Now, like a pig in a mortar-bed wallowing,
See the old bachelor kneading his dough;
Troth, if his bread he can ate without swallowing,
How it would help his digestion, ye know!

Late in the night, when he goes to bed shivering,
Never the bit is his bed made at all;
So he creeps like a terrapin under the kivering;
Bad luck to the pictur of Bachelor's Hall!

ANONYMOUS.

MR. MOLONY'S ACCOUNT OF THE BALL

GIVEN TO THE NEPAULESE AMBASSADOR BY THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL COMPANY.

O, WILL ye choose to hear the news?

Bedad, I cannot pass it o'er :

I'll tell you all about the ball

To the Naypaulase Ambassador. Begor! this fête all balls does bate, At which I worn a pump, and I Must here relate the splendthor great Of th' Oriental Company.

These men of sinse dispoised expinse,

To fête these black Achilleses. "We'll show the blacks," says they, "Almack's, And take the rooms at Willis's."

With flags and shawls, for these Nepauls,

They hung the rooms of Willis up,

And decked the walls and stairs and halls
With roses and with lilies up.

And Jullien's band it tuck its stand

So sweetly in the middle there,
And soft bassoons played heavenly chunes,
And violins did fiddle there.
And when the Coort was tired of spoort,
I'd lave you, boys, to think there was

A nate buffet before them set,

Where lashins of good dhrink there was!

At ten before the ball-room door,
His moighty Excellency was;
He smoiled and bowed to all the crowd,
So gorgeous and immense he was.
His dusky shuit, sublime and mute,

Into the door-way followed him ;
And O the noise of the blackguard boys,
As they hurrood and hollowed him!

The noble Chair stud at the stair,

And bade the dthrums to thump; and he
Did thus evince to that Black Prince
The welcome of his Company.

O fair the girls, and rich the curls,
And bright the oys, you saw there, was;
And fixed each oye, ye there could spoi,
On Gineral Jung Bahawther was!

This Gineral great then tuck his sate,
With all the other ginerals,
(Bedad, his troat, his belt, his coat,

All bleezed with precious minerals ;)
And as he there, with princely air,

Recloinin on his cushion was, All round about his royal chair,

The squeezin and the pushin was.

O Pat, such girls, such Jukes and Earls,
Such fashion and nobilitee!
Just think of Tim, and fancy him

Amidst the hoigh gentility!

There was Lord De L'Huys, and the Portygeese
Ministher and his lady there,

And I reckonized, with much surprise,
Our messmate, Bob O'Grady, there;

There was Baroness Brunow, that looked like Juno,
And Baroness Rehausen there,

And Countess Roullier, that looked peculiar
Well, in her robes of gauze in there.
There was Lord Crowhurst (I knew him first
When only Mr. Pips he was),
And Mick O'Toole, the great big fool,
That after supper tipsy was.

There was Lord Fingall and his ladies all,

And Lords Killeen and Dufferin,
And Paddy Fife, with his fat wife, —
I wondther how he could stuff her in.
There was Lord Belfast, that by me past,
And seemed to ask how should I go there?
And the Widow Macrae, and Lord A. Hay,
And the Marchioness of Sligo there.

Yes, Jukes and Earls, and diamonds and pearls,
And pretty girls, was spoorting there ;
And some beside (the rogues !) I spied,
Behind the windies, coorting there.
O, there's one I know, bedad, would show
As beautiful as any there;

And I'd like to hear the pipers blow,
And shake a fut with Fanny there!

WILLIAM MAKEPEACH THACKERAY.

IRISH ASTRONOMY.

A VERITABLE MYTH, TOUCHING THE CONSTELLATION
OF O'RYAN, IGNORANTLY AND FALSELY SPELLED ORION.

O'RYAN was a man of might
Whin Ireland was a nation,
But poachin' was his heart's delight
And constant occupation.

He had an ould militia gun,

And sartin sure his aim was ;
He gave the keepers many a run,
And would n't mind the game laws.

St. Pathrick wanst was passin' by

O'Ryan's little houldin',

And, as the saint felt wake and dhry,

He thought he'd enther bould in. "O'Ryan," says the saint, "avick!

To praich at Thurles I 'm goin';
So let me have a rasher quick,
And a dhrop of Innishowen."

"No rasher will I cook for you
While betther is to spare, sir,
But here's a jug of mountain dew,

And there's a rattlin' hare, sir." St. Pathrick he looked mighty sweet, And says he, "Good luck attind you, And when you 're in your windin' sheet, It's up to heaven I'll sind you."

O'Ryan gave his pipe a whiff,

66

Them tidin's is thransportin', But may I ax your saintship if

There's any kind of sportin'?" St. Pathrick said, "A Lion's there, Two Bears, a Bull, and Cancer". "Bedad," says Mick, "the huntin 's rare ; St. Pathrick, I'm your man, sir."

So, to conclude my song aright,

For fear I'd tire your patience,
You'll see O'Ryan any night

Amid the constellations.
And Venus follows in his track

Till Mars grows jealous raally,

But, faith, he fears the Irish knack

Of handling the shillaly.

He weeps o'er the modern corruption,

Compared with the good old times, And don't know what is the matter With the Upper Jura limes!

The hoary old Plesiosaurus

Does naught but quaff and roar; And the Pterodactylus lately

Flew drunk to his own front door!

The Iguanodon of the Period

Grows worse with every stratum ; He kisses the Ichthyosauresses Whenever he can get at 'em!

I feel a catastrophe coming;
This epoch will soon be done,
And what will become of the Jura
If such goings-on go on?

The groaning Ichthyosaurus
Turns suddenly chalky pale;
He sighs from his steaming nostrils,
He writhes with his dying tail!

In that self-same hour and minute
Died the whole Saurian stem,
The fossil-oil in their liquor
Soon put an end to them!

And the poet found their story
Which here he doth indite,
In the form of a petrified album-leaf
Upon a coprolite !

ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.

CHARLES G. HALPINE. (MILES O'REILLY.)

SONG OF THE ICHTHYOSAURUS.

[This curious specimen of German scientific humor refers to the close of the Jurassic (or Liassic) period and the beginning of the Cretaceous, and describes the sad forebodings of a venerable Saurian, who sees in the degeneracy of the times a sign of the coming cataclysm.

The translator says, "Among the many extraordinary liberties which we have felt obliged to take with the letter of the original, in order to preserve as far as possible its spirit and its flowing movement, the most violent is the substitution in the last stanza but one, of an entirely new (and poor) joke for the very neat, but untranslatable jeu of the German. The last two lines of the stanza are: Sie kamen zu tief in die Kreide;

Da war es natürlich vorbei.'

The literal meaning is, They got too deep in the chalk, and it The allusion is to the score was, of course, all up with them.' chalked up by a landlord against some bibulous but impecunious customer; and the notion that the Saurians ran up so large an ac

count for drinks that the chalk required to mark their indebtedness

smothered the whole race, and brought on the Cretaceous or chalk period, is so absurdly funny that it is a pity to sacrifice it."]

THERE's a rustling in the rushes,
There's a flashing in the sea,

There's a tearful Ichthyosaurus

Swims hither mournfully!

TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL.

A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS.

The skull

["A human skull has been found in California, in the pliocene formation. This skull is the remnant, not only of the earliest pioneer of this State, but the oldest known human being.. was found in a shaft one hundred and fifty feet deep, two miles from Angel's, in Calaveras County, by a miner named James Matson, who gave it to Mr. Scribner, a merchant, and he gave it to Dr. Jones, who sent it to the State Geological Survey. . . . . The published volume of the State Survey on the Geology of California states that man existed contemporaneously with the mastodon, but this fossil proves that he was here before the mastodon was known to exist." Daily Paper.]

"SPEAK, Oman, less recent! Fragmentary fossil! Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,

Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum

Of Volcanic tufa!

Older than the beasts, the oldest Palæotherium,
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogamia;
Older than the hills, those infant eruptions
Of earth's epidermis !

THE JOVIAL BEGGAR,

THERE was a jovial beggar,
He had a wooden leg;
Lame from his cradle,
And forced for to beg.
And a-begging we will go,
Will go, will go,
And a-begging we will go.

A bag for his oatmeal,
Another for his salt,

And a long pair of crutches,'
To show that he can halt.

And a-begging we will go, etc.

A bag for his wheat,
Another for his rye,

And a little bottle by his side,
To drink when he 's a-dry.
And a-begging we will go, etc.

Seven years I begged

For my old master Wilde; He taught me how to beg When I was but a child. And a-begging we will go, etc.

I begged for my master,

And got him store of pelf; But, goodness now be praised! I'm begging for myself.

And a-begging we will go, etc.

But, sure,

I think that I can drink

With any that wears a hood. Though I go bare, take ye no care;

I am nothing a-cold,

I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old."
Back and side go bare, go bare;

Both foot and hand go cold;

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old !

I love no roast but a nut-brown toast,
And a crab laid in the fire;

A little bread shall do me stead,
Much bread I not desire.

No frost nor snow, nor wind, I trow,
Can hurt me if I wold,

I am so wrapt, and thorowly lapt
Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, go bare, etc.
And Tyb, my wife, that as her life

Loveth well good ale to seek,
Full oft drinks she, till you may see
The tears run down her cheek;
Then doth she trowl to me the bowl,
Even as a malt-worm should;
And saith, "Sweetheart, I took my part
Of this jolly good ale and old."
Back and side go bare, go bare, etc.

Now let them drink till they nod and wink,
Even as good fellows should do ;

They shall not miss to have the bliss

Good ale doth bring men to;

And all poor souls that have scoured bowls,

Or have them lustily trowled,

God save the lives of them and their wives, Whether they be young or old!

Back and side go bare, go bare;

Both foot and hand go cold; But, belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old!

GLUGGITY GLUG.

JOHN STILL.

The tail of the steed pointed south on the dale, 'Twas the friar's road home, straight and level;

But, when spurred, a horse follows his nose, not his tail,

So he scampered due north, like a devil : "This new mode of docking," the friar then said, "I perceive does n't make a horse trot ill; And 't is cheap, for he never can eat off his head While I am engaged at the bottle,

Which goes gluggity, gluggity—glug -glug-glug."

The purple globed clusters their life-dews have bled;

How sweet is the breath of the fragraner they shed!

wines !!!

rank polsons For summer's last roses lie hid in the wines stable-boys smoking long-nines

That were garnered by maidens who laughed through the vines.

Then a sunile, and a glass, and a teast, and a eheer, strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer

For all the good wine, and we've some of it here!
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,
Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!

Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

And, if you please take warning,

My fable is concerning

A cuckoo and a lark.

If I had said a nightingale,
You would have cried.

You could not fail,
That it was pride,

And naught beside,

That made me think of such a tale. Upon a tree as they were sitting

They fell into a warm dispute,

Warmer than was fitting,

Which of them was the better flute.

After much prating

And debating,

Not worth relating,

Things came to such a pass,

They both agree

To take an ass

For referee :