May 3.

As one who long in populous city pent,Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,Forth issuing on a summer’s morn, to breatheAmong the pleasant villages, and farmsAdjoined, from each thing met conceives delight:The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound.

“‘Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive an additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their memories those charming descriptions, with which such authors do frequently abound. I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in Milton, and, applying it to myself, when I observed to the windward of me a black cloud falling to the earth in long trails of rain, which made me betake myself for shelter to a house which I saw at a little distance from the place where I was walking. As I sat in the porch, I heard the voices of two or three persons, who seemed very earnest in discourse. My curiosity was raised when I heard the names ofAlexander the GreatandArtaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason I thought I might very fairly listen to what they said. After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, that he valued theBlack Princemore than theduke of Vendosme. How the duke of Vendosme should become a rival of the Black Prince, I could not conceive: and was more startled when I heard a second affirm with great vehemence, that if theemperor of Germanywas not going off, he should like him better than either of them. He added, that though the season was so changeable, theduke of Marlboroughwas in blooming beauty. I was wondering to myself from whence they had received this odd intelligence; especially when I heard them mention the names of several other great generals, as theprince of Hesse, and theking of Sweden, who, they said, were both running away. To which they added, whatI entirely agreed with them in, that thecrown of Francewas very weak, but that themarshal Villarsstill kept his colours. At last one of them told the company, if they would go along with him he would show them aChimney-sweeperand aPainted Ladyin the same bed, which he was sure would very much please them. The shower which had driven them as well as myself into the house, was now over; and as they were passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of their company. The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in flowers, it would be worth my while; for that he believed he could show me such a bowl oftulipsas was not to be matched in the whole country. I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been talking in terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had mentioned were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to their usual custom, had given such high titles and appellations of honour. I was very much pleased and astonished at the glorious show of these gay vegetables, that arose in great profusion on all the banks about us. Sometimes I considered them with the eye of an ordinary spectator, as so many beautiful objects varnished over with a natural gloss, and stained with such a variety of colours as are not to be equalled in any artificial dyes or tinctures. Sometimes I considered every leaf as an elaborate piece of tissue, in which the threads and fibres were woven together into different configurations, which gave a different colouring to the light as it glanced on the several parts of the surface. Sometimes I considered the whole bed of tulips, according to the notion of the greatest mathematician and philosopher that ever lived, (sir Isaac Newton,) as a multitude of optic instruments, designed for the separating light into all those various colours of which it is composed. I was awakened out of these my philosophical speculations, by observing the company often seemed to laugh at me. I accidentally praised a tulip as one of the finest I ever saw, upon which they told me it was a commonFool’s Coat. Upon that I praised a second, which it seems was but another kind of Fool’s Coat. I had the same fate with two or three more; for which reason I desired the owner of the garden to let me know which were the finest of the flowers, for that I was so unskilful in the art, that I thought the most beautiful were the most valuable, and that those which had the gayest colours were the most beautiful. The gentleman smiled at my ignorance: he seemed a very plain honest man, and a person of good sense, had not his head been touched with that distemper which Hippocrates calls the Τυλιππομανια,Tulippomania, insomuch, that he would talk very rationally on any subject in the world but a tulip. He told me, that he valued the bed of flowers, which lay before us, and was not above twenty yards in length and two in breadth, more than he would the best hundred acres of land in England; and added, that it would have been worth twice the money it is, if a foolish cookmaid of his had not almost ruined him the last winter, by mistaking a handful of tulip roots for a heap of onions, and by that means, says he, made me a dish of porridge, that cost me above a thousand pounds sterling. He then showed me what he thought the finest of his tulips, which I found received all their value from their rarity and oddness, and put me in mind of your great fortunes, which are not always the greatest beauties. I have often looked upon it as a piece of happiness, that I have never fallen into any of these fantastical tastes, nor esteemed any thing the more for its being uncommon and hard to be met with. For this reason, I look upon the whole country in spring time as a spacious garden, and make as many visits to a spot of daisies, or a bank of violets, as a florist does to his borders or parterres. There is not a bush in blossom within a mile of me which I am not acquainted with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in my neighbourhood without my missing it. I walked home in this temper of mind through several fields and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure, not without reflecting on the bounty of Providence, which has made the most pleasing and the most beautiful objects the most ordinary and most common.’”

Charlock.Rhaphanus Rhafaristrum.Dedicated toSt. Athanasius.

The Invention, or Discovery of the Holy Cross,A. D.326.St. Alexander, Pope,A. D.119.

This festival of the Romish church is also in the church of England calendar; Mr. Audley says, “the wordinventionsometimes signifies the finding a thing that was hidden;” thence the name of this festival, which celebrates the alleged finding of the cross of Christ by St. Helena, who is said to have found three crosses on Mount Calvary, but the true one could not be distinguished, till a sick woman being placed on each, was healed by one, which was therefore pronounced the veritable cross. Mr. Audley quotes, that “the custody of the cross was committed to the bishop of Jerusalem. Every Easter Sunday it was exposed to view, and pilgrims from all countries were indulged with little pieces of it enchased in gold or gems. What was most astonishing, the sacred wood was never lessened, although it was perpetually diminished, for it possessed a secret power of vegetation.” It appears from Ribadeneira, that St. Paulinus says, “the cross being a piece of wood without sense or feeling, yet seemeth to have in it a living and everlasting virtue; and from that time to this it permitteth itself to be parted and divided to comply with innumerable persons, and yet suffereth no loss or detriment, but remains as entire as if it had never been cut, so that it can be severed, parted, and divided, for those among whom it is to be distributed, and still remains whole and entire for all that come to reverence and adore it.” There is no other way left to the Romish church to account for the superabundance of the wood of the cross.

Robert Parker wrote a remarkably learned book, in folio, entitled—“A Scholasticall Discourse against symbolizing with Antichrist in ceremonies: especially in the signe of the Crosse, 1607.” This erudite work subjected Parker to a persecution under James I., from which he fled to Doesburg, where he died in 1630.

This constellation is in about 185 degrees of longitude; its south-polar distance being only about 39 degrees, it cannot be seen in the northern parts of Europe.[130]Humboldt who observed the cross of the south, thus eloquently describes it:—“The lower regions of the air were loaded with vapours for some days. We saw distinctly, for the first time, the cross of the south, only in the night of the 4th and 5th of July, in the sixteenth degree of latitude. It was strongly inclined, and appeared, from time to time, between the clouds, the centre of which, furrowed by uncondensed lightnings, reflected a silver light. The pleasure felt on discovering the southern cross was warmly shared by such of the crew as had lived in the colonies. In the solitude of the seas, we hail a star as a friend from whom we have been long separated. Among the Portuguese and the Spaniards, peculiar motives seem to increase this feeling; a religious sentiment attaches them to a constellation, the form of which recalls the sign of the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the new world. The two great stars which mark the summit and the foot of the cross, having nearly the same right ascension, it follows, that the constellation is almost vertical at the moment when it passes the meridian. This circumstance is known to every nation that lives beyond the tropics, or in the southern hemisphere. It is known at what hour of the night, in different seasons, the southern cross is erect, or inclined. It is a timepiece that advances very regularly nearly four minutes a day; and no other group of stars exhibits, to the naked eye, an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim, in the savannas of Venezuela, or in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo, ‘Midnight is past, the cross begins to bend!’ How often these words reminded us of that affecting scene, where Paul and Virginia, seated near the source of the river of Lataniers, conversed together for the last time; and when the old man, at the sight of the southern cross, warns them that it is time to separate!”

Poetic Narcissus.Narcissus poeticus.Invention of the Cross.

[130]Dr. Forster Peren. Cal.

St. Monica.St. Godard, Bp.A. D.1038.

She was mother of St. Augustine, whom she sent to study at Carthage, where, in 373, he became a Manichee, and remained so, to his mother’s affliction, until 386; she was a woman of piety, and he revered her memory. Her supposed remains were translated with the customary ceremonies of the church of Rome, but their identity has been doubted.[131]

1471. Battle of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, gained by Edward IV. over the Lancasterians.

1677. Dr. Isaac Barrow died, aged 47. He was an eminent mathematician, a learned divine, and a high cavalier. Educated at the Charter-house, he was disinclined to study; his recreation was in sports that led to fighting among the boys, yet he afterwards subdued his inclination to quarrels, and distinguished himself as a scholar. He became professor of mathematics at Cambridge, master of Trinity-college, served the office of vice-chancellor, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Charles II. used to say of him, that he exhausted every subject whereon he treated; yet he did nothing for him. After the Restoration, Barrow wrote a Latin distich, thus translated:—

O, how my breast did ever burn,To see my lawful king return!Yet, whilst his happy fate I bless,No one has felt his influence less.

Barrow was a great smoker to help his thinking. He was a great wit: he met Rochester at court, who said to him, “doctor, I am yours to my shoe-tie;” Barrow bowed obsequiously with, “my lord, I am yours to the ground;” Rochester returned this by, “doctor, I am yours to the centre;” Barrow rejoined, “my lord, I am yours to the antipodes;” Rochester, not to be foiled by “a musty old piece of divinity,” as he was accustomed to call him, exclaimed, “doctor, I am yours to the lowest pit of hell;” whereupon Barrow turned from him with, “there, my lord, I leave you.”

1736. Eustace Budgell drowned himself, at the age of 52, from vexation, that a bequest to him of 2,000l.in the will of Dr. Tindal, was set aside. He wrote in the “Spectator,” “Tatler,” and “Guardian;” was a member of the Irish parliament, and lost his property in the South-sea bubble.

1758. George Bickham, the eminent writing-engraver, died, aged 74; and was buried at St. Luke’s, Old-street.

1795. John James Barthelemy, the celebrated author of “The Travels of Anacharsis the younger in Greece,” died, aged 79. He was a man of deep learning and simplicity of character; unhappily he became involved in the troubles of the French revolution, and endured great hardships from the turbulence of men opposed to his views of social happiness.

A distinguished naturalist obligingly communicates the subjoinedtableand prefatory remark.

For the Every-Day Book.

A notion prevails that birds do great injury in gardens and fields, and hence rewards are frequently offered to induce boys and others to kill them in spring. The notion and the practice are erroneous. A gentleman of long experience in horticulture, has ascertained that birds, in general, do more good by destroying vermin than they do harm by the little fruit and grain they consume; an entire district in Germany was once nearly deprived of its corn harvest, by an order to kill all the rooks having been generally obeyed.

Table of the average terms of their arrival, deducedfrom a Journal of Natural History,kept during nearly sixty years.

Stock Gilly Flower.Mathiola incana.Dedicated toSt. Monica.

[131]Butler.

St. Pius V., Pope,A. D.1572.St. Hilary, Abp. of Arles,A. D.449.St. Angelus,A. D.1225.St. Mauront, Abbot,A. D.706.St. Avertin,A. D.1189.

1760. The right honourable Laurence, earl Ferrers, viscount Tamworth, was hanged at Tyburn, for the murder of John Johnson, his steward.

1785. Thomas Davies, died. He is well recollected from frequent creditable mention made of him in Boswell’s “Life of Johnson;” Davies was an actor, afterwards a bookseller, turned strolling player, returned to the bookselling business in Russel-street, Covent-garden, became bankrupt, was relieved in his misfortunes by Dr. Johnson, wrote the “Life of Garrick,” “Dramatic Miscellanies,” and other pieces; and acquired before his death the honourable appellation of “honest Tom Davies.” He was intrusted by the rev. James Granger with the publication of his “Biographical History of England.”

1789. Joseph Baretti, author of the “Italian Dictionary,” &c. died, aged 73.

1821. Napoleon died at St. Helena, in the sixth year of his confinement. What he was all men pretend to know, and historians will tell.

“Here they are! blowing, growing, all alive!” This was an old London cry by little flower gardeners, who brought the products of their grounds to the metropolis, and wheeled them through the streets in a barrow, “blowing, growing, all alive!” to tempt purchasers in the humble streets and alleys of working neighbourhoods. Acts of Parliament have put down the flower-pots, which were accustomed to “topple on thewalkers’heads,” from the windows of houses, wherein flower-fanciers dwelt.

Flower Garden.Fairhanded Spring unbosoms every grace,Throws out the snowdrop and the crocus first,The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue.And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes;The yellow wallflower, stained with iron brown,The lavish stock that scents the garden round.From the soft wing of vernal breezes shedAnemonies, auriculas, enrichedWith shining meal o’er all their velvet leaves,And full ranunculus of glowing red.Then comes the tulip race, where beauty playsHer idle freaks, from family diffusedTo family, as flies the father dust,The varied colours run; and while they breakOn the charmed eye, the exulting florist marks,With secret pride, the wonders of his hand.No gradual bloom is wanting, from the bud,First born of Spring, to Summer’s musky tribes—Nor hyacinths of purest virgin white,Low bent and blushing inwards—nor jonquilsOf potent fragrance—nor Narcissus fair,As o’er the fabled mountain hanging still—Nor broad carnations, nor gay spotted pinks,Nor showered from every bush the damask rose.Thomson.

Flower Garden.

Fairhanded Spring unbosoms every grace,Throws out the snowdrop and the crocus first,The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue.And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes;The yellow wallflower, stained with iron brown,The lavish stock that scents the garden round.From the soft wing of vernal breezes shedAnemonies, auriculas, enrichedWith shining meal o’er all their velvet leaves,And full ranunculus of glowing red.Then comes the tulip race, where beauty playsHer idle freaks, from family diffusedTo family, as flies the father dust,The varied colours run; and while they breakOn the charmed eye, the exulting florist marks,With secret pride, the wonders of his hand.No gradual bloom is wanting, from the bud,First born of Spring, to Summer’s musky tribes—Nor hyacinths of purest virgin white,Low bent and blushing inwards—nor jonquilsOf potent fragrance—nor Narcissus fair,As o’er the fabled mountain hanging still—Nor broad carnations, nor gay spotted pinks,Nor showered from every bush the damask rose.

Thomson.

Apple Tree.Pyrus Malus.Dedicated toSt. AngelusandSt. Pius.

St. John before the Latin Gate.St. John Damascen,A. D.780.St. Eadbert, Bp. of Lindisfarne,A. D.687.

This was St. John the Evangelist, though his name stands withAnte Port. Lat.annexed to it in the church of England calendar. The description is founded on a Roman Catholic legend that St. John the Evangelist in his old age was accused of atheism to Domitian, who sent him to Rome, and there, before the gate calledPorta Latina, caused him to be put into a cauldron of boiling oil, from whence he suffered no pain, and came forth without harm. This miracle is fabled to have occurred before the exile of St. John to the desert isle of Patmos, in the Archipelago, where he is supposed to have written the Apocalypse, or book of “Revelations.”

St. John in the Isle of Patmos.

There is no evidence that St. John suffered martyrdom; on the contrary, he is said to have returned to Ephesus in the reign of Nerva, who succeeded Domitian in the imperial dignity. Painters usually represent him in Patmos with an eagle by his side; though, as St. John Port Latin, there are many engravings of him in the legendary oil cauldron. Other representations of him put a chalice in his hand, with a serpent issuing from it, founded on another legend, that being constrainedto drink poison, he swallowed it without sustaining injury.

There is a further legend, that while St. Edward the Confessor was dedicating a church to St. John, a pilgrim demanded alms of him in the saint’s name, whereupon the king gave him the ring from his finger. This pilgrim was St. John, who discovered himself to two English pilgrims in the Holy Land, bidding them bear the ring to the king in his name, and require him to make ready to depart this world; after this they went to sleep. On awakening they found themselves among flocks of sheep and shepherds in a strange place, which turned out to be Barham Downs in Kent, wherefore they thanked God and St. John for their good speed, and coming to St. Edward on Christmas-day, delivered to him the ring with the warning; these the king received in a suitable manner, “And on the vigyll of the Epyphanye, next after, he dyed and departed holyly out of this worlde, and is buryed in the Abbey of Westmester by London, where as is yet unto this daye that same rynge.” Again it is said, that Isidore affirms of St. John, that he transformed branches of trees into fine gold, and sea-gravel into precious stones, with other like incredibilities.[132]

1677. Samuel Bochart, a learned French Protestant divine and orientalist, died at Caen, aged 68 years.

1802. Died at Guernsey, aged 40, of water in his chest, serjeant Samuel M‘Donald, of the 93d regiment, commonly known by the name of Big Sam. He served during the American war with his countrymen, the Sutherland Fencibles, and afterwards as fugelman in the Royals, till 1791, when he was taken into the household of his royal highness the prince of Wales, as lodge-porter at Carlton-house, and remained in that capacity till 1793; he was then appointed a serjeant in the late Sutherland Fencibles, and continued to act in that corps, and the 93d regiment, formed from it, till his death.—He was six feet ten inches in height, four feet round the chest, and well proportioned. He continued active till his 35th year, when he began to decline. His strength was prodigious, but he was never known to exert it improperly. Several considerable offers were made to engage him as a public exhibition, all of which he refused, and always disliked being stared at.

The greatest misfortune that the cultivator of a garden apprehends at this season, is blight, of which, according to Dr. Forster, there are three kinds. “The first occurs in the early spring, about the time of the blossoming of the peach, and is nothing more than a dry frosty wind, usually from the north or north-east, and principally affects the blossoms, causing them to fall off prematurely. The two other kinds of blight occur in this month, affecting principally the apple and pear trees, and sometimes the corn. One of these consists in the appearance of an immense multitude of aphides, a kind of small insect of a brown, or black, or green colour, attacking the leaves of plants, and entirely incrusting the young stems. These pests are always found to make their appearance after a north-east wind, and it has been supposed by many that they are actually conveyed hither by the wind. Thomson, too, positively ascribes them to the north wind:—

For oft engendered by the hazy north,Myriads on myriads, insect armies warpKeen in the poisoned breeze; and wasteful eat,Through buds and bark, into the blackened coreTheir eager way.

“In our opinion, an east wind more often brings blights. Many circumstances, indeed, favour the opinion that blights are animalculæ; as the suddenness with which they appear, being generally in the course of a single night, and those trees that are sheltered from the wind being uninfected: indeed, it frequently happens that a single branch that chances to be screened, will escape unhurt, while the rest of the tree is quite covered with these minute destroyers. A third reason may be derived from the inactivity of these insects: they generally remain almost immovable on the branch or leaf where they are first seen, and are for the most part, unprovided with wings; yet the places where they are commonlyfound are those parts of a tree which are farthest from the ground, and the most exposed to the wind. The last kind of blight is generally preceded by a south or south-west wind, unaccompanied by insects; the effects of which are visible in the burnt appearance of all leaves and shoots which are exposed to that quarter. Oaks and other large trees suffer from this blight.”[133]

To Blossoms.Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,Why do ye fall so fast?Your date is not so past,But you may stay yet here awhileTo blush and gently smile,And go at last!What, were ye born to beAn hour or half’s delight?And so to bid good night?’Tis pity Nature brought ye forthMerely to show your worth,And lose you quite!But your lovely leaves, where weMay read how soon things haveTheir end, though ne’er so brave:And after they have shown their pride,Like you, awhile they glideInto the grave!Herrick.

To Blossoms.

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,Why do ye fall so fast?Your date is not so past,But you may stay yet here awhileTo blush and gently smile,And go at last!What, were ye born to beAn hour or half’s delight?And so to bid good night?’Tis pity Nature brought ye forthMerely to show your worth,And lose you quite!But your lovely leaves, where weMay read how soon things haveTheir end, though ne’er so brave:And after they have shown their pride,Like you, awhile they glideInto the grave!

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,Why do ye fall so fast?Your date is not so past,But you may stay yet here awhileTo blush and gently smile,And go at last!

What, were ye born to beAn hour or half’s delight?And so to bid good night?’Tis pity Nature brought ye forthMerely to show your worth,And lose you quite!

But your lovely leaves, where weMay read how soon things haveTheir end, though ne’er so brave:And after they have shown their pride,Like you, awhile they glideInto the grave!

Herrick.

Lucken Gowans.Trollius Europæus.Dedicated toSt. John Damascen.

[132]Golden Legend.[133]Peren. Calendar.

[132]Golden Legend.

[133]Peren. Calendar.

St. Stanislas, Bp. of Cracow,A. D.1079.St. Benedict II., Pope,A. D.686.St. Johnof Beverley.

Was born at Harpham, a village in the north of England. In the reign of king Alfred, he was made bishop of Hexham; he gave venerable Bede the orders of deacon and priest; and built the monastery of Beverley, then a forest, now a market-town, twenty-seven miles from York, where he died, in 721.[134]Bede assigns several miracles to him in his lifetime. William of Malmesbury relates, that the inhabitants of Beverley acknowledge the sanctity of their patron, because the fiercest bulls being dragged with the strongest ropes, by the lustiest men, into his church-yard, lose their fury, become gentle as lambs, and being left to their freedom, innocently sport themselves, instead of goring and trampling with their horns and feet all that come near them.[135]It is related by another author that in 1312, on the feast of St. Bernard, wonderful oil miraculously issued from his sepulchre, which was a sovereign remedy against many diseases. Also, that king Ethelstan laid his knife on the saint’s altar, in pledge, that if by his interference he obtained a victory over the Scots, he would enrich his church; by the merits of the saint he conquered, and desiring to have a sign as a perpetual testimony of prerogative over the Scots, he struck his sword into a rock near Dunbar-castle, which for many ages retained a mark of a yard in length from the blow, and this was referred to by king Edward I. before pope Boniface, in proof of his right over Scotland. Ethelstan, in consequence of his victory, granted right of sanctuary to the church of Beverley, with other privileges.[136]

If the north-east wind blow on this day, or on any other day in May, or in any other summer month, the nervous reader will experience the uneasiness which is sure to afflict him from that baleful quarter. The sun may shine, and the birds may sing, and flowers may give forth their odours, yet pernicious influences prevail against the natural harmony and spirit of the season. To one, therefore, so afflicted, the story of Daniel O’Rourke, from the “Fairy Legends,” may be diverting.

People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O’Rourke, but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above and below, was neither more nor less than his having slept under the walls of the Phooka’s tower. I knew the man well:he lived at the bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June, 1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent the morning at Glengariff.

“I am oftenaxedto tell it, sir,” said he, “so that this is not the first time. The master’s son, you see, had come from beyond foreign parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before Buonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and low, rich and poor. Theouldgentlemen were the gentlemen, after all, saving your honour’s presence. They’d swear at a body a little, to be sure, and, may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we were no losers by it in the end;—and they were so easy and civil, and kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes;—and there was no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on the estate that did not taste of his landlord’s bounty often and often in the year;—but now it’s another thing: no matter for that, sir, for I’d better be telling you my story.

“Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen—a lovely young couple they were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short, I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can’t remember ever at all, no ways, how it was that I left the place: only I did leave it, that’s certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself. I’d just step to Molly Cronahan’s, the fairy woman, to speak a word about the bracket heifer what was bewitched; and so as I was crossing the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyashenogh, and was looking up at the stars and blessing myself—for why? it was Lady-day—I missed my foot, and souse I fell into the water. ‘Death alive!’ thought I, ‘I’ll be drowned now?’ However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell how, upon adissoluteisland.

“I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as day, or your fair lady’s eyes, sir, (with your pardon for mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog;—I could never find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and certain I was that it would be myberrinplace. So I sat down upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began to scratch my head, and sing theUllagone—when all of a sudden the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from the kingdom of Kerry. So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, ‘Daniel O’Rourke,’ says he, ‘how do you do?’ ‘Very well, I thank you, sir,’ says I: ‘I hope you’re well;’ wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to speak like a Christian. ‘What brings you here, Dan?’ says he. ‘Nothing at all, sir,’ says I; ‘only I wish I was safe home again.’ ‘Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?’ says he. ‘’Tis, sir,’ says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much, and fell into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog, and did not know my way out of it. ‘Dan,’ says he, after a minute’s thought, ‘though it was very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day, yet as you are a decent, sober man, who ’tends mass well, and never flings stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields—my life for yours,’ says he; ‘so get up on my back, and grip me well for fear you’d fall off, and I’ll fly you out of the bog.’ ‘I am afraid,’ says I, ‘your honour’s making game of me; for who ever heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?’ ‘’Pon the honour of a gentleman,’ says he, putting his right foot on his breast, ‘I am quite in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the bog—besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.’

“It was true enough as he said, for Ifound the stone every minute going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:—‘I thank your honour,’ says I, ‘for the loan of your civility; and I’ll take your kind offer.’ I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up—up—up—God knows how far up he flew. ‘Why, then,’ said I to him—thinking he did not know the right road home—very civilly, because why?—I was in his power entirely;—‘sir,’ says I, ‘please your honour’s glory, and with humble submission to your better judgment, if you’d fly down a bit, you’re now just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your worship.’

“‘Arrah, Dan,’ said he, ‘do you think me a fool? Look down in the next field, and don’t you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked up off of acouldstone in a bog.’ ‘Bother you,’ said I to myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use. ‘Where in the world are you going, sir?’ says I to him. ‘Hold your tongue, Dan,’ says he: ‘mind your own business, and don’t be interfering with the business of other people.’ ‘Faith, this is my business, I think,’ says I. ‘Be quiet, Dan,’ says he: so I said no more.

“At last where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you can’t see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time a reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure on the ground with the end of his stick.)

“‘Dan,’ said the eagle, ‘I’m tired with this long fly; I had no notion ’twas so far.’ ‘And my lord, sir,’ said I, ‘who in the worldaxedyou to fly so far—was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and beseech you to stop half an hour ago?’ ‘There’s no use talking, Dan,’ said he; ‘I’m tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest myself.’ ‘Is it sit down on the moon?’ said I; ‘is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I’d fall off in a minute, and bekiltand spilt, and smashed all to bits: you are a vile deceiver—so you are.’ ‘Not at all, Dan,’ said he: ‘you can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that’s sticking out of the side of the moon, and t’will keep you up.’ ‘I won’t, then,’ said I. ‘May be not,’ said he, quite quiet. ‘If you don’t, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.’ ‘Why, then, I’m in a fine way,’ said I to myself, ‘ever to have come along with the likes of you;’ and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he’d know what I said, I got off of his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the reaping-hook, and sat down upon the moon, and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that.

“When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about to me, and said, ‘Good morning to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘I think I’ve nicked you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,’ (’twas true enough for him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) ‘and in return you are freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a cockthrow.’

“‘Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?’ says I. ‘You ugly unnaturalbaste, and is this the way you serve me at last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hook’d nose, and to all your breed, you blackguard.’ ’Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw him from that day to this—sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon, creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month before. I suppose they never thought of greasing ’em, and out there walks—who do you think but the man in the moon? I knew him by his bush.

“‘Good morrow to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he: ‘How do you do?’ ‘Very well, thank your honour,’ said I. ‘I hope your honour’s well.’ ‘What brought you here, Dan?’ said he. So I told him how I was a little overtaken in liquor at the master’s, and how I was cast on adissoluteisland, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief ofan eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how instead of that he had fled me up to the moon.

“‘Dan,’ said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was done, ‘you must not stay here.’ ‘Indeed, sir,’ says I, ‘’tis much against my will I’m here at all; but how am I to go back?’ ‘That’s your business,’ said he, ‘Dan: mine is to tell you that here you must not stay, so be off in less than no time.’ ‘I’m doing no harm,’ says I, ‘only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.’ ‘That’s what you must not do, Dan,’ says he. ‘Pray, sir,’ says I, ‘may I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor traveller lodging: I’m sure ’tis not so often you’re troubled with strangers coming to see you, for ’tis a long way.’ ‘I’m by myself, Dan,’ says he; ‘but you’d better let go the reaping-hook.’ ‘Faith, and with your leave,’ says I, ‘I’ll not let go the grip.’ ‘You had better, Dan,’ says he again. ‘Why, then, my little fellow,’ says I, taking the whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, ‘there are two words to that bargain; and I’ll not budge, but you may if you like.’ ‘We’ll see how that is to be,’ says he; and back he went, giving the door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed), that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.

“Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and without saying a word, he gave two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook that was keeping me up, andwhap!it came in two. ‘Good morning to you, Dan,’ says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand; ‘I thank you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.’ I had not time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and rolling and rolling at the rate of a fox-hunt. ‘God help me,’ says I, ‘but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this time of night: I am now sold fairly.’ The word was not out of my mouth, when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of wild geese; and theouldgander, who was their general, turning about his head, cried out to me, ‘Is that you Dan?’ I was not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by this time used to all kinds ofbedevilment, and, besides, I knew him ofould. ‘Good morrow, to you,’ says he, ‘Daniel O’Rourke: how are you in health this morning?’ ‘Very well, sir,’ says I, ‘I thank you kindly,’ drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. ‘I hope your honour’s the same.’ ‘I think ’tis falling you are, Daniel,’ says he. ‘You may say that, sir,’ says I. ‘And where are you going all the way so fast?’ said the gander. So I told him how I had taken the drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man in the moon turned me out. ‘Dan,’ said he, ‘I’ll save you: put out your hand and catch me by the leg, and I’ll fly you home.’ ‘Sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ says I, though all the time I thought in myself that I don’t much trust you; but there was no help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other geese flew after him as fast as hops.

“We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking up out of the water. ‘Ah! my lord,’ said I to the goose, for I thought it best to keep a civil tongue in my head any way, ‘fly to land if you please.’ ‘It is impossible, you see, Dan,’ said he, ‘for a while, because you see we are going to Arabia.’ ‘To Arabia,’ said I; ‘that’s surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr. Goose: why then, to be sure, I’m a man to be pitied among you.’ ‘Whist, whist, you fool,’ said he, ‘hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only there is a little more sand there.’

“Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful before the wind: ‘Ah! then, sir,’ said I, ‘will you drop me on the ship, if you please?’ ‘We are not fair over it,’ said he. ‘We are,’ said I. ‘We are not,’ said he: ‘If I dropped you now, you would go splash into the sea.’ ‘I would not,’ says I; ‘I know better than that, for it is just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.’

“‘If you must, you must,’ said he. ‘There, take your own way;’ and he opened his claw, and faith he was right—sure enough I came down plump intothe very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to me, scratching himself after his night’s sleep, and looked me full in the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he splashed me all over again with the cold salt water, till there wasn’t a dry stitch upon my whole carcass; and I heard somebody saying—’twas a voice I knew, too—‘Get up, you drunken brute, off of that:’ and with that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she was splashing me all over;—for, rest her soul! though she was a good wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand of her own.

“‘Get up,’ said she again: ‘and of all places in the parish, would no placesarveyour turn to lie down upon but under theouldwalls of Carrigaphooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.’ And sure enough I had; for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles, and men of the moons, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the great ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I’d lie down in the same spot again, I know that.”

Asiatic Globeflower.Trollius Asiaticus.Dedicated toSt. Johnof Beverley.

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