How many letters?-what precepts ?-what threats have been sent you to apprehend him?-and yet not done; why so?-Forsooth, I could not catch him. Nay, nay, Earle, forsooth you would not nighly watch him. If he be justly suspected, why are you partial in so great a charge? If not, why are you fearful to have him tryed? Surely, this juggling and false play little became either an honest man called to such honour, or a nobleman put in such trust. Had you lossed but a cow or a garron of your owne, two hundred kyrneghis (kirns) would have come at your whistle, to rescue the prey from the uttermost edge of Ulster. All the Irish in Ireland must have given you way. But in persuing so weighty a matter as this, merciful God, how nice, how dangerous, how wayward have you bin? I wis, my lord, there be shrewde bogges in the borders, for the Earle of Kildare to fear."

Whilst the Cardinal was speaking, the Earl chafed and changed colour, and sundry proffers made to answer every sentence as it came. At last he broke

out, and interrupted them thus

66

My Lord Chancellor,-I beseech you pardon

me. I am short witted, and you, I perceive, intend a long tale. If you proceede in this order, half my purgation wil be loste for lack of carryage. I have no schoole tricks, nor art of memory: except you hear me, while I remember your words, your second process will hammer out the former. What my cousin Desmond hath compassed, as I know not, so I beshrew his naked heart for holding out so long. Cannot the Earle of Desmond shift, but I must be of counsell?-Cannot hee bee hid, except I winke?-If hee bee close, am I his mate? -If hee bee friended, am I a traytour? This is a doughty kind of accusation which they urge against me, wherein they are stabled and mirde, at my first deniall. • You would not see him,' say

they; who made them so familiar with mine eyesight?-As touching my kingdom, my lord, I would that you and I had exchanged kingdoms, but for one moneth, I would trust to gather up more crummes in that space than twice the revenues of my poor earldome. But you are well and warm, hold you; and upbraide not me with such an odious storme. I sleep in a cabin, when you lie soft on a bed of downe. I serve under the cope of heaven,

and so

when you are served under a canopy. I drink water out of a scull, when you drinke out of golden cuppes. My courser is trained to the field, when your jennet is taught to amble. When you are begraced, and belorded, and crouched and kneeled unto, then I find small grace with our Irish borderers, except I cut them off by the knees.""

MR.

A CHARACTER.

is that sort of man, who has all the faults that help to please, and forbid to serve. His character is a study; his great talent is his power of assimilation. He is never displaced, never out of keeping with times, persons, or circumstances. He dovetails with all opinions and all orders of intellect a perfect Aristippus. He is like mustardseed: fling him where you will, he takes root on the surface and flourishes. Sow him in a hot-bed, in a flannel cap, in a lady's beau-pot, or in a potatoe ridge, c'est égal.

THE DÉLAISSÉ.

THE most dissipated man, who has once known the distinction of being loved by a woman capable of the intense devotedness which springs from passionate feelings and strong intellect, must feel a dreadful void when he is loved no longer. Deserting, or deserted, he will feel it with remorse, or with mortification. The passing fancy of the light and the foolish leaves no scar behind; the wound closes rapidly, and all is forgotten.

TAVERNS.

66. You may be wise in your study in the morning," (says brow-beating Johnson, to his gapemouthed admirer Boswell,)" and gay in company at a tavern in the evening." What a trait of manners! Fancy a man of fashion, or a man of letters, or any man, in the rank of a gentleman, setting

forth after dinner, to be "

evening."

gay at a tavern in an

The tavern life has now fallen to the lowest classes of society. In the time of Charles, and James the Second, princes of the blood, and the proudest of the peerage, frequented the tavern. In Louis the Fourteenth's day, men of fashion resorted to places of the same description in France; and ladies of rank, by way of a frolic, sometimes accompanied them to some fashionable auberge in the suburbs, or the Boulevards. In another half century, there will be nothing between the common chop-house, and a magnificent club-between Crockford's, and "the cheap and nasty." The improvements of social and domestic life are filling up the intervals. The improvements in female education are also giving a charm to home, which it wanted in those times, when the women were treated as slaves or sultanas in one class; and were deemed in others creatures only fit

"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer."