a small, quaint-looking pipkin, after which the domestics withdrew,
leaving us in silence as before. For about a second or two this
continued, when suddenly the fiddles gave a loud twang, and each monk,
springing to his legs, threw hack his cowl, and, bowing to the superior,
reseated himself. So sudden was the action, so unexpected the effect,
for a moment or two I believed it a dream. What was my surprise, what my
amazement, that this den of thieves, this hoard of burglars, this secret
council of rebels, was nothing more or less than an assemblage of nearly
all the first men of the day in Ireland! And as my eye ran rapidly over
the party, here I could see the Chief Baron, with a venerable dignitary
of St. Patrick's on his right; there was the Attorney-General; there the
Provost of Trinity College; lower down, with his skull-cap set jauntily
on one side, was Wellesley Pole, the secretary of state; Yelverton,
Day, Plunket, Parsons, Toler; in a word, all those whose names were a
guarantee for everything that was brilliant, witty, and amusing, were
there; while, conspicuous among the rest, the prior himself was no other
than John Philpot Curran! Scarcely was my rapid survey of the party
completed, when the superior, filling his pipkin from the ample bowl
before him, rose to give the health of the order. Alas me! that time
should have so sapped my memory! I can but give my impression of what I
heard.

The speech, which lasted about ten minutes, was a kind of burlesque on
speeches from the throne, describing in formal phrase the prosperous
state of their institution, its amicable foreign relations, the
flourishing condition of its finances--brother Yelverton having paid in
the two-and-sixpence he owed for above two years--concluding all with
the hope that by a rigid economy, part of which consisted in limiting
John Toler to ten pipkins, they would soon be enabled to carry into
effect the proposed works on the frontier, and expend the sum of four
shillings and nine-pence in the repair of the lobby. Winding up all with
a glowing eulogium on monastic institutions in general, he concluded
with recommending to their special devotion and unanimous cheers 'the
Monks of the Screw.' Never, certainly, did men compensate for their
previous silence better than the worthy brethren in question. Cheering
with an energy I never heard the like of, each man finished his pipkin
with just voice enough left to call for the song of the order.

M