“Have you got a lease?” said I. “No, indeed; not a schrape of a pin; nor I never axed it. Have I not my _tinnant-rite_?” From that subject, Mr. Mc Nale diverged slightly into politics, touching on the state of the _counthry_, and untwisting some entanglements of the ‘Irish difficulty’ that might be usefully made known in the neighbourhood of Westminster. “Troth, Sir,” said Con, “you English are mighty grand in all your doings. You dale wholesale in all sorts iv things; good luck to you—in charity as well as in pigs, praties, an’ sich like. Well you want to improve Ireland by wholesale; you set up illigant schames for puttin’ us all to rights by the million; for clanin’ an’ dranin’ a whole province at onst; for giving labour to everybody; an’ all mighty purty on paper, with figures all as round an’ nate as copybooks, with long rigiments of O’s, after ’em. I’ve heard iv whole stacks of papers piled up an’ handsomely ticketed in tidy big offices—all ‘rules and riglations’ for labourers, which the boys can’t follow, and the inspectors can’t force. Why not,” continued Mr. Con, giving his spade a thrust into the ground that sent it up to the maker’s name, “Why not tache the boys to do as I have done?” “But all are not so persevering, so knowing, and so fond of work as you.” Whether Mr. Mc Nale was impressed by his own modesty, or by the force of my suggestion, I know not. But he was silent. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. William Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April, 1770; he died on the 23d of April, 1850. His life was prolonged for ten years beyond the space attributed to man by the inspired Psalmist. He lived in an age unprecedented for its social and civil revolutions; for its discoveries in science, and their practical application. He was fourteen years of age when the new North American Republic was finally recognised as one of the brotherhood of nations; he witnessed the French Revolution; the subjection of every monarchy in Europe, except England and Russia, to the absolute will of a French emperor; the instalment and evaporation of the Holy Alliance; the European war of twenty years, and the European peace of thirty-two years; one Pope carried into exile by a foreign conqueror, another driven into exile by his own subjects: and at home, the trials of Hardy and Thelwall; the Bank Restriction Act; the origination of the Bell and Lancaster systems of Education; the visit of the allied monarchs to London; the passing of Peel’s Bill; the introduction of Palmer’s mail-coaches and M‘Adam’s roads; the invention of steam navigation; the pausing of the Reform Bill; the development of the Railway system, and the Electric telegraph. He was the contemporary of Davey, Herschell, Bentham, Godwin, Malthus and Ricardo, Byron, Scott, Wilkie, Chantrey, Fox, Pitt, Canning and Brougham.