prosecutes those who have sympathized with her in more subdued expressions of indignation and abhorrence. An action for slander against the widow Ryan, by the Rev. Archdeacon Ryder, would have a good effect!' ALL. Well done, Morning Chronicle !' MR. ALBION. We must not suffer the Rathcormac affair to 'blow over;' the investigation is not to be gradually dropped.' As to Mr. Harris, he treats the threats of the reverend brothers with the same contempt as he would a popish Bull! He has published another edition! SHAMROCK O'TOOLE. Let them roar again!' it's no manner of use; Mr. Harris don't value three thumps of a pulpit-cushion the whole of the Nightingale Club that's held at the Cabbage and Shears!' SANDY SAUNDERSON. Dinna ye ken, Maister Shamrock, that yer imaginative eeloquence maks a mon feel vera hungry; forbye an exposure to the fresh morning air, whilk is active wi' those wha squat on the doup wi' na ither action than that o' the mind? ALL (laughing). Ha! ha! ha! his nose is blue! SANDY SAUNDERSON (gravely). I maun gang to the cottage. [Exit SAUNDERSON. LORD DOUGH (rising). It is a reflection most sensible! I also shall retire awhile, and re-invigorate with wholesome corporealities. SHAMROCK O'TOOLE (jumping up). Here, take my arm, I'll see you safe across the field. LORD DOUGH. Wherefore? SHAMROCK O'TOOLE. There's a mad popery bull sent by the ' renowned archdeacon' to gore us!-besides, I'm hungry myself. MISS JUKES. Shamrock, your other arm; will you never learn the attentions due to a lady? SHAMROCK O'TOOLE. Here, here, ten thousand billions of pardons! [Exeunt LORD DOUGH, SHAMROCK, and MISS JUKES. SCENE II.-Time, noon. Inside of a large cottage. EPHRAIM SQUILLS standing with his hands in his pockets before a tea-pot. SQUILLS (abstractedly). Pigs are unclean reptiles. Moses says so too; but he is no judge-or, he ought to be no judge. A clean Jew is a rarity. Moses is a rarity. He said two days ago, it would be my turn to wash up all the tea-cups and things; and I insisted to the contrary. What boots it that I have since recollected that he was right! After being positive, how can Squills retreat? It is not only giving the lie to one's self, but giving honour to your opponent by the admission, and character for the time to come. No, I will not retreat. No, I will not retreat. But I will punish myself for the mistake by taking no breakfast. There will be fewer things to wash-that's some encouragement to fortitude. How nice everything smelt! I have stood here and watched the steam come oozing from the long-crooked nose of the tea-pot they left me, cloud after cloud, fainter and fainter! Now it is all over! now it is all cold! Well done, strong-minded man, that hath resisted warm tea, though athirst, and left, though ravening within, yon pile of sandwiches inviolate! (Voices at a distance). They come! they will bear witness to my fortitude! But the cause-the cause, O Squills! Is it worthy of such unconquerable endurance? This admits of doubt. Surely I might now admit that I was wrong, because my present self that knows the fact, is not the gentleman who two days ago did not know that fact; for that is my past self? Ahem! I'll be hanged if I do admit it for all that! Here they come!-there's Sandy Saunderson, and a little behind him there's Mr. Shamrock, and Miss Jukes, and the Lord; but where's Moses the clean Jew? Enter SANDY SAUNDERSON. SAUNDERSON. Gude's my life, Squills! SQUILLS (abstractedly). Without soap and water, what is man? SAUNDERSON. He's just a brute creature; naething to eat the morn? SQUILLS. I hate the Scotch SAUNDERSON. Hech, mon? but ha' ye taken but ha' SQUILLS. Whiskey and oatmeal! Mr. Saunderson, do not persist in personalities. Enter SHAMROCK O'TOOLE, MISS JUKES, and LORD DOUGH. SHAMROCK O'TOOLE. Ephraim Squills, we've come to eat all you've got! SQUILLS. You'll kill me first, I hope? LORD DOUGH. I exhaust-I repine for want of nourishment! SHAMROCK O'TOOLE. Oh, here's a fine ham and a cold turkey, and lots of boiled fowls! SAUNDERSON. It winna be decent in a body to stick a fork intil them sae rabidly out o' time. We maun first tak dinner to the folk at the great Tree yonder! LORD DOUGH. I faint! I ungastrify! SHAMROCK O'TOOLE. True, Sandy, true. Away then, ye dacent thoughtful moor-fowl, and take as much as you can carry, for their ating and drinking. SAUNDERSON. But first, sir, are ye nae a patriot? SAUNDERSON. Then ye'll just clap down yer canny name to this paper, for as large a bit o'gold or siller as the like o'ye can afford. SHAMROCK. What is the maning of the thing? SAUNDERSON. It's just a patriotic subscription for the patriotic exposure o'the Spy creature. LORD DOUGH. A subscrip --- Oh, I am literally exsanguent! SHAMROCK. Och! and I see now as sure as a trigger. It's the rise of the Edinborough men in favour of the Edinborough Tait, so it is! Here's my copper, and success go wid it. SAUNDERSON. Copper!-this is nae copper, sir!-is gude gold! SHAMROCK (bawling). Luck go wid ye! Stick the paper under the liver-wing o'the big turkey, and the noble paple under the Tree will clap down their names as nate as myself. [Exit SANDY SAUNDERSON, with turkey, &c. SQUILLS. I was wrong!-I was wrong!-but now I am right. Where's a cold fowl? [Seizes one and falls to. SHAMROCK. Divil fire me !- -see how he ates for his life! SQUILLS. I do! I do!-Where's the drink? [Seizes a jug of ale, and pours it down his throat. MISS JUKES. It makes me ill to see such a fish! SHAMROCK. Come, Squills-come, good Ephraim, help me now set out the table here, then? Quick, and we'll all start fair for the plate! Lave that fowl, Squills; lave it, I say, and come to attack a fresh one. You'll be after braking your taith, if you don't be a little moderate. LORD DOUGH. The mineral succedaneum MISS JUKES. Yes, or the mineral marmortum, will easily supply that deficiency. SHAMROCK. The divil it will! But how d'ye come to know that, Miss Jukes? MISS JUKES. Ahem!-I faint also-I-I confess I am not without appetite. SHAMROCK. Here now, it's all ready. No ceremony. [Puts a whole foul upon her plate. MISS JUKES. Oh Mister Shamrock! SHAMROCK. Shall I take it back, then? MISS JUKES. Sir, you should endeavour to learn politeness. LORD DOUGH. Salt, pepper, mustard, thank you!-bread, salad, oil, wine, ale, and things,-thank you! Miss Jukes, I have the honour-ah, thank you! Mr. Squills, better temper to usthank you! Shamrock, move your heel from the vicinity of my corns. SHAMROCK. Ha! ha! ha! [They pay no further attention to each other. SCENE III. The party round the Tree.-Time, evening. CŒUR DE LEON. And very glad I am that the spy was thoroughly discomfited. MR. ALBION. Does your list of subscribers increase, Mr. Saunderson, to your satisfaction? SAUNDERSON. I hae na gude reason to complain. It only wants that men should ken a' the story, and then the siller would tumble in frae a' the country. MRS. ALBION. Amidst all these victories, at which we rejoice, there are some which cause a meditative grief: the victories of death over the good. Yet are they but poor and ineffectual conquests. The frail fabric of the body is resolved to its maternal elements, and can no more be recognised among us; but the mind remains entire, and continues its progress towards posterity. Mrs. Hemans lives only in her works! FATHER ZODIAC. Hail! and farewell! MR. ALBION. So, poor Shakspeare Ireland, I hear, is also dead? Was he not rather a voluminous unfortunate? ANGUS. He was the luckless author, you will recollect, of Vortigern and Rowena, and other papers called Shakspeare's; of Confessions, of Poems, of Romances, Novels, Translations from Voltaire, France for the last Seven Years, &c. &c. Newspapers and Magazines seem to have manifested rather a malignant spirit in their notices of his death; and some of them, under the canting affectation of pointing a moral,' have even vented contemptuous exultations over the wretchedness of his death-bed and obscure last home. HARRY OF NEWMARKET. The 'Atlas' spoke very fairly of him, and without any of this indecent bitterness. I knew Ireland some years ago; but what is your opinion of his life and writings? ANGUS. His forgery of the Shakspeare Papers was the admirable, though misdirected, ingenuity of boyish years, he being only sixteen or seventeen at the time, and originated in the secret pleasure of endeavouring to produce something which should pass as the work of the great poet, whom his father was so incessantly holding up to his admiration. But no sooner did he find that the trick had succeeded to the utmost, the real, ultimate, and matterof-fact consequences of which he had never foreseen or even dreamt of, than he felt utterly confounded and appalled, as well he might. But it was too late to recede. He did not dare confess to his father what he had done when he found the character of that father so immediately implicated in the proceeding. The deception thus became popular, and most of the big-wigs and learned. Thebans, who flattered their bloated vapidity with the notion that they understood Shakspeare, gave it their entire sanction and patronage. John Kemble, and one or two more, knew better. No. 102, 2 F The dirty mildewed paper, hunted out from old book-stalls, so as to get it with the water-mark of Shakspeare's time; the wonderful fac-simile of the handwriting, written with a little ink mixed with tobacco-water, which in a few days had all the appearance of being hundreds of years old; the antiquated phrase and construction, and mechanical imitation of the sentiments and characteristics of the great poet's dialogue, &c.; all these would not do with men. who judged from internal evidence, and saw that the spirit was wanting. But this boy made fools of the Grecians; he proved to palpable demonstration that they had no learned spirit'-nay, he did worse, he made them prove it themselves, and in public. FATHER ZODIAC. That was good; yet methinks their own writings might have proved it sufficiently. MR. ALBION. But the public, sir; the public-that is the point! No sooner did the young Pickle confess the trick he had played, than two parties arose: those who had assented to the authenticity of the papers and knelt down to the hoax, and those few who had denied it; the latter forming a most overwhelming majority, because they were instantly joined by numbers who swore they had never believed it. This brought the public over to their side, and loud and universal was the ridicule that assailed the Boswells, Parrs, and other illuminati. FATHER ZODIAC. Died it not away-as all things die? MR. ALBION. Not exactly. After a writhing struggle on the part of the adepts in black-letter, autographs, &c., to prove the falsity of young Ireland's Confessions, they were obliged to sit down under the laughter of the illiterate as well as literate world. He then published some poems or ballads avowedly his own, and this rekindled the war. The Thebans denounced them as trash, and, comparing them with the superiority of the plays he had put forth as Shakspeare's, reverted in part to their first decision, that they were either by Shakspeare or one of the writers of his time. But everybody else found additional proof in these poor mockancient ballads, of the forgery in the first instance, and denying their wonderful superiority, came to the conclusion, that the only occasion of such superiority as the former really possessed in isolated passages, was occasioned either by the imitation of his great model, or by plagiarising sentiments and paraphrasing images from Shakspeare's works. And this is really the case, though I do not recollect it among the Confessions. MRS. ALBION. Then everybody agreed in denouncing young Ireland's poems? MR. ALBION. Of course: there was nothing in them but mechanism. HARRY OF NEWMARKET. Supposing he had never made any confessions? MOSES. How much money he might have got! Pity-pity! MR. ALBION. Ah, then they would have passed as beautiful |