“ What is worse than all this, it is impossible to speak to me but you give me some occasion of coming out with one lie or other that has neither wit, humour, prospect of interest, nor any other motive that I can think of in nature. The other day, when one was commending an eminent and learned divine, what occasion had I to say, “Methinks he would look more venerable if he were not so fair a man”? I remember the company smiled. I have seen the gentleman since, and he is coal black. I have intimations every day in my life that nobody believes me, yet I am never the better. ”

“ Those rollicking lilts such as Ireland best knows;
While Paddy is prancing, his colleen is dancing,
Demure, with her eyes quite intent on his toes.
More power to you, Micky! faith, your foot isn’t sticky,
But bounds from the boards like a pea from a quill.
Oh, ’twould cure a rheumatic,—he’d jump up ecstatic,
At “Tatter Jack Welsh” upon Bellewstown Hill.
Oh, ’tis there ’neath the haycocks, all splendid like paycocks,
In chattering groups that the quality dine;
Sitting cross-legged like tailors the gentlemen dealers,
In flattery spout and come out mighty fine. ”

“ Lofty. Sis, I will not be pacified! Suspects! Who am I? To be used thus, have I paid court to men in favour to serve my friends, the Lords of the Treasury, Sir William Honeywood, and the rest of the gang, and talk to me of suspects! Who am I, I say—who am I?
Sir W. Since, sir, you’re so pressing for an answer, I’ll tell you who you are. A gentleman, as well acquainted with politics as with men in power; as well acquainted with persons of fashion as with modesty; with the Lords of the Treasury as with truth; and with all, as you are with Sir William Honeywood. I am Sir William Honeywood. ”

“ Sir Anth. ’Tis a confounded lie! I know you are in a passion at your heart; I know you are, you hypocritical young dog; but it won’t do.
[118]
Capt. A. Nay, sir, upon my word——
Sir Anth. So you will fly out! Can’t you be cool, like me? What the devil good can passion do? passion is of no service, you impudent, insolent, overbearing reprobate! There, you sneer again! don’t provoke me! but you rely upon the mildness of my temper; you do, you dog! you play upon the meekness of my disposition! Yet, take care; the patience of a saint may be overcome at last. ”

“ The modest grace, the sweet face, the humour and the cheer of her?
Eyes like the skies, when but twin stars beam above in them—
Oh! proud may be the boy that’s to light the lamp of love in them.
Then when you rise to go, ’tis “Ah, then, now, sit down again!”
“Isn’t it the haste you’re in,” and “Won’t you come round soon again?”
Your cothamor [51] and hat you had better put astray from them—
The hardest job in life is to tear yourself away from them! ”

“ When the dead had been duly waked for two days and nights, the burying day came. All the morning Long Mat Murnane’s coffin lay on four chairs by his cabin, with a kneeling ring of dishevelled women keening round it. Every soul in Aughavanna and their kith and kin had gathered to do him honour. And when the Angelus bell rang across the Valley from the chapel, the mourners fell into ranks, the coffin was lifted on the rough hearse, and the motley funeral—a line of carts with a mob of peasants behind, a few riding, but most of them on foot—moved slowly towards Carrala. ”

“ Humour and satire are extremes—the more barbed and keen a shaft, the more malicious and likely to hurt, whereas the genuine quality of humour partakes of tenderness and gentleness. Sheridan is an admirable example of a wit, while Lover represents humour in its most confiding aspect. There are intermediate kinds, however, and the malice of Curran’s repartees is not altogether akin to the rasping personalities of “Father Prout.” Irish humour is mainly a store of merriment pure and simple, without much personal taint, and does not profess to be philosophical. ”

“ Ah, Peter, Peter, you watered the drink!”
“No, indeed, father, but it’s the taste is leavin’ you,” says Peter; and again a low chorus of compassionate pity murmured through the cabin.
“Well, I’m nearly done now,” says my father; “there’s only one little plot of ground remaining, and I put it on you, Peter—as ye wish to live a good man, and die with the same asy heart I do now—that ye mind my last words to ye here. Are ye listening? Are the neighbours listening? Is Billy Scanlan listening?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, father. We’re all minding,” chorused the audience. ”

“ He never moved a muscle, and his wit shone by contrast with his moody exterior as a lightning-flash illuminates a gloomy sky. It has that element of unexpectedness which goes far to define the nature of wit.
Real drollery in Anglo-Irish literature seems to have begun with Steele. In the case of Steele there is rarely anything to offend modern taste. His tenderness is akin to Goldsmith’s, and the natural man is clearly visible in his writings. ”

“ Red Callanan of Carrala went down before him; he knocked the five senses out of Dan O’Shaughran of Earrennamore, that herded many pigs by the sedgy banks of the Owen Erriff; he hollowed the left eye out of Larry Mulcahy, that lived on the Devil’s Mother Mountain—never again did Larry set the two eyes of him on his high mountain-cradle; he killed Black Michael Joyce by a beautiful swooping blow on the side of the head—who would have dreamt that Black Michael had so thin a skull? ”

“ The most accomplished way of using books at present is twofold: either, first, to serve them as some men do lords, learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance; or, secondly, what is indeed the choicer, the profounder, and politer method, to get a thorough insight into the index, by which the whole book is governed, and turned like fishes by the tail. For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms; therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back door. ”

“ He would fly like a swallow and dive like a hake,
But some wicked savage, to grease his white cabbage,
Has murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake.
May his pig never grunt, may his cat never hunt,
May a ghost ever haunt him at dead of the night;
May his hen never lay, may his ass never bray,
May his goat fly away like an old paper kite. ”

“ So I told him how I had taken the drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man in the moon turned me out. ‘Dan,’ said he, ‘I’ll save you; put out your hand and catch me by the leg, and I’ll fly you home.’ ‘Sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ says I, though all the time I thought within myself that I don’t much trust you; but there was no help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other geese flew after him as fast as hops. ”

“ Lofty. Loves him! Does she? You should cure her of that, by all means. Let me see, what if she were sent to him this instant, in his present doleful situation? My life for it, that works her cure. Distress is a perfect antidote to love. Suppose we join her in the next room? Miss Richland is a fine girl, has a fine fortune, and must not be thrown away. Upon my honour, madam, I have a regard for Miss Richland; and rather than she should be thrown away, I should think it no indignity to marry her myself. ”

“ When we were got to the end of our procession, “Blast me,” cries he, with [88] an air of vivacity, “I never saw the Park so thin in my life before! There’s no company at all to-day; not a single face to be seen.” “No company!” interrupted I, peevishly; “no company where there is such a crowd? why, man, there’s too much. What are the thousands that have been laughing at us but company?” “Lord, my dear,” returned he with the utmost good-humour, “you seem immensely chagrined; but, blast me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at the world, and so we are even. ”

“ Then we rowed across the wide expanse of New-Milk Lake, through seas of broth, past river-mouths of mead, over swelling boisterous waves of butter-milk, by perpetual pools of gravy, past woods dewy with meat-juice, past springs of savoury lard, by islands of cheeses, by hard rocks of rich tallow, by headlands of old curds, along strands of dry-cheese, until we reached the firm level beach between Butter-Mount and Milk-Lake and Curd-Point, at the mouth of the pass to the country of O’Early-Eating, in front of the hermitage of the Wizard Doctor. ”

“ Only those who are in the closest intimacy with sacred objects venture to treat them familiarly, and the Irish peasant often speaks in an offhand manner of that which is dearest to him. Few nations could have produced such a harvest of humour under such depressing and unfavourable influences as Ireland has experienced. And it may be asserted with truth that many countries with far more reason for uninterrupted good-humour, with much less cause for sadness, would be hard put to it to show an equally valuable contribution to the world’s lighter literature. ”

“ Perseverance will ultimately win, though it may not deserve, success.
And who shall paint the joy that will irradiate life when you find yourself in print for the first time? who shall describe the delirium of reading your own verses? a delight leading you almost to forgive the printer’s error which turns your “blessed rule” into “blasted fool,” and your “Spring quickens” into “Spring Chickens”; who will count the copies of that paper you will send to all your friends?
By-and-by your fame spreads and you rank of the élite; you assume the air and manners of a poet. ”

“ Each gay-hearted lad with the lass of his choosing;
And Pat, without fail, leads out sweet Kitty Neil,—
Somehow, when he asked, she ne’er thought of refusing. [267]
Now Felix Magee puts his pipes to his knee,
And with flourish so free sets each couple in motion;
With a cheer and a bound the lads patter the ground,—
The maids move around just like swans on the ocean.
Cheeks bright as the rose, feet light as the doe’s,
Now coyly retiring, now boldly advancing,—
Search the world all around, from the sky to the ground,
No such sight can be found as an Irish lass dancing! ”

“ Verses like the above have an intrinsic charm, but if you should think them too trivial, you may soar into the higher regions of thought, and expand your soul in epics on, say, “The Creation,” “The Deluge,” “The Fall of Rome,” “The Future of Man.” You possibly know nothing whatever of those subjects, but that is an advantage, as you will bring a fresh unhackneyed mind to bear upon them.
I need hardly tell you that there is one subject above all others whose most fitting garb is poetry, and that is—Love. Fall in love if you can. It is easy—nothing easier to a poet. ”

“ The distinguishing between wit and humour is not so simple a matter as it looks, but one might hazard the opinion that while the one expresses indifference and irreverence, the other is redolent of feeling and sincerity. ”

“ Naturally enough, the chief themes of the Irish humorist have been courting and drinking, with the occasional relief of a fight. The amativeness of the poets is little short of marvellous. Men like Lover (who has never been surpassed perhaps as a humorous love-poet) usually confined their humour in that groove; others, like Maginn, kept religiously to the tradition that liquor is the chief attraction in life, and the only possible theme for a wit after exhausting his pleasantries about persons. ”

“ Ochone, acushla mavourneen! ah, why thus did ye die?
(I won’t keep ye waitin’ a minit: just wait till I wipe my eye) ;
And is it gone ye are, darlint,—the kindest, the fondest, the best?
(Don’t forget the half-crown for the clerk—ye’ll find it below in the chest) .
And to leave me alone in the world—O whirra, ochone, ochone!
(Is that Misther Moore in the car?—I thought I was goin’ alone) ;
Why am I alive this minit? why don’t I die on the floore?
(I’ll take your hand up the step, an’ thank ye, Misther Moore!) ”

“ Why the devil didn’t you pay what he asked, sir?”
“Arrah, sir, why would I let you be chated? It’s not a double letther at all; not above half the size o’ one Mr. Durfy got before my face for fourpence.”
“You’ll provoke me to break your neck some day, you vagabond! Ride back for your life, you omadhaun; and pay whatever he asks, and get me the letter.” ”

“ HOW TO BECOME A POET.
Of all the sayings which have misled mankind from the days of Adam to Churchill, not one has been more harmful than the old Latin one, “A poet is born, not made.”
The human intellect, it is said, may, by patient toil and study, gather laurels in all fields of knowledge save one—that of poesy. You may, by dint of hard work, become a captain in the Salvation Army, a corporation crossing-sweeper—ay, even an unsuccessful Chief Secretary for Ireland ”