P.M., or in the evening after eight; that any poet discovered using more than five arm-chairs in the composition of a quatrain will be charged two oboli an hour for each chair in excess of that number; and that the billiard-marker shall be required to charge a premium of three times the ordinary fee for tables used by versifiers in lieu of writing-pads?" "That would n't be a bad idea," said Sir Walter Raleigh. "I, as a poet, would not object to that. I do all my work at home, anyhow." "There's another phase of this business that we haven't considered yet, and it's rather important," said Demosthenes, taking a fresh pebble out of his bonbonnière. "That's in the matter of stationery. This club, like all other well-regulated clubs, provides its members with a suitable supply of writing materials. Charon informs me that the waste-baskets last week turned out forty-two reams of our best correspondence paper on which these poets had scribbled the first draft of their verses. Now I don't think the club should furnish the poets with the raw material for their poems any more than, to go back to Confucius's shoemaker, it should supply leather for our cobblers." "What do you mean by raw material for poems ?" asked Sir Walter, with a frown. "Pen, ink, and paper. What else?" said Demosthenes. "Does n't it take brains to write a poem ?" said Raleigh. "Does n't it take brains to make a pair of shoes?" retorted Demosthenes, swallowing a pebble in his haste. "They've got a right to the stationery, though," put in Blackstone. "A clear legal right to it. If they choose to write poems on the paper instead of boring people to death with letters, as most of us do, that's their own affair." "Well, they 're very wasteful," said Demosthenes. "We can meet that easily enough," observed Cassius. "Furnish each writing-table with a slate. I should think they 'd be pleased with that. It's so much easier to rub out the wrong word." "Most poets prefer to rub out the right word," growled Confucius. "Besides, I shall never consent to slates in this houseboat. The squeaking of the pencils would be worse than the poems themselves." "That's true," said Cassius. "I never thought of that. If a dozen poets got to work on those slates at once, a fife corps would n't be a circumstance to them." "Well, it all goes to prove what I have thought all along,” "Homer's idea is a good one, and Samson said Doctor Johnson. was wise in backing it up. The poets need to be concentrated somewhere where they will not be a nuisance to other people, and where other people will not be a nuisance to them. Homer ought to have a place to compose in where the vingt-et-un players will not interrupt his frenzies, and, on the other hand, the vingt-et-un and other players should be protected from the wooers of the muse. I'll vote to have the Poets' Corner, and in it I move that Cassius's slate idea be carried out. It will be a great saving, and if the corner we select be far enough away from the other corners of the club, the squeaking of the slatepencils need bother no one." "I agree to that," said Blackstone. "Only I think it should be understood that, in granting the petition of the poets, we do not bind ourselves to yield to doctors and lawyers and shoemakers and plumbers in case they should each want a corner to themselves." "A very wise idea," said Sir Walter. Whereupon the resolution was suitably worded, and passed unanimously. Just where the Poets' Corner is to be located the members of the committee have not as yet decided, although Confucius is strongly in favor of having it placed in a dingy situated a quarter of a mile astern of the house-boat, and connected therewith by a slight cord, which can be easily cut in case the squeaking of the poets' slate-pencils becomes too much for the nervous system of the members who have no corner of their own. 905 JOHN BANIM. BANIM, JOHN, an Irish novelist, born at Kilkenny, Ireland, April 3, 1798; died near there, August 18, 1842. He began active life as a miniature-painter, but early abandoned art for literature. In 1825 and 1826 appeared two volumes of stories entitled "Tales of the O'Hara Family." These were followed in 1828 by "The Croppy," a story connected with the unlucky insurrection of 1798. Banim afterward put forth several other novels, among which are "The Denounced," "The Last Baron of Crana," and "Boyne Water." He also contributed to periodicals in prose and verse. Some time before his death he was stricken by disease, which seemed to preclude literary work, and in 1837 a pension of £150 was given to him from the civil list, and a further sum of £40 was awarded for the education of his daughter. "The Tales of the O'Hara Family" and "The Croppy" are the most characteristic of his works. "The O'Hara Tales" were written in collaboration with his brother, Michael Banim (1796-1874), also an Irish novelist, though of minor importance. BURNING THE HOUSE OF A CROPPY. (From "The Croppy.") THE smith kept a brooding and gloomy silence, his almost savage yet steadfast glare fastened upon the element that, not more raging than his own bosom, devoured his dwelling. Fire had been set to the house in many places within and without, and though at first it crept slowly along the surface of the thatch, or only sent out bursting wreaths of vapor from the interior, or through the doorway, few minutes elapsed until the whole of the combustible roof was one mass of flame, shooting up into the serene air in a spire of dazzling brilliancy, mixed with vivid sparks, and relieved against a background of darkgray smoke. Sky and earth reddened into common ignition with the blaze. The houses around gleamed hotly; the very stones and rocks on the hillside seemed portions of fire, and Shawn-a-Gow's bare head and herculean shoulders were covered with spreading showers of the ashes of his own roof. His distended eye, fixed too upon the figures of the actors in this scene, now reddened fiercely distinct, and their scabbards, their buttons, and their polished black helmets, flickering redly in the glow, as at a command from their captain, they sent up the hillside three shouts, over the demolition of the Croppy's dwelling. But still, though his breast heaved, and though wreaths of foam edged his lips, Shawn was silent, and little Peter now feared to address a word to him; and other sights and occurrences claimed whatever attention he was able to afford. Rising to a pitch of shrillness that overmastered the cheers of the yeomen, the cries of a man in bodily agony struck on the ears of the listeners on the hill, and looking hard towards a spot brilliantly illuminated they saw Saunders Smyly vigorously engaged in one of his tasks as disciplinarian to the Ballybrechoone cavalry. With much ostentation, his instrument of torture was flourished round his head; and though at every lash the shrieks of the sufferer came loud, the lashes themselves were scarce less distinct. A second group challenged the eye. Shawn-a-Gow's house stood alone in the village. A short distance before its door was a lime-tree, with benches contrived all round the trunk, upon which in summer weather the gossipers of the village used to seat themselves. This tree, standing between our spectators and the blaze, cut darkly against the glowing objects beyond it, and three or four yeomen their backs turned to the hill, their faces to the burning house, and consequently their figures also appearing black - seemed busily occupied in some feat that required the exertion of pulling with their hands lifted above their heads. Shawn flashed an inquiring glance upon them; and anon a human form, still, like their figures, vague and undefined in blackness, gradually became elevated from the ground beneath the tree, until its head almost touched a projecting branch; and then it remained stationary, suspended from that branch. Shawn's rage increased to madness at this sight, though he did not admit it to be immediately connected with his more individual causes for wrath. And now came an event that made a climax, for the present, to his emotions, and at length caused some expression of his pent-up feelings. A loud crackling crash echoed from his house; a volume of flame, taller and more dense than any by which it was preceded, darted up to the heavens; then almost former darkness fell on the hillside; a gloomy red glow alone remained on the objects below; and nothing but thick smoke, dotted with sparks, continued to issue from his dwelling. After everything that could interiorly supply food to the flame had been devoured, it was the roof of his old house that now fell in. "By the ashes o' my cabin, burnt down before me this night - an' I standin' a houseless beggar on the hillside lookin' at id - while I can get an Orangeman's house to take the blaze, an' a wisp to kindle the blaze up, I'll burn ten houses for that one!" And so asseverating, he re-crossed the summit of the hill, and, followed by Peter Rooney, descended into the little valley of refuge. SOGGARTH AROON. "O Priest, O Love!" THE IRISH PEASANT'S ADDRESS TO HIS PRIEST. Am I the slave they say, Since you did show the way, Their slave no more to be, While they would work with me Soggarth Aroon? Why not her poorest man, Try and do all he can, Her commands to fulfil Of his own heart and will, Side by side with you still, Loyal and brave to you, Soggarth Aroon, Yet be no slave to you, Soggarth Aroon, |