Hare, of Cashel. * In 1779, young Lysaght entered Trinity College, Dublin, through which he passed with much credit, and was particularly distinguished as a member of the Historical Society. "In 1784, he became a student of the Inner Temple, and took his degree of Master of Arts at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was called to the English bar at the term of 1788, and to that of Ireland in the following term. His professional duties commenced with his being counsel for Lord Hood in the long-contested election for Westminster, between that nobleman and Mr. Fox."

Sir Jonah Barrington says, "Lysaght, a gentleman by birth, was left, as to fortune, little else than his brains and pedigree. The latter, however, was of no sort of use to him, and he seldom employed the former to any lucrative purpose. He considered law as his trade, and conviviality (to the cultivation whereof no man could apply more sedulously) his profession. Full of point and repartee, every humorist and bon vivant was his patron. He had a full proportion of animal courage; and even the fire-eaters of Tipperary never courted his animosity. Songs, epigrams, and lampoons, which, from other pens, would have terminated in mortal combat, being considered inherent in his nature, were universally tolerated.

"Some of Lysaght's sonnets," adds Sir Jonah, "had great merit, and many of his national stanzas were

* The editor of a volume of " Poems, by the late Edward Lysaght, Esq.," 8vo., Dublin, 1811, from whose preface the above particulars are copied, adds to the date 1779, Mr. Lysaght "being then about eighteen years of age." If this statement of age be correct, the date of Mr. Lysaght's entrance into Trinity College should be 1781.

singularly characteristic.

His Sprig of Shillelah and

Shamrock so green,' is admirably and truly descriptive of the low Irish character, and never was that class so well depicted in so few words.

Lysaght was, perhaps, not a poet, in the strict acceptation of the term; but he wrote a great number of miscellaneous verses; some of them, in general estimation, excellent, some delicate, some gross. I scarce ever saw two of these productions of the same metre, and very few were of the same character. Several of the best poetical trifles in MacNally's Sherwood Forest,' were penned by Lysaght. Having no fixed politics, or, in truth, decided principles respecting any thing, he was one day a patriot, the next a courtier, and wrote squibs both for government and against it. The stanzas relatively commencing —

and,

'Green were the fields that our forefathers dwelt on,' &c.,
'Where the loud cannons rattle, to battle we'll go,' &c.,

'Some few years ago, though now she says no,' &c.,

were three of the best of his patriotic effusions; they were certainly very exciting, and he sang them with great effect."

Sir Jonah Barrington gives a whimsical account of Lysaght's marriage. Shortly after his death, a few of his poems were hastily collected, and published in a volume, by subscription; to which a portrait, from recollection, of his "mild, pale, and penetrating" countenance, is prefixed. The brilliant wit, the rich vein of humour, and irresistible mimicry, the extraordinary readiness of reply, and high social qualities of Mr. Lysaght, gave a certain reputation

to every trifle which came from his pen. However, it is unfair critically to estimate by the contents of the volume just mentioned, Mr. Lysaght's powers of mind, or the effect which his lyrics on elections, or other occasions of popular excitement, produced. It cannot be doubted, from their fugitive nature, that many of his happiest effusions have perished; indeed the volume of his poems contains neither the following song, nor any of those mentioned by Sir Jonah Barrington; and all the verses there to be found are evidently written to answer some temporary purpose, and bear obvious marks of that haste which did not permit a second perusal. Some literary interest attaches to Mr. Lysaght's memory, as the godfather of Miss Owenson (the present Lady Morgan), whom he subsequently addressed in some sportive lines, of which only a fragment is preserved.

"The Muses met me once, not very sober,

But full of frolic, at your merry christening;
And now, this twenty-third day of October,

As they foretold, to your sweet lays I'm listening," &c.

It only remains for the Editor to state, that Donnybrook fair no longer exists. Mr. D'Alton, in his "History of the County of Dublin" (1838), speaking of Donnybrook, says, "This place was long celebrated for its annual August fair-the 'Bartholomew' of Dublin; but which, in consequence of several riotous and disgraceful res ults, ithas been found necessary to suppress."

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!

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 neat 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 whisky, his head soft with blows

From a sprig of Shillelah, and shamrock so green!
He meets with his Sheelah, who, blushing a smile,
Cries, "Get ye gone, Pat," yet consents all the while.
To the priest soon they go; and nine months after that,
A fine baby cries, "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 French, who dare plant at our confines a cannon; United and happy, at Loyalty's shrine,

May the Rose and the Thistle long flourish and twine

Round a sprig of Shillelah and shamrock so green!

HAIL TO THE OAK, THE IRISH TREE!

Speaking of the magnitude and value of trees in Ireland, Mr. Hayes observes," In the small survey which my time permitted me to make, the district of Shillelah, in the county of Wicklow, first claimed my attention. Though the name, with little variation in the spelling, may be literally translated fair wood, there are few now remaining of those celebrated oaks which authorised that denomination; but those few are sufficient to support what has been handed down to us concerning them. Tradition gives the Shillelah oak the honour of roofing Westminster Hall, and other buildings of that age; the timbers which support the leads of the magnificent chapel of King's College, Cambridge, which was built in 1444; as also the roof of Henry the Seventh's Chapel, in Westminster Abbey, are said to be of oak, brought from these woods;* and I think it by no means improbable," continues Mr. Hayes, "that the superior density and closeness of grain, which is the character of the Irish oak, particularly in high situations and a dry soil, as may appear by comparing its specific gravity with that of other oak, added to the inattention of the Irish at that time to the article of bark, which permitted their oak to be felled in winter when free from sap, might have induced the English architects to give it the preference in such national works; and, it must be allowed, that the present unimpaired state of these roofs, after so many centuries, seems very well to warrant this conjecture."

* Charles V. of France founded the Royal Library at Paris in 1365, and, it is said, had the chambers wainscoted with Irish oak.-ED.