s the uncle Contarine: they may all have contributed. And then comes
Paddy Byrne. Amid all the pensive tenderness of the poem this
description of the schoolmaster, with its strokes of demure humour, is
introduced with delightful effect.

"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew:
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too:
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill;
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew."

All this is so simple and natural that we cannot fail to believe in
the reality of Auburn, or Lissoy, or whatever the village may be
supposed to be. We visit the clergyman's cheerful fireside; and look
in on the noisy school; and sit in the evening in the ale house to
listen to the profound politics talked there. But the crisis comes.
Auburn _delenda est_. Here, no doubt, occurs the least probable part
of the poem. Poverty of soil is a common cause of emigration; land
that produces oats (when it can produce oats at all) three-fourths
mixed with weeds, and hay chiefly consisting of rushes, naturally
discharges its surplus population as families increase; and though the
wrench of parting is painful enough, the usual result is a change from
starvation to competence. It more rarely happens that a district of
peace and plenty, such as Auburn was supposed to see around it, is
depopulated to add to a great man's estate.

"The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, hi