And doubled up his fist to drive the flies off,
Begrudging them the smallest sip,

Which, if they got,

Like my Lord Salisbury, he heaved a sigh,

And cried, "O, happy, happy fly!

How I do envy you your lot!"

Each moment did his appetite grow stronger;

His bowels yearned;

At length he could not bear it any longer,

But on all sides his looks he turned,

And, finding that the coast was clear, he quaffed
The whole up at a draught.

Scudding from church, the farmer's wife

Flew to the dairy,

But stood aghast, and could not, for her life,
One sentence utter,

Until she summoned breath enough to mutter,
"Holy St. Mary!"

· And, shortly, with a face of scarlet,

The vixen-for she was a vixen - flew
Upon the varlet,

Asking the when, and where, and how, and who

Had gulped her cream, nor left an atom ;
To which he gave not separate replies,
But, with a look of excellent digestion,
One answer made to every question ·
"The flies."

"The flies, you rogue! the flies, you guzzling rogue ! Behold, your whiskers still are covered thickly. Thief! liar! villain! gormandizer! hog!

I'll make you tell another story quickly."

So out she bounced, and brought, with loud alarms,

Two stout gens-d'armes,

Who bore him to the judge

With angry, bottle nose

Like a red cabbage rose,

While lots of white ones flourished on his wig.

Looking at once both stern and wise,

He turned to the delinquent,

1

And 'gan to question him, and catechize
As to which way the drink went :

Still the same dogged answers rise

"The flies, my Lord! the flies, the flies!"

"Psha!" quoth the judge, half peevish and half pompous,

"Why, you're non compos;

You should have watched the bowl, as she desired,

And killed the flies, you stupid clown."

"What! is it lawful, then," the dolt inquired,

"To kill the flies in this here town?"

"The man's an ass! a pretty question this!
Lawful, you booby?

To be sure it is.

You've my authority, whene'er you meet 'em,
To kill the rogues, and, if you like it, eat 'em."

"Zooks!" cried the rustic, "I'm right glad to hear it.
Constable, catch that thief! May I go hang,
If yonder blue-bottle- I know his face-
Isn't the very leader of the gang

That stole the cream! Let me come near it."
This said, he started from his place,

And, aiming one of his sledge-hammer blows
At a large fly upon the judge's nose,
The luckless blue-bottle he smashed,
And gratified a double grudge;

For the same catapult completely mashed
The bottle nose belonging to the judge.

THOMAS MOORE.

Thomas Moore was born in Dublin in 1779, and was educated in the university of that city. He went to London in 1799 to read law, and the year after published his translation of Anacreon. His first original poems were published under the name of Thomas Little; they were grossly indelicate, and the poet, it is believed, was afterwards quite ashamed of them. He was soon after sent to Bermuda in an official capacity, and remained there over a year, during which time his pen was busy. On his return he wrote several pungent political satires in the interest of the Whig party. Next appeared his best and most famous productions, the Irish Melodies, which are pervaded by an intense national feeling, and marked by an uncommon felicity of phrase, as well as by a strong musical rhythm. They were written for favorite native airs, and are now firmly established among the folk-songs of Ireland.

Lalla Rookh was published in 1817. It is full of Oriental learning, - rather overladen

with it, in fact, — but the story connecting the several parts is gracefully told, and there are many passages of great beauty and power throughout the whole poem. An occasional preference for tinsel, in place of buliion, easily passed over by romantic persons of a certain age, gives the maturer critic a twinge in reading; and it may be pretty safely assumed that in any house the copy of Lalla Rookh, in which the gray-beard once delighted, has now found its way into the book-shelves of the coming generation.

Moore made a visit to Paris in company with Rogers, and, two years later, travelled to Italy with Lord John Russell, at which time he visited Lord Byron in Venice. Returning, he stopped at Paris, and remained there until 1822. His subsequent works were, The Loves of the Angels, an Eastern story; the Life of Byron, and the Life of Sheridan, and The Epicurean. A complete edition of his works, in ten volumes, was issued in 1842. He died in 1852-dying, as Dean Swift said, like a cedar, from the top downwards. Moore certainly possessed many remarkable traits of mind; but he was animated rather than brilliant, fanciful rather than imaginative, prone to indulge in a tawdry excess of ornament, and in a juvenile exuberance of feeling which seems an affectation, whether real or not. But on his native soil his step was firm and his eye clear. His patriotic songs are not only the best in Ireland's history, but they may challenge comparison with those of any nation.

The poet was an amiable person, fond of society, and especially proud of his titled friends. His Memoirs, edited by Lord John Russell, from which much was expected, proved to be quite void of interest.

PARADISE AND THE PERI.

ONE morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate,
And as she listened to the Springs
Of Life within, like music flowing,
And caught the light upon her wings
Through the half-open portal glowing,
She wept to think her recreant race
Should e'er have lost that glorious place.

"How happy," exclaimed this child of air,
"Are the holy spirits who wander there,

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall:
Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea,
And the stars themselves have flowers for me,
One blossom of heaven out-blooms them all.

"Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere,
With its plane-tree isle reflected clear,

And sweetly the founts of that valley fall;
Though bright are the waters of Sing-su-hay,
And the golden floods that thitherward stray;
Yet, O! 'tis only the blest can say

How the waters of heaven outshine them all.

"Go, wing thy flight from star to star, From world to luminous world, as far

As the universe spreads its flaming wall; Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless years One minute of heaven is worth them all."

The glorious Angel who was keeping
The Gates of Light beheld her weeping;
And, as he nearer drew, and listened
To her sad song, a tear-drop glistened
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain, when it lies
On the blue flower, which Bramins say
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.'

"Nymph of a fair but erring line," Gently he said, "one hope is thine. 'Tis written in the Book of Fate,

'The Peri yet may be forgiven

Who brings to this eternal gate

The gift that is most dear to Heaven.'

Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin :

'Tis sweet to let the pardoned in.”

Rapidly as comets run

To the embraces of the Sun,
Fleeter than the starry brands
Flung at night from angel hands
At those dark and daring sprites
Who would climb the empyreal heights,
Down the blue vault the Peri flies,

And, lighted earthward by a glance
That just then broke from morning's eyes,
Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse.

But whither shall the Spirit go

To find this gift for Heaven? "I know
The wealth," she cries, "of every urn,
In which unnumbered rubies burn,

1 The blue campac.

I know where the Isles of Perfume are,
Many a fathom down in the sea,
To the south of sun-bright Araby;
I know, too, where the genii hid

The jewelled cup of their King Jamshid,
With Life's elixir sparkling high;

But gifts like these are not for the sky.
Where was there ever a gem that shone
Like the steps of Alla's wonderful throne ?
And the Drops of Life-O, what would they be
In the boundless deep of eternity!"

While thus she mused, her pinions fanned
The air of that sweet Indian land
Whose air is balm, whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks and amber beds;
Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem;
Whose rivulets are like rich brides,
Lovely, with gold beneath their tides;
Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice
Might be a Peri's paradise ;

But crimson now her rivers ran

With human blood; the smell of death
Came reeking from those spicy bowers,
And man, the sacrifice of man,

Mingled his taint with every breath
Upwafted from the innocent flowers.
Land of the Sun, what foot invades
Thy pagods and thy pillared shades,"
Thy cavern shrines, and idol stones,
Thy monarchs and their thousand thrones?
'Tis he of Gazna: 3 fierce in wrath

He comes, and India's diadems

Lie scattered in his ruinous path.

His bloodhounds he adorns with gems

Torn from the violated necks

Of many a young and loved sultana;

1 The ruins of Persepolis.

2 The banyan tree. * Mahmood, conqueror of India.