of them about two hundred yards of bobbinet! This operation over, the douanier proceeded to draw out a specification, or procès verbal, not only regarding the seizure, but a black eye and a bloody nose that Sam had inflicted on "des soldats Français," for which his life alone could atone; but an English gentleman standing by, assured Cannon that a napoleon would manage these braves, if they had been half kicked to death. Money settled the business, and all the party proceeded toward the town, surrounded by a crowd of curious people in roars of laughter; the male part of the family were swearing most copiously, the ladies crying most piteously, and Sam Surly offering to box any one for a pot of porter. The name of Cannon had passed from mouth to mouth, and had reached Stubb's corner before the party. This celebrated laboratory of reputation and crucible of character is simply the front of a circulating library, a very emporium of works of fiction. A group of idlers were, as usual, assembled at this saluting battery, who loaded so soon as the approach of what a wag called the battering train was announced. This spot proved to the Cannon family a second baptismal fount, for, as they passed by, they all received cognominations according to their external appearance, which ever after have stuck to them. Commodus Cannon, a short, plump, dapper man, was called the Mortar; Mrs. Cannon, also of respectable embonpoint, and of a tournure between an apple dumpling and a raspberry bolster-pudding, was named the Howitzer; Miss Molly, a tall slight figure, was favoured with the appellation of the Culverin; Biddy, a squat cherub-looking girl, was basely named the Pateraro; Lucy, who had rather a cast in each eye, which had induced the wits of Muckford to christen her Miss Wednesday (as they pretended that she looked both ways to Sunday,)-Miss Lucy, those pernicious sponsors called the Swivel; Kitty, a stout, short, beautiful creature, in whose form graceful undulations made up for length, they nicknamed the Carronade. The senior of the junior Cannons was a Short Nine; George, a Four Pounder; Cornelius, a Cohorn; Peter, a Long Six; and Oliver, a Pétard, the most horrible and degrading patronymic that could be bestowed upon any poor traveller in France. At last, after passing under this volley from Fort Stubb, they all arrived, more dead than alive, at a hotel. Here, to their additional comfort, they were informed that half of the ladies' things that had not been made up were seized, or, in other words, made over to the douaniers. Exhausted and despairing, they asked for some soup, expecting a bowl of mock-turtle or of gravy. A potage de vermicelle was served up, the sight of which was not very encouraging for digestive organs just recovering from an inverted peristaltic motion. Cannon tasted it, and swore it was nothing but "hot water and worms." Miss Molly told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, before strangers, not to know wermichelly. Cannon swore lustily that they might swallow the wormy-jelly themselves, and asked for some other potage. A soupe maigre, made of sorrel and chervil, followed. Cannon had scarcely tasted the sour mixture, when he swore he was poisoned with oxalic acid, and roared out for a doctor, when he was informed to his utter dismay that all the doctors in the town had struck. Doctors strike! never heard of such a thing. To be sure, they may strike a death-blow now and then; but doctors striking was a new sort of a conspiracy. The French waiters only shrugged up their shoulders with a "Que voulez vous, monsieur !" a most tantalizing reply to a man who cannot get anything that he wants. An English resident in the room explained matters. "We have, sir," he said, "several British practitioners in this place: many of them are men of considerable merit; but the learned body have just been thrown into a revolution by a Scotch physician, a Dr. M'Crusoe. The usual fee here, is a five-franc piece, or four shillings and twopence English; a sum so very small that many English are ashamed to tender it. M'Crusoe therefore proposed to his brethren that they should claim a higher remuneration." "Jantlemen," he said, "it's dero-gatory tul the deegnety of a pheeseecian like huz, who hae received a leeberal eeducation, mare aspeecially mysel', wha grauduated at Mo-dern Authens, tul accep' sic a pautry fee as four an' tippence. No maun intertains mare contemp' for siller than aw do; but the varry least we aught tul expec' is ten fraunks for day veesits, an' eleven fraunks for nighet calls; fare from the varry heegh price of oil and caundles, at the varry lowest caulculation, it costs me mare than ten baubees per noctem to keep my noghcturnal lamp in pro-per trim. An' aw therefore houp in this deceesion we wull support each eather ho-nestly and leeberally. Aw need na remind jantlemen of yere erudeetion of the wee bit deformed body Æsop's fable, o' the bundle o' stucks, or o' the faucees of the Ro-man leectors, union cone-stitutes straingth. Therefore aw repeat it, aw trust ye wull enforce this raigulation like men o' indepaindence, an' conscious of the deegnity o' science." All the doctors acquiesced in the expediency of his project, and to that effect signed a resolution, with which M'Crusoe walked off, and read the document with a loud and audible voice, as sternly as a magistrate could read the riot act, at Stubb's corner. The indignation of the community knew no bounds; their wrath foamed and bubbled like the falls of Niagara; they swore by the heads of Galen and Esculapius that they would rather die of the pip, expire in all the agonies of hepatitis, gastritis, enteritis, and all the itises that were ever known, than give one centime more than five francs; nay, in their fury, they swore they would throw themselves into the hands of French doctors, and swallow a gallon of tisane a day for a fifteen-pence fee; and hundreds of letters were sent off to Scotland for cheap doctors. This was what Dr. M'Crusoe wanted: he immediately circulated himself in every hole and corner to inform the public that, "In consequence of illeeberality o' ma breethren, under exusting cercumstaunces, aw feel mysel' called upon by pheelauntropy and humaunity to tak' whatever ma patients can afford to gie me." Such was the state of the faculty of Boulogne when Cannon swore he was poisoned. A French doctor came and ordered him four grains of tartar emetic in a gallon of hot water; and as French doctors are very kind and attentive to their patients, acting both as physicians and nurses, Cannon's attendant had the extreme benevolence to remain with him until he had not only swallowed, but restored, every minim of this bounteous potation, which really amounted to the full capacity that Cannon possessed of containing fluids. VOL. 11. 2 M Whether there was anything deleterious or not in the soupe à l'oreille, it is difficult to say; but the ladies were afflicted all night with what physicians call tormina, and tenesmus, and intus-susceptio, and iliac passion, and borborygma in their epigastric and their hypochondriac regions; for all and several of which, the French doctor duly irrigated them with hot water and syrup of gum, threatening them with a cuirasse de sangsues if they were not better in the morning, as he said that they all laboured under an entero-epiplo-hydromphalo-gastrite: while poor Cannon, writhing under the effect of l'eau "émétisée was denounced as being threatened with entero-epiplomphale, entero-merocèle, entero-sarcocèle, and entero-ischiocèle. Sick as they all were, they looked upon the native practitioner as a very learned man, and gladly gave thirty sous a head for so much information, when an impudent English quack would have asked them ten francs for merely telling them that they had what is vulgarly called the mulligrubs. After an intolerable night, Morpheus was shedding his poppies over the exhausted travellers, when they were all roused by the most alarming cries; and Miss Lucy Cannon and Molly Cannon were dragged out of their beds by two French gentlemen, who had just jumped out of theirs, and, clasped in their arms, were forthwith carried out into the court-yard. THE RELICS OF ST. PIUS. SAINT PIUS was a holy man, And held in detestation The wicked course that others ran, He thought the world so bad a place A cavern was his only house, And not a solitary mouse Durst venture near his mansion. He told his beads from morn to night, Vain ev'ry hint by Nature given, His saintship would not mind her; Until a sisterhood at last Reviv'd his fame and glory. To Rome was sent a handsome fee, The holy see with sacred zeal THE RELICS OF ST. PIUS. And having sought with caution deep, They recognised the blessed heap And now the town, that would be made Illustrious beyond measure, To view the train descending; The nuns the splendid robes prepare, The head, the arms, the trunk, he found, But, when the legs he reached, around In vain he twirl'd them both about, For one turn'd in, and one turn'd out, Two odd left legs alone he saw, Two left legs! 'tis amazing! "Two left legs!" cried the nuns, with awe The wonder reach'd the list'ning crowd, While some press'd on with laughter loud, The bishop scarce a smile repress'd, The pilgrims stood astounded; The mob, with many a gibe and jest, The holy bones surrounded. The abbess and her vestal train, The blest Annunciation, With horror saw the threaten'd stain On Pius' reputation. "Cease, cease! ungrateful race!" cried she, "This tumult and derision, And know the truth has been to me Revealed in a vision ! "The saint who now, enthron'd in heav'n, Bestows on us such glory, Had two left legs by Nature given, And, lo! they are before ye! "Then let us hope he will no more His blessed prayers deny us, While we, with zeal elate, adore The left legs of St. Pius." 2M 2 C. S. L. DARBY THE SWIFT; OR, THE LONGEST WAY ROUND IS THE SHORTEST WAY HOME. CHAPTER III. "Tipsy dance and jollity."-L'Allegro. A FULL hour after Darby's departure I ventured to open the little dog-eared volume which he had thrown upon my table. The titlepage was a curious specimen of that lingual learning which is so often to be met with in the remotest districts of Ireland. Gentle reader, a description of it would only spoil it; I therefore lay it before you as it appeared to me then, with this slight difference,-that the printer informs me he has no letter that can adequately express or imitate the rustic simplicity, the careless elegance both of the character and setting up. It was as follows: THE DARBIAD! A BACCHI-SALTANT EPIC. IN ONE BOOK. AUCTORE CLAUDICANTE KELLIO. Containing an Account of a Great Festival given at "The Three Blacks," by one Mr. Darby Ryan, on the occasion of his coming into his Fortune, and all the Songs an' Dances as perform'd there in honor to him. Dulce est desipere in loco. her mark Printed by Mary Brady, x, at the sign of the Cross Quills in Monk's Lane, opposit the Friary. Price sixpence; and to be had of all Flyin' Stationers, and Dancin' Masthers. I could not but admire the classical taste and ingenuity with which Mr. Kelly, the author, had Latinized his name. He had read, no doubt, that Ovid was called Naso from the excessive size of his nose; and, with a delicacy peculiar to himself, had elegantly concealed the vulgar cognomen of Lame Kelly, by which he was known,in the more pompous-sounding Roman appellation of Claudicante ! Kellio, too, was another "curiosa felicitas;" for, while it was in perfect accordance with grammatical accuracy, it sounded like an ingenious anagram of O'Kelly, an ancient Irish name. But, to the poem itself. INVOCATION. INSPIRE me, Phoebus! in the song I sing, |