There's staym ingynes,
That stands in lines,

Enormous and amazing,
That squeal and snort
Like whales in sport,
Or elephants a grazing.

There's carts and gigs,

And pins for pigs,

There's dibblers and there's harrows,

And ploughs like toys

For little boys.

And iligant wheel-barrows.

For thim genteels

Who ride on wheels,

There's plenty to indulge 'em ;
There's droskys snug

From Paytersbug,

And vayhycles from Bulgium.

There's cabs on stands

And shandthry danns;

There's waggons from New York
here;

There's Lapland sleighs
Have crossed the seas,

And jaunting cyars from Cork here.

In writing this Thackeray was a little late with his copy for Punch; not, we should say, altogether an uncommon accident to him. It should have been with the editor early on Saturday, if not before, but did not come till late on Saturday evening. The editor, who was among men the most good-natured, and I should think the most forbearing, either could not, or in this case would not, insert it in the next week's issue, and Thackeray, angry and disgusted, sent it to The Times. In The Times of next Monday it appeared-very much, I should think, to the delight of the readers of that august newspaper.

Mr. Molon's account of the ball given to the Nepaulese ambassadors by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, is so like Barham's coronation in the account it gives of the guests, that one would fancy it must be by the same hand.

There was the Lord de L'Huys, and the Portygeese
Ministher and his lady there,

And I recognised with much surprise,
Our messmate, Bob O'Grady, there.

All these are very good fun-so good in humour and so good in expression, that it would be needless to critcise their peculiar dialect, were it not that Thackeray has made for himself a reputation by his writing of Irish. In this he has been so entirely successful that for many English readers he has established a new language which may not improperly be called Hybernico-Thackerayan. If comedy is to be got from peculiarities of dialect, as no doubt it is, one form will do as well as another, so long as those who read it know no better. So it has been with Thackeray's Irish, for in truth he was not familiar with the modes of pronunciation which make up Irish brogue. Therefore, though he is always droll, he is not true to nature. Many an Irishman coming to London, not unnaturally tries to imitate the talk of Londoners. You or I, reader, were we from the West, and were the dear County Galway to send either of us to Parliament, would probably endeavour to drop the dear brogue of our country, and in doing so we should make some mistakes. It was these mistakes which Thackeray took for the natural Irish tone. He was amused to hear a major called " Meejor," but was unaware that the sound arose from Pat's affection of English softness of speech. The expression natural to the unadulterated Irishman would rather be "Ma-ajor." He discovers his own provincialism, and trying to be polite and urbane, he says "Meejor." In one of the lines I have quoted there occurs the word "troat." Such a sound never came naturally from the mouth of an Irishman. He puts in an h instead of omitting it, and says "dhrink." He comes to London, and finding out that he is wrong with his dhrink," he leaves out all the h's he can, and thus comes to "troat." It is this which Thackeray has heard. There is a little piece called the Last Irish Grievance, to which Thackeray adds a still later grievance by the false sounds which he elicits from the calumniated mouth of the pretended Irish poet. Slaves are 'sleeves," places are "pleeces," Lord John is "Lard Jahn," fatal is "fetal," danger is "deenger," and native is "neetive." All these are unintended slanders. Tea, Hibernicé, is "tay," please is "plaise," sea is "say," and ease is "aise." The softer sound of e is broadened out by natural Irishman-not, to my ear, without a certain euphony; but no one in Ireland says or hears the reverse. The Irishman who in London might talk of his "neetive" race, would be mincing his words to please the ear of the cockney.

66

The Chronicle of the Drum would be a true ballad all through, were it not that there is tacked on to it a long moral in an altered metre. I do not much value the moral, but the ballad is excellent,

not only in much of its versification and in the turns of its language, but in the quaint and true picture it gives of the French nation. The drummer, either by himself or by some of his family, has drummed through a century of French battling, caring much for his country and its glory, but understanding nothing of the causes for which he is enthusiastic. Whether for King, Republic, or Emperor, whether fighting and conquering or fighting and conquered, he is happy as long as he can beat his drum on a field of glory. But throughout his adventures there is a touch of chivalry about our drummer. all the episodes of his country's career he feels much of patriotism and something of tenderness. It is thus he sings during the days of the Revolution:

We had taken the head of King Capet,
We called for the blood of his wife;
Undaunted she came to the scaffold.

And bared her fair neck to the knife.

As she felt the foul fingers that touched her,
She shrank, but she deigned not to speak;

She looked with a royal disdain,

And died with a blush on her cheek!

'Twas thus that our country was saved!
So told us the Safety Committee !
But, psha, I've the heart of a soldier-
All gentleness mercy and pity.

I loathed to assist at such deeds,

And my drum beat its loudest of tunes,
As we offered to justice offended,

The blood of the bloody tribunes.

Away with such foul recollections !
No more of the axe and the block.

I saw the last fight of the sections,

As they fell 'neath our guns at St. Rock.
Young Bonaparte led us that day.

In

And so it goes on. I will not continue the stanza, because it contains the worst rhyme that Thackeray ever permitted himself to use. The Chronicle of the Drum has not the finish which he achieved afterwards, but it is full of national feeling, and carries on its purpose to the end with an admirable persistency :

A curse on those British assassins
Who ordered the slaughter of Ney:
A curse on Sir Hudson who tortured
The life of our hero away.

A curse on all Russians- I hate them;
On all Prussian and Austrian fry;
And, oh, but I pray we may meet them
And fight them again ere I die.

The White Squall—which I can hardly call a ballad, unless any

description of a scene in verse may be included in the name--is surely one of the most graphic descriptions ever put into verse. Nothing written by Thackeray shows more plainly his power over words and rhymes. He draws his picture without a line omitted or a line too much, saying with apparent facility all that he has to say, and so saying it that every word conveys its natural meaning.

When a squall, upon a sudden,
Came e'er the waters scudding;
And the clouds began to gather,
And the sea was lashed to lather,
And the lowering thunder grumbled,
And the lightning jumped and tumbled,
And the ship and all the ocean
Wake up is wild commotion.
Then the wind set up a howling,
And the poodle-dog a yowling,
And the cocks began a crowing,
And the old cow raised a lowing,
As she heard the tempest blowing;
And fowls and geese did cackle,
And the cordage and the tackle
Began to shriek and crackle;

And the spray dashed o er the funnels,
And down the deck in runnels;
And the rushing water soaks all,
From the seamen in the fo'ksal
To the stokers whose black faces
Peer out of their bed-places;
And the captain, he was bawling,
And the sailors pulling, hauling,
And the quarter-deck tarpauling
Was shivered in the squalling;

And the passengers awaken,

Most pitifully shaken;

And the steward jumps up and hastens

For the necessary basins.

Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered

And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered,
As the plunging waters met them,
And splashed and overset them;
And they call in their emergence
Upon countless saints and virgins;
And their marrowbones are bended,
And they think the world is ended."
And the Turkish women for'ard
Were frightened and behorror'd;
And shrieking and bewildering,
The mothers clutched their children;
The mer sang "Allah! Illah!
Mashallah Bis-millah!"

As the warning waters doused them,
And splashed them and soused them;
And they called upon the Prophet,
And thought but little of it.

Then all the fleas in Jewry
Jumped up and bit like fury;

And the progeny of Jacob
Did on te main-deck wake up.
(I wot these greasy Rabbins
Would never pay for cabins);

And each man moaned and jabbered in
His filthy Jewish gaberdine,

In woe and lamentation,

And howling consternation.

And the splashing water drenches

Their dirty brats and wenches;

And they crawl from bales and benches,

In a hundred thousand stenches.

This was the White Squall famous,
Which latterly o'ercame us

Peg of Limavaddy has always been very popular, and the public have not, I think, been generally aware that the young lady in question lived in truth at Newton Limavady (with one d). But with the correct name Thackeray would hardly have been so successful with his rhymes.

Citizen or Squire,

Tory, Whir, or Radi-
Cal would all desire

Peg of Limavaddy.

Had I Homer's fire

Or that of Sergeant Taddy,
Meetly I'd admire

Peg of Limavaddy.

And till I expire

Or till I go mad I

Will sing unto my lyre

Peg of Limavaddy.

The Cane-bottomed Chair is another, better, I think, than Peg of Limavaddy, as containing that mixture of burlesque with the pathetic which belonged so peculiarly to Thackeray, and which was indeed the very essence of his genius.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,
There's one that I love and I cherish the best
For the finest of couches that's padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair.

She comes from the past and revisits my room,
She looks as she then did all beauty and bloom;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,

And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair.

This, in the volume which I have now before me, is followed by a