They were capital hands at the trade, The pot still frothed over the brim ! Next day, quoth his host, ""Tis a fast, And the leg most politely complied! You've heard, I suppose, long ago, How the snakes, in a manner most antic, He marched to the County Mayo, And trundled them into th' Atlantic. Hence, not to use water for drink, The people of Ireland determine: With mighty good reason, I think, Since St. Patrick has filled it with vermin, Oh! he was an elegant blade As you'd meet from Fairhead to Kilcrumper;* And though under the sod he is laid, Yet here goes his health in a bumper! *Fairhead is the north-east cape of Ireland; Kilcrumper is a ruined church, and ancient burial ground, between Fermoy and Kilworth, in the county of Cork, the southern county of Ireland. I wish he was here, that my glass Because all the liquor is out! ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN PARIS. From a manuscript copy in the autograph of Sir Jonah Barrington, indorsed, "Sung with great applause at a meeting which assembled in the City of Paris, to celebrate the anniversary of the Saint of Hibernia." This was, probably, the 17th March, 1816. Tune -" Patrick's day in the morning." While peace spreads her wings o'er the different nations, On the banks of the Seine, and the banks of the Shannon, To his country and king; And let each honest heart, whether Irish or not, Religiously think 'Tis his duty to drink On St. Patrick's day in the morning! In this hour of our pride let's do justice to merit, Obscure our bright laurels or sully our name. On the banks of the Seine, &c. When the hardy old Gaul, long accustomed to danger, For, have not all heard the dread roar of our cannon? On the banks of the Seine, or the banks of the Shannon? Then let us all sing To our country and king; And each honest heart, whether Irish or not, Religiously think 'Tis his duty to drink This good Patrick's day in the morning! THE SHAMROCK. THE popular notion respecting the shamrock, or trefoil, is, that St. Patrick, by its means, satisfactorily explained to the early converts of Christianity in Ireland, the Trinity in Unity; exhibiting the three leaves attached to one stalk as an illustration. Miss Beaufort remarks,* that it is "a curious coincidence, the trefoil plant (shamroc and shamrakh in Arabic) having been held sacred in Iran, and considered emblematical of the Persian Triad." (Collect. v. 118.) "The botanical name of the shamrock, like that of the Scotch thistle, is a matter of dispute. Mr. Bicheno, in an amusing paper read before the Linnean Society, has, with great ingenuity, endeavoured to shew that the wood-sorrel (oxalis acetosella) is the true shamrock; while Dr. Withering and Professor Rennie point out the white clover (trifolium repens); and Mr. Loudon marks the black medick (medicago lupulina) as the genuine national emblem of Ireland." * "Transactions of the Royal Academy," vol. xv. That the shamrock was formerly eaten in Ireland as a salad, there appears no reason to doubt. Fynes Moryson, the secretary of Queen Elizabeth's lord-deputy, Mountjoy, treating of the diet and customs of the "wild Irish," says, "they willingly eat the herb shamrock, being of a sharp taste, which, as they run and are chased to and fro, they snatch like beasts out of the ditches." Spenser, also, in his "View of the State of Ireland," describing the misery consequent upon the Desmond rebellion, of which he was an eye-witness, speaking of the wretched and famishing Irish, tells us that "if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue there withal." But these passages, as referring to a period of national distress and famine consequent upon civil warfare, when, according to the authorities quoted, horse-flesh was a luxury, and even dead bodies were taken out of the graves and eaten, do not prove the use of the shamrock as a salad so satisfactorily as the following extract from the humorous poem of" Hesperi-nesographia," descriptive of national manners, where, in the account of an Irish banquet, it is mentioned that, "Besides all this, vast bundles came Of sorrel, more than I can name. And many sheaves I hear there was Of shamrocks, and of water-grass, |