Unless some spark at once propose, And distance him by downright prose. That sick, rich squire, whose wealth and lands All pass, they say, to Biddy's hands, (The patron, Dick, of three fat rectories!) Is dying of angina pectoris ; So that, unless you're stirring soon, And be the man of it, himself! As for me, Dick-'tis whim, 'tis folly, Too true it is, she's bitten sadly With this new rage for rhyming badly, Which late hath seiz'd all ranks and classes, One common rail-road o'er Parnassus, Where, sliding in those tuneful grooves, And the whole world runs mad in lines. Scarce sixpence hath my charmer got, So that, computing self and Venus, Tenpence would clear the' amount between us. However, things may yet prove better: Meantime, what awful length of letter! And how, while heaping thus with gibes My own small hobby of farrago Hath beat the pace at which ev'n they go! LETTER V. FROM LARRY O'BRANIGAN, IN ENGLAND, TO HIS WIFE JUDY, AT MULLINAFAD. DEAR JUDY, I sind you this bit of a letther, To tell you what luck in this world I have had Och, Judy, that night!-when the pig which we meant To dry-nurse in the parlour, to pay off the rent, Julianna, the craythur-that name was the death of her*. Gave us the shlip and we saw the last breath of her! And there were the childher, six innocent sowls, For their nate little play-fellow tuning up howls; *The Irish peasantry are very fond of giving fine names to their pigs. I have heard of one instance in which a couple of young pigs were named, at their birth, Abelard and Eloisa. While yourself, my dear Judy (though grievin's a folly), Stud over Julianna's remains, melancholy— Cryin', half for the craythur, and half for the money, "Arrah, why did ye die till we'd sowl'd you, my honey ?" But God's will be done!-and then, faith, sure enough, As the pig was desaiced, 'twas high time to be off. So we gother'd up all the poor duds we could catch, Lock'd the owld cabin-door, put the kay in the thatch, Then tuk laave of each other's sweet lips in the dark, And set off, like the Chrishtians turn'd out of the Ark; The six childher with you, my dear Judy, ochone! And poor I wid myself, left condolin' alone. How I came to this England, o'er say and o'er lands, And what cruel hard walkin' I've had on my hands, Only starv'd I was, surely, as thin as a lath, By dhraggin owld ladies all day through the streetWhich their docthors (who pocket, like fun, the pound starlins,) Have brought into fashion to plase the owld darlins. But luck has two handles, dear Judy, they say, Och, there came o'er my sinses so plasin' a flutther, That I spilt an owld Countess right clane in the gutther, Muff, feathers and all! -the descint was most awful, And what was still worse, faith-I knew 'twas unlawful: |