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house widout once wishing "Good-night, | To what my earnings are amounting
an' plaisant dhrames to you;" and, in troth,
not one of them axed him to lave them a
lock ov his hair.

That's the story as I heard it tould; but myself doesn't b'lieve over one-half ov it. Howandiver, when all's done, it's a shame, so it is, that he's not a bishop this blessed day and hour: for, next to the goiant ov St. Jarlath's, he's out and out the cleverest fellow ov the whole jing-bang.

THE MERRY SOAP-BOILER.

At the year's end: if every Monday
I've paid my meat and drink for Sunday,
And something in the box unspent
Remains for fuel, coals and rent,
I've husbanded the needful scot,
And feel quite easy with my lot.
The maker of the almanack
Must, like your worship, know no lack,
Else a red-letter earnless day
Would oftener be struck away."

"John, you've been long a faithful fellow,
Though always merry, seldom mellow.
Take this rouleau of fifty dollars,
My purses glibly slip their collars;
But before breakfast let this singing
No longer in my ears be ringing;

FROM THE GERMAN OF FREDERICK HAGEDORN. When once your eyes and lips unclose,

TRANSLATED BY E. W. TAYLOR.

A STEADY and a skillful toiler,
John got his bread as a soap-boiler,
Earned all he wished, his heart was light,
He worked and sang from morn till night.
E'en during meals his notes were heard,
And to his beer were oft preferred;
At breakfast, and at supper, too,
His throat had double work to do;
He oftener sang than said his prayers,
And dropped asleep while humming airs:
Until his very next door neighbour

Had learned the tunes that cheered his labour,
And every passer by could tell
Where merry John was wont to dwell.
At reading he was rather slack,
Studied at most the almanack,

To know when holy days were nigh,
And put his little savings by;
But sang the more on vacant days,
To waste the less his means and ways.

'Tis always well to live and learn.

The owner of the soap concern

A fat and wealthy burgomaster,

I must forego my morning doze."

John blushes, bows, and stammers thanks,
And steals away on bended shanks,
Hiding and hugging his new treasure,
As it had been a stolen seizure.
At home he bolts his chamber door,
Views, counts and weighs his tinkling store,
Nor trusts it to the savings-box,
Till he has screwed on double locks.
His dog and he play tricks no more,
They're rival watchmen of the door;
Small wish has he to sing a word,

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Lest thieves should climb his stairs unheard.
At length he finds, the more he saves,
The more he frets, the more he craves:
That his old freedom was a blessing
Ill sold for all he's now possessing.

One day he to his master went
And carried back his hoard unspent.
"Master," says he, "I've heard of old,
Unblest is he who watches gold.
Take back your present, and restore
The cheerfulness I knew before.

Who drank his hock, and smoked his knaster- I'll take a room not quite so near,

At marketing was always apter
Than any prelate in the chapter,
And thought a pheasant in sour-krout
Superior to a turkey-poult;

But woke at times before daybreak
With heart-burn, gout and liver-ache-
Oft heard our skylark of the garret,
Sing to his slumber, but to mar it.

He sent for John one day, and said,
"What's your year's income from

trade?"

"Master, I never thought of counting

1 Born 1708; died 1754.

Out of your worship's reach of ear,
Sing at my pleasure, laugh at sorrow,
Enjoy to-day, nor dread to-morrow,
Be still the steady, honest toiler,
The merry John, the old soap-boiler."

FRENCH WIT.-Here we have a good exyour everybody else at the season, went out for ample of French wit: "A doctor, like a day's sport, and complained of having killed nothing. That's the consequence of having neglected your business,' observed his wife."

THE TINKER AND THE GLAZIER. Two thirsty souls met on a sultry day,

One Glazier Dick, the other Tom the Tinker, Both with light purses, but with spirits gay; And hard it were to name the sturdiest drinker.

Their ale they quaff'd ;

And, as they swigg'd the nappy,
They both agreed, 'tis said,
That trade was wond'rous dead.
They jok'd, sung, laugh'd,
And were completely happy.

The Landlord's eye, bright as his sparkling ale,
Glisten'd to see them the brown pitcher hug;
For ev'ry jest, and song, and merry tale,
Had this blithe ending-" Bring us t'other
mug."

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To think how great will be his friend Dick's joy,

At getting so much excellent employ.

Return'd, he beckoning draws his friend aside,
Importance in his face,

And to Dick's ear his mouth applied,
Thus briefly states the case:-

Now Dick the Glazier feels his bosom burn,
To do his friend, Tom Tinker, a good turn;
And, when the heart to friendship feels in-Dick! I may give you joy, you're a made

clin'd,

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But, O, how pleasure vanished from his eye,
How long and rueful his round visage grew,
Soon as he saw the kettle's bottom fly,
Solder the only fluid he could view !
He rav'd, he caper'd, and he swore,
And cursed the kettle's body o'er and o'er.
"Come, come!" says Dick, "fetch us, my
friend, more ale;

All trades, you know, must live: Let's drink-May trade with none of us e'er fail!'

The job to Tom then give;

And, for the ale he drinks, our lad of mettle, Take my word for it, soon will mend your

kettle."

The Landlord yields, but hopes 'tis no offense To curse the trade that thrives at his expense. Tom undertakes the job; to work he goes; And just concludes it with the ev'ning's close. Souls so congenial had friends Tom and Dick,

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Tom, with surprise, sees Dick turn pale,
Who deeply sighs "O, la!"
Then drops his under jaw,
And all his pow'rs of utt'rance fail;
While horror in his ghastly face,
And bursting eyeballs, Tom can trace;
Whose sympathetic muscles, just and true,
Share with his heart

Dick's unknown smart,
And two such phizzes ne'er met mortal view.
At length friend Dick his speech regain'd,
And soon the mystery explain'd—
"You have, indeed, my business done!
And I, as well as you, must run;
For let me act the best I can,
Tom

Tom! I am a ruin'd man. Zounds! zounds! this piece of friendship cost me dear,

I always mend church windows-by the year!” WILLIAM HARRISON, 1800-1874.

A WAG seeing a door nearly off its hinges, in which condition it had been for some time, observed that when it had fallen and killed some one it would probably be hung.

THE TWO BUTLERS.

In all countries and all languages we have the story of Il Bondocani. May I tell you one from Ireland?

have none. Those, therefore, who are most interested in the affair, ought to examine a 'Peerage' to find who was the man of the time; I can only help them by a hint. My own particular and personal reason for recollecting the matter is this: I am forty, or more-never mind the quantity more; and It is now almost a hundred years ago I was told the story by my uncle at least certainly eighty-since Tom-I declare to Mnemosyne I forget what his surname was, if I ever knew it, which I doubt. It is at least eighty years since Tom emerged from his master's kitchen in Clonmell, to make his way on a visit to foreign countries.

If I can well recollect dates, this event must have occurred at the end of the days of George the Second, or very close after the accession of George the Third, because in the course of the narrative it will be disclosed that the tale runs of a Jacobite lord living quietly in Ireland, and that I think must have been some time between 1740 and 1760-or say 65. Just before the year of the young Pretender's burst, a sharp eye used to be kept upon the "honest men" in all the three kingdoms; and in Ireland, from the peculiar power which the surveillance attendant on the penal laws gave the government, this sharp eye could not be surpassed in sharpness, that is to say, if it did not choose to wink. Truth, nevertheless, makes us acknowledge that the authorities of Ireland were ever inclined at the bottom of their hearts to countenance lawlessness, if at all recommended by anything like a noble or a romantic name. And no name could be more renowned or more romantic than that of Ormond.

It is to be found in all our histories well recorded. What are the lines of Dryden? ~and Dryden was a man who knew how to make verses worth reading.

And the rebel rose stuck to the house of Ormond many a day :-but it is useless to say more. Even I who would sing "Lilla bullalero bullen a la,"-if I could, only I can't sing, and who give "The glorious, pious, and immortal memory," because I can toast, even I do not think wrong of the house of Ormond for sticking as it did to the house of Stuart. Of that too I have a long story to tell some time or another.

Never mind. I was mentioning all this, because I have not a 'Peerage' by me; and I really do not know who was the Lord Ormond of the day which I take to be the epoch of my tale. If I had a 'Peerage' I am sure I could settle it in a minute; but I

VOL. I.-W. H.

five-and-twenty years ago. That brings us to the year 1812,-say 1811. My uncle-his name was Jack-told me that he had heard the story from Tom himself fifty years before that. If my uncle Jack, who was a very good fellow, considerably given to potation, was precise in his computation of time, the date of his story must have fallen in 1762-or 1763-no matter which. This brings me near the date I have already assigned; but the reader of my essay has before him the grounds of my chronological conjectures, and he can form his opinions on data as sufficiently as myself.

I recur fearlessly to the fact that Tomwhatever his surname may have beenemerged from the kitchen of his master in Clonmell, to make his way to foreign countries.

His master was a very honest fellow-a schoolmaster of the name of Chaytor, a Quaker, round of paunch and red of nose. I believe that some of his progeny are now men of office in Tipperary-and why should they not? Summer school-vacations in Ireland occur in July; and Chaytor-by the bye, I think he was Tom Chaytor, but if Quakers have Christian names I am not sure, gave leave to his man Tom to go wandering about the country. He had four, or perhaps five, days to himself.

Tom, as he was described to me by my uncle over a jug of punch about a quarter of a century ago, was what in his memory must have been a smart-built fellow. Clean of limb, active of hand, light of leg, clear of eye, bright of hair, white of tooth, and two-and-twenty; in short, he was as handsome a lad as you would wish to look upon in a summer's day. I mention a summer's day merely for its length; for even on a winter's day there were few girls that could cast an eye upon him without forgetting the frost.

So he started for the land of Kilkenny, which is what we used to call in Ireland twenty-four miles from Clonmell. They have stretched it now to thirty; but I do not find it the longer or shorter in walking or chalking. However, why should we grum

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ble at an act of "justice to Ireland?" Tom at all events cared little for the distance; and, going at a slapping pace, he made Kilkenny in six hours. I pass the itinerary. He started at six in the morning, and arrived somewhat foot-worn, but full not only of bread, but of wine (for wine was to be found on country roadsides in Ireland in those days), in the ancient city of Saint Canice about noon.

Tom refreshed himself at the Feathers, kept in those days by a man named Jerry Mulvany, who was supposed to be more nearly connected with the family of Ormond than the rites of the church could allow; and having swallowed as much of the substantial food and the pestiferous fluid that mine host of the Feathers tendered him, the spirit of inquisitiveness, which, according to the phrenologists, is developed in all mankind, seized paramount hold of Tom. Tom-? ay, Tom it must be, for I really cannot recollect his other name.

If there be a guide-book to the curiosities of Kilkenny, the work has escaped my researches. Of the city it is recorded, however, that it can boast of fire without smoke, air without fog, and streets paved with marble. And there's the college, and the bridge, and the ruins of St. John's abbey, and St. Canice, and the Nore itself, and last, not least, the castle of the Ormonds, with its woods and its walks, and its stables and its gallery, and all the rest of it, predominating over the river. It is a very finelooking thing indeed; and, if I mistake not, John Wilson Croker, in his youth, wrote a poem to its honour, beginning with

"High on the sounding banks of Nore," every verse of which ended with "The Castle," in the manner of Cowper's "My Mary," or Ben Jonson's "Tom Tosspot." If I had the poem, I should publish it here with the greatest pleasure; but I have it not. I forget where I saw it, but I think it was in a Dublin Magazine of a good many years ago, when I was a junior sophister of T. C. D.

Let the reader, then, in the absence of this document, imagine that the poem was infinitely fine, and that the subject was worthy of the muse. As the castle is the most particular lion of the city, it of course speedily attracted the attention of Tom, who, swaggering in all the independence of an emancipated footman up the street, soon found himself at the gate. "Rearing him

self thereat," as the old ballad has it, stood a man basking in the sun. He was somewhat declining towards what they call the vale of years in the language of poetry; but by the twinkle of his eye, and the purple rotundity of his cheek, it was evident that the years of the valley, like the lads of the valley, had gone cheerily-o! The sun shone brightly upon his silver locks, escaping from under a somewhat tarnished cocked-hat guarded with gold lace, the gilding of which had much deteriorated since it departed from the shop of the artificer; and upon a scarlet waistcoat, velvet certainly, but of reduced condition, and in the same situation as to gilding as the hat. His plumb-coloured breeches were unbuckled at the knee, and his ungartered stockings were on a downward progress towards his unbuckled shoes. He had his hands, their wrists were garnished with unwashed ruffles,-in his breeches pockets; and he diverted himself with whistling "Charley over the water," in a state of quasi-ruminant quiescence. Nothing could be plainer than that he was a hanger-on of the castle off duty, waiting his time until called for, when of course he was to appear before his master in a more carefully arranged costume.

Ormond Castle was then, as I believe it is now, a show-house, and the visitors of Kilkenny found little difficulty in the admission; but, as in those days purposes of political intrusion might be suspected, some shadow at least of introduction was considered necessary. Tom, reared in the household of a schoolmaster, where the despotic authority of the chief extends a flavour of its quality to all his ministers, exhilarated by the walk, and cheered by the eatables and drinkables which he had swallowed, felt that there was no necessity for consulting any of the usual points of etiquette; if indeed he knew that any such things were in existence.

"I say," said he, "old chap! is this castle to be seen? I'm told it's a show; and if it is, let's have a look at it."

"It is to be seen," replied the person addressed, "if you are properly introduced."

"That's all hum!" said Tom. "I know enough of the world, though I've lived all my life in Clonmell, to know that a proper introduction signifies a tester. Come, my old snouty, I'll stand all that's right if you show me over it. Can you do it?" "Why," said his new friend, "I think I can; because, in fact, I am

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"Something about the house, I suppose. | there's a chap there in a wilderness of wig. Well, though you've on a laced jacket, and Gad! he looks as if he was like to be I only a plain frieze coat, we are both bro- hanged." thers of the shoulder-knot. I tell you who I am. Did you ever hear of Chaytor the Quaker, the schoolmaster of Clonmell?" Never."

"He was so," said the cicerone; "for a gentleman of the name of Blood was about to pay him that compliment at Tyburn."

-was he a constable?"

Serve him right," observed Tom; "and "Well, he's a decent sort of fellow in the this fellow with the short stick in his hand; propria quæ maribus line, and gives as good-what the deuce is the meaning of that? a buttock of beef to anybody that gets over the threshold of his door as you'd wish to meet; and I am his man, his valley de sham, head gentleman

"Gentleman usher?"

"No, not usher," responded Tom indignantly: "I have nothing to do with ushers; they are scabby dogs of poor scholards, sizards, half-pays, and the like; and all the young gentlemen much prefer me-but I am his fiddleus Achates, as master Jack Toler calls me, that's a purty pup who will make some fun some of these days,-his whacktotum, head-cook, and dairy-maid, slush, and butler. What are you here?" "Why," replied the man at the gate, "I am a butler as well as you."

"Oh, then we're both butlers; and you could as well pass us in. By coarse, the butler must be a great fellow here; and I see you are rigged in the cast clothes of my lord. Isn't that true?"

"True enough: he never gets a suit of clothes, that it does not fall to my lot to wear it; but if you wish to see the castle, I think I can venture to show you all that it contains, even for the sake of our being two butlers."

It was not much sooner said than done. Tom accompanied his companion over the house and grounds, making sundry critical observations on all he saw therein,―on painting, architecture, gardening, the sublime and beautiful, the scientific and picturesque,-in a manner which I doubt not much resembled the average style of reviewing those matters in what we now call the best public instructors.

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Rum-looking old ruffians," observed Tom, on casting his eyes along the gallery containing the portraitures of the Ormonds. Look at that fellow there all battered up in iron; I wish to God I had as good a church as he would rob!"

"He was one of the old earls," replied his guide, "in the days of Henry the Eighth; and I believe he did help in robbing churches."

"I knew it by his look," said Tom: "and

"No," said his friend, "he was a marshal; but he had much to do with keeping out of the way of constables for some years. Did you ever hear of Dean Swift?"

Did I ever hear of the Dane? Why, my master has twenty books of his that he's always reading, and he calls him Old Copper-farthing; and the young gentlemen are quite wild to read them. I read some of them wance (once); but they were all lies, about fairies and giants. Howsoever, they say the Dane was a larned man."

"Well, he was a great friend of that man with the short stick in his hand."

"By dad!" said Tom, few of the Dane's friends was friends to the Hanover succession; and I'll bet anything that that flourishing looking lad there was a friend to the Pretender."

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"Plenty."

"But you won't get into a scrape? Honour above all; I'd not like to have you do it unless you were sure, for the glory of the cloth."

The pledge of security being solemnly offered, Tom followed his companion through the intricate passages of the castle until he came into a small apartment, where he found a most plentiful repast before him. He had not failed to observe, that, as he was guided through the house, their path had been wholly uncrossed, for, if anybody accidentally appeared, he hastily withdrew. One person only was detained for a moment,

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