LAMENTATION
ON THE BARBAROUS AND INHUMAN
MURDER OF MRS. KIRWAN,
WHO WAS BRUTALLY MURDERED BY HER OWN HUSBAND.

—a doggerel narrative of a recent cause
celèbre with paper, printing, style, and
spelling all of a piece, and headed by a
tremendous representation of Blue Beard and
Fatima, flanked by two sideway vignettes,
pourtraying black, smeared, and therefore
incomprehensible tragedies.

On the same sheet is a new song in praise
of Bishop M'Hale; which sounds very strange
to Anglo-Saxon and Protestant ears. He is
designated " A pious prelate of wit sublime,"
and a brilliant star in his church. He is the
great M'Hale from the rock of Naifin; the
bright star of Erin; and the pride of Mayo.
Dr Cahill also comes in for his laudation, in
an appeal to all true Romans to unite in
combination against England, and a vile
heretic tribe, and clear heresy out of the land.
O'Connell, typified as Erin's Green Linnet
(not so very green, we should have thought)
is not forgotten. " I hope that the Lord for
his pains  will reward him, for seeking the
rights of old  Erin-go-bragh," says the songster,
piously, after praising the Linnet's lovely
green wings  with which he hovered so brisk
and airy. Brave, bluff, obese, old Daniel
O'Connell, green, brisk, and airy!

Side by side with these are pasted some
really attractive street music; dulcet, simple,
as belongs to true ballad poetry; love songs,
with the delicate shadings and tender tones,
characteristic of love poetry; telling the old,
sad story of desertion and heart-break, or the
brighter tale of successful, if marauding love;
songs that would do no one any harm to
hear: which cannot be said of the eroticisms
that flowed from the tavern poets of the old
time. Nanny's Sailor Lad, the Abbey of
Assaroe, Among the Heather, and the Girl's
Lamentation, have seldom been exceeded for
pathos and simplicity, especially the last.
The Winding Banks of Erne is an established
street favourite in the Ballyshannon district;
especially among departing emigrants. All
these songs, sung constantly in the highways
and byeways of Ireland, are, it appears,
written by an Irish poet whose muse has
long been recognised by critics of the highest
rank, for tenderness, grace, and polish—Mr.
William Allingham.

Here is a natural bit of peasant portraiture
representing Lovely Mary Donnelly:

Her eyes like mountain water that's flowing on a rock,
How clear they are, how dark they are! and they
give me many a shock.
Bed rowans warm in sunshine and wetted with a shower,
Could ne'er express the charming lip that has me in
its power.

Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up,
Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup
Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty andso fine;
It's rolling down upon her neck, and gather'd in a twine.

The dance of Whitsun Monday exceeded all before,
No pretty girl for miles about was missing fromthe floor;
But Mary kept the belt o' love, and O but shewas gay!
She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away.

When she stood up for dancing, her steps were so complete,
The music nearly kill'd itself to listen to her feet;
The fiddler moan'd his blindness, he heard her so much praised,
But bless'd himself he wasn't deaf when once her voice she raised.

The quaint inconsistency of all street
ballad illustrations is not absent from the
halfpenny print in which Mr. Allingham's
popular works are inscribed. Our sentiments
for the milkmaid who is wooed and won by
a young squireen, are stimulated by the
figure of an elephant, at the head, and by a
cut of a goat nibbling chopped sticks on the
edge of a precipice, at the foot.

On this side of the Irish Channel, no one has
ever touched the people more deeply than our
own thoroughly British (for he is half Scotch)
Charles Mackay. His are really the people's
songs; and he has made himself heard and
appreciated throughout the length and breadth
not only of this land, but of every other land
over which Englishmen are spread. "There's
a Good Time Coming, Boys," took the very
nation by storm. It shared in the honours
given to such confessed master-pieces as
Dibdin's sailor songs: which, however, had
the additional chance of gaining popular
favour by having been written for a purpose,
and of expressing a deep national sentiment
which they neither created nor directed.
The man who can originate the thought
or feeling to which he addresses himself, is
a more profound master of his art, than
one who merely takes advantage of a general
enthusiasm. There's a Good Time Coming
is the epitome of political forbearance and
manly patience. Less passionate than the
Marseillaise, it is yet as heart-searching, and
in the trial would, perhaps, be found as
powerful to restrain, as the other has been
to excite. It is not a song of action; but it
is one full of quiet heroism and the patient
hope, which is not supineness, but rather an
act of distinct mental energy. For is there
not an energy that represses, as well as one
that incites, the passions of men? " Cheer
Boys, Cheer ''—one of the emigrant series—
is another most popular song by Doctor
Mackay. It is the song of the emigrants.