66 Fair Gunhild!" faintly sighs a voice, "Thou seek'st thine own betrothed love; But his home is not on the stranger's land— No-nor on earth above. "Tis deep beneath the dark cold sea- Yet he all lonely there must dwell "Right well, right well thy voice I know, "No, Gunhild, no-thou art so young, "The faith that thou to me didst swear, "The faith I vowed I still will hold, There is not room for two?" "Room in the sea might many find, But all below is cheerless gloom; When the sun's rays are beaming bright We sleep as in the tomb. "'Tis only at the midnight hour When the pale moon shines out, Let the sun brightly beam above "Then hasten-hasten-reach thy hand, 66 And we will oft at midnight's hour Upon the lonely wreck arise, And gaze upon the pale soft moon Then reached the dead his icy hand- The dawn of rosy morn is near, Upon the wreck the maiden springs; The crew of her bark, awaking, see And the wreck has vanished now! WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE LATE ECLIPSE. ECLIPSES have ceased to be portentous. The world no longer makes the sun, the moon, and the stars" guilty of our disasters." It is generally admitted that we are not "villains by necessity," nor "fools by heavenly compulsion," and that a man may be a knave or a thief without laying the blame on "spherical predominance." Eclipses, considered as omens, have had their day, and, such is the progress of scientific knowledge, that even the South Sea islander examines them through bits of smoked glass, and coolly pronounces them to be humbugs. It was time, perhaps, for Tahiti to know something about the stars when Prince Liliholo came to London, and, through glasses differently prepared, passed the same opinion upon the muslin skirts of the Opera dancers. The planets, then, are not in fault when-as in the best-regulated families-accidents occur; they do not now From yonder visible sky, to warn us of approaching evil, and teach us how to guard agaist it. When the British and other enlightened publics relieved them from one part of their responsibility they very gladly got rid of the other, reserving to themselves their natural functions only of supplying us with light and heat. This doctrine of astral responsibility, which disappeared soon after the invention of telescopes, would have been a very convenient one for Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet, a distinguished member of the Lower House-distinguished, we mean, for his unswerving silence, no slight merit in these days,-if by means of it he could only have extricated himself from the scrape which he unfortunately got into on Monday last. It is perfectly true that planetary influence had something to do with the misadventure which befel him, and that he cursed his stars with as much energy as if his destiny and theirs had really anything in common; but we feel bound in honour to say that the moral blame, whatever it was, lay wholly and solely at the door of Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet, and not at that of the house where the sun was spending the day-the same being known to the public by the sign of "The Crab." To make the matter we speak of perfectly clear, it is necessary we should say a few preliminary words concerning the hero of the story. Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet is the sitting member for Bally-na-mull-it, one of the numerous Irish constituencies in which there are, now, neither ten-pound householders nor forty-shilling freeholders, and where the question of "tenant-right" is no question at all, simply because there are no tenants in the place to ask for legislation on the subject. The "Repeal of the Union," moreover, is not urged upon the honourable member for this reason, that the only Union with which the Bally-namull-it constituency is acquainted, is the Workhouse Union, and if that were repealed or done away with the inmates would have no other place to live or die in. It, therefore, appears that Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet is quite unfettered as to the "loin of conduct" which he deems it necessary to "purshue;" and, being a wise man-after his fashion-and not overburdened with fortune, he invariably votes with government, in the expectation that "some toight little thing" will drop in,—such as a Me diterranean government, a first-rate consulate, or a second-rate diplomatic mission, for all or either of which he thinks himself perfectly qualified. This species of hallucination is, by-the-by, not at all singular, and we have upon the list of our acquaintances at least twenty promising young men of thirty, forty, fifty and thereabouts, who are always looking out for a letter from Lord Palmerston, informing them that he has "thought it his duty" to recommend them to the Queen to fill the office of her Majesty's consul at any desirable place outside the tropics that may chance to suit the wishes of the expectant. The domestic position of Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet is this: Mrs. O'Gannet, the lawful wife of his bosom, is-or, to the best of his knowledge, was-left behind at Bally-na-mull-it Castle-it's a castle, he owns, as every man does, according to law, who has a house over his head, particularly in Ireland-and Bally-na-mull-it Castle has a door in front, a door behind, two rooms on a floor, a window in each room, stands two stories high, has a white-washed front, a blue slate roof, and a "big-sized" garret, that holds as fine a family of seven boys and three children as ever peeled a potato or went tearing after fox-hounds on foot, if they had no ponies to ride on- -which the young O'Gannets haven'tmore luck to 'em, as their papa says, when he mentally sums up the general condition of the family in the sentence we are now writing. For " reasons of his own"-which are the reasons of a great many more-Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet prefers an "apartment" in Birminghambuildings, Westminster, to a lodging still further west; and though he dines occasionally-always, when some one invites him—at "the Reform,” of which he is a member, he very much prefers "spreading himself out in sosoiety," as he graphically remarks, when he has occasion to put on the Kildare-street club coat, 66 green and gould buttons," which "bequaithed" to him by his father, with the great estate that slipped through his sire's fingers before his grandsire was born. The cut of this coat is somewhat antique, as may readily be supposed, but Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet buttons it tight across his chest, and says "it does," which, as he always wears it on great occasions, we are willing to take his word for. With respect to his personal appearance, Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet stands six feet high in his stockings, has a power of bone and muscle about him, is "aqual to any amount of timber" when in front of a creditor, has a good deal of yellow hair on his head, an esculent nose, a hand like a shoulder of mutton, feet to match, and a pair of bright, gravel-coloured whiskers, that curl round under his cheek-bones as stiff and impenetrable as a quickset hedge; like the generality of the Gannet tribe the naked skin of his face is of a purplish hue. Some ladies may not admire this style of man, but Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet has never been able to bring himself to think so; on the contrary, he keeps himself down, he says, as much as he can, that the susceptibility of the fair sex may not be "too hoighly exsoited." In spite, however, of his endeavours, he is not always successful, as the circumstances which we are about to narrate will clearly show. Amongst the places where Mr. O'Gannet is répandu, the house which he most affects is one in Folkestone-street, Piccadilly. It is, “to a certain extent," a private establishment; that is to say, you must knock at the street-door for admission; but as the inmates, who muster from twelve to twenty in number according to the fluctuations of the season, all live together, the privacy is not very great. Indeed, a public hotel, where you are not obliged to label your own decanter, put your dinner-napkin when you have done with it into a slide, or be "affable" to every disagreeable person you meet with, is much quieter as well as pleasanter than the most "superior board"-as the other thing is called-that can be met with in London, Brighton, Paris, or any place we happen to know of. Mr. O'Gannet, however, thought differently. He preferred the establishment in Folkestone-street to the Clarendon itself, because, as he said, quoting his friend Mrs. Trusswell's advertisement, "the social arrangements" were "replete with comfort," and "a permanent home” was "at once secured;" which last-mentioned advantage was not very probable at the hotel just mentioned without a larger balance at his banker's than Mr. O'Gannet rejoiced in. Not that he made Mrs. Trusswell's boarding-house his permanent home; honour and Mrs. O'Gannet forbade that. "His home," as the poet says, the poet says, "was at Bally-na-mull-it ; There were his young barbarians all at play," Mr. O'Gannet not finding it convenient to send them to school. But he went to Folkestone-street as often as he could; and it happened now and then, when the female attraction there was particularly strong, that he very quietly ignored the existence of Mrs. O'Gannet altogether. It is very sad to think that a man can be in spirits when away from the placens uxor; but perhaps Mrs. O'Gannet did not possess the art of making things pleasant in "the castle;" or it may be-which is quite as probable that Cornelius had a spice of inconstancy in his composition. There is also another solution to the problem, though it wouldn't do entirely to depend upon it, that Mr. O'Gannet imagined he beheld his wife in every pretty woman he saw-a complimentary view of the case which was not very likely to be adopted by his legitimate helpmate. Let the theory be as it may, Mr. O'Gannet's practice was in conformity with all the reasons we have assigned. "It was in him," he said, "and would come out of him"-he meant love-making-" and if Mrs. O'Gannet didn't like it,-ah, there was a time when she did, when she was Miss Bridget O'Daisy-if she didn't like it"-this was always said with a good five hundred miles between them, and generally after dinner -"why Mrs. O'Gannet might." We are afraid that there is no recording angel in this case to drop a tear on the words and blot them out for ever, so we leave the sentence unfinished. Mr. O'Gannet is one of those gentlemen-scarcer now than they used to be who hold it no solecism to be "All for love and a little for the bottle,”—the "little," last mentioned, going a good way. His friends in Folkestone-street are numerous and hospitable, but his particular friend, Colonel Flinders, has some very particular Madeira, which renders that gallant officer's hospitality more agreeable to Mr. O'Gannet than the hospitality of any other boarder at Mrs. Trusswell's establishment. It was "to try" some of this wine that, on Sunday last, at six o'clock, Mr. O'Gannet put on the Kildare-street club coat, with the gold buttons, and walked-he didn't scorn to walk, as some do-to Folkestone-strest, to dine with the colonel. The party was rather large-increased possibly by a knowledge of the fact that Colonel Flinders who is too generous to live in a boardinghouse-had the day before sent in a "hanch," as he called it, of venison, from everybody's friend Groves, of Charing-cross-a sure indication of its being a fine one. Though the ornithological branch of the O'Gannet family feeds exclusively on fish, that restricted diet forms no part of the gastronomical code or creed of the honourable member for Bally-na-mull-it. "It's well enough for them that live in the Skelig Isles," he has been heard to say "it's well enough for them to ate fish that can get nothing else-craw-thumpers most likely they are-but the man that dines out in London is a booby not to fill his craw with the best of everything he can stick his fork into." Good philosophy this, though savouring something of epicurean doctrine, but Cornelius O'Gannet was no disciple of the Portico, and didn't care who knew it; the only portico that concerned him was the one in front of the street-door, and he never stayed there longer than was necessary to give his boots a dusting. Being a member of parliament and the friend of Colonel Flinders, Mr. O'Gannet was looked upon as a great gun in Folkestone-street, and he kept up his dignity by talking about "the house," and "ministhers," with the air of a man who fancied himself indispensable to both. This was in a general way, but of course he unbent to the ladies. Indispensable he might also be to them, but he affected to deny that he thought so. They would have him," he mincingly said; "they urged the appropriation act, and it wasn't him that would hinder 'em from carrying it." The attractions of the present season had been of service to the Folkestone-street boarding-house, if other houses in the neighbourhood had suffered. Mrs. Trusswell declared, with matronly satisfaction, that she hadn't room for another "inmate," and any one who had seen the holes and corners into which many of the boarders were thrust, "just to accommodate for a day or two"-which meant, as long as they would stand it -would have been the last to dispute her assertion. Amongst the most recent arrivals-indeed the very latest-was a Yorkshire lady of the name of Silverthorpe, who, armed with a special recommendation-which was quite unnecessary, as she brought a lady's maid and footman with her— had been installed in the best bedroom and dressing-room; though, to provide her with the latter accommodation, it had been found necessary to request two Scotch gentlemen who occupied the apartment to "put up" for the usual "day or two" with a couple of stretchers and a washhand stand in a small closet "contiguous to the basement"-in other words, looking into the back yard-where, in the empty season, the boots and shoes, and the knives and forks of the establishment, furnished the "page" with his morning's occupation. Mrs. Silverthorpe was a widow, and rich; and, in addition to these advantages, was handsome and under thirty. She had fine teeth, dark eyes and hair, a high colour, and was sufficiently embonpoint to fill out her polka without a wrinkle. Her disposition, moreover, was extremely lively, her manners avenantes—which some of her female friends translated "forward," though we don't agree with them-and her temper not to be ruffled. To see so nice a creature was at once to admire her; and it is no wonder that Mr. Cornelius O'Gannet, who had a "tinder" heart-the word did double duty in his vocabulary-should have been smitten with the charms of the pretty widow. He enjoyed the privilege of sitting next her at dinner, and, though he by no means neglected the creature comforts around him-it wasn't in him to do that-paid her such decided |