barren credit of the effort was all I enjoyed for my pains.

It was in this year (1794), or about the beginning of the next, that I remember having, for the first time, tried my hand at political satire. In their very worst times of slavery and suffering, the happy disposition of my countrymen had kept their cheerfulness still unbroken and buoyant; and, at the period of which I am speaking, the hope of a brighter day dawning upon Ireland had given to the society of the middle classes in Dublin a more than usual flow of hilarity and life. Among other gay results of this festive spirit, a club, or society, was instituted by some of our most convivial citizens, one of whose objects was to burlesque, good-humouredly, the forms and pomps of royalty. With this view they established a sort of mock kingdom, of which Dalkey, a small island near Dublin, was made the seat, and an eminent pawnbroker, named Stephen Armitage, much renowned for

his agreeable singing, was the chosen and popular monarch.

Before public affairs had become too serious for such pastime, it was usual to celebrate, yearly, at Dalkey, the day of this sovereign's accession; and, among the gay scenes that still live in my memory, there are few it recalls with more freshness than the celebration, on a fine Sunday in summer, of one of these anniversaries of King Stephen's coronation. The picturesque sea-views from that spot, the gay crowds along the shores, the innumerable boats, full of life, floating about, and, above all, that true spirit of mirth which the Irish temperament never fails to lend to such meetings, rendered the whole a scene not easily forgotten. The state ceremonies of the day were performed, with all due gravity, within the ruins of an ancient church that stands on the island, where his mock majesty bestowed the order of knighthood upon certain favoured personages, and among others, I recollect, upon Incledon, the cele

brated singer, who arose from under the touch of the royal sword with the appropriate title of Sir Charles Melody. There was also selected, for the favours of the crown on that day, a lady of no ordinary poetic talent, Mrs. Battier, who had gained much fame by some spirited satires in the manner of Churchill, and whose kind encouragement of my early attempts in versification were to me a source of much pride. This lady, as was officially announced, in the course of the day, had been appointed his majesty's poetess laureate, under the style and title of Henrietta, Countess of Laurel.

There could hardly be devised a more apt vehicle for lively political satire than this gay travesty of monarchical power, and its showy appurtenances, so temptingly supplied. The very day, indeed, after this commemoration, there appeared, in the usual record of Dalkey state intelligence, an amusing proclamation from the king, offering a large reward

in cronebanes*, to the finder or finders of his majesty's crown, which, owing to his "having measured both sides of the road" in his pedestrian progress from Dalkey on the preceding night, had unluckily fallen from the royal brow.

It is not to be wondered at, that whatever natural turn I may have possessed for the lighter skirmishing of satire should have been called into play by so pleasant a field for its exercise as the state affairs of the Dalkey kingdom afforded; and, accordingly, my first attempt in this line was an Ode to his Majesty, King Stephen, contrasting the happy state of security in which he lived among his merry lieges, with the "metal coach," and other such precautions against mob violence, said to have been adopted at that time by his royal brother of England. Some portions of this juvenile squib still live in my memory; but they fall

* Irish halfpence, so called.

far too short of the lively demands of the subject to be worth preserving, even as juvenilia.

In college, the first circumstance that drew any attention to my rhyming powers was my giving in a theme, in English verse, at one of the quarterly examinations. As the sort of short essays required on those occasions were considered, in general, as a mere matter of form, and were written, at that time, I believe, invariably, in Latin prose, the appearance of a theme in English verse could hardly fail to attract some notice. It was, therefore, with no small anxiety that, when the moment for judging of the themes arrived, I saw the examiners of the different divisions assemble, as usual, at the bottom of the hall for that purpose. Still more trying was it when I perceived that the reverend inquisitor, in whose hands was my fate, had left the rest of the awful group, and was bending his steps towards the table where I was seated. Leaning across to me, he asked suspiciously, whether the verses which I had just given in were my own;