Marshes, the Land of Flandres is said by the Wits to be Ringing Wet. Such campanulary Noises would alsoe be heavily mist and lamented by the Inhabitants of that Ringing Island described in Rabelais his Works, as a Place constantly filled with a Corybantick Jingle Jangle of great, middle-sized, and little Bells: wherewith the People seem to be as much charmed as a Swarm of Bees with the Clanking of Brazen Kettles and Pans. And which Ringing Island cannot of a surety be Barbadoes, as certain Authors have supposed, but rather our own tintinnabulary Island of Brittain, where formerly a Saxon could not soe much as quench a Fire or a Candle but to the tune of a Bell. And even to this day, next. to the Mother Tongue, the one mostly used is in a Mouth of Mettal, and withal so loosely hung, that it must needs wag at all Times and on all Topicks. For your English Man is a mighty Ringer, and besides furnishing Bells to a Bellfry, doth hang them at the Head of his Horse, and at the Neck of his Sheep-on the Cap of his Fool, and on the Heels of his Hawk. And truly I have known more than one amongst my Country Men, who would undertake more Travel, and Cost besides, to hear a Peal of Grandsires, than they would bestow to look upon a Generation of Grandchildren. But alack! all these Bells with the huge Muscovite, and Great Tom of Lincoln to boot, be but as Dumb Bells to the Deaf Man: wherefore, as I said, Nature kindly steps in with a Compensation, to wit a Tinnitus, and converts his own Head into a Bellfry, whence he hath Peals enow, and what is more, without having to pay the Ringers."

ALACK! 'tis melancholy theme to think How Learning doth in rugged states abide And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink, In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied; Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride, Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen, But with one lonely priest compell'd to hide, In midst of foggy moors and mosses green, In that clay cabin hight the College of Kilreen!

II..

This College looketh South and West alsoe, Because it hath a cast in windows twain; Crazy and crack'd they be, and wind doth blow Thorough transparent holes in every pane, Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole again [teach,

With nether garments, which his thrift doth To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain Stormeth, he puts, "once more unto the breach," Outside and in, tho' broke, yet so he mendeth each.

III.

And in the midst a little door there is, Whereon a board that doth congratulate With painted letters, red as blood I wis, Thus written, "Children taken in to Bate z' And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate, Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak, And moans of infants that bemoan their fate, In midst of sounds of Latin, French, and Greek, Which, all i' the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak.

IV.

For some are meant to right illegal wrongs,
And some for Doctors of Divinitie,

Whom he doth teach to murder the dead

tongues,

And soe win academical degree;

But some are bred for service of the sea, Howbeit, their store of learning is but small, For mickle waste he counteth it would be To stock a head with bookish wares at all, Only to be knocked off by ruthless cannon ball.

V.

Six babes he sways, -some little and some big, Divided into classes six ;—alsoe,

He keeps a parlour boarder of a pig,

That in the College fareth to and fro,

And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below

And eke the learned rudiments they scan,
And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know-
Hereafter to be shown in caravan,

And raise the wonderment of many a learned man.

VI.

Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls,
Whereof, above his head, some two or three
Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls,
But on the branches of no living tree,
And overlook the learned family;

While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch,

Drops feather on the nose of Dominie,

Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research

In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge-now a birch.

VII.

No chair he hath, the awful Pedagogue,
Such as would magisterial hams imbed,
But sitteth lowly on a beechen log,
Secure in high authority and dread:

Large, as a dome for learning, seems his head,
And like Apollo's, all beset with rays,
Because his locks are so unkempt and red,
And stand abroad in many several ways:-
No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is
baise,

VIII.

And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue, That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows A mongrel tint, that is ne brown ne blue; His nose, it is a coral to the view; Well nourish'd with Pierian Potheen,For much he loves his native mountain dew ;But to depict the dye would lack, I ween, A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green.

IX.

As for his coat, 'tis such a jerkin short
As Spencer had, ere he composed his Tails;
But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught,
So that the wind his airy breast assails;
Below, he wears the nether garb of males,
Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the
knee:-

Thence further down the native red prevails,
Of his own naked fleecy hosierie :—

Two sandals, without soles, complete his capa-pie.

X.

Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap
His function in a magisterial gown,
That shows more countries in it than a map,-
Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown,
Besides some blots, standing for country-town,