imperfect in the point of spoliation of the
Egyptians.

"The Poor Irish Bard" also descants on
distress, emigration, Dives and Lazarus, but
in a moralising and mendicant key. His
explanation of one of the misfortunes of the
country, asks quotation:—

To kill your potato crop—rent them asunder
By the nocturnal clap of the cloud's roaring thunder.

which, perhaps, enables us to realise some
amount of prophetic meaning in Nat Lee's
line,

              A mad potato on the whirlwind flies.

This has taken us out of the domain of
Party. Of songs of general Patriotism, we
have five; on sea-voyages, wrecks, and
pirates, eight, including "A Lamentation on
the Loss of the Barque Edmond," with the
names of the passengers lost, given at foot.
Of regular "Farewells to Ireland " (besides
numberless ballads that refer to or conclude
in America), we have three. "Patrick
Fitzpatrick's Farewell" presents a rude picture
of misery, which is unexaggerated and
touching.

Those three long years I've laboured hard, as any
        on Erin's Isle,
     And still was scarcely able my family to keep;
My tender wife and children three, under the lash
        of misery,
     Unknown to friends and neighbours, I've often seen to weep.
Sad grief it seized her tender heart, when forced
        her only cow to part,
     And canted * was before her face, the Poor-rates for to pay;
Cut down in all her youthful bloom, she's gone into
        her silent tomb;
     Forlorn I will mourn her loss when in America.

The popular hopes of emigrants are thus
expressed:—

Let Erin's sons and daughters fair now for the
        promised land prepare,
     America, that beauteous soil, will soon your toils repay;
Employment it is plenty there; on beef and mutton
        you can fare;
     From five to six dollars is your wages every day.
Now see what money has come o'er those three years
        from Columbia's shore,
     But for it numbers now was laid all in their silent clay;
California's golden mines [my hoys] are open now
        to crown our joys,
     So nil our hardships we'll dispute when in
        America.

We have five Criminal ballads; the usual
characteristics of which class are, that the
judge is cruel, the counsel for the prisoner
"noble" and "bold," and the prisoner
himself an object of deep sympathy.

The glories of the great French Emperor,
once a favourite theme, linger in two effusions.
The "Grand Conversation on the
Remains of Napoleon" is immensely absurd;
but "Buonaparte's Farewell to Paris"
demands our last spare moments for its opening
stanza.

I'll visit that splendid citadel metropolis called Paris,
  Situated every morning by Sol's refulgent beams;
Conjoined by bright Aurora advancing from the
        orient,
With radiant light adorning in pure shining rays;
Commanding Cynthia to retire where the windows
        glance like fire,
  The universe admire their merchandize and store,
With Flora's spreading fragrance the fertile plains
        to decorate,
  To illuminate the royal Corsican again to the
        French shore.

What follows is not unworthy of this
commencement; but we can do no more than
advert to the affecting antithesis, wherein
"Napoleon Buonaparte, the conqueror of
nations," who "trampled Dukes and Earls,
and splendid congregations," complains of
being "Now in a desart isle annoyed with
rats."

About a dozen miscellaneous, and half-a-dozen
intentionally comic ballads—sung with
eccentric choruses—go nigh to exhaust our
collection. The comic ballads have, perhaps,
more nature and smartness than those of any
other class, and are remarkably free from
improprieties: which, in some cases, their
subjects and general downrightness might
seem to foreshadow.

Any didactic essay on ballads might fairly
be expected to commence with the remark
that a wise old writer has said, "Let me
make the ballads of a nation, and who will
may make the laws." This saw (which is
somewhat rhetorical in form, and exceedingly
musty) is at least as applicable to melodious,
credulous, impulsive Ireland, as to any other
country in the world. And, certainly, in the
matter of ballads—let the laws be what they
may—Ireland is far enough from having
justice done to her. The humble dwellings
of the land are pervaded by the national
melodies; many of which have become the
darlings of the world and of fame, whilst
many others, perhaps some as beautiful, have
never been noted down, and are perishing
yearly, by twos and threes, or lingering only
with an old nurse, and an old piper, here and
there. Moore's words flew high above these
humble dwellings; nor have any of the Young-
Ireland lyrics in the least succeeded in becoming,
in the true sense, popular. The sphere
of Moore's songs was the drawing-room; of
Young-Ireland's, the Repeal Meeting-room
and the Club-room. Songs for a people must
find their natural element beside the cottage
hearth. Such simple and pathetic ditties, in
the old Irish tongue, are still sometimes
heard.

In the English tongue, the national songs of
Ireland—perhaps comprising three-fourths of
the national literature—are such as are sung

* Auctioned.