ALAS: POOR TOM!

Lugete O Veneres Cupidines-que

Et quantum est hominum venustiorum.

Here lies poor Tom! who, when he had a tongue,
Could boast a lofty race from Blenheim sprung.
A dog he was, yet let not man despise,
For he found favour in a lady's eyes.

Half curled his hair, and soft as eider down,
Was streaked with intermingling white and brown;
So plump, so sleek, so delicately fat!

That soft fair skin, what lady would not pat?
Oft have I seen th' obsequious handmaid bend,
And to each charm all art's attractions lend:
The comb and brush, with skilful touch applied,
Explored each corner where a flea might hide.
Till all his toilet made, wrapped close in furs,
He slept, the envy of plebeian curs;
Or, folded in his mistress's embrace,
Murmured a growl of joy, and licked her face.
Ah, happy Tom! as each returning day,
Beheld thy tranquil life glide calm away :
Each wish prevented, hunger never known,
Or rival favourite quarrelling for a bone ;-
Say, with no cares to vex, no boys to tease,
Could Turk recline in more voluptuous ease?
Too happy Tom! might this for ever last,
And came no future reckoning for the past;
Did dogs escape th' inevitable doom,
And best of feeding lead not to the tomb.
But vain our dreams-death comes alike to all:
Struck by his dart, even favourites must fall.
Rheumatic pains each stiffening limb attack,
And dire lumbago fastens on his back.
Doctor on doctor, dose on dose are pain,
And each new pill but aggravates his pain.
Till beauty vanished, all attraction fled,

Poor Tom at last lies numbered with the dead.
This stone reveals his history and his fame:
This stone preserves the record of his name.
Thus lived thus died he: and if more await,'
May he be happy in some future state.

B. B. F.

THE COMPLAINT, AFTER THE MANNER OF SHELLEY.

Why was I cast 'mongst those, with whom
My tastes accorded not,

The mindless, drudging, sleek, contented crew,
Who blindly drag the weights their fathers drew,
And labour's lot

Would choose, if they were free to fashion their own doom?

Why seized by Fortune's ruthless hand,
And flung, unpractised, in,

To struggle singly 'midst a stormy world,
And not one plank in mercy to me hurled,
But bid to win

By efforts of my own the dim and distant land?

With sense to higher objects strung,
How could I toil all day,

And at the end come cheerful up, and ask
The common wages of my menial task,
To hoard away,

Or still more blindly waste my fellow-serfs among?

What Nature's hand had formed me for,
And early was it known,

Was to go wandering forth from land to land,
Or pacing on the tide-deserted strand,
To muse alone,

And reason with each wave that idly rolled ashore.

Or 'neath the lamp abstractedly

Ponder from hour to hour,

Upon the page of history or high song,
And weave myself some mystic web along,
Or wreathe some flower,

As the vague fancies of the passing mood might be.

Or near a fountain catch a gleam
Of something half divine,

Lovely beyond the lot of Adam's daughters,
Pure as the moon retiring o'er the waters,
And at her shrine

Pass through all shapes and shades of passion, in a dream.

The reason's just and good-'twill greet thy gaze in heaven.

There is all known---the shame and wrong,
The rough mistake of man,

The galling of the ill-fitted garment, worn
To ward from a too-sensitive frame his scorn;
The unworthy plan

Of smiling to elude the raillery of the throng.

There known, how largely it hath drawn
From the account of life

All that I've failed to prove to those most dear---
The human feelings I encourage here,

And the pale strife

Kept up through life's long night, till longed-for death shall dawn.

Then peace, my breast! though sore the cost,
Endure and place a seal

On the more secret things within thee stored,
But freely be the fount of kindness poured,
That all may feel

Thy wells are far too deep for misery to exhaust.

VOL. XVIII.-No. 103.

OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.-NO. XX.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES KENDAL BUSHE,

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

CHARLES KENDAL BUSHE-One of the last surviving names that is written on the brightest page of Ireland's history-the associate of the men who have made Ireland illustrious among the nations, and thrown upon the brief but splendid era which they illumined, a glow of light which almost irradiates the long and gloomy darkness of our national story. The contemporary of Grattan, of Flood, of Curran, and of Saurin, and worthy even of such men to be the associate and the compeer. The light of other days is around his name. It is already sacred, even while he is yet among us-long may it be, ere it is consecrated by the sorrow with which his country must one day or other mourn his removal.

Charles Kendal Bushe, the present Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, was born at Kilmurry, near Thomastown, county of Kilkenny, on the 13th of January, 1767. Kilmurry had been the ancestral seat of the immediate branch of the family from which he was descended-a family often remarkable in the political and parliamentary annals of Ireland. His father was a clergyman, who held the preferment of the rectory of Mitchelstown, in the county of Cork, and the chaplaincy to the Kingston College,* in the same place. The house in which the good rector resided, is still pointed out to the visitor, as that in which the boyish days of the Chief Justice were passed. Mitchelstown, however, cannot claim the honour of his nativity. He was born, as we have stated, at Kilmurry, his ancestral seat, which afterwards his emoluments from his profession, enabled him to redeem from the consequences of ancestral imprudence, and which, in his later years, has been his favourite retreat.

Mr. Bushe received his early education at the school of the Rev. Mr. Craig, in Henry-street, in the city of Dublin. On the first of July, 1782, the memorable year of Ireland's independence, he was enrolled among the students of the University. His collegiate course was marked by high and honourable distinctions. Among other distinctions, he received a gold medal from the University. It was, however, in the Historical Society that he acquired his chief distinction, we may perhaps venture to add, received the most valuable part of his university education. The sketch of Dr. Miller, in our last number, contains much of the history of that society, which it is unnecessary now to repeat. Plunkett was then one of its most brilliant ornaments, and there the future Chief Justice and Chancellor were distinguished by the very same points of excellence, we had almost said contrast, which has marked their respective styles through life. The one solid, vigorous, and Demosthenic-the other playful, brilliant, and yet deeply profound. Unquestionably not a match for Plunkett in reasoning, in strength, or in sarcasm, he yet exceeded him in those lighter and more winning graces of oratory which often charm us into assent, where deeper and more solid excellencies might fail to convince.

The period of which we speak was the palmy age of Irish eloquence. Grattan was then in his glory, and in the Irish senate, just emancipated from the control of the English parliament, the national energies were taxed to the utmost. The time was one full of thrilling associations, and produced men

This singular institution was founded nearly a century ago, under the will of one of the Earls of Kingston-it was originally established for the support of the decayed Protestant tenantry on the Kingston estates, but the objects of the charity are now more enlarged. A large square, in the town of Mitchelstown, contains a number of neat dwelling-houses, in each of which a person in advanced life is supported on the foundation. Each of the inmates receives a stipend, in addition to their apartment; and persons of both sexes, who have seen days of affluence, here find an asylum in their old age. There is, besides, attached to the foundation, a chaplain and a medical attendant.