Where, sliding in those tuneful grooves,
Call'd couplets, all creation moves,

And the whole world runs mad in lines.
Add to all this-what's ev'n still worse,
As rhyme itself, though still a curse,
Sounds better to a chinking purse,-
Scarce sixpence hath my charmer got,
While I can muster just a groat ;
So that, computing self and Venus,
Tenpence would clear th' amount between us.

However, things may yet prove better :-
Meantime, what awful length of letter!
And how, while heaping thus with gibes

The Pegasus of modern scribes,

My own small hobby of farrago

Hath beat the pace at which ev'n they go!

LETTER V.

FROM LARRY O'BRANIGAN, IN ENGLAND, TO HIS WIFE JUDY, AT MULLINAFAD.

DEAR JUDY, I sind you this bit of a letther,

By mail-coach conveyance, -for want of a betther,

To tell you what luck in this world I have had
Since I left the sweet cabin, at Mullinafad.
Och, Judy, that night!-when the pig which we meant
To dry-nurse in the parlour, to pay off the rent,
Julianna, the craythur,-that name was the death of

her,*

Gave us the shlip and we saw the last breath of her !
And there were the childher, six innocent sowls,
For their nate little play-fellow tuning up howls ;

*

The Irish peasantry are very fond of giving fine names to their pigs. I have heard of one instance in which a couple of young pigs were named, at their birth, Abelard and Eloisa.

While yourself, my dear Judy, (though grievin's a

folly),

Stud over Julianna's remains, melancholy,

Cryin', half for the craythur, and half for the money,

"Arrah, why did ye die till we'd sowl'd you, my

honey?"

But God's will be done!-and then, faith, sure

enough,

As the pig was desaiced, 't was high time to be off. So we gother'd up all the poor duds we could catch, Lock'd the owld cabin-door, put the kay in the thatch,

Then tuk lave of each other's sweet lips in the dark, And set off, like the Chrishtians turn'd out of the Ark; The six childher with you, my dear Judy, ochone ! And poor I wid myself, left condolin' alone.

How I came to this England, o'er say and o'er lands, And what cruel hard walkin' I've had on my hands,

Is, at this present writin', too tadious to speak,
So I'll mintion it all in a postscript, next week :-
Only starv'd I was, surely, as thin as a lath,
Till I came to an up-and-down place they call Bath,
Where, as luck was, I manag'd to make a meal's
meat,

By dhraggin owld ladies all day through the street, -
Which their docthors, (who pocket, like fun, the

pound starlins),

Have brought into fashion to plase the owld darlins. Div'l a boy in all Bath, though I say it, could carry The grannies up hill half so handy as Larry;

And the higher they lived, like owld crows, in the

air,

The more I was wanted to lug them up there.

But luck has two handles, dear Judy, they say, And mine has both handles put on the wrong way. For, pondherin', one morn, on a drame I'd just had Of yourself and the babbies, at Mullinafad,

Och, there came o'er my sinses so plasin' a flutther,

That I spilt an owld Countess right clane in the

gutther,

Muff, feathers and all! -the descint was most awful,

And, what was still worse, faith, I knew 't was

unlawful:

For, though, with mere women, no very great evil,
T' upset an owld Countess in Bath is the divil!
So, liftin' the chair, with herself safe upon it,
(For nothin' about her was kilt, but her bonnet,)
Without even mentionin' " By your lave, ma'am,"
I tuk to my heels and-here, Judy, I am!

What's the name of this town I can't say very well, But your heart sure will jump when you hear what

befell

Your own beautiful Larry, the very first day,

(And a Sunday it was, shinin' out mighty gay)

When his brogues to this city of luck found their