;

as well as good cheer for their guests; and they not only have wit themselves, but they love it in others they can take as well as give a joke. I never lived with a more good-humoured, generous, open-hearted people than the Irish."

Irishman." I wish Englishmen, in general, were half as partial to poor Ireland as you are,

sir."

Englishman." Or rather you wish that they knew the country as well, and then they would do it as much justice."

Irishman." You do it something more than justice, I fear. There are little peculiarities in my countrymen which will long be justly the subject of ridicule in England."

Scotchman." Not among well-bred and wellinformed people: those who have seen or read of great varieties of customs and manners are never apt to laugh at all that may differ from their own. As the sensible author of the Government of the Tongue says,Half-witted people are always the bitterest revilers.""

Irishman." You are very indulgent, gentlemen ; but, in spite of all your politeness, you must allow, or, at least, I must confess, that there are little defects in the Irish government of the tongue at which even whole-witted people must laugh."

Scotchman." The well-educated people in all countries, I believe, escape the particular accent, and avoid the idiom, that are characteristic of the vulgar."

Irishman." But even when we escape Irish brogue, we cannot escape Irish bulls."

Englishman." You need not say Irish bulls with such emphasis; for bulls are not peculiar to Ireland. I have been informed by a person of unquestionable authority, that there is a town in Germany, Hirschau, in the Upper Palatinate, where the inhabitants are famous for making bulls.”

Irishman." I am truly glad to hear we have companions in disgrace. Numbers certainly lessen the effect of ridicule as well as of shame: but, after all, the Irish idiom is peculiarly unfortunate, for it leads perpetually to blunder."

Scotchman." I have heard the same remarked of the Hebrew. I am told that the Hebrew and Irish idiom are much alike."

Irishman (laughing)." That is a great comfort to us, certainly, particularly to those amongst us who are fond of tracing our origin up to the remotest antiquity; but still there are many who would willingly give up the honour of this high alliance to avoid its inconveniences; for my own part, if I could ensure myself and my countrymen from all future danger of making bulls and blunders, I would this instant give up all Hebrew roots; and even the Ogham character itself I would renounce, to make assurance doubly sure."

Englishman.- -"To make assurance doubly sure.' Now there is an example in our great Shakspeare of what I have often observed, that we English allow our poets and ourselves a license of speech that we

deny to our Hibernian neighbours. If an Irishman, instead of Shakspeare, had talked of making as surance doubly sure,' we should have asked how that could be. The vulgar in England are too apt to catch at every slip of the tongue made by Irishmen I remember once being present when an Irish nobleman, of talents and literature, was actually hissed from the hustings at a Middlesex election because in his speech he happened to say, 'We have laid the root to the axe of the tree of liberty,' instead of we have laid the axe to the root of the tree."

Scotchman." A lapsus linguæ, that might have been made by the greatest orators, ancient or modern ; by Cicero or Chatham, by Burke, or by the fluent Murray.'"

Englishman." Upon another occasion I have heard that an Irish orator was silenced with inextinguishable laughter' merely for saying, I am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand mute."'"

Scotchman." If I am not mistaken, that very same Irish orator made an allusion at which no one could laugh. 'The protection,' said he, which Britain affords to Ireland in the day of adversity, is like that which the oak affords to the ignorant countryman, who flies to it for shelter in the storm; it draws down upon his head the lightning of heaven: ' may be I do not repeat the words exactly, but I could not forget the idea."

Englishman.—“ I would with all my heart bear the ridicule of a hundred blunders for the honour of having made such a simile: after all, his saying, I

am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand mute,' if it be a bull, is justified by Homer; one of the charms in the cestus of Venus is,

'Silence that speaks, and eloquence of eyes.""

Scotchman." Silence that speaks, sir, is, I am afraid, an English, not a Grecian charm. It is not in the Greek; it is one of those beautiful liberties which Mr. Pope has taken with his original. But silence that speaks can be found in France as well as in England. Voltaire, in his chef-d'œuvre, his Edipus, makes Jocasta say,

'Tout parle contre nous jusqu'à notre silence.'"*

Englishman." And in our own Milton, Samson Agonistes makes as good, indeed a better, bull ; for he not only makes the mute speak, but speak loud :

"The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.'

And in Paradise Lost we have, to

able language, two famous bulls.

Milton says,

speak in fashionTalking of Satan,

"God and his Son except,

Created thing nought valued he nor shunn'd.'

And speaking of Adam and Eve, and their sons and

"Every thing speaks against us, even our silence."

daughters, he confounds them all together in a manner for which any Irishman would have been laughed to scorn :—

'Adam, the goodliest man of men since born,

His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.'

Yet Addison, who notices these blunders, calls them only little blemishes."

Scotchman." He does so; and he quotes Horace, who tells us we should impute such venial errors to a pardonable inadvertency; and, as I recollect, Addison makes another very just remark, that the ancients, who were actuated by a spirit of candour, not of cavilling, invented a variety of figures of speech, on purpose to palliate little errors of this

nature."

"Really, gentlemen," interrupted the Hibernian, what had sat all this time in silence that spoke his grateful sense of the politeness of his companions, "you will put the finishing stroke to my obligations to you, if you will prove that the ancient figures of speech were invented to palliate Irish blunders."

Englishman.—" No matter for what purpose they were invented; if we can make so good a use of them we shall be satisfied, especially if you are pleased. I will, however, leave the burthen of the proof upon my friend here, who has detected me already in quoting from Pope's Iliad instead of Homer's. I am sure he will manage the ancient figures of rhetoric better than I should; however, if I can fight behind his shield I shall not shun the combat."