PADDY THE PIPER.

WHEN I was a boy in my father's mud edifice,
Tender and bare as a pig in a stye,

Out of the door as I look'd with a steady phiz,
Who but Pat Murphy, the piper, came by!
Says Paddy "But few play
This music-can you play?"

Says I, "I can't tell, for I never did try."
He told me that he had a charm
To make the pipes prettily speak;
So he squeez'd a bag under his arm,
And sweetly they set up a squeak.
With my farala, larala-la ;

Oh hone, how he handled the drone,
And then such sweet music he blew-

"Twould have melted the heart of a stone.

"Your pipe," says I, "Paddy, so neatly comes over me,
Naked I'll wander wherever it blows

And if that my father should try to discover me,
Sure it won't be by describing my clothes!
For the music I hear now,

Takes hold of my ear now,

And leads me all over the world by the nose."
So I followed the bagpipes so sweet,

And sung as I leap'd like a frog,

"Adieu to my family seat,

So pleasantly plac'd in a bog."
With my, &c.

Full five years I followed him, nothing could sunder us,
Till he one morning had taken a sup,

And slipp'd from a bridge in a river, right under us,
Souse to the bottom, just like a blind pup :

I roar'd and I bawl'd out

And lustily called out,

"Oh, Paddy, my jew'l! don't you mean to come up?"
He was dead as a nail in a door.

Poor Paddy was laid on a shelf,
So I took up his pipes on the shore,
And now I've set up for myself.
With my farala, larala-la ;

Och, may be I haven't the knack
To play farala, larala-la,

Aye, and bubberoo, dideroo, whack.

This was a popular song some half-century ago, and I have heard that it was a favourite

one among those of the once-celebrated "Jack Johnson," or, as he was often called, "Irish Johnson."

SAMUEL LOVER. From "Songs and Ballads."

WHEN first I saw sweet Peggy,
'Twas on a market day,

A low-backed car she drove, and sat
Upon a truss of hay;

But when that hay was blooming grass,
And decked with flowers of Spring,
No flow'r was there that could compare
With the blooming girl I sing.

As she sat in the low-backed car-
The man at the turnpike bar
Never asked for the toll,

But just rubbed his owld poll
And looked after the low-backed car.

In battle's wild commotion,

The proud and mighty Mars,

With hostile scythes, demands his tithes

Of death-in warlike cars;

While Peggy, peaceful goddess,

Has darts in her bright eye,

That knock men down, in the market town, As right and left they fly

While she sits in her low-backed car,
Than battle more dangerous far-
For the doctor's art
Cannot cure the heart

That is hit from that low-backed car.

Sweet Peggy, round her car, sir,
Has strings of ducks and geese,
But the scores of hearts she slaughters
By far out-number these;
While she among her poultry sits,
Just like a turtle dove,

Well worth the cage, I do engage,

Of the blooming god of love!
While she sits in her low-backed car,
The lovers come near and far,
And envy the chicken

That Peggy is pickin',

As she sits in the low-backed car.

O, I'd rather own that car, sir,
With Peggy by my side,

Than a coach-and-four and goold galore,*
And a lady for my bride;

For the lady would sit foreninst† me,

On a cushion made with taste,

While Peggy would sit beside me

With my arm around her waist

While we drove in the low-backed car,
To be married by Father Maher,+
Oh, my heart would beat high
At her glance and her sigh-
Though it beat in a low-backed car.

THE SPRIG OF SHILLELAH.

EDWARD LYSAGHT.

OH! love is the soul of a neat Irishman,

He loves all that is lovely, loves all that he can,

With his sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green!

In defence of my rhyme, I must tell English readers that this name is pronounced

as if written, Mar.

His heart is good-humoured, 'tis honest and sound,
No envy or malice is there to be found;

He courts and he marries, he drinks and he fights,
For love, all for love, for in that he delights,

With his sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green!
Who has e'er had the luck to see Donnybrook Fair?
An Irishman, all in his glory, is there,

With his sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green!
His clothes spick and span new, without e'er a speck,
A neat Barcelona tied round his white neck;

He goes to a tent, and he spends half-a-crown,
He meets with a friend, and for love knocks him down,
With his sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green!

At evening returning, as homeward he goes,
His heart soft with whiskey, his head soft with blows,
From a sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green!
He meets with his Sheelah, who frowning a smile,
Cries, "Get ye gone, Pat," yet consents all the while.
To the priest soon they go, and nine months after that,
A baby cries out "How d'ye do, father Pat,

With your sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green?"

Bless the country, say I, that gave Patrick his birth,
Bless the land of the oak, and its neighbouring earth,

Where grow the Shillelah and shamrock so green ! May the sons of the Thames, the Tweed, and the Shannon, Drub the foes who dare plant on our confines a cannon; United and happy, at Loyalty's shrine,

May the Rose and the Thistle long flourish and twine

Round the sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green!

This song was once very popular; and Sir Jonah Barrington, in his amusing "Personal Sketches of His Own Times," thinks it worthy of this especial notice :-"It is admirably and truly descriptive of the low Irish character, and never was that class so well depicted in so few words." This praise the song certainly does not deserve. It is based rather on the conventional Irish songs of the time, than drawn from life— but, as having enjoyed a certain reputation, within the memory of the living, it must appear in a national collection of this present time. But there are many in this volume more comic, more witty, and more Irish in every respect; and it is pleasing to find that the true comic character of the Irish people has been, since Lysaght's time, much better given, and much better received. As Mr. Lysaght elsewhere gets full credit for his merits, there is the less hesitation in saying, here, that this song is not worthy of his reputation.

THE HERO OF BALLINACRAZY.

WHEN I lived in sweet Ballinacrazy, dear,
The girls were all bright as a daisy, dear;
When I gave them a smack, they whispered, good lack!
And cried, Paddy, now can't you be aisy, dear.

First I married Miss Dolly O'Daisy, dear,
She had two swivel eyes, wore a jazey, dear;

Then to fat Miss Malone, weighing seventeen stone ;
Then to lanthorn-jaw'd skinny O'Crazy, dear.

Then I married Miss Dorothy Taisy, dear,
A toast once in Ballinacrazy, dear;

Her left leg was good, but its fellow was wood,
And she hopped like a duck round a daisy, dear.

Then I married her sister, Miss Taisy, dear,
But she turned out so idle and lazy, dear;
That I took from the peg my deceased lady's leg,*
For to leather the live one when lazy, dear.

Then I picked up rich old Mother Hazy, dear,
She'd a cough, and employ'd Dr. Blazy, dear,

But some drops that he gave dropp'd her into her grave,
And her cash very soon made me aisy, dear.

Then says

I to old Father O'Mazy, dear,

"Don't my weddings and funerals plase ye, dear?"

"Oh!" says he, "you blackguard, betwixt church and churchyard,

Sure, you never will let me be aisy, dear."

Oh, ladies, I live but to plase ye, dear,

I'm the hero of Ballinacrazy, dear;

I'll marry you all, lean, fat, short, and tall,

One after the other to plase ye, dear.

The name of the author of this lively lyric is unknown to fame. What a capacity for matrimony he invests his hero with! Such a fellow must have died of enlargement of the heart. Moore, in one of his early lyrics, says―

"I'm going to toast ev'ry nymph of my soul to you.
And, on my soul, I'm in love with them all!"

But the Ballinacrazy lad goes far beyond-he marries them all. Colman, in "Bluebeard," makes Ibrahim say, "Praise be to the wholesome law of Mahomet, which stinted a Turk to four at a time;" Ballinacrazy outdoes Constantinople and the Grand Signior. This fellow was not on the best terms with his wives either; matri