y waking up from her normal melancholic condition; for,
before this, she had been seen to smile--a phenomenon never noticed in
her before by her oldest acquaintance.

"You have quite forgotten the Shannon! My poor dear papa, when he was
alive, used to say that it was the finest river in the world. I
remember he had a favourite song about it--I don't know if I quite
recollect it now, but, I'll try."

"Do, Lady Dasher, do," said Mr Mawley, who, having been paying great
attention to Bessie the while, wished, I suppose, to ingratiate himself
with her mother.

"I must put on the brogue, you know," said she, looking round with an
affectation of shyness, which was most incongruous on her melancholy
visage; it was just like a death's head trying to grin, I thought to
myself;--and then, she commenced, in a thin, quavering voice, the lay of
the departed earl, her "poor dear papa."

"`O! Limerick is be-yewtifool, as iveryba-ady knows,
And round about the city walls the reever Shannon flows;
But 'tis not the reever, nor the feesh, that preys upon my mind,
Nor, with the town of Limerick have I any fault to find!'"

"Ah! Very nice indeed! Thank you, Lady Dasher, thank you!" said the
vicar, when she had got thus far, and succeeded in arresting the
progress of her ladyship's melody; otherwise, she might have gone on the
live-long summer day with the halting ditty, for it consisted, as she
subsequently told us, of no less than five-and-forty verses, all in the
same pleasant strain!

"I don't think," said I, to change the conversation, "that poetry is
nearly as highly regarded in the present day, as it was some forty years
back or so--if one may judge by the biographies of literary men of that
time."

"But, it sells more readily," said Mr Mawley; "not only do fresh
debutantes appear, but new editions of the old poets come out daily."

"That may be," said I. "But they are not nearly so highly appreciated.
I suppose it is because poetry is not so much a rarity now. We have so
many mediocre poets, that our taste is more exigent. I dare say, if a
very bright, particular star should arise, we would honour him; but we
have no bright particular star; and, thus, we learn to read poetry
without reflection. Forty years ago, people used to talk over the last
production of the muse, and canvas its merits in coffee-rooms all over
the town; now, we only dash through it, as we would take up the last new
novel, or the evening