Oh! he was an elegant blade, As you'd meet from Fair Head to Kilcrumper, And though under the sod he is laid, Yet here goes his health in a bumper! I wish he was here that my glass He might by art magic replenish; But as he is not, why, alas! THE MILKMAID. ONCE on a time a rustic dame Oft in her hand she clink'd the pence, 6 Please heaven but to preserve my health, No doubt I shall have store of wealth; It must of consequence ensue I shall have store of lovers too. Oh, how I'll break their subborn hearts What suitors then will kneel before me! Action, alas! the speaker's grace, Ne'er came in more improper place, For in the tossing forth her shoe What fancied bliss the maid o'erthrew ! While down at once with hideous fall, Came lovers, wealth, and milk, and all. " R. LLOYD, 1733–1764. A DISGUSTED LOBSTER. 'BRIDGET, what did your mistress say she would have for dinner?" "Broil the lobster!" "Are you sure, Bridget?" "Entirely; get the grid-iron." Mary got the grid-iron, and placed it on the fire. She then placed the live lobster on the grid-iron. Intermission of five minutes, after which the dialogue was resumed, as follows: "Did you broil that lobster, Mary?" "Niver a broil! The more Í poked the fire, the more he walked off. The baste's haunted; I'll try no more. No good will come from cooking a straddle-bug like that." "And where is the lobster?" "Faith, the last I saw of him, he was going out of the door with his tail at half-mast, like a wild maniac that he was!" HANDY ANDY. [SAMUEL LOVER, artist, novelist, song-writer and composer, was the son of a stock-broker in Dublin, and was born in that city in 1797. At an early age he showed a great desire to become an artist, and with genius and perseverance, succeeded so far that, in 1828, he was elected a member of the royal Hibernian Society of arts. He discovered that he possessed a genius for authorship as well as for art, and was encouraged to make some attempts in that direction by the favourable opinion of Thomas Moore. In 1832, he published a collection of short pieces, entitled Legends and stories of Ireland by Samuel Lover, R. H. A., with six etchings by the author, (12mo. Dublin) which was favorably received, and followed by a second series, published in London in 1834. In 1837 Mr. Lover settled in London, and having made authorship his profession, contributed largely to the periodical literature of the day. He also wrote Rory O'More, a romance of Irish life, which immediately became popular. Its production on the stage, with the excellent acting of Power in the principal character, made the author still more known. His next publication, Handy Andy, contributed to Bentley's Miscellany; (which we republish as it then appeared), was subsequently added to considerably and published in book form, but the latter part is not equal to the original publication-which is by competent judges considered his masterpiece. He died in July 1868, aged 71.] ANDY ROONEY was a fellow who had the most singularly ingenious knack of doing everything the wrong way; disappointment waited on all affairs in which he bore a part, and destruction was at his fingers' ends; so the nick-name the neighbors stuck upon him was Handy Andy, and the jeering jingle pleased them. Andy's entrance into this world was quite in character with his after achievements, for he was nearly the death of his mother. She survived, however, to have herself clawed almost to death while her darling "baby" was in arms, for he would not take his nourishment from the parent fount unless he had one of his little red fists twisted into his mother's hair, which he dragged till he made her roar; while he diverted the pain by scratching her, till the blood came with his other. Nevertheless, she swore he "the loveliest and sweetest craythur the sun ever shined upon;" and when he was able to run about and wield a little stick, and smash everything breakable belonging to her, she only praised was his precocious powers, and she used to ask, "Did ever any one see a darlin' of his age handle a stick so bowld as he did?" Andy grew up in mischief and the admiration of his mammy; but, to do him justice, he never meant harm in the course of his life, and he was most anxious to offer his services on all occasions to those who would accept them; but they were only persons who had not already proved Andy's peculiar powers. There was a farmer hard by in this happy state of ignorance, named Owen Doyle, or as he was familiarly called Owny na Coppal, or, "Owen of the Horses," because he bred many of these animals and sold them at the neighboring fairs; and Andy one day offered his services to Owny, when he was in want of somebody to drive up a horse to his house from a distant "bottom" as low grounds by a river-side are called in Ireland. "Oh, he's wild, Andy, and you'll never be able to ketch him," said Owny. "Troth, an' I'll engage I'll ketch him if you'll let me go. I never seen the horse I couldn't ketch sir," said Andy. "Why, you little spridhogue, if he took to runnin' over the long bottom, it 'ud be more than a day's work for you to folly him." "Oh, but he won't run." Why won't he run?" "Bekaze I won't make him run." "Well, you're a willing brat anyhow; and so go on, and God speed you!" said Owny. "Just give me a wisp o' hay an' a hanʼful iv oats," said Andy, "if I should have to coax him." "Sartinly," said Owny, who entered the stable and came forth with the articles required by Andy, and a halter for the horse also. "Now, take care," said Owny, that you are able to ride that horse if you get on him.” "Oh, never fear, sir. I can ride owld Lanty's Gubbins' mule betther nor any o' the boys on the common, and he couldn't throw me the other day, though he kicked the shoes av him." "After that you may ride anything," said Owny; and indeed it was true; for Lanty's mule, which fed on the common, be- "Don't be afeard, sir," said Andy, who started on his errand in that peculiar pace which is elegantly called a 'sweep's trot; and as the river lay between Owny Doyle's and the bottom, and was too deep for Andy to ford at that season, he went round by Dinny Dowling's mill, where a small wooden bridge crossed the stream. "Well, I won't anyhow," said Andy, who by this time had got the horse into a good high trot, that shook every word of argument out of Paudeen's body; besides, it was as much as the boys could do, to keep their seats on Owny's Bucephalus, who was not long in reaching the miller's bridge. Here voice and halter were employed to pull him in, that he might cross the narrow wooden structure, at a quiet pace. But whether his double load had given him the idea of double exertion, or that the pair of legs on each side of him sticking into his flanks (and perhaps the horse was ticklish) made him go the faster, we know not; but the horse charged the bridge as if an Enniskilliner were on his back, and an enemy before him; and in two minutes his hoofs clattered like thunder on the bridge that did not bend beneath him. No, it did not bend, but it broke; proving the falsehood, of the boast, "I may break but I won't bend;" for, after all, the really strong may bend, and be as strong as ever: it is the unsound that has only the seeming of strength, which breaks at last when it resists too long. lift on Surprising was the spin the young equestrians took over the ears of the horse, enough to make all the artists of Astley's envious; and plump they went into the river where each formed his own ring and executed some comical "scenes in the circle," which were suddenly changed to evolutions on the "flying cord" that Dinny Dowling threw the performers, which became suddenly converted into a "tight rope," as he dragged voltigeurs out of the water; and for fear their blood might be chilled by the accident, he gave them an enormous thrashing with a dry end of the rope, just to restore circulation; and his exertions had they been witnessed would have charmed the Humane Society. 66 Here he thought he might as well secure the assistance of Paudeen, the miller's son, to help him in catching the horse: so he looked about the place until he found him, and telling him the errand upon which he was going, said, "If you like to come wid me, we can both have a ride." The last temptation was sufficient for Paudeen, and the boys proceeded together to the bottom, and they were not long in securing the horse. When they had got the halter over his head, Now," said Andy, "give me a him;" and accordingly, by Paudeen's catching Andy's left foot, in both his hands clasped together in the fashion of a stirrup, he hoisted his friend on the horse's back; and as soon as he was secure there, Master Paudeen, by the aid of Andy's hand, contrived to scramble up after him; upon which Andy applied his heel to the horse's side with many vigorous kicks, and crying "hyrrup!" at the same time, endeavoring to stimulate Owny's steed into something of a pace, as he turned his head toward the mill. "Sure arn't you going to crass the river?" said Paudeen. "No, I'm going to lave you at home." "Oh, I'd rather go up to Owny's and it's the shortest way acrass the river." "Yes, but I don't like." "Is it afeared that you are?" said Paudeen. "Not I, indeed!" said Andy; though it was really the fact, for the width of the stream startled him; "but Owny towld me to take great care o' the baste, and I'm loath to wet his feet." "Go 'long wid you, you fool! What harm would it do him? Sure he's neither sugar nor salt that he'd melt." As for the horse, his legs stuck through the bridge, as though he had been put in a chiroplast, and he went playing away on the water with considerable execution, as if he was accompanying himself in the song which he was squealing at the top of his voice. Half the saws, hatchets, ropes, and poles in the parish were put in requisition immediately, and the horse's first lesson in chiroplastic exercises was performed with no other loss than some skin and a good deal of hair. Of course |