of Mr. Owen ap Davies ap Jenkins ap Jones. This gentleman had reason to think himself the greatest of men; for he had over his chimney-piece a well-smoked genealogy, duly attested, tracing his ancestry in a direct line up to Noah; and moreover he was nearly related to the learned etymologist who, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, wrote a folio to prove that the language of Adam and Eve in Paradise was pure Welsh. With such causes to be proud, Mr. Owen ap Davies ap Jenkins ap Jones was excusable for sometimes seeming to forget that a schoolmaster is but a man. He, however, sometimes entirely forgot that a boy is but a boy; and this happened most frequently with respect to little Dominick.

This unlucky wight was flogged every morning by his master, not for his vices, but for his vicious constructions, and laughed at by his companions every evening for his idiomatic absurdities. They would probably have been inclined to sympathize in his misfortunes, but that he was the only Irish boy at school; and as he was at a distance from all his relations, and without a friend to take his part, he was a just object of obloquy and derision. Every sentence he spoke was a bull; every two words he put together proved a false concord; and every sound he articulated betrayed the brogue. But as he possessed some of the characteristic boldness of those who have been dipped in the Shannon, he showed himself able and willing to fight his own battles with the host of foes by whom he was encompassed. Some of these, it was said, were of nearly twice his stature. This may be exaggerated, but it is certain that our hero sometimes ventured with sly Irish humour to revenge himself upon his most powerful tyrant by mimicking the Welsh accent, in which Mr. Owen ap Jones said to him, "Cot pless me, you plockit, and shall I never learn you Enclish crammar?"

It was whispered in the ear of this Dionysius that our little hero was a mimic; and he was treated with increased severity.

The midsummer holydays approached; but he feared that they would shine no holydays for him. He had written to his mother to tell her that school would break up the 21st, and to beg an answer, without fail, by return of post; but no answer came.

It was now nearly two months since he had heard from his dear mother or any of his friends in Ireland.

His spirits began to sink under the pressure of these accumulated misfortunes: he slept little, ate less, and played not at all; indeed, nobody would play with him upon equal terms, because he was nobody's equal: his schoolfellows continued to consider him as a being, if not of a different species, at least of a different caste from themselves.

Mr. Owen ap Jones's triumph over the little Irish plockit was nearly complete, for the boy's heart was almost broken, when there came to the school a new scholar-O how unlike the others! His name was Edwards; he was the son of a neighbouring Welsh gentleman; and he had himself the spirit of a gentleman. When he saw how poor Dominick was persecuted, he took him under his protection, fought his battles with the Welsh boys, and, instead of laughing at him for speaking Irish, he endeavoured to teach him to speak English. In his answers to the first question Edwards ever asked him, little Dominick made two blunders, which set all his other companions in a roar: yet Edwards would not allow them to be genuine bulls.

In answer to the question, "Who is your father?" Dominick said, with a deep sigh, "I have no father-I am an orphan*-I have only a mother."

"Have you any brothers and sisters ?"

"No; I wish I had; perhaps they would love me, and not laugh at me," said Dominick, with tears in his eyes; "but I have no brothers but myself."

One day Mr. Jones came into the schoolroom with an open letter in his hand, saying, "Here, you little Irish plockit, here's a letter from your mother."

The little Irish blockhead started from his form, and, throwing his grammar on the floor, leaped up higher than he or any boy in the school had ever been seen to leap before, and clapping his hands, he exclaimed, “A letter from my mother! And will I hear the letter? And will I see her once more? And will I go home these holydays? O, then I will be too happy!"

"There's no tanger of that,” said Mr. Owen ap Jones; "for your mother, like a wise ooman, writes me here, that, py the atvice of your cardian, to oom she is coing to be married, she will not pring you home to Ireland

* Iliad, 6th book, 1. 432, Andromache says to Hector, "You will make your son an orphan, and your wife a widow."

till I send her word you are perfect in your Enclish crammar at least."

"I have my lesson perfect, sir," said Dominick, taking his grammar up from the floor; "will I say it now?"

"Will I say it now! No, you plockit, no; and I will write your mother word you have proke Priscian's head four times this tay, since her letter came. You Irish plockit!" continued the relentless grammarian, “will you never learn the tifference between shall and will? Will I hear the letter, and will I see her once more! What Enclish is this, plockit ?"

The Welsh boys all grinned, except Edwards, who hummed, loud enough to be heard, two lines of the good old English song,

'And will I see him once again?
And will I hear him speak?"

Many of the boys were fortunately too ignorant to feel the force of the quotation; but Mr. Owen ap Jones understood it, turned upon his heel, and walked off. Soon afterward he summoned Dominick to his awful desk; and, pointing with his ruler to the following page in Harris's Hermes, bade him "reat it, and understant it, if he could." Little Dominick read, but could not understand. "Then reat it loud, you plockit."

Dominick read aloud

"There is nothing appears so clearly an object of the mind or intellect only as the future does, since we can find no place for its existence anywhere else: not but the same, if we consider, is equally true of the past-" "Well, co on-what stops the plockit? Can't you reat Enclish now?"

“Yes, sir; but I was trying to understand it. I was considering that this is like what they would call an Irish bull, if I had said it."

Little Dominick could not explain what he meant in English, that Mr. Owen ap Jones would understand; and, to punish him for his impertinent observation, the boy was doomed to learn all that Harris and Lowth have written to explain the nature of shall and will. The reader, if he be desirous of knowing the full extent of the penance enjoined, may consult Lowth's Grammar, p. 52, ed. 1799, and Harris's Hermes, p. 10, 11, and 12, 4th edition. Undismayed at the length of his task, little Dominick only said, I hope, if I say it all without

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missing a word, you will not give my mother a bad account of me and my granimar studies, sir."

"Say it all first, without missing a word, and then I shall see what I shall say,” replied Mr. Owen ap Jones. Even the encouragement of this oracular answer excited the boy's fond hopes so keenly, that he lent his little soul to the task, learned it perfectly, said it at night, without missing one word, to his friend Edwards, and said it the next morning, without missing one word, to his master.

“And now, sir,” said the boy, looking up, “will you write to my mother? And shall I see her? And shall I go home?"

“Tell me first, whether you understant all this that you have learnt so cliply," said Mr. Owen ap Jones.

That was more than his bond. Our hero's countenance fell: and he acknowledged that he did not understand it perfectly.

“Then I cannot write a coot account of you and your crammar studies to your mother; my conscience coes against it,” said the conscientious Mr. Owen ap Jones.

No entreaties could move him. Dominick never saw the letter that was written to his mother; but he felt the consequence. She wrote word this time punctually by return of the post, that she was sorry that she could not send for him home these holydays, as she heard so bad an account from Mr. Jones, &c., and as she thought it her duty not to interrupt the course of his education, especially his grammar studies. Little Dominick heaved many a sigh when he saw the packings up of all his school-fellows, and dropped a few tears as he looked out of the window, and saw them, one after another, get on their Welsh ponies, and gallop off towards their homes. “I have no home to go to,” said he.

"Yes, you have," cried Edwards; "and our horses are at the door to carry us there."

"To Ireland me! the horses!" said the poor boy, quite bewildered: "and will they bring me to Ireland?" "No; the horses cannot carry you to Ireland,” said Edwards, laughing good-naturedly, “but you have a home now in England. I asked my father to let me take you home with me; and he says 'Yes,' like a dear good father, and has sent the horses. Come, let's away." "But will Mr. Jones let me go?"

“Yes; he dares not refuse; for my father has a living

in his gift that Jones wants, and which he will not have, if he do not change his tune to you."

Little Dominick could not speak one word, his heart was so full. No boy could be happier than he was during these holydays: "the genial current of his soul," which had been frozen by unkindness, flowed with all its natural freedom and force.

When Dominick returned to school after these holydays were over, Mr. Owen ap Jones, who now found that the Irish boy had an English protector with a living in his gift, changed his tone. He never more complained unjustly that Dominick broke Priscian's head, seldom called him Irish plockit, and once would have flogged a Welsh boy for taking up this cast-off expression of the master's, but the Irish biockhead begged the culprit off.

Little Dominick sprang forward rapidly in his studies: he soon surpassed every boy in the school, his friend Edwards only excepted. In process of time, his guardian removed him to a higher seminary of education. Edwards had a tutor at home. The friends separated. Afterward they followed different professions in distant parts of the world; and they neither saw nor heard any more of each other for many years. From boys they grew into men, and Dominick, now no longer little Dominick, went over to India as private secretary to one of our commanders-in-chief. How he got into this situation, or by what gradations he rose in the world, we are not exactly informed: we know only that he was the reputed author of a much-admired pamphlet on Indian affairs, that the despatches of the general to whom he was secretary were remarkably well written, and that Dominick O'Reilly, Esq., returned to England after several years' absence, not miraculously rich, but with a fortune equal to his wishes. His wishes were not extravagant : his utmost ambition was to return to his native country with a fortune that should enable him to live independently of all the world, especially of some of his relations, who had not used him well. His mother was no more.

Upon his arrival in London, one of the first things he did was to read the Irish newspapers. To his inexpressible joy, he saw the estate of Fort Reilly advertised to be sold the very estate which had formerly belonged to his own family. Away he posted directly to an attorney's, who was empowered to dispose of the land.

When this attorney produced a map of the well-known