O, a pit of clay for to be made Ham. I think it be thine, indeed, for thou liest in't. Gra. You lie out on't, Sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine. Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine; 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest. Gra. 'Tis a quick lie, Sir; 'twill away again, from me to you. Ham. What man dost thou dig it for? Gra. For no man, Sir. Ham. What woman then? Gra. For none neither. Ham. Who is to be buried in't. Gra. One, that was a woman, Sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead. Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker? Gra. Of all the days i'the year, I cam to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Ham. How long's that since ? Gra. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born: he that is mad, and sent into England. Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England. Gra. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there : : or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there. Ham. Why? Gra. "Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he. Ham. How came he mad? Gra. Very strangely, they say. Ham. How strangely? Gra. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground? Gra. Why, here in Denmark; I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years. Ham. How long will a man lie i'the earth ere he rot. Gra. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some eight year, or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year. Ham. Why he more than another? Gra. Why, Sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a scull now hath lain you i'the earth, three-and-twenty years. Ham. Whose was it. Gra. A whoreson mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it was? Ham. Nay, I know not. Gra. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same scull, Sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester. Ham. This ? Gra. E'en that. Ham. Alas! poor Yorick !—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips, that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment? that were wont to set a table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Pr'ythee Horatio, tell me one thing. Hor. What's that, my lord? Ham. Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fasion i' the earth? Hor. E'en so. Ham. And smelt so ? pah! Hor. E'en so, my lord. Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung hole. Hor. "Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so. Ham. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: As thus ; Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returned to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; And why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel ? Imperious Cæsar dead, and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: Oh! that the earth, which kept the world in awe, U My mother often sits at work, The very maids about the house, Once only, when the flue took fire, Young Mr. Long came kindly in, I am not old, I am not plain, But even beauty has no chance, At Number Six, they say Miss Rose And Cupid for her sake has been The Imp they show with bended bow, But if he had he'd never deign To shoot at Number One. It's very hard, and so it is, And here's a ballad-singer come, O take away your foolish song, PADDY AND THE BEAR. ABOUT the time I was a boy, Archy Thompson lived in Cushendall, lower part of the county Antrim. He was a great man; kept a grocer's shop, was like Jack Factotum,-sold every thing portable; he was a ponderous fellow, wore a wig like a beehive, and was called king of Cushendall. He one night found a male child at the shop door some months old; he embraced it-swore he would keep it, and was as fond of him as ever Squire Allworthy was of Tom Jones. A woman was sent for to nurse him; they called her Snouter Shaughnessy, because she wanted the nose.-Snouter had no suck, and poor Paddy (for so he was christened) was spoon-fed, and soon grew a stout, well-built fellow and to show his gratitude, (for Paddy had a heart) would do all about the house himself. He was like Scrub in the Beaux Stratagem, servant of all work; he milked the cow, he dunged the byre, and thatched it; he went to market; he soled the shoes; he cleaned the knives; he shaved; and powdered his master's wig, which, after being drenched in a journey, he would put a poker in the fire, and change it from its state of flaccidity to its pristine form, as well as Charley Boyand, or ever a peruke maker among them. Paddy's delight was in frequenting wakes, listening with avidity to any thing marvellous. His master being at Belfast, he went to old Brien Sollaghan's wake, where a lad just from a foreign voyage was telling stories out of the course of nature, improbable. Paddy believed all but something about blackamoors, he was relating; for he swore "'twas impossible for one man to be black and another man white, for he could not be naturally black without he was painted; but I'll ask the master in the morning, when he comes home, and then I'll know all about it." So he says in the morning, "Master, is there any such thing as a blackamoor?" "To be sure there is, as many as would make regiments of them, but they're all abroad." "And what makes them black?" Why it's the climate, they say." "And what's the climate ?" "Why I don't know: I believe it's something they rub upon them when they're very young." 66 But They must have a deal of it, and very cheap, if there's as many of them as you say.-The next time you're in Belfast, I wish you'd get a piece of it, and we'll rub little Barney over with it, and then we can have a blackamoor of our own. as I'm going in the Irish Volunteer, from Larne to America, in the spring, I'll see them there." Paddy went over as a redemptioner, and had to serve a time for his passage. He was |