Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, "Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake, And the white canoe of my dear?" He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright "Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!" And the dim shore echoed for many a night The name of the death-cold maid! Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark, Far he followed the meteor spark, The wind was high and the clouds were dark, But oft from the Indian hunter's camp, Are seen at the hour of midnight damp, A CANADIAN BOAT-SONG. Written on the River St. Lawrence. Faintly as tolls the evening chime Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. Soon as the woods on the shore look dim, We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn. Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, The rapids are near and the daylight's past. Why should we yet our sail unfurl? There is not a breath the blue wave to curl. Utawa's tide! this trembling moon ORATOR PUFF. Mr. Orator Puff had two tones in his voice, The one squeaking thus, and the other down so; In each sentence he uttered he gave you your choice, For one half was B alt, and the rest G below. O! O! Orator Puff, One voice for an orator 's surely enough. But he still talked away, spite of coughs and of frowns, That a wag once, on hearing the orator say, "My voice is for war" asked, "Which of them, pray?" O! O! Orator Puff, One voice for an orator 's surely enough. Reeling homewards one evening, top-heavy with gin, "Sinking fund" the last words as his noddle came down. One voice for an orator 's surely enough. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed, in his he-and-she tones, 66 HELP ME OUT! Help me out! I have broken my bones!" Help you out?" said a Paddy who passed, "what a bother! Why, there's two of you there-can't you help one another?" O! O! Orator Puff, One voice for an orator 's surely enough. LADY MORGAN. (1783-1859.) MISS SYDNEY OWENSON, afterward Lady Morgan, was born, it is said, between Liverpool and Dublin about 1783. At eighteen she became a governess, and in 1804 published her first novel, St. Clair, or the Heiress of Desmond.' In 1805 appeared The Novice of St. Dominic' and a little later 'The Wild Irish Girl.' This last novel immediately became popular and was the means of gaining her admission to the best society, where her wit and talent were fully appreciated. Within two years of its first publication seven editions appeared in Great Britain and two or three in this country. The Lay of an Irish Harp,' a selection of twelve popular Irish melodies to which Miss Owenson wrote the words, followed in 1807. One of these songs, Kate Kearney,' is still popular. In the same year she wrote a comic opera called The First Attempt, or the Whim of a Moment,' which was produced at the Theater Royal, Dublin, and proved successful. Her next novel was 'Woman, or Ida of Athens,' which was severely handled by Gifford in The Quarterly Review. Miss Owenson at first took no notice of this attack; but afterward, when Lady Morgan, she showed that the insult had not been forgotten, and in the preface to her work France' defended herself with much spirit. While visiting the Marquis and Marchioness of Abercorn in 1812, she was introduced to their physician, Sir Thomas Charles Morgan, and later in the same year they were married. At this time she had saved £5,000 ($25,000), the fruit of her literary labors. They settled down in Kildare Street, Dublin, Lady Morgan becoming the center of a brilliant and talented circle. Her visits to Europe, which began in 1816, led to the writing of the books entitled France' and 'Italy.' She and her husband moved in the best society, and she was enabled to study the people of all classes. She wrote frankly, fearlessly, and honestly, and the breadth of her opinions gained her some enemies. The Quarterly Review attacked both books in the sanguinary style of the cut-andslash reviewer of the day, but Lord Byron wrote enthusiastically of her Italy.' In 1837 she and her husband returned to London, and the years of happiness there were interrupted only by the death of the latter in 1843. Lady Morgan now began to write a diary or story of her life, which she completed before her death. Her works are said to have brought her a sum of £25,000 ($75,000), but her style of living was expensive and she was by no means rich. In acknowledgment of her long-continued literary work and her constant support given to the Liberal party, a pension of £300 ($1,500) a year from the civil list was settled upon her by Lord Grey. After a long and busy life she died at her house in William Street, London, April 13, 1859. During her long literary career of over half a century she is said to have published more than seventy volumes. Some of these have already been noticed; among the others are 'Patriotic Sketches in Ireland,' 'The Missionary,' O'Donnel' (a novel highly spoken of by Sir Walter Scott), Florence Macarthy,' The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa,''Absenteeism,' 'The O'Briens and O'Flahertys,' 'The Book of the Boudoir,' 'Dramatic Scenes from Real Life,' The Princess or the Beguine,' 'Woman and her Master,' 'An Odd Volume, etc. We quote the following description of the personal appearance of Lady Morgan from a memory" in the Art Journal by Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, who knew her ladyship: "Lady Morgan was small and slightly deformed; her head was large, round, and well formed; her features full of expression, particularly the expression that accompanies humor,' dimpling, as it does, round the mouth and sparkling in the eyes. The natural intonations of her voice in conversation were singularly pleasing-so pleasing as to render her 'nothings' pleasant; and, whatever affectation hovered about her large green fan, or was seen in the way she had' of folding her draperies round her, and looking out of them with true Irish espièglerie, the tones of that voice were to the last full of feeling.' Lady Morgan was not an admirer of O'Connell, but her novels ably pleaded the cause which he represented. In them she strongly advocated emancipation, and her stories, full of sympathy with the sufferings of her race and of hatred of the wrongs her people had endured, were as great a political power as the best oratory or the smartest pamphlets of the day. THE PRINCE OF INISMORE. From The Wild Irish Girl.' Ay, 't is even so-point your glasses-and rub your eyes, 't is all one; here I am, and here I am likely to remain for some time, but whether a prisoner of war, taken up on a suspicion of espionage, or to be offered as an appeasing sacrifice to the manes of the old Prince of Inismore, you must for a while suspend your patience to learn. According to the carte du pays laid out for me by the fisherman, I left the shore and crossed the summit of a mountain that "battled o'er the deep," and which after an hour's ascension, I found sloped almost perpendicularly down to a bold and rocky coast, its base terminating in a peninsula, that advanced for near half a mile into the ocean. Towards the extreme western point of this peninsula, which was wildly romantic beyond all description, arose a vast and grotesque pile of rocks, which at once. formed the site and fortifications of the noblest mass of ruins on which my eye ever rested. Grand even in deso lation, and magnificent in decay-it was the Castle of Inismore. The setting sun shone brightly on its moldering turrets, and the waves which bathed its rocky basis, reflected on their swelling bosoms the dark outlines of its awful ruins. As I descended the mountain's brow I observed that the little isthmus which joined the peninsula to the main land had been cut away, and a curious danger-threatening bridge was rudely thrown across the intervening gulf, flung from the rocks on one side to an angle of the mountain on the other, leaving a yawning chasm of some fathoms deep beneath the foot of the wary passenger. This must have been a very perilous pass in the days of civil warfare; and in the intrepidity of my daring ancestor, I almost forgot his crime. Amidst the interstices of the rocks which skirted the shores of this interesting peninsula, patches of the richest vegetation were to be seen, and the trees which sprung wildly among its venerable ruins, were bursting into all the vernal luxuriancy of spring. In the course of my descent, several cabins of a better description than I had yet seen appeared scattered beneath the shelter of the mountain's innumerable projections; while in the air and dress of the inhabitants (which the sound of my horse's feet brought to their respective doors), I evidently perceived a something original and primitive, I had never noticed before in this class of persons here. They appeared to me, I know not why, to be in their holiday garb, and their dress, though grotesque and coarse, was cleanly and characteristic. I observed that round the heads of the elderly dames were folded several wreaths of white or colored linen and others had handkerchiefs lightly folded round their brows, and curiously fastened under the chin; while the young wore their hair fastened up with wooden bodkins. They were all enveloped in large shapeless mantles of blue frieze, and most of them had a rosary hanging on their arm, from whence I inferred they were on the point of attending vespers at the chapel of Inismore. I alighted at the door of a cabin a few paces distant from the Alpine bridge, and entreated a shed for my horse, while I performed my devotions. The man to whom I addressed myself, seemed the only one of several who surrounded me that understood English, and appeared |