and all the vessels of the lake, into Hugh O'Conor's hands, for assurance of his fidelity.

From this entry it would appear that the Hen's Island, as well as the island called Inis Creamha, had each a castle on it previously; and this conclusion is strengthened by a subsequent entry in the same Annals, at the year 1233, from which it appears that this castle, as well as others, had been erected by the sons of Roderick, who had been long in contention for the government with Cathal Crovedearg, and his sons Hugh and Felim, and had, during these troubles, possessed themselves of O'Flaherty's country. On the death of Hugh O'Conor, who was treacherously slain by Geoffry De Mares, or De Marisco, in 1228, they appear to have again seized on the strongholds of the country, that of the Hen's Castle among the rest, and to have retained them till 1233, when their rival Felim O'Conor finally triumphed, and broke down their castles. This event is thus narrated in the Annals of the Four Masters :

one of her own sex, she returned an answer, written with her own hand, authorising her good friend "Captain Bivian O'Flaherty" to retain twenty men at her majesty's expense, for the preservation of the peace of the country; and they were maintained accordingly, till the infant heiress, becoming adult, was united to Thomas Blake, the ancestor of the present Sir John Blake of Menlo Castle, and proprietor of the Castle of the Hen.

To these brief notices of an ancient castle, not hitherto described, or its age ascertained, we shall only add, that there are few military structures of lime and stone now remaining in Ireland that can boast an equal antiquity.

OCCUPATIONS FOR THE YOUNG.

BY MARTIN DOYLE.

P.

HABIT is said to be a second nature, and it is often stronger hand of the master, but the second nature, which is of our than the first. At first we easily take the bend from the important, then, is education, which gives the turn and mouldown making, is frequently proof against any alteration. How ing to the mind while it is flexible, fixes the habits, and forms its natural bias, is either misdirected or misunderstood in nine the character! The discipline of the mind, with respect to cases out of ten, and latent talents or tendencies, which by proper culture might be rendered sources of enjoyment to the possessor, and useful to the community, are restrained, if not too powerful for suppression, from their proper developement, by absurd and artificial treatment.

In the upper classes, a parent, perhaps, incapable of estimating the capacity of his son, determines with himself that the profession, suppose of divinity, of law, or of medicine, is the most lucrative, gentlemanlike, or otherwise eligible, and that the boy shall be educated accordingly.

1233. Felim, the son of Charles the Red-handed, led an army into Connaught. Cormac, the son of Tomaltagh (Lord of Moylurg), went to meet him, and brought him to Moylurg, where they erected a camp at Druim Greagraighe, and were joined by Cormac, by Conor his son, the inhabitants of the three Tuathas, and by the two sons of Mortogh Mac Dermot, Donogh and Mortogh. They here consulted with each other, and resolved upon going in pursuit of Hugh (King of Connaught) and the other sons of Roderic. After overtaking them, they defeated Hugh, slew himself, his brother, Hugh Muimhneach his son, and Donogh More, the son of Dermot, who was the son of Roderic, and many others besides. There were also slain Raghallach O'Flanigan, Thomas Biris, Constable of Ireland, his relative John Guer, and many other Englishmen. This was after the bells and croziers had been rung against them, after they had been cursed and excommunicated by the clergy of Connaught; for Hugh Muimhneach had violated and plundered Tibohine and many other churches, The unfortunate youth who has no talent for the acquisition so that he and his adherents fell in revenge of their dishonour of languages, and cannot comprehend the simplest proposition to the saints whose churches they had violated. The king- and to pass many of the most precious years of his life in the in geometry, is condemned to pursue a prescribed routine, dom and sovereignty of Connaught were wrested from the sons of Roderic, the son of Torlogh, on that day. Felim, the unavailing effort to learn, through the drudgery of a classical son of Charles the Red-handed, then assumed the government school, what is repugnant to his taste, and beyond his powers of Connaught, and demolished the castles which had been of comprehension; and all this time, from being constantly erected by the power of the sons of Roderic O'Conor and Mac engaged in thumbing the elementary books of the dead lanWilliam Burke, namely, the Castle of Bon Gaillimhe, Caislen-guages (which are never at his finger ends, in the acceptation a-Circe, Caislen-na-Caillighe, and the Castle of Dunamon. of the common phrase), he grows up shamefully ignorant of his In subsequent times the Hen's Castle reverted to the O'Fla- vernacular tongue, in which he can neither read with fluency hertys, and was repaired and garrisoned by them till the nor spell with correctness. time of Cromwell, when, as we are informed by Roderick O'Flaherty, it was finally dismantled and left to decay. Still, however, enough remains to exhibit its original plan, which was that of an Anglo-Norman castle or keep, in the form of a parallelogram, with three projecting towers on its two longest sides: and the architectural features of the thirteenth century are also visible in some of its beautifully executed windows and doorways.

na

The Hen's Castle is not without its legendary traditions connected with its history anterior to its dilapidation; and the following outline of one of these and the latest-as told at the cottage firesides around Lough Corrib, may be worth preserving as having a probable foundation in truth.

The schoolmaster, however, is expected to prepare him for the university within a given time, and he must be made up for entrance accordingly. If the parents are told that Young Hopeful has no turn for a literary life, no capacity for learning what is required, they doubt the judgment of the informant, who tells them the truth; for the acknowledgment of this would be an indirect admission of their own incapacity; and in proportion to their ignorance and dullness, is their self assurance that their booby has excellent abilities. The youth is therefore forced forward in spite of his natural repugnance to books; and if afterwards smuggled through the university into a profession which may give him place or emolument, without ability or exertion on his part, he dishe be admitted into a profession which yields honour or emograces his station by general ignorance and unfitness; and if lument only in proportion to talents and industry, he totally fails of the object, and it is discovered too late that the selec tion of his avocation was in some way unlucky.

Now, it is very probable that if such an every-day boy had qualified him, instead of being limited to a course of unsuitable and distasteful occupations, he might have acquired useful knowledge of some sort. For example, supposing him to stumble at metrical "longs and shorts," or to be stuck between the horns of a dilemma, or be lost amidst the mazes of metaphysics, he might have that peculiar turn which would render him a good farmer, an excellent judge of "long and short wools" or of "long and short horns," or that shrewdness which would render him a clever tradesman, a man

It is said that during the troubled reign of Queen Elizabeth, a lady of the O'Flahertys, who was an heiress and a widow, with an only child, a daughter, to preserve her property from the grasp of her own family and that of the De Burgos or Burkes, shut herself up with her child in the Hen's Castle, attended by twenty faithful followers, of tried courage and de-been permitted to pursue some track for which his inclinations votion to her service, of her own and her husband's family. As such a step was, however, pregnant with danger to herself, by exciting the attention and alarm of the government and local authorities, and furnishing her enemies with an excuse for aggression, she felt it necessary to obtain the queen's sanction to her proceedings; and accordingly she addressed a letter to her majesty, requesting her permission to arm her followers, and alleging as a reason for it, the disaffected state of the country, and her ardent desire to preserve its peace for her majesty. The letter, after the fashion of the times, was not signed by the lady in her acquired matron's name, but in her maiden one, of which no doubt she was more proud: it was Bivian or Bevinda O'Flaherty. The queen received it graciously; but not being particularly well acquainted with the gender of Irish Christian names, and never suspecting, from the style or matter of the epistle, that it had emanated from

"Who knows what's what, and that's as high

As metaphysic wit doth fly."

And so certain am I that many young men who enter our university would prefer and far better comprehend the plain and practical lecture of a professor of agriculture, surrounded by models of machinery and plates of cattle, &c., than lec

tures of a far more pretending character, that I cannot avoid lamenting the deficiency in the department of agriculture which Socrates designated "the nurse and mother of all the arts," and Gibbon" the foundation of all manufactures."

The example afforded in this respect by the University of Edinburgh is worthy of the imitation of Trinity College. To afford at least the opportunities of gaining such information on this subject as the mind may be capable of receiving or predisposed to receive, cannot but be deemed judicious. And the theoretical knowledge of husbandry is incalculably more needed by the gentry and middle classes of Ireland than by those of the same grades in Scotland, where almost every land-proprietor and farmer understands the subject more or

less.

Far be it from me to decry the advantages of what is called learning, but I would have a more diversified course, both in our schools of every class, and in the universities, so as to comprehend those useful branches of information, to which the student, if denied by Providence the faculties requisite for the attainment of others, may apply himself with pleasure or advantage.

I have met with many young persons of exceeding dullness in book learning, of decided distaste to the pursuits of literature, who have manifested a quick apprehension of mechanical contrivances, practically exhibited a love of natural history, of gardening, of agriculture, of something, in short, of a utilitarian character. If these tendencies had been duly cultivated, the results would have been favourable to the individuals themselves, and probably to the public also.

I have often been puzzled to account for the pre-eminence of the Scotch as a clever and a thinking people: it cannot be from atmospheric influence; and I am disposed to question the correctness of the assertion of a grave Caledonian, that the fine spirit of philosophical inquiry which distinguishes his countrymen is mainly attributable to their use of oatmeal porridge; it must rather be from well-directed education, from the early acquired habit of thinking for one's self, and of giving | a reason for every thing as far as they can, that the Scotch are so intelligent and so fitted for their respective stations in the social circle.

My own countrymen are naturally as shrewd and intellectual as the Scotch, but their minds are too generally ill disciplined, and school education, for all classes, is too generally defective every where. Several hours of the day are passed in wearisome restraint within the walls of a schoolroom, in learning words without ideas, sounds without sense; the mind being seldom engaged in the tasks with either pleasure or profit.

And besides the impediments which obstruct the progress of useful occupation, arising from the blindness of parents, the unfitness of teachers, and the incapacity of pupils, there are to be encountered in all schools the natural preference of idleness to any kind of systematic occupation, the love of mischief and freaks, which prevail among combinations of boys, and the difficulty of analysing character and dispositions in crowded seminaries.

But in schools for the poor, where order and discipline are easily enforced; in places of private education, and under the paternal roof, where by far the greatest degree of happiness and simplicity of character are enjoyed and preserved-in such cases, in which instructors and parents are qualified to educate, a system of literary instruction, combining with it relaxation of a useful kind, may be pursued.

Work

toil, seem to find relaxation in the comparatively
which they thus perform for themselves; and in the
contemplation of their own flowers, though they be all
beauties, and of their own tiny crops, they feel thay calm-
ness and tranquillity, that quiet satisfaction, which lay the
passions at rest, and therefore indispose for the boisterous
mirth and the ungodly society of the frequenters of the beer-
house or the gin-shop.

Poultry, pigeons, and rabbits, may be reared by young people, both for amusement and profit. The child who understands much of the natural history of domestic animals from practical observation, and perceives the force of those influences which unite the parent and the offspring, will so far sympathize with, and apprehend the nature of, those influences, as to feel pain at the thought of wantonly dissociating that connection, and would be far less likely "to rob the poor birds of their young," than the child who had not been familiarized with the nature and habits of the feathered race.

Children who have watched over a brood of chickens from the moment of their first disengagement from the shell, and witnessed the instinct with which the Creator causes them to come at the call of their mother, and contemplate the love with which "the hen gathers her chickens under her wings,' will take no pleasure in destroying that life of which they had anxiously traced the progress from the hour in which the first sign of developed animation appeared. It is improbable that the boy (and far more so that the girl, who is naturally kind) to whose hand the birds have fearlessly looked for food, while they clamorously delighted in his presence, could in his manhood witness any torturing of the feathered race, such as the diabolical barbarity of throwing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday, which used to disgrace Great Britain; or take pleasure in the barbarities of a cock-fight" or a gander-fight.†

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For those who are excluded from the enjoyments of rural life, and those occupations to which I have referred, there remain other pursuits of extreme interest, according to their respective tastes-geology, chemistry, mechanics, which employ both the head and the hand. Many a youth may be taught sermons in stones," &c.-see the quotation in Shakspeare, As You Like It-and be kept from bad company, by having access to a lathe, and becoming practically a tool-making animal," who, from his distaste to books, would be otherwise miserably destitute of rational employment. I do not wish to see either young or old persons too much

"Agog for novelty where'er it lies,

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In mosses, fleas, or cockleshells, or flies" But natural history, to a reasonable extent, is surely a useful and improving study for both rich and poor; it leads them to look from the creature to the Creator; to contemplate His works, His glories, and His beneficent designs, both in the material and the spiritual world. In short, I would supply the mind and body with those occupations which best harmonise together, and most powerfully tend to overcome the degra ding and demoralising effects of ignorance, which is confessedly the greatest enemy to religion, to peace, good order, and social happiness.

When

pits; but they have a goose pit, where in the spring they fight ganders "At St Petersburgh, in Russia (says Dr Granville), they have no cocktrained to the sport, and to peek at each other's shoulders till they draw blood. These ganders have been sold as high as five hundred roubles each; and the sport prevails to a degree of enthusiasm among the hemp-merchants. Strange that the vicious and inhuman curiosity of man can delight to arouse and stimulate the principles of enmity and cruelty in these apparently peace

• We learn from a German writer the origin of this cruel custom. When the Danes ruled in England, the native inhabitants of some town formed a conspiracy to regain possession of it by murdering the Danish usurpers. Among the latter I would place gardening and botany the English afterwards regained authority, they instituted the barbarous and Their design, however, was defeated by the crowing of some cocks. foremost among the out-of-door occupations, and these pur-childishly resentful practice of throwing at cocks tied to a stake on the comsuits apply to both sexes, and to the humblest of the peasan-memoration day of their disappointment through the vigilance of the cocks. try, as well as to the nobles of the land, for with the idea of a garden is connected every association that is pure and heaven-born. I myself even now look back upon those of my childish hours which were employed in the garden, with unmixed pleasure, and the first early crop of radishes which I raised with my own hands in a garden border, afforded me more innocent pride than any far more valuable crop that I have subsequently raised upon my farm. The care of flowers and shrubs, and the absence of corrupting influences, during the indulgence of this pursuit, render it a subject of extreme interest in the formation of individual and national character.

Those of the poor who are disposed to take a real interest in their gardens, as is the case of thousands of the English peasantry, instead of finding their summer evening occupa tions in their allotments wearisome after their day of other

ful and sociable birds!

The barbarities of which the human character is capable from habitual

indulgence in such brutal sports are almost inconceivable.

Every one has heard the horrible story of Ardesoif of Tottenham, who, about forty years since, being disappointed by a famous game-cock refusing to fight, was incited by his savage passion to roast the animal alive whilst entertaining his friends. The company, alarmed by the dreadful shrieks of the victim, interfered, but were resisted by Ardesoif, who threatened death to any who should oppose him and in a storm of raging and vindictive delirium, and uttering the most horrid imprecations, he dropped down dead. I had hoped to find this one among the thousand fanatical lies which have been coined in the insane expectation that truth can be advanced by the propagation of falsehood: but to my sorrowful disappointment, on a late inhorrible stog the friends of the deceased miscreant, 1 found the truth of the story but too probable."-Mowbray's Treatise on Poultry.

bearing upon this subject, and leave you to draw from it such inferences as may please you?"

"I am satisfied to hear thee," said the sultan after a pause; "only let there be no sophistry in the argument of thy narrative. Make the story short also, for I hate long tales about nothing."

The

1

alone, and not with the reflections which it must necessarily suggest. "And dost thou mean, then, that thy paltry tale shall serve as a full answer to my query ?" demanded Sal-ad-Deen. "No, your highness," said Nathaniel," but I would have it serve as my apology for not giving such an answer. The Jew, thus licensed, began :-" May it please your high-father of these youths caused the three rings to be made exness," said he, "there lived in Assyria, in one of the ages of pressly that no examination might be able to detect any disold, a certain man who had received from a venerated hand a similarity between them; and I will venture to assert, that beautiful and valuable ring, the stone of which was an opal, not even the Sublimest of Mankind, the Sultan Sal-ad-Deen and sparkled in the sunlight with ever-varying hues. This himself, could, unless by accident, have placed his hand on ring, moreover, was a talisman, and had the secret power of the true one.' rendering him who wore it with a sincere desire of benefiting by it, acceptable and amiable in the eyes of both God and man. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that the owner continually wore it during his lifetime, never taking it off his finger for an instant, or that, when dying, he should adopt precautions to secure it to his lineal descendants for ever. He bequeathed it accordingly first to the most beloved of his sons, ordaining that by him it should be again bequeathed to the dearest of his offspring, and so down from generation to generation, no one having a claim in right of priority of birth, but preference being given to the favourite son, who, by virtue of the ring, should rule unconstrained as lord of the house and head of the family. Your highness listens?"

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"Thou triflest with me, Nathaniel," said the sultan ; ring is not a religion. There are, it is true, many modes of worship on the earth: but has not Islamism always remained a distinct system of faith from the false creeds? Look at its dogmas, its ceremonies, the modes of prayer, the habits, yea, the very food and raiment of its professors! What sayest thou of these?"

"Simply," returned the Jew," that none of them are proofs of the truth of Islamism. Nay, be not wroth with me, your highness, for what I say of your religion I say equally of all others. There is one true religion, as there was one true ring in my parable; but you must have perceived that all men are not alike capable of discovering the truth by their own unassisted efforts, and that a certain degree of trust in the good faith of others as teachers is therefore essential to the reception of religious belief at all. In whom, then, I would ask, is it most natural for us to place our trust? Surely in our own people in those of whose blood we are who have been about us from our childhood, and given us unnumbered proofs of love-and who have never been guilty of intentionally practising deception upon us. How can I ask of you to abandon the prepossessions of your fathers before you, and in which, true or false, you have been nurtured? Or how can you expect, that, in order to yield to your teachers the praise belonging solely to the truth, I should virtually declare my ancestors fools or hypocrites ?"

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"I listen: I understand: proceed," said the sultan. The Jew resumed :—“ Well: from son to son this ring at length descended to a father who had three sons, all of them alike remarkable for their goodness of disposition, all equally prompt in anticipating his wishes, all equally loving and virtuous, and between whom, therefore, he found it difficult to make any distinction in the paternal affection he bore them. Sometimes he thought the eldest the most deserving; anon his predilections varied in favour of the second; and by and bye his heart was drawn towards the youngest :-in short, he could make no choice. What added to his embarrassment was, that, yielding to a good-natured weakness, he had privately promised each of the youths to leave the ring to him, and him only; and how to keep his promise, he did not know. Sophistical declamation!" said the sultan, "which will Matters, however, went on smoothly enough for a season; avail thee little on the Judgment Day. Is thy parable ended ?" but at last death approached, and the worthy father became In point of instruction it is," replied Nathaniel, "but I painfully perplexed. What was to be done? Loving his shall briefly relate the conclusion to which the disputes among sons, as he did, all alike, could he inflict so bitter a disap- the brothers conducted. When they found agreement impospointment upon two of them as the loss of the ring would cer- sible, they mutually cited one another before the tribunal of tainly prove to them? He was unable to bear the reflection. the law. Each of them solemnly swore that he had received After long pondering, a plan occurred to him, the anticipated a ring immediately from his father's hand as was the fact good effects of which would, he trusted, more than compen--after having obtained his father's promise to bestow it on sate for the deceit connected with it. He sent secretly for a him, as was also the fact. Each of them indignantly repuclever jeweller; and, showing him the ring, he desired him to diated the supposition that such a father could have deceived make two other rings on the same model, and to spare neither him; and each declared, that, unwilling as he was to think pains nor to render the three exactly alike. The jeweller uncharitably of his own brethren, he had no alternative left promised, and kept his promise: the rings were finished, and but that of branding them as impostors, forgers, and swinin so perfect a manner that even the father's eye could not dlers." distinguish between them as far as mere external appearance went. Overjoyed beyond expression at this unlooked-for consummation of his wishes, he summoned his three sons in succession into his presence, and from his deathbed bestowed upon each, apart from the other two, his last blessing and one of the rings; after which, being at his own desire left once more alone, he resigned his spirit tranquilly into the hands of its eternal Author. Is your highness attentive?" "I am," said Sal-ad-Deen, but to very little purpose, it would seem. Make an end of thy story quickly, that I may

see the drift of it."

"It is soon ended, most powerful sultan," said Nathaniel, "for all that remains to be told is what doubtless your highness already half conjectures-the result, namely, of this good-natured deception. Scarce was the old man laid in his grave, when each of the sons produced his ring, and claimed the right of being sole master and lord of the house. Questions, wranglings, complaints, accusations, succeeded-all to no end, however; for the difficulty of discovering which was the true ring was as great then as that of discovering which

is the true faith now.'

"How !" interrupted the sultan indignantly, "this to me? Dost thou tell me that the faith of the Mooslemin is not acknowledged by all right-thinking persons to be the true one?"

"And what said the judge?" demanded Sal-ad-Deen; “I presume the final decision of the question hung upon his arbitration?"

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Your highness is correct: the judge at once pronounced his award, which was definitive. You want,' said he, 'a satisfactory adjudication on this question, which you have contested among yourselves so long and so fruitlessly. Summon then your father before me: call him from the dead and let him speak; it is otherwise impracticable for me to come at the knowledge of his intentions. Do you think that I sit here for the purpose of expounding riddles and reconciling contradictions? Or do you, perhaps, expect that the true ring will by some miracle be compelled to bear oral testimony here in court to its own genuineness? But hold: I understand that the ring is endowed with the occult power of rendering its wearer amiable and faultless in the eyes of men. By that test I am willing to try it, and so to pronounce judgment. Which of you three, then, is the greatest object of love to the other two? You are silent. What! does this ring, which should awaken love in all, act with an inward influence only, not an outward? Does each of you love only himself? Oh, go! you are all alike deceivers or deceived: none of your rings is the true one. The true ring is probably lost; and to supply its place your father ordered three spurious ones for common use among you. If you will abide by a piece of advice instead of a formal decision, here is my counsel to you: leave the matter where it stands. If each of you has had a ring presented to him by his father, let each believe his own to be the real ring. Possibly your father might have grown disinclined to tolerate

twice as much for your burial with the greatest gladness, if she had had the opportunity."

any longer the exclusiveness implied in the possession of a single ring by one member of a family; and, certainly, as he loved you all with the same affection, it could not gratify him A notorious egotist one day in a large company, indirectly to appear the oppressor of two by favouring one in particular. praising himself for a number of good qualities which it was Let each of you therefore feel honoured by this all-embracing well known he did not possess, asked Macklin the reason why generosity of your parent; let each of you endeavour to out- he should have the singular propensity of interfering in the shine his brothers in the cultivation of every virtue which the concerns of others for their benefit, when he so often met with ring is presumed to confer-assisting the mysterious influ- unsuitable returns. "I could tell you, sir," said Macklin ence supposed to reside in it by habits of gentleness, benevo-"Ah! well do, then, my good fellow; you are a man of some lence, and mutual tolerance, and by resignation in all things observation; and-I-a-should be glad of your a definito the will of God; and if the virtues of the ring continue to tion." " Why, then, sir," replied Macklin, "the cause is immanifest themselves in your children, and your children's chil-pudence-nothing but stark staring impudence!" dren, and their descendants to the hundredth generation, then, after the lapse of thousands of years, appear again and for the last time before this judgment seat! A Greater than I will then occupy it, and He will decide this controversy for ever.' So spake the upright judge, and broke up the court. Your highness now, I trust, thoroughly comprehends my reason for not answering your question in a direct manner?" "Is that the end of thy story?" asked Sal-ad-Deen. "If it please your highness," said the Jew, who had by this time arisen, and was gradually, though respectfully, proceeding to accomplish his retreat.

"By my beard," said the sultan, after a considerable pause, "it is an ingenious apologue that of thine, and there may be something in it too; but still it does not persuade me that thou art excusable in thy pertinacious rejection of Islamism. I own I tremble for thee after all. Go thy ways, however, for the present, with this purse of tomauns, by way of premium for thy mother-wit; but I shall shortly send for thee again; and as I do not much fancy remaining in any man's debt, thou shalt then, as a wholesome counterpoise to thy sophistry, obtain from me in reply either a parable of my own, or one from the Koran, upon which I will argue with thee to thy signal confusion !" ́ M.

ANECDOTES OF MACKLIN,

THE IRISH COMEDIAN.

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MACKLIN was exceedingly quick at a reply, especially in a dispute. One day Doctor Johnson was contending some dramatical question, and quoted a passage from a Greek poet in support of his opinion. I don't understand Greek though, Doctor," said Macklin. "Sir," said Johnson, pompously, a man who undertakes to argue, should understand all languages." Oh, very well," returned Macklin; "how will you answer this argument ?" and immediately treated him to a long quotation in Irish.

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One night, sitting at the back of the front boxes with a gentleman of his acquaintance, one of the underbred box-lobby loungers of the day stood up immediately before him, and being rather large in person, covered the sight of the stage from him. Every body expected that Macklin would have knocked the fellow down notwithstanding his size, but he managed the matter in another temper. Patting him gently on the shoulder with his cane, he requested of him with much apparent politeness, "that when he saw or heard any thing very entertaining on the stage, he would be pleased to turn round and let him and the gentleman beside him know of it; "for you see, my dear sir," added the veteran," that at present we must totally depend upon you as a telegraph." This had the desired effect, and the lounger walked off.

Talking of the caution necessary to be used in conversation amongst a mixed company, Macklin observed, "Sir, I have experienced to my cost that a man in any situation of life should never be off his guard. It is the fault of the Irish that they are too ready to commit' themselves. Now, this never happens with the Scotch-a Scotchman is always on the look-out; he never lives a moment extempore, and that is one great reason why he is so successful in life as we see.'

A gentleman at a public dinner asking him, rather inconsiderately, whether he remembered Mrs Barry the celebrated Irish actress, who died about the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, he stared him in the face with considerable ferocity, and bawled out," No, sir, nor Harry the Eighth neither !"

An Irish dignitary of the church, not remarkable for his ve racity, complaining that a tradesman of his parish had called him a liar, Macklin asked what reply he had made him. "I told him," said the bishop, “that a lie was among those things that I dared not commit." "And why, doctor," returned Macklin, with an indescribable sort of comic frown, "why did you give the rascal so erroneous a notion of your courage ?" One of the band of the Covent-Garden theatre, who played the French horn, was telling some anecdotes of Garrick's curiosity, and withal praising the great actor incessantly. Macklin, who heard him from the lower end of the table, and who always fired up like lighted straw at the praises of Garrick, exclaimed aloud, "I believe, sir, you are a trumpeter." "Well," said the band-man, "and what if I am?" "Nothing more, sir," vociferated Macklin, "than this, that, being a trumpeter, you are by profession a dealer in puffs !"

BAD AIR AND GOOD AIR.

IN a former number we directed attention to the many remarkable properties of the air we breathe, and pointed out how dependent we are for comfort and even existence on the maintenance of the air in a state fit for respiration. The difference between good air and bad air can be easily collected from that article; but as the peculiar conditions of the air which are capable of affecting health deserve very careful consideration, we are tempted to resume the subject.

The even balance which, as was explained, is struck be tween the two sorts of breathing, that of the animal which gives out carbonic acid, and that of the vegetable which takes it in, is capable of maintaining the air upon the large scale always in the proper state. But in order that the people may be benefited by this wise arrangement, it is necessary that they should be living abroad in the open air and in the fields; that a man, in proportion as he destroys the oxygen of the air, should have around him plants to give out an equal quantity in its place; that, in fact, mankind, in order to avail themselves of the providential security for breathing permanently good air, should live out of doors, engaged, at least principally, in agricultural employments, as was the condition of society in the early ages, and in some portions of the globe to a certain extent is so still.

But in countries like ours, where vast numbers of families are collected in cities, with narrow streets and lanes; where an open place like Stephen's Green or Merrion Square is anxiously sought after, and disproportionate rents paid for the houses which are around it, this immediate restoration of the injury done to the air by breathing, and the burning of lights and fuel, cannot occur. The air is vitiated permanently, and those resident in towns require for their health's sake to understand how the evil may be rendered as small as possible. Even in a town, the total quantity of air is so great, that if it all come into play, it can be but slightly injured. But such is often not the case. How often, when there is a fine healthful breeze outside the town, do we find, on entering a narrow street, the mass of air perfectly motionless, and all the mischievous vapours which are produced, collecting until they become almost irrespirable. This is a great source of disease in towns; and to prevent or remedy it, requires but frequent change of the air which a room or a street contains: it re

Macklin was very intimate with Frank Hayman (at that time one of our best historical painters), and happening to call on him one morning soon after the death of the painter's wife, with whom he (Frank) had lived but on indifferent terms, he found him wrangling with the undertaker about his high charge for the funeral expenses. Macklin listened to the altercation for some time; at last, going up to Hayman-quires but ventilation. "Come, come, Frank," said he, " this bill is to be sure a little extravagant, but you should pay it, if it were only on account of the respect you owe your wife's memory; for I am sure,' ho added with the greatest gravity, "she would have paid

It is by means of a fireplace that a room is generally ventilated. The air which has served for the burning of the fuel is thereby made very hot, and hot air, being much lighter than cold air, rises up the chimney, generally mixed with