they had waited a week and couldn't catch the ould one.* Alas! alas! for the nation wherein such innocent blood is thus savagely shed! Alas! for the accursed thirst of gold that provokes a horror of horrors like this! And when we see the bones of the hired assassins (for this task the reward was one quart of whisky each) creaking and rattling in the chill December blast, let us never forget that the greedy wretch on whose kindred this murder was committed was no better than an assassin of another sort. Little did he think, when he hounded out the helpless victims of

his sordid avarice from their cabin and their patch of land, reckless whether death might not overtake their hungry, houseless heads-ah! little did he know that the murky night gathered men together to bind themselves with an oath, and to cement it with their blood, that his blood should make all even. Surely, surely the whirligig of time brings about its revenges.

"And if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
That can resist, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong."

Of all the learned professions, recommend me to that of a Cabinetmaker-the very name has something of the grandiloquent about it-Cabinet--Cabinet--Cabinet-maker; as Cabinets go now-a-days, to be sure, the trade must be very much on the decline, for such an article as we see for sale in the shops, God knows-a poor, vamped-up, unseasoned, veneered concern, not fit for

but never mind, any thing will sell if you only pay "the duffers." Well, gentlemen, to this learned profession was my immediate progenitor indentured, after the decline and fall of the Joey empire, of which I defy Gibbon himself to give you a better account, and, ac cordingly, served his seven years after the usual approved fashion of apprenticeships, which condemns a poor devil to no less a servitude, for the purpose of learning the art and mystery of laying a trowel-full of mortar on a wall and sticking a brick in it! Your doctor and your lawyer get "finished" as they term it, in four years but your brick-layer dares not flourish an independent trowel short of seven Such is the value of human life, gentlemen, which it is the prevailing cant to deplore as if it were an auction by inch of candle, whereas you see plainly that a man must have as many lives

Bombastes Furioso.

as a singed cat to learn merely his rudiments.

Take another learned professionthe lawyer, for instance_what does my friend, Tom Smith, the insolvent court attorney, say about them?" You see me here," says Tom, "I never give a guinea to none of your young snobs; no, sir, a lawyer, take my word for't, never has any thing inside his head till the outside's as smooth as the palm of my hand-they're always green till they're grey-under sixty I look upon them as infants in law, their up-hill work ceases only at the decline of life, and they attain to their grand climacteric and grand practice together; in short, sir, no man is a sound lawyer if not quite battered out, like a medlar-never ripe till rotten!" My father then, let me tell you, served his apprenticeship and married the day af ter he got his indentures, the very next day, and took no little credit to himself for having waited a day, for he was in love with my mother, and thought he could never be soon enough soused into matrimony-just as a country fellow in the dog days plumps over head and ears into a fish-pond, and thinks of nothing but floundering about, till he finds himself stuck in the mud! My mother, gentlemen, was of a highly respectable family-of course, that's

neither here nor elsewhere, but she was of a tip-top family-not that I mind family a snuff-the Snakes of Galway, she was a Snake of Galway-you can't but have heard of the Snakes of Galway of course, blood is blood-not that it matters, but the man who sets up a family above the Snakes of Galway-not that it is a thing to quarrel about-let him settle his affairs, that's all! Of course, my mother had no money-nobody ever heard of the Snakes of Galway demeaning them selves with money-she had her pride and her blood, and nobody ever heard of a Snake of Galway who did not possess a sickening dose of both!Well, my poor father was a dashing young fellow, proud of his wife, proud of his family, though, for my part, I never think about family myselfproud of his skill in the ornamental part of his profession-for you are not to suppose my father a sofa-cushioner or chair bottomer-no such thing, my father was versed in the poetry of cabinet-making, he was neither more nor less than Grinling Gibbons in mahogany, and would carve you out a " Diana and Actæon," or the "Centaurs and Lapithæ," in a style that but you have only to go to Powerscourt, Shane's Castle, or Shelton Abbey, and believe your own eyes. Well, sirs, my mother was extravagant to an excess-did I mention that she was a Snake?—I believe I did, a Snake of Galway-my father worked early and late to supply her extravagance, and was getting on in the world in the teeth of all his wife's endeavours to the contrary, just as the nation, gentlemen, keeps its nose above water in spite of the exertions of our inestimable government to sink it to the bottom-when, as the devil would have it, my father, by some sinister accident, was made a common councilman, and from that hour to this, his wife and family got no good of him. Nothing now went down with the poor fellow but guilds, and boards, and sub-committees-freeman by birth, and freeman by grace especial, he was so much absorbed in his public vocation, that he altogether forgot himself as a private individual; he must turn political economist, too, and in a little time arrived at the sources of national wealth, and at the bottom of his privy purse, by one and the same conclusion. Scarcely had he mastered the true theory of rent, when our landlord put

in a distress, and just as he had completed a new sophism against the Corn Laws, his wife and children found themselves without a bit of bread. In this dilemma, my father adopted a very magnanimous course of conduct, which cannot be too highly recommended to cabinet-makers and other great men in similar circumstances instead of working double tides, saving his money, and declining politics, by which means he would have been all right in a very little time, he adopted the prudent resolution of taking himself out of this sublunary sphere by the simple operation of poison. Well, Doctor Shoaker, my father poisoned himself—and I give you leave to guess whether the toxicological agent he employed for the purpose was a mineral, a vegetable, or an animal poison-liquid, solid, or gaseousreceived into the general circulation by the cutaneous absorbents, à la Cleopatra, or introduced into the stomach through the esophagus, à la every body else;-perhaps you think he died convulsively from the operation of prussic acid, or expired comatose from the narcotic agency of opium, hemlock, or belladonnayou can't guess. Well, I daresay Orfila or Christison, who know more of the subject than yourself, (no offence, doctor,) wouldn't think of it, if they hammered at nothing else through a winter course of lectures. The short and the long of it is then, the poison my father employed to carry him to the other world-a poison, let me tell you, the most fashionable of its day-was simply an admixture of alcohol, twenty-five degrees overproof, by Syke's hydrometer, (commonly called Cork malt), with an equal weight of water at a temperature of 212° Fahrenheit, to which was added two drachms of the crystaline ingredient of the sugar cane in powder, and the whole composition, under the familiar appellation of whisky-punch, imbibed ad libitum, in a rapid succession of brimming goblets, screeching hot!

The diagnosis or table of symptoms resulting from the operation of this poison, observes the following order:

vermilion nose, ferret eyes, leucophlegmatic face, dirty shirt, shocking bad hat, pinch-faced wife, ragged brats, pawnbroker, bailiff, jail, despondency, delirium tremens, and. death! I beg you to correct me if

-

no

you think me wrong, Doctor Snoaker, but this was exactly the course the poison took in my father's constitution; and, by these successive gradations, conducted him to his grave at the early age of thirty-three, leaving his troubles, a wife and four small children, behind him. The funeral was strictly private, for three reasons-first, because my mother wished it; secondly, because we had friends; and, thirdly and lastly, because we had no money. In the whole range of the shady side of human existence, which I delight to study, because I live on the shady side of life myself, there is no spectacle so touching as that of the remains of a poor man on the way to their last resting place. It is not alone that my eye is arrested by the miserable cavalcade, it is the picture of domestic bereavement that presses upon, and fills the imagination. I mourn not for the dead thus rudely huddled to the grave, for "they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them: " I lament with the survivor drooping beside the desolate hearth-the bereaved wife-the fond husband-the good parent-the dutiful child, in whose heart of hearts the memory of that perishable clay is for ever enshrined. It is not that there I see conveyed away to kindred dust the staff of the father's age, or the joy of a mother's hope the provider of the widow and the orphan-the fond partaker of domestic sorrow-the gentle solace of a poor man's toil-no-nothere is more gone with the dead, for ever gone the tender recollection of divided joys, the sweet remembrance of sympathy in sorrow, affections never to blossom again on this side the grave!

These losses I mourn, for that they are human-for that they are mine I lament over the dead with the living. He is gone-my friendmy brother!

own.

Flow, generous drops, flow on! nor let a blush mantle upon the cheek whereon they fall, or, if bitterness mingle with thy tears, may it never be the bitterness of mine that the barren wish, and the vain compassionate tear, make all the bounty it is thine to bestow! An impoverished country exhibits this sad finale in the greatest variety; and accordingly if you had happened any of you, to be standing at the gate of Bully's acre

near Kilmainham, on a Sunday afternoon in May, thirty years ago, you might have observed, among other exhibitions of the sort, four drunken scoundrels in rags that had once belonged to suits of black, huddling along a coffin of rough elm, naked, upon their shoulders. You are not to suppose that they walked soberly and with decency as is usual in such cases. On the contrary, they floundered along, carrying their burden, en echellon, and giving it a couple of bumps against the gate-posts as they entered the burial-ground. Behind tottered an old gentleman with a spade and shovel, and a weeping boy holding a little girl by the hand, closed the procession. Arrived at the ground, the old gentleman proceeded to scrape a hole, for as to digging a grave that piece of extravagance is never thought of at Bully's acre, while the drunken bearers produced from their rags a bottle of whisky each, the sole remuneration they had received or expected for their services. When the hole had been scraped, just deep enough to hold the coffin, two of the drunken bearers seized upon it by pieces of pack cord which protruded through perforations at either extremity, and with many bumps and kicks succeeded in getting it into the hole; a little earth was then scattered over by the old gentleman, one end being purposely left uncovered, in order that the public might see there was a coffin, and that they might not disturb it for a fortnight at least. This ceremony being concluded, there remained nothing further than to recompense the old gentleman, which I did by untying the corner of my pocket handkerchief, and producing a shilling secured therein for this last melancholy service. Thus ended the funeral of a cabinet-maker and common councilman, who understood the sources of national wealth, had mastered the true theory of rent, and could argue Peyronnet Thompson himself upon the Corn Laws.

Not to keep you longer engaged with my ancestors,-I was born on the 19th day of August (old style), in the year I perceive you are glad I am coming to myself at last, and I dare say you wish, ungrateful dogs that ye are, that I had been born before my father and grandfather, by which inversion of the order of nature you would have

had me married by this time, to my second wife at least. This is all the thanks I get for leaving out the hissory of my aunt Bridget, who eloped with Teague Duffy, the French dancing-master: her adventures would furnish materials for three fashionable novels-as fashionable novels goplot, dialogue, and catastrophe, and which any autobiographer alive, except myself, would make a right good living of! I omit Bridget with the less regret, as she disgraced the family by demeaning herself with Teague Duffy, and so I was going to say, I was ushered into public life on the nineteenth day of August (old style), at twenty-two minutes past eight in the morning, in the year

I perceive you are somewhat impatient, gentlemen, but what would you have me to do-take precedence of my lawful father and grandfather, and break through the settled precedents of a thousand autobiographiesexcuse me, gentlemen, if you please"after your ladyship," as Prince Posterity said to my grandmother! Well, the devil a syllable more of my autobiography will you get from my lips this blessed night for I see it is between three and four in the morning. Pat! no sugar for me, I never take sugar with my "night-cap." While Pat is mixing our grog, gentlemen,

Arrah, widdy, says Mick, stop my bachelor's trade,

song:

maid!

You tell me, my dear Eusebius, that you wish to deter a young friend from going to Italy; and therefore desire me to put on paper some of those disagreeable incidents, that when I told them to you some years ago, you thought, if published, would keep many a tourist of our comfortloving age, within the more decent bounds of our own counties, or the three kingdoms; though I know not, but that if decency be the measure, one of the three may be omitted. In the first place, Eusebius, I greatly admire your simplicity in imagining that incidents of difficulties, annoyances, or even danger, will deter a young friend from his proposed travel. For, suppose him to be of that extremely indiscreet age at which the law of the land thinks fit to make him his own master, the prospect of encountering them will naturally so excite his youthful spirits, his courageous energies, that he will but bid you good-bye the sooner. Try the contrary method, and tell him of all the pleasures he will have to enjoy, and the chances are that none will be to his taste, and he will grow cool. There is always a disposition in youth to kick manfully at every obstacle put in its way; however pleasant a toy that which you put in their way may have appeared, before they find it out to be an obstacle, then fire and fury is in them, and the very moon looks pale lest that obstacle be kicked in her very face, so high does the spirit of indignation mount; and if you repeat this, you will surely beget in them pertinacity, which, nolens volens, will make a fool of you, excuse, (dear Eusebius, the personality,) and of themselves too. You had better let them expend their illtimed and megrim-bred desires by giving them the full scope of talk, and they will subside of themselves. Hercules would never have made the choice, if Virtue had not put the difficulties before him, and you know Pleasure was sent packing. But there is proof in matter of fact, and, therefore, I give you an example. I was requested to remonstrate with a youth who had unaccountably, so his friends said, taken a whim, a fancy to enter the army, to which profession his

friends had an aversion, and the youth an unfitness. It arose from their laying before him a scheme of life, it being then about the time he should finish his course at the university. They dwelt upon the country Elysium of a quiet parsonage, how easy would be his progress through the university; but unfortunately they did not stop there, but dwelt in much detail upon the dangers, disgusts, horrors, and turmoils of the several other professions, and particularly of the army. Would you believe it, the gentle youth, the amiable youth, who never had a hand to grasp a sword, a heart to shed blood, or a head for "plots and stratagems" whom nature had gifted like the cat with domesticity, and to purr out his days of quiet happiness at a parsonage hearth, with his infant cherub faces about him, copies of his own and their mother's tenderness, this lamb of men decides upon acting the tiger, and nothing will go down with him but the army. Letters of remonstrance passed in quick succession: this only made the matter worse, or rather made it what it was, a temporary fever; and in this state I was requested to remonstrate with him. But I took care to do no such thing. I talked it over with him, and, assuming that he had chosen that profession, I spoke of the glory of it, and thence gently let down the talk into the requisites for it, and questioned him, as I remembered reading that Socrates did a youth of a somewhat similar ambition.

Of course, I made him prove himself consummately ignorant in all that related to war. I questioned him upon statistics and politics, and all the mysteries of strategy generally, and in particular what I could muster up or invent. I saw some considerable shame at his own ignorance, and the first interview ended, after he had shown up himself as unfit for the regular army, with a determination to join General Evans in Spain. I reported the matter to his friends-advised them to let a little while pass, and then to authorize me to let him take his choice. They did so, and my next interview with him showed that his fever was of the ague kind, and had its hot and its cold fits.