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own taste, introduced red, yellow, and green, into the various sections: the red colouring matter being

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generally procured from a puncture made in the artist's finger for the purpose; the yellow, from the yolk of an egg; and the green, from the vegetable sap of a plant commonly called pennywort. The instrument with which the outline was traced, was no less primitive than the colours. This substitute for the mathematician's compass was called a goulloge (gabalog), i.e. fork. It was an angular branch of a tree or shrub, in one end of which was fixed a pin, and on the other a pen.

The circular manufacture of national decorations has, however, within the last five or six years, completely disappeared before the work of that mighty engine, the press; by means of which various representations of St. Patrick, and of fanciful crosses, are now produced. Two examples of these wood-cuts, one fourth of the original size, are here given,

which the reader will please to imagine bedaubed with pink, green, and yellow, and glittering with the tinsel of Dutch metal. It should be observed,

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that the cross of St. Patrick was worn pinned on

the left arm, or attached to the cap or hat, a practice now confined to children; while men, those "children of a larger growth," substitute for the

badge anciently used on the anniversary of Ireland's Saint, a bunch of shamrock or trefoil, by the size of which an estimate may be formed of the amount of the patriotic zeal of the wearer. The shamrock, however, appears to have been formerly considered only as an apology for any less splendid decoration.

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Nay, not as much has Bryan oge,

To put in 's head as one shamroge."

Irish Hudibras, 1689.

And, as ornaments in honour of St. Patrick," bunches of shamrock covered with tinsel regularly make their appearance, as marketable articles, in Covent Garden, on the 16th and 17th of March.

In 1783, the Order of the Knights of St. Patrick was instituted by King George III., "of which his majesty, his heirs and successors, were ordained perpetual sovereigns, and to which several of the most eminent characters under the united monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland, have been elected knights' companions."

ST. PATRICK'S ARRIVAL.

(Explanatory of the Origin of the word Punch.)

Dr. Johnson, who explains the word punch accurately enough as "a liquor made by mixing spirit with water,

sugar, and the juice of lemons," is nevertheless at a loss for the derivation of the name, and he therefore slurs the matter over by calling it "a cant word." Little, indeed, did the learned doctor dream of the light which minute researches into Irish antiquities are likely to throw upon philology. Witness the wonderful discoveries of Sir William Betham, and the ingenious theory so satisfactorily developed in the concluding verse of the following song.

Deeply, however, is it to be lamented for the cause of truth, that this clever and convincing lyric should commence with an erroneous statement respecting the arrival in the Green Island of the inventor of a chemical mixture of universal celebrity - the P. P. of all Ireland; that is, the Patron of Punch, as St. Patrick may justly be styled.

Mr. Moore has decided ("Hist. of Ireland," i. 214), that St. Patrick landed, not in Bantry, but in Dublin Bay. However, what possibly has created some confusion about this matter, may be the Saint's embarkation; which, according to the same authority, took place from "the south-western coast of Ireland," from whence St. Patrick, after a voyage of three days, was landed on the coast of Gaul. The association also in Irish history between Bantry Bay and France, as a point of debarkation, may be another reason for the lyrist falling into this slight mistake; but which as little invalidates the general accuracy of the account of St. Patrick's conduct, subsequent to his arrival, as the description given of his attitude or his mode of transport. In fact, these little traditionary embellishments of the narrative are, perhaps, judiciously

preserved; the first, as exhibiting a characteristic specimen of that amusing national peculiarity called a bull; the second, as presenting a magnificent allegory, to depreciate the grandeur of which has been most unfairly attempted in the phrase of " mighty like a whale."

Sir Charles Coote, in his "Statistical Survey of Cavan," thus explains the meaning of the term spalpeen, which is applied to the astonished natives:

"In the Irish language, spal is the sithe or the sickle. The native husbandman was thence named the spalp, which signified the harvest-cutter; and this man was considered to have acquired the whole art of husbandry, and held a sort of distinction over the other labourers. When the press of harvest season arrived, and from the uncertainty of the weather they found it necessary to call in assistants, or other spalps, they suffered the younger or less experienced farmer to handle the sickle, at whose first introduction a particular and pious ceremony was performed, and before its celebration he dared not to presume to handle the sickle; and he was termed the spalpeen, or the young and unexperienced harvestcutter. Een, in the Irish language, at the final of a word, always signifies small, or rather contemptible; and, to this day, the spalpeen has that signification, even with those who do not understand the language. The working husbandmen of Ireland are universally distinguished as the cottier, or the spalpeen the wages and privileges of the former fully double those of the latter; and it is well known that herds of men, called spalpeens, regularly come every harvest from the counties of Cork and Kerry, and part of Connaught, into the corn counties of Leinster, to

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