in a pair of breeches, he is like to go mad with rage and vexation; but if, by an unlucky chance, he happens to get wind of the killing of Corney Callaghan's pig, and discovers that the spare ribs and offal, instead of being sold (with the carcase), were devoured by the family, he denounces eternal vengeance against the whole clan Callaghan, rushes home like a lunatic, turns Mrs Middleman out of doors, thrashes young Master Middleman (who is intended for the bar), and kicks his top-boot through Miss Middleman's semi-grand piano! "I never thought it would come to this," said Sophia, sorrowfully looking out on the brown bog and plashy lake that formed our drawing-room prospect in the tumble-down mansion of the Bodkins of Bodkin Bog-" I never thought it would come to this." I saw a fine opportunity of making an observation on Elizabethan architecture, and bundles of asparagus chimneys, but checked myself in time, and only observed in reply "I never thought I would come to this." "To what-mon ami?" enquired Sophy. "To be a middleman," replied I; "to subsist upon the starvation of my fellow creatures-to suck their blood -to find their competence my ruin, their misery my gain-to watch every morsel they put into their children's mouths, and see so much deducted from my rent." ""Tis terrible indeed," observed Sophia; "who can bear the spectacle of so much misery, who has a heart to feel, but not the power to relieve!" "To eject, distrain, and auction off -to bully, threaten, and cajole," continued I. "To see their wives ragged and squalid, their children naked and hungry." "Yes-and themselves, with hearts past hope, and, as a natural consequence, faces past shame." "We had better return to London," concluded Sophia, with a deep sigh. In this dilemma, Pat Connor was sent for; and that functionary, Sophy, and myself, held a council of war-or I should, with more strictness, call it a committee of ways and means. Sophia was sure the Earl of Clangallaher would reduce our head-rent; but Pat Connor assured Sophia that the Earl was a pauper, and paupers never reduce anybody's rent. Sophia then, in the generosity of her heart, declared that it was our duty to God and man to reduce our rent whether or not; but Pat Connor demonstrated, to his own' blundering satisfaction, that Bodkin had mortgaged his interest in the territory to such an extent, that the profit-stock, after paying interest of borrowed money, and the other liabilities, would leave little more than a nominal balance, and that we should not be able to live, much less reduce the rent, unless we stayed upon the land, and managed our own affairs. "Well, I do not wish to stay here," said Sophia, "when my means to do' good cannot keep pace with my inclination; and sooner than live upon the produce of such misery, I would prefer to return to London, and support myself by the labour of my own hands." Generous, kind-hearted soul! If ever I discover the philosopher's stone, you shall be mistress of an Elizabethan edifice, as magnificent as Hatfield, with bundles of asparagus chimneys, piercing the seventh heaven! To make a long story short, we stayed three weeks at Bodkin Bog, by which time Sophia had reduced herself to her last flannel petticoat, and I was left without any other clothes than those on my back. I gave a power of attorney to Pat Connor to act as my agent, on the condition of reducing the tenants' rents five-andtwenty per cent, paying the interest of the incumbrances, saving me harmless, and remunerating himself rea sonably for his time and trouble. Pat Connor had no head, but nature had compensated for the loss by giving him a little heart; he was poor, and on that account I gave him credit for being honest. "You know, Mr Connor," remarked Sophia," that for ourselves we expect nothing from this miserable place, except the pleasure of knowing that those who depend upon us shall not be completely wretched." "They're used to it, ma'am, quite used to it, I assure you," was the cool response of Mr Pat Connor. They may, sir," said my wife warmly, "but we are not-we have been accustomed to see men housed like men, fed like men, clothed like men-not housed like wolves, fed like dogs, and clothed like scarecrows! I am astonished to hear such an observation, Mr Connor." Pat Connor was a married man himself -so he quaked in his shoes! "We leave these poor people," said Sophia, with tears in her eyes, "to your generosity-to your justice." Pat Connor laughed in his sleeve justice and generosity expected from an attorney of Ballinasloe, was so devilish good, as well as new! "Would to God," exclaimed Sophia, with vehemence," that they who have the power I want, had the will I possess and that Irishmen, instead of treating lightly the distresses of their countrymen, would respect their miseries, and lend their lives to relieve them!" Pat Connor scrutinized the floor, blushed, and looked rather ashamed of himself. "Pardon me, Mr Connor, if I have said too much, or rather, if my feelings have been expressed as warmly as I feel," continued Sophia. "I know that you can do little for our poor people the distresses that press upon us press with accumulated weight upon them -the embarrassment of the landlord is the misery of the tenant; but there is one thing you can still afford-your sympathy in their distresses; there is a shelter you can always provide your protection from oppression!" Pat Connor started up, declared that if he should lose his commission altogether he would not be severe on the Bodkin Bog tenantry-that there was no resisting a lady of such noble sentiments-and that, if he could not leave Bodkin Bog better, declared, upon the honour of an attorney, which may be considered equivalent to another gentleman's oath, that he would leave it no worse! Before we finally left that part of the country, we waited upon our landlord, the Earl of Clangallaher, informing his lordship of the disappointment in our territorial expectations, of the arrangements we had made to return again to London, and our desire to be the bearers of his lordship's commands. With Lord Clangallaher I had some slight previous acquaintance, reporting his speeches in Parliament in a superior style, and occasionally troubling him for a frank; he had got wind, too, of Sophia's character in the country, which was exaggerated upon the Irish principle of a thousand pounds' worth of praise for penny worth of civility, so that three he received us very graciously, made us stay dinner, and commanded us peremptorily to remain the next day. In the countries beyond the Shannon, remaining the next day is an equivalent term for remaining as long as you like, or rather as long as you must. Accordingly we staid a fortnight with the old earl, and enjoyed a brace of the pleasantest weeks I ever killed in my life. The Earl of Clangallaher was, as I have said, a pauper; he was, morcover, a finished old Irish gentleman-the finest specimen of that noble animal-and may I never eat another Carlingford oyster if I wouldn't rather dine off a dish of flummery with a man of his stamp, than wash down turtle with turtle punch, at the board of a city alderman or East India director. Before leaving, the earl called me aside, and after some expressions complimentary to my wife and myself, regretted that, in the circumstances in which his estates were, it was utterly impossible for him to do any thing towards the augmentation of our pecuniary interest in Bodkin Bog; but observed that, if a situation in Dublin would lie in my way, he had written a pressing letter to his relative Viscount Cremona, who, in addition to other government offices, was one of the Commissioners of National Navigation, and had vast power and patronage at his disposal. " Accordingly," the earl continued, "I wished to know whether you would do me the favour to present this letter to Lord Cremona I say do me the favour, because I am satisfied his lordship will feel obliged to me for having recommended to his notice a person so well entitled in every way to notice as yourself." The unexpectedness of this favour on the part of his lordship—his bland and considerate manner, and the ingenuous turn he gave to his intention of providing for me for life, which none but a nobleman of two centuries' standing can give-laying an obligation so gracefully on your shoulders that you cannot feel its weight, or rather transferring the weight altogether from your shoulders to his own, so overwhelmed me, that if I had previously known what afterwards turned out, that the patronage of his lordship would have been the most unfortunate accident of my life, I would nevertheless have done as I did-accepted the favour with a warmth and readiness that showed I knew the kindness that prompted it, and was grateful for it. Ireland is the land of job. From the highest to the lowest, every person in the remotest degree connected with the public service is a jobber by trade. The lords lieutenant job with the supporters of their government, or rather of the government whereof they are the Polichinellos-the lords chancellor job with the swarm of seedy, needy, greedy, clamorous gentlemen of the bar, except in the case of Chancellor Hannibal, who jobs only with the fruit of his own loins-the secretary of state, his under-secretary, and the under-secretary's private secretary-as also the under-secretary's private secretary's under-secretary, job with every living soul that will job with them. As my friend Isaacs, the slopseller of Houndsditch, observes of his congenial avocation, " I vill buy you, by Gosh, and by Gosh I vill sell you all de same." The only difference between old Isaacs and the slop-sellers of Dublin Castle is, that whereas the latter traffic upon the public capital, the Jew, more honest, carries on business upon capital of his own. There is no appointment in the gift of these official jobbers which you may not hope to attain, provided you have no real or substantial qualification. There is nothing for which you may not confidently apply, providing you can prove to their satisfaction that you have not the shadow of a claim. There is no degree of social familiarity to which you may not aspire, provided you have the required number of extra joints in your back-bone. Under one vice-regal reign a civetscented coxcomb, a clerical scamp, or a captain with a turn for intrigue, will be provided for in preference to all others. One bumpkin of a secretary of state provides for a fellow who played skittles at Oxford, and another puts his bastard son into a splendid snuggery for life; but in all cases, and under all circumstances, it is expected that to gain an appointment in Ireland you must be a native of England. The better to succeed in official duties among the people, you are required to know nothing of them, and only to entertain for them the highest contempt; and the more effectually to serve the country, you are to take all you can get, and cut out of it as fast as you possibly can. From the lord lieutenant down to the bloated state-porter at the lord lieutenant's door, in the whole hive of officials-if hive that can be called which is devoid of industry and produces nothingthere is not an insect in the slightest degree identified with the people of Ireland-with their benefit in any way, past, present, and to come. They swarm round the viceroy, spectators of a pitiable puppet-show, take their salaries quarterly, and their very names are unknown save in the almanac that chronicles their places. To assist the bumpkin statesmen in the proper distribution of this patronage, each secretary of state is earwigged by a knot of sturdy beggars from the moment he arrives on the "sod," who cling to him like horseleeches, sucking through him the public money, and only dropping off to fasten upon the next bumpkin statesman in succession. You will see these fellows in the lord lieutenant's antiroom besieging his excellency; in the secretary of state's anti-room blockading the secretary of state; in the under-secretary's cooling-room, dan. cing attendance on the under-secretary, lying in ambuscade under the Castle stairs, and uncovering to every flunky who wears the vice-regal livery. No matter whether the thing to be given away be a peerage or a policeman's place, it is all the same, the vermin are instantly in motion, and the scratching incontinently begins. Such more than oriental prostration, such lick-spittling, such a congregation of rascally running dustmen you never saw in your life! If you were to enquire what public services these virtual dispensers of the patronage of Ireland had ever performed, to entitle them to select the office-holders of the nation-if you demanded whether their energies had ever been directed to noble aims or praiseworthy pursuits-if they, or any of them, were known in the remotest degree in literature or science, arms or arts, you must receive a reply in the negative-place-hunting is their trade, and prowling about the Castle of Dublin, the business of their lives; nor are you ever informed of their existence save in some scurvy rag of a newspaper that mentions their names for hire, or at the tail of some humbugging report to some humbugging commission. For the use and benefit of these men are commissions organized in perpetual succession, with the usual attendant army of civil mercenaries for their behoof are old situations revived, useless ones re-salaried, and new ones contrived-it is to them that the public money is voted, and it is through their hands the public money is invariably misapplied." Among the more eminent of the Irish undertakers of the present day, I cannot avoid making honourable mention of my intended patron Viscount Cremona, the Right Honourable Lumpkin Snake, and the Reverend Jim Crow, a trio to whom I offer my respectful compliments, entreating to believe he would object to be one of the devil's chaplains, if he could get a better living by it. The Reverend Jim Crow was not always a Whig parson-only since the Whigs came into power; he was once a Brunswicker, now he is a Radical; formerly he was an out-and-out Tory, at present he goes the entire swing as a precursor; to-day he exhibits himself at the Bible Society, and to-morrow you will find him interdicting holy writ at a national school. "Most skilful he to fawn and seek for power, hour." The man is in hot pursuit of a mitre, that's the fact; and, from what I have seen of him, of his venality, subserviency, tergiversation, and re-tergiversation, I have not the remotest doubt, although he has been cruelly disappointed once or twice, that the fellow will get it! In the externals of humanity, the Reverend Jim Crow is the double of Mr Snake-the same incapacity of looking a man straight in the face, or of holding themselves straight in the back-the same hang-dog, sinister aspect, and the same violoncello-shoulders appertain in an equal degree to both. "Hum-ha-exactly so-yes-just them to accept the assurances of my By doctrines fashion'd to the varying most distinguished consideration. As it may be useful to gentlemen applying for situations at Dublin Castle that is to say, all the gentlemen, pseudo-gentlemen, and soi-disant gentlemen in Ireland-I intend briefly to describe the characters of the Viscount Cremona, the Right Honourable Lumpkin Snake, and the Reverend Jim Crow. The character of the Viscount Cremona-if character that could be called, which character had none-was of a negative quantity: his Lordship was a good-easy, good-intentioned, good-for-nothing man, eminent only in scouring out a ditch, and great in a solo on the big fiddle. The Right Honourable Lumpkin Snake was a lineal descendant of the celebrated Mr Snake of the School for Scandal, with a strong family likeness to that respectable ancestor; this difference only existing, that whereas the great Mr Snake being once detected in the commission of a good action, repented thereof most heartily, and recovered in time the badness of his character, the present representative of the family has never been suspected even of a kind or generous action towards man, woman, or child, and thanks God he has nothing whatever to be ashamed of! In appearance he is of the hangdog formation, wearing his head enfoncé between his shoulders, his eyes downcast, and his back of the fiddle pattern. When you speak to him, he looks three ways at once, like a stray goose in a quarry hole, and for the life of him, cannot look a man straight in the face-an infallible indication of the rascal! The Reverend Jim Crow is by profession a political parson-of all parties in the world a Whig parson-he is, moreover, one of the lord lieutenant's chaplains, and I have no reason So. Hum-your business-withhum-ah-me?" enquired the Viscount Cremona, as I entered his lordship's study, having previously sent in my card. "I have the honour to be the bearer of a letter from the Earl of Clangallaher to your lordship," was my prompt reply, presenting at the same time my credentials. "Hum-ha—exactly so-yes-just so-so I thought," was the profound rejoinder of his lordship. Now, in good society, when one gentleman-I don't mean bagmanpresents another with a letter of introduction, the rule is to invite the bearer to be seated, to lay the letter on one side, or put it in your pocket, without looking at more than the superscription, and to address the gentleman recommended to your notice in a manner that will lead him to the belief that, if he had brought no letter at all, he would have been equally acceptable to you. The gentleman retires, satisfied that the warm courtesy with which you have received him is a tribute less to your friendship for the introducer, than to his own intrinsic power to please; the belief in his own power to please gives him pleasure, and the object you had in view in leading him to the belief, and its attendant gratification, is the constant object the man of the world and accomplished gentleman has in view to please. When the gentleman leaves, take up your letter, peruse it, and if you find every thing as it should be, the first day you have a few more than ordinarily agreeable people, send your new friend an invitation to dinner. The Viscount Cremona took his friend's letter exactly as a she-cook seizes with her tongs a stray cat who has been clandestinely brought to bed of an illegitimate kitten; and having scowled at, rather than regarded me from head to foot, turned the letter over, examined the seal, to make sure that the missive was not a forgery, and keeping me standing where I was, commenced reading the epistle intro ductory, as you might peruse an intended footman's three months' character. "Hum-ha-just so-exactly soso I thought-yes-what do you want?" enquired the viscount, flinging Lord Clangallaher's letter contemptuously upon the study table, in a style that convinced me his lordship, though a nobleman, was no gentle man-not in the remotest degree. "I understand, my lord," said I, "your lordship is one of the Commis sioners of National Navigation." “Hum-ba—so I thought-just so -exactly so-ha-hum!" "And I was led to believe, by the Earl of Clangallaher, that, on his account, your lordship might be disposed to take into your favourable considera tion my application to be appointed one of the inspectors under the board at which your lordship so ably presides." "Hum-ha-take a seat for a minute, will ye? though-hum-I am rather engaged this morning-exactly so-just so-hum-ba-ba-hum !" "I hope, my lord," continued I, "that if I should be so fortunate as to obtain the situation through the generous interference of your lordship, I shall discharge my duty with zeal, fidelity, and" "Pooh!-hum-he-just so-so I thought. Have you-hum-any other interest?-Eh!-ha-hum!" "No interest at all, my lord, unless I succeed in having the advantage of securing success, in securing that of your lordship." you "Hum-ha-you sec, mister-eh -ah-oh, yes!-mister-hum-very well-you know-we don't do these things on personal-hum-grounds. Now, my Lord Clangallaher see-hum-ha-though personally I have a great-hum-respect for hum -him-cannot, you see, do us any good; and we, you see-I mean, you know-hum-that is, you understand -ha, hum-give these-hum-places in exchange for-hum-support of another-hum-sort. If you-hum could do us-you see, any goodwe, you see-it would, I mean, be an. other sort of a-hum-I mean-of a thing; but without parliamentary hum-I mean interest, I can give you no reasonable-hum-that is, hopes of a-a-any-that is-(Here his lordship rose, motioning me to the door with his hand, and bowing very low). A-a-good maw-ning-mister, aa-(here his lordship touched the bell) -good maw-ning. Eh!-ak !-ha! -hum !" "Heavens!" said I to myself, as the porter closed the hall door after me," was nature blind, d'ye think, or drunk, or in her apprenticeship, when she manufactured such a human article as that!" From the Viscount Cremona I proceeded to the domicile of the Right Honourable Anthony Lumpkin Snake, who lived some miles out of town, whither I took my way on foot, pondering on the wisdom of Providence (which fools call the caprice of fortune) in placing an animal like Lord Cremona in a sphere of life, that, by precluding him from the necessity of earning his own bread, saved him from dying of starvation in a ditch. When I reached the gate of Mr Snake, a starved-looking woman reconnoitered me through the wicket, and after a series of inquiries, was at last induced, on my assurance that I had pressing business with her master, to admit me. I walked up the avenue, observing by the way, that no smoke issued from the chimneys, and concluded that I had my walk for my pains, when, to my surprise, a footman of a cadaverous aspect issued from the front door and anticipating my pull at the bell, |