known knell of the college bell struck to his heart a sound of deeper sadness and sorrow.

"Minister Tam is gone to be a sodger after a'," was the cry for a time throughout the Crosslets of Paisley; and that was the breaking of his parents' hearts, and the crowning of all they had suffered. He had been, as expressed in the fine ballad of the poet of Paisley, "listed, tested, sworn, and a'," before ever any thing of his resolution was known at home; and the next thing heard of him was, "that he was gone far beyond the sea," having embarked with his regiment to join Lord Wellington in Spain; and now all went wrong at home, and old Thomas Trail's house became desolate, and the poor man went about stupid, and began to take a drop of drink; and his wife would lie in bed for days together, though in perfect health, while every thing out and in went to wreck.

Some said that Trail made a good soldier, and was made a corporal in Spain; but of this no authentic accounts ever arrived. What his thoughts were, while on the march, "in a foreign land," or as he stood his watch as sentinel in the long cold nights, and pondered of Scotland and the Paisley Braes, and of his old mother and father at home, and of former happy sabbath nights, and of Jean Emerie who was never to see or weep with him again, we can only guess; for the last that was heard of Minister Tam in the Crosslets of Paisley, was, that he had fallen gloriously at the battle of Salamanca !

But there was little glorying in the news with some who heard it. I speak not of the grief of Jean Emerie, who might be seen in widow's weeds some time after, sitting lonely on a Sunday morning, in the cold Abbey Church of Paisley; for there is enough of that sort of grief in the world, and of women who weep in secret disappointment, after blasted hopes with the only man who was ever the choice of their hearts for a companion for life. It was old Thomas Trail and his wife, at least, who were truly to be pitied; and they used to sit together by the fire at night for hours without being able to speak.

But sabbath night was the hardest to get over in the house of the old people, with all its recollections and all its sanctity. You might see Mrs Trail sitting opposite her husband by the fire and without candle, looking into the embers with her hands wrung into each other, and weeping for hours over a mother's thoughts, for "she should never see her son more! who after all her hopes had been killed in a foreign land, and because that his very bones were huddled into clay without coffin, or a mother's tears, in some far away place-which they call Salamanca." PICKEN.

THE PARTITION OF THE EARTH.

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER.

TAKE ye the world! I give it ye for ever,'
Said Jupiter to men ; 'for now I mean ye
To hold it as your heritage: so sever

The earth like brothers, as ye please, between ye."

All who had hands, took what they could: the needy,
Both old and young, most busily employ'd 'em ;
The farmer had the fields; the lord, more greedy,
Seized on the woods for chase, and he enjoy'd 'em.

To get his share, the merchant took all sly ways.
The abbot had the vineyards in partition;
The king kept all the bridges, and the high ways;
And claim'd a tenth of all things in addition.

Long after the division was completed
Came in the poet-absent, not at distance:
Alas, 'twas over-not to be repeated-
All given away, as if he'd no existence.

Ah, woe is me! 'mid bounty so unbounded,
Shall I, thy truest son, be thus neglected ?'
He cried aloud, and his complaint resounded,
As he drew near Jove's throne quite unexpected.

If in the Land of Visions you resided,'

Said Jove, and anger feel, to me don't show it. Where were you when the world was first divided ?'— I was close by thee,' answer'd the poor poet.

With glory of thy face mine eyes were aching,
And music fill'd mine ears while gifts you squander'd:

The earthly for the heavenly thus forsaking,

Forgive my spirit that a while it wander'd.'

'What's to be done?' said Jove- The world is given;
Fields, chases, towns, circumference and centre.

If you're content to dwell with me in heaven,
'Tis open to you when you please to enter.'

[The Tatler.]

:

NED M'KEOWN.*

WHO within the parish, whether gentle or simple, man or woman, boy or girl, did not know Ned M'Keown and his wife Nancy, joint proprietors of the tobacco-shop and public-house at the crossroads of Kilrudden? Honest, blustering, good-humoured Ned was the indefatigable merchant of the village; ever engaged in some ten or twenty-pound speculation, the capital of which he was sure to extort, perhaps for the twelfth time, from the savings of Nancy's frugality, by the equivocal test of a month or six weeks' consecutive sobriety; and which said speculation he never failed to wind up by the total loss of the capital for Nancy, and the capital loss of a broken head for himself. Ned had eternally some bargain on his hands at one time you might find him a yarn merchant, planted upon the upper step of Mr Birnie's hall-door, where the yarnmarket was held, surrounded by a crowd of eager country-women, anxious to give Ned the preference-first, because he was a wellwisher; secondly, because he hadn't his heart in the penny; and thirdly, because he gave sixpence a spangle more than any other man in the market. There might Ned be found, with his twenty pounds of hard silver jingling in the bottom of a green bag, as a decoy to the customers, laughing loud as he piled the yarn in an ostentatious heap, which, in the pride of his commercial sagacity, he had purchased at a dead loss. Again you might see him at a horse-fair, cantering about on the back of some sleek, but brokenwinded jade, with spavined legs, imposed on him as "a great bargain entirely," by the superior cunning of some rustic sharper ;or standing over a hogshead of damaged flaxseed, in the purchase of which he shrewdly suspected himself of having overreached the seller, by allowing him for it a greater price than the prime seed of the market would have cost him. In short, Ned was never out of a speculation, and whatever he undertook was sure to prove a complete failure. But he had one mode of consolation, which consisted in sitting down with the fag-end of Nancy's capital in his pocket, and drinking night and day with this neighbour and that, whilst a shilling remained; and when he found himself at the end of his tether, he was sure to fasten a quarrel on some friend or acquaintance, and to get his head broken for his pains. None of all this blustering, however, happened within the range of Nancy's jurisdiction. Ned, indeed, might drink and sing, and swagger and

From "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. Dublin. 1830," 2 Vols. 12mo.

fight-and he contrived to do so; but notwithstanding all his apparent courage, there was one eye which made him quail, and before which he never put on the Hector;-there was one, in whose presence the loudness of his song would fall away into a very awkward and unmusical quaver, and his laughing face assume the visage of a man who is disposed to any thing but mirth. The fact was this: Whenever Ned found that his speculation was gone a shaughran, as he termed it, he fixed himself in some favourite public-house, from whence he seldom stirred while his money lasted, except when dislodged by Nancy, who usually, upon learning where he had taken cover, paid him an unceremonious visit, to which Ned's indefensible delinquency gave the colour of legitimate authority. Upon these occasions, Nancy, accompanied by two sturdy servantmen, would sally forth to the next market-town, for the purpose of bringing home "graceless Ned," as she called him. And then you might see Ned between the two servants, a few paces in advance of Nancy, having very much the appearance of a man performing a pilgrimage to the gallows, or of a deserter guarded back to his barrack, in order to become a target for the musquets of his comrades. Ned's compulsory return always became a matter of some notoriety; for Nancy's excursion in quest of the "graceless” was not made without frequent denunciations of wrath against him, and many melancholy apologies to the neighbours for entering upon the task of personally securing him. By this means her enterprize was sure to get wind, and a mob of all the idle young men and barefooted urchins of the village, with Bob M'Cann, "a threequarther clift," or mischievous fellow, half knave, half fool, was to be found a little below the village, upon an elevation of the road, that commanded a level stretch of half a mile or so, in anxious expectation of the procession. No sooner had this arrived at the point of observation, than the little squadron would fall rearward of the principal group, for the purpose of extracting from Nancy a full and particular account of the capture.

"Indeed, childher, id's no wondher for ye to enquire! Where did I get 'im, Dick?-musha, an' where wud I get 'im but in the ould place, a-hagur; wid the ould set: don't yees know that a dacent place or dacent company wudn't sarve Ned ?-nobody bud Shane Martin, an' Jimmy Tague, an' the other blackguards." "An' what will ye do wid 'm, Nancy?"

"Och! thin, Dick, avourneen, id's myself that's jist tired thinkin' iv that; at any rate, consumin' to the loose foot he'll get this blessed month to come, Dick, agra!"

"Troth, Nancy," another mischievous monkey would exclaim,

"if ye hadn't great patience entirely, ye cudn't put up wid such thratement, at all at all."

"Why thin, God knows, id's thrue for ye, Barney. D'ye hear that, 'graceless'—the very childher makin' a laughin'-stock an' a may-game iv ye?-bud wait till we get undher the roof, any how."

66

Ned," a third would say, "isn't id a burnin' shame for ye to brake the poor crathur's heart, this a-way? Throth, but ye ought to hould down yer head, sure enough—a dacent woman! that only for her wudn't have a house over ye, so ye wudn't."

1

"An' throth an' id's goin', Tim," Nancy would exclaim, “an' whin id goes, let 'im see thin who'll do for 'm: let 'im thry if his blackguards 'ill stan' to 'im, whin he won't have poor foolish Nancy at his back."

During these conversations, Ned would walk on between his two guards, with a dogged-looking and condemned face, Nancy behind him, with his own cudgel, ready to administer the restorative of an occasional bang, whenever he attempted to slacken his pace, or hrow over his shoulder a growl of dissent or justification.

On getting near home, the neighbours would occasionally pop it their heads, with a smile of good-humoured satire on their aces, which Nancy was very capable of translating:

"Ay," she would say, "I've caught 'im-here he is to the fore. Indeed ye may well laugh, Katty Rafferty; not a wan iv myself blames ye for id.-Ah, ye mane crathur," turning to Ned, "iv ye had the blood iv a hen in ye, ye wudn't have the neighbours brakin' their hearts laughin' at ye in sich a way;-an' above all the people in the world, them Raffertys, that got the decree agin iz at the last sessions, although I offered to pay within fifteen shillins of the differ the grubs!"

Having seen her hopeful charge safely deposited on the hob, Nancy would throw her cloak into this corner, and her bonnet into that, with the air of a woman absorbed by the consideration of some vexatious trial; she would then sit down, and, lighting her doodeen, exclaim,

"Wurrah, wurrah! id's me that's the heart-scalded crathur wid that man's four quarthers! The Lord may help me, an' grant me patience wid him, any way!-to have my little, honest, hard-arned penny spint among a pack o' vagabonds, that dizn't care him an' me war both down the river, so they cud get their bellyful iv dhrink out iv 'im. No matther, agra! things can't long be this a-way ;but what diz Ned care?-give him dhrink an' fightin', an' his blackguards about 'im, an' that's his glory. There now's the lan'lord comin' down upon us for the rint, an' 'cept he takes the cows