412 Recollections, from the Portfolio of \_ APRIL 



cheeks were hollow, shrivelled, and meagre; their blasting tongues held 

 ceaseless gabble : and their crooked, yellow, hairy hands, and hooked fingers, 

 resembled the talons of an eagle. Thus, on small, inbent, and bony legs, 

 they stood before Eagan. 



" ( Whence came ye, foul ones ?' asked the chief. 



" ( We come from afar by our powers,' they replied. 



" e I demand to know your powers,' said Eagan, leader of the mighty 

 bands. 



ff We make the sea run higher than the mountain-tops by our breath ; we 

 bring snow on the earth by the nodding of our hoary heads ; we spread flame 

 through cities by our words ; we change the shape of all things of man and 

 of ourselves by the rolling of our eyes !' 



" f Enough !' exclaimed the mighty Eagan ; e I demand your names !' 



* e ' Our names are Ah, Larm, and Leana, daughters of Traden the magi- 

 cian. We have come from far countries, to warn you of death. Eagan shall 

 fall by the keen-edged and bone-cleaving sword of the ever victorious ' Conn, 

 of the hundred battles/ ' 



" ' On your own heads may the warning alight, ye hags of hell ! May your 

 forebodings sink into the air, and find no answer in the mountains ! May the 

 trees bear the curse of your evil words, the poison of your tongues fall on the 

 i ocks of the valley, and your hatred be buried in the billows of the rolling 

 sea!' 



" ( It is the will of Fate that we speak : we have spoken without haste or 

 hire !' Muttering their spells, they vanished from before Eagan. 



" That night came the three to the tent of the King of Spain's son ; and 

 to him they too boded ill ; and thence they came where the hosts of f Conn 

 of the hundred battles' lay on the field, and they roused the hero with their 

 words : 



" f In thy arm be thy strength ; in thy sword be thy safety ; in thy face be 

 thy foes ; in thy step, thy prosperity ! The pride of Ireland is against thee, 

 in life and in motion. Be thou restless as the treacherous light, that shines 

 in the eye of the benighted traveller !' " 



Dean Tucker is one of the curious instances of a man's slipping out 

 of recollection. Who now mentions his name ? Yet he was one of the 

 most active, and even of the most public, minds of England not fifty 

 years ago ; a scholar, a most acute and stirring politician, and a most 

 subtle and scientific metaphysician ; yet the author of " Search's Light 

 of Nature," and the pamphlet on the American question, has strangely 

 passed away. I remember an epigram which commemorated his domes- 

 tic troubles, with a lash at Warburton, who had married a daughter of 

 Allen, of Prior Park (a genuine " Wife of Bath"} a match which, to 

 the shame of the times, got him his bishopric. 



THE DEAN, loquitur. 



" My wife, Father William, is ugly and old, 

 Asthmatic, chest-foundered, and lame." 



THE BISHOP. 



" My wife, Son Josiah, no man needs be told 

 Is as bad in the other extreme." 



THE DEAN. 

 ' I have put mine away." 



THE BISHOP. 



" The deed I applaud, 

 Fet, applauding, can only admire ; 

 For, you are bound only by man and by God, 

 But my obligations are prior" 



