Bloody Bill will be there like a darling, and Jerry, och! let him alone,
For giving his blackthorn a flourish, or lifting a lump of a stone.

4.

And Tim, who serv'd in the militia, his bayonet has stuck on a pole;
Foxy Dick has his scythe in good order, a neat sort of tool on the whole;
A cudgel, I see, is your weapon, and never I knew it to fail;

But I think that a man is more handy, who fights, as I do, with a flail.

5.

We muster a hundred shillelahs, all handled by elegant men,

Who batter'd the Donovans often, and now will go do it again;

To-day we will teach them some manners, and show that, in spite of their talk,

We still, like our fathers before us, are surely the cocks of the walk.

6.

After cutting out work for the sexton, by smashing a dozen or so,
We'll quit in the utmost of splendour, and down to Peg Slattery's go;
In gallons we'll wash down the battle, and drink to the next merry day;
When must'ring again in a body, we all shall go leathering away.

SONG V.

A REAL IRISH "FLY NOT YET."

[Tune-Lillibullero. Time, four o'clock in the morning, or thereabouts.]

Solo.

Hark! hark! from below, The rascal-ly row Of watchmen in chorus

bawling "Four!" But spite of their noise, My rol-locking boys, We'll

Grand Chorus.

With practical accompaniments.

stay till we've emptied one bottle more. Bumpers, bumpers, flowing bumpers,

Bumper your glasses high up to the brim, And he who is talking A

word about walk - ing, Out of the window at once with him.

* Of whiskey, viz. about thirteen tumblers.-M. OD.

We pronounce the word generally in Ireland as we sound the ch in church -Tchorus.-I think it is a prettier way.-M. OD.

And then, sallying out,

We'll leather the rout,"

Who've dared to remind us how time has run.

Bumpers, &c.

SONG VI.

THE IMPASSIONED WAVE.

[Tune-" Thomon um Though."]

With ardent feeliny and pensive expression.

'Tis sweet up-on th'impassion'd wave To hear the voice of

music stealing, And while the dark winds wildly rave, To

ESPRESSIONE.

catch the genuine soul of feeling; While all around, the ether blue Its

dim majestic beam is shedding, And ro

ESPRESS.

sy tints of

heavenly hue Are thro' the mid-night dark-ness spreading.

1.

'Tis sweet upon the impassion'd wave
To hear the voice of music stealing,
And while the dark winds wildly rave,
To catch the genuine soul of feeling!

* Beating the watch is a pleasant and usual finale to a social party Dublin. I am compelled myself now and then to castigate them, merely for the impertinent clamour they make at night about the hours. Our ances tors must have been in the depths of barbarity, when they established this un gentlemanlike custom.-M. OD.

Letter-Writing.*

EPISTOLARY as well as personal intercourse is, according to the mode in which it is carried on, one of the pleasantest or most irksome things in the world. It is delightful to drop in on a friend without the solemn prelude of invitation and acceptance-to join a social circle, where we may suffer our minds and hearts to relax and expand in the happy consciousness of perfect security from invidious remark and carping criticism; where we may give the reins to the sportiveness of innocent fancy, or the enthusiasm of warm-hearted feeling; where we may talk sense or nonsense, (I pity people who cannot talk nonsense,) without fear of being looked into icicles by the coldness of unimaginative people, living pieces of clock-work, who dare not themselves utter a word, or lift up a little finger, without first weighing the important point, in the hair balance of propriety and good breeding. It is equally delightful to let the pen talk freely, and unpremeditatedly, and to one by whom we are sure of being understood; but a formal letter, like a ceremonious morning visit, is tedious alike to the writer and receiver-for the most part spun out with unmeaning phrases, trite observations, complimentary flourishes, and protestations of respect and attachment, so far not deceitful, as they never deceive any body. Oh the misery of having to compose a set, proper, well worded, correctly pointed, polite, elegant epistle!-one that must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, as methodically arranged and portioned out as the several parts of a sermon under three heads, or the three gradations of shade in a school-girl's first landscape! For my part, I would rather be set to beat hemp, or weed in a turnip field, than to write such a letter exactly every month, on every fortnight, at the precise point of time from the date of our correspondent's last letter, that he or she wrote after the reception of ours. as if one's thoughts bubbled up to the well-head at regular periods, a pint at a time, to be bottled off for imme diate use. Thought! what has thought to do in such a corre

# From Blackwood for March, 1822.-M.