together, I didn't drink more than three half-pints of whiskey that night. I felt perfectly satisfied of the justice of my conclusion from Billy's own evidence, and questioned no farther the vision of the "Sughread Dhu," or "Black Funeral."

A ludicrous circumstance took place this day on the lake. A Dublin tyro of the angle, who probably never had a larger fish at the end of his line than the spratsized fry of the river at Bray, in the county Wicklow, was slashing the waters of Lough-Sheelan, with the unaccustomed labour of a two-handed rod, when, by one of those chances that run before the results of system and skill, he hooked a bully of a trout: holding his rod nearly in a horizontal position, his line was soon run out, and the weight and strength of the fish bearing wholly on the foot-line, must have soon carried all away. At this juncture, his companion in the boat earnestly vociferated to him, to "throw in the butt," as is the term of the sport, when it becomes necessary to bear on the fish, by maintaining the rod in a more perpendicular position, inclining the butt forward, and throwing the weight and play of the struggling fish upon the elastic action of the rod. This instruction our Dublin cockney accepted in a literal sense, and actually threw the rod and all into the lake! By the activity of the row-men and his companion, together with the assistance of a boat, close in company, the rod was recovered, but the trout was lost. incident provoked a hearty laugh at the stranger's expense. My companion complained heavily of the

This

injury done to this and the neighbouring lakes from

菜

poachers, and the neglect of the resident gentry in not adopting the precaution necessary for preventing netting, cross-fishing, and the destruction of the mother fish in spawning season. From the information afforded to me by the local knowledge of my friend, I strung together, in a day or two afterwards, the following doggrel rhymes, which possess no merit but their connection with the general subject, and the truth of their local description:

THE ANGLER'S ADDRESS,

то ALL THOSE WHOM IT MAY CONCERN,

On the lakes of Lough-Sheelan, Lough-Lane, and Donore,
Lough Carrick, Lough-Anna, and weedy Lough-Glore,
Who love honest angling, this letter goes greeting,
Requesting they'll hold a PRESERVATIVE meeting—
Some plan to resolve on, and offer reward,
'Gainst netters, cross-fishers, and poachers to guard.
A stranger, who lately was angling those waters
Saw rogues who deserved to be dangling in halters;
Fellows with cross-lines and, worse still, with cross-nets,
Which are, or which should be, deemed contrary to law nets.
Each base poaching pot fisher all should be chased
From the scenes of fair angling, and fined and disgrac❜d.
In winter the spawning fish should be protected,
And night depredators be watch'd and detected.
On all the small streamlets place vigilant keepers,
Who'll have a good look-out and well use their peepers;
With gun and commission, the spawners to cover
From plungers and spearers who over them hover,
More fell than the pike is, the crane or the otter,
Or A-t-s, those sharks who seek prey in hot water.
As thieves, it is said, are the best at thief catching,
I'll glance at a few whom I'd have you set watching:

Old Masterson's one of the guards I would wheel in,
To watch o'er the streams that flow into Lough-Sheelan,
From Church-Island, Ross, and Bob's Grove to old Crover,
Amid whose grey ruins, of late, as walked over-
So fame says was seiz'd by a crafty exciseman,
Such stuff as would soon make a fool of a wise man.
In Church-Island, too, it is said, have been found
More spirits than usually haunt the Church ground.
With equal effect one might take a good turn,

From the Callaroo poacher, old sly Thady Byrne;

Who, on th' other side, well knows each streamlet and bay,

From Daly's-bridge down to the bridge of Finnea.
At Mill-castle-brook, that runs out of Lough-Glore,

I'd place, and he well knows why, "NEAT" Larry Moore;
The white-stranded Anna, the beauteous Lough-lane,
And Carrick, whose waters expunge ev'ry stain,

I pass, for no poachers their waters infest,

And seldom the keel of a boat breaks their rest.

I haste to that lake which, from all, bears the prize
For the finest of trout and a good merry rise;
And whose waters, preserv'd, would all waters excel,
And yield such rare sport as I faintly can tell:
O! I ne'er shall forget, at the close of last May,
The wind all south-west, and a dark cloudy day—
Lines of froth streak'd along the soft swell of the lake,
And like fairy barks floated the three-tailed green drake;
Three-tailed, like a Turkish Bashaw of high state,

And quite as uncertain his pride and his fate.
Such dashing! such splashing! on every side,

That the lake seem'd alive o'er its whole surface wide,
And scarcely the angler could choose where his flies
He'd cast still to cover each quick coming rise.
On thy lake, Derevaragh,* one might sail all the way,
From Knock-ion hill till he reach Curranæ ;

* Called also Kiltoom and Donore,

And for catching the poachers, meet no such fit mar
As Monaghan, Houghy, or Brian M'Can.

Of this last sturdy fellow, I'd fairly say, no man
With him can compare as a hearty good row-man;
At an oar, or a glass, or a joke, at a pinch,

If his equal there be, it is dry Mathew Lynch.

There's Whirren so merry, when the wind in full west,
Where the trout are the largest, the most, and the best;
And Colure, and Dara, Cranlaballa, Donore.

Might be guarded by Indians+ from Cloneave's lone shore;
All these rogues, if well paid for't, may chance to prove honest,
And, as they become so, the poachers be non est.
Ye Lords of the lakes, to my counsel attend-
Your own and the right of fair angling defend :
Exhausted Lough-Sheelan again shall revive,
And, like Derevaragh, with trout be alive;
And, than now, tenfold better the fishing shall be,
When from all the curs'd posse of poachers set free.
As soon as the May-fly shall rise from the deep,
And forth from its shell on the smooth waters creep,
Your angles prepare, and each gay painted boat
From its winter confinement again set afloat;
And while with fair angling your sport you pursue,

May the shores still re-echo the frequent cuckoo; t
With the DRAKES and the OLIVES, the monkey and crottle, §
Pull many a six-pounder trout may you throttle.

At present no more, of all poachers the hater,

I am your's, as you merit, an honest-PISCATOR.

† Applied to the rude inhabitants of Cloneave-island, insulated by lake and river Inney.

A note of exultation used by an angler on hooking a fish.

A dye of the cinnamon; an excellent killing colour.

CHAP. VII.

"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons, such as these? Oh! I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, Pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel:
That thou may shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just."

SHAKSPEARE.

SINCE the publication, originally, of Mr. Greendrake's Westmeath Excursion, we have been looking over the remaining manuscript in our possession, and discovered the following papers, which before escaped our notice :

ACCUSTOMED as I have been to the well-ordered state of society in England, where a certain degree of comfort, neatness, and plenty, attaches to the very last link of the social chain, I could not but be more sensible to the melancholy and afflicting contrast, which this country furnishes. My great love of the angle, and the excellence of the sport which the lakes here afforded me, could not altogether so occupy my mind, as to blunt my feelings towards the abject and extreme poverty and privations which I witnessed on approaching or entering