Another "celebrity" was John Taler, "bully, butcher, and buffoon," who was afterward a peer and a judge. He was a bravo in the house and a despot on the bench. He jested with the wretched he condemned, and seemed never so happy as when {127} the scaffold was before his eyes. He was ignorant but ferocious, and when he could not conquer an opponent he would browbeat him. "Give me a long day, my lord," said a culprit, whom he had just doomed. "I am sorry to say I can't oblige you, my friend," replied Lord Norbury, smiling; "but I promise you a strong rope, which I suppose will answer your purpose as well." When he died, and was about to be lowered into the grave himself, the tackle was rather short. "Tare-an-agers, boys, don't spare the _rope_ on his lordship; don't you know he was always fond of it?" said one of the standers-by. "I never saw a human face that so closely resembles that of a bull-dog!" remarked one barrister to another in court. "Let him get a grip of your throat, and you will find the resemblance still closer," was the reply. These and a hundred others, their equals, instruments, and subordinates, may be supposed to represent the Irish "turnspit" element; it must be acknowledged, however, that in contradistinction to them, there were sounding examples of men of a different and far superior class, such as the Leinsters, Charlemonts, Plunketts, Currans, Ponsonbys, and so forth, who would have adorned any country, and who certainly contributed to relieve their own from the almost intolerable odium which the wholesale venal profligacy of a large number had brought upon it. ------ From Once a Week. THE LEGEND OF THE LOCKHARTS. I. King Robert on his death-bed lay, wasted in every limb, The priests had left, Black Douglas now alone was watching him; The earl had wept to hear those words, "When I am gone to doom, Take thou my heart and bear it straight unto the Holy Tomb." II. Douglas shed bitter tears of grief--he loved the buried man. He bade farewell to home and wife, to brother and to clan; And soon the Bruce's heart embalm'd, in silver casket lock'd, Within a galley, white with sails, upon the blue waves rock'd. III. In Spain they rested, there the king besought the Scottish earl To drive the Saracens from Spain, his galley sails to furl; It was the brave knight's eagerness to quell the Paynim brood. That made him then forget the oath he'd sworn upon the rood. IV. That was his sin; good angels frown'd upon him as he went With vizor down and spear in rest, lips closed, and black brow bent: Upon the turbans, fierce he spurr'd, the charger he bestrode Was splash'd with blood, the robes and flags he trampled on the road. {128} V.