cutter, and get him to cut them out of the wall with a chisel. I was literally unable to speak two sentences for laughing. The old woman meanwhile tried to soften the obdurate wall with melted butter and new milk-but in vain.-I related the school story how Hannibal had worked through the Alps with hot vinegar and hot irons: this experiment likewise was made, but Hannibal's solvent had no better success than the ol crone's. Peter, being of a more passionate nature, grew ultimately quite outrageous: he roared, gnashed his teeth, and swore vengeance against the mason;-but as he was only held by one side, a thought at last struck him: he asked for two knives, which being brought, he whetted one against the other, and introducing the blades close to his skull, sawed away at cross corners till he was liberated, with the loss only of half his hair and a piece of his scalp, which he had sliced off in zeal and haste for his liberty. I never saw a fellow so extravagantly happy! Fur was scraped from the crown of a hat, to stop the bleeding; his head was duly tied up with the old woman's praskeen;* and he was soon in a state of bodily convalescence. Our solicitude was now required solely for Joe, whose head was too deeply buried to be exhumated with so much facility. At this moment, Bob Casey, of Ballynakill, a very celebrated wig-maker, just dropped in, to see what he could pick up honestly in the way of his profession, or steal in the way of any thing else; and he immediately undertook to get Mr. Kelly out of the mortar by a very expert but tedious process, namely, clipping with his scissors and then rooting out with an oyster knife. He thus finally succeeded, in less than an hour, in setting Joe once more at liberty, at the price of his queue, which was totally lost, and of the exposure of his raw and bleeding occiput. The operation was, indeed, of a mongrel description-somewhat between a complete tonsure and an imperfect scalping, to both of which denominations it certainly presented claims. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good! Bob Casey got the making of a skull-piece for Joe, and my brother French had the pleasure of paying for it, as gentlemen in those days honoured any order given by a guest to the family shop-keeper or artizan.

I ate a hearty breakfast, returned to Durrow, and having rejoined my companion, we pursued our journey to Waterford,-amusing ourselves the greater part of the way with the

* A coarse dirty apron, worn by working women in a kitchen, in the coun try parts of Ireland.

circumstances just related, which, however, I do not record merely as an abstract anecdote, but, as I observed in starting, to show the manners and habits of Irish country society and sportsmen, even so recently as thirty years ago; and to illustrate the changes of those habits and manners, and the advances towards civilization, which, coupled with the extraordinary want of corresponding prosperity, present phenomena I am desirous of impressing upon my reader's mind, throughout the whole of this miscellaneous collection of original anecdotes and observations.

CHOICE OF PROFESSION.

The Army-Irish volunteers described-Their military ardour-The author inoculated therewith-He grows cooler-The Church-The Faculty-The Law-Objections to each-Colonel Barrington removes his establishment to the Irish capitalA country gentleman taking up a city residence.

My veering opinion as to a choice of profession was nearly decided by that military ardour which seized all Ireland, when the e whole country had entered into resolutions to free itself for ever from English domination. The entire kingdom took uparms-regiments were formed in every quarter-the highest, the lowest, and the middle orders, all entered the ranks of freedom, and every corporation, whether civil or military, pledged life and fortune to attain and establish Irish independence!

My father had raised and commanded two corps-a dragoon regiment called the Cullenagh Rangers, (and the Ballyroan Light Infantry. My elder brother commanded the Kilkenny Horse, and the Durrow Light Dragoons. The general enthusiasm caught me, and before I well knew what I was about, I found myself a military martinet and a red-hot patriot Having been a university man, I was also considered to be of course a writer, and was accordingly called on to draw up resolutions for volunteer regiments all over the county. This was the first tirade I ever attempted on a political subject, and it being quite short enough and warm enough to be comprehended by all the parties, it was unanimously adopted-every man swearing, as he kissed the blade of his sword, that he would adhere to these resolutions to the last drop of his blood, which he would by no means spare, till we had finally achieved the independence of our country. We were very sincere, and, really I think, determined to perish, if necessary, in the cause-at least, I am sure, I was so.

The national point was gained, but not without much difficulty and danger. The Irish parliament had refused to grant supplies to the crown for more than six months. The people

had entered into resolutions to prevent the importation of any British merchandise or manufactures. The entire kingdom had disavowed all English authority or jurisdiction, external or internal; the judges and magistrates had declined to act under British statutes:-the flame had spread rapidly, and had become irresistible.

The British Government, saw that either temporising or an appeal to force would occasion the final loss of Ireland: 150,000 independent soldiers, well armed, well clothed, and well disciplined, were not to be coped with,-and England yielded. Thus the volunteers kept their oaths: they redeemed their pledge, and did not lay down their arms until the independence of Ireland had been pronounced from the throne, and the distinctness of the Irish nation promulgated in the government gazette of London,

Having carried our point with the English, and having proposed to prove our independence by going to war with Portu gal about our linens, we completely set up for ourselves, ex• cept that Ireland was bound constitutionally and irrevocably, never to have any king but the King of Great Britain.

We were now, in fact, regularly in a fighting mood: and being quite in good humour with England, we determined to fight the French who had threatened to invade us; and I recollect a volunteer belonging to one of my father's corps, a school-master of the name of Beal, proposing a resolution to the Ballyroan infantry, which purported, "that they would never stop fighting the French till they had flogged every man of them into mincemeat!" This magnanimous resolution was adopted with cheers, and was, as usual, sworn to, each hero kissing the muzzle of his musket.

I am not going any further into a history of those times, to which I have alluded in order to mention what for the moment, excited my warlike ardour, and fixed my determination, although but temporarily, to adopt the military profession.

On communicating this decision to my father, he procured `me, from a friend and neighbour, General Hunt Walsh, a commission in that officer's own regiment, the 30th. The style of the thing pleased me well:-but, upon being informed that I should immediately join the regiment in America, my heroic tendencies received a serious check. I had not contemplated transatlantic emigration, and feeling that I could get my head broken just as well in my own country, I after a few days' mature consideration, perceived my military ardour grow cooler and cooler every hour-until, at length, it was obviously defunct. Itherefore wrote to the General a most thankful letter, but

at the same time, "begging the favour of him to present my commission in his regiment to some hardier soldier, who could serve his majesty with more vigour; as I, having been brought up by my grandmother, felt as yet too tender to be any way effective on foreign service-though I had no objection to fight as much as possible in Ireland, if necessary.' The general accepted my resignation, and presented my commission to a young friend of his, whose brains were blown out in the very first engagement.

Having thus rejected the military, I next turned my thoughts to that very opposite profession-the clerical. But though preaching was certainly a much safer and more agreeable employment than bush-fighting, yet a curacy and a wooden leg being pretty much on a parallel in point of remuneration, and as I had the strongest objection to be half starved in the service of either the king or the altar, I also declined the cassock, assuring my father that "I felt I was not steady enough to make an exemplary parson;' and as any other kind of parson genenerally did more harm than good in a country, I could not, in my conscience, take charge of the morals of a flock of men, women and children, when I should have quite enough to do to manage my own; and I should therefore leave the church to some more orthodoxical graduate."

Medicine, therefore, was the next in the list of professions to which I had, abstractedly, some liking. I had attended several courses of anatomical lectures at Dublin, and, although with some repugnant feelings, I had studied that most sublime of all sciences, human organization, by a persevering attention to the celebrated wax-works of that university. But my horror and disgust of animal putridity in all its branches was so great, inclusive even of stinking venison, (which most people admire,) that all surgical practice by me was necessarily out of the question; and medicine without surgery presenting no better chance than a curacy, it shared an equally bad fate with the sword and the pulpit.

Of the liberal and learned professions, there now remained but one, namely the law. Now as to this, I was told by several old practitioners, who had retired into the country, (from having no business to do in town,) that if I was even as wise as Alfred, or as learned as Lycurgus, nobody would give me sixpence for all my law (if I had a hundred weight of it) until 1 had spent at least ten years in watching the manufacture. However, they consoled me by saying, that if I could put up with light eating and water-drinking during that period, I might then have a very reasonable chance of getting some briefs,