MR. WALTON IS UNEXPECTEDLY EDIFIED BY AN IRISH FARMER ON THE SUBJECT OF GRASS.-MARY AND THE MISS LLOYDS.-MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.

-LECTURE ON MESMERISM, WITH THE EFFECTS PRODUCED.

"COME in!" said Mr. Walton, as he sat alone one morning, and was disturbed from a meditation by a tap at the door. Nobody entered. "Come in!" repeated he, raising his voice. The tapping was repeated.

"Come in, I say!"

The door still remained closed. Nobody entered. Under the impression that he must have only fancied it, and that nobody had really tapped at the door, Mr. Walton was about to revert to his previous train of thought, when again there came a gentle tap or two at the door.

"Ahem!" coughed Mr. Walton to clear his throat. in!"-shouted he "confound you!"

"Come

The door opened a little way, and the head of a tall man, with short black hair, black eyes, and a face with Spanish features, but a mild expression of humility bordering upon grave humour, cautiously peeped into the room.

"Well, sir?" said Mr. Walton, after waiting a sufficient time, "why don't you come in?

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Maybe I was only waiting while yer honner tould me to do

* Continued from page 507, Vol. V.

that," replied the man in a deprecatory voice, with an Irish accent, and a musical, rising inflection.

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Well-I tell you now to do so. Do come in at once; don't stand peeping at me in that manner."

The man came in, apparently very much on his guard not to give offence, or commit any impropriety. He closed the door softly behind him.

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Now, sir," said Mr. Walton, "what do you want with me?

"I'm not after wanting anything of yer honner," said the man calmly, and smiling into the crown of his hat.

"What is your business then?"

"It's various," replied the man, advancing a pace or two. "But me own more spishal business is the sowing of grasses, and the general managemint of grass lands."

"How-what is this?" Mr. Walton thought he had not heard correctly. He also began to feel some trepidation.

"Och its done afthur various systums-and it's an illigant thing when it's well done."

Mr. Walton now felt convinced that this strange visitor must be some insane man; so he thought it best to humour him. "And how do you do it?" said he, forcing a smile.

"The sowing, or the tratemint?" inquired the man, mildly, but advancing a pace nearer, with brightening eyes.

Oh,

whichever you like-say, the sowing."

"I should give four or five bushels of mixed grass to the statute acre, with yer honner's lave; and if the loam was nately prepared I should select two measures of meadow foxtail, the same of meadow fescue, hard fescue, and of rough-stalked meadow-grass -though it's the divvel-and-all dear-and two of cock's-foot grass, likewise. Half a measure (here the man lifted up one finger at Mr. Walton, with a grave, warning air) "half a measure of tall yellow oat-grass; rather more-though Patrick Low says less of the meadow cat's-tail; and more still of rye-grass, and the crested dog's-tail."

"Excellent!" said Mr. Walton, turning pale and looking anxiously towards the door.

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Nevertheless, ye'll plaise to obsarve," pursued the man, shaking his head slowly, "that the dog's-tail is the most ixpinsive of all the grasses-barrin' the sheep's fescue. Och, whin the swate dew's upon the uplands, and sparkles upon the woolly coats

of a whole flock of sheep, I often think-but that's neither here nor there, jist now."

Mr. Walton drew a long breath, and then said, in his most amiable manner, though with rather an unsteady voice :

Pray, may I inquire if all these cats' and dogs' grasses can be bought in this street-down stairs, perhaps?"

"Then I

I do not know," said the man imperturbably. should give one-third of a measure of white clover, the very same of the pee-rennial red clover, and not quite so much-for all Curtis says, who I undertake to prove by raison is not always right when Misthur Sinclair and Dennis Kelly were wrong, if that ever happened-not quite so much of the swate vernal grass."

"Dennis Kelly is my particular friend!" exclaimed Mr. Walton, now becoming desperate. "Let us go and ask him how he does!

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Sure and he 's dead!" said the man solemnly. Mr. Walton sank back in his chair.

"He died of the fever, poor fellow," continued the man, fumbling about his dress, as if to find something. "His grandfather and mine were both Tipperary men, and so were our fathers and mothers, save and except me own mother, who was of County Clare, though I have lived these ten years on Dennis Kelly's farm in Wicklow."

In his fumbling the man here dropped a gardener's knife upon the floor. Mr. Walton, unable to bear it any longer, started up, and seizing the bell-rope, began to ring with all his might.

The door opened, and in hurried Mr. Short.

"What in the world?" began Mr. Short" Ah! are you Dennis Kelly, whom I was to see?

"No, yer honner, Dennis is dead; but I am come in his place, and I have got a letter of four sides from his inconsolable widow, all about the fish-when I can find it." And again the man fell to searching his breast, under his waistcoat.

A very absurd explanation ensued; during which it was at length elicited that the Irishman before them was one Cornelius Ryan, a very worthy and well-informed small farmer and grazier, related to Dennis Kelly; which Dennis was one of the tenants of the Irish peer whose estates were managed by Mr. Short, and he had been selected by that gentleman, on account of his shrewdness, to make a journey to the coasts of Clare, Galway, and Waterford, to collect some particular information concerning the Irish

fisheries, which Mr. Short wanted, for reasons of his own. On his way from Waterford, poor Dennis had fallen sick in Wicklow, at the house of Corny Ryan, and died there, having first written a long letter to Mr. Short, signed with his wife's name, to get her into favour, "poor soul," which Corny engaged to deliver in person, with all the explanations. He had arrived at Portsmouth-called on Mr. Short, who was out, but had left word that he should be at Mr. Walton's if anybody came-and having been delayed on the way, Mr. Ryan had arrived before him, and naturally enough, as he had never seen either of them, took Mr. Walton for Mr. Short. "But what could possess you," demanded Mr. Walton, with some warmth, "to tell me all about your fox-and-sheep's-tail grass, and dog's and cat's grass-growing stuff? You never said a syllable about fish!"

"Yer honner asked me what my business was," replied the tall descendant of the Tipperary O'Ryans, with a smile, "and how I did it."

“and to take me for you, These blunders are

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Mr. Walton; Short, at a venture,- -as a thing of course! invariable with such messengers.

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Och, nivver mind it, sir," said Ryan, in a good-humoured soothing tone; 'sure and you couldn't help it!"

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"The devil take your grass!" shouted Mr. Walton, reddening. "All flesh is made of it, anyhow," drily observed the farmer. Mr. Walton threw himself back upon the sofa with a provoked air, and Mr. Short, having glanced over the long letter with a countenance full of impatience and pleasing anxiety, led Mr. Corny Ryan out of the room, and they both hurried down stairs. Something fresh in the wind," murmured Mr. Walton; "confound them both! they have spoiled me for the whole morning. I wish Mary would come in.

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Mary had been out since nine o'clock with Mrs. Bainton, and young Bainton, who was a midshipman, on a visit to the Dock Yard. They had made an attempt to see Harding, but without effect, as he was at work in the interior of the "Royal Frederick,' and the young midshipman did not know where to find him. After this, they went across to Gosport to see the bakery.

Besides the gratification of examining all the "works and wonders" of the place, Mary was influenced in these excursions by a feeling of restlessness, from which she had never been free since the conversation with Archer, when they agreed to the post