A BONE TO PICK;

A TALE OF IRISH REVENGE.

ALL who have studied the Irish character must have remarked, among its most obvious qualities, humour and revenge. A wild mixture of these two incongruous attributes is very common. We often see the deadly passion tempered by traits of that national jocularity, which has been pronounced to be "in conversation better than wit;" but which gives a more bitter flavour to the cup of misery, filled for the object of vindictive pursuit. Numberless instances might be cited-but I shall be satisfied with recording one.

There is, in the diction of Ireland, as may be expected, and particularly in that of the remoter provinces, a coarse, but powerful, phraseology, not entirely confined to the lower orders, but garnishing the conversation of the gentry themselves, with a pungency too strong for the palate of refinement. Still it does not revolt us much in the sphere where we find it for nothing is overpoweringly disagreeable but what is unnatural. The breadth of an Irish brogue cannot be, I should think, half so unpleasing to English ears, as the narrowness of Irish prejudice must be grating to English feeling. The man who, not ashamed of his country, honestly flounders on in all the errors of idiom and pronunciation, who declares, he "will be drowned, while nobody shall save him,” is, I know, and I wish all my countrymen knew it, infinitely more honoured out of Ireland, than the king's English-clipping renegade, whose loudest and basest boast is, that he despises the land of his birth.

In the colloquial familiarities of Irish intercourse, many proverbial and idiomatic phrases are used, unknown elsewhere. Some of this conversational coin is, however, in general circulation. Every one knows, that "having a crow

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to pluck with you," means, having a reproach to make to you: "picking a hole in one's coat," implies finding fault, et cetera. Now, "giving one a bone to pick," means, by moral analogy, throwing out some hint, or stating some fact of harsh and agitating tendency, which the mind may gnaw without being nourished—a file that corrodes the teeth which bite at it. The vengeance that strikes at the heart, and is smothered in its victim's blood, is not half so deadly or so desperate as this. But I have yet a good deal to say, before I come to the illustration of my subject.

It is now several years since, by circumstances of no importance here, I was invited to dine one day with the Bar Club, in an Irish assize town, in one of the southern circuits. As barristers wish to be sometimes exclusive, they are glad to escape from the almost continual masquerade of their public life, and at their circuit dinners they admit no strangers, (except under peculiar circumstances); but, throwing off with the Toga the multitude of sins it covers, they shine forth the most sociable, most cordial, and the wittiest of all assemblies. I was very young at the time in question; and the brilliant conversation which I listened to, the flashes of merriment, the classical allusions, the anecdotes, the repartees, and the puns, altogether made an impression never to be effaced. I have seen a good deal, since that day, of celebrated scholars, writers, and wits; but, whether it is the effect of early impression, or the real fact, I think every after-display of intellectual variety, which I have witnessed since that one, has been fade and inferior in comparison with it.

Some time after the cloth was removed, and while the bottle was going its cheerful rounds, every bumper smacking more freshly, from the fun with which it was flavoured, the door of the room slowly opened, and a man entered and stopped, cautiously holding the handle, neither advancing as if he had a right to come farther, nor showing any exact evidence of his confessing himself an intruder. His whole attitude spoke a mixture of confidence and doubt, the latter predominating; and he clearly paused for an invitation to advance. He gave me the impression of a guest who might have been expected without being bidden--one timidly acting under that most mortifying of privileges, a general invitation.

As I sat opposite the door, I could fully remark the figure

and physiognomy of this new comer; and time enough was given me for observation, in consequence of the little attention he seemed to excite in those of the party, who, sitting at my side of the table, must have seen him as well as I did. The president, whose talents have long since been promoted to a seat of inore dignity, was in the act of spinning out a story of excellent texture, the web of which was so cunningly woven, and so dexterously coloured, as strongly to excite the audience, and make them the more indifferent to the stranger's interruption, or intrusion, as I must call it. But he bore in his whole aspect evidence of a still better reason for their indifference. He was poor!-a poverty, however, that was clearly that of a gentleman. His look showed none of the hereditary meanness which walks hand in hand with the wretchedness of the lower classes of Irish. His black coat was quite threadbare, and its fashion of some years standing; but it fitted him, and did not hang loosely on the wearer, like an ill-cut but not-to-be-mistaken badge of beggary. His other garments, worn and faded as they were, did equal credit to his tailor, for they showed to all possible advantage all that was good in the remnant of a once muscular and manly form. The visible verge of the stranger's linen was clean, but bearing the tinge of Time's or Jealousy's jaundiced eye the frill was puffed out into a display, which seemed less for ostentation than the convenience of covering the time-worn edges of the flowered vest; and the cravat, of the same citron hue, was tied in a profuse expenditure of " bows and ends," according to the plethoric taste of the last century, which may still be observed in the old dandies who carry their old fashions into this. The scanty remains of the stranger's hair were frizzed and dressed, and the scalp and forehead thickly larded with a paste of pomatum and powder, which covered the baldness, but could not conceal it, and placed the deformity of affectation upon the gracefulness of age. The hard and sun-burnt hat, held in one hand, was profusely powdered at the inside of the crown and leaf, but no more able than the cranium it whilom covered to throw dust in the eyes of the observers, as to its actual" age and quality." A gold-headed cane dangled by a string from the wrist of the other ungloved hand, which displayed more than one ring of ancient workmanship, that seemed to suit the long and well-formed fingers. An eyeglass showed itself full three-quarters out from between the

lower buttons of the vest, and a black ribbon fastened it round the neck.

The face of this reduced gentlman told a long story, I thought, of anxiety, and pride, and suffering. The features were of the common stamp of Irish provincial gentilityintelligent marked, and somewhat coarse but the whole expression was softened down into an air of weather-beaten composure; not as if a sudden blow of fate had marked the countenance with wo, but as if time and care had been long chiselling it together, in lines more numerous than deep. A multitude of wrinkles covered the forehead and cheeks ; the mouth was drawn downward, and a deep frown more deeply shadowed the naturally sunken eyes. I well know that after-knowledge of events often deceives us into the belief that we have traced character at first sight; but I cannot help thinking I read in this face, on this first and last time of my beholding it, the tale of lingering and gradual disappointment by which it had been furrowed.

As soon as the president had finished his story and the hearty laugh which followed it had nearly subsided, he turned to the visiter, and exclaimed

"Aha, Mr. M.Ronan, you are there!-come in, come in, welcome! We are glad to see you-come in, and sit down, and take a glass of wine."

On this invitation, unaccompanied as it was by any movement of consideration or ceremony on the part of the president or his friends, the permitted rather than the invited guest came in-to receive on sufferance the civility so proffered. He sat down at the end of the table on the left hand of the vicepresident, who was ex officio the youngest member of the club; and, without laying down his hat, or being asked to put it aside, he drank his bumper or two of claret, bowing cold and, I thought, proud acknowledgments to the nods and "your healths" that were flung at him. Nobody seemed to think it necessary to pay him any attention beyond that and the conversation went on without any interruption, except one, at which I could not help being struck with some surprise. Following the example of the president, all the company (myself excepted) simultaneously put their hands into their pockets, and pulled forth their note-cases, or purses, or a single note or two, lying loosely for the occasion, as it were; and the vice-president, taking a bottle-waster in his hand, left his seat, and walked round the table, going suc

cessively to each person, beginning with the president, and receiving each individual donation, to which he added his own. As he came near me, I prepared to add mine to the rest; but one of the gentlemen next to me put his hand on my arm, and prevented my intention, saying

"No, no, don't attempt that; you would desperately wound our poor pensioner's feelings. It is quite a professional affair he is not exactly a mendicant, but is, rather, receiving, by small instalments, the return of large advances made to the brethren of the robe. Take no notice of this, and I will explain it all to you another time."

Taking the hint, I made no offer of contribution, and I avoided as much as I could any expression of wonderment or curiosity. The vice-president, when he had made his gathering, folded up the notes, which I could see were chiefly those of the lowest sums in circulation, single pounds or guineas; but one or two caught my eye of five times that amount. He then politely handed the packet to the visiter, who immediately rose, made a gentlemanly bow to the presi dent, and several similar inclinations of the head to the rest of the company. "Good evening, Mr. M.Ronan !" sounded from every voice; but no one moved, until I, somewhat indiscreetly, rose from my seat-but I was very young, and had not learned the decorum of smothering one's feelings, even at the certainty of wounding another's; and I could not help a blush of mingled shame and pity rising on my cheek when I saw the indifference with which the party witnessed the look of humiliation and proud sorrow that came from that careworn face, as it withdrew from the room.

I took the earliest opportunity-indeed it was that very evening-to request the promised explanation from my neighbour; and he gave me the following sketch of the causes of the reduced gentleman's situation and circum

stances.

Phelim M Ronan, of Ronanstown, Esq., was, for aught he knew to the contrary, the father of the gentleman who had so much excited my attention. We must go back almost half way into the last century, to figure to our minds the bearing and character of an Irish squire, such as Mr. Phelim M Ronan undoubtedly was; and having let our minds fix themselves there, I will leave to the individual imaginations of my readers all the details of appearance and manners appertaining to this personage. In fact, I never VOL. I.-B