When Nial, with standard of green Tempore vexillo viridante equita

unfurl'd,

bat in illo

Nialus ante truces fervidus ire duces.

Hi nec erant anni radiis in fronte tyranni

Fulgeat ut claris, insula gemma maris.

Quando tacet ventus, Neaghæ dùm margine lentus

Piscator vadit, vesperæ ut umbra cadit,

Contemplans undas, ibi turres stare

rotundas

Credidit, inque lacûs oppida cernit aquis.

Sic memori in somnis res gesta reponitur omnis

Historicosque dies rettulit alma quies,

Gloria sublimis se effert è fluctibus

PROUT.

I now call on my worthy friend Dowden, whom I am sorry to see indulging in nothing but soda all the evening: come, President of the " Temperance," and ornament of" the Kirk," a song!

Dick Bowden's Song.

AIR-"I sing the Maid of Lodi."

sing the fount of soda,
That sweetly springs for me,
And I hope to make this ode a
Delightful melody;
For if Castalian" water

Refreshed the tuneful nine,
Health to the Muse! I've brought her
A bubbling draught of mine.

Αριστον μεν το ύδωρ

So Pindar sang of old,

Though modern bards —proh ru»
dor!-

Deem water dull and cold;
But if at my suggestion

They'd try the crystal spring,
They'd find that, for digestion,
Pure element's the thing.

That is a capital defence of the Temperance Society, and of sodaic compounds, Mr. Dowden, and clearly refutes the rash assertion of Horace

"Nec durare diù nec vivere carmina possunt

Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus."

PROUT.

Dick, you have a decided claim for a song on any of our guests whose melodious pipe we have not as yet heard.

DOWDEN.

I call on O'Meara, whom I have detected watching, with a covetous eye, something in the distant landscape. A song, friar!

O'MEARA.

I am free to confess that yonder turkey, of which I can get a glimpse through the kitchen-door, has a most tempt

H

ing aspect. Would it were spitted!-but, alas! this is Friday. However, there are substitutes even for a turkey, as I shall endeavour to demonstrate in the most elegant style of Franciscan Latinity; adding a free translation for the use of the ignorant.

I coincide with all that has been said in praise of eggs; I have written a voluminous essay on the subject; and as to frying them in a pan, it is decidedly the best method. That ingenious man, Crofton Croker, was the first among all the writers on "useful knowledge" who adorn this utilitarian epoch to discover the striking resemblance that exists between those two delightful objects in natural history, a daisy and a fried egg. Eggs broken into a pan seem encircled with a whitish border, having a yellow nucleus in the centre; and the similar appearance of the field-daisy ought to have long since drawn the notice of Wordsworth. Meantime, in the matter of frying eggs, care should be taken not to overdo them, as an old philosopher has said-usλETN TO TAV. But let none imagine that in all I have said I intend to hint, in the remotest manner, any approval of that barbarous and unnatural combination-that horrid amalgam, yclept a pancake, than which nothing can be more detestable.

SCOTT.

Have you any objection, learned host, to our hearing a little instrumental music? Suppose we got a tune on the bagpipe? I understand your man, Terry Callaghan, can squeeze the bags to some purpose.

PROUT.

Terry! come in, and bring your pipes!

Terry, nothing loath, came, though with some difficulty, and rather unsteadily, from the kitchen; and having established himself on a three-legged stool (the usual seat of Pythonic inspiration), gave, after a short prelude, the following harmonious strain, with vocal accompaniment to suit the tuneful drone of the bags: in which arrangement he strictly adhered to the Homeric practice; for we find that the most approved and highly gifted minstrels of the "Odyssey," (especially that model among the bards of antiquity, Demodocus), owing to their contempt for wind-instruments, were enabled to play and sing at the same time; but neither the lyre, the plectrum, the pogy, the chelys, the testudo, or the barbiton, afford such facilities for the concomitance of voice and music as that wondrous engine of harmony, the Celtic bagpipe, called corne muse" by the French, as if par excellence "cornu musa." Terry, having exalted his horn, fang thus:

66

Terry Callaghan's Song;

Being a full and true Account of the Storming of Blarney Castle, by The united forces of Cromwell, Ireton, and Fairfax, in 1628.

AIR-"I'm akin to the Callaghans."

O Blarney Castle, my darlint!
Sure you're nothing at all but a stone
Wrapt in ivy-a nest for all varmint,

Since the ould Lord Clancarty is gone.
Och! 'tis you that was once strong and aincient,
And ye kep all the Sassenachs down,
While fighting them battles that aint yet
Forgotten by martial renown.

O Blarney Castle, &c.

Bad luck to that robber, ould Crommill!
That plundered our beautiful fort;
We'll never forgive him, though some will-
Saxons! such as George Knapp and his sort.
But they tell us the day 'll come, when Dannel
Will purge the whole country, and drive
All the Sassenachs into the channel,

Nor leave a Cromwellian alive.

O Blarney Castle, &c.