he could refuse an invitation which the afflicted Mrs. O'Toologan gave him, to make one at the defunct's wake? Thither he bent his pensive steps, and in the Irish jig and the Irish howl, no one went before him. So great was our hero's affliction, that he could not demonstrate it better than by getting most devoutly drunk; which he did, to the unequivocal satisfaction of every gentle soul present.

It was a dreary long way that O'Rourke had to go home, through bog, bramble, and mire. And the first puddle he came to told him that his heels were considerably cooler than his head; but, putting his best leg foremost, he defied in genuine Irish (for fear he should be overheard) Death, the Devil, and the Exciseman.

"Now be asy, can't you?" said Dan to himself, as one of his legs sank knee deep into a bog, and the other made instant preparation to follow its example. "Is it for the leg of a respectable Irish jontleman to get drunk after this rate?" as he gave the refractory limb a good-humored tap with his shillelagh. "Oh you baste, what will "the illigant Mrs. O'Rourke say, when you walk home with me in "the morning?" The thought of his wife very naturally carried with it a sedative effect, and Dan, sinking a little deeper into the bog, began to nod

"At the winking stars."

His slumbers were long before the dawn awakened by a huge rustling of feathers under his nose, and upon opening one of his eyes (for the other his loving cousin Dennis Flatheray had closed by an affectionate application of his fist at parting), he beheld by his side a reverend eagle of a particularly grave and gentleman-like demeanour.

"The top of the morning to your aygleship," was the first salutation of Dan, who, in his polite waggery, forgot it was barely midnight. "A fine evening, Mr. O'Rourke," replied the eagle, in very excellent Irish; "I hope Mrs. O'R. and all the little ones are well." "Fait, an' is it yourself that would spake, and in as proper as English as ever was spoken in Ireland?"

The eagle politely inclined his beak, and continued, "Excuse my "freedom, but you appear to have taken a drop too much, you are really in a devil of a pickle."

"The same to you, sir, and all your family," cried Dan in return, too much fuddled to wonder at even an eagle's banter.

"Hark ye, my worthy friend, would you not like to be safely "lodged in your comfortable cabin?" "Ah! your honor knows my "secret thoughts." "Well, well, Daniel, all you have to do, is to get "safe on my back, and merrily, cherrily we'll go."

"An' sure enough, would it be a dacent thing for a respectable "man like Daniel O'Rourke, who goes to mass as rig'lar as clock "work, never makes a baste of himself (a slight hiccup en-passant), "to be seen riding home on a Sunday morning on a rip of a bird like "yourself?"

"Pooh, pooh, Daniel, never mind what the world says, put your "left hand between my wings, and cock one of your legs across the "middle of my back, and we shall soon be above it; never mind my "feathers being rough, my d-d rascal never curried me this "morning; I'll pluck his feathers when I get back, with a vengeance."

As the eagle appeared such a civil spoken bird, upon his extending one of his claws to help him out of the bog, Dan made no more ado, but immediately mounted. He either got up on his blind side or tailor fashion, for hardly had his kind friend spread his wings, ere he found out that he had taken his seat the wrong way, with his face towards the eagle's tail; upon which that bird good-naturedly observed, "Excuse me, but can you make it convenient to get a little lower "down? your legs are quite in the way of my wings; just shift yourself "to a spot delicacy forbids me to mention, and you will be amazed "to find how comfortable you will ride." Dan did as he was bade, and seizing hold of the ample tail, in less than a second, found he was scowering through the air, at the rate of twenty miles a minute. "Here we go up, up,"

Merrily chaunted the eagle,

"And here we go down, down,"

half hiccupped, and half quavered, O'Rourke; for what with the liquor he had drank, and the fluctuating course of his ride, his senses began strongly to wander. The city of Cork he declared to his companion had got drunk, for it appeared to reel in a vastly odd manner; lakes, mountains, bogs, and plains, seemed to be enjoying a family jig, for all appeared dancing and tumbling about in the oddest and most heterogeneous manner possible.

The king of the air, who probably was a better judge of these matters than his rider, hollowed in rather an imperious tone, "Seize "fast hold of my tail, or I shall drop you as dead as a herring into "Dungarvon Bay." Poor O'Rourke, too much frightened to do any thing but obey, seized fast of the feathered extremity, while one of his legs reposed on his patron's back, and the other dangled in the air, as if both were on contrary scents. They had now arrived at a considerable height, and the pureness of the air, in some degree, blew off the clouds of mystification which darkened our voyager's brain. He now, to his wonder, saw every thing as through a microscope. The mighty Glendeeloch looked not much larger than a

thimble; the ancient pile of Carrigaphooka resembled more than any thing else a diminutive mouse trap; it would have been a difficult matter to have drowned a respectable rat in Bantry Bay; and even Thoumuldeeshig's plain was not capacious enough for a select party of the "good people to play a game of skittles on.

”

Arrah, my sowl, if it is'nt your honor getting on at a queer "rate; what the devil is to become of poor Daniel O'Rourke, should "the baste-I beg your honor's pardon, I meant yourself, should "make a false step?"

"Why, my good friend, I calculate you would, at this elevation, "have a fall of five thousand, seven hundred feet," coolly replied the eagle, at the same time taking a pinch of snuff from a pouch under his left wing.

"The divil burn me". "Hush, hush," said the eagle; no swearing on my back, if you please; we are now hovering over "Cape Finisterre, in a few seconds we shall pass the Straits of "Gibraltar, into which, you may rely upon it, you shall tumble, "without you keep a guard over your discourse: no more of your filthy, low Irish, I beg of you; I hate brogue as I do a musket "ball."

Dan, who upon his first getting out of the bog, it being a clear frosty December night, had felt rather cold and stiff, upon passing the tropic of Cancer began most bitterly to grumble with the heat; the eagle, upon this, for so pacific a bird, swore a most tremendous oath, and declared he would drop him into the Red Sea, or else unceremoniously leave him on the top of Ararat, by way of cooling him. Poor O'Rourke found he was so completely in the gentleman's power, that the best thing he could do, was to keep his tongue between his teeth; so civilly enquiring of the bird of Jove, when it was his honor's intention to breakfast, he was comforted with the assurance, that as soon as they reached the Andes, which were only a thousand leagues distant, it was his intention to stop, having to stand god-father to a young eaglet, and a family party waiting till he had arrived, for a jollification. As Dan knew the value of his accomplishments in this intellectual amusement, he felt his spirits get up a hundred per cent. "Saint Patrick, forsake me," gaily cried he, as he tightly squeezed the eagle's tail," if they give me but a drap o' the kratur, if I don't "dance an Irish jig, or shake a shillelagh, with all your rev'rences, "uncles, and cousins, I'll be "No profane swearing,"

once more exclaimed the Olympian bird.

To make short of a terrible long journey, the travellers arrived at the Cordilleras, the bleak air of which blew over their summits, and made Dan cuddle himself as comfortably as he could in his companion's feathers, till the latter graciously signified his intention of alighting on the nearest mountain, which happened to be Chimboroza. He had scarcely touched the surface of the snow-clad apex, ere he quietly disengaged himself from O'Rourke, and lodged him gently

*Fairies.---Hibernice.

in a bed of snow, gaily exclaiming, "Good morrow, Mr. O'Rourke, you see I have provided you with a lodging, and a soft bed in the bargain. You must excuse my taking you with me to breakfast; "ours is quite a family party--sorry, 'pon honor, I can't introduce."

66

"Arrah! the divil and all the other holy saints, you big baste, "and is this the way you would serve a respectable gentleman of the "county of Cork? bad luck to you, you good for nothing varment, " and all your hook-nosed uncles and cousins."

Luckily for Dan, he had not long to meditate over his forlorn condition, compared to which even the tongue of Mrs. O'Rourke was a bagatelle, ere he beheld his cruel tormentor returning from his morning call, sailing majestically over the head of the mighty Chimboroza. As the king of the air made a full swoop upon the luckless bog-trotter, a grin of the most unamiable description widened his beak. "Plase your rev'rence, show a little marsy upon a poor "turf-cutter, who you took warm and snug from a comfortable bog an "hour and a half ago, and left on this here undacent mountain top." The ill-natured wretch, however, approached him only for the sake of indulging in a satirical laugh, and again spread his wings and soared towards the clouds, which seemed bending towards them. "Fire and "potheer!" thundered out Dan; "if I am to be done after a fashion "like this by an ugly son of your mother:" and making a vigorous spring, he rendered apparent to the eagle his acknowledged reputation of being "a cute lad," by catching hold of one of the gentleman's legs; who, after making a desperate attempt to shake him off, soared away, Dan keeping his hold, and hanging from the leg of the bird like the supernumerary jacket of a Hussar officer. Away they go; soon they sever through clouds, which were but a few moments before suspended above them; rushing through the curtains of heaven with the daring freedom of an acknowledged guest, earth is lost to their ken, and all above, beneath, and around them is one vast and illimitable chaos. Here and there some solitary luminary, wasting its pale and silvery light, revolved like a fall of pure flame on its invisible axis, beds of stars like streams of light, and rivers of molten silver, run through the gauzy furniture of the skies, reflecting from their unfathomable abysses, the certainties of wonderous and countless worlds. O'Rourke, the most meditative part of whose life was the getting over of the effects of a previous night's debauch, had, as it may be suspected, but a very limited taste for the sublime and beautiful. All the wonders by which he was surrounded, only drew from him the remark, "By my fait, only "half an hour ago, it was night, then it gets morning, and now, och, "by my sowl of my mother, it is night again." Higher and higher mounted the eagle, and tighter and tighter grasped the Hibernian, till a full and powerful light so dazzled his one eye, that it speedily imitated its brother in misfortune, by closing its fringed curtains; and whither

Our chronicles will not bear us out in asserting that it was during the time the gallant Captain Head was exploring the summit of this "monarch of mountains," compared to which, Mont Blanc is no more to be compared, than "Hyperion" to a satyr, or Snowdon to Primrose Hill.

the flapping wings of the eagle were going, he remained in the most innocent and unconscious ignorance.

Upon exerting his circumscribed power of vision, he found himself surrounded by what appeared one vast ocean of light, frozen into a dazzling and splendid substance. My good friend," said the eagle, being the first civil words he had spoken for the last hour, “we are arrived at the moon, and here, if you enquire for the Rising Sun, you will meet with very excellent accommodation; the morning air, "I have no doubt, has given you a glorious appetite for breakfast." With this parting advice, and wrenching his leg with an undeniable force from the despairing energy of the unlucky bog-trotter, downwards he sailed, and soon looked a respectable earwig in his sight.

Dan being left to himself, found he was rolling away with a prodigious velocity, on a slippery surface, which appeared like the exterior of an immense globe, keeping continually revolving. Over and over he rolled, till he found himself tumbling from an immense height, and as he fell, his sides assured him that he was grazing against a rocky mountain. Falling, falling, he at last seemed to dash through a sky light, and ere he could ascertain the fact, to his utter amazement, he found himself plumped into a dish of warm liquor, round which a circle of grotesque looking beings were saying grace, as if about to take their morning repast.

It need scarcely be said, that the surprise of both parties was equal, when O'Rourke feeling what appeared to be a three-prong fork stuck into his sides, started up out of the breakfast material in which he had been so unexpectedly soused, and as the liquid streamed from his twisted locks, saluted them in a genuine brogue with,

By the powers, you ugly childer of the devil's own mother, "and is this your way of giving pot luck to a benighted traveller, "who has just dropped in by accident?"

"A miracle, a miracle!" cried a reverend-looking gentleman, having an owl's head with asses ears, and cloven feet, whom Daniel subsequently discovered to be an ecclesiastical dignitary.

"An action of trespass-quare ID clausum-fregit-vi et armis "-contra pacem, will lie with special damage for breaking the skylight," followed an equally grave animal, with a hawk's beak and a ferret's eye, and an appendage hanging from a black robe like a fox's tail, which he wagged with unequivocal satisfaction.

"An incident, an incident!" roared a blue looking wretch, in the form of a weazel; "what a charming situation for my next series of "Tales of the Hideous and the Horrible!"

Poor O'Rourke, in the ignorance of the language in which these. observations were made, from the greedy looks which the half human and half brutal party cast upon him, imagined that he was about to be cut up to pieces by way of a relish for their respective breakfasts. With this dueful foreboding, he begun to repeat his pater noster most manfully, beginning in his consternation at the wrong end. His fears seemed realized, and he felt perfectly convinced it was all over