The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 32, February 6, 1841
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Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 32, February 6, 1841

Author: Various

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 32, FEBRUARY 6, 1841 ***

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

Number 32. | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1841. | Volume I.

HANDSOME KATE KAVANAGH.

In that fertile district of the county Wexford, the barony of Forth, distinguished for its comfortable cottages and general good husbandry, lived Dennis Costigan, a rich farmer. His farm was large, well stocked, and in high condition; his dwelling-house was furnished as a farmer’s house should be, and it was as cleanly and neat as it was commodious. His wife was tidy, notable, and good-tempered, and his three children were such as would please a father—well-formed in person and virtuous in mind. Then, should not our friend Dennis Costigan have been a happy man? He would have been so perhaps—for there is ever to be a stumbling block in our road to happiness—but that the first object that glared upon his eyes in each morning’s sun was the white low cottage of his next neighbour Miles Kavanagh. Yet that cottage was not an ugly feature in the landscape. It was small and low, but as white as the whitest lime could make it; it was neatly thatched too, and its small casements were never broken or patched. A few honeysuckles and roses crept up its walls, and it was surrounded by a hedge of hazels and sallows, that lent it an air of comfort and seclusion. Its owner, at least, thought it a pretty spot, and that he was a happy man indeed to possess it and its two or three adjoining acres; and as he trimmed his hedges, and looked pleasantly on all around—the fruits of his industry and labour—he little thought that any one could look upon his cot and farm with other eyes than those of admiration; and least of all that he, or aught of his, was the source of care or annoyance to his wealthier neighbour. And why did wealthy Dennis Costigan glance lowringly on this humble tenement? Was it that, like his betters, he thought a poor man’s dwelling always an unsightly object? and that, like many a grasping spirit, all land convenient to his own was misappropriated if not in his possession? It was not so. Dennis Costigan envied no man his possessions. He was a right specimen of a farmer, independent, upright, honest, and industrious, contented with what providence had given him, and willing to help a neighbour with purse and hand if required. And if he did grumble a little, and turn away his eyes quickly as if in pain, from the cottage we have mentioned, many another father with hopeful sons would do the same, for it contained a gem that would grace the proudest castle in Ireland—beautiful, charming, innocent Kate Kavanagh, but who had no fortune.

One fine morning in August, farmer Costigan sallied forth at the head of a regiment of reapers armed for the destruction of a large field of wheat, but scarcely had he got outside his yard when he missed two of his most efficient men—his two sons.

“Where can those gorsoons ov mine be, boys?” inquired he of the reapers. “In the arms ov Murphy, to be sure,” answered a little shrill-piped fellow, the crack orator of the country, which, and the circumstance of his name being alike, procured him the cognomen of “Counsellor Shiel.” “In the arms ov Murphy, to be sure, afther thrippin’ it all night on the light funtastic toe with that flower ov Forth an’ belle ov the barony, Kate Kavanagh.”

“Arrah, can’t ye speak in plain English, man?” thundered the farmer with kindling eyes—the name just mentioned always putting him in a passion. “What the dickens does I know ov funtastic toes or heels?”

“Very little indeed, litherally,” quoth the counsellor, laughing, and glancing sarcastically at the farmer’s large feet, cased in tremendous brogues shod with hob-nails; “very little litherally, but you might metaphorically, for all that. But you have no more poethry or bells letthers in ye than a bag ov beans!”

“Nor you more common sense than a goose.”

“Stop!” cried the orator suddenly, in a tone of command enough to arrest a retreating army, and motioning to the body of reapers. “Stop, one an’ all ov ye, an’ listen! It would be a sin to let this profane ignirince continue longer.” Then addressing our barony Forth farmer with a countenance in which pity and ineffable contempt were blended, “Is it in the nointeenth centhery that you call me a goose, by way ov contimpt? Oh ignorant of nathral histhry, jography, bells letthers, pelite litherature altogether! For, know, onforthenate man, that it was the cackle ov that same illustrious baist, a goose, that saved what?—where do you think?”

“Yer mother’s hen-roost from the fox, is it?”

“No, haithen, but imparial Rome!!!”

The might, the majesty of the “counsellor’s” tones and gestures as he uttered the words, struck amazement into the hearts of his hearers! They had considered him a clever fellow, but by no means the great man he then appeared! Enchanted with his eloquence, not a few of his auditors were certain that if he were in Parliament, he would do more for Ireland than Mr O’Connell and all his friends; while the remainder, as much delighted with his energy, lamented that “the craithur wasn’t two fut higher, for he had a great spirit intirely!”

The happy “counsellor” perceived the impression he had produced, and in his altitude was proceeding to tell them when and how “imparial Rome” was saved, when his attention was arrested by an approaching object, and with an instantaneous change of attitude and tone he exclaimed,

“‘But, soft! what light from yonder meadow breaks?

It is the aist, an’ Cath’rine is the sun!’”

as a tall and very handsome girl, with the finest eyes and brightest smile imaginable, met them at the entrance of the wheat field.

“A blithe mornin’ to Misther Costigan,” said the maiden, “an’ the same to all the raipers!”

“Oh! a good morra,” returned Mister Costigan very coldly and with looks still colder, “an’ I wondher above all things what is it that takes Miss Kavanagh out of her bed so early?”

“Just what ought to rouse many more ov us, Misther Costigan,” replied Kate spiritedly—“to help a naibur, an’ I am come to offer ye all the ’sistance in my power to-day, aither as binder or raiper, whichever ye may want worst.”

“I want neither,” returned the farmer gruffly, and turning on his heel; “an’, besides, I could not possibly think of puttin’ sitch delicate white hands to sitch coorse work!”

“The belle o’ the barony” coloured high at the affront couched in this speech, and she hastily answered that “her hands, sitch as they war, could earn her bread for her when she required it; an’ if she didn’t find them too tendher for work, Misther Costigan needn’t find fault with them. But,” added she more kindly, “you have a rough manner but a kind heart, Dennis Costigan, an’ I won’t mind what you say to me. Moreover, I’ll stay with ye to-day, whether you be willin’ or not, aither as binder or raiper.”

Dennis Costigan, “kind as his heart” was, would have given a sovereign of “bright goold” that Kate Kavanagh and her bright eyes were a few miles off at the moment; but as he saw that she carried all before her, he thought it better not to give her any further offence, and accordingly, but with a very bad grace, he accepted her services.

“Where be’s Jem and Ned Costigan this mornin’?” whispered Kate to the counsellor, who was flourishing away gallantly at her side.

The man of eloquence flung himself into an attitude, laid his hand upon his heart, and looked languishingly, as he “assured her that her charms were railly too potently enfluential over the hearts ov her admirers, as she not only deprived thim ov the needful refreshment of nathur, oblivious slumber, but she also hendhered them from doin’ their daily manual imploymints. For instance,” said he, “you see Saul, the orb ov day, is high up in his meraydian hemisphare, an’ those inamoured swains are still pressin’ their beds, or rather cooches, in the arms ov Murphy, mainin’ sleep or Somnus——”

“An’ what have I to do with that?” said Kate, laughing heartily. “Do ye think I gave thim a sleepy potion?”

“Ah! my beautiful flower ov Forth!” sighed out the sentimental counsellor, “any thing but a sleepy potion do you give yer lovers! if ’tis anything, sure I am ’tis a draught to banish sleep for ever! But consarnin’ those vagrant truints ye spaik ov, I ondherstand that you kep thim up beyant their ushial hours ov repose last night, admirin’ yer graceful movemints in yer Turpfiscorian revels, mainin’ the dance at Judy Colfer’s; an’ that man, their father, who is not to be moved with ‘concord of sweet sounds,’ or any sounds at all but the chink ov money, almost snapt my head off a while ago bekase I tould him so. Ah! my Catherine dear, I fear you’ll incounther opposition in that quarther. But ‘nel desperantum,’ say I, which mains in plain English, ‘never dispair.’”

Catherine said nothing, but instantly began to sing, at the top of her fine rich voice, a song the counsellor had composed in praise of her, and shortly afterwards she had the pleasure to see the two sleepy truants bounding across the yard towards the wheat-field, as if her well-known notes had awaked them.

While this magical song was thrilling on all hearts, Kate Kavanagh, the witching Kate! stood apart from the others, singing and laughing alternately, her reaping-hook resting on one arm, and dressed in the every-day fashion of the place—the striped linsey short petticoat, and loose bedgown or wrapper, a dress that would make an ordinary woman frightful, and straw hat, the leaf of which, turned up before and pinned to the crown, displayed her sable locks and fair high forehead to perfection. And many a side-glance the anxious father, Dennis Costigan, cast at this arrangement of Kate’s headgear, as he broadly hinted that “for sartin Miss Kavanagh’s complexion would be intirely spiled if she showed it too much to the sun.”

“Tut!” was Kate’s good-humoured reply, “‘the life ov an ould hat is to cock it,’ as we say in the counthry. The leaf ov it was flappin’ in my eyes; the lads couldn’t see me, nor I them, so a pin settled the bisness;” and nothing could become her fine Spanish face better, though her toilet was made in perfect carelessness, for dashing Kate had other charms to depend on besides beauty. Imprimus, she was the first dancer in the country, outdoing her dancing-master himself at “jigs, reels, thribbles, doubles, hornpipes, and petticoatees.” She was a killing dancer in both senses of the word, for no boy or girl could keep it up with the spirit of Kate Kavanagh, and she generally disabled six or eight prime beaus at every “hop” she appeared at, which was nearly every night. The worst of it was (as the sorely annoyed fathers and mothers of the neighbourhood said), “though she fairly kilt all the boys that danced with her, yet sorra one but herself would sarve them for a partner after all!” Then she was, as Orator Shiel said, “Apollyo in petticoats for singin’!” and songs of love, murder, hunting, war, and sea, would charm with double effect, borne on the musical notes of Kate Kavanagh. In short, she was “metal most,” but also too “attractive;” and loud complaints and grievances at last came thundering on her devoted head. “Boys growin’ lazy and crazy—work undone or done badly—time spent an’ mis-spent—messages forgotten and mistaken—girls neglected—matches broken—eternal dancin’, fightin’, black eyes an’ bloody noses”—all, all was laid in a bundle at the door of handsome, animated, dashing, yet very innocent Kate Kavanagh.

“What will be done with her at all at all?” iterated the suffering fathers and mothers all round the country. “What will we do with her at all?”

“I’ll tell ye, naiburs,” responded one of the elders, as a body of them returned from chapel on the Sunday after Mosey Fortune’s great “flare up,” at which three topping bloods fought for the honour of first figuring on the floor with the “belle o’ the barony.” “Let a respectable dacent naibur, sitch as Dennis Costigan here for example, go to her father as a friend to advise him to get his daughther married out ov hand, for fear some harm will happen. An’, throth, harm will happen; for if she’s not the destruction ov herself, she will be the ruination ov others. So, Misther Costigan, let you be the man to spake to Miles Kavanagh.”

“Agreed,” said Dennis Costigan, who was one of the party, and also a suffering father; and on the ensuing Thursday he intended to proceed on the mission.

In the meantime, Kate Kavanagh, never dreaming of the grand hubbub about her, assisted to cut down Mr Costigan’s wheat; and so full of songs, jokes, and attractions was she, that it was observed, even by the farmer himself, that the men, old and young, surpassed themselves at reaping that day. Indeed, Kate set them an excellent pattern; for, notwithstanding that her tongue moved in double-quick time, she took care that her hands should be equally nimble; and at nightfall, thanks to Kate and the influence of her black eyes, sharp and bright as her sickle, the very large field of wheat was cut down, bound, and stooked to the owner’s satisfaction. Yet, after all, the “flower of Forth” bloomed too near Dennis, or rather his sons, to allow him to be perfectly content.

“How yer father squints at me!” observed Kate to James Costigan, her ardent admirer, and to whom, by the way, she contrived to keep close during the day. “He looks at me as if I was a crab apple, an’ he had just taken a bite. Wouldn’t it be the best ov a good joke, now, if I’d make him change his tune in spite ov himself?”

Jem looked at her very tenderly as he replied, “Ye do as you like with us, Kate darlin’, but I doubt yer power over my father. He is flent to purty girls, an’ above all to you.”

“We shall see,” said Kate; and that very evening, between coaxing and pulling, she actually brought the portly farmer, albeit in no dancing mood, to dance with her (when Peter Hamilton and his violin happened in after supper), to the amazement and amusement of a kitchen full of spectators, though, as honest Dennis confessed while wiping his broad brows, “he didn’t take sitch a spree for ten years afore!” Handsome Kate at the end of it looked knowingly at Jem Costigan, as much as to say, “You see this, and you’ll see more.”

The next morning an express arrived to Dennis Costigan with the news that his sister’s daughter, Miss Peggy Malone, was about to “change her state,” and that her uncle’s company was required at the wedding.

“Och, murther!” cried the farmer when he had sufficiently expressed his surprise at the news, “this ould brown coat ov mine will never do for a weddin’!—turn it which way I will, it looks shabby enough—pieced at the elbows an’ torn at the cuffs! So, Jem, asthore, take the black mare an’ set off this minnit to Waxford, an’ buy me the makin’s ov a coat an’ waistcoat ov good green cloth; it always became my complexion. An’, Jem, for yer head don’t make any mistake this time. Those three months past you’re full ov mistakes, an’ nothin’ else.”

“Is it me makes mistakes!” quoth Jem indignantly; “that’s what I never did yet, except wanst or twice, an’ I’ll not begin now.” And he mounted the mare, and turned her head towards Wexford. But as he should pass Miles Kavanagh’s cottage, “it would be only right an’ proper to ax if he or Kate had any commands for town.” And—and—when he got to Wexford, he quite forgot the colour his father had ordered, and, thinking of Kate Kavanagh’s hair and eyes, he bought black.

Well, never was man in a greater fume than our friend Dennis Costigan when he saw his son’s purchase. “Black! black!” he repeated again and again, as he held up the cloth and indignantly scowled at it and its purchaser, “black for a weddin’! Oh, ye born nathural! what on earth put it into yer head to buy black for a weddin’? But I see the thruth in yer eyes this minnit! Ye seen that—that—plague upon earth, Kate Kavanagh, afore ye wint to Waxford, an’ she, as ushial, put every wise thought out ov yer head. Black coat at a weddin’!—who ever seen the like afore?”

It was in vain that poor Jem explained that “the cloth was not all out black, but what was called Oxfert-grey—a mighty ginteel colour, an’ sitch as was worn by all fathers ov families.”

“That’s as much as to say that it is worn by all ould min?” said the father, nothing better pleased. “What a judge ye are! But as the cloth is bought, I must keep it I suppose, an’ I’ll take it to the tailor’s myself, for fear ye’d make some other confounded blundher. I wouldn’t wondher if ye’d tell him to make it a spincer-jacket without skirts, ye have sitch a janious for mistakes!” And putting the parcel of cloth under his arm, he set out for Jemmy Nowlan’s domicile.

There he saw no one but the tailor’s old mother sitting very melancholy over the fire.

“Can I see yer son Jemmy, widda Nowlan?” asked the farmer.

“Och, asthore machree, Misther Costigan,” said the widow, setting up a keen, and rocking herself about, “ye may see him an’ welkim, but a quare sight ye’ll see whin ye sees him; an’, linamachree! the worst ov it is, he can’t see ye now.”

“Why, what’s the matther?” demanded Mr Costigan alarmed. “I hope he’s not dead?”

“He’s not dead, but he’s kilt intirely,” sobbed the distressed parent, “wid the lambastin’ he got ere-last night at the dance at Dinny Doran’s.”

“Well, an’ what takes him to dances?” said the farmer in a heat. “Sure the like shred ov him ought to stay at home an’ mind his bisness.”

“Pulliliew! is that the feelin’ ye has for yer fella-craithurs, Misther Costigan. But indeed I often sed that same to him myself. ‘Stay at home, honey,’ I says to him, ‘an’ don’t be losin’ yer sleep an’ flittherin’ yer slippers at them dances.’ ‘Hould yer whisht, mother,’ he’ll say to me thin (for he is a mighty obaydient child), ‘love sthrikes the little as well as the big, an’ I wouldn’t have a sowl above buttons if I wouldn’t take every opportunity ov meetin’ an’ coortin’ Kate Kavanagh.’ So ye see the win’ sits in that quarther, Misther Costigan.”

Mr Costigan actually stamped on the floor with passion when he heard the name of Kate Kavanagh; and as the tailor’s mother perceived unusual anger in his countenance, she flattered herself that it was all sympathy for her “darlint Jemmy,” and she hastened to give him the particulars “ov the murdher” foul and unnatural. “So now, my darlint Misther Costigan,” she concluded, “his poor eyes is black an’ blue, and closed up into the bargain, an’ he couldn’t handle a needle if it was for Misther Grogan Morgan himself—God bless him for the fine lan’lord that he is.”

If poor Mrs Nowlan knew but all, little sympathy had her wealthy visitor for her battered son, when he understood the cause of his woes, and her pathetic touches of tenderness went for nothing. Muttering something about “hanging all fools and mothers of fools,” he took a gruff leave of the widow, and returned home with his cloth. There was no other tailor nearer than Wexford, and it was fated that he should wear his old brown coat at the wedding. But that was not his only annoyance. The evening before he set out on his journey, he found that the horse he intended to ride wanted two shoes; and fearing to trust his sons (both of whom were smitten with the “belle o’ the barony”) in their present plight, he brought the animal to the forge himself. No smith was to be found. “Arrah, where the d——l is he?” cried the farmer, quite exasperated, and addressing a girl standing knitting at the door of a house near the forge.

“Sorra bit ov us knows, Misther Costigan,” replied the damsel; “but we’re guessin’ that he is either at the public house, or at Miles Kavanagh’s, hankerin’ afther his daughther, for betwixt the two places he spinds the most ov his time.”

Dennis Costigan said nothing, but he raised up his hands and eyes—eloquence more expressive than words. Kate Kavanagh again!

As he returned with his unshod horse, he pondered while jogging along. “What should be about that Kate Kavanagh above all girls to set a whole parish astray?” And as he could find no solution of the enigma short of sorcery, he set it down that she was “Ould Nick in petticoats!” “My two hopeful sons is mad afther her.” said he, soliloquising; “the unfortunate counsellor is fairly cracked about her; the smith is grown wild, an’ the tailor knocked stupid; heaven only knows what way the carpinther an’ mason is, for she has all the thrades, I’m thinkin’; an’ now all I pray is that she may charm some thrav’ling tinker, an’ that he may carry her off body an’ bones for the pace ov the counthry!” Ah! little did honest Dennis know who was to be the next victim of merciless Kate Kavanagh!

Well, next morning he set out for Bargie, after taking an affectionate farewell of his good little wife, and after cautioning her repeatedly to have a constant look-out after the “boys and Kate Kavanagh.” Fain would he have persuaded his eldest son to accompany him to the wedding, but Jem pathetically pleaded “pains in his bones an’ headache” (heartache he should have said), and his father very unwillingly set off without him.

Our farmer had only ridden a few miles, when, coming to a village, like a true son of the soil he should stop at the “public” to taste the “mountain dew.” Early as it was in the morning, it appeared there were others as interestingly engaged, and vociferating loudly on some important topic. Whatever it might be, our friend Dennis thought it could be no concern of his, and without making any inquiry he called for his dandy of punch. Overhead the revellers kept up a most astounding debate; presently were heard shouts, curses, hustling, and blows, and the next instant half a dozen combatants came head foremost tumbling down the steep and narrow stairs together!

“Fight it out fair, ye vilyens,” roared the hostess, as her face flamed and her eye fired, “but fight it out ov my house. Into the street with every mother’s son ov ye, or know for what!” and seizing a pewter beer quart, she leaped over the counter, and pummelled the backs and heads of all within her reach, till she actually cleared them out of her house.

“What an uproar they make in a quiet place!” said she, as she returned to Dennis Costigan, who was laughing heartily at the spree.

Now, there is something extraordinary in the blood of an Irishman. A fight is his choicest amusement, and if he is not a principal actor in one, he must be a spectator. Even our sober barony Forth farmer was excited, and eagerly asked “what it was all about?”

“All about nonsinse,” replied Mrs Boniface, “all about nonsinse when it is about a woman. All the uproar was about a naibur ov yours, Misther Costigan, who has turned the heads ov some ov our lads here, an’ many others besides—one Miss Kavanagh. Do you know her?”

“Know her!” exclaimed Dennis, and suddenly set down his glass on the counter, just as he was about to put it to his lips.

“What’s the matther, Mr Costigan?” asked the landlady alarmed; “don’t you like yer punch?”

“Oh, I likes it well,” returned Mr Costigan, in a sickly tone, “but somehow there’s an all-overness over me that makes me very quare at times, but it will wear off. Here’s to yer health, Mrs Roche!” and gulped off the punch at a draught, as if he didn’t know well what he was about. He then proceeded on his journey, inwardly determined not to stop again, lest he might hear the dreaded name before he arrived at his sister’s, and there he trusted he was free from the infliction. Nevertheless, the name was mentioned at the wedding, and our farmer, under the influence of good cheer and hilarity, laughed loud and long as his brain began to whirl while thinking of the strange combination of circumstances that brought Kate Kavanagh for ever before him.

At this wedding was a certain buck of the name of Magrah. He was a rake and a spendthrift, but, nevertheless, was artful and designing. He had heard of the beauty of Kate Kavanagh, and knowing that Mr Costigan was a neighbour of hers, he tormented him with questions about her, particularly “if she had a fortune?”

For the first time in his life Dennis Costigan told an untruth with an evil intention. He protested that Kate Kavanagh had a fortune, and a good one too; he praised her person and industrious habits; and at last became so zealous in his friendship to his absent neighbours as to give a cordial invitation to Mr Magrah to his house, for the purpose of seeing and being introduced to the “belle o’ the barony,” but never once asking what sort of person this Magrah was, or what was his means of living.

Mr Pat Magrah very eagerly accepted the invitation, returned with Mr Costigan, and was introduced to and charmed with handsome Kate Kavanagh, and he found his quarters so good, and his time pass so agreeably, that instead of a week he remained a month in the neighbourhood of the “flower of Forth,” quite enamoured with her beauty and attractions.

Dennis Costigan was delighted. Like a true friend to one or all of the parties, he encouraged the courtship by every means in his power—even lending money to the suitor to enable him to cut a dash in the eyes of Miles Kavanagh and his daughter.

At length the Bargie hero returned to his home for a short time, protesting that “he was quite confused an’ ashamed ov inthrudin’ so long on Misther Costigan’s hospitality, but that he would sartinly come again to look afther his sweetheart, for none but he should thransplant the ‘flower ov Forth.’”

On the third evening after his departure, as part of the family of the Costigans were seated round the fire, Ned, our friend Dennis’s younger son, ran in all in a hurry, exclaiming, “News, friends, news! there’s a runaway match on the road to-night, for Denny Doran met a couple on horseback, sweepin’ like the win’ into Waxford, an’ he’ll take his oath Pat Magrah was the man, let who will be the woman!”

“An’ Kate Kavanagh was sartinly the woman!” exclaimed Dennis Costigan, in undisguised delight, while his son James turned as pale as death. But the joy of the one and despair of the other was of short duration; for in the next instant Kate Kavanagh herself rushed in breathless, and apparently in much uneasiness. “Where’s Mary Costigan?” cried she anxiously, and examining the group round the fire. All seemed surprised and alarmed at her anxious appearance and inquiry, and Mrs Costigan repeatedly called her daughter, but got no answer.

“Oh! ’tis too true!” said Kate; “an’, Misther Costigan, I’m sorry to have to say it. The scapegrace you brought to this neighbourhood has carried off your own daughter! My father met them on the road to Waxford, an’ knew them.”

It would be impossible to describe the confusion of the family at this announcement. For a time all were stupified with astonishment. Then the brothers, giving vent to their rage in curses, sprang to their feet, and rushed out of the house; while the father, stung by many conflicting feelings, hung his head and remained powerless.

“My child! my tendher dutiful child!” cried the distracted mother, wringing her hands in an agony of weeping. “My child! my child!” “Whisht! woman,” at last roared the farmer in a voice of thunder, unwilling to let his supposed enemy have the satisfaction to see their distress and confusion. “Whisht, I say! what has she done but got a good husband, what they are all strivin’ for, young an’ ould? Whisht, I say! or if ye must lament, lament that ye didn’t keep sitch notions out of her head till she was sixteen, any how.”

“She was full seventeen, Dennis,” interposed the mother, in all her grief, as a woman anxious to defend her sex. “Don’t say the craithur was forward beyant her years, for she was full seventeen last October.”

Up started the farmer. “We’ll soon end that argamint,” said he, seizing a candle, and striding furiously towards the parlour; “I have her age down in black an white, in my pocket-book.”

They could hear him unlock his desk and searching amongst papers; then followed impatient mutterings, and at length a loud groan as if body and soul were parted. All now rushed to the parlour, where they found poor Costigan the image of heart-broken despair. He stood with his eyes fixed and his face as pale as marble: one hand grasped a pocket-book that seemed torn and empty, while the other hung listless by his side.

“Marcy ov Heaven!” exclaimed the trembling wife, clinging to him for support, “what new misforthin’ has befallen us now?”

The farmer groaned heavily ere he replied; and then it was in a broken, sunken voice—“We’re ruined, Alley! an’ robbed, an’ I desarve it! The vilyen has not only taken our child from us, but robbed us of one hundhred pounds! See, here is the desk, bruck open, and the pocket-book empty, an’ she did it at his instigation!”

This was blow on blow! Mrs Costigan was a weak and delicate woman. She fell senseless to the ground, and was borne to her bed, from which she never rose again.

And thus was Dennis Costigan’s treachery rewarded. He had brought a wretch to his house for the purpose of introducing him as an admirer to his honest neighbour’s daughter, without once inquiring into his character or circumstances; and the young fellow had cleverly turned the visit to account; for instead of portionless Kate Kavanagh, he carried off young and pretty Mary Costigan, and her hundred pounds!

It is certain our barony Forth farmer felt this triple blow most severely, and the more so from his consciousness that he deserved it, and prepared the way for his misfortunes himself. But he was doomed to feel his lapse from honour and fair dealing yet more acutely, when on the day of his wife’s death he was accosted by his neighbour Miles Kavanagh, as he was droopingly wandering about his fields, shunning the crowds collected at the wake.

“Misther Costigan,” began Miles abruptly—for the Irish peasant feels too warmly to take time to shape his gratulations or condolences with the go-about refinements of delicacy—“I am sorry for yer thrubble this day, an’ the more so bekase Mrs Costigan was ever the kind and friendly naibur, that never changed from hot to could like others. [Dennis winced.] I also heerd ov yer loss in other respects, but that loss will be soon made up, plaise God. In the main time, Misther Costigan, ye might want a thrifle of ready cash for the expinses ov the wake an’ berrin’; an’ as I’ve scraped together a matther ov a few pounds for the rint, but which is not called for yet, I’d be very glad to lind it to a friend, an’ may be you’d take it, an’ ye may pay me whin you plaise. Faix, sitch poor men as me ought never to keep money long in the house for fear ov the vilyens ov rogues.”

Dennis Costigan was unable to speak, and without accepting the money he motioned his honest neighbour away, and turned off abruptly. But Miles Kavanagh was not a man to be deterred from doing a kind action.

“Hut-tut! Mr Costigan,” he continued, “don’t turn away from an ould naibur an’ friend. You think now that I bear a grudge to ye on account ov that vilyen ye brought down to court my Kate. I know all, ye see; an’ if I do, I freely forgive ye. Fathers, an’ ’specially rich fathers sitch as you, are a little partiklar, I suppose, about who their sons would marry, an’ it’s all right. But Dennis Costigan ought to have known us betther! He ought to have known that neither I nor my child would seek to enther any man’s family against his will, for he never seen any mean or disaivin’ ways in us. But all’s forgiven an’ forgotten now; so don’t be the laist suspicious ov us, but take the money that I freely offer, if you want it, an’ you’ll make a poor man an’ naibur happy. Turn about, man, an’ let us live in paice an’ good will while we’re on the earth together.”

Dennis Costigan stood, perpendicular as a poplar, with his back to Miles Kavanagh while he was speaking, and the latter thought, from the stiffness of the farmer’s air, that he had nerved himself up to break sooner than bend, and that he was determined to retain his sturdy pride to the last, and perhaps to cut with him altogether. To Miles’s surprise, however, when he ceased speaking, portly Dennis wheeled right about, still perpendicular, seized the hand of his honest friend, and, as if the mere touch of a sympathising friend communicated a softness he was unused to, he wept aloud! yes, wept! and they were the first bitter tears he had ever shed.

“But for the sake of human nathur, which I am glad to see so good,” said Dennis Costigan afterwards, “I’d most rather ye’d have abused me; I could have borne it betther!”

Well, months passed over, and still the “belle o’ the barony” was making sad havoc with the hearts of the beaus. She had already all the trades enlisted under her banner, and it was a nice question whether she would spare one bachelor in an entire parish, or not. Fathers and mothers still complained, and the girls prayed that Kate Kavanagh were married, and out of the way. Matters were daily growing worse and worse, “confusion worse confounded,” in the country round.

As a last resource, Dennis Costigan was reminded of his promised mission to Miles Kavanagh, to “coax him to settle his daughter out of hand,” and for the repose of the neighbourhood he agreed to do so. He now felt a warm friendship for both father and daughter, and it would make him really happy if he could be the means of assisting pretty Kate to a husband every way worthy of her. Still he had not brought himself to wish his son married to her, for he had taken it into his head that Jem was entitled to a girl with a couple of hundreds at least, and since his late loss he was more anxious on that score than ever.

At last, deeming himself bound in honour to delay no longer from fulfilling his promise, Mr Costigan gravely proceeded to Miles Kavanagh’s cottage. He found the “flower of Forth” busily engaged in her little kitchen, scouring her deal tables and chairs, and singing merrily as she scoured. The labour had thrown a lovely glow over her fine face, and her smile was really bewitching as she welcomed Mr Costigan, and handed him a chair.

“Is yer father within, Miss Kavanagh?” inquired Dennis, as kindly as the recollection of his son’s untoward situation would permit.

“He is not, Mr Costigan,” Kate replied, “but I think he will be here presently, so you have nothing for it but to sit with a wild girl like me till he comes in.”

Down plumped Mr Costigan, and to look at him one would imagine he had come a-suitoring himself, so awkward and confused did he seem while obliged to continue alone with the beautiful “plague upon earth.” He turned his head away from her, stuck an old pipe in his mouth for employment’s sake, and preserved a dead silence for ten minutes. Kate, perceiving his mood, troubled him with little chat. At length, tired of waiting for the father, the missionary condescended to address the daughter; and she, judging from the contortions of his phiz, thought the effort cost him as much as a spasm of cholera morbus.

“Hem! haw! hum! I wondher very much that you don’t think ov changin’ yer state, Miss Kavanagh. The marriage life is the happiest life ov all, as I know (sighing deeply), an’ I would recommend ye to thry it:” and he launched into a long harangue in praise of the honourable state, its happiness, comfort, and safety, compared to a single life—so full of peril to a female; to all of which our “belle o’ the barony” listened, and assented as demurely as could be wished. After lauding the state, and urging the necessity of it, he next proceeded to point out the most eligible match in his opinion, recommending of all things “an independent man, unburthened by fathers, mothers, sisters, or brothers; a single man in every sense, with whom she could have everything her own way, and no one to interfere;” and he named several whom he considered would be unexceptionable, but to all of whom our Kate had a quick and characteristic objection, as prompt and ready as if she had anticipated the visit of the matrimonial delegate, and guessed his errand. This is a specimen of the colloquy. After mentioning several others,

“Well, what do you think ov long Jem Whalen?”

“Why, that one pair of tongs in one house is enough.”

“Oh, that won’t do! What do ye think ov John Barry? he’s a snug, warm fella.”

“Warm enough, for he’s the dickens for fightin’!”

“Well, Redmond Connors, the carpinther?”

“He’s a close shaver, but not to my taste.”

“Pullilliew! you’ll never be plaised. Have ye anything to say agin Burn, the mason?”

“He’s too great a plastherer to be sincere.”

“An’ what chance has the smith?”

“He won’t forge my fetthers, that’s all.”

“An’ the tailor?”

“Must stitch himself to another.”

Here the dialogue broke off abruptly, for neither the missionary nor the maiden could longer refrain from laughing; the former, though a grave and reverend signior at all times, was perfectly overcome by Kate’s naiveté and archness; and though he was farther than ever from attaining his object, he was in perfect good humour. Miles Kavanagh soon after entered the cottage, and much was he surprised to find his daughter and Mr Costigan tete-a-tete, and on such excellent terms. Nor was the surprise lessened, when he saw the farmer sit it out for two hours longer, still laughing and still joking, as if he and Kate had ever been the best of friends and banterers. At length Mr Costigan heavily arose from his seat, and declaring that he would come again on the same business (he forgot however to speak to Miles Kavanagh about it), he took his leave.

And he did go again and again; and at the third visit Dennis Costigan and Miles Kavanagh retired to an inner apartment. Kate neither knew nor wished to know the subject of their confab; but she observed, that as the farmer was retiring after the last visit, he and her father shook hands as if clenching a bargain. “You’re mighty affectionate!” thought Kate; “I wonder yez didn’t kiss!”

As well as I can remember, it was about a fortnight from the day of our friend Dennis Costigan’s visit to Miles Kavanagh’s cottage, that Watty Colfer (Watty always walks with his head down; mind, his face is an ell longer than any other face, so grave and thoughtful is he!) had just got inside father Tobin’s gate, and closed it after him, when he saw his reverence himself thundering down the avenue on St Patrick, his nag.

“Yer sarvint, sur!” said Watty, very humbly, and hat in hand, and propping himself against the shut gate, “could I make so bould as just to spake one word to yer rivirince?”

“Not one word!” replied the priest hastily, “if you were the bishop! I am in too great a hurry. Lave my way and open the gate.”

“Thin, God help me,” groaned Watty, but still keeping his position, “that am neither priest nor bishop; I haven’t the head-piece for sitch great min; an’ all clargy must have great heads to keep in the larnin’. Now, is it a great weight intirely, sur?”

The priest laughed in spite of his hurry, but as he well knew the man he had to deal with, he checked himself immediately, and assuming as determined a look as possible under the circumstances, he “commanded the slieveen to open the gate for him.”

Watty too knew his man. He knew every variation of the priest’s temper, from its usual lake-like placidity, till it got up to boiling-water heat. He thought it was beginning to “simmer” a little, but far away yet from “bubbling and hissing;” and gratifying his own cool impudence, he continued the process of “heating up.”

“Why, thin, indeed, what I have to say won’t keep ye long, sur.”

“Open the gate this instant!” thundered the priest.

“Sartinly, sur,” quoth Watty, turning quickly round and pretending to be very busy with the gate; “see this boult now! Och! my curse upon the whole corporation ov smiths, includin’ my own dacent uncle who made this same gate, an’ so stiff an’ bad, that all I can do won’t shoot back the boult! A clever workman is a fine thing! An’ so you won’t listen to what I have to say, sur?”

“I can’t, I tell ye. I’m going in all haste to marry a couple.”

“Och! if I knew that, I’d be very sorry to detain your rivirince! What I have to say may well keep for another opportunity. See this curst boult now! Throth the skin is torn off my fingers strivin’ to pull it back, an’ yer rivirince in sitch a disperate hurry! But ye have the patience of Job himself, beyant all doubt. God help the couple that’s expectin’ ye, sur! And who are they, the craithurs?”

The impatient churchman looked at his watch and groaned: but as the inexorable gate would not open to let him pass through, he gratified the newsmonger with the information that “the couple he was about to marry were Dennis Costigan and Catherine, Miles Kavanagh’s daughter.”

“Tunder an’ turf!” exclaimed Mr Colfer, opening his eyes as wide as he could, and raising his hands to express the extremity of astonishment. “Is it ould Dinnis Costigan, father to Jem, that’s goin’ to be married to handsome Kate Kavanagh, the belle o’ the barony?—it’s quite onpossible!”

“It’s not impossible,” said the priest, angrily: “and I see nothing extraordinary in her father preferring to give her to a sensible steady old man, than to a wild young one. But don’t I see the gate open, and you pretending it was bolted? Oh! ye double-dyed slieveen, quit my way this moment, or by all that’s good I’ll let you feel the weight of this,” and he raised his horsewhip.

“Och! wid all the pleasure in life!” quoth Watty, jumping quickly aside; and the gate flew open as if by magic, through which Father Tobin dashed at full speed.

Watty then, sound in wind and limb, shot off through the fields—a short cut to a certain cross-road, about a mile from the priest’s house, and less than a quarter from Miles Kavanagh’s cottage, by which his reverence should pass. Puffing a little, he was just in time to gravely touch his hat as the priest cantered by. Then raising his voice he shouted after him, “Ride aisy, ride aisy, yer rivirince; take things aisy, can’t ye? Young James Costigan an’ Kate Kavanagh ran off together this mornin’, an’ they’re now man an’ wife! Arrah, take things aisy, can’t ye?”

“Oh! ye limb of Satan!” ejaculated the disappointed clergyman, as he pulled up to hear these tidings, “why didn’t you tell me this before, and not send me off on a fool’s errand?”

“How could I, sur?” responded the slieveen, meekly, “when you war in sitch a disperate hurry?—sure ye wouldn’t let me spake at all at all!”

His reverence returned to his home, muttering denunciations upon Watty’s devoted head; and Watty went his way, laughing immoderately at the success of his joke. He had given his spiritual director a ride of a mile or so without his breakfast, which no clerical stomach, Catholic or Protestant, could put up with, unless with a wedding breakfast in prospective. And he told but the truth after all. Young Costigan and handsome Kate had that morning given the knowing old ones the slip, and got married in Wexford; and Dennis, our portly friend Dennis, since he couldn’t have the “belle o’ the barony” for his bride, put a good face on the matter, and received her as his daughter-in-law. Twelve rejected suitors were at the “hauling home;” amongst them Counsellor Shiel of course, who favoured the company with a song made for the occasion, the concluding lines of which we give:

“Now industrious agriculthure transplants the “Flower of Forth,”

To a cosy situation all shelthered from the North!”

M. G. R.

ON THE FOLLY OF SOWING BAD SEEDS BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAP.

BY MARTIN DOYLE.

A few months ago I saw in the shop window of a petty seedsman near Dublin, an advertisement announcing the sale of grass seeds at two shillings and eightpence per barrel of four bushels. I had the curiosity to examine those seeds, which, as may be supposed from their price, were a compound of the germs of weeds, with a small proportion of grass seeds intermixed. I have no doubt that some poor and uncalculating petty farmers were silly enough to purchase this trash on the penny-wise and pound-foolish principle, and I well know that there is no point on which greater ignorance prevails than on that of a proper selection of grass seeds, although they should be sown with an accurate regard to the nature of the soil, the number of years during which the land is to be left in meadow or in pasturage, each of which conditions also requires a different description of seeds.

The successful establishment of grass seeds depends materially, besides the clean and pulverised state of the land, on their adaptation to the soil; and if that be in a state perfectly fit for their reception, a much smaller quantity of seed will be sufficient than under the opposite circumstances; and if the land be in a foul state previously to laying it down, it is clear that the sowing of weed seeds, with a trifling and uncertain admixture of true grass seeds, cannot render it cleaner.

In practical result, the farmer who leaves his field to the generosity of nature is more judicious, because in our humid climate the soil possesses a tendency to generate the indigenous grasses, of which some are really good, and which, from their overpowering qualities, soon dispossess those that may have been sown, and form a close and excellent turf. But to sow weeds is inexpressibly absurd, and this the man does who buys such a compound as that to which I have referred, or who sows them because he happens to have them by some means, and is unwilling to have them lost. Perhaps they have been collected from his own little rick of hay, which he knows to have been of the worst quality, or some stable boy has given him, or stolen for him, the dirty and perhaps fermented sweepings of a nasty hay loft, in which bad hay had been stored, and he is unwilling to throw away what he has so unluckily obtained: his parkeen soon bears testimony to his imprudence: and he admits, though reluctantly, that the grass seeds which he had sown were not of the best quality, though they were procured from a hay loft, when he perceives that they have only introduced an artificial increase of bad herbage, which his little stock of animals would unanimously reject, if hunger did not forbid such fastidiousness.

But the deluded purchaser very frequently forgets that though he has a great bulk for his money, he has a bad bargain; he does not consider that the respectable seedsman, though he charges much more for his seeds, gives a far better quality in general, and does not sell dirt and unprolific grass seeds in the compound which he supplies. Petty seedsmen, no doubt, do so frequently; and how can it be otherwise, when their stock is a motley contribution from farmers’ wives, hostlers, and labourers, who collect every variety of good and bad seeds from every description of meadow and soil? It is better to pay a great deal more for the best seed, of which a far lesser proportion will suffice. I can conceive but one case in which a rational farmer could deliberately use such defective seed as that which I saw in the little huckster’s shop, namely, when he is about to surrender his farm (being obligated to lay down his land with grass), and has all that unamiable and inexcusable feeling which so generally prompts men in such circumstances to act in defiance of their great Christian principle of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.

In this case, a selfish ill-natured tenant wishes to annoy his landlord, and his own innocent successor, to the utmost of his power; and, therefore, while adhering to the letter of his agreement—to sow grass seeds—he breaks it in the spirit, and very effectually, in fact, too, by substituting weeds under the denomination of grasses.

A prudent man who is not a perfect judge himself of the matter, will first consider the quality and nature of his land before he sows grass seeds, and then consult Lawson’s Tables, which furnish precise information on every particular as to the quality and quantity of seeds for all soils, and whether for one, two, three years, or for permanent pasture, and he will endeavour to obtain what he wants accordingly; not that this is often an easy matter of accomplishment, for few seedsmen have the varieties sufficiently distinct, although they are generally polite enough to say that they have them so.

But how can they be always sure of this? We know the great difficulty, even in botanical gardens, of keeping the kinds separate, and the rapidity with which grass seeds become commingled. The only certain way is to raise the desired seeds in detached portions of land, perfectly clean, and carefully cleared of intruding plants. Can the seedsman, with the most honourable intentions and greatest caution, be himself secure from the effects of negligence or wilful imposition?

But to return to the case of the poor man who thinks he has a bargain when he buys four bushels of bad grass seeds for half-a-crown. Though he sees the bad effects in the inferiority of his herbage, and at first lays the blame on the proper source, he actually persuades himself afterwards (when He, who in his bounty doth “clothe the grass of the field” throughout the whole earth, has covered the surface of his field with natural herbage) that to the seeds which he had sown two or three years previously, he is mainly to attribute what the prodigality of Nature, or, more properly, the munificence of God, has supplied.

The man who sows bad or ill-suited grass seeds, merely because he has obtained them, and is unwilling to lose the acquisition, reminds me of an old lady who was for many years of her life in the habit of giving annually (in the spring of the year) to her grandchildren, a regular course of sulphur and treacle mixed up together, whether the recipients required it or not.

On one occasion, a new servant maid, unacquainted with this system, was sent for the usual quantity of flour of sulphur, but by some mismanagement she brought home a pound of flour of mustard. Her mistress sent her back to the grocer from whom it had been bought, but from previous jealousies or quarrels unnecessary to detail, he refused to take it back again. The poor maid could not herself be expected to substitute the required sulphur, and the old lady was determined that the mustard should not be lost. She accordingly mixed it with the treacle instead of the other substance, and actually ladled every particle of the compound down the throats of her grandchildren and the servant maid, who consented to take her share as a punishment for her inattention, until the whole mixture was consumed. The old lady was less foolish than the farmer who sows the seeds of weeds, because she had previously ascertained that the flour of mustard was harmless; but the husbandman must know that those seeds which are not genuine grass seeds are noxious to his land, by rendering it foul, and it is therefore extravagance and not economy on his part to use bad seeds, merely to save waste.

I am sorry to say that the same indifference prevails among the lower classes of our farmers as to seed in general. On this subject I shall again occupy a page of the Journal in an early number.

A Lazy Dog.—Dr Arnaud d’Antilli, one day talking with the Duke de Laincourt upon the new philosophy of M. Descartes, maintained that beasts were mere machines; that they had no sort of reason to direct them; and that when they cried or made a noise, it was only one of the wheels of the clock or machine that made it. The Duke, who was of a different opinion, replied, “I have now in my kitchen two turnspits which take their turns regularly every other day to get into the wheel; one of them not liking his employment, hid himself on the day he should have wrought, so that his companion was forced to mount the wheel in his stead; when released, by crying and wagging his tail, he made a sign for those in attendance to follow him. He immediately conducted them to a garret, where he dislodged the idle dog and bit him severely.”—Dublin University Magazine.

CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.

One of the most fruitful sources of superstition, and that which has been most productive of what are styled “well-founded and authenticated stories of supernatural occurrences,” is that Protean monster known in all its forms by the general appellation of “Remarkable or Curious Coincidences.”

The frequent occurrence of events precisely similar in their details, though perfectly simple and ordinary individually, is apt to be considered, first, as remarkable, and, if again repeated, wonderful.

In a recent number of the Penny Journal mention is made of the curious coincidence of three men having been found drowned at various times in the course of the same winter, in the same river, and the same place, or nearly, each with two shirts on, having given rise to the belief in that parish that it was unlucky to wear two shirts.

But if persons should allow themselves to be guided in their actions by such observances, their lives would become perfectly burthensome from the constant state of watchfulness in which they would be obliged to live; for instance, the following anecdote would show the absolute necessity they would be under of ascertaining the names of their fellow-travellers, lest any one rejoicing in the name of Hugh Williams should be amongst them.

The more juvenile readers of the Penny Journal must be informed that the portion of the sea which flows between the island of Anglesea and the coast of Wales, called the Menai Straits, which is now spanned by the celebrated Menai suspension bridge, was passable, previously to the erection of the bridge, only by boats, a regular ferry-boat plying constantly at the place called Bangor ferry. On the 6th day of December, in the year 1664, the ferry-boat, having eighty-one passengers on board, was upset whilst crossing the Strait, and only one man was saved, whose name was Hugh Williams. On the 6th day of December 1782, the boat then plying, containing about sixty persons, was upset, and all were lost excepting one passenger, whose name proved to be Hugh Williams. On the 5th of August 1820, a similar fate befell twenty-five unfortunate persons, one only of whom escaped, whose name was Hugh Williams!

We should hope that none could now be found so weak, but certainly there have been those who, having heard this story, would fear to trust their precious lives in a ferry-boat with any one of the name of Hugh Williams, but a little local knowledge would go far in removing such an absurd apprehension, as indeed there are few of the most apparently extraordinary events, the origin of which cannot be traced to simple natural causes.

The name of Williams prevails in the neighbourhood of Bangor, and Hugh is a favourite Christian name throughout all Wales. It is very probable that persons of the name of Williams, very possibly even Hugh Williams, were lost amongst the passengers on each of those occasions, but these were overlooked, whilst the coincidence of the individual saved being each time of the same name, was observed and recorded; the circumstance being simply accounted for by the ordinary rules of calculating odds or chances, for where the name of Hugh Williams prevailed, there was certainly a greater chance of one of that name being saved than one of any other, and, as we have before remarked, no account was made of how many Hugh Williamses perished.

N.

Industry.—Let me say a word in behalf of this home-spun virtue. It may seem superfluous, perhaps impertinent, to enforce industry upon the hardest-working people in the world, as I conceive our good countrymen to be; but I speak of it as a part of education—as a principle to be inculcated upon childhood. Its proper limits I shall hereafter attempt to define. In this country it is the duty of every individual to live an active life. No one, even though he be rich, has a right to be idle or useless. In the hive of bees there is a privileged class of drones; but there the government is despotic, with a queen at its head. Ours is a republican government, which admits of no drones, and tolerates no aristocratic indolence. Nor is industry more a duty to society than a source of individual happiness. There are no pleasures so sweet as those earned by effort, no possessions so dear as those acquired by toil. The truth is, that the main happiness of life consists in the vigorous exercise of those faculties which God has given us. Thus it usually happens that more enjoyment is found in the acquisition of property than in its possession. How often does the rich man, surrounded with every luxury, look back from the pinnacle which he has attained, with fond regret, to those days of humble but happy toil when he was struggling up the steep ascent of fortune! Make industry, then, a part of fireside education. Teach it to your children as a point of duty; render it familiar to them by practice. Personal exertion and ready activity are natural to some children, and these hardly need any stimulus to the performance of duties requiring bodily exertion. There are others who have an indolence, a reluctance to move, either uniform or periodical, in their very constitution. If neglected, these children will grow up in the habit of omitting many duties, or of performing only those which are agreeable. It is indispensable that such should be trained to patient exertion, habituated to the performance of every duty in the right time and the right way, even though it may require self-denial and onerous toil. A person who cannot compel himself, from a mere sense of duty, to overcome a slothful reluctance to do what is disagreeable, is but half educated, and carries about him a weakness that is likely to prove fatal to his success in life. Such a person may act vigorously by fits and starts as he may be occasionally urged by impulse; but the good begun will often remain unfinished, and, from subsequent negligence, will result in final disaster. The only safe way is to found industry upon principle, and establish it by habit. While, therefore, I would inculcate industry, I would remark that it may be carried to excess. Every virtue has its bordering vice. The extreme of courage touches upon the precincts of rashness, and a step beyond the proper limit of industry brings you into the dreary regions of avarice.—Fireside Education, by S. G. Goodrich, an American Author.

The Sabbath.—Nature always seemed to me to “keep Sabbath” in the wilderness. I used to fancy that the wild birds were more quiet on that day, sitting on the branches with their heads under their wings, smoothing their plumage, or looking quietly about them, and sometimes venturing a faint warble, scarcely above a whisper. And I have seen a large wolfish animal stand for hours upon a dry log, on the bank of the river, contemplating the stream, or gazing into the air; once or twice, perhaps, starting suddenly a few paces, but then halting as if he had given up the idea; and his tail all the while hanging listlessly down, as if indicating that no enterprise could be undertaken on that day. Just like the merchant who may be seen in the city, on a bright Sunday morning, in clean shirt collar, and with hands thrust into his pockets, loitering slowly down the street, or standing in ruminating attitude at the corner, pondering carefully every step of the morrow’s tangled path, or perhaps calculating the amount of time lost in Sundays, by the whole world, taken individually and collectively from Moses’s day to the present time; but on the whole, enduring the Sabbath with Christian resignation.

Critics.—It is a little singular that the mass should attach much importance to the small opinions of every-day critics. Because a man happens to have the facilities of publishing his views and opinions to the world, though he be the veriest blockhead on earth, his verdict is often of more than ordinary weight among men. Indeed, a Johnson could not influence some men by his verbal opinion, to the extent that an ignoramus can influence them through “press and types.” The “dignity of print” has a strange effect. Although it is but one man who speaks, and he may have one hundred opponents who may argue successfully against him, yet they will all fail with the public. But let either of them publish the same opinion, and the ore, which was rich and weighty, becomes refined. Common critics, moreover, are always ready to find imperfections, for thus will the public be made acquainted with their penetration. In fact, many of them seem to think that to criticize is to find fault; “else (they reason) where is the necessity of criticism?” It is said that any fool can fire a house. So can any man criticize a book; but very few can build the one or write the other. Many of the vinegar-critics of the day who haunt the shores of literature, would utterly fail in penning even the preface to a respectable book. It is a recorded and well-known fact that many of our standard works were rejected for the want of a publisher, owing to the unfavourable opinion of stolid rule-and-figure critics; but when they came before the people, who, judging from the impulses of the heart, are never wrong, how soon was their verdict reversed! The PEOPLE are the only true tribunal. They separate, with the hand of a refiner, the dross from the gold. By them genius is preserved, and pretension discarded.—Knickerbocker.

The boxes of the opera, splendid as they are, and splendid as the appearance of those in them is, do not breathe a spirit of enjoyment. They are rather like the sick wards of luxury and idleness, where people of a certain class are condemned to perform the quarantine of fashion for the evening.—Hazlitt.

Deceivers.—We are born to deceive or to be deceived. In one of these classes we must be numbered; but our self-respect is dependent upon our selection. The practice of deception generally secures its own punishment; for callous indeed must be that mind which is insensible of its ignominy! But he who has been duped is conscious, even in the very moment that he detects the imposition, of his proud superiority to one who can stoop to the adoption of so foul and sorry a course. The really good and high-minded, therefore, are seldom provoked by the discovery of deception; though the cunning and artful resent it, as a humiliating triumph obtained over them in their own vocations.

Wit.—Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sunshine, and reflection the moonlight; for as the bright orb of night owes its lustre to the sun, so does reflection owe its existence to reason.

Premature Wisdom.—The premature wisdom of youth resembles the forced fruit of our hot-houses; it looks like the natural production, but has not its flavour or raciness.

Poor.—A term of reproach in England, and of pity in most other countries.

Poets and Astronomers.—Poets view nature as a book in which they read a language unknown to common minds, as astronomers regard the heavens, and therein discover objects that escape the vulgar ken.

Peace of Mind.—Though peace of mind does not constitute happiness, happiness cannot exist without it; our serenity being the result of our own exertions, while our happiness is dependent on others: hence the reason why it is so rare; for, on how few can we count? Our wisdom, therefore, is best shown in cultivating all that leads to the preservation of this negative blessing, which, while we possess it will prevent us from ever becoming wholly wretched.

ANSWER TO THE ENIGMA IN No. 17.

Mr Teague, the enigma you sent me, my honey,

Must mean, I conjecture, a round bit o’ money;

But what it can be, is a regular stopper,

Unless it’s a coinage from some kind of copper;

Though your Dean of St Patrick’s did not like the stuff,

For this very fair reason—’twas not big enough.

So here goes a guess—and, in truth, to be plain,

It’s a good honest Penny your honour will mane.

Ah, Geordy, full oft have they tried to disgrace,

With buffets and blows, thy right royal old face;

Let them hammer away till they’re all in a pet,

For real solid worth thou’rt the best of the set.

E’en O’Connell must own, though he don’t like the mint,

That thou art the cream of his flourishing rint!

As for gold, it flies off like the chaff or the stubble,

Leaving little behind but vexation and trouble.

And that mealy-fac’d silver, experience of old

Says is only too apt to take wings after gold—

In fact, I ne’er found, from the mohur to piastre,

That one kind or other went slower or faster;

Do just as you like, it seems a thing plann’d,

That one of those vagrants shall ne’er be on hand.

We well know what wonders a Penny can do,

What instruction and comfort a mite will bestow.

The stores of the world, its rust and its lumber,

Come brighten’d and polish’d in each penny number.

The well-spring of knowledge is open to all—

The Penny has spread it through cottage and hall.

So now, my friend Teague, let the great have the guinea.

You and I’ll be contint if we’ve always a Pinny.

Printed and published every Saturday by Gunn and Cameron, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.—Agents:—R. Groombridge, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London; Simms and Dinham, Exchange Street, Manchester; C. Davies, North John Street, Liverpool; J. Drake, Birmingham; Slocombe & Simms, Leeds; Fraser and Crawford, George Street, Edinburgh; and David Robertson, Trongate, Glasgow.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, VOL. 1 NO. 32, FEBRUARY 6, 1841 ***

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Table of Contents

- THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

- HANDSOME KATE KAVANAGH.

- ON THE FOLLY OF SOWING BAD SEEDS BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAP.

- CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.

- ANSWER TO THE ENIGMA IN No. 17.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE