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some further queries of Aulus, he has, he states, shrived and unbosomed himself of all his sins, one alone excepted. His reason for this exception is, that the culpable deed in question has been so vastly to his fancy, that he can hardly all the while persuade himself that it is a sin. Aulus is all

anxiety for an explanation, and is quite charmed at the spontaneous offer of one on his friend's part.

Phædrus, hereupon commences his recital as follows:

“You know,” says he, "what a pack of impostors those fellows are, whose business is the selling and hiring out of horses."

"Indeed I do," replies Aulus, "too well: I have been bitten by the scoundrels on more occasions than one."

"I lately," continues Phædrus, "had to set out upon a journey of some considerable length, and in which the utmost expedition possible was required. Accordingly, I repaired to a horsedealer, with whom I had some acquaintance, and about, I will not say the most honest, but the least roguish of the tribe. I told him that my business was of the last importance; that I wanted a first-rate animal, and that if he had ever treated me like a decent fellow, he must do so now. Whereupon he solemnly assured me that he would act towards me as if I were his own nearest and dearest brother."

"And he probably told no lie," interposes Aulus, "for I dare say, the rascal would not spare his own brother."

"He conducts me to his stables," continues Phædrus, "and tells me to choose out of all the horses there whatever horse I fancied. At length I was especially pleased with one. The horse-dealer applauds my judgment, and swears that a number of persons had bid him money for that identical animal, but that he had preferred keeping him up until some particular friend should want a horse. A bargain is struck, the money paid down, and I mount my purchase. Wonderful was the spirit with which my new charger gambolled and curvetted in setting off. In fact, you would have said that he was even a little too fiery. On I rode, rejoicing, for half-an-hour, or so; when, to my dismay, I found my horse knocked up, irretrievably blown, and immovable, even by the spur. I remembered hearing that horse-dealers

were in the habit of making up beasts of the kind for the purpose of imposition-neat and dashing things to look at, but, in reality, without bottom or working capabilities. I saw how the land lay. I am done,' said I. But never mind; I go bail, I'll pay that fellow off in his own coin when I get back.'"

"What plan did you now adopt," quoth Aulus, "poor, hapless equestrian, as you were, thus bereft of your horse ?"

"The plan," replies Phædrus, "which circumstances dictated. Iturned aside to a village hard by, and there, with a man whom I had some knowledge of, I privately put up my horse, and hired another; and thus provided, I proceeded onwards to my destination. On my return, I of course gave up my hired animal, and find my own gallant charger splendidly refreshed from his fatigue, and looking as plump and natty a thing as ever. Mounting him accordingly, I return to the stables of the rascally dealer, whom I ask to keep the horse in livery for me for a couple of days, until I should want him again. The scoundrel inquires how the horse had pleased me; whereupon I swear by everything sacred that I never in the whole course of my life crossed the back of a finer horse; that he seemed to fly, rather than to move with feet; that during the entire of my long journey he never, from first to last, exhibited the slightest symptom of fatigue; and that notwithstanding all the work he had gone through, he was not in the slightest degree cut up, and had not lost an atom of his flesh. The fellow swallowed everything I said as truth, and set it down in his mind that he had been mistaken in the horse, and that it was a very different sort of animal from what he had sold it to me for. Accordingly, before I departed, he asked me would I sell the horse? At first I denied point blank, saying, that if I should have to set out upon such another journey, I would not find it easy to provide myself with a horse like him. I affected, however, on second thoughts, to change my determination, and told him that there was nothing so very precious in my eyes that I would not part with it for a good round price; and 'in fact,' said I, with a laugh, 'were there a tempting bid offered, I might not even balk at selling myself.' ”

"Capital!" exclaims Aulus; "That

was

diamond cut diamond,' indeed." "To make a long story short," continues Phædrus, "he would not let me go until I had set a price upon the horse, at which I would be content to sell him-a price which you may be sure was a pretty considerable chalk above what I had paid for him. Quitting the scoundrel, I now made out a smart blade, whom I knew-just the cut of a chap to play a part in a trick of the kind. Repairing then to the establishment of the horse-dealer, my confederate, in a boisterous and imposing sort of way, knocks, and calls out for the master. The latter makes his appearance, and his visitor informs him that he wants a really fine horse, not merely a dashing figure of an animal, but a horse who could go through his work in first-rate style. The dealer shows him a number of horses, and upon the merits of every particularly bad horse in the collection he was par ticularly eloquent. In praise of my charger, he did not utter a word, firmly believing it to be such as I had represented it. But my friend, the shampurchaser, easily recognising the horse, as well from the position of his stall as from his description, both of which I gave him, made particular inquiry as to whether that horse also was for sale. The rogue of a dealer at first pretended not to hear him, expatiating most enthusiastically all the while in his praises of the others; but when the sham-purchaser, however he might appear to fancy other horses, always turned back to this particular one, and wanted to bargain about it, the knave at length said to himself- It is plain that I was mistaken in my estimate of this horse; here now is a stranger who at a glance has picked him out from among all the rest.' The other still pressing the point, The horse is, indeed, for sale,' says he, but perhaps you will be deterred by the price.' 'I never would think a price,' quoth the former, too high, if the article were really worth it." Come, what is the price of that horse?-out with it.' The horse-dealer upon this names a price, a considerable degree higher than that which I had fixed, hoping to pocket the difference. At length they strike a bargain, and to preclude any suspicion of a trick, my friend pays down a. gold piece, as earnest. He orders that the horse shall be fed-says that he will come

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scinding it was out of the question—I post off, equipped in boots and spurs, to the horse-dealer. Almost out of breath-in a fever of haste, I shout out and hollo for him. He appears, and asks me what it is that I want? Let my horse,' exclaim, I, 'be got ready at once, for I must set out this present instant upon a matter of the most serious importance.' Why, it is only but just now,' says he, that you directed me to put up your horse for you for several days.' Very true,' I reply; but contrary to all expectation, this particular piece of business has turned up in fact, an affair of state, and which, of course, admits of no postponement.' 'Well,' says he, 'out of all those other horses you may select whatever one you like, but your own you cannot have.' I ask him why?' Because,' says he, he is sold.' Upon this I affect a mighty tumult of concern. "Heaven forbid !' I exclaim. In the prospect of this partiticular journey I would not sell that horse-no, not for four times his value.' I kick up a row, and exclaim, that 'I am ruined!' At last the dealer's temper began to get excited. What is the use,' says he, of all this fuss and squabbling? You fixed a price upon your horse, and I sold him. If I pay you the money, you have no further claim upon me. There is such a thing as law to be had, and you cannot compel me to produce the horse.' I went on for a long while insisting in the most uproarious manner that he should produce me either the horse or the buyer, when at last, in a fury of passion, he paid me down the money. I bought the horse for fifteen gold pieces, and sold him in this manner for twentysix. The rascal sold him to my clever confederate for thirty-two pieces; and he of course considered that it was better to make a profit of the difference than to give up the horse. Although to a certain extent appeased by the payment of the money, I take my departure, to all appearance most awfully mortified-he, on the other hand, begging of me not to take the matter so much to heart, and promising to make up for the inconvenience I had suffered, in some of our future dealings. In this way did I impose upon the

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impostor. He has on his hands a horse worth nothing, and is in incessant expectation that the person who paid him earnest will come with the remainder of the money; but nobody of course has as yet come, as nobody of course ever will."

"But I wonder," says Aulus, “he has not tasked you with tricking him ?"

"With what face," replies Phædrus, "or with what show of reason, could he do so? He did, indeed, on a couple of occasions complain to me that he feared the purchaser of my horse was a humbug. Whereat I turned the tables upon him, and told him that the man who, by a precipitate sale, deprived me of such a horse, richly deserved to meet with ill luck."

Such is Phædrus' story of his being stupendously choused, bit, and done brown, by the "horse-repository man; and of his chousing and biting

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more stupendously still, and doingbrowner the "horse-repository" man, by way of retaliation a story which our readers cannot but agree with us in accounting first-rate, both as regards the matter and the mode of narration. The dialogue concludes by Phædrus observing that his friend can now understand how it is, that mightily gratified as he is with his feat of cheating the horse-dealer, he has been unable to persuade himself to confess it as a sin; while Aulus, on the other hand, roundly asserts, that could he boast the achievement of the deed, so far from confessing it as a sin, he would claim from his country the erection of a statue in his honour.

And now, dear reader, at the end of this, our third specimen from "The Colloquies," we and our grotesque old author, conjointly and most respectfully, take off our caps, and salutingly take our leave for the present.

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Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt ;
And night by night the monitory blast
Wails in the keyhole, telling how it pass'd
Through empty fields, from upland solitudes,
Or wave scarce lonelier; and the power is felt
Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods
Than any joy indulgent summer dealt.
Dear friends, together in the glimmering eve,
Pensive and glad, with tones that recognise
The soft invisible dew in each one's eyes,
It may be, somewhat thus we shall have leave
To walk with memory, when distant lies

Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve.

OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.-NO. LXX.

THE BISHOP OF MEATH.

In the third volume of the life of the excellent and honest Chalmers, will be found some extracts from his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons on education in Ireland. In speaking of the Irish Church, he says:-"I hold the Established Church of Ireland, in spite of all that has been alleged against it, to be our very best machinery for the moral and political regeneration of that country. Were it to be overthrown, I should hold it a death blow to the best hopes of Ireland. Only it must be well manned; the machine must be rightly wrought, ere it can answer its purpose; and the more I reflect on the subject, the more I feel that the highest and dearest interests of the land are linked with the support of the Established Church, always provided that Church is well patronised. I know not what the amount of the Government patronage is in the Church of Ireland; but in as far as in the exercise of that patronage, they, instead of consulting for the moral and religious good of the people, do, in the low game of party and commonplace ambition, turn the Church livings into the bribes of political subserviency; they, in fact, are the deadliest enemies of the Irish people, and the most deeply responsible for Ireland's miseries and Ireland's

crimes."

But who can look back on the policy of centuries under which Ireland has been weighed down, and not complain, in humiliation, that the moral and religious good of the people has but seldom suggested-seldom, alas! gained for Ireland the appointment of a pious and learned man to the high, the responsible office of a bishop of the Reformed Church in our country?

The selection of a good man, the elevation of one who has found favour on the simple score of merit, is especially a subject of interest and thankfulness to many who now look forward in hope and patience to the future of Ireland. Such has been the feeling at the promotion of Joseph Henderson Singer to the see of Meath. Fitness was his solid claim. Unblemished in personal character, accredited as a scholar and a divine, experienced in the work of the ministry, beloved by the great body of the clergy and laity of the Church to which he belongs, and by many in other Churches, in which his praise had long been established for Christian liberality and love of evangelical religion, his appointment was greeted with the homage of general approval.

The subject of our memoir was born in the month of October, in the year 1786. He was the youngest son of the late James Singer, of Annadale, in the county of Dublin. From his earliest years he was remarkable for his love of reading; it began in childhood, continued at school, and ceased not when he encountered the sterner studies of the University, which he entered at the early age of sixteen. Up to this time his life was one of quiet, regular industry-a plain routine of diligence, by which he was not only well prepared for entering hopefully on the expanded course now opened for him in Trinity College; but by the training of a well-ordered mind, and with the modesty which so much be comes ingenuous youth, he had the early prospect of a successful career within the walls where merit has its inany triumphs. He entered under the late Dr. Lloyd, afterwards Provost of the College. With some it is of little moment whether the good and the learned, or the careless or incompetent, has been the guardian of their studies; but there are others whose nature finds a nurture, because a sympathy in their college tutor, by which the work of education is silently, but most effectually, promoted. This learned and good man, Dr. Lloyd, was especially beloved by his pupils; the softness of his nature, the liberality of his mind, the familiarity of his expositions of science, which he cultivated, and a modest, unobtrusive piety, which shed a pleasing and attractive light on his intercourse with the students, made him an auspicious and most appropriate tutor for the subject of this memoir. His pupil entered as a fellow-commoner. During his undergaduate course he obtained every premium and certificate then

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