bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth; but I shall ever think that I took the proper course, for, after the lapse of a few hours, two more of the general's red-coats, or general postmen, brought me a large packet sealed with the war-office seal, and superscribed "Henry Hardinge," by which I was officially absolved from serving on horse or on foot, or on both together, then and thereafter. And why, I know not-unless his majesty doubted the handsomeness of discharging me in particular, without letting off the rest;but so it was, that in a short time afterwards there issued a proclamation by which the services of all militiamen were for the present dispensed with, and we were left to pursue our several avocations, of course, all the lighter in our spirits for being disembodied. -From the Comic Annual. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. A VARIATION. Youth rambles on life's arid mount, The man mature with labour chops And then the old man totters nigh, And feebly rakes among the stones. The mount is mute, the channel dry! And down he lays his weary bones. MATTHEW ARNOLD. HAPPINESS. Because the Few with signal virtue crowned, LORD HOUGHTON, THE LADY OF GOLLERUS. BY T. CROFTON CROKER. 1 On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at daybreak, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth. "'Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning," said Dick, taking the pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean, which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. "Well, to be sure," continued he, after a pause, "tis mighty lonesome to be talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul to answer onenothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I know this, that if I had the luck, or maybe the misfortune," said he, with a mel ancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this way with me!-and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing-line withou a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete. Is it not so?" said Dick Fitzgerald. casting his eyes towards a rock upon the strand. which, though it could not speak, stood up a firm and looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did. But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that rock, a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a sea-green colour; and now, the salt water shining on it, appeared, in the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage. Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow although he had never seen one before, for he spied the cohuleen driuth, or little enchanted cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying upon the strand, near her; and he had heard, that if once he could possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away into the water: so be seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian. When the Merrow saw that her little diving cap was gone, the salt tears-doubly salt, no 1 From Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. See Casquet, page 177, vol. i. doubt, from her-came trickling down her cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was crying for, determined to keep the cohuleen driuth, let her cry never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel, let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a mighty tender heart of his own. "Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that. Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand by way of comforting her. Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell. 'What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it. The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation; and, making an end of her whining all at once-" Man," says she, looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "man, will you eat me?" "By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself, my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?-Now, twas some ugly ill-looking thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this morning!" 'Man," said the Merrow, "what will you do with me, if you won't eat me?" Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse, that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any real woman, he was fairly in love with her. Twas the neat way she called him man, that settled the matter entirely. "Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion; "fish," says he, here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this blessed morning, that I'll make you Mistress Fitzgerald before all the world, and that's what I'll do." "Never say the word twice," says she, "I'm ready and willing to be yours, Mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, 'till I twist up my hair." It was sometime before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the water that was close to the foot of the rock. Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and, says he, in the greatest wonder, "Is it speaking you are, my darling, to the salt water?" "It's nothing else," says she, quite carelessly, "I'm just sending word home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep him from being uneasy in his mind.” "And who's your father, my duck?" says Dick. "What!" said the Merrow, "did you never hear of my father? he's the king of the waves, to be sure!" "And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?" said Dick, opening his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to be. "Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your father:-to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of the sea!" 66 Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?" "'Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it," replied Dick; "and maybe now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid them?" "Oh yes," said the Merrow, "they bring me what I want." "To speak the truth, then," said Dick, "'tis a straw bed I have at home before you, and that, I'm thinking, is no ways fitting for a king's daughter; so if 'twould not be displeasing to you, just to mention, a nice feather bed, with a pair of new blankets-but what am I talking about? maybe you have not such thing as beds down under the water?" By all means," said she, Mr. Fitzgerald plenty of beds at your service. I've fourteen oyster beds of my own, not to mention one just planting for the rearing of young ones." "You have," says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little puzzled. "'Tis a feather bed I was speaking of-but clearly, yours is her; and Julia, when appealed to, asserted her female privilege of white-lying, and declared that if there was not another man in the world she would never have married Captain Claremont. The admiral, thwarted by everybody, and compelled to submit for the first time in his life (except in the affair of his promotion and that of the ducked sailor), stormed, and swore, and scolded all round, and refused to be pacified; Mrs. Floyd, to whom his fiat had seemed like fate, was frightened at the general temerity, and vented her unusual discomfort in scolding too; Anne took refuge in the house of a friend; and poor Julia, rejected by one party and lectured by the other, comforted herself by running away, one fine night, with a young officer of dragoons, with whom she had had an off-and-on correspondence for a twelvemonth. This elopement was the copestone of the admiral's misfortunes; he took a hatred to Hannonby, and left it forthwith; and it seemed as if he had left his anger behind him, for the next tidings we heard of the Floyds, Julia and her spouse were forgiven in spite of his soldiership, and the match had turned out far better than might have been expected; and Anne and her captain were in high favour, and the admiral gaily anticipating a flag-ship and a war, and the delight of bringing up his grandsons to be the future ornaments of the British navy. THE WORLD.1 Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world, The wonderful air is over me, And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree, You friendly earth! how far do you go, With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles, Ah, you are so great, and I am so small, "You are more than the earth, though you are such a dot: You can love and think, and the earth can not!" From Lilliput Lectures, by the author of Lilliput Levee (Mathew Browne). London: Strahan & Co. THE DORTY BAIRN. [David Wingate, born at Cowglen, Renfrewshire, 1828. At the age of nine years he began work in a coal-mine; he subsequently studied at the Glasgow School of Mines, and qualified himself for the responsible position of manager of extensive collieries in Lanarkshire. In 1862 appeared his first volume, Poema and Songs, and in 1866 another volume, Anne Weir and other Poems, both published by Blackwood and Sona Mr. Wingate at once obtained general recognition as one of the foremost of modern Scottish poets. Healthy pathos, honest humour, and a spirit of sturdy independence, are the most prominent characteristics of his verse.] Preserve me! Lizzie Allan, Hae ye no your breakfast taen? Sic a face ye hae wi' greetin'! What's the matter wi' ye, wean? Aye! "A flee ran owre your parritch?" "Fanny snowkit at your bread?" My certie! Leddy Lizzie! Ye're a dainty dame indeed! But the parritch can be keepit, And the bread can be laid bye, And if hunger proves nae kitchen, Then the tawse we'll hae to try. Aye! a bairn may weel be saucy Whare there's plenty and to spare; But there's mony a better lassie Would be blythe to see sic fare. Oh! waes me! but it's vexin', Yet it's needless to misca'See, there's the glass. What think ye? D'ye ken yoursel ava? There's the een I praised this mornin', Baith as blear❜t's the cludit moon. There's the pina" that an hour sin' Was as white's the driven snaw, Noo as draiglet as the dish-cloot,— D'ye ken yoursel ava'? And your hauns that were like lilies, Oh Lizzie, Lizzie Allan! Ye maun mend, or ye shall learn That it's mair o' cuffs than cuddlin' That awaits a dorty bairn. 1"Pina," i.e. pinafore. |