As a mere child, he was a remarkably good actor, both in tragic and comic pieces, and was hardly twelve years old when he began to write verses of singular spirit for one so young. At fourteen, he produced a long Irish poem, which he never permitted anyone but his mother and brother to read. To that brother, Mr. William Le Fanu, Commissioner of Public Works, Ireland, to whom, as the suggester of Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Phaudrig Croohore' and 'Shamus O'Brien,' Irish ballad literature owes a delightful debt, and whose richly humorous and passionately pathetic powers as a raconteur of these poems have only doubled that obligation in the hearts of those who have been happy enough to be his hearers--to Mr. William Le Fanu we are indebted for the following extracts from the first of his works, which the boy-author seems to have set any store by: 'Muse of Green Erin, break thine icy slumbers! Strike once again thy wreathed lyre! Burst forth once more and wake thy tuneful numbers! Kindle again thy long-extinguished fire! 'Why should I bid thee, Muse of Erin, waken? Why should I bid thee strike thy harp once more? Better to leave thee silent and forsaken Than wake thee but thy glories to deplore. 'How could I bid thee tell of Tara's Towers, Where once thy sceptred Princes sate in state-- Where rose thy music, at the festive hours, Through the proud halls where listening thousands sate? 'Fallen are thy fair palaces, thy country's glory, Thy tuneful bards were banished or were slain, Some rest in glory on their deathbeds gory, And some have lived to feel a foeman's chain. 'Yet for the sake of thy unhappy nation, Yet for the sake of Freedom's spirit fled, Let thy wild harpstrings, thrilled with indignation, Peal a deep requiem o'er thy sons that bled. 'O yes! like the last breath of evening sighing, Sweep thy cold hand the silent strings along, Flash like the lamp beside the hero dying, Then hushed for ever be thy plaintive song.' To Mr. William Le Fanu we are further indebted for the accompanying specimens of his brother's serious and humorous powers in verse, written when he was quite a lad, as valentines to a Miss G. K.: 'Life were too long for me to bear If banished from thy view; Life were too short, a thousand year, If life were passed with you. 'Wise men have said "Man's lot on earth Is grief and melancholy," But where thou art, there joyous mirth Proves all their wisdom folly. 'If fate withhold thy love from me, All else in vain were given; Heaven were imperfect wanting thee, And with thee earth were heaven.' A few days after, he sent the following sequel: