He prophesied America for us our rights would gain,
In spite of England's perfidy they'll burst our galling
        chain.

The "New Hunting Song" is an allegory.
Brought to the bar of zoological science, it is
rather faulty; for it represents the "Scorpion"
in the character of a beast of the chase
pursued with horn and hound. Neither can the
geographical details of this ballad escape
criticism. The scorpion is hunted to Athlone,
Killaloe, Hanover, Dover, the rocks of
Gibraltar, and a few other localities, until finally
run down into the Red Sea.

        And to join the chase from every place
             The sportsmen they will gather,
        From America, both France and Spain,
             In spite of wind or weather;
        The bravest hunters that can be,
             Brave Cahill has them selected,
                                &c., &c.

"The Heroes of '98" announces its subject
in its title, and is more happy in a tolerably
relevant illustration than most of its fellow
lyrics; being headed with a woodcut
representing a man running a sword through the
body of another man. "Tara's Hill, or Erin's
Glory," is of similar import; referring with
opprobrium to Strongbow, Oliver Cromwell,
Dutch Bill, and other historical characters by
whom "we were wrecked with tormentation."
The noticeable part of this ballad is the
patch at the end of it, glaringly different from
the rest of the stuff:

Now, to conclude, God send long life to Queen
        Victoria,
And that we may see our nation free from vile Whig
        or Tory;
May plenty smile round Erin's Isle—may peace and
        freedom flourish,
May all agree in unity, and broils and quarrels perish!

This exemplifies the trick of mouth-honour
made inveterate in the Irish "million," by
long contact with superiors to whom they
feel no true submission.

In truth, the mass of the Irish people,
politically considered, have not one clear or even
semi-transparent notion about their grievances,
or wishes, or aims, or means, or loves,
or hates, beyond this: that they recognise,
in a way, two parties, looming in misty
antagonism; and would (if excited to the
proper pitch) do anything they could think
of, or that anyone could put into their heads,
to get the better of THE OTHER PARTY. Their
agitators have crammed them with unscrupulous
rhetoric, and have found ignorance
the best digester of that sort of food. They
are a people of units cohering externally by
the mouldings of habit; destitute of a vital
bond, or common purpose. If, at times, this
people assume the shape and motion of a
community, the force is still external, and, as
it were, galvanic; for the immediate
consequence of its withdrawal is a relapse into
fragmentary feebleness.

"The Irish Emigrant's Address to his Irish
Landlord," exults in the turning of the tables,
by which their "honours," the landlords, are
to be reduced to the poor-house and India
Buck (Indian-corn porridge). It is sung to
the tune of "O Susanna, don't you cry for
me," and opens thus:

              I'm now going to a country where
                From Poor-rates I'll be free
              For poor Ireland's going to the dogs
                As fast as fast can be;
              You know you'd like to stop me,
                So I'll do it on the sly;
              With me I'll take a half-year's rent,
                Your Honour—won't you cry?

This ballad, treating, not without sarcastic
force, of passing events and sharp actualities,
must sink fast into the ears of its audiences,
and somewhat deeply too. The copy we quote
was purchased from two women, singing it
loud and shrill through a town on a fair or
market day. They seemed to have plenty of
eager customers, and more attentive listeners.
It appears worth while to add some further
extracts:

              I don't believe I ped the rint
                Within the last three years,
              And so I owe your Honour
                Some trifle of arrears;
              I mention this, because I think
                You'd like to say good-bye!
              For these arrears I have them snug;
                Your Honour, don't you cry.
                                   Chorus. O, your Honour!—the Poor-house is your dart,
Before, like those by famine died, your childer breaks your heart.

"Your dart," is vernacular for "your
resource." Verse five, relates how his Honour
sent his bailiff:

              For fear I'd stir the corn,
                But his efforts they did fail;
              For I tied him in the barn,
                And that night I took leg-bail.

Verse seven, proceeds —

              I hope your Honour may have luck
                When all the country's waste,
              And when they give out-door relief,
                May your Honour get a taste.
              But if they build a union
                For the landlords there to fly,
              And you get in—why, then I think
                Your Honour need not cry.

And, in concluding, this Irish emigrant
(who is a very different character from the
sentimental one who sits upon the stile) sings
sarcastically:

              Now, when I'm landed in New York,
                That moment I will get
              A gallon of rum, and drink your health,
                With what I'm in your debt.

It would appear that the parallel which
has become stereotyped in the newspaper
phrase of "Irish Exodus," is not to be left