Oh, love is the soul of an Irish dragoon In battle, in bivouac, or in saloon, From the tip of his spur to his bright sabretasche. With his soldierly gait and his bearing so high, His gay laughing look and his light speaking eye, He frowns at his rival, he ogles his wench, He springs in his saddle and _chasses_ the French, With his jingling spur and his bright sabretasche. His spirits are high, and he little knows care, Whether sipping his claret or charging a square, With his jingling spur and his bright sabretasche. As ready to sing or to skirmish he’s found, To take off his wine or to take up his ground; When the bugle may call him, how little he fears To charge forth in column and beat the Mounseers, With his jingling spur and his bright sabretasche. When the battle is over, he gayly rides back To cheer every soul in the night bivouac, With his jingling spur and his bright sabretasche. Oh, there you may see him in full glory crowned, As he sits ‘midst his friends on the hardly won ground, And hear with what feeling the toast he will give, As he drinks to the land where all Irishmen live, With his jingling spur and his bright sabretasche. It was late when we broke up; but among all the recollections of that pleasant evening none clung to me so forcibly, none sank so deeply in my heart, as the gay and careless tone of Power’s manly voice; and as I fell asleep towards morning, the words of “The Irish Dragoon” were floating through my mind and followed me in my dreams. CHAPTER XVI. THE VICE-PROVOST. I had now been for some weeks a resident within the walls of the university, and yet had never presented my letter of introduction to Dr. Barret. Somehow, my thoughts and occupations had left me little leisure to reflect upon my college course, and I had not felt the necessity suggested by my friend Sir Harry, of having a supporter in the very learned and gifted individual to whom I was accredited. How long I might have continued in this state of indifference it is hard to say, when chance brought about my acquaintance with the doctor. Were I not inditing a true history in this narrative of my life, to the events and characters of which so many are living witnesses, I should certainly fear to attempt anything like a description of this very remarkable man; so liable would any sketch, however faint and imperfect, be to the accusation of caricature, when all was so singular and so eccentric.