our Celtic youth, these are not the days when men are hanged for nonsense, either in prose or rhyme; but there are minor penalties, known to the law, from which it is pleasing to think they have been saved, by a vigorous though tardy correction with the Liberator's moral shillelagh.

"Improbus ille puer, crudelis tu quoque pater."

The cruelty consisted in suffering the lad to play his mischievous pranks so long. A tap of the cudgel long ago would have been equally effective, and far more merciful.

As to the fate of the beaten party, it would be hazardous to predict it, while such numerous paths are open to active absurdity and enterprising indiscretion. But it is to be hoped that there will be some Celtic Cincinnatus, at least, amongst them, who will retire from the Dictatorship of the Nation to some model farm in Tipperary or Limerick, there, waiting for greener days, to cultivate saffron, and plough by the tail.

THE FALCON FAMILY;

OR,

YOUNG IRELAND.

CHAPTER I.

"Most of the hawks and owls are averse to the trouble of constructing nests for themselves. Thus the brown falcons take possession of the old nests of magpies or squirrels, to which, so far as we can learn, they never add any fresh materials, nor take any pains to repair damages or render them tidy."

Rennie on Bird-Architecture.

THE FALCONS ON THE WING-CONSTERNATION OF MARYLEBONEA THREATENING LETTER-THE RED ROVER AND THE GIPSYVISITATION OF THE REV. DR. HOBART-THE FREEMANS SURRENDER AT DISCRETION-SPUNGES AND THEIR CORRELATIVES-USE OF THE METALS IN THE ECONOMY OF HUMAN LIFE.

TOWARDS the middle of the month of May, not three years since, a lively sensation was produced in a circle of respectable families mostly resident in Marylebone, by the sudden arrival in town of a family of the highflying name of Falcon.

The sensation, upon the whole, was decidedly alarming. The Puddicomes, of Wimpole-street, quaked; the

Jenkinsons, of Portland-place, were fluttered; a family of Duckworths retreated to Norwood; and the Bompases, of Bryanston-square, were divided between burning their house and starting upon a continental tour.

Yet it was neither upon the Puddicomes, the Bompases, the Duckworths, or the Jenkinsons, that the Falcons first stooped. The house of a Mr. Freeman, in Harley-street, was the primary object of attack, and the Freemans had no ground for complaining of want of notice, as the following letter, received a few days before by Mrs. Freeman, from Mrs. Falcon, will satisfactorily show.

"Broomfield, Stony-Stratford, May 25.

"MY DEAR MRS. FREEMAN,

"We are all charmed to hear you are going to Plymouth next week; the country will do you and dear Mr. Freeman so much good. I hope and trust he will benefit by the change of air and the salt water. Lady Charlotte Nostrum makes it a rule to go to Plymouth for three months after. every course of the London doctors, and it infallibly sets her up, and enables her to go through it all over again the next season. Just think of our misery, obliged to go to town just when other people are thinking of leaving it, and when town is beginning to be downright odious. The Sympletones will never forgive us for running away from them so soon, but Mr. Falcon has business in London which requires his immediate presence, so we must submit to our hard fate. The Shycocks are looking out for a small house for us somewhere near

St. John's Wood, or the Bayswater-road; but if you should hear of any thing (quite perfect) that would suit us elsewhere-in the cottage-style, you know, with just one coach-house, or without one (we have no horses just now)-pray do let us know before you leave town. I am perfectly ashamed to put you to this trouble, dear Mrs. Freeman, but you are always goodness itself to us, and I know you will excuse,

"Yours, with a thousand loves,

"GEORGINA FALCON.

"P.S. How are your dear sweet girls?—should we not succeed in getting a house, would it be too unreasonable to beg of you, if perfectly convenient, to allow Mr. Falcon and me (nobody else), to sleep a night or two in Harley-street, until we suit ourselves? Any hole or corner would answer us. But if it would put you to the slightest trouble it would make us all perfectly wretched. Remember to inquire at Plymouth for Dr. Pinch; he performs miracles by just throwing a grain of some wonderful powder into the sea, just before his patients bathe; he calls it pathetic mesmerism, or something like that.

"To Mrs. Freeman, Harley-street, London."

The lady to whom this familiar and elegant epistle was addressed, was not at all deficient in simplicity; but, nevertheless, she comprehended its drift the instant she read it. She knew that Mrs. Falcon had no more intention of taking a house in town than Queen Pomare had, and understood the request in the postscript as a distinct announcement, on the part of the

Falcon family, of their resolution to quarter themselves in Harley-street, rent-free, for the summer months.

"I suppose we must submit, my dear?" said Mrs. Freeman to her husband, looking, as she spoke, the very picture of abused good-nature.

"I suppose so," said Mr. Freeman, with the half peevish, half indifferent air of a poco-curante invalid. "I'll certainly try Dr. Pinch."

"But it is provoking, just now, when every thing is laid up; the carpets off, the curtains down; no servants -no coals."

So much the better," said Mr. Freeman.

"As there will be only Mr. and Mrs. Falcon, I suppose I need not lock up the bronzes and alabasters?" said the lady.

"No necessity," said the gentleman. "I wish I had heard of Dr. Pinch before."

"They must be very poor, my dear," resumed Mrs. Freeman, beginning to think more of the inconveniences the Falcons would be subjected to, than of those to which their visitation would occasion herself.

Mr. Freeman shook his head, took an infinitesimal pill, medicine enough for an infinitesimal disorder, and made no answer but an infinitesimal grunt.

"Have they any thing at all, my dear?"

"Falcon has generally some little agency, or temporary employment."

"To be sure," said Mrs. Freeman, "they must live for almost nothing."

Mr. Freeman took a second homœopathic pill, gave a second homœopathic grunt, and said, "They save