shall set you a-roaring, don’t say it is the Town Pump.“ If gentlemen love the pleasant titilation of the gout, and won’t take advice, ’tis all one to the Town Pump. Ah, ah! Old Lion, PETER PARLEY’S old dog, sixteen years old this very day! Come and celebrate your nativity. Well done, old boy, with your two fore-legs on the cistern, and your hind-legs erect; loll out your red tongue, while I pump you a draught. Well may you wag your old tail as thanks, and walk away satisfied, and, old as you are, gambol about refreshed. Lion, Lion! your worship never had the gout, so do not bark at that poor old gentleman who hobbles by you, looking so sour and woeful. Are you all satisfied? then wipe your mouths, my good friends, and be thankful; and while the spout has a moment’s leisure, I will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath the darksome shadow of venerable boughs a spring bubbled out of the leaf-strewn earth, on the very spot where you now behold me on the sunny pavement. The water was bright and clear, and seemed as precious as liquid diamonds. Amid the grove—for it was a sacred one—Druid-seers celebrated their mystic rites, and, with the pure, undulterated stream, allayed the fiery thirst of feverish lips, and cured diseases. Here they assembled in high delight at Christmas time, and while snow covered all the earth, was kept open by their prayers the then only bubbling spring. But the Druids passed away, and in their place, ages after, were seen, yet still in the same white robes, holy priests of Christ, sanctifying the sacred spot. The spring bubbled as before: but now it had the power to heal—pilgrims flocked to it from all parts—the pious St. Columb had sanctified it. It worked miracles on the diseased. The halt, the maimed, the sick came to it and were healed. Free rose the spring; but it was no longer a free offering to the poor, the sick, and the wretched. A price was set upon it. Those that thirsted for the water had to pay before they got any;—as the pay was increased the miracles were more wonderful, till at last, over the once free and natural spring a stupendous building arose, with its flying buttresses high in air; its spandrils within, and their corbels capped with the faces of the condemned; its lofty pinnacle studded with angels, and every coign of vantage speaking the mysteries of a faith which was obliterated by its grotesque ornaments; yet, age after age, the miraculous waters flowed. At last, the sacred fane decayed, and holy men were no more seen; broken pillars and scattered mouldings bestrewed the place; and the grass, and the rank plants of summer, and the briar, and the burdock, and the tansy were the only guardians of the spot; yet, still the spring bubbled forth, and threw its bright gems of brilliance to the light of heaven; and solitary men would come and moralise over its site, with tears as deep as its own gushings. At last the fountain was broken up; the ruins of the