the car on the road-side, and had the mortification to find the cushions wet as the recent storm could make them. "Farewell, Potosi; catch me treasure-seeking again!" said I, digging the hail-stones out of the pockets of my pea-jacket, and relieving my boots of the superabundant bog mould with a slate.

"You have had a hard day's work of it," said the driver; "but there's one satisfaction."

"And what's that?" said I.

"Why we have the fall of the hill with us, going home; and that's what I call satisfaction," said he, chirrupping to his hack, and urging him into a gallop down the execrable road, over which we rattled at the risk of our necks, towards the pretty little town of Baltinglass once more.

Having made a short and agreeable tour in the county Wicklow, and admired everything worthy of admiration, I returned leisurely towards the city. Indeed, my car-man, whose services and equipage I had secured at per diem, seemed to regard our final separation (which was to take place in Dublin) with horror; he endeavoured to beguile me to the mountains again; then, finding I was obstinately bent on proceeding to Dublin, he volunteered to remain with me while I stayed in that city, and afterwards "drass me round Ireland" upon his car. Indeed, the poor fellow seemed to have had quite enough of the charms of Baltinglass, which he did not scruple to denounce as a "beggarly hole."

"What the devil are they looking for?" said my charioteer, as we descended from the Dublin moun

tains at a quick pace. "What can they have lost?" he exclaimed, pointing down the slope of a hill,

towards which we soon approached near enough to discover at least a score and a half well-dressed men, scattered up and down the valley and hill-side, evidently seeking for something with much earnestness." "If your honour will hold the reins, I'll go and inquire what they have lost," said Mallowney, briskly jumping off the car, burning with curiosity which I did not permit him to gratify, having a lively remembrance of the way in which he had behaved a few days ago. Passing a farm-house, I had seen a remarkably well-shaped cob standing in the bawn or yard in front of the house; the moment Mallowney heard me praise the horse, he said he was sure and certain the farmer would be very happy to sell it. Supposing such to be the fact, I permitted him to inquire the price of the horse.

Mallowney soon found the farmer, and seeing him in deep conversation with the man, I drove on quietly, as I had not the slightest intention of encumbering myself with an additional horse. A tremendous shout, followed by a tumultuous outcry, soon caused me to pull up, and looking back, I beheld Mallowney rushing after me at full speed, minus his hat, and blood upon his cheek, while the farmer and three men with sticks pursued him for a short distance, hooting like bedlamites. Mallowney soon jumped upon the car, and belaboured his hack into a gallop. It was some time before he informed me about his mishap-it seemed to me to be all his own fault. He had begun by asking the farmer sundry knowing questions about his horse-how old he was?--how long the farmer had been "his master ?" and ended by saying he had once a horse the very picture of the one in question, but that it had been stolen from him,

An

This roundabout way of ascertaining the horse's price roused the farmer's honest indignation. He told Mallowney the horse was born and reared upon his own ground, as every man in the parish could swear. altercation ensued-Mallowney raised his whip, the farmer's sons rushed to his help, and my charioteer narrowly escaped being well thrashed for his temerity; as it was, he received a thump in the face and lost his hat. But revenons à nos moutons.

"No, Mr. Mallowney," said I, mind your equipage while I offer my assistance to those gentlemen seekers."

No sooner had I entered the field than one of the aforesaid men assumed his perpendicular; he was a big-boned, awkward-looking gentleman, turned fifty, dressed in seedy black; he stood up, and waving one hand in the air in a very triumphant manner, raised a small tin tube or penny trumpet with the other, and inflating his cheeks, he blew a blast through the penny trumpet that might have been mistaken for the goatlike bleating of a jack-snipe, poised in mid air, over a wild heath on a hot summer's day. I had hardly recovered from the surprise into which the solemn trumpeter and his trumpet had thrown me, when all the rest came scampering towards the trumpeter, who still continued to sound the charge till the stragglers came in, and a gallant band of grave and some gaylooking men rallied round him.

"Brethren and fellow-labourers, friends and lovers," said the solemn trumpeter, looking round him, and then pointing to his feet, "I hasten to introduce a rare Hycoperdon to your notice-same time, another of the Lychen family-both belonging to the class

F

Cryptogamia, both worthy of our admiration and regard."

By this time the attention of the brethren was directed to myself, and observing this I would have retired, but the great trumpeter advanced towards me with extended hand.

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Stay, my good sir, if you are seeking for knowledge, and have followed the steps of the brethren hither, hoping to glean

"

I begged to interrupt the sapient trumpeter-assured him I had not followed himself or his disciples-my coming among them was purely accidental. "Much

"He admires botany, my friends!" exclaimed the trumpeter.

"Botany for ever!" exclaimed several voices.

I replied that I certainly had attended some botanical lectures; but after six lectures, finding the lecturer still harping upon the fibre of a leaf, I despaired of ever getting to the top of the tree, and had given up the pursuit, not being blessed with perseverance and patience.

"But if you attended our lectures," said a freshlooking, sanguine youth," and heard this learned pro-fessor, the doctor, who, simple as he stands here with a little tin trumpet in his hand, is-"

"Forbear! Peduncles," cried the doctor, repressing the zeal of his young disciple; "and if I am an herb of no common growth, I glory not in the sunshine of flattery-no, rather let my sensitive heart recoil, shrink, wither in the shade, than-"

Tootle tootle-too-too-to-to, bleated a trumpet in the corner of a field.

"Hello-hello! what hast thou found?" exclaimed the doctor, rushing towards the fresh trumpeter, while the brethren followed their leader across the fields as fast as they could scamper.

I brought up the rear, and began to enter into the spirit of the thing.

"One fool makes many,

But the old fool's worse than any,"

saith the proverb; not that I mean to say it is at all applicable to the learned doctor, who wiped the perspiration from his brow, as he mildly rebuked a longfaced wag called Sweet Scabious, for sounding the alarm over a mere leontodon, vulgarly called dandelion, or

I now discovered that every man was possessed of a tin trumpet, which it was his duty to sound whenever he discovered a rare plant, herb, or weed; and, moreover, each member of the society rejoiced in some botanical nom de guerre. I was introduced to Mr. Secretary Sinapis, Messrs. Fumaria, Marrubrium, Papaver, Boletus, Plantago, and all the rest of the worshipful company; who one and all insisted I should stay and partake of an humble repast which they purposed to enjoy al fresco upon the grass, beside a brawling stream; and the labours of the day being declared at an end, each man shouldered his herbal, slung his trumpet behind him, and hastened to the spot where sundry hampers, baskets, jars, and bottles were piled. Two carmen were busily employed arranging some plates, knives, forks, and tea-cups, upon a level bit of ground, close to the ravine through which the aforesaid streamlet babbled; and the contents of the hampers and baskets being turned out rather un