tions, tied in bundles, like fasces. The keeper of the treasury added to his own magnificence by the ostentatious display of his service; the blow-pan, boxes, scales and weights, were of solid gold.

"A delay of some minutes, while we severally approached to receive the king's hand, afforded us a thorough view of him his deportment first excited my attention; native dignity in princes we are pleased to call barbarous was a curious spectacle: his manners were majestic, yet courteous; and he did not allow his surprise to beguile him for a moment of the composure of the monarch: he appeared to be about thirty-eight years of age, inclined to corpulence, and of a benevolent countenance: he wore a fillet of aggry beads round his temples, a necklace of gold cockspur shells strung by their largest ends, and over his right shoulder a red silk cord, suspending three saphies cased in gold: his bracelets were the richest mixtures of beads and gold, and his fingers covered with rings: his cloth was of a dark green silk; a pointed diadem was elegantly painted in white on his forehead; also a pattern resembling an epaulette on each shoulder, and an ornament like a fullblown rose, one leaf rising above another until it covered his whole breast: his knee-bands were of aggry beads, and his ancle-strings of gold ornaments of the most delicate workmanship, small drums, sankos, stools, swords, guns, and birds, clustered together: his sandals, of a soft white leather, were embossed across the instep-band with small gold and silver cases of saphies: he was seated in a low chair, richly ornamented with gold: he wore a pair of gold castanets on his finger and thumb, which he clapped to enforce silence. The belts of the guards behind his chair were cased in gold, and covered with small jaw-bones of the same metal: the elephants' tails, waving like a small cloud before him, were spangled with gold, and large plumes of feathers were flourished

amid them. His eunuch presided over these attendants, wearing only one massy piece of gold about his neck: the royal stool, entirely cased in gold, was displayed under a splendid umbrella, with drums, sankos, horns, and various musical instruments, cased in gold, about the thickness of cartridge-paper; large circles of gold hung by scarlet cloth from the swords of state, the sheaths as well as the handles of which were also cased; hatchets of the same were intermixed with them: the breasts of the Ocrahs, and various attendants, were adorned with large stars, stools, crescents, and gossamer wings, of solid gold."

“Shall we call a people, in the enjoyment of such wealth and splendour, barbarians ?” added Egeria, laying down the book," what then shall we say of those who are living in the midst of the wretchedness of Ireland? Look at Miss Edgeworth's description of an Irish cottage; you will find it at the 94th page of the first volume of her Fashionable Tales."

"It was a wretched-looking, low, mud-walled cabin. At one end it was propped by a buttress of loose stones, upon which stood a goat reared on his hind-legs, to browse on the grass that grew on the house-top. A dunghill was before the only window, at the other end of the house; and close to the door was a puddle of the dirtiest of dirty water, in which ducks were dabbling. At my approach, there came out of the cabin a pig, a calf, a lamb, a kid, and two geese, all with their legs tied, followed by cocks, hens, chickens, a dog, a cat, a kitten, a beggar-man, a beggar-woman with a pipe in her mouth; children innumerable, and a stout girl with a pitchfork in her hand; altogether more than I, looking down upon the roof as I sat on horseback, and measuring the superficies with my eye, could have possibly

supposed the mansion capable of containing. I asked if Ellinor O'Donoghoe was at home? but the dog barked, the geese cackled, the turkeys gobbled, and the beggars begged, with one accord so loudly, that there was no chance of my being heard. When the girl had at last succeeded in appeasing them all with her pitchfork, she answered, that Ellinor O'Donoghoe was at home, but that she was out with the potatoes; and she ran to fetch her, after calling to the boys, who were within in the room smoking, to come out to his honour. As soon as they had crouched under the door, and were able to stand upright, they welcomed me with a very good grace, and were proud to see me in the kingdom. I asked if they were all Ellinor's sons. 'All entirely,' was the first answer. 'Not one but one,' was the second answer. The third made the other two intelligible. Plase your honour, we are all her sons-in-law, except myself, who am her lawful son.' 'Then my foster-brother?' No, plase your honour; it's not me, but my brother, and he's not in it.' Not in it?' No, plase your honour; because he's in the forge up above. Sure he's the blacksmith, my lard.' And what are you?' 'I'm Ody, plase your honour;' the short for Owen,"

you are

CHAP. IV.

DRAMATIC POETRY.

"No department of English poetry," said Egeria, one evening after tea, on taking up a volume of Ben Jonson's works, "no department of English poetry is more rich in beautiful passages than the dramatic, and none of which the riches are so little known.

"The speech of Petreius in THE CATILINE of this author, I have always thought one of the most magnificent passages in the whole compass of English literature,-listen."

"Petreius. The straits and needs of Catiline being such, As he must fight with one of the two armies That then had near enclosed him, it pleased fate To make us th' object of his desperate choice, Wherein the danger almost poised the honour: And, as he rose, the day grew black with him, And fate descended nearer to the earth, As if she meant to hide the name of things Under her wings, and make the world her quarry. At this we roused, lest one small minute's stay Had left it to be inquired what Rome was; And (as we ought) arm'd in the confidence Of our great cause, in form of battle stood, Whilst Catiline came on, not with the face Of any man, but of a public ruin : His countenance was a civil war itself; And all his host had, standing in their looks, The paleness of the death that was to come; Yet cried they out like vultures, and urged on, As if they would precipitate our fates. Nor stay'd we longer for 'em, but himself Struck the first stroke, and with it fled a life, Which out, it seem'd a narrow neck of land Had broke between two mighty seas, and either Flow'd into other; for so did the slaughter; And whirl'd about, as when two violent tides Meet and not yield. The furies stood on hills, Circling the place, and trembling to see men Do more than they; whilst piety left the field, Grieved for that side, that in so bad a cause They knew not what a crime their valour was.

The sun stood still, and was, behind a cloud
The battle made, seen sweating, to drive up

His frighted horse, whom still the noise drove backward:
And now had fierce Enyo, like a flame,

Consumed all it could reach, and then itself,
Had not the fortune of the commonwealth
Come, Pallas-like, to every Roman thought;
Which Catiline seeing, and that now his troops

Cover'd the earth they 'ad fought on with their trunks,

Ambitious of great fame to crown his ill,

Collected all his fury, and ran in

(Arm'd with a glory high as his despair) Into our battle, like a Libyan lion

Upon his hunters, scornful of our weapons,

Careless of wounds, plucking down lives about him,
Till he had circled-in himself with death:

Then fell he too, t' embrace it where it lay.
And as in that rebellion 'gainst the gods,
Minerva holding forth Medusa's head,
One of the giant brethren felt himself
Grow marble at the killing sight; and now,
Almost made stone, began to inquire what flint,
What rock, it was that crept through all his limbs ;
And, ere he could think more, was that he fear'd:
So Catiline, at the sight of Rome in us,

Became his tomb; yet did his look retain

Some of his fierceness, and his hands still moved,
As if he labour'd yet to grasp the state
With those rebellious parts.

Cato. A brave bad death!

Had this been honest now, and for his country,
As 'twas against it, who had e'er fall'n greater ?"

"It is very fine," said Benedict; "but, after all, my love, I should not much like to see many of the old dramatists, even with all their merits, restored to