No. 60.]

FOLLY.

WHY is it that all the world are so bitter against fools? They are the great staple of the creation, and they are the work of God-" as well as better men." Of the mass of mankind, the larger part are fools all

over.

Folly is the rule of Nature, and wisdom but the exception; and to complain of it is to "complain you are a man." The outcry against folly is a mere rebellion against heaven. It shows an utter want of self-knowledge, or a contemptible affectation. In one word, it is no better than sheer cant, and ought, like all other cant, to be put down by general acclamation. Providence makes nothing in vain; and the bare fact of this multiplicity of fools should lead, by the shortest route, to a conviction that they are a very useful, and therefore a very respectable class of personages. The exclusive end of all government is but a sort of game law to keep fools (under the pretext of protecting them from the inroads of unlicensed knaves) in a preserve for the battus of the regular sportsmen. A community of sheer rogues would destroy itself, like two millstones moving without the intervention of a material to be ground. A nation of fools would be devoured by their neighbours; but a society compounded of the two, with a proper intermixture of those who are, in their own persons, a happy mixture of both, is admirably qualified for the maintenance of "social order, and the relations of civilized life." Folly is therefore the ultimate cause of all that is brilliant and elevated in social polity. Without fools, we should have neither kings, nor bishops, nor judges, nor generals, nor police magistrates, nor constables: or, at least, if such things existed, they would be constituted so differently from those which at present bear the name, that they would no longer be worthy of it. They would be stripped of all the sublime and beautiful in which they now rejoice; and the polished Corinthian capital would be divested of the better part of its gilding and ornament. There would be no sinecures, no pensions, no reversionary grants, no proconsular colonies, and no close boroughs to claim them; nothing, in short, to distinguish men from the beasts of the field. This is the very touchstone of political science; and yet men go on abusing the blockheads and dolts, as if they were a superfluity in nature, and a let and an hindrance to the public at large. But the matter does not stop here. Banish folly from the intellectual complex, and the major part even of the honester callings must cease and be abandoned. The world would become little better than one vast tub of Diogenes, and its population would be as unaccommodated and as idle as the people of Ireland. If the simple desire of fencing out the inclemency of the elements alone presided over the choice of our habiliments, and nothing were granted to folly and ostentation, what would become of the tailor, and the mantua-maker? No. LX. VOL. V.

[VOL. 5.

It is folly and vanity that render these trades a means of genteel livelihood to so many worthy citizens; and without them the Stultzes and the Herbots would pine in the same hopeless obscurity as the vilest country botch. How little of the twenty yards of silk which my wife assures me is indispensable to the building of a decent evening dress, belong to wisdom and propriety; and how much is dedicated, under the names of gigots, volans à dent, ruches, and furbelos, to the service of folly! How little of the stupendous and complicated piece of architecture, called a bonnet, depends upon the capacity of the head which bears it. The helmet of the Castle of Otranto is but a type of its marvellous disproportion. Like the interior of St. Peter's, at Rome, the first aspect of it overwhelms the spectator with a deep sense of awe, and impresses him with as full a conviction, as death itself, of the microcosm of man.

With respect to the other great essential of life, the eating and the drinking, folly is no less predominant. I speak not of salmis and fricandeaux, and of the other essentials of a good table, but of those numerous inventions for pleasing the eye at the expense of the stomach -the temples, the flowers, the figures, the carmels, and, above all, of that giant abuse, the plateau, whose ponderous and massive vastness feeds nothing but the pride and vanity of the ostentatious owner. Of the hundreds of articles which go to the set-out of a formal dinnertable, and which occupy the entire morning of a butler and a pantry-boy to display, how few, how very few administer to the real comfort of the meal! Yet, were these not in demand, a host of industrious persons would be thrown out of employment. Then again it would be a sore day for the tobacconists, if mankind were given only to the essentials of a cigar, a pinch of blackguard, or a quid of pigtail. Drive out Folly, with her fifty guinea meerschaum, her highly ornamented mull, her cherry sticks, and her ruinously extravagant hookah, and the poor tradesmen would starve. The kindred shop of the perfumer affords another illustratiou of the same verity. It is not the Windsor soap and the toothbrush that enable the shopheeper to drive his curricle and to sport his villa. These he owes to the essences, the atars, the scents, and the cosmetics, which are dedicated to the service of Folly, together with the gold and silver nécessaires that are any thing but necessary to the beaux, who cannot travel a step without them. But it would be ungenerous to push this matter farther. That reader must be far beyond the average folly, which is the subject of this paper, who cannot draw a general conclusion from the foregoing particulars, and satisfy himself that commerce would cease with the existence of fools; and consequently that they are of the last necessity to that complex, which is the pride, boast, and prosperity of the summary of all perfection, the model of all civilization, the type of all morality-Old England. The utility of fools in the various departments of literature is a mystery

XII.

of a more recondite nature. You, however, know, Mr. Editor, and so do Messrs. Colburn and Murray, that they are the best customers of the trade. Without fools there would be no watering-places, and without wateringplaces,, there would be no circulating libraries worth mentioning; without circulating libraries there would be no fashionable novels, no light poetry, no squibs, no autobiography, and (tell it not in Gath) no reviews and magazines; and without all these there would be no authors and booksellers-miserable sorites! The handsomest and the best books (in the bookseller's sense of the word) are got up exclusively for fools. Without the aid of fools, both as the purchasers, and as authors too, there would be no embroiling of the sciences, no factions in literature, no party politics, no angry polemics, no Kantism, no animal magnetism, no phrenology, no eternal disputes on corn and currency; the paper-makers might stop their mill-wheels, and the pressmen be placed under the command of a lieutenant of the navy. Without foolish authors criticism would perish for want of its proper pabulum, or at most a blue and yellow octavo would be called for once or so in a century. Without fools the journalists would be no less distressed. There would be no leading articles, no exciting slanders, no slang descriptions of the beastly chivalry of the prize ring, no lengthy columns of captivating swindlers and interesting cut-throats; no canting narrations of fetes, nor servile sycophantic pratings of the whereabouts of royal infants, of boating-parties, ponychaises, of lords in waiting, and "ladies of the domestic circle," and, worst of all, there would be no advertisements, no poetic advocacy of white champagne and black polish, no surgical moralizing concerning "the morning of life and the delusions of passion," no invitations to single ladies of decent competence to marry felons, no notices of tradesmen leaving off business, or of savings of full fifty per cent. in the purchase of calicoes. This multiplicity of advertisements proves to demonstration that the English are the greatest fools under the sun; and are they not the most prosperous of people, the envy of surrounding nations, and the admiration of the entire world?

What more would you have? An adequate supply of fools, moreover, is highly important in a political sense, as the raw materials of standing armies so urgently necessary to society as the first elements of modern government. Poverty and gin, indeed, might go far in raising the necessary contingent of common soldiers, to be shot at and knocked on the head at sixpence per diem. But it would be difficult, I think, to persuade wise men of princely fortunes to forego their ease and independence and risk their capital in commissions and often-changed accoutrements, for the mere pleasure of strutting about in laced clothes and fur caps, like our sucking cornets and ensigns. The multiplicity of fools, too, is the joyful occasion of the present flourishing condition of the practice of physic. To the folly of mankind, medicine is indebted, at once, for half the diseases on which it operates, and for the fame of its principal remedies. A well-stored apothecary's shop is a standing monument of human credulity and imbecility. In law, likewise— but why mention law? Its luxuries are too expensive for ordinary indulgence; and, after all, it is only the very greatest of fools that voluntarily rush into its labyrinths it is the rogue who usually commences litigation. Besides, law is another name for gaming; and

as throwing dice is the gayest mode of trusting to chance, it will probably soon supersede the law altogether. In politics, the utility of fools is unbounded; without their aid, the town would have lost the very amusing divertisement of the Brunswick Clubs, which may be considered as so many assemblages of that class of Britons who have the lowest preteneions to go at large without a keeper. Without their aid, we should have missed the very stultified correspondence of the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Kenyon, which, in addition to its political merits, has the singular advantage of affording a psychological experiment on the hitherto latent potentiality of bumps and depressions in sounding the depths of nonsense and absurdity. Without their aid, likewise, the world would never have known the true secret of Orangeism. But why enlarge on this subject? Twenty folio volumes would not exhaust it. Nay, are the Statutes at Large any thing else than one vast text-book on the political utility of fools?

Considering the boundless advantages of folly, and the corresponding bounty of Providence in keeping up the stock of fools, it may readily be presupposed that their condition is by no means without its comforts; and the fact corresponds with the presumption. There is no one in life so thoroughly self-satisfied as your thorough fool.

It is then a most merciful dispensation of Providence that multiplies fools, and confines within the narrowest limits those who must either burst with indignation at triumphant villany, or pine into atrophy at the aspect of human misery. The upholding of folly is therefore in itself a virtue, as the denouncing it is a treason against Nature, and a sedition against the State. He who despises a Lord Chamberlain cannot love his King; and he who jests at a Bishop's wig is on the high-road to atheism. To disdain pedantry, is almost as wicked as to subscribe to the London University; and to laugh at Sir Thomas Lethbridge, is to level yourself with the Cato-street conspirators. The superiority of folly is observable in the fact, that the greatest geniuses are glad to take occasional refuge in fooling.

He who would get on in the world, must sedulously hide from it his superiority. The man of merit, who makes too open a display of his abilities, is distrusted and hated. He must be dissatisfied, and therefore is dangerous. It is not the dull and the silly who breed revolutions, but that sect, hated of gods and men, the philosophers. Their knowledge is disaffection, and their science infidelity. Had there been no geniuses in France, the world would not have groaned under the oppression of a Buonaparte, and that nation would have enjoyed to all eternity the mild, benignant, and paternal sway of the Bourbons. It is not then wonderful that the wisest governments lay themselves so deliberately out for captivating the good graces of fools. For their benefit, the most expensive ceremonies are instituted; for them, fasts are proclaimed, and kings' speeches laboriously conned by heart, Anti-jacobin and Quarterly Reviews written, ribbons and medals multiplied, and State-trumpeters hired; for their especial amusement, robes and jewels are called into play, and maces surcharged with the very best double gilding. If none but clever persons were to be consulted, there would be no occasion for late debates, tedious explanations of ministerial squabbles, annual budgets, or even for the very expensive farce of Parliamantary votes. The sic volo

sic jubeo of a Wellington would answer all the purposes, as it does of that other fool-tray, a responsible Cabinet. What, indeed, is diplomacy itself, and the whole code of international law, but a deferential sacrifice to the folly of mankind. This consideration contains the philosophy of Oxenstiern's celebrated axiom, and satisfactorily explains why fools in general make the best ministers. They sympathise with the public for whom they act, and the public sympathises with them; and they instinctively hit upon the measures which are suited to the intellectual calibre of the majority. They never, by the brillancy of their conceptions, disturb the settled order of things, nor, by putting mankind upon thinking, disturb their digestion, and force them upon the most disagreeable of the functions of life. James, the most foolish of all possible kings, maintained his empire in peace for a long series of years, and laid the foundation of that national development which placed England among the first class of nations, or rather put it at the head of European civilization: whereas the clever rogues, the Fredericks, the Louis the Fourteenths, the Francises, and the Charles the Fifths, imbrued their hands incessantly in the blood ef their fellow-creatures, and made misery for their subjects. If then, gentle reader, you are too wise, if you are more worthy of Gotham than of Athens, set yourself down without hesitation as among the privileged order of society. Hold up your head at the highest; set yourself unblushingly in the high places; and laugh to scorn, as an honest man should do, every one who presumes on his intellectual superiority, and has the insolent pretension to think himself better, because he is wiser than his neighbours, and has got the start of the age in which he lives. Decry talents hardily; neglect genius superciliously; vote illumination a bore, and consistency a mark of the beast; and above all, as far as your interest and patronage extend, be sure to shut out from preferment all manner of persons who are so unfitted for place or distinction, as not either to be, or at least affect to be, downright fools!-Extractor.

SONG.

NAY, tell not of the charms of gold,
Nor of the Emerald's shine,

I dearer love the wild wood wreath,
You taught me once to twine;
And as around our woodbine bowers
I bind each straggling spray,

I think who'll tend our cottage flowers
When Ellen's far away,

Nor tell me of the circle bright,
'Midst which I soon shall rove,
I'd rather breathe the scented air
Of yonder laurel grove;
Ah-mother! often shall I weep
Beneath the moon's pale ray,
To think lone vigils thou must keep,
When Ellen's far away.

The paths where I was wont to roam,
The streamlet-mountain tree-

The lambs which used to trace my steps,
Are all belov'd by me;

Yet deeper grief than leaving these

Dear joys of childhood's day,

Is leaving thee,-no one may please,
When Ellen's far away.

THE FIGHT OF HELLKETTLE. BY TYRONE POWER.

NEVER let it be said that the days of chivalry are fled; heralds may have ceased to record good blows stricken, to the tune of "a largesse worthie knights" -pennon aud banner, square and swallow-tail'd, sleeve and scarf, with all the trumpery of chivalry, are long since dead, 'tis true; but the lofty, generous feeling with which that term has become synonymous, is yet burning clear and bright within ten thousand bosoms, not one of which ever throbbed at the recollection the word itself inspires in "gentil heartes,' or could tell the difference between or and gules, or vert and sable, as the following narration of a combat between two churles," or "villains,” as the herald would term my worthies, will, I trust, go nigh to prove.

It was the fair-night at Donard, a small village in the very heart of the mountains of Wicklow, when, at the turn of a corner leading out of the Dunlavin road, towards the middle of the fair, two ancient foemen abruptly encountered. They eyed one another for a moment, without moving a step, when the youngest, a huge six-foot mountaineer, in a long top-coat, having his shirt open from breast to ear, displaying, on the least movement, a brawny chest, that was hairy enough for trunk, growing rather impatient, said in a quick under-tone, that a listener would have set down for the extreme of politeness.

"You'll lave the wall, Johnny Evans?"

To which civil request came reply, in a tone equally bland,

"Not at your biddin', if you stand where you are till next fair-day, Mat Dolan."

"You know well I could fling you, neck and heels, into that gutter, in one minute, Johnny, mo bouchil." "You might, indeed, if you called up twenty of the Dunlavin faction at your back," coolly replied Evans.

"I mane, here's the two empty hands could do all that, and never ax help, ather," retorted Dolan, thrusting forth two huge paws from under his coat.

"In the name o' heaven, thin, thry it," said Evans, flinging the alpeen, he had up to this time been balancing curiously, over the roof of the cottage by which they stood; adding, "here's a pair of fists, with as little in them as your own!"

"It's aisy to brag by your own barn, Johnny Evans," said Dolan, pointing with a sneer to the police guardhouse, on the opposite side of the way, a hundred yards lower down; "the peelers would be likely to look on, and see a black orangeman, like yourself, quilted in his own town, under their noses, by one Mat Dolan, from Dunlavin, all the way!"

"There's raison in that, any way, Matty," replied John, glancing in the direction indicated. "It's not likely thim that's paid by government to keep the pace, would stand by and see it broke, by papist or protestant; but I'll make a bargain wid you; if your blood's over hot for skin, which I think, to say the truth, it has long been-come off at onst to Hellkettle wid me, and in the light of this blessed moon, I'll fight it out wid you, toe to toe; and we'll both be the aisier after, whichever's bate."

"There's my hand to that, at a word, Johnny," cried Dolan, suiting the action to the word-and the hands of the foes clasped freely and frankly together.

66

Kape the wall," cried Dolan, as Evans stepped aside, springing himself at the same time into the road, ankle deep in mud; "I'll wait for you at the bridge, on the Holywood glin road. Good bye."

A moment after, Dolan had cleared the hedge leading out of the lane into Mr Faucett's paddock, and Evans was quietly plodding his way homeward. To reach his cottage, he had to run the gauntlet through the very throng of the fair, amidst crowded tents, whence resounded the ill-according sounds of the bagpipe and fiddle, and the loud whoo' of the jig dancers, as they beat with active feet the temporary floor, that rattled with their tread. Johnny made short greeting with those of his friends he encountered, and on entering his house, plucked a couple of black, business-like look. ing sticks from the chimney, hefted them carefully, and measured them together with an eye as strict as ever gallant paired a rapier with, till, satisfied with their equality, he put his top-coat over his shoulders, and departing by the back door, rapidly cleared two or three small gardens, and made at once for the fields. As Dolan dropped from the high bank into the lane near the bridge on one side, Evans leaped the gate opposite. "You've lost no time, fegs," observed Matthew, as they drew together, shoulder to shoulder, stalking rapidly on.

་

"I'd bin vexed to keep you waitin' this time, any how," replied Johnny-aud few other words passed. Just beyond the bridge, they left the road together, and mounting the course of the little stream, in a few minutes were shut out from the possibility of observance in a wild narrow glen, at whose head was a water-fall of some eighteen feet. The pool which received this little cascade was exceeding deep, and having but one narrow outlet, between two huge stones, the pent waters were forced round and round, boiling and chafing for release: and hence the not unpoetic name of Hellkettle, given to this spot. The ground immediately about it was wild, bare, and stony, and in no way derogated from this fearful title, a

Near the fall is a little platfond or level of some twenty yards square, the place designed by Evans for the battle-ground. Arrived here, the parties halted; and as Dolan stooped to raise a little of the pure stream in his hand to his lips, Evans, cast his coats and vest on the gray stone, close by, and pulling his shirt over his head, stood armed for the fight, not so heavy or so talla man as his antagonist Dolan, but wiry as a terrier, and having, in agility and training, advantages that more than balanced the difference of weight and age.

"I've been thinkin', Johnny Evans," cried Dolan, as he leisurely stripped in turn, "we must have two thries after all, to show who's the best man; you've got your alpeens wid you, I see, and I am not the boy to say no to thim, but I expect you'll ha' the best ind o' the stick, for its well known there's not your match in Wicklow, if there is any in Wexford itself.

"That day's past, Matty Dolan," replied Evans.” "It's five years since you and me first had words, at the Pattern o' the Seven-churches, and that was the last stroke I struck with a stick. There's eight years betune our ages, and you're the heavier man by two stone or near it; what more 'ud yez have, man alive ?”

“Oh, never fear me, Johnny, we'll never split about trifles," quietly replied Dolan; "but, see here, let's dress one another, as they do the potatoes, both ways. Stand fairly up to me for half a dozen rounds, first to fist, and I'll hould the alpeen till you're tired, after id.'

"Why look ye here, Matty, you worked over long on George's Quay, and were over friendly with the great boxer, Mister Donalan, for me to be able for yez wid the fists," cried Evans. "But we'll split the diffe rence; I'll give you a quarter of an hour out o' me wid the fists, and you'll give me the same time, if I'm able, with the alpeen after; and we'll toss, head or harp, which comes first."

Evans turned a copper flat on the back of his hand, as he ended his proposal, and in the same moment Dolan cried,

་་

66

V

Harp for ever."

Harp it is," echoed Evans, holding the coin up in the moon' ray, which shone out but fitfully, as dark clouds kept slowly passing over her cold face.

In the next moment they were toe to toe, in the centre of the little plain, looking determined and confident: though an amateur would have at once decided in favor of Dolan's pose,

To describe the fight scientifically would be too long an affair. Suffice it, that although Johnny's agility gave him the best of a couple of severe falls, yet his antagonist's straight hitting and superior weight left the thing hollow; till five quick rounds left Evans deaf to time and tune, and as sick as though he had swallowed a glass of antimonial wine instead of poteen.

Dolan carried his senseless foe to the pool, and dashed water over him by the hatfull.

"Look at my watch," was Johnny's first words, on gaining breath.

"I can't tell the time by watch," cried Dolan, a little sheepish.

"Give it here, man," cried Johnny, adding, as he rubbed his right eye, the other being fast closed, “by the Boyne, this is the longest quarter of an hour I ever knew it wants three minutes yet," and as he spoke, again he rose up before his man.

“Sit still, Johnny,” exclaimed Matthew; “I'll forgive you the three minutes, any how." "I wish

"Well, thank ye for that," says Johnny;

I may be able to return the compliment presently; but, by St Donagh, I've mighty little consate left in myself, just now."

Within five minutes, armed with the well-seasoned twigs Johnny had brought with him, those honest fellows again stood front to front, and although Evans had lost much of the elasticity of carriage, which had ever been his characteristic when the alpeen was in his hand and the shamrock under his foot, in times past; although his left eye was closed, and the whole of that side of his phisiognomy was swollen and disfigured through the mauling he had received at the hands of Dolan, who opposed him, to all appearance, fresh as at first, yet was his confidence in himself unshaken, and in the twinkle of his right eye a close observer might have

read a sure anticipation of the victory a contest of five minutes gave to him, for it was full that time before Johnny struck a good-will blow, and when it took effect, a second was uncalled for. The point of the stick had caught Dolan fairly on the right temple, and laying open the whole of the face down to the chin, as if done by a sabre-stroke, felled him senseless.

After some attempts at recalling his antogonist to perception by the brook-side without success, Evans began to feel a little alarmed for his life, and hoisting him on his back, retraced his steps to the village, without ever halting by the way, and bore his insensible burthen into the first house he came to, where, as the devil would have it, a sister of Dolan's was sitting, having a goster with the owner, one widow Donovan, over a “rakin' pot o' tay."

"God save all here," said Johnny, crossing the floor without ceremony, and depositing Mat on the widow's bed. "Wid'y, by your lave, let Mat Dolan lie quiet here a bit, till I run down town for the doctor."

"Dolan!" screamed the sister and the widow in a breath, "Mat, is it Mat Dolan! that's lying a corpse' here, and I, his own sister, not to know he was in trouble!"

Loud and long were the lamentations that followed this unlucky discovery. The sister rushed frantically out to the middle of the road, screaming and calling on the friends of Dolan, to revenge his murder on Evans and the orangemen that had decoyed and slain him. The words passed from lip to lip, soon reaching down to the heart of the fair, where most of the parties were about this time corned for any thing.

"Johnny Evans," cried the widow Donovan, as he

not, this is no place for you now; the whole of his faction will be up here in a minute, and you'll be killed like a dog, on the flure; out wid you, and down to the guard-house, while the coast's clear.

"I'd best, may be," cried Evans; and I'll send the doctor up the quicker-but mind, widow, if that boy ever spakes, he'll say a fairer fight was never fought -get that out of him, for the love o' heaven Mrs. Donovon."

"He has'nt a word in him, I fear," cried the widow, as Johnny left the door, and with the readiness of her sex, assisted by one or two elderly gossips, who were by this time called in, she bathed the wound with spirits, and used every device which much experience in cracked crowns, acquired during the lifetime of Willy Donovan, her departed lord, suggested to her. Meantime Evans, whilst making his way through the village, had been met, and recognised by the half-frantic sister of Dolan and her infuriated friends, who had been all for some time puzzled at the absence of him who was proverbial as

"Best stick on the flure, First stick in the fight.'

"There's the murderer of Mat Dolan, boys," cried the woman, as some ten or twelve yards off she recognised Johnny, who was conspicuous enough, wearing his shirt like a herald's tahard, as in his haste he had drawn it on at Hellkettle. With a yell that might have scared the devil, thirty athletic fellows sprang forward at full speed after Evans, who wisely never stayed to remonstrate, but made one pair of heels serve, where

the hands of Briareus, had he possessed as many, would not have availed him. He arrived at Mrs. Donovan's door before his pursuers; he raised the latch, but it gave not way-the bar was drawn within, and had his strength been equal to it, further flight was become impracticable. Turning with his hack to the door, there stood Johnny, like a lion at bay, uttering no word, since he well knew words would not prevail against the fury of his foes. Forward with wild cries and loud imprecations rushed the foremost of the pursuers, and Evans's life was not worth a moment's purchase; a dozen sticks had already clattered like hail upon his guard, and on the wall over his head, when the door suddenly opening inwards, back tumbled Johnny, and into the space he thus left vacant stepped a gaunt figure, naked to the waist, pale and marked with a stream of blood yet flowing from the temple. With wild cries the mob pressed back.

"It's a ghost! It's Dolan's ghost!" shouted twenty voices, above all of which was heard that of the presumed spirit, crying in good Irish,

"That's a lie, boys, it's Mat Dolan himself! able and willing to make a ghost of the first man that lifts a hand agin Johnny Evans; who bate me at Hellkettle like a man, and brought me here after, on his back, like a brother."

"Was it a true fight, Mat?" demanded one or two of the foremost, recovering confidence enough to approach Dolan, who, faint from the exertion he had made, was now resting his head against the door-post. A pause, and the silence of death followed. The brows of the men began to darken, as they drew close to Dolan. Evans saw his life depended on the reply of his antagonist, who already seemed lapsed into insensibility.

"Answer, Mat Dolan !" he cried, impressively, "for the love of heaven, answer me—was it a true fight?" The voice appeared to rouse the fainting man. He raised himself in the door-way, and stretched his right hand towards Evans, exclaiming,

True as the cross, by the blessed virgin!" and as he spoke, fell back into the arms of his friends.

Evans was now safe. Half a dozen of the soberest of the party escorted him down to the police-statian, where they knew he would be secure; and Dolan's friends, bearing him on a car, departed, without an attempt at riot or retaliation.

This chance took place sixteen years ago; but since that day, there never was a fair at Dunlavin that the orangeman Evans was not the guest of Dolan; nor is there a fair night at Donard that Mat Dolan does not pass under the humble roof of Johnny Evans. I give the tale as it occurred, having always looked upon it as an event creditable to the parties, both of whom are alive and well, or were a year ago; for it is little more since Evans now nigh sixty old, walked me off my legs on a day's grousing over Church-mountain, and through Oram's hole, carrying my kit into the bargain. Adieu. It will be a long day ere I forget the pool of " Hellkettle," or the angels in whose company I first stood by its bubbling brim.-Atlantic Club Book. 195.