The corpulent Abbot knew full well
The swelling form and the steaming smell;
Never a monk that wore a hood

Could better have guessed the very wood
Where the noble hart had stood at bay,
Weary and wounded, at close of day.

Sounded then the noisy glee
Of a reveling company-
Sprightly story, wicked jest,
Rated servant, greeted guest,
Flow of wine and flight of cork,
Stroke of knife and thrust of fork:

But, where'er the board was spread,

Grace, I ween, was never said!

Pulling and tugging the Fisherman sat;

And the Priest was ready to vomit,
When he hauled out a gentleman, fine and fat,
With a belly as big as a brimming vat,

And a nose as red as a comet.

"A capital stew," the Fisherman said,
"With cinnamon and sherry!"
And the Abbot turned away his head,
For his brother was lying before him dead-
The Mayor of St. Edmund's Bury!

There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,

As he took forth a bait from his iron box.

It was a bundle of beautiful things

A peacock's tail, and a butterfly's wings,

A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl,

A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of pearl,

And a packet of letters, from whose sweet fold
Such a stream of delicate odors rolled,
That the Abbot fell on his face, and fainted,
And deemed his spirit was halfway sainted.

Sounds seemed dropping from the skies,
Stifled whispers, smothered sighs,
And the breath of vernal gales,
And the voice of nightingales:
But the nightingales were mute,
Envious, when an unseen lute
Shaped the music of its chords
Into passion's thrilling words:

One jerk, and there a lady lay,

A lady wondrous fair;

But the rose of her lip had faded away,

And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay, And torn was her raven hair.

"Aha!" said the Fisher, in merry guise,

"Her gallant was hooked before;"

And the Abbot heaved some piteous sighs,
For oft he had blessed those deep blue eyes,
The eyes of Mistress Shore !

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from his iron box.
Many the cunning sportsman tried,
Many he flung with a frown aside;

A minstrel's harp, and a miser's chest,

A hermit's cowl, and a baron's crest,
Jewels of luster, robes of price,

Tomes of heresy, loaded dice,

And golden cups of the brightest wine

That ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine.

There was a perfume of sulphur and niter,

As he came at last to a bishop's miter!

From top to toe the Abbot shook,
As the Fisherman armed his golden hook,
And awfully were his features wrought
By some dark dream or wakened thought.
Look how the fearful felon gazes

On the scaffold his country's vengeance raises,
When the lips are cracked and the jaws are dry
With the thirst which only in death shall die:

Mark the mariner's frenzied frown,

As the swirling wherry settles down,

When peril has numbed the sense and will,

Though the hand and the foot may struggle still:

Wilder far was the Abbot's glance,

Deeper far was the Abbot's trance:

Fixed as a monument, still as air,

He bent no knee, and he breathed no prayer;

But he signed

- he knew not why or how

The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow.

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,
As he stalked away with his iron box.

"Oho! Oho!

The cock doth crow;

It is time for the Fisher to rise and go.

Fair luck to the Abbot, fair luck to the shrine!

He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line;

Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the south, The Abbot will carry my hook in his mouth!"

The Abbot had preached for many years

With as clear articulation

As ever was heard in the House of Peers
Against Emancipation;

His words had made battalions quake,
Had roused the zeal of martyrs,
Had kept the Court an hour awake,
And the King himself three quarters:

But ever since that hour, 'tis said,
He stammered and he stuttered,

As if an ax went through his head
With every word he uttered.

He stuttered o'er blessing, he stuttered o'er ban,
He stuttered, drunk or dry;

And none but he and the Fisherman

Could tell the reason why!

LUST.

BY SHAKESPEARE.

THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight;

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof- and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed, behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none know well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

A VISION OF PURGATORY.

BY WILLIAM MAGINN.

[WILLIAM MAGINN, Irish man of letters and typical bohemian, was born in Dublin, July 10, 1793. The son of an eminent schoolmaster, he carried on the school himself after graduation from Trinity College, Dublin; meanwhile becoming a voluminous contributor to Blackwood's and other periodicals under various pseudonyms (finally fixing on "Morgan O'Doherty "), suggesting the "Noctes Ambrosianæ" and writing some of it, and in 1823 settling in London for a literary life. He was Murray's chief man on the Representative; its foreign corret spondent in Paris; returning, was joint editor of the Standard, then on the scurrilous Age. He founded Fraser's Magazine in 1830, and made it the most brilliant in Great Britain; contributed to Blackwood's and Bentley's later; and in 1838 he wrote the "Homeric Ballads" for Fraser's. His literary feuds were endless and savage. After running down for years and once being in a debtor's prison (Thackeray portrays him as "Captain Shandon" in "Pendennis"), he died August 21, 1842.]

THE churchyard of Inistubber is as lonely a one as you would wish to see on a summer's day or avoid on a winter's night. It is situated in a narrow valley, at the bottom of three low, barren, miserable hills, on which there is nothing green to meet the eye-tree or shrub, grass or weed. The country beyond these hills is pleasant and smiling: rich fields of corn, fair clumps of oaks, sparkling streams of water, houses beautifully dotting the scenery, which gently undulates round and round as far as the eye can reach; but once across the north side of Inistubber Hill, and you look upon desolation. There is nothing to see but, down in the hollow, the solitary

churchyard with its broken wall, and the long lank grass growing over the gravestones, mocking with its melancholy verdure the barrenness of the rest of the landscape. It is a sad thing to reflect that the only green spot in the prospect springs from the grave!

Under the east window is a moldering vault of the De Lacys, a branch of a family descended from one of the conquerors of Ireland; and there they are buried when the allotted time calls them to the tomb. On these occasions a numerous cavalcade, formed from the adjoining districts in all the pomp and circumstance of woe, is wont to fill the deserted churchyard, and the slumbering echoes are awakened to the voice of prayer and wailing, and charged with the sigh that marks the heart bursting with grief, or the laugh escaping from the bosom mirth-making under the cloak of mourning. Which of these feelings was predominant when Sir Theodore de Lacy died is not written in history; nor is it necessary to inquire. He had lived a jolly, thoughtless life, rising early for the hunt, and retiring late from the bottle; a good-humored bachelor who took no care about the management of his household, provided that the hounds were in order for his going out, and the table ready on his coming in; as for the rest, an easy landlord, a quiet master, a lenient magistrate (except to poachers), and a very excellent foreman of a grand jury. He died one evening while laughing at a story which he had heard regularly thrice a week for the last fifteen years of his life; and his spirit mingled with the claret.

In former times, when the De Lacys were buried, there was a grand breakfast, and all the party rode over to the church to see the last rites paid. The keeners lamented; the country people had a wake before the funeral and a dinner after itand there was an end. But with the march of mind came trouble and vexation. A man has nowadays no certainty of quietness in his coffin -- unless it be a patent one. He is laid down in the grave and, the next morning, finds himself called upon to demonstrate an interesting fact! No one, I believe, admires this ceremony; and it is not to be wondered at that Sir Theodore de Lacy held it in especial horror. "I'd like," he said one evening, "to catch one of the thieves coming after me when I'm dead. By the God of War, I'd break every bone in his body! But," he added with a sigh, "as I suppose I'll not be able to take my own part then, upon you I leave it,