The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye That once their shades and glory threw, Have left in yonder silent sky

No vestige where they flew.

The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of нIM afford no other trace
Than this,-THERE LIVED A MAN!

DRAWN FOR A SOLDIER.

BY THOMAS HOOD. "Arma Virumque Canoe."

I was once for a few hours only-in the militia. I suspect I was in part answerable for my own mishap. There is a story in Joe Miller of a man who, being pressed to serve his majesty on another element, pleaded his polite breeding, to the gang, as a good ground of exemption; but was told that the crew being a set of sad unmannerly dogs, a Chesterfield was the very character they wanted. militiamen acted, I presume, on the same principle. Their customary schedule was forwarded to me, at Brighton, to fill up, and in a moment of incautious hilarity-induced, perhaps, by the absence of all business or employment, except pleasure-I wrote myself down in the descriptive column as "Quite a Gentleman."

The

The consequence followed immediately. A precept, addressed by the High Constable of Westminster to the Low ditto of the parish of St. M- , and endorsed with my name, informed me that it had turned up in that involuntary lottery, the ballot.

At the sight of the orderly, who thought proper to deliver the document into no other hands than mine, my mother-in-law cried, and my wife fainted on the spot. They had no notion of any distinctions in military service -a soldier was a soldier-and they imagined that, on the very morrow, I might be ordered abroad to a fresh Waterloo. They were unfortunately ignorant of that benevolent provision, which absolved the militia from going out of the kingdom-"except in case of an invasion." In vain I represented that we were "locals;" they had heard of local diseases, and thought there might be wounds of the same description. In vain I explained that we were not troops of the line; they could see nothing to choose between being shot in a line, or in any other figure. I told them next that I was not obliged to "serve myself;"-but they answered, "'twas so much the harder I should

be obliged to serve any one else." My being sent abroad, they said, would be the death of them; for they had witnessed at Ramsgate the embarkation of the Walcheren expedition, and too well remembered "the misery of the soldiers' wives at seeing their husbands in transports!"

I told them that, at the very worst, if I should be sent abroad, there was no reason why I should not return again;-but they both declared, they never did, and never would believe in those "Returns of the Killed and Wounded."

The discussion was in this stage when it was interrupted by another loud single knock at the door, a report equal in its effects on us to that of the memorable cannon-shot at Brussels; and before we could recover ourselves, a strapping sergeant entered the parlour with a huge bow, or rather rainbow, of party-coloured ribbons in his cap. He came, he said, to offer a substitute for me; but I was prevented from reply by the indignant females asking him in the same breath, "Who and what did he think could be a substitute for a son and a husband?"

The poor sergeant looked foolish enough at this turn; but he was still more abashed when the two anxious ladies began to cross-examine him on the length of his services abroad, and the number of his wounds, the campaigns of the militiaman having been confined doubtless to Hounslow, and his bodily marks militant to the three stripes on his sleeve. Parrying these awkward questions he endeavoured to prevail upon me to see the proposed proxy, a fine young fellow, he assured me, of unusual stature; but I told him it was quite an indifferent point with me whether he was 6-feet-2 or 2-feet-6, in short, whether he was as tall as the flag, or "under the standard."

The truth is, I reflected that it was a time of profound peace, that a civil war or an invasion, was very unlikely; and as for an occasional drill, that I could make shift, like Lavater, to right-about-face.

Accordingly, I declined seeing the substitute, and dismissed the sergeant with a note to the war-secretary to this purport-"That I considered myself drawn, and expected therefore to be well quarter'd. That, under the circumstances of the country, it would probably be unnecessary for militiamen 'to be mustarded;' but that if his majesty did 'call me out,' I hoped I should give him satisfaction.'

The females were far from being pleased with this billet. They talked a great deal of moral suicide, wilful murder, and seeking the

bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth; but I shall ever think that I took the proper course, for, after the lapse of a few hours, two more of the general's red-coats, or general postmen, brought me a large packet sealed with the war-office seal, and superscribed "Henry Hardinge," by which I was officially absolved from serving on horse or on foot, or on both | together, then and thereafter.

And why, I know not-unless his majesty doubted the handsomeness of discharging me in particular, without letting off the rest; but so it was, that in a short time afterwards there issued a proclamation by which the services of all militiamen were for the present dispensed with, and we were left to pursue our several avocations, of course, all the lighter in our spirits for being disembodied.

-From the Comic Annual.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A VARIATION.

Youth rambles on life's arid mount,
And strikes the rock, and finds the vein,
And brings the water from the fount,
The fount which shall not flow again.

The man mature with labour chops
For the bright stream a channel grand,
And sees not that the sacred drops
Ran off and vanish'd out of hand.

And then the old man totters nigh, And feebly rakes among the stones. The mount is mute, the channel dry! And down he lays his weary bones.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

HAPPINESS.

Because the Few with signal virtue crowned,
The heights and pinnacles of human mind,
Sadder and wearier than the rest are found,
Wish not thy soul less wise or less refined.
True, that the small delights which every day
Cheer and distract the pilgrim are not theirs;
True, that, though free from passion's lawless sway,
A loftier being brings severer cares.
Yet have they special pleasures, even mirth,
By those undreamt-of who have only trod
Life's valley smooth; and if the rolling earth
To their nice ear have many a painful tone,
They know, man does not live by joy alone,
But by the presence of the power of God.

LORD HOUGHTON.

THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.

BY T. CROFTON CROKER.1

On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at daybreak, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth.

'Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning," said Dick, taking the pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean, which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. "Well, to be sure," continued he, after a pause, "tis mighty lonesome to be talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul to answer onenothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I know this, that if I had the luck, or maybe the misfortune," said he, with a melancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this way with me!-and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing-line without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways complete. Is it not so?" said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes towards a rock upon the strand, which, though it could not speak, stood up as firm and looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.

But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that rock, a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a sea-green colour; and now, the salt water shining on it, appeared, in the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.

Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen one before, for he spied the cohuleen driuth, or little enchanted cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying upon the strand, near her; and he had heard, that if once he could possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.

When the Merrow saw that her little divingcap was gone, the salt tears-doubly salt, no

1 From Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.

doubt, from her came trickling down her cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was crying for, determined to keep the cohuleen driuth, let her cry never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel, let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a mighty tender heart of his own.

"Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that.

Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand by way of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell. "What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.

The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation; and, making an end of her whining all at once-" Man," says she, looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "man, will you eat me?"

"By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself, my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet?-Now, 'twas some ugly ill-looking thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this morning!"

"Man," said the Merrow, 66 what will you do with me, if you won't eat me?"

"Never say the word twice," says she, "I'm ready and willing to be yours, Mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, 'till I twist up my hair."

It was sometime before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the water that was close to the foot of the rock.

Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and, says he, in the greatest wonder, "Is it speaking you are, my darling, to the salt water?"

"It's nothing else," says she, quite carelessly, "I'm just sending word home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep him from being uneasy in his mind."

"And who's your father, my duck?" says

Dick.

66

'What!" said the Merrow, 66 'did you never hear of my father? he's the king of the waves, to be sure!"

"And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?" said Dick, opening his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to be. "Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your father:-to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of the sea!"

Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?"

with a pair of new blankets-but what am I talking about? maybe you have not such thing as beds down under the water?"

"By all means," said she, "Mr. Fitzgerald plenty of beds at your service. I've fourteen oyster beds of my own, not to mention one just planting for the rearing of young ones."

"You have," says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little puzzled. "'Tis a feather bed I was speaking of--but clearly, yours is

the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed and supper so handy to each other, that a person when they'd have the one need never ask for the other.

However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig, where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.

There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald," said his reverence, looking mighty glum. "And is it a fishy woman you'd marry? -the Lord preserve us!-Send the scaly creature home to her own people, that's my advice to you, wherever she came from."

Dick had the cohuleen driuth in his hand, and was about to give it back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a moment, and then, says he

"Please your reverence, she's a king's daughter."

"If she was the daughter of fifty kings," said Father Fitzgibbon, "I tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish."

"Please your reverence," said Dick again, in an undertone, "she's as mild and beautiful as the moon.

"If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and the stars, all put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald," said the priest, stamping his right foot, "you can't marry her, she being a fish!"

'But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking, and I'm a made man if I marry her: and," said Dick, looking up slily, "I can make it worth any one's while to do the job."

"Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the priest; "why, there's some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this before?-marry her by all means, if she was ten times a fish. Money, you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well have the hansel of it as another, that maybe would not take half the pains in counselling you that I have done."

So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus, well pleased with each other. Everything prospered with Dick-he was at the sunny side of the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together in the greatest contentment.

It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up, how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed the children; for at the end of three

years, there were as many young Fitzgeralde -two boys and a girl.

In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit enough to do that.

One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left the wife, minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to do without disturbing his fishing-tackle.

Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the house, and chancing to pull down a fishing-net, what should she find behind it in a hole in the wall, but her own cohuleen driuth.

She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and she felt a longing to go back to them.

She sat down on a little stool, and thought over the happy days she had spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart to lose her. "But," says she, "he won't lose me entirely, for I'll come back to him again, and who can blame me for going to see my father and my mother after being so long away from them?"

She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her eye, and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The Merrow then went down to the strand. The sea was lying calm and smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old ideas and feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children were at the instant forgotten, and placing the coluleen driuth on her head, she plunged in.

Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked Kathleen, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she could not tell him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange-looking thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to search for the cohuleen driuth. It was gone, and the truth now flashed upon him,

Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait expecting the return of his wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her below by main force; "for," said Dick, "she surely would not of herself give up her husband and her children."

While she was with him, she was so good a wife in every respect, that to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country, as the pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.

THE HEIRESS.

How much of human hostility depends on that circumstance-distance! If the most bitter enemies were to come into contact, how much their ideas of each other would be chastened and corrected! They would mutually amend their erroneous impressions; see much to admire, and much to imitate in each other; and half the animosity that sheds its baneful influence on society would fade away and be forgotten.

It was one day when I was about seven years old, after an unusual bustle in the family mansion, and my being arrayed in a black frock, much to my inconvenience, in the hot month of August, that I was told my asthmatic old uncle had gone off like a lamb, and that I was heiress of ten thousand per annum. This information, given with an air of infinite importance, made no very great impression upon me at the time, and in spite of the circumstance being regularly dwelt on, by my French governess, at Camden House, after every heinous misdemeanour, I had thought little or nothing on the subject till at the age of eighteen I was called on to bid adieu to Levizac and pirouttes, and hear uncle's will read by my guardian.

It furnished me, indeed, with ample materials for thinking. Dr. Marrowfat's face, neither human nor divine-I see it before me, while I am writing-appeared positively frightful as he recited its monstrous contents. It appeared that my father and uncle, though brothers, had wrangled and jangled through life; and that the only subject on which they ever agreed, was supporting the dignity of the Vavasour family. That in a moment of unprecedented unison they had determined, that, as the title fell to my cousin Edgar, and the estates to me, to keep both united in the family, we should marry. And it seemed, whichever party violated these precious conditions, was actually dependent on the other for bread and butter. When I first heard of this arrangement I blessed myself, and Sir Edgar cursed himself. A passionate, overbearing, dissolute young man, thought I, for a husband-for the husband of an orphanof a girl who has not a nearer relation than himself in the world-who has no father to advise her, no mother to support her:-a professed rake too-who will merely view me as an incumbrance on his estate, who will think no love, no confidence, no respect due to me; who will insult my feelings, deride my senti73