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pers to the beauty of his neighbour's toast. The pipers jerked from their bags appropriate planxties to every jolly sentiment: the jokers cracked the usual jests and ribaldry: one songster chanted the joys of wine and women; another gave, in full glee, the pleasures of the fox-chace: the fiddler sawed his merriest jigs the old huntsman sounded his horn, and thrusting his fore-finger into his ear (to aid the quaver,) gave the view holloa! of nearly ten minutes' duration; to which melody tally ho! was responded by every stentorian voice. A fox's brush stuck into a candlestick, in the centre of the table, was worshipped as a divinity! Claret flowed-bumpers were multipliedand chickens, in the garb of spicy spitchcocks, assumed the name of devils to whet the appetites which it was impossibleto conquer !

My reason gradually began to lighten me of its burden, and in its last efforts kindly suggested the straw-chamber as my asylum. Two couple of favourite hounds had been introduced to share in the joyous pastime of their friends and master; and the deep bass of their throats, excited by the shrillness of the huntsman's tenor, harmonized by two rattling pipers, a jigging fiddler, and twelve voices, in twelve different keys, all bellowing in one continuous unrelenting chime-was the last point of recognition which Bacchus permitted me to exercise: for my eyes began to perceive a much larger company than the room actually contained;-the lights were more than doubled, without virtual increase of their number; and even the any chairs and tables commenced dancing a series of minuets before me. A faint tally ho! was attempted by my reluctant lips; but I believe the effort was unsuccessful, and I very soon lost, in the straw-room, all that brilliant consciousness of existence, in the possession of which the morning had found me so happy.

Just as I was closing my eyes to a twelve hours' slumber, I distinguished the general roar of "stole away!" which rose almost up to the very roof of old Quin's cottage.

At noon, next day, a scene of a different nature was exhibited. I found, on waking, two associates by my side, in as perfect insensibility as that from which I had just aroused. Our piper seemed indubitably dead! but the fiddler, who had the privilege of age and blindness, had taken a hearty nap, and seemed as much alive as ever.

The room of banquet had been re-arranged by the old woman: spitchcocked chickens, fried rashers, and broiled marrow-bones appeared struggling for precedence. The clean cloth looked, itself, fresh and exciting: jugs of mulled and

buttered claret foamed hot upon the refurnished table, and a better or heartier breakfast I never in my life enjoyed.

A few members of the jovial crew had remained all night at their posts; but I suppose alternately took some rest, as they seemed not at all affected by their repletion. Soap and hot water restored at once their spirits and their persons; and it was determined that the rooms should be ventilated and cleared out for a cock-fight, to pass time till the approach of dinner.

In this battle-royal, every man backed his own bird; twelve of which courageous animals were set down together to fight it out-the survivor to gain all. In point of principle, the battle of the Horatii and Curiatii was re-acted; and in about an hour, one cock crowed out his triumph over the mangled body of his last opponent ;-being himself, strange to say, but little wounded. The other eleven lay dead; and to the victor was unanimously voted a writ of ease, with sole monarchy over the hen-roost for the remainder of his days; and I remember him, for many years, the proud commandant of his poultry-yard and seraglio.-Fresh visiters were introduced each successive day, and the seventh morning had arisen before the feast broke up. As that day advanced, the cow was proclaimed to have furnished her full quantum of good dishes; the claret was upon its stoop; and the last gallon, mulled with a pound of spices, was drank in tumblers to the next merry meeting! All now retired to their natural rest, until the evening announced a different scene.

An early supper, to be partaken of by all the young folks, of both sexes, in the neighbourhood, was provided in the dwelling-house, to terminate the festivities. A dance, as usual, wound up the entertainment and what was then termed a "raking pot of tea," put a finishing stroke, in jollity and goodhumour, to such a revel as I never saw before, and, I am sure, shall never see again.

When I compare with the foregoing the habits of the present day, and see the grandsons of those joyous and vigorous sportsmen mincing their fish and tit-bits at their favourite box in Bond-street; amalgamating their ounce of sallad on a silver saucer; employing six sauces to coax one appetite; burning up the palate to make its enjoyments the more exquisite; sipping their acid claret, disguised by an olive or neutralized by a chesnut; lisping out for the scented waiter, and paying him the price of a feast for the modicum of a Lilliputian, and the pay of a captain for the attendance of a blackguard;-it amuses me extremely, and makes me speculate on what their fore-fa

thers would have done to those admirable Epicenes, if they had had them at the "Pilgrimage" in the huntsman's cot.

To these extremes of former roughness and modern affectation, it would require the pen of such a writer as Fielding to do ample justice. It may, however, afford our reader some diversion to trace the degrees which led from the grossness of the former down to the effeminacy of the latter; and these may, in a great measure, be collected from the various incidents which will be found scattered throughout these sketches of sixty solar revolutions.

Nothing indeed can better illustrate the sensation which the grandfathers, or even aged fathers, of these slim lads of the Bond-street establishments, must have felt upon finding their offspring in the occupation I have just mentioned, than a story relating to Captain Parsons Hoye, of County Wicklow, who several years since met with an instance of the kind at Hudson's in Covent-Garden.

A nephew of his, an effeminate young fellow, who had returned from travelling, and who expected to be his heir, accidentally came into the coffee-room. Neither uncle nor nephew knew each other; but old Parsons' disgust at the dandified manners, language, and dress of the youth, gave rise to an occurrence which drew from the bluff seaman epithets rather too coarse to record :—the end of it was, that, when Parsons discovered the relationship of the stranger, he struck him out of a will which he had made, and died very soon after, as if on purpose to mortify the macaroni!

We will take this opportunity of subjoining an accurate description of the person of Captain Parsons Hoye, thereby enabling our reader to estimate the singularity of his collision with the dandy.

Commodore Trunnion was a civilized man, and a beauty (but a fool,) compared to Parsons Hoye. He had a moderate hereditary property near Wicklow; had been a captain in the royal navy; was a bad farmer, a worse sportsman, and a blustering justice of peace: but great at potation! and what was called," in the main, a capital fellow." He was nearly as boisterous as his adopted element: his voice was always as if on the quarter-deck; and the whistle of an old boatswain, who had been decapitated by his side, hung as a memento, by a thong of leather, to his waistcoat button-hole. It was frequently had recourse to, and, whenever he wanted a word, supplied the deficiency.

In form the Captain was squat, broad, and coarse :-a large purple nose, with a broad crimson chin to match, were the

only features of any consequence in his countenance, except a couple of good enough bloodshot eyes, screened by most exuberant grizzle eye-lashes. His powdered wig had behind it a queue in the form of a hand-spike, and a couple of rolled-up paste curls, like a pair of carronades, adorned its broad-sides; a blue coat, with slash cuffs and plenty of navy buttons, surmounted a scarlet waistcoat-the skirts of which, he said, he would have of their enormous length, because it assured him that the tailor had put all the cloth in it; a black Barcelona adorned his neck; an old round hat bordered with gold lace, pitched on one side of his head, and turned up also on one side, with a huge cockade stuck into a buttonless loop, gave him a swaggering air. He bore a shillelagh, the growth of his own estate, in a fist which would cover more ground than the best shoulder of wether mutton in a London market.* Yet the Captain had a look of generosity, good nature, benevolence and hospitality, which his features did their very best to conceal, and which none but a good physiognomist could possibly discover.

I once saw the inconvenience of that species of fist strongly exemplified.The late Admiral Cosby, of Stradbally Hall, had as large and as brown a fist as any admiral in His Majesty's service. Happening one day unfortunately to lay it on the table during dinner, at Colonel Fitzgerald's, Merrion Square, a Mr. Jenkins, a half-blind doctor, who chanced to sit next to the admiral, cast his eye upon the fist: the imperfection of his vision led him to believe it was a French roll of bread, and, without further ceremony, the doctor thrust his fork plump into the admiral's fist. The confusion which resulted may be easily imagined.

MY BROTHER'S HUNTING-LODGE.

Waking the piper-Curious scene at my brother's hunting lodge-Joe Kelly's and Peter Alley's heads fastened to the wall-Operations practised in extricating them.

I MET with a ludicrous instance of the dissipation of even later days, a few months after my marriage. Lady B- and myself took a tour through some of the Southern parts of Ireland, and among other places visited Castle Durrow, near which place my brother, Henry French Barrington, had built a hunting cottage, wherein he happened to have given a housewarming the previous day.

The company, as might be expected at such a place and on such an occasion, was not the most select :-in fact, they were "hard going" sportsmen.

Amongst the rest, Mr. Joseph Kelly, of unfortunate fate, brother to Mr. Michael Kelly, (who by the bye does not say a word about him in his Reminiscences,) had been invited, to add to the merriment by his pleasantry and voice, and had come down from Dublin for the purpose.

It may not be amiss to say something here of that remarkable person. I knew him from his early youth. His father was a dancing-master in Mary-street, Dublin; and I found in the newspapers of that period a number of puffs, in French and English, of Mr. O'Kelly's abilities in that way-one of which, a certificate from a French artiste, of Paris, is curious enough. What could put it into his son's head, that he had been Master of the ceremonies at Dublin Castle is rather

Mr. O'Kelly is just returned from Paris. Ladies and Gentlemen, who are pleased to send their commands to No. 30, Mary-street, will be most respectfully attended to.

Je certifie que M. Guillaume O'Kelly est venu à Paris pour prendre de moi leçons, et qu'il est sorti de mes mains en état de pouvoir enseigner la dance avec succès.