This person, of whom the preceding dialogue treats, was a celebrated fiddler in "these parts," and his familiar name of Hoppy Houligan was acquired, as the reader may already have perceived, from his limping gait. This limp was the consequence of a broken leg, which was one of the consequences of an affray, which is the certain consequence of a fair in Tipperary. Houligan was a highly characteristic specimen of an Irish fiddler. As Larry Lanigan said, "You never seen a well dhrest fiddler yet;" but Houligan was a particularly ill fledged bird of the musical tribe. His corduroys have already been hinted at by Larry, as well as his coat, which had lost half the skirt, thereby partially revealing the aforesaid corduroys; or if one might be permitted to indulge in an image, the half skirt that remained served to produce a partial eclipse of the disc of corduroy. This was what we painters call picturesque. By the way, the vulgar are always amazed that some tattered remains of anything is more prized by the painter than the freshest production in all its gloss of novelty. The fiddler's stockings, too, in the neglected falling of their folds round his leg, and the whisp of straw that fringed the opening of his gaping brogues, were valuable additions to the picture; and his hat--But stop,--let me not presume;--his hat it would be a vain attempt to describe. There are two things not to be described, which, to know what they are, you must see. These two things are Taglioni's dancing and an Irish fiddler's hat. The one is a wonder in action;--the other, an enigma in form.