one o' them ar' water lots near the whirlpool; he began to find himself rather short o' cash to buy his groceries, and concluding that he couldn't dew without a little whiskey to keep off the aguy, resolved to pay the whirlpool gall visit, and jest see if he couldn't soft soap the young critter out of a little rhino. Next full moon, he tortles to the bluff what hung over the bilin' and foamin' river, and jest at eight bells, up ruz the gall, stark naked, a sittin' on the white froth o' the whirlin' water, and singin', Won't you come to my bower what I've shaded for you?'

"Waell,' says the gineral, not a bit daunted-says he, look here, my gall: I mean to eat a lobster salad with you to-night, if you promise to behave like a lady, and won't cut up no shines.'

"Waell, the gael gave her word o' honour, and the gineral dove into the whirlpool, and down they went right slick.

"Next mornin', the gineral was found to hum with a sighter old gold pieces, bigger round than the top of a backer-box, and a hull pot full o' the tallest kind o' jewels; you see the sojer had carried a small flask of Monongahely in his pocket, and the river gall couldn't git over the old rye-tew glasses opened her heart, I guess, and she let the gineral slip his cable in the mornin' with just abeout as much gold as he could stow away.

"Some o' his friends kalkilated as he'd better drop his anchor thar' agin—and there was some talk in the settlement of formin' a jynt-stock company for the purpose o' gettin' up all the gold-but the gineral tell'd 'em he guessed he'd got enough for him, and he seed quite enough down thar' not to want to go no more; and refusin' to say what he had seen, or tell 'em how they was to to work, it kinder stopped the jynt-stock company.

"The river gall she fell quite in love with the gineral right up to the hub, and sat on the bilin' water night arter night, singin', 'Meet me by moonlight alone;' but the gineral said he'd see her drowned first afore he trust her agin-for, says he, No woman was never deceived twyst,' which riled the river gall like mad, and in the revenge she sot the whirlpool a bilin' like all creation, as if resolved to keep the neighbourhood in hot water. From the carcumstance of the gineral's gettin' so much gold out o' the river, the Jarmins called it the Rhino, and its been known by somethin' like that name ever since."

What a wholesome lesson on the folly of dandyism, and the danger of giving way to a partiality for a becoming chaussure, is read to us in the account of "Where Joe Meriweather went to." Oh! all ye lovers of unwrinkled pantaloons, be warned by his untimely end, and eschew tight straps

"Why, you see, Mrs. Harris,' replied Mr. Meriweather, still keeping the same position, and interrupting the narrative with several bursts of grief, (which we'll leave out). You see, Mrs. Harris, Joe and I went up early in the spring to get a boat load of rock from Boone county, to put up the foundation of the new houses we're buildin', fur there ain't no rock down in them rich sily bottoms

in our parts. Well, we got along pretty considerable, fur we had five kegs of blast along, and what with the hire of some niggers, we managed to get our boat loaded, an' started fur home in about three weeks. You never did see anythin' rain like it did the fust day we was floatin' down, but we worked like a cornfilled nigger of a Crismus week and pretty near sundown we'd made a matter ov nigh twenty mile afore we were ashore and tied up. Well, as we didn't have any shelter on the flat, we raised a rousin' big fire on the bank, close to whar she was tied up, and cooked some grub; ann I'd eaten a matter of two pounds of side, and half of a possum, and was sittin' on a log, smokin' a Kaintuck regaly, and a talkin' to brother Joe, who was a standin' choc up agin the fire, with his back to it. You recollex, Mrs. Harris, Brother Joe allers was a dressy sort of a chap-fond of brass buttons on his coat and the flaim'est kind of red neckerchers; and this time he had buckskin breeches, with straps under his boots. Well, when I was talkin' to him ov the prospect fur the next day, all ov a sudden I thought the little feller was a growin' uncommon tall; till I diskivered that the bucksin breeches, that wur as wet as a young rooster in a spring rain, wur_beginning to smoke and draw up kinder, and wur a liftin' Brother Joe off the ground.

"Brother Joe,' sez I, you're a goin' up.'

"Brother Bill,' sez he, I ain't a doin' anythin' else.'

"And he scrunched down mighty hard; but it warn't ov no use, fur afor long he wur a matter of some fifteen feet up in the air.' "Merciful powers,' interrupted the widow.

"Brother Joe,' sez I.

"I'm here,' sez he.

"Catch hold ov the top ov that black-jack,' sez I.

“❝ Talk!' sez Brother Joe, and he sorter leaned over and grabbed the saplin', like as maybe you've seed a squ'el haul in an elm switch ov a June mornin'. But it warn't of no use, fur, old 'omen, ef you'll believe me, it gradually begun to give way at the roots, and afore he'd got five foot higher, it jist slipped out of the ground, as easy as you'd pull up a spring reddish.

Brother Joe!' sez I agin.

"I'am a list'nin',' sez he.

"Cut your straps! sez I, for I seed it was his last chance.

"Talk!' sez Brother Joe, tho' he looked sort a reproachful like at me for broachin' such a subject; but arter apparently considerin' awhile, he outs with his jack-knife, an' leanin' over sideways, made a rip at the sole of his left foot. There was a considerable deal ov cracklin' fur a second or two, then a crash sorter like as if a waggonload of wood had bruck down, and the fust thing I know'd, the t'other leg shot up like, and started him; and the last thing I seed ov Brother Joe, he was a whirlin' round like a four-spoked wheel with the rim off, away overclost toward sundown !”

Whatever moral tendency there may be in the above, we question whether members of the Humane Society would

N

admit that of the description of "The Gander pulling." For the benefit of the uninitiated, we may explain this to be an exciting pastime in which the object of the players is to dislocate the neck of the illfated bird, as they pass at full gallop under the gibbet, from which he is suspended.

Another diversion, stabbing with the bowie knife, which has long been popular in America, forms the subject of a tale in the third volume :

"Nex' mornin' we were just castin' off, when Joe come down to the wharf-boat, en sez he:

"You ain't goin' off mad, ar you?'

"No,' sez I.

“Wal,' sez he, 'less take a partin' smile.'

I didn't like the idea, but Ransom he said:

"Come in, Ben!' en in I went and drinkt.

"What d'you say to a buffalo-juggin?' said Joe, arter we'd lickered.'

"It's too airly in the season,' sez I; 'b'sides I'm off for Orleans.' "So'm I,' said Joe, at eleven; en we'll go company.'

"What's the blaze?' said Ransom.

"Two canoes, and one jug,' said Joe.

"I knowed what he was after then, for it showed clean out'n his eyes. Joe war the best swimmer, en he thort ef we come together an' upset the canoes, he'd have the advantage. He knowed he'd git catawompously chored up ashore, en he wanted to drown me." "What a devil incarnate! I exclaimed."

"That's just him 'zactly. I thort a minnit, and then sez I: "I'm your man.”

"Wal, a skiff tuck out the only jug, en Joe en I paddled from shore leisurely.

"A bob! yelled out Ransom, en we started.

"We was about ten rods apart, en neck-en-neck. On we swept like greased lightnin,' Joe leadin' by 'bout two inches, I should guess. I had not look't at Joe sens we left shore, but as we draw'd nigh the jug I seed he had his coat and jacket off, We was within ten foot of the jug, en both dropped paddles, en I shed my coat and jacket a leetle quicker'n common. Tha' warn't no misunderstandin' between us then; en as the canoes come together, both grappled and went overboard, and underneath the water."

"Ben here paused, took out his bandanna, and wiped the big drops off of his forehead, as coolly as if he was recounting the events of a dinner-party.

"Well,' I urged impatiently, you both went under the water?' "Yes, that was the accident happened!"

"Accident? explain."

Why, I've no more to say'n this. I riz, en got aboard my broadhorn, en come away.'

"But Joe-what became of him?"

"Joe? he was a missin' 'long with my bowie-knife !'

"I parted with Ben, when the Perry' touched the wharf at Providence, not caring, under the circumstances, to inquire which way he was travelling.”

How full of satire the words, " American Humour," seem to be, when we glance at the top of the page after reading the above extract. Much has been written of the liberal manner in which the bowie knife is used in some of the States, and too much cannot be said in expressing abhorrence of a propensity so essentially savage in its nature; but Englishmen, when they cite this as a proof of the demoralised state of society in America, should recollect that in England, in the year of grace 1852, there is an institution called the "Ring," not, certainly, patronised by the flower of the nobility as in days of yore, but still patronised to a certain extent, and that scarcely a week passes, but a three column account of some exhibition of this fine old English sport is read, and eagerly read, by thousands who gloat over the description of the exceedingly "game and plucky" manner in which the men came up to the scratch in the 99th round, one of them having sustained perhaps a compound fracture of the jaw, in addition to a few simple ones elsewhere, while the other, more fortunate, was merely "bunged up about the peepers" to such an extent, that the use of the lancet, and sticking plaister to hold up the eyelids, were found requisite to render those valuable organs at all serviceable; to be sure it was a "fair, manly, stand-up fight with such weapons as nature has given," and possibly there was a great deal of science displayed on both sides, but we, (perhaps we are over fastidious,) cannot persuade ourselves that, even taking all these circumstances into consideration, either the illustrious combatants, or the enterprising managers who hired the express train, or the parties who engaged seats therein, at the rate of half a guinea a head, for the purpose of witnessing the intellectual spectacle, have any great reason to pique themselves on having advanced farther towards perfect civilization, than the New Orleans' desperado who, in a fit of passion, inserts a bowie knife between the ribs of his antagonist. But the Ring is fast dying out. It has, to use the idiom of its votaries, become decidedly "groggy" of late, and a fossil prize fighter exhibited among the oldest antiques in the British Museum, will, from the peculiar depression of his os frontis, form a puzzling study for the ethnologists of some

future day; while at the Archæological Society at Massachusetts grave gentlemen in black will stand behind tables covered with pieces of rusty steel, eighteen inches in length, and will read sundry papers on "the form and probable use of the bowie or dagger, generally attributed to the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century."

And what shall we say of the other-the stain, par excellence, on the national character of America-Slavery? May we venture to hope that it will, with the bowie knife, ere long, become one of the "things that were," in a far off time when America had yet to outgrow her inconsistencies, when the national air was only too often joined with the sentiment"I do believe in Freedom's cause; As far away as Paris is

I love to see her stick her claws
In them infarnal Pharisees.
It's well enough agen a king

To draw resolves-and triggers,

But Liberty's a kind of thing

That don't agree with niggers."

ART. VI.-IRISH CHURCH HISTORY.

Original Letters and Papers in illustration of the History of the Church in Ireland, during the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. Edited, with notes, from autographs in the State Paper Office, by Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq. M. A. 8vo. London: F. and J. Rivington, 1851.

MUCH as this island has suffered from religious dissensions, it is a singular fact that one of the most neglected departments of our literature is Irish ecclesiastical history; on no important era of which do we possess any complete published collection of original documents. Although recent researches among ancient Celtic manuscripts have brought to light a considerable amount of information on every period of our annals, no contribution has yet been made from those sources to illustrate the history of the early Irish Church, which sent forth the illustrious men whose names are still revered throughout Europe for learning and sanctity. This neglect is