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FORTY YEARS IN THE WORLD;

Sketches and Tales,

&c. &c.

N. I.

THE NABOB.

Oh! ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never lov'd a tree or flower,

But 'twas the first to fade away.

I never nurs'd a dear gazelle,

To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,

And love me, it was sure to die!

MOORE.

Ir was a joyful day in the townland of Mullinabrack, when the Nabob, as he is called, took possession of Mulgatawny Lodge. The country people, in Ireland, are apt to expect prodigious things from every 'Squire Newcome. To this sanguine disposition we may attribute the frequent disappointments

VOL. III.

B

poor Paddy experiences; for, as he looks for too much, he finds too little. Every body knows now what a Nabob is, or at least what he ought to be; my description therefore of Mr. Wilford need not be tedious.

Anthony Wilford, esquire, designated in the following tale by his familiar appellation, "The Nabob," was a spruce little man of withered-up face and sallow complexion, who had spent five-andtwenty years of his life in Bengal and the Carnatic. He wore a snuff-coloured wig, a coat of the same shade, smallclothes and leggings of various colours; waistcoats of fancy patterns; and in his neck-linen he was quite a gentleman. He was equally particular, indeed, about every thing. Our houses were horrible! absolutely unlive-in-able. He, therefore, built Mulgatawny Lodge, with a viranda running round it, and a terraced roof. That it might not be at all like other men's houses, he made his kitchen in the garret, or at least as high up as the terrace would permit him to go. It was not till after a hunt through Gladwin's Moonshee, and the Hindostannee Dictionary, that he struck on the distinguishing name of " Mulgatawny" for his new lodge.

This you of course know is a favourite soup at Madras, made of fowl, and spiced till it is as hot as O! Heaven! I cannot name it; but, should you be desirous of getting a good mouth-burning, you may for half a guinea be supplied with a bowl of it in Piccadilly. The Nabob said it was horrible, in Ireland. All his wealth could not procure a cook to make it sufficiently Asiatic for his palate. "It is horrible," he would say, "It is really horrible, that you will not throw in enough of chillies.Now-there-thus-ay-now it may do." But I like not to describe character; I hate personality; let us, therefore, leave the Nabob to open, as the pages of a book, in the progress of our tale.

This old Indian had certainly amassed great wealth, some said one way and some another; but it little matters, in the eyes of the world, how a man acquires sovereign power; if he can sport the yellow effigies of our king, people enough will be found ready to take him by the hand. Our Nabob, after his return from the East, took up a position in London; but, finding himself nobody in such a crowd of nobs, he instructed his agent, Mr. Bernard M'Mahon, then practising as a solicitor in the

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