* * * * * A VISION OF PURGATORY. _By William Maginn, Esq._ The churchyard of Inistubber is as lonely a one as you would wish to see on a summer's day, or avoid on a winter's night. Under the east window of the church is a mouldering vault of the De Lacys,--a branch of a family descended from one of the conquerors of Ireland; and there they are buried, when the allotted time calls them to the tomb. Sir Theodore De Lacy had lived a jolly, thoughtless life, rising early for the hunt, and retiring late from the bottle. A good-humoured bachelor who took no care about the management of his household, provided that the hounds were in order for his going out, and the table ready on his coming in. As for the rest,--an easy landlord, a quiet master, a lenient magistrate (except to poachers,) and a very excellent foreman of a grand jury. He died one evening while laughing at a story which he had heard regularly thrice a week for the last fifteen years of his life, and his spirit mingled with the claret. In former times when the De Lacys were buried, there was a grand breakfast, and all the party rode over to the church to see the last rites paid. The keeners lamented; the country people had a wake before the funeral, and a dinner after it--and there was an end. But with the march of mind comes trouble and vexation. A man has now-a-days no certainty of quietness in his coffin--unless it be a patent one. He is laid down in the grave, and the next morning finds himself called upon to demonstrate an interesting fact! No one, I believe, admires this ceremony, and it is not to be wondered at that Sir Theodore De Lacy held it in especial horror. "I'd like," said he one evening, "to catch one of the thieves coming after me when I'm dead--By the God of War, I'd break every bone in his body;--but," he added with a sigh, "as I suppose I'll not be able to take my own part then, upon you I leave it, Larry Sweeney, to watch me three days and three nights after they plant me under the sod. There's Doctor Dickenson there, I see the fellow looking at me--fill your glass, Doctor--here's your health! and shoot him, Larry, do you hear, shoot the Doctor like a cock, if he ever comes stirring up my poor old bones from their roost of Inistubber." "Why, then," Larry answered, accepting the glass which followed this command, "long life to both your honours; and it's I that would like to be putting a bullet into Doctor Dickenson--heaven between him and harm--for hauling your honour away, as if you was a horse's head, to a bonfire. There's nothing, I 'shure you, gintlemin, poor as I am, that would give me greater pleasure." "We feel obliged, Larry" said Sir Theodore, "for your good wishes." "Is it I pull you out of the grave, indeed!" continued the whipper-in, for such he was, --"I'd let nobody pull your honour out of any place, saving 'twas purgatory; and out of that I'd pull you myself, if I saw you going