distant obscurity, they were ignorant or indifferent that a snake was in the grass-that a spy was in the house, like another James Boswell, pen in hand, and ink-horn at breast, ready to take down each unguarded sally, or inaccurate expression. Our party consisted of seven-assuredly it was not the feast of the seven wise men-none of our sayings, I fear, will be ever recorded in a book of wisdom: yet I do solemnly declare, of all that was spoken—and much was spoken-" for we were all more speakers than listeners," I did not hear a single sentence that could be construed into a bull. My readers will no doubt be as much astonished as I was, to have an Irish drinking party without either a bull or a quarrel in it. The truth is, of what passed in the latter part of the evening I have rather an indistinct recollection we had swallowed so many bumpers to great men, beginning with the great man, the scene of whose exploits we just had visited. This is always a bumper toast, and drank sitting, standing, or kneeling, according to the zeal of the company. It is rather an awkward one, however, to kneel at, as it is almost as long as a fashionable sermon: a part of it, if I recollect right, is as follows: "The glorious and immortal memory of the good King William, who saved us from popery and slavery, brass money, and wooden shoes." If any sober person takes offence at this seeming excess, I have only to say, in my own excuse, that I was not so cold-blooded a Protestant as to view the waters of the Boyne without emotion; and that the Glorious and Immortal Memory has been an excuse for drinking for upwards of a century.

CHAPTER XII.

Story of Jenny Cassidy-Force of opinion among the IrishTaste in colours-Importance attached to breeches-Mr., Foster-Irish religion-Mr. Foster's seat at Cullen-Complaints of public distress-Rotunda gardens-Matrimonial infidelity-attaintment of the Earl of Desmond.

Drogheda.

I TOOK a long walk this morning on the Dublin road. As I was returning, I was overtaken by a middle-aged woman of decent appearance. She accosted me first, asking me how many miles it was to Drogheda. I told her something more than one, and asked her if she had travelled far that morning. Ay, and all night too,” said she; many a weary mile, and many a sorrowful one, too; and God, he knows I had enough of that before." "My good woman," I said, "we have all enough of that: sorrow wears every garb, and is as often found under a silk

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pelisse, as under this grey cloak of yours; and when death comes, it is a sad thing to quit that fine castle yonder (pointing to a large house that was in sight); but it is nothing to leave your clay-built cabin-be that your consolation." "Ah, sir," said she, "gentlefolks have many blessings; so many people to care for them, and to watch over them, and to love them; but I have nobody to care for me now, nobody in all the wide world to trouble their heads about me. Ogh hone! Ogh hone!" wringing her hands, and rocking her body backwards and forwards, and from one side to another: "Jemmy, darling, in sorrow I

bore you; many a bitter taunt and many a heavy blow I suffered for you; ay, man, many a heavy blow and broken heart: you might have let me alone, surely."

I had no difficulty in obtaining her story from her; her heart was full, and no niggard of its tale: overflowing with its woes, it found relief in the voice that soothed, in the ear that listened to them.

"The grief that does not speak,

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."

I regret I cannot tell it in her own words; yet they would be nothing without the tones and action which accompanied them; and whenever I recollect her expressions, I shall make use of them. Early in life, she had been courted by a young man of her own age: she was fond of him, and he pretended to be fond of her; nor had she any reason to doubt it, she said: "for I had another guess face then, than now that crying has brought wrinkles into it; and when I had on my stuff gown and calamanco petticoat, though I say it, that should not, was a comely enough lass to look at; and though I wrought hard all the week, I made myself clean when I went to prayers upon Sundays, and went to confession, though nothing had I to confess at all, at all; for I was innocent then, and knew nothing of men or their wicked ways; and the neighbours pointed me out as a pattern, and said, There is Jenny Cassidy, nobody ever saw her taken with liquor, or heard her ill word; and my heart became puffed up with vanity, and I went to wakes and hurling matches, and trusted in my own strength; and the blissid virgin forsook me, and left me to myself, and I found my strength was nothing but weakness."

At one of these merry meetings, her lover contrived to make her swallow a larger portion of liquor than she was accustomed to; into which, it seems, he infused a medicine purchased in an apothecary's shop, which he thought had the property of making loving those who took it. Returning home by an unfrequented road, he decoyed her into a lonely field, where, partly by force, and partly by entreaty, he, to make use of her own words, obtained his wicked purposes. At their next meeting he comforted her, by telling her she had committed no crime; that they had broken a sixpence together, and were, therefore, man and wife in the sight of heaven; and that he would marry her, before men and devils, in holy church, whenever his service was out, which would be in three or four months. Lulled by his fair promises, she delivered herself without restraint to the sweet delirium of love; and in a summer's evening, under the hawthorn hedge, scented with fragrance, on a green bank covered with daisies, and spangled with dew drops, while the birds carolled around them in unison with their loves, she tasted pleasures, which greatness seldom knows on its softest bed of down. Nature is a great leveller, and is pretty uniform in her blessings, as well as in her gifts. What she gives in continuance to some, she makes up in intensity of enjoyment to others: bloated and unwieldy wealth often dozes through life with less real gratification than this poor country lass experienced in a few moments of stolen interview with the man she loved. Man may be proud of the adventitious gifts of fortune; but in the weakness of birth, the period of sleep, at the hour of death, and on the soft bed of love,

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all are equal. "The great and the little are there,

and the servant is free from his master."

Her love continued unabated, and seemed "to grow with what it fed on."-With the lover it was otherwise: satiety soon followed enjoyment; his visits became less frequent, and at length ceased altogether. It was her turn now to be a suppliant, and an unsuccessful one. In vain she followed him with tears and supplications, in vain she reminded him of his broken sixpence, of all the oaths he had sworn, and all the promises he had made; the rustic Lothario heard her with an indifference that would not have disgraced his brother libertines in a higher station of life. The hour of delivery approached: her secret was still her own; again she sought him out, and found him with difficulty; she fell upon her knees before him,-she clasped her arms around his, and bathed them with her tears,— she implored his pity, his forgiveness; by sinners in purgatory, by blessed souls in paradise, by the great God by whom one day they were to be judged; she implored him, while yet it was in his power, to save her from ruin and shame. Sorrow made her eloquent, and the poor and illiterate Irishwoman spoke the language of poetry, because she spoke the language of the heart. "Look upon me," said she, "look upon me, look upon my pale face, and altered body, and think who is the cause of it. I was happy till you knew me; I was innocent till you seduced me; till I knew you I was nothing but good; ough, don't you be my punishment for being bad!-What is this world even to the longest liver? you are young now, but you will soon be old: your green head will soon be gray; and then