did not allow the present occasion to pass. The attorney for the prosecution had heard that Mary was very fond of her pipe. Pah! she did not wish this to be known; and when the gentleman of quibbles asked her where her pipe was, she answered, with a laconic sneer, In my throat, Sir.' Now, your lawyers, fond as they are of fun, do not like witty answers. Like a snail, which, if you let it alone, will march on gaily with horns exalted, but touch it, and the animal shrinks back into itself; so it is with your wig-and-gown men: a clodhopper's answers often silence their town-bred loquacity. Well, though he failed in making Mary smoke, he was true to his profession, and at her again. Knowing that she had scratched Kitty's face, he desired her to show her nails. I must first go up street, Sir,' said she, and buy a pen'orth.' In short, to conclude, old Mary, and young Mary, and Rosy, and Cicily, and Ann were fined and confined.

"And now, like a good preacher, I shall end with some practical advice. And, firstly, my fair countrywomen, O! pray avoid passion, and curb rage. Anger changes the face of an angel to that

of a fury. 'O'erstep not the modesty of nature,’ and we must love you. Secondly, my kind neighbours, recollect that—' quarrel not about trifles' is a good maxim, but 'quarrel not at all' is a better. 'Charity suffereth long, and is kind.' Thirdly, may the expense, trouble, and loss of time, which the death of Mary's hen cost both parties, be a warning to all, that our greatest misfortunes originate generally in trifles. O, remember that it is easier to extinguish a spark than to quench a blaze! And, lastly and finally, may it be long in this happy part of unhappy Ireland, before we have to record a more heinous murder than that of Mary's hen!"

No. XXIII.

THE ALARM.

Whiskey, at ev'ry pause, the feast did crown;

Now, by the Powers! the fun was never slack;
The O's and Macs were frisky as the clown;

For, still the burden (growing now a hack)

Was, Hubbaboo, dear joys! and Didderoo! and Whack!

COLMAN.

"EVERY one has heard of the agitated state of the public mind in Ireland for some time past. The year 1825 was expected to be ushered in, and to be rendered memorable, by revolutions in art and nature. According to Pastorini's prophecies, the Roman Catholics are to accomplish all their objects in this year; and, as one of those objects is maintained by the Orange Societies to be a general massacre of Protestants, the weak and credulous of that class have been on the tiptoe of

expectation. The public are in possession of the documents published by the Roman Catholics of Carlingford on this interesting subject; and I feel that it is unnecessary for me to do more than allude to them in confirmation of what I assert. It does not signify how absurd opinion may be: if it be reiterated and bandied about, it grows, gains strength, and, like a nut-shell hurled down a mountain of snow, by rolling becomes formidable, and at length destroys every thing it meets. I shall venture to illustrate the present irritability of Irish feeling by an anecdote, the public part of which has made a considerable noise in the newspapers, but the secret cause of all the alarm which was created on the occasion was known only to a select few. I relate the facts with the more satisfaction, as they supply me with incidents for one of those little stories, with which I have endeavoured to interest the reader.

"Who has not heard of the hospitality of the land of potatoes? Who does not believe that our Emerald Isle is as well entitled to be called the Land of Whiskey? It happened, on one of the fine evenings in the heart-opening month of Janu