20.* Exclaimed, "My soul is glad to day, I love you more than I can say, I've loved you always · -man and boy- 21. Thus said the King, and then the stair He royalty ascended. God save the King! through all the air, With four times four was blended! This being all I had to say, Down-for my tale is ended. * 20. "Chara mihi gens Hiberna! Gaudium mentem agitat; 21. Dixit,-inque domum lætus Admiransque totus cætus Plausibus prosequitur.— Hic gratissimus concentus Who wrote "The Groves of Blarney” ? 'WHO,' — ask ye! No matter.-This tongue shall not tell, No, no! look abroad, Sir, the last of October; In the pages of Blackwood that name shall be writ, Was not more than his match, in wine, wisdom, or wit. Ye Dowdens and Jenningses, wits of Cork city, Ye forget the great poet of Blarney so long. I mean not the second, O'Fogarty hight, Who can speak for himself, from his own native Helicon* (Be it said with due deference,)-honest Dick Millikin. And this be the rule of the banquet for aye, To the name of a minstrel so sweet, so unknown * "Daniel O'Rourke, an Epic Poem, in six cuntos," professing to be written by one Fogarty O'Fogarty, (attributed to Maginn, but really composed by his friend William Gosnell, of Cork,) had recently appeared in Blackwood. tribute to the memory of the author of "The Groves of Blarney' was published in Maga in November, 1821.-M. This Specimens of a Free and Easy Translation, In which HORACE is done (for) into English, and adapted to the Taste of the Present Generation.* DEAR NORTH, PRELIMINARY LETTER.. I AM sorry to learn, by your last, that you have had such a severe twitch this time; keep warm in Welch flannel, live soberly, and no more desperate attempts with the Eau Medicinale d'Husson. It will be no farce, I assure you, if the gout fly bolt into your stomach, like a Congreve rocket into the ditto of a whale, and carry you off in the twinkling of a walking-stick. Then there would be wiping of eyes and blowing of noses; crape, weepers, and long cravats, throughout the land. Then there would be a breaking up of the glorious divan. Wastle would leave his High Street lodgings, and retire to his "airy citadel;" Morris would sell his shandrydan, and keep house at Aberystwith for life; Kempferhausen would pack up for Allemagne; Eremus would commence grinder to the embryo divines at Aberdeen; The Odontist would forswear poetry, take a large farm, and study Malthus on Population; Delta would take parson's orders; Paddy from Cork would fall into "a green and yellow melancholy," toss the remaining cantos of his epic to Beelzebub, and button his coat behind; Mullion would sell butter and eggs at his provision-warehouse, Grassmarket, and sedulously look forward to the provostship; while poor Odoherty (alas, poor Yorick!) would send his luggage to Dunleary harbour, and away to the fighting trade in South America. 66 Then would there be a trumpeting and tantararaing among the Whigs, Quassha ma boo! our masters are no more!" would be echoed by every lip among them; and then, but not till then, with some shadow of hope might they look forward to their holding the reins of government, though, after all, most of them, if they did not hold well by the mane, would fall off the * From Blackwood for December, 1821.-M. steed's back into the mire, they are such shocking bad riders; while the Radicals would press forward, and tread on their ribs in turn; Glasgow weavers would spin ropes to hang up whoever was obnoxious to them; Sheffield cutlers would grind razors to cut throats; and the Ribbonmen of Erin, and all "the ragged, royal race of Tara," would look forward to seats in the Cabinet. Then, indeed, would there be a complete revolution in Church and State; churchmen would be cut shorter by the head, the national debt washed out with a dishclout, and taxes abolished; and then, instead of election being fettered, and parliaments septennial, there would be universal suffrage, and no parliaments at all. Then would the Saturnian age return to bless the world; then would Lucifer hawk about his golden pippins, and find abundant sale for them; then would all property be common, and pickpockets left without a trade; while no person would have any thing to do—at least, any right to do any thing, except smoking his pipe, draining his mug, and snoring in his hammock. My dear North, take care of the damp weather, and I warrant, that for many a long year to come, you shall keep death and the doctor at complete defiance-behold the cause of true freedom and loyalty prospering around you-and, were it not that you are a bachelor, rejoice in the caresses of your children's children. From you, my revered friend, I shall descend to a humbler topic, "one of which," to use the words of Byron, "all are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable-self." 1stly. With regard to health, I find myself as well as I wish all others to be. My sprained ancle is now quite convalescent, poor thing; and, by persevering in rubbing a tea-spoonful of opodeldoc upon it every morning, it will soon be as strong as a bedpost. I occasionally take a Seidlitz powder to keep my stomach in order; for, depend upon it, the stomach of a literary man is almost of as much consequence as his head. Talking of the top-piece, I have an occasional headach; that is to say, after being too late out at night; but which I effectually remove and rectify by a bottle of soda water-our friend Jennings' if possible; for it excels all others, as much as his poetry the common |