"Then off we strolled this way and that,
With merry voices ringing;

And Echo answered us right pat,

As home we rambled singing.

"For, when we laughed, it laughed again,
And to our own doors followed.

'Yo ho!' we cried; 'Yo ho!' so plain
The misty meadow hallooed.

That's all my tale, and all the fun;
Come, turn your wheels about;
My worsted, see !-that's nicely done,
Just held my story out!"

Poor Judie -Thus Time knits or spins

The worsted from Life's ball!

Death stopped thy tales, and stopped thy pins,
-And so he'll serve us all.

RICHARD ALFRED MILLIKIN.

[Born in the county of Cork, 1767; died in 1815. Was an attorney in Cork, but not very zealous in his profession, having more taste for literature and for drawing. He had some reputation as an amateur artist, and was active in founding a Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Cork. He published The Riverside, a blank-verse poem, in 1807. One of his compositions was the famous song, The Groves of Blarney.

THE FAIR MAID OF PASSAGE.1

O FAIR maid of Passage,

As plump as a sassage,
And as mild as a kitten,
Those eyes in your face!—
Yerrah! pity my case,

For poor Dermuid is smitten!
Far softer nor silk,

And more white than new milk,

Oh your lily-white hand is;

Your lips red as cherries,

And your eyes like blackberries,

And you're straight as a wand is !

1 Passage is the town now named Queenstown, Cork.

When dressed in her boddice
She trips like a goddess,
So nimble, so frisky;
One kiss from her cheek,

'Tis so soft and so sleek
That 'twould warm me like whisky.

So I sobs and I pine,
And I grunts like a swine,
Because you're so cruel;
No rest can I take,
All asleep or awake,
But I dreams of my jewel.
Your hate, then, give over,
Nor Dermuid, your lover,
So cruelly handle;

Or, faith, Dermuid must die,
Like a pig in a stye,

Or the snuff of a candle.

SIMON QUIN.1

THE TOWN OF PASSAGE.

THE town of Passage is neat and spacious,

All situated upon the sea;

The ships a-floating, and the youths a-boating,
With their cotton coats on each summer's day.
'Tis there you'd see, both night and morning,
The men of war, with fresh-flowing sails;
The bould lieutenants, and the tars so jolly,
All steering for Cork in a hackney chaise.
'Tis there's a stature drawn after nature,

A leaping from the mud upon the dry land;
A lion or a leopard, or some fierce creature,
With a Reading-made-easy all in his hand."
There's a rendez-vous house for each bould hero
For to take on, whose heart beats high;
The colours a-drooping, and the children's rockets
All pinned across it, hanging out to dry.

'Tis there's a Strand too, that's decked with oar-weeds,
And tender gob-stones 3 and mussel-shells ;

And there's skeehories, and what still more is,

A comely fresh-flowing water rill.

1 I am unable to give any particulars concerning this writer. His poem is inserted in Crofton Croker's Popular Songs of Ireland, 1839: it appears to be the first form of a ballad which has been retouched by various hands, and has been popular under all.

2 The figure-head of an old ship.

3 Round pebbles.

4 Hawthorn berries.

'Tis there the ladies, when break of day is,
And tender lovers, do often pelt;
Some a-airing and some a-bathing,

All mother-naked, to enjoy their health.
And there's a ferry-boat that's quite convenient,
Where man and horses do take a ride;
'Tis there in clover you may pass over
To Carrigaloe on the other side.

There may be seen O! the sweet Marino,1
With its trees so green O! and fruit so red;
Brave White Point, and right fornent it

The Giant's Stairs, and sweet Horse's Head.

There's a house of lodgings at one Molly Bowen's,
Where often goes in one Simon Quin;

Oh! 'tis there without a coat on, you'd hear her grope on
The door to open, to let him in.

Then straight up stairs one pair of windows,

With but the slates betwixt him and the sky;
Oh 'tis there till morning the fleas all swarming
Do keep him warm in where he does lie.

MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS.

[Born in London in 1773, son of a West-India planter, and deputy-secretary in the War-Office; died in the Gulf of Florida, July 1818. Lewis was partly educated in Germany, which may have served to develop his peculiar taste for the horrible, supernatural, and grotesque. His first work was the once highly celebrated romance of The Monk, published in 1795: hence his ordinary nickname "Monk Lewis." Tales of Terror, Tales of Wonder, and other volumes in verse and in prose, followed: his play of The Castle Spectre was a conspicuous public success. Lewis entered parliament, but soon retired thence. He was a man of fashion, of a volatile mercurial nature, which, along with his very diminutive stature, exposed him to some ridicule. At the same time, he was truly good-hearted, and in many respects estimable: Walter Scott has termed him "one of the kindest and best creatures that ever lived." He took two voyages to the West Indies, in 1815 and 1817, to look after his property there, and partly to assure himself that the slaves upon his estates received humane treatment. It was on returning from the second of these voyages that he died at sea, of a fever. At first it was rumoured that his philanthropic feelings had cost him his life: one of his slaves was said to have given him poison, in order to hasten the emancipation which, as announced by Lewis himself, would be accorded to all of them on the occurrence of his death].

GRIM, KING OF THE GHOSTS; OR, THE DANCE OF DEATH.

A CHURCHYARD TALE.

"WHY, how now, old sexton? why shake you with dread? Why haunt you this street, where you're sure to catch cold? Full warm is your blanket, full snug is your bed!

And long since, by the steeple-chimes, twelve has been told."

1 The seat of Savage French, Esq., on the Great Island.

"Tom Tap, on this night my retreat you'll approve,

For my churchyard will swarm with its shroud-covered hosts; Who will tell, with loud shriek, that resentment and love

Still nip the cold heart of Grim, King of the Ghosts.

"One eve, as the fiend wandered through the thick gloom, Towards my newly-tiled cot he directed his sight;

And, casting a glance in my little back-room,

Gazed on Nancy, my daughter, with wanton delight.

"Yet Nancy was proud, and disdainful was she,
In affection's fond speech she'd no pleasure or joy;
And vainly he sued, though he knelt at her knee,
Bob Brisket, so comely, the young butcher's boy!

"For you, dearest Nancy, I've oft been a thief,

Yet my theft it was venial, a theft if it be ;
For who could have eyes, and not see you loved beef?
Or who see a steak and not steal it for thee?

"Remember, dear beauty, dead flesh cannot feel; With frowns you my heart and its passion requite; Yet oft have I seen you, when hungry at meal,

On a dead bullock's heart gaze with tender delight.

"""When you dress it for dinner, so hard and so tough,
I wish the employ your stern breast would improve;
And, the dead bullock's heart while with onions you stuff,
You would stuff your own heart, cruel virgin, with love.'

"Young rascal! presum'st thou, with butcher-like phrase, To foul stinking onions my love to compare,

Who have set Wick, the candle-man, all in a blaze,

And Alderman Paunch, who has since been the Mayor?

"You bid me remember dead flesh cannot feel?
Then I vow, by my father's old pickaxe and spade,
Till some prince from the tombs shall behave so genteel
As to ask me to wed, I'll continue a maid!

"Nor him will I wed, till (these terms must he own)
Of my two first commands the performance he boasts.'—
Straight, instead of a footman, a deep-pealing groan

Announced the approach of Grim, King of the Ghosts!

"No flesh had the spectre, his skeleton skull

Was loosely wrapped round with a brown shrivelled skin; His bones, 'stead of marrow, of maggots were full,

And the worms they crawled out, and the worms they crawled in.

"His shoes they were coffins, his dim eye revealed
The gleam of a grave-lamp with vapours oppressed;
And a dark crimson necklace of blood-drops congealed
Reflected each bone that jagged out of his breast.

"In a hoarse hollow whisper-Thy beauties,' he cried,
'Have drawn up a spirit to give thee a kiss;
No butcher shall call thee, proud Nancy, his bride;
The grim King of Spectres demands thee for his.

66 6 'My name frightens infants, my word raises ghosts,

My tread wakes the echoes which breathe through the aisle ; And lo! here stands the Prince of the Churchyard, who boasts The will to perform thy commands, for a smile.'

:

"He said, and he kissed her she packed up her clothes, And straight they eloped through the window with joy; Yet long in her ears rang the curses and oaths

Which growled at his rival the gruff butcher's boy.

"At the charnel-house palace soon Nancy arrived,
When the fiend, with a grin which her soul did appal,
Exclaimed- I must warn my pale subjects I'm wived,
And bid them prepare a grand supper and ball!'—

"Thrice swifter than thought on his heel round he turns,
Three capers he cut, and then motionless stood;
Then on cards, made of dead men's skin, Nancy discerns
His lank fingers to scrawl invitations in blood.

"His quill was a wind-pipe, his ink-horn a skull,

A blade-bone his pen-knife, a tooth was his seal ;Soon he ordered the cards, in a voice deep and dull, To haste and invite all his friends to the meal.

""

Away flew the cards to the south and the north,

Away flew the cards to the east and the west;

Straight with groans, from their tombs, the pale spectres stalked forth,

In deadly apparel and shrouding-sheets dressed.

"And quickly scared Nancy, with anxious affright,
Hears the tramp of a steed, and a knock at the gate;
On an hell-horse so gaunt 'twas a grim ghastly sprite,
On a pillion behind a she-skeleton sate!

"The poor maiden she thought 'twas a dream or a trance, While the guests they assembled gigantic and tall;

Each sprite asked a skeleton lady to dance,

And King Grim with fair Nancy now opened the ball.