The corpulent Abbot knew full well Could better have guessed the very wood Sounded then the noisy glee 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, And a nose as red as a comet. "A capital stew," the Fisherman said, 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 Sounds seemed dropping from the skies, 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, There was turning of keys and creaking of locks, A minstrel's harp, and a miser's chest, A hermit's cowl, and a baron's crest, 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, On the scaffold his country's vengeance raises, 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, "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 His words had made battalions quake, But ever since that hour, 'tis said, As if an ax went through his head He stuttered o'er blessing, he stuttered o'er ban, 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 perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; All this the world well knows; yet none know well 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, |