puffed her each day,
Till the princes of Greece came to woo her,
Then coaxing the rest to give way,
She took Menalaus unto her,
So said they, "though we grieve to resign,
Yet if ever you're put to a shift,
Let your majesty drop us a line,
And we'll all of us lend you a lift.
With our rattledum, &c."

Menelaus was happy to win her.
But she soon found a cure for his passion,
By hobbing or nobbing at dinner,
With Paris, a Trojan of fashion.
This chap was a slyish young dog,
The most jessamy fellow in life,
For he drank Menalaus' grog,
And d--me made off with his wife.
Singing rattledum, &c.

The princes were sent for, who swore
They would punish this finikin boy;
So Achilles and two or three more,
Undertook the destruction of Troy.
But Achilles grew quite ungenteel,
And prevented their stirring a peg,
Till Paris let fly at his heel,
And he found himself laid by the leg.
With his rattledum, &c.

The Grecians demolish'd the city,
And then (as the poets have told)
Dame Helen might still be called pretty,
Though very near sixty years old.
Menelaus, when madam was found,
Took her snugly away in his chaise,
So Troy being burnt to the ground,
Why the story goes off with a blaze.
And a rattledum, &c.

* * * * *

HORSE-CHESTNUTS.

(_To the Editor of the Mirror._)

In a recent number there was a notice of the uses of the _Esculus
Hippocastaneus_, or horse chestnuts; but a very important one was
omitted, namely, its substitution occasionally for Peruvian bark in
cases of intermittent fever. This disorder, known better by the name of
ague, had been formerly epidemic in Ireland, where the humidity of the
atmosphere is continually increased by the exhalation of the lochs and bogs
with which the country abounds. In consequence, however, of the formation
of the Grand and Royal Canals, and the drainage of the waters in their
vicinity, the tendency to this disease was greatly lessened; and about
twenty years ago the disorder was so rare in Dublin and the neighbourhood,
that the medical students often complained that they graduated without ever
having an opportunity of seeing in the hospitals a single case of this once
almost universal disorder. In consequence, however, of the extreme wetness
of one summer and autumn, agues again resumed their ascendancy, and the
hosp