the morning; but it came just as slow and regular as if he were not in the world. In a short time he was sum. moned to the court-yard, where all the nobles of the land assembled, with flags waving, and trumpets sounding, and all manner of glorious doings going on. The princess was placed on a throne of gold near her father, and there was a beautiful carpet spread for Owney to stand upon while he answered her questions. After the trumpets were silenced, she put the first, with a clear sweet voice, and he replied:

"It's salt!" says he, very stout, out.

There was a great applause at the answer; and the princess owned, smiling, that he had judged right. "But now", said she, "for the second. What are the three most beautiful things in the creation ?"

"Why", answered the young man, "here they are. A ship in full sail—a field of wheat in ear-and

What the third most beautiful thing was, all the people didn't hear; but there was a great blushing and laughing among the ladies, and the princess smiled and nodded at him, quite pleased with his wit. Indeed, many said that the judges of the land themselves could not have answered better, had they been in Owney's place; nor could there be anywhere found a more likely or well-spoken young man. He was brought first to the king, who took him in his arms, and presented him to the princess. She could not help acknowledging to herself that his understanding was quite worthy of his handsome person. Orders being immediately given for the marriage to proceed, they were made one with all speed; and it it is said, that before another year came round, the fair princess was one of the most beautiful objects in the creation.

THE VILLAGE RUIN,

THE lake which washes the orchards of the village of divides it from an abbey now in ruins, but associated with the recollection of one of those few glorious events which shed a scanty and occasional lustre on the dark and mournful tide of Irish history. At this foundation was educated, a century or two before the English conquest, Melcha, the beautiful daughter of O'Melachlin, a prince, whose character and conduct even yet afford room for speculation to the historians of his country. Not like the maids of our degenerate days, who are scarce exceeded by the men in their effeminate vanity and love of ornament, young Melcha joined to the tenderness and beauty of a virgin the austerity and piety of a hermit. The simplest roots that fed the lowest of her father's subjects, were the accustomed food of Melcha; a couch of heath refreshed her delicate limbs; and the lark did not arise earlier at morn to sing the praises of his Maker than did the daughter of O'Melachlin.

One subject had a large proportion of her thoughts, her tears and prayers-the misery of her afflicted country, for she had not fallen on happy days for Ireland. Some years before her birth, a swarm of savages from the north of Europe had landed on the eastern coast of the island, and in despite of the gallant resistance of her father (who then possessed the crown) and of the other chiefs, succeeded in establishing their power throughout the country. Thor

gills, the barbarian chief who had led them on, assumed the sovereignty of the conquered isle, leaving, however, to O'Melachlin the name and insignia of royalty, while all the power of government was centred in himself. The history of tyranny scarcely furnishes a more appalling picture of devastation and oppressive cruelty than that which followed the success of this invasion. Monasteries were destroyed, monks slaughtered in the shelter of their cloisters; cities laid waste and burnt; learning almost exterminated; and religion persecuted with a virulence peculiar to the gloomy and superstitious character of the oppressors. Historians present a minute and affecting detail of the enormities which were perpetrated in the shape of taxation, restriction, and direct aggression. The single word TYRANNY, however, may convey an idea of the whole

Astonished at these terrible events, O'Melachlin, though once a valiant general, seemed struck with some base palsy of the soul that rendered him insensible to the groans and tortures of his subjects, or to the barbarous cruelty of the monster who was nominally leagued with him in power. Apparently content with the shadow of dominion left him, and with the security afforded to those of his own household, he slept upon his duties as a king and as a man, and thirty years of misery rolled by without his striking a blow, or even to all appearance forming a wish for the de. liverance of his afflicted country. It was not till he was menaced with the danger of sharing the affliction of his people that he endeavoured to remove it.

Such apathy it was which pressed upon the mind of Melcha, and filled her heart with shame and with affliction. A weak and helpless maid, she had, however, nothing but her prayers to bestow upon her country, nor were those bestowed in vain. At the age of fifteen, rich in virtue as in beauty and in talent, she was recalled from those cloisters whose shadows still are seen at evenfall reflected in the waters of the lake, to grace the

phantom court of her degenerate father. The latter, proud of his child, gave a splendid feast in honour of her return, to which he was not ashamed to invite the oppressor of his subjects and the usurper of his own authority. The coarser vices are the usual concomitants of cruelty. Thorgills beheld the saintly daughter of his host with other eyes than those of admiration. Accustomed to mould the wishes of the puppet monarch to his own, he tarried not even the conclusion of the feast, but desiring the company of O'Melachlin on the green without the palace, he there disclosed to him, with the bluntness of a barbarian and the insolence of a conqueror, his infamous wishes.

Struck to the soul at what he heard, O'Melachlin was deprived of the power of reply or utterance. For the first time since he had resigned to the invader the power which had fallen so heavy on the land, his feelings were awakened to a sense of sympathy, and self-interest made him pitiful. The cries of bereaved parents, to which till now his heart had been impenetrable as a wall of brass, found sudden entrance to its inmost folds, and a responsive echo amid its tenderest strings. He sat for a time upon a bench close by, with his forehead resting on his hand, and a torrent of tempestuous feelings rushing through his bosom.

"What sayest thou?" asked the tyrant, after a long silence. "Shall I have my wish? No answer! Hearest thou, slave? What insolence keeps thee silent ?"

"I pray you, pardon me", replied the monarch, "I was thinking then of a sore annoyance that has lately bred about our castle. I mean that rookery yonder, the din of which even now confounds the music of our feast, and invades with its untimely harshness our cheering and most singular discourse. I would I had some mode of banishing that pest-I would I had some mode-I would I had".

"Ho! was that all the subject of thy thought?" said

Thorgills-"why, fool! thou never wilt be rid of them till thou hast burned the nests wherein they breed". "I thank thee", answered the insulted parent; I'll burn the nests.

take thy counsel. into the house?"

"I'll

Will you walk

"What first of my request?" said Thorgills. "Tell me that ".

"If thou hadst asked of me", replied the king, "a favourite hobby for the chase, or a hound to guard thy threshold, thou wouldst not think it much to grant a week at least for preparing my heart to part with what it loved. How much more, when thy demand reaches to the child of my heart, the only offspring of a mother who died before she had beheld her offspring"

"A week, then let it be", said Thorgills, looking with contempt upon the starting tears of the applicant.

"A week would scarce suffice", replied the monarch, "to teach my tongue in what language it should communicate a destiny like this to Melcha ".

"What time wouldst thou require, then ?" cried the tyrant hastily.

"Thou seest", replied the king, pointing to the new moon, which showed its slender crescent above the woodcrowned hills that bounded in the prospect. "Before that thread of light that glimmers now upon the distant lake, like chastity on beauty, has fulfilled its changes, thou shalt receive my answer to this proffer".

"Be it so", said Thorgills; and the conversation ended. When the guests had all departed, the wretched monarch went into his oratory, where he bade one of his followers order Melcha to attend him. She found him utterly depressed, and almost incapable of forming a design. Having commanded the attendants to withdraw, he endeavoured, but in vain, to make known to the astonished princess the demand of the usurper. He remembered her departed mother, and he thought of her own