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Curse the day clumsy Noll's ugly corpus,

Clad in copper, was seen on our plain;
When he rowled over here like a porpoise,
In two or three hookers from Spain!
And bekase that he was a freemason
He mounted a battering-ram,
And into her mouth, full of treason,
Twenty pound of gunpowder he'd cram.
O Blarney Castle, &c.

So when the brave boys of Clancarty
Looked over their battlement-wall,
They saw wicked Oliver's party

All a feeding on powder and ball;
And that giniral that married his daughter,
Wid a heap of grape-shot in his jaw-
That's bould Ireton, so famous for slaughter-
And he was his brother-in-law.

O Blarney Castle, &c.

They fired off their bullets like thunder,
That whizzed through the air like a snake;
And they made the ould castle (no wonder !)
With all its foundations to shake.

While the Irish had nothing to shoot off

But their bows and their arras, the sowls!
Waypons fit for the wars of old Plutarch,
And perhaps mighty good for wild fowls,
O Blarney Castle, &c.

Och! 'twas Crommill then gave the dark token-
For in the black art he was deep;

And tho' the eyes of the Irish stood open,
They found themselves all fast asleep!
With his jack-boots he stepped on the water,
And he walked clane right over the lake;
While his sodgers they all followed after,
As dry as a duck or a drake.

O Blarney Castle, &c.
Then the gates he burnt down to a cinder,
And the roof he demolished likewise;
O! the rafters they flamed out like tinder,
And the buildin' flared up to the skies.
And he gave the estate to the Jeffers,
With the dairy, the cows, and the hay:
And they lived there in clover like heifers,
As their ancestors do to this day.

O Blarney Castle, &c.

Such was the song of Terry, in the chorus of which he was aided by the sympathetic baryton of Jack Bellew's

voice, never silent when his country's woes are the theme of eloquence or minstrelsy. An incipient somnolency began, however, to manifest itself in Corbet and Dick Dowden; and I confess I myself can recollect little else of the occurrences of the evening. Wherefore with this epilogue we conclude our account of the repast on Watergrasshill, observing that Sir Walter Scott was highly pleased with the sacerdotal banquet, and expressed himself so to Knapp; to whom, on their return in a post-chaise to Cork, he exclaimed,

"Prorsùs jucundè cœnam produximus illam."-HOR.

No. IV.

DEAN SWIFT'S MADNESS. A TALE OF A CHURN.

From the Prout Papers.

"O thou, whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver-
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais' easy chair,
Or praise the court, or magnify mankind,
Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind !"

POPE.

:

WE are perfectly prepared for the overwhelming burst of felicitation which we shall elicit from a sympathizing public, when we announce the glad tidings of the safe arrival in London of the Watergrasshill "chest," fraught with treasures such as no Spanish galleon ever wafted from Manilla or Peru into the waters of the Guadalquiver. From the remote Irish highland where Prout wasted so much Athenian suavity on the desert air, unnoticed and unappreciated by the rude tenants of the hamlet, his trunk of posthumous papers has been brought into our cabinet; and there it stands before us, like unto the Trojan horse, replete with the armed offspring of the great man's brain, right well packed with

classic stuffing-ay, pregnant with life and glory! Haply has Fate decreed that it should fall into proper hands and fitting custody; else to what vile uses might not this vile box of learned lumber have been unwittingly converted-we shudder in spirit at the probable destiny that would have awaited it. The Caliph Omar warmed the bath of Alexandria with Ptolemy's library; and the "Prout Papers might ere now be lighting the pipes of "the boys" in Blarney Lane, while the chest itself might afford materials for a three-legged stool-" Truncus ficulnus, inutile lignum!"

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In verity it ought to be allowable at times to indulge in that most pleasing opiate, self-applause; and having made so goodly an acquisition, why should not we chuckle inwardly while congratulated from without, ever and anon glancing an eye of satisfaction at the chest:

"Mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac contemplor in arcâ !" Never did that learned ex-Jesuit, Angelo Mai, now librarian of the Vatican, rejoice more over a "palimpsest" MS. of some crazy old monk, in which his quick eye fondly had detected the long-lost decade of Livy-never did friend Pettigrew gloat over a newly uncoffined mummy-(warranted of the era of Sesostris)-never did (that living mummy) Maurice de Talleyrand exult over a fresh bundle of Palmerstonian protocols, with more internal complacency,-than did we, jubilating over this sacerdotal anthology, this miscellany "in boards," at last safely lodged in our possession.

Apropos. We should mention that we had previously the honour of receiving from his Excellency Prince Maurice (aforesaid) the following note, to which it grieved us to return a flat negative.

"Le Prince de Talleyrand prie Mr. OLIVIER YORKE d'agréer ses respectueux hommages. Ayant eu l'avantage de connaître personellement feu l'Abbé de Prout lors de ses études à la Sorbonne en 1778, il serait charmé, sitôt qu'arriveront les papiers de ce respectable ecclésiastique, d'assister à l'ouverture du coffre. Cette faveur, qu'il se flatte d'obtenir de la politesse reconnue de Monsieur YORKE, il sçaura duement apprécier.

"Ambassade de France, Hanovre Sq.
66 ce 3 Juin."

We suspected at once, and our surmise has proved correct, that many documents would be found referring to Marie Antoinette's betrayers, and the practices of those three prime intriguers, Mirabeau, Cagliostro, and Prince Maurice; so that we did well in eschewing the honour intended us in overhauling these papers-Non "Talley "auxilio!

We hate a flourish of trumpets; and though we could justly command all the clarions of renown to usher in these Prout writings, let their own intrinsic worth be the sole herald of their fame. We are not like the rest of men—that is, such as Lardner and Bob Montgomery-obliged to inflate our cheeks with incessant effort to blow our commodities into notoriety. No! we are not disciples in the school of Puffendorf: Prout's fish will be found fresh and substantial—not "blown," as happens too frequently in the terary market. We have more than once acknowledged the unsought and unpprchased plaudits of our contemporaries: but it is also to the imperishable verdict of posterity that we ultimately look for a ratification of modern applause; with Cicero we exclaim-' Memoriâ vestrâ, Quirites, nostræ res vivent, sermonibus crescent, litterarum monumentis veterascent et corroborabuntur!" Yes! while the ephemeral writers of the day, mere bubbles on the surface of the flood, will become extinct in succession, — while a few, more lucky than their comrade dunces, may continue for a space to swim with the aid of those vile bladders, newspaper puffs, Father Prout will be seen floating triumphantly down the stream of time, secure and buoyant in a genuine "Cork" jacket.

We owe it to the public to account for the delay experienced in the transmission of the "chest" from Watergrasshill to our hands. The fact is, that at a meeting of the parishioners held on the subject (Mat Horrogan, of Blarney, in the chair), it was resolved," That Terry Callaghan, being a tall and trustworthy man, able to do credit to the village in London, and carry eleven stone weight (the precise tariff of the trunk), should be sent at the public expense, viá Bristol, with the coffer strapped to his shoulders, and plenty of the wherewithal to procure ' refreshment' on the western road, until he should deliver the same at Mr. Fraser's, Regent Street, with the compliments of the parish." Terry, wisely

considering, like the Commissioners of the Deccan prizemoney, that the occupation was too good a thing not to make it last as long as possible, kept refreshing himself, at the cost of the parochial committee, on the great western road, and only arrived last week in Regent Street. Having duly stopped to admire Lady Aldborough's "round tower," set up to honour the Duke of York, and elbowed his way through the "Squadrint," he at last made his appearance at our office; and when he had there discharged his load, went off to take pot-luck with Feargus O'Connor.

Here, then, we are enabled, no longer deferring the promised boon, to lay before the public the first of the "Prout Papers;" breaking bulk, to use a seaman's phrase, and producing at hazard a specimen of what is contained in the coffer brought hither on the shoulders of tall and trustworthy Terry Callaghan.

"Pandere res alta Terrâ et Caligine mersas."

Regent Street, 1st July, 1834.

OLIVER YORKE.

Watergrasshill, March 1830.

YET a few years, and a full century shall have elapsed since the death of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's. Yes, O my friends! if such I may presume to designate you into whose hands, when I am gathered to the silent tomb, these writings shall fall, and to whose kindly perusal I commend them, bequeathing, at the same time, the posthumous blessing of a feeble and toil-worn old man-yes, when a few winters more shall have added to the accumulated snow of age that weighs on the hoary head of the pastor of this upland, and a short period shall have rolled on in the dull monotony of these latter days, the centenary cycle will be fully completed, the secular anthem of dirge-like solemnity may be sung, since the grave closed for ever on one whom Britain justly reveres as the most upright, intuitive, and gifted of her sages; and whom Ireland, when the frenzied hour of strife shall have passed away, and the turbulence of parties shall have subsided into a national calm, will hail with the

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