the yellow damask furniture of the great drawingroom shall be burnt on the very day of their arrival. In the mean time, Lord Colambre, whose wider survey of the female world had finally determined him to seek happiness with Grace Nugent, even with an humble fortune, suffers great agony, from a discovery maliciously made by Lady Dashfort, of a stain on her mother's reputation; which he is enabled at length to remove, and at the same time to recover a splendid inheritance, which had been long withheld by its prevalence from the woman of his choice. This last event, of course, reconciles all parties to the match; and they all set out, in bliss and harmony, to the paradise regained of Clonbrony;-their arrival and reception at which is inimitably described in a letter from one of their postillions, with which the tale is concluded.

In this very brief abstract, we have left out an infinite multitude of the characters and occurrences, from the variety and profusion of which the story derives its principal attraction; and have only attempted indeed to give such a general notice of the relations and proceedings of the chief agents, as to render the few extracts we propose to make intelligible. The contrivance of the story indeed is so good, and the different parts of it so concisely represented, that we could not give an adequate epitome of it in much less compass than the original. We can venture on nothing, therefore, but a few detached specimens. For the sake of our fashionable readers, we may give the first place to Lady Dashfort, an English lady of very high ton, whom Lord Colambre encountered in Dublin.

'She in general affected to be ill-bred and inattentive to the feelings and opinions of others; careless whom she offended by her wit, or by her decided tone. There are some persons in so high a region of fashion, that they imagine themselves above the thunder of vulgar censure. Lady Dashfort felt herself in this exalted situation, and fancied she might "hear the innocuous thunder roll below." Her rank was so high, that none could dare to call her vulgar; what would have been gross in any one of meaner note, in her was freedom, or originality, or lady Dashfort's way. It was lady Dashfort's pleasure and pride to show her power in perverting the public taste. She often said to those English companions with whom she was intimate, "Now see what follies I can lead those fools into. Hear the nonsense I can make them repeat as wit." Upon some occasion one of her friends ventured to fear that something she had said was too strong. "Too strong, was it? Well, I like to be strong-wo be to the weak." On another occasion she was told, that certain visitors had seen her ladyship yawning. "Yawn, did I?—I am glad of it-the yawn sent them away, or I should have snored;-rude, was I? they won't complain. To say, I was rude to them, would be to say, that I did not think it worth

my while to be otherwise. Barbarians! are not we the civilized English, come to teach them manners and fashions? Whoever does not conform, and swear allegiance too, we shall keep out of the English pale." Vol. VI. p. 50, 51.

Having fixed upon Colambre as a husband for her daughter, she resolved to take him with her into the country, for the double purpose of riveting his chains, and disgusting him with his native land; and so she addresses him—

"My Lord, I think you told me, or my own sagacity discovered, that you want to see something of Ireland, and that you don't intend, like most travellers, to turn round, see nothing, and go home content." Lord Colambre assured her ladyship that she had judged him rightly, for, that nothing would content him but seeing all that was possible to be seen of his native country. It was for this special purpose he came to Ireland. "Ah!-well-very good purpose-can't be better; but now, how to accomplish it. You know the Portuguese proverb says; 'you go to Hell for the good things you intend to do, and to Heaven, for those you do.'-Now let us see what you will do.-Dublin, I suppose, you've seen enough of by this time through and through-round and round-this makes me first giddy and then sick. Let me show you the country-not the face of it, but the body of it-the people.-Not Castle this, or Newtown that, but their inhabitants.-I know them, I have the key, or the picklock, to their minds. An Irishman is as different an animal, on his guard, and off his guard, as a miss in school, from a miss out of school.- A fine country for game I'll show you; and, if you are a good marksman, you may have plenty of shots "at folly as it flies."

Lord Colambre smiled. "As to Isabel," pursued her ladyship, "I shall put her in charge of Heathcock, who is going with us-She won't thank me for that, but you will-Nay, no fibs, man; you know, I know, as who does not, that has seen the world, that though a pretty woman is a mighty pretty thing, yet she is confoundedly in one's way, when any thing else is to be seen, heard, or understood." Lord Colambre seemed much tempted to accept the invitation; but he hesitated, because, as he said, her ladyship might be going to pay visits where he was not acquainted.

"Bless you!-don't let that be a stumbling-block in the way of your tender conscience. I am going to Killpatrickstown, where you'll be as welcome as light:-You know them, they know you, at least you shall have a proper letter of invitation from my lord and my lady Killpatrick, and all that. And as to the rest, you know a young man is always welcome every where--a young nobleman kindly welcome,-I won't say such a young man, and such a young nobleman, for that might put you to your bows, or your blushes-but nobilitas by itself, nobility is enough in all parties, in all families, where there are girls, and of course balls, as there are always at Killpatrickstown.-Don't be alarmed; you shall not be forced to dance,

or asked to marry. I'll be your security. You shall be at full li berty, and it is a house where you can just do what you will.-Indeed, I go to no others. These Killpatricks are the best creatures in the world; they think nothing good or grand enough for me. If I'd let them, they would lay down cloth of gold over their bogs for me, to walk upon.-Good hearted beings!" added lady Dashfort, marking a cloud gathering on lord Colambre's countenance. "I laugh at them, because I love them. I could not love any thing I might not laugh at-your lordship excepted. So you'll come-that's settled."

And so it was settled. Our hero went to Killpatrickstown. "Every thing here sumptuous and unfinished, you see," said lady Dashfort to lord Colambre, the day after their arrival. " All begun as if the projectors thought they had the command of the mines of Peru; and ended as if the possessors had not sixpence: des arrangemens provisatoires, temporary expedients; in plain English, make-shifts.-Luxuries, enough for an English prince of the blood. Comforts, not enough for an English woman.-And you may be sure that great repairs and alterations have gone on to fit this house for our reception, and for our English eyes!-Poor people!-English visitors, in this point of view, are horribly expensive to the Irish. Did you ever hear that, in the last century, or in the century before the last, to put my story far enough back, so that it shall not touch any body living; when a certain English nobleman, lord Blank A-, sent to let his Irish friend, lord Blank B-—, know that he and all his train were coming over to pay him a visit; the Irish nobleman, Blank B-, knowing the deplorable condition of his castle, sat down fairly to calculate, whether it would cost him most to put the building in good and sufficient repair, fit to receive these English visitors, or to burn it to the ground. He found the balance to be in favour of burning, which was wisely accomplished next day. Perhaps Killpatrick would have done well to follow this example. Resolve me which is worst; to be burnt out of house and home, or to be eaten out of house and home. In this house, above and below stairs, including first and second table, housekeeper's room, lady's maids' room, butler's room, and gentleman's, one hundred and four people sit down to dinner every day, as Petito informs me, beside kitchen boys, and what they call charwomen; who never sit down, but who do not eat or waste the less for that; and retainers, and friends; friends to the fifth and sixth generation, who "must get their bit and their sup;" for-"sure, its only Biddy," they say;-continued Lady Dashfort, imitating their Irish brogue.-And "sure, 'tis nothing at all, out of all his honour, my Lord, has.-How could he feel it!-Long life to him! -He's not that way: not a couple in all Ireland, and that's saying a great dale, looks less after their own, nor is more off-handeder, or open-hearteder, or greater open-house-keepers, nor my lord and my lady Killpatrick." Now, there's encouragement for a lord and a lady to ruin themselves.'

"But it is shameful to laugh at these people, indeed, lady Dashfort, in their own house-these hospitable people, who are entertaining us."-"Entertaining us! true; and if we are entertained, how can we help laughing?" p. 55-63.

We add the following, as a curious trait in the constitution of Irish society.

'In the neighborhood of Killpatrickstown, lady Dashfort said, there were several squireens, or little squires; a race of men who have succeeded to the buckeens, described by Young and Crumpe. Squireens are persons who, with good long leases, or valuable farms, possess incomes from three to eight hundred a year; who keep a pack of hounds; take out a commission of the peace, sometimes before they can spell (as her ladyship said), and almost always before they know any thing of law or justice! Busy and loud about small matters; jobbers at assizes; combining with one another, and trying, upon every occasion, public or private, to push themselves forward, to the annoyance of their superiors, and the terror of those below them.' VI. 67, 68.

We pass now to a different class of society; but not less characteristic of the country than that we have been consideringwe mean the fine ladies of the plebeian order, who dash more extravagantly it seems in Dublin, than any other place in this free and commercial empire. Lord Colambre had the good fortune to form an acquaintance with one of these, the spouse of a rich grocer, who invited him to dine with her at her villa, on his way back from the county of Wicklow. The description, though of a different character from most of Miss Edgeworth's delineations, is so picturesque and lively, that we cannot help thinking it must have been taken from the life. We are tempted to give it at full length.

The invitation was verbally made, and verbally accepted; but the lady afterwards thought it necessary to send a written invitation in due form, and the note she sent directed to the most right honourable the lord viscount Colambre. On opening it he perceived, that it could not have been intended for him. It ran as follows: "My dear Juliana O'Leary,-I have got a promise from Colambre, that he will be with us at Tusculum on Friday the 20th, in his way from the county of Wicklow, for the collation I mentioned; and expect a large party of officers, so pray come early, with your house, or as many as the jaunting-car can bring. And pray my dear be elegant. You need not let it transpire to Mrs O'G, but make my apologies to Miss O'G, if she says any thing, and tell her I'm quite concerned I can't ask her, for that day; because, tell her, I'm so crowded, and am to have none that day but reat quality.

"Yours ever and ever,

"Anastasia Raffarty."

"P. S. And I hope to make the gentlemen stop the night with me; so will not have beds. Excuse haste; and compliments, &c.

'After a charming tour in the county of Wicklow, where the beauty of the natural scenery, and the taste with which those natural beauties had been cultivated farsurpassed the sanguine expectations lord Colambre had formed, his lordship and his companions arrived at Tusculum; where he found Mrs Raffarty, and Miss Juliana O'Leary, -very elegant-with a large party of the ladies and gentlemen of Bray assembled in a drawing-room, fine with bad pictures and gaudy gilding; the windows were all shut, and the company were playing cards with all their might. This was the fashion of the neighborhood. In compliment to lord Colambre and the officers, the ladies left the card-tables; and Mrs Raffarty, observing that his lordship seemed partial to walking, took him out, as she said, "to do the honours of nature and art." p. 18-20.

The dinner had two great faults-profusion and pretension. There was, in fact, ten times more on the table than was necessary: and the entertainment was far above the circumstances of the person by whom it was given: for instance, the dish of fish at the head of the table had been brought across the island from Sligo, and had cost five guineas, as the lady of the house failed not to make known. But, after all, things were not of a piece: there was a disparity between the entertainment and the attendants; there was no proportion or fitness of things. A painful endeavor at what could not be attained, and a toiling in vain to conceal and repair deficiencies and blunders. Had the mistress of the house been quiet; had she, as Mrs Broadhurst would say, but let things alone, let things take their course; all would have passed off with well-bred people: but she was incessantly apologising, and fussing and fretting inwardly and outwardly, and directing and calling to her servants-striving to make a butler who was deaf, and a boy who was hair-brained, do the business of five accomplished footmen of parts and figure. The mistress of the house called for "plates, clean plates!-hot plates!"-But none did come when she did call for them. Mrs Raffarty called "Larry! Larry! My lord's plate, there! James! bread, to captain Bowles!-James! port wine, to the major.-James! James Kenny! James!" And panting James toiled after her in vain. At length one course was fairly got through, and after a torturing half-hour, the second course appeared, and James Kenny was intent upon one thing, and Larry upon another, so that the wine sauce for the hare was spilt by their collision; but what was worse, there seemed little chance that the whole of this second course should ever be placed altogether rightly upon the table. Mrs Rafferty cleared her throat, and nodded, and pointed, and sighed, and set Larry after Kenny, and Kenny after Larry; for what one did, the other undid; and at last, the lady's anger kindled, and she spoke." Kenny! James Kenny, set the sea cale at this corner, and put down the grass cross-corners; and match your macaroni yonder with them puddens, set-Ogh! James! the pyramid in the middle, can't ye." The pyramid in