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move him to Portici, the cholera having burst out at Naples, his sufferings ceased. A few hours before his death, says St. Beuve, he wrote some verses in the style of Simonides or Minnermus, "et dont voici le sens : Mais la vie mortelle, depuis que la belle jeunesse a disparu, ne se colore plus jamais d'une autre lumière ni d'une autre aurore; elle est veuve jusqu'à la fin, et à cette nuit qui obscurcit tous les autres âges, les dieux n'ont mis pour terme que le tombeau." To the very last, the same despair!

Our task is done. We have introduced the name of a great writer and most unhappy man,

| and, in a general way, indicated the nature of his genius and the cast of his thoughts. It remains for those who can appreciate and enjoy the one, without being ungenerous towards the other, who can admire the writer while condemning his opinions, and who, in the calm serenity of their own minds, can still recognize a corner of doubt, and believe that, so long as doubt and sorrow shall be the lot of mankind, the poet whose lyre vibrates powerfully with their accents will deserve a place amongst the musical teachers, it remains for them to seek in Leopardi's works a clearer, fuller knowledge of the man.-Fraser's Magazine.

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SIR RICHARD MACGINNIS AND THE SHERIFF.

A REMINISCENCE OF SOLDIERING IN TIPPERARY.

A merry going out often bringeth a mournful return, and a joyful morning a sad evening.

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Long life to yer honor, and thank yer honor," shrieked the dwarf, as he hobbled off to waylay another passer by.

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Well, Sir Richard, has the bay gelding won at the Curragh? I am just after seeing Larry Burns, and by dads, from his long face, and upturned nostril, I guessed you had had no luck. Why, he turned on his heel, and would not deign an answer," said a short gentleman with a low crowned hat, knowingly stuck upon one side, and a bright green cutaway coat mounted in brass.

66 Then you have guessed too true, for as soon as the blackguard was called upon he shut up. However, my book is pretty square. I made up my loss out of Captain Seymour,one of the castle aide-de-camps; he would back the English mare against a true bred son of the Emerald Isle."

"Arrah! Sir Richard, you did well. Ireland, mi boy, forever! Never mind, you are not cut out for a flat, eh? Twenty to ten you win the Cahir Steeple chase, with Brien Borhoime."

Thomas a Kempis. "I wish I may. Good day, good day." The charitable donor and loser of the race was Sir Richard Macginnis, or, as he was familiarly styled, ears polite, are we to utter it?" Hell-fire Dick,' was a true specimen of an Irish Gentleman. Kind, brave, liberal to a fault, ready to resent an injury, but lastingly grateful for a benefit; he had had many

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an affair," and paced many a distance in the Phoenix, and had dropped and won many a fifty pound note at Daly's; but the days of which we chronicle were very different to these of pikes, felons, trials, and soldiers in the old capital of Ireland. She was then in the zenith of her glory, the envied of the envied, or, in the words of Lever, "There was wealth more than proportioned to the cheapness of the country, and while ability and talent were the most striking features of every circle, the taste for gorgeous display, exhibited within doors and without, threw a glare of splendor over the scene, that served to illustrate, but not eclipse the prouder glories of the mind."

At an early age Sir Richard Macginnis had come into an Irish property of about four thousand a-year, a little encumbered with debts, in Tipperary. Ah! many a time had the old walls of Castle Knock vibrated with the merry song and chorus o'er the generous port, many a time had its oaken floor received the ponderous shock of a four-bottled-man. Many and many a guest had enjoyed true

Hibernian hospitality in the old castle; many a fox had been tally ho'ed away from its covers, and many a snipe or 'cock had fallen to the unerring aim of its noble owner, or his sporting friends; but alas! these palmy days were not to last forever. Sir Richard, bitten with the mania of travelling, determined to view the beauties of England, where at Cheltenham, he met, wooed, and won, the fair, accomplished, though dowerless daughter of Admiral Howard. For a time affairs went on smoothly; Dublin was yearly sought, and expense followed expense; but in a few years the baronet found his property mortgaged to lawyers and money-lenders, his rents badly paid, the Union passed, and blessed with a son as errant a pickle as ever lived, whose education was entrusted to the combined care of the Protestant clergyman and Father Gleeson (for though Sir Richard was a stanch Catholic himself, he considered all sects, whether Roman, Greek, or infidel, as — breth

But the young scion and his two pedagogical divines were much like a person attempting to sit upon two chairs at one and the same time, and the old issue was the consequence; but the youth's fall was either upon his legs or seat, for he almost daily contrived to escape the exhortations of the Rev. Mr. O'Neil, or the Latin expositions of Father Mark, to rush to the whoo-op of Pat Sullivan the Irish huntsman, or the to-ho of Jack Moffatt, the English keeper; in time his view holloa was clearly heard at the cover side as he saw sly reynard steal away, and his merry laugh reechoed through the sylvan glades as he shot the errant woodcock, until he became as good a shot as his father, and few could beat him with the Tip. Hunt on black Mungo.

The Dragoon Guards were quartered at Cahir (or, as some garrison punsters, unjustly though it be, call it "dull care,") and a subaltern's detachment was thrown out to Fethard under the command of Lieutenant Mytton.

Jack Mytton was the only son of a wealthy Yorkshire squire, who, not being able to manage his son at home, procured him a commission in the Dragoon Guards, as he then hoped his son would be under some restraint. Poor Jack! he had talents for everything but soldiering; he could make as good a book on the Derby, play as good a game of chess, calculate the odds, or win a rubber of billiards as the best man alive, but to manœuvre a troop, or tell off a squadron, was far beyond his comprehension; and in proof thereof, he had ridden and won two steeple-chases before he had been dismissed his riding drill, and

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had made a good "pot" on the St. Leger, before he could change front to the right.

One day a party of Mytton's brother officers drove over from headquarters to see him at Fethard.

"Ah! ah! Jack, old boy," cried Captain Osprey on their arrival, "how are you? Had any shooting?"

"How is the detachment?" inquired Cornet Whiskerless.

"How is the hay?" inquired a third. "What is the price of meat a pound?" "Hunting any more of her Majesty's troopers?" asked Captain Osprey.

"Ah, my boy!" replied Mytton, "recollect the Italian proverb, Limatti banno bolletta di dir cio che voglion.' So hold your peace of troopers."

"I see you have Boatswain still," said Whiskerless, as a shaggy Irish spaniel came jumping and fondling to the party.

"The best dog that ever lived," replied Mytton. "I was shooting at Colonel Mullahone's lask week, and having bagged twenty couple of snipe-"

"Oh! oh! oh! O! O! o!" chorused the party.

"Well, believe me or not, my story is true. Well, I had drawn my left barrel's charge, and was returning home through a little cover, when old Boatswain sprung a woodcock, but not liking to discharge my right barrel, for fear of repealers, I walked on and took no notice; not so old Boatswain, who reared himself on his hind legs and marked him - on I walked but the dog tugged at my jacket. At last, I followed him, and he led me to bush, whining and looking in my face, until I had reloaded my gun, when he sprung for ward, and up rose a fine woodcock - which, gentlemen, I am happy to say I have ordered for this day's dinner.

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"Ah! ah!" cried Osprey, "the author of the Arabian Nights' has at last been discovered."

"Why, I suppose you are first cousin to the young gentleman who walked out of an Affghan tent at Sobraon, after his legs had been shot off."

"Why Mytton, you are quite an Herodotus," said Osprey.

"By-the-by, you did not send the sea-serpent story to the Lords of the Admiralty, did you?" inquired another.

"That certainly was a very fishy tale," said Whiskerless.

"Well, come," replied Jack, "a truce to your disbelief, however; after your drive, I make no doubt a little luncheon will be acceptable."

"I have a very unpleasant duty to perform to-morrow," said Mytton, as they sat in the old oaken-panelled mess-room at Fethard on the night in question. "I am ordered to assist the sheriff, who is going to levy a distress warrant upon Sir Richard Macginnis. Poor Dick the best friend I have in these parts." "Oh! oh! oh! fancy Mytton aiding the civil power;" chorused the whole party. "What time do you start?"

"The route says six," replied Jack. "Six!" exclaimed Osprey, "why, you will hardly have the very slightest appetite for breakfast. By gad, I know I never have one

till noon."

"Oh! establish a commissariat on the road; send a fatigue party off to-night with liqueurs, moselle, and champagne; and if there is one thing a shoeless, dirty, Irish cook can toss up better than another, it is a lamb coutelette à la Tata," said Whiskerless with a sneer.

"Yes, I am sure you will have quite a little fete champêtre," said a third. "How I envy

you!"

"Well," cried Mytton, in rather excited tones, "a pony all round that I perform this duty so that were his Grace of Wellington commanding he could not do it better."

"Done! done! done!" said the party, and the bets were properly booked.

Then followed the usual light desultory scandalous conversation of the mess-room, where the flirtations of Miss Smith were duly discussed, with the merits of the Derby winner, and the tenets of the Bishop of Exeter, with Bendigo the prize-fighter; and after these topics had been drained equally with the claret, a little hazard à la poulette concluded the excitement of the evening.

--

At six o'clock the following morning Lieut. Mytton and his party of dragoons left the barracks of Fethard, he inwardly execrating his luck at having to leave his brother officers, who were going that morning-in the words of the Irish gossoon-to "slate" the snipe, while they (his brother officers) were delighted at the preposterous idea of Mytton ever being detached upon duty. Half-way on his road, Mr. Sandy Macgregor, the sheriff, and his two coadjutors, as ruffian-looking gentlemen as ever gracedor disgraced, the Bog of Allen, joined the dragoons. Mr. Macgregor was a Scotchman, as you might conceive from his name, the only son of a humble butcher in Glasgow, but early in life he showed the cacoëthes scribendi, and he used to supply the poet's corner and local information of the provincial press with "the paper bullets of his brain" until a contested election took place, when, for some good work for the radical member, he

was appointed agent, or factor to a Tipperary estate, which, not relishing such a woodcock life, he quickly resigned, however, for the lucrative office of sheriff and C. P. of the riding.

"Foin day, captain," said Macgregor. "It is," was the sulky reply.

"It's too good a day for the deed, captain; but if a mon boorows siller, he mon pay, that's Scotch law; but this is an unco stoney wynd," said the sheriff, as his horse stumbled over the loose stones. "My curse upon ye, ye stumbling brute! ye ugly creeping blastit wonner! He is but a stitched up thing, captin. rowed him of the vint'er of Clonmel; my ain galloway is sairly racked wi' the rheumatics, and he's as lame as an ould cat."

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"The Duke of Leeds writes that Eisenburgh cured his feet; perchance that chiropedist might do your horse some good, or indite a note to Lord Aldborough, he is always writing to the papers about some pills; he may give you some advice, gratis, yah!" replied Mytton, with a yawn, "do any thing, in short, but weary me with your stories of your horses."

"Beg pardin, captin. But I have an uneo drouth, let us stop at this 'shebeen,' as the Irish folk call it, and have a drappie of bunchtoddy, eh? you ken what our poet sings,

'But bring a Scotchman from his hill,
Clap in his cheek a Highland gill,
Say, sic is royal George's will.

An there's the foe,

He has nae thought but how to kill Twa at a blow.'"

"Well," said Mytton," I do not mind a small drop of whiskey; I am rather cold, and it is such a bore this work."

"Thunder and turf,' as the Irish say; I agree with you," replied the sheriff, as they drank their whisky.

"And sure, then," observed one of Macgregor's deputies, when the detachment was once more in motion; "if he preached what he practised he would give us poor devils a drop. Didn't I hear him hold forth at Manchester as how we were all brethren, all equal, all men?"

"Your govenour, I suppose. Oh, I could well believe it, the d-n hypocrite," observed a dragoon, who had been everything, from a methodist parson to a pickpocket, "but a day of reckoning is at hand."

"And sure we all know that; it's the day Dan O'Connell brings in repeal," said the Paddy.

"My friend! I speak not of terrestrial, but of celestial matters. I speak of that time when those who have received much, of them much will be required," said the dragoon, with emphasis.

"Well, and sure isn't that the day when we get repeal? Hasn't O'Connell got much? God help ye! two and threepence of mine last Palm Sunday; and, by dads! shan't we require much of him? He requires a tithe of our wages-but, mi boy, when Parliament sits in College Green then we shall be repaid, cent. per cent."

"But I am afraid the cent. per cent., like my promotion, will be a long time coming," answered private Lomax. "My only hope is Mister O'Connell will introduce equality; let us have a Commonwealth, it is the only principle to find favor with the masses. Let us divide the funds of the aristocracy. You know

"Princes or peers may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can take as a breath has made;
But a noble peasantry-

That is the new name we will agitate under. Was not Adam our common father? Why should the aristocracy be rich? I do not see it laid down in the Bible to be the case. Look at my profession; the soldier gets drunk by day, the officer by night-what is the upshot? Why, the soldier sleeps on the floor of the mill, I beg your pardon, the guard room's trestle, the officer on his feather bed

but halt!

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-we're on dangerous ground,
Who knows how the fashions may alter?
The doctrine to-day, that is loyalty's sound,
To-morrow may bring us a halter."

"Come you, Mr. Lomax," said Sergeantmajor Fieldday, riding up; "if you don't sit steadier on your house, I will give you a taste of awkward drill when we get back to barracks."

"Will it rain whisky," inquired Tom Shrub, "when you get repeal?"

"Be dads, and it will," replied Paddy. "Then hurrah for repeal! I'll be any thing for a glass of whisky, except a coward to my country, or a traitor to my Queen," said Shrub.

"Do you hear?" cried Sergeant Fieldday, 66 press down your heel, Lomax; feel up your horse, Shrub or awkward drill."

When the party approached the mansion of Sir Richard Macginnis, everything pertaining to it had the stamp of poverty and blunted exertion plainly marked. The old iron gates creaked and groaned on their rusty hinges; the woodbine and ivy were allowed to throw their unrestrained tendrils over the dilapidated lodge, while the pig shared the inside of the cottage with a dirty slatternly woman, and some half-dozen children of the same clique; while the hens were grubbing their restingplaces among the uncultivated flower-plats.

| A kind and beneficent nature had this autumn poured forth her gifts with a liberal hand, and as Sir Richard generally received his rents in kind, many a portly stack stood forth in the staggarth, and many a turkey or fat pig gobbled up the stray ears of wheat that lay scattered in all directions. Mr. Macgregor had already appropriated in his mind, a fine fat turkey for his next Sunday's dinner, and compressed his lips at the bare idea of the juicy bird.

While the sheriff and the soldiers were defiling up the avenue, Sir Richard was engaged in levelling a rising knoll of the park.

"Be gorha, Sir Richard!" shouted a shoeless, sockless lad; "here's the military, yer honor, here master, ein sidour-dou-ah! ah! fithche, ah! buidhean-ein maor-Oh! Sir Richard, we shall be kilt."

You are right, my boy, the soldiers are here; run, you young devil's spawn, run to the bog, tell the men to come down with the carts and take the farm-yard away to Conmaherra Mountain-run, you devil."

Ah, your honor, and I will, and itsnt Pat that won't have sixty men from Barrymacrowdy Bog. Bad cess to the blackguards. Yes, Mr. Macgregor, it's queer to me if you die in your bed."

"Ah! the top of the morning to you, Jack, my boy," said Macginnis, welcoming Mytton at the front door; "marching order, eh?"

"Why, no-not exactly. No-Mr. Mr. this man-General, got the-orders," replied Mytton, very much abashed.

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Yes, sir, I am the cause. 1, sir, Sandy Macgregor, sheriff, late of Glasgow, but now of Clonmel,-the suit of one Mahali Solomons, a member of the Hebrew persuasion8007., to speak in round numbers, due the 15th of last month."

"Oh, Solomon's bill; well, sir, I am happy to have it in my power to settle it, so if you will leave the soldiers there, and walk into my study, I will pay you in Bank of Ireland notes. As for you, Mytton, old boy, a ride over our hills will have given you an appetite for breakfast; you will find Lady Macginnis in the dining-room."

"Sir, I do not think it the strategy of a general to leave the soldiers in the rear," said Macgregor, not at all relishing the idea of walking into the lion's jaws alone.

"Oh, hang your strategy and soldiers, I am for breakfast," replied Mytton, delighted at the termination of his duty; "go and get the money and join me in the breakfast-room; let the men dismount, Sergeant Fieldday and you can piquet the horses here until I come.

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"Let us go into the drawing-room," said Lady Macginnis, after the breakfast was over, to Mytton, "I have got some new music from an English opera-The Bohemian Girl' it came out last season at Drury Lane."

"Oh, delightful!" said Mytton. Lady Macginnis sat down to her pianoforte and sang some beautiful airs from that sweet opera, and, hacknied though they be now, still they bear with them that freshness and plaintiveness that must make them popular in all seasons and in all ages. She then changed her theme to one of the song-loving Italy, or broke out into a wild chanson of her own native Isle.

Mytton was in the seventh heaven as he drank in the silvery tones of the fair songstress. "Could I but command my wishes it would be," exclaimed he, to be sent upon a like duty every day."

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Are you sure of that?" said Lady Macginnis, with a meaning smile.

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Sure? Did you ask me such a question?" said Jack, his heart beating against his side. "Yes, Lady Macginnis, I AM sure."

"Ah! but we poor ladies know what your officers are. However, I suppose you have heard Lord de Grey has resigned the viceroyalty?"

Mytton heartily wished the vice-royalty at the bottom of the waves; he wished to resume the subject of love.

"You must really see my new garden, Mr. Mytton; so if you will remain here until I join you, I will show it to you; I only want to put a shawl and my cottage bonnet on-here is the New Monthly or the Globe to amuse you until my return," said Lady Macginnis.

Mytton turned the matter over in his own mind; he had made an impression, there was no doubt; he looked down the lace of his trousers, and brushed up his hair and came to the conclusion he was a much better looking man than he had ever thought himself before. Lady Macginnis was in love with him; on that point there was not a shadow of a doubt, in his opinion, but would she show it, or must he make the first advances, as Hamlet says, "Ay, there's the rub."

"Now to business," said Sir Richard to the sheriff, taking down a deal box.

"What's that for?" said Macgregor. "Simply to aid our business," said Sir Richard, unlocking the box, and producing a pair of pistols.

"Now listen to me, sir."

"I will," said the sheriff, in abject tones. "These pistols alone, or nearly so, remain to me of a once fine fortune, now, alas! gorged

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by those land cormorants-Jews and bill-brokers. Not satisfied is Solomons with making me pay cent. per cent., not satisfied with pillaging my property, not satisfied with insulting me, but to crown all, he sends a reptile like you to seize the subsistence of the next six months, backed as you are by soldiers. Sir! know then, by my own recklessness, by putting my faith in men I believed to be my friends, | that has brought me to my present crisis, but not by dishonesty or fraud-my tenantry now owe me far, far beyond the amount of the bill you hold, but would I turn them from their hearths and homes, for their children to beg their bread or become meet subjects for the hulks? however-enough, here you sit until released by my orders-you shall then go unmolested, unhurt, but if you stir an inch it is at your peril. Moffat," he exclaimed, and a short stiff man with a bullet, bulldog head, entered, Guard Mr. Macgregor; should he attempt to stir, give him-"

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"A cold pill," growled Moffat, eyeing him under his shaggy eyebrows.

"Oh, Sir Richard! for pity's sake, leave me not with that-that thing-I will be so quiet, mon. I won't stir limb or leg. I

won't-"

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Won't do what?" inquired Sir Richard. Won't say what I was going to say." "Well, Sir Richard," replied the sheriff, after a pause, 66 suppose that velveteen gentle man should fancy, fancy, I say, I moved, and just popped the cold pill into me, it would be culpable homicide, indeed it would, Sir Richard. Lock the door, bind me hand and foot, do any thing, but leave me to the mercy of that thing." "Never fear," said Sir Richard, as he left the room.

And there the sheriff and keeper sat, the latter as Homer sings-—

Ωστε λέων ἐχάρη μεγάλω ἐπὶ σώματι κυρσας Εύρων ή ελαφον κεραου, ἢ ἄγριον, αἴγα,

the former, upon the tip end of his chair, pale, with perturbation and fear breaking forth at every pore.

"I think she takes a precious long time putting on that cottage bonnet and shawl," exclaimed Mytton, as he turned over the concluding page of the New Monthly. "By everything that's beautiful, half past three!! Hush! I hear breathing-a gentle tap-the lady's maid at two to one-French perhaps love is the soul of a strapping dragoon-so I shall just take one kiss," and he stole on tiptoe to the door, opened it, and bosh and clash he went headlong into the hall, over the pros trate body of Sandy Macgregor!

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