My horse, from past fatigue, fell lame that day;

So with poor George, and some few stragglers more, I join'd the foot at Shaw, a volunteer,

And, 'scaped the adverse fortune of our rear.

"I snatch'd a hurried greeting, warm and brief,
With my old host; then (ne'er to be forgot)
We march'd to witness Donnington's relief,
And Boy's knighthood. History blazons not
Honours more fairly earn'd: th' unconquer'd chief
Who held three years that hard beleaguer'd spot
'Gainst famine, sap, assault, and cannon's jaws,
Would of himself immortalize a cause.

"For me, I toil'd in my obscure routine,

Nor shunning nor defying death's known face,
Till Faringdon's surrender closed the scene,
Our loyal Vale of Berkshire's last strong place.
A wilderness with scarce one spot of green

Derives from retrospect a mellow'd grace
In the poor pilgrim's eye; and thus at last
I muse with pleasure on the dreary past.

"Said I but one green spot? I loved, 'tis true, Those who shared with me in the losing game Of war's companionship; but they were few Whom I could feel with; hope was theirs, and fame In prospect; to their young hearts life was new. 'Twas thou, my own Elizabeth, the same

In orphanhood and early grief with me.

I felt I could pour out my soul to thee.

"Was it a brother's love? It ne'er could be
So calm a bliss: to life again it brought
Glimpses of youthful hope and chivalry,
Which sorrow had extinguish'd, as I thought.
Then, too- But if she still remember'd me,

And loved me, what have I to give her? Nought;
Bankrupt in fortunes, home, and now in heart,
Would I could find her, though, to claim her part.

""Tis strange; twice, thrice upon this very day I've thought of her; in bright warm life and love She seems even now to meet me, and to say,

Here come I, woman grown, my faith to prove.'
A sight of her, perhaps, would chase away

My last night's madness; she was far above
Her age in all things- then those glorious eyes!
That grace !-she must be now a royal prize.

"Married, of course: 'tis what one must expect
By every rule of human probability.
Beshrew me ! I shall never quite correct,
As Forde predicts, that pestilent facility
Of dreaming broad awake. I half suspect
That solitude has marr'd my mind's utility;
And yet I should be loth to lose the power
Of making past ills soothe the present hour.

"Memory's the sensitive man's bane, they say:
Rather it seems a substitute unbought

For castles, which we creatures of a day

Build in the clouds, and see them fade to nought,

I, form'd, it may be, of more stubborn clay,
Have drawn from it the comfortable thought
That, chance what may in life's concluding scenes,
It may be borne with, as the past has been.

"Well,-like the wight whose head some Eastern seer
Wrapt for a second in his conjuring cloak,
I've dreamt in short time o'er a life's career:
The future is all ignis-fatuus-smoke-
Wind-moonshine-but the past is treasured here.
Now for the present. Truly 'tis no joke,
This youngster's folly--puzzling, too; for I
Feel not just now the spleen to harm a fly.

"I'm near the spot, but early. If so base A trick be dreamt of as an ambuscade, It simplifies the nodus of the case

To one inured with desperate odds to trade, And saves my scruples; but if face to face

He frankly claims atonement, I'm afraid I must apologize, however loth.

Poor fellow! the world's wide enough for both.

"Young man,' I'll say, you're one of the true sort: You love your father; I was wrong, I own,

To say what gall d you, and I'm sorry for 't.'
It after that he needs must cleave me down,

To this stout sapling's aid I shall resort,

Crack his cheese-toaster, and perhaps his crown. But no unsavory insult to the lad,

As I first purposed; 'twere unfeeling—bad.

"Come, that's well off my mind. Now let me see :
The three-mile stone upon the Newbury road
Stands, as I guess, near that hedge-hostelry,
Where yonder carriers, on the ale-bench stow'd,
Enjoy their out-door's morning meal with glee.

The foothpath crosses there to some abode
Of consequence-I think I've heard the name;
The wood hard by-Yes, it must be the same."

TRANSLATION OF SONNET BY T. TASSO.

"Ninfa, onde lieto è di Diana il Choro."

A NYMPH I saw, of Dian's joyous band,

Culling fresh flowers that fringed the glassy tide; But not so many fell beneath her hand

As her fair foot did from their stem divide. Amongst her golden locks, by zephyrs fann'd,

Love did ten thousand, thousand witcheries hide, While her soft breath, in accents sweet and bland, Cool'd the fierce fires her glances scatter'd wide. To view that snowy foot the Brenta stay'd

His course, and made of his own crystal stream

A mirror for bright eyes and tresses fair.
"Ah, beauteous nymph! when you depart," I said,
"Upon the waves no more thy form may gleam,

But still thine image the fond heart shall bear."

W. M. D.

PADDY FLYNN;

OR, THE MISERIES OF DINING OUT.

BY JOHN SHEEHAN.

"If you have tears, prepare to shed them now."

"ALL the world knows the beautiful city of Cork, where they make long drisheens* and the best of porter," said our worthy and revered Vice-president Jonathan Buckthorn, winking knowingly at a promising young limb of the law from the second city of Ireland, and a namesake of the present "frost and fair" prophet of the skies and clerk of the weather.

"And the man who has been in Cork has something to boast of," dryly observed our one-eyed and thirsty poet-laureat, Pat Kelly, who sat vis-à-vis to Jonathan's gouty leg, stirring a replenished jorum of real Ennishowen, whilst his widowed luminary, at an angle of fortyfive, was watching, with more of a paternal than a mere chemical regard, the separation of the little particles of sugar from the parent lump, and the consequent amalgamation of the utile dulci; "and the gentleman," continued this monocular personage, "who has rioted in delight over a yard of drisheen, and having diluted it with a foaming pot of Beamish and Crawford's best, can say of himself,

'ille impiger hausit

Spumantem pewteram et potto se proluit all-o !'+

has a delicious recollection which he never can forget whilst memory holds her empire, and he himself can intellectually enjoy the pleasures of mastication and deglutition.

Though the bard at cleaner shops, I own,t

May take his meal,

This impudent impromptu, parodying so grossly one of the Little Bard of Erin's prettiest and purest, at once "set the table in a roar," not of laughter, but indignation, producing something like the strange effect of a hand-grenade thrown into the centre of a towncouncil under the new Corporation Act. It was quelled, however, after a lapse of some minutes, by the paramount voice of the president, PHIL, (which name, by the by, he always used to sign to all important documents connected with the club "Philander,") at whose command Father O'Leary, the chaplain, delivered, in Pat Kelly's regard, such a lecture on the impiety of parodying the national bard,

* Drisheen, the pink of European sausages, "quo non præstantor alter," &c. 'Twere vain to attempt its description: it must be tasted.

+

Spumantem pateram et plono se proluit auro."-VIRGIL.

Though the bard to purer fame may soar," &c.-LOVE'S YOUNG DReam.

as very few after-dinner assemblies had ever yet the good fortune to be edified with. That he produced little or no effect upon the irreclaimable heretic to whom he addressed himself, more in sorrow than in anger, by no means took away from the prælectional merits of the excellent divine, which were observed to ascend invariably towards the sublime of eloquence as the proceedings of the evening advanced towards the small hours.

Of his reverence's character and history, as well as of those of the president, vice-president, poet-laureat, and others, who combined to form the far-famed Comet Club of the Sister Island, we shall have more to say, as circumstances and a historical regard to its transactions shall introduce them into our series. But at present to our tale, which is the vice-president's, and which he resumed as Father O'Leary resumed his seat, mightily pleased with himself and all the world, not even excluding Pat Kelly, whom he loved for the reason that he chastised him, and who was at that moment making a silent appeal to the only friend whom he himself considered he had in the room, namely, the bottle.

"In the beautiful city of Cork" said Jonathan, "as I said before, there lived, about forty years ago, a very respectable retailer of snuff and tobacco, Pat Flynn by name, but for shortness' sake, called Paddy Flynn, who had but recently turned to that occupation, having descended too far into the vale of years to follow his former trade or profession,' as he himself always and most studiously designated it, of taycher of dancing, good manners, and all other kinds of music,' in which he had gained a goodly celebrity. Paul was a plain homely man of the good old school, portly in his person, and eccentric in his dress, and so wedded to old times and old manners, that it was impossible to get him to look like a Christian,' as poor Mrs. Flynn-the heavens be her bed and the clouds her blankets!-used to say, when she would teaze him to lay aside his bushed wig, and his ruffles, and three-cornered hat, all of which contributed in a great degree to the grotesqueness of his appearance. But these little oddities had pleasing associations for Mr. Flynn's recollections. He put them on religiously every day; and seating himself after breakfast on the pipe-chest opposite the shop door, he commenced humming Nora Creina,' in a self-pleasing, drone-like under-growl, while he kept anything but time with his heels swinging against the side of the chest as they hung down, but reached not the flags of the shop floor.

"Mrs. Flynn, good soul, minded the shop, scolded the kitchenwench, abused the cow-boy, mended the stockings, kept the day. book, saved the dripping and the candle-ends; in short, did everything to render her dear spouse comfortable and good-humoured, who scarcely minded anything but his corns and his customers, when any such dropped in.

"One forenoon, as Paddy was seated on his well-beloved elevation, and Mrs. Flynn was washing up the breakfast tackle in a little 'glory hole' off the shop, a tall distinguished-looking personage entered, and asked to see Mr. Flynn.

"Well, sir,' says Paddy, stopping short his Nora Creina with a sudden grunt, as he turned his head sideways, and cocked his near eye at the customer, and so you do want to see Mr. Flynn, sir?" 'Yes, sir,' was the reply. It's likely you don't know him, thin,

sir,' said Paddy. I have not that pleasure yet,' answered the stranger.-Pleasure! Oh, aisy, now! Pleasure, avich, did you say? Sure and isn't it myself that's spayking to you all the time.'-'Oh, indeed! Then are you really the Mr. Flynn whom I am seeking?' -I don't know, faiks, whether you're seeking me or not, for you know your own business best, sir; but my name is Pat Flynn, an' no body else, barring that they changed me at nurse.'-Then, Mr. Flynn, you are the man I have been seeking. I am happy to see you, and to make your acquaintance. My name is Beamish.* I live on the Parade.'

"PADDY. "I am mighty proud of it, sir, and it's often I heard tell of your great family and your porther; but may I be so bowld as to ax you, sir, just for information, what business you have wid your humble sarvint?'

“MR. BEAMISH. Business?-oh, nothing of what is called busi. ness whatever. You mistake me, Mr. Flynn; I am merely come to pay my respects to you.'

6

"PADDY. Oh, indeed! Why, then, that's very oddthough?'

isn't it, "MR. BEAMISH. 'Oh dear, no. The fact is, I am under a deep and lasting obligation to a son of yours, whom I had the happinessI should say the extreme good fortune-of meeting in Paris.'

"PADDY. Ah-ha! Is it our Tom, sir, in Paris? Aisy, aisy-that's impossible. Sure it's in France he is, my darling.'

"MR. BEAMISH. Well, well, my dear sir, it's all the same.'

"PADDY. "How the devil, sir, saving your presence, could it be the same? Paris and France the same thing? If it is, it's mity odd entirely. But here's Tom's jo-graphy in the draw under the counter next the till. Ou-wow! as the fox said to the hen-roost, maybe I haven't travelled all the way from Bristol to Waterford without knowing something about latitude and longitude.'

"MR BEAMISH.Well, well, we shall not fall out about geography. The point in question is, have you not a son?'

"PADDY. 'Mrs. Flynn says I have, sir.'

66

MR. BEAMISH. 'And his name, Thomas?'

"PADDY. The priest christened him Thomas, but we always called him Tom for convaynience; and his mother's brother-the Lord rest his sowl in glory!—was called Tom for shortness.'

"MR. BEAMISH. Then I have had the pleasure of meeting him abroad, where he saved my life, and was so kind and attentive to me, that he has bound me in gratitude to him for ever. It is my wish to return the compliment to him and to you by every means in my power.'

"PADDY. Eh! he he! ha! ha! ha! hi! hi! hi! The heavens above be praised and blessed for all their bounties and blessings !And so you saw poor Tom abroad, sir? (Aside.) Arrah, Betty, jewel, throw a one side those kimmeens of crockery, and come and spayke to the jintleman: sure he seen Tom abroad. (To Mr. Beamish.) Is Tom as fat and as healthy as when he left ould Ireland, sir?' “Mr. Beamish. I really cannot say, as I did not see him when

* Mr. Beamish, the father of the present member for Cork. This it is necessary to state for the sake of historical justice, as well as to assure the read. er that the story from beginning to end is a true one.