tions I sought to quell-whose intelligence I | crooked, but evidently gifted with a wonderprompted to a lofty aim- - whose freedom ful ubiquity of vision. It was everywhere. has been my fatal dream. To that country I In a crowd it took in every visible point; and, now offer as a pledge of the love I bore her, though revolving on an eccentric axis, imparand of the sincerity with which I thought and tially diffused its radiance all round. He had spoke and struggled for her freedom, the life a comical face. Every conceivable emotion of a young heart; and with that life, the and mood was blended there in an amusing hopes, the honours, the endearments of a enigma, the exact meaning of which it was happy, a prosperous, and honourable home. most difficult, if not impossible, to solve. Pronounce then, my lords, the sentence which Addressing an audience, his attitude excited the law directs. I trust I shall be prepared to the highest merriment, whilst his sound sentimeet its execution. I shall go, I think, with ments and capital hits called forth the loudest a pure heart and perfect composure to appear cheers. His usual attire was an old claretbefore a higher tribunal-a tribunal where a coloured coat, buttoned to the neck. What Judge of infinite goodness, as well as of justice, his trousers consisted of, or looked like, I will preside, and where, my lords, many many nearly forget: but it would be no great misof the judgments of this world will be reversed. take to say they were of drab cloth, hung very voluminously about the ankles, and were deeply stained. The hat-as comical an affair as the face-was cocked on one side of his head, and suggested a devil-may-care defiance of the world.

NASH AND THE DRAGOONS.

(FROM RECOLLECTIONS.")

The day after I had arrived at Waterford from Stonyhurst, the trades of the city held a public meeting to petition Parliament for the repeal of the union. The meeting took place at the town-hall. There was a dense crowd. The enthusiasm was vehement--the rhetoric still more so. The speakers rose with the occasion, and from the loftiest clouds flung hail and lightning on the listeners. Two of these soared far above the rest. Strikingly different in their "physique" and speech, the one impersonated the Iron age, the other the age of Gold. The one was an alderman and draper. The other was a schoolmaster, and earned his bread by dispensing the fruit of knowledge. James Delahunty was the alderman's name. James Nash was the schoolmaster's name.

The schoolmaster was full of humour, full of poetry, full of gentleness and goodness; he was a patriot from the heart and an orator by nature. Uncultivated, luxuriant, wild, his imagination produced in profusion the strangest metaphors, running riot in tropes, allegories, analogies, and visions. Of ancient history and books of ancient fable he had read much, but digested little. He was a Sheil in the rough. Less pretentious than Phillips, he was equally fruitful in imagery and diction, and more condensed in expression. His appearance was in keeping with the irregularity and strangeness of his rhetoric. That he had a blind eye, was a circumstance which, at first sight, forcibly struck one. The other was

"Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens"-it was thus he addressed the meeting the morning I returned to Waterford-"I came to attend this meeting, driving Irish tandem—that is, one foot before the other." With exuberant adjectives, he then went on to compliment the distinguished people who were present at the meeting. The Right Worshipful the Mayor of the city was in the chair. The Right Rev. Dr. Foran, the Catholic bishop, was on the platform. "Patriotism," exclaimed Nash, "flashes from the mitre of the one, and burns in the civic bosom of the other." Then he proceeded, in an amazing medley of facts, and metaphors, and figures of arithmetic, to enumerate the evils which the legislative union had produced. "What has been the upshot of it all?" he asked. “Why, it comes to this, they haven't left us a pewter spoon to run a railroad with through a plate of stirabout." The threats of coercion uttered by the government next claimed his notice. He despised them; repelled them; haughtily flung them back. He defied the government; he defied them to come on. "Let them come on," he exclaimed, "let them come on; let them draw the sword; and then woe to the conquered! Every potato field shall be a Marathon, and every boreen a Thermopyla."

I have often thought of delivering a lecture on Nash. Of a class now almost extinct in Ireland-the Irish schoolmasters-he was the finest specimen I ever saw. Had Carleton seen him he would have immortalized him in type. As it is, he is dead, buried in some

sleepy eyelashes and the daintiest moustaches, | His object was to remove the dragoons; and looking down the line, gave his men the order to move off, which they did amidst the loudest cheers-poor Nash all the time twisting his eye, and shouting as before with all his might. That was the last time I saw him.

the speediest way to do so was to appeal to their patriotism. He thought so, and his calculations were right. The dragoons were ordered off, and Nash and his audience had it all to themselves. The day was their own.

SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON.

widely popular among contemporary verses. The poem established Ferguson as a contributor to the great northern magazine; and for some years he was one of its most welcome. writers. The best known of his articles is "Father Tom and the Pope," a sketch of quaint and often brilliant humour, which immediately attracted, and has permanently retained great popularity, and which was for years supposed to be from the bright pen of Dr. Maginn. The Dublin University next offered a market nearer home; and from the first Ferguson contributed largely. In its pages will be found compositions of various kinds: poems original and translated, tales and reviews. In the "Hibernian Nights' Entertainments" he dealt some well-deserved blows at the caricatures of Irish character which used to pass, and to some extent still do duty, for portraits of Irish life. Those sketches have been republished in a volume. Sir Samuel has also written a remarkable epic, Congal, and an excellent volume of translations from the Irish entitled Lays of the Western Gael.]

[Sir Samuel Ferguson belongs to a class of literary Irishmen not too common in the history of the present century. Irish writers have as a rule belonged to either of two kinds; they have been active political workers on the national side, their literary efforts being the complement of their public struggles, or, abandoning national sympathies altogether, they have neglected Irish subjects entirely, or have written of them only to deride. The place of Sir Samuel Ferguson is in neither of these two divisions. Holding aloof from political organizations, he has nevertheless maintained the full ardour of Irish feeling; and all his writings tend in some form or other to advance the cause of Irish literature. He was born in Belfast in 1810, and having passed his first years of education at the wellknown academical institution there, entered Trinity College. In 1838 he was called to the bar; in 1859 he became a queen's counsel, and in 1867 he finally retired from his profession. He had been appointed in the latter year to a position which eminently suited him, and for which he was most fitted. He has been throughout his life an ardent student of Celtic archæology; and it was therefore singularly appropriate that he should have, as deputykeeper of the records, the duty of exploring the muniments of ancient Irish history, and arranging the results. Let us finish our record The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; tho' on

of his professional career by saying that he

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.'

Come,

see the Dolphin's anchor forged: 'tis at a white heat now:

the forge's brow

received some recognition of his labours in The little flames still fitfully play thro' the sable

1878 by having the honour of knighthood conferred upon him.

Ferguson's literary life began when he was almost a boy; and his first attempt was a triumph. The "Forging of the Anchor," which he offered to Blackwood, was not only received, but was honoured with a special and highly

mound;

eulogistic notice from the mighty editor The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black

"

Christopher North." The verdict of Wilson

has been affirmed by the public; for the ballad remains to the present day one of the most

mound heaves below;

1 This and the following extracts are by permission of the author.

And red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at | Our anchor soon must change its bed of fiery rich every throe: array,

It rises, roars, rends all outright—O, Vulcan, what For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy a glow! couch of clay; 'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright; the high Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry sun shines not so! craftsmen here,

The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery For the yeo-heave-o', and the heave-away, and the sighing seaman's cheer;

fearful show;

The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy When, weighing slow, at eve they go-far, far from

The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we! O broad-armed Fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine?

Strike in, strike in-the sparks begin to dull their The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy rustling red;

cable line;

Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will And night by night 'tis thy delight, thy glory day