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lucky hit" is made? Are his intermediate sufferings, hardships, privations, and bitter reflections, to be regarded as nothing? It is an undoubted fact, that Lord Eldon, with his matchless learning, was reduced to the last extremities before he could make a subsistence. Unquestionably there are splendid examples of industry and talent, although sprung from the lowest ranks of life, forcing their way to the most illustrious stations in the law. Such instances of brilliant success are before the world; but who can enumerate the numbers who have failed, the brokenhearted victims of a vain pursuit-the more to be pitied because probably undeserving their miserable fate. Such considerations ought not, and certainly will not, frighten from the bar, those stout-hearted individuals who are conscious of possessing the mental requisites, the patience, and determined perseverance essential to success, who have been accustomed to privations, and despise them; but these plain truths ought to influence, and dispose to serious reflection, before they rush into the fession, that very respectable and somewhat numerous class of gentlemen, who put on a cravat so cleverly as to puzzle the beholder for a solution of the tie, and discuss with much critical acumen, the lighter topics of polite literature. We address ourselves further to those who have laboured, and successfully, to attain higher distinctions, even collegiate honours, and who have been looked up to as the 'tot lumina' of historical societies; we beg to assure such, that a man may solve deducibles in logic, and be fully competent to decide upon the propriety of Sylla's resignation of his dictatorship, and yet starve at the har; that he may have a large stock of grandiloquence elsewhere, and never touch a guinea in the Four Courts; and having walked the hall a dozen years or so, may be left to wonder at his failare, to curse the attornies, and lament that he did not go to the English bar, where alone he now feels convinced that rare endowments are appreciated and rewarded. We earnestly exhort them, as the majority of them may be pos

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sessed of some means and connections to pause, before they hazard their fortunes on an unprofitable pursuit-to give up betimes all hopes of the bench, and to betake themselves to a less hazardous profession-let them never forget, when revelling in their castle-building speculations, that scarcely one out of eight who go through the formality of being called, succeed at the bar; and as it is good to teach by examples, we advise those, whom we now more particularly address, to walk occasionally to the Four Courts, and contemplate the number of barristers in the hall 'taking exercise;' next, to look into the courts, and compare the number of those engaged in business with the number who are doing nothing, or notetaking, which is nearly the same thing, except that it saves appearances; then to peep into the library, which they will find well stocked with students, and then, in order to recover from such dismal sights, let them descend to that pleasant refectory, the coffee-room, and meditate, over a bowl of soup, on the causes of the pale and melancholy faces he has been looking at. Let him consider that, while business has declined, the number of barristers has increased three-fold; that the proportion of those making little or nothing, to those gaining a livelihood, is as ten to one ;-that the number of competitors has not only increased, but their fitness for business and practical ability has increased likewise; that it is not over-agreeable to depend for existence on motions of course,' or the uncertain favors of one attorney; and that it is not always the greatest dunderhead in the profession who is made the chairman of a county.

If he still perseveres, he may, perhaps, derive consolation from contemplating the interesting groups of fashionable loungers in the hall, including sons, nephews, and cousins of many eminent functionaries, who appear perfectly satisfied with the discharge of the responsibility to which their parents and relations were liable for ten talents,' and seem, therefore, wisely resolved 'to bury their one?

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THESE names are perfectly familiar to the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Omagh, in the county Tyrone, and are given to two low mountains, situate on either side of the splendid demesne of Mountjoy Forest. During a late visit to that part of the country, I made it my business to enquire into the origin of these titles, guessing, rightly, that some legend of interest might be found to be connected with them. The result of my investigation I shall now commit to writing, doubting not that the narrative itself, independently of any powers of the narrator, will be found sufficiently engaging to justify me in the attempt. Concerning the date of the events I am about to relate, I have ascertained nothing accurately, further than that they were still fresh in the memory of some of the elders of the district, as either coeval with or shortly preceding their early youth.

Mary Gray and Bessy Bell were two maidens, whose hereditary residences were placed near the foot of the respective mountains, which serve to hand down their names to posterity. The former might have had the precedence in years by two summers at the farthest; - and while they equalled each other in fascinations and accomplishments of the first order, yet these were in each composed of far different lights and shades, even as their degrees in life were widely removed. Mary's ancestors had long leased the considerable farm which her family now held, and which was justly looked upon as one of the most substantial and thriving in the neighbourhood. Bessy, on the other hand, was highly descended, and connected with

many of the leading families around her. Mary's disposition was thoughtful, calm, and imaginative; Bessy's, again, was playful, capricious, and inconsiderate. The one could sit happily for hours, on the summit of her native hills, gazing on the beautiful scenes of lawn and woodland beneath her, and lulled by the murmur of the river of the valley, conjure up a world of a thousand dreams around her, and trace in admiration the fair handywork of nature. The other, yielding to every passing impulse, fearless of care, and open to enjoyment, was apparently intended to figure only in the more sunny passages of existence, and was herself a potent mistress of the spells of gaiety. Mary's figure was tall, perfect, and commanding, and though her light blue eyes, and auburn tresses seemed the very emblems of all that was tranquil, yet every fine feature was robed in inexpressible dignity, during her moments of excitement or enthusiasm. It was impossible, on the other hand, to withstand the laughing glances of Bessy's sparkling eyes, set off as they were by a profusion of raven ringlets that clustered down her dimpled cheeks, while her almost fairy form was cast in the finest mould of feminine loveliness.

Such were the two fair creatures whose histories I am about to relate, when the one had reached her twentieth, and the other her eighteenth year; and by what link those histories came to be united, it will be now necessary to explain.

The reader has already, perhaps, felt surprise, that the qualities and attractions I have ascribed to Mary should be found in a farmer's daughter,

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in a maiden of low degree." My information, however, accounted readily for the fact. Her family, as I have hinted, had long enjoyed an unusual, and an almost uninterrupted prosperity, and in consequence of singular industry and perseverance on their part-virtues which seldom go without their reward -were conversant with few of the distresses that annoyed and agitated their less gifted neighbours. Her father, though in other respects a prudent and moderate man, seems to have indulged in overweeningly ambitious views for his daughter's welfare. Her birth had been soon followed by the loss of an affectionate wife, and he appeared thenceforth to have centred all his warmer feelings in her, whose uncommon beauty, and earlier indications of a superiority of mind, accounted, even in childhood, for all his fond partiality. Thus he was often heard to boast, that "his Mary should be as fine a lady as the best of them;" and with this view he had intrusted her, when but eight years old, to the care of the most fashionable school-mistress of the metropolis, desiring her to take charge of her until she was as accomplished as unsparing expenditure could make her. Mary was accordingly thrown at once among associates all higher than herself in station, and prospects in life; and, save when the honest farmer paid his regular half-yearly visit, she never even saw for a number of years, any that moved within her own natural sphere.

But while her companions, as I have said, had the superiority in point of rank, she found few to rival her in innate elegance, in graces of person, and in thirst for improvement; and although it must be admitted that the arrival of her unfashionable relative never failed to excite a momentary titter among her playmates, yet it was speedily checked by the recollection of her own unassuming merit and extraordinary good nature, which had won, from the first, the affections of each individual of the little community.

One of these, and inferior only to Mary in acquirements, was the second heroine of my tale; and, strange to say, although as different in tastes as I have described them, they soon formed for each other a fond and faithful attachment. They had been born and nursed amid the same scenes, and it was Mary's greatest delight, during her long exile

from the midst of them, to freshen her recollections and multiply her enquiries from her very willing and happier friend, who twice, at least, each year could draw her information from experience. They were the joint idols of the school, but so far were they, either from envying the other's popularity, that they would sit conversing together in some quiet corner on the occasion of many a pastime, when there was the loudest cry for their aid and countenance of the general sports. Thus did each delight in the other's society, the very opposition of their characters enhancing perhaps the charms of intimacy. When Mary sung a pensive melody, Bessy would reply to it in some merry little native air; when Mary's imagination was attracted by the sombre and melancholy, Bessy would discover each lighter sentiment, as if by magic, in their common studies.

Years flitted by, strengthening their attachment as they passed, and Mary was at length delighted by a summons to attend her father on his last expedition homeward. Bessy was to remain one year longer at the academy, and the friends parted with mutual protestations of regard, and threats of almost daily correspondence, which they afterwards put into very accurate execution, to the great pride and pleasure of the farmer, who was gratified by the connection and intercourse in which his daughter had engaged. Not so with Mr. Bell. Naturally haughty and distant, he listened with little satisfaction to Bessy's account of her great intimacy with one so much her inferior in rank, although accompanied by the most glowing and enthusiastic praise; and when at length the period of her departure from school arrived, and she was to appear as his daughter in society, he sternly interdicted all future intercourse between them. Need I tell of the supplications, of the tears that attended so cruel a disappointment. He was resolute in his severity, and Bessy rode over to make the terrible disclosure, and weep for the last time on the bosom of her devoted and disconsolate friend. It was, indeed, a trying scene-they parted in the deepest affliction.

When poor Mary was left alone, she had time to estimate fully the overpowering loss she had sustained. Even before this sad occasion, indeed inime

diately on her arrival from school, she had perceived, and almost regretted, the deep mistake her father had committed in giving her an education so completely disproportioned to her rank -an education, which, if it added refinements, yet increased her wants, and unfitted her to take any interest in the pursuits or pleasures of her natural associates and protectors, while the fatal barrier of her birth seemed irrevocably to forbid the acquisition of that place in a higher circle, to which she was both entitled by her accomplishments, and which she could have filled with dignity. Her relations, indeed, had greeted her return with every demonstration of pride and affection, while her father doated on her with the most intense, nay painful fondness; yet, both they and he approached her with an involuntary betrayal of a consciousness of their inferiority, that, to her delicate sensibility almost destroyed the satis faction which should naturally be afforded her from the kind interest of kinsfolk, and the warmth of a father's love. Viewing her circumstances, there fore, with discreet and unbiassed pene tration, she would have regretted, I say, her adventitious elevation above her fellows, had she not hitherto enjoyed a solace for all distresses in her 'sweet communion" with her beloved Bessy, and felt how deep should be her gratitude for being so strangely enabled to preserve an equality and enjoy an interchange of feeling and affection with so much merit and elegance.

Can any wonder then that this disappointment preyed heavily on her tender disposition; that she gave herself up for a time to a deep and wearing melancholy, and fancied that she was now left almost alone in the world. It was during the Christmas holidays that the unexpected shock came upon her, which seemed for the moment to stun all her faculties; and the spring had softened into summer, ere her mined regained aught of its natural elasticity, the honest farmer felt deeply affected, and, unable as he was to appreciate her sentiments duly, still endeavoured to soothe her too visible sorrow with unavailing fondness. Fearful of giving offence, by letting him see the inefficiency of his sympathies, she sought rather to retire into solitude; and, as the season advanced, she wandered up the mountain alınost daily to some

shady spot, and soon forgetting the subject of the book before her, was lost for hours together in her own bitter and crowding thoughts, until the evening's chill, or the gathering gloom, reminded her that it was time to return. It was on the morning of the 28th of August, that Frederick Montgomery also climbed that mountain, with the ea gerness of a sportsman on the first day of the grouse-shooting for the season. As he descended again, it was with no slight astonishment that he perceived, at a little distance, Mary Gray, as it were some fair spirit of the heights, moving slowly and musingly downward towards her father's cottage. It was the thought of a moment to follow cautiously and trace her steps; and at length his enquiries from a labourer in the adjoining field, convinced him that he had discovered her residence. Accordingly he resolved to return the next day to the same ground for sport, trusting to his ingenuity to invent sowe pretext for gaining admission at Farmer Gray's.

Frederick Montgomery was a stranger in Ireland, and had come down to the neighbourhood to pay, as he had at first intended, but a short visit to a newly married friend-himself a late settler. Although naturally of a frank and manly disposition, yet the dissipa tion of an Oxford life, and a subsequent unlimited enjoyment of the pleasures of the Continent during two years, now found him nearly as heartless as he was gay. Early the master of an independent fortune, and gifted with ready and showy talents, he had arrived at perfect self-confidence from his intercourse with the world, and was possessed of an address as insinuating as his person was striking and handsome. It was no wonder then that he boasted of some success with woman, who had been long his favourite study, as her favours were his darling pursuit, and that he now flattered himself with an intimate knowledge of the sex, and believed that he was accomplished in its pas sions and whims, its oddities and caprice, and every access to its softer feelings.

Such was the person who stopped at Farmer Gray's on the morning of the 21st, under the plausible pretext of remedying some accidental disorder of his gun. While a servant was heating water for that purpose, perhaps it was

through some momentary feeling of va nity, that her father requested him to step in to Mary's little drawing-room. although the furniture was plain and unpretending, yet it displayed an air of unstudied elegance, that had the power for an instant to change Montgomery's delight into astonishment. Workboxes, a writing-desk, music and drawing, oecupied their various positions through the apartment; a piano-forte lay open, while one or two feminine ornaments had been left in progress on the table. Books of Belles lettres, instruction, and devotion, were arranged in spidershelves around the walls, and a splendid portrait of their beautiful possessor hung over the mantel-piece. Every thing seemed to acknowledge the governance of a tasteful mistress, though all the occupations whose tokens were thus visible, had been neglected for months previous to the time of which we speak.

Soon mastering his surprise, Montgomery, with admirable tact, displayed his pleasure only so as to flatter the vanity, without exciting the suspicions, of the farmer; and having discovered she had gone abroad for some time, he contrived to carry on so successfully his insidious attacks upon the gratified father, that, won by the courtesy and bearing of his guest, and believing his daughter also might be pleased at the society of one who was evidently so fully accomplished, he invited him to return to his house that evening on his way homeward.

Need I tell the rest? His visits were daily repeated-while his stay with his friend was further protracted, and each morning he started for the mountain with his gun and dogs, long after there had ceased to remain a sin gle feather for his bag. He was a favourite alike with father and daughter. the one he continued to manage as art fully as at their first meeting-the other could not but be taken with a person who possessed so many attractions, taste, talents, and multiplied, though showy and superficial, reading-who was ready to join in all her studies and amusements who took such interest in every trifle that engaged her, and carried off all with those delicate and obsequious attentions, which, while they failed not to flatter and delight, could never for a moment appear ob

trusive or alarming. They read, they sung, they walked and conversed together: Mary's disappointment at the loss of her friend was soothed, as her place was supplied; nor was she for a long time aware of the potent poison she was imbibing. And strange to say, although it cannot be denied that his first intentions were of the basest and most infamous order, as his letters to a friend, of that date, attempted not even to disguise, yet the same testimony at a latter period declared him to be caught, as it were, in his own snare, and completely disarmed of his terrible purposes, by the gentle nature and glowing virtues of the fair being they were intended to assail.

Time rolled on, and at length he ven tured to speak openly of love and wed lock, and met with a reception, from both father and daughter, as flattering as his pride could desire. He was the first of his sex whom Mary had ever known, and in truth he was a favourable specimen, and it would have been unaccountable if the farmer had not been dazzled at the prospect of such a brilliant alliance. Such was the promise of happiness which enlivened the little party at the cottage; when one noon, in the decline of the season, this young and interesting pair strolled on as they conversed of their prospects far into the enchanting scenery of Mountjoy Forest.

Of the details of that fatal day nothing further was known, than that Mary returned alone, and late in the evening, in a state bordering on frenzy, and never recovered from the shock she had sustained, or regained the peace she had sacrificed. Happily indeed for himself, her father was then absent, and for several days afterwards, and came home to suspect no more from the change in his daughter's spirits, which all her efforts could not conceal, than a mere lovers' quarrel, often but the enhancement of lovers' happiness!

Meanwhile, Montgomery appeared early the following morning at the cottage, and from that moment continually besieged the door, begging, supplicating, even fiercely demanding to be admitted, and in vain. A thousand billet-doux, addressed to Mary, he entrusted to her faithful attendant-all, except the first, were immediately re

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