sues us at every stage of our existence_commences in our childhood, and does not quit us even on our death-bed.

The writer, after entering at considerable length into the levity of a French funeral, thus concludes :-“ Live at Paris, if you please ; but you had better not die there.”-M. T. Muret.

FRENCH COD FISHERY.

The cod fishery employs annually 400 French ships, measuring together 50,000 tons, and manned by 11,000 sailors ; also 200 transports or coasting vessels, with 2,000 sailors; so that it maintains 600 ships, and 13,000 men. France possesses about 450 leagues of coast ; and there was a time when the French fishery on the banks of Newfoundland was sufficiently extensive to supply nearly the wants of all Europe, and for manning the whole of the French navy. But in consequence of the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, that of Vervins in 1783, and the cession of Canada, France was reduced to the confined right of fishing on the eastern and western coasts of the island of Newfoundland, without the power of establishing any dwelling-place or building upon it, except such huts and scaffolding as are absolutely necessary for drying and curing the fish. Under such circumstances, it is evident that France can never compete with the English fishermen, who have fixed residences on the island, or with those of America, who have the advantage of being close to their own shores. As shelters for her ships, she possesses only the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, presenting but bare rocks, which must constantly be supplied from without with every necessary, even firewood. The maintenance of the French fishery, therefore, depends upon the encouragement it receives from the government ; otherwise it would almost cease to exist, and a nursery for 13,000 sailors would be removed. In 1793 the French lists of able seamen contained 100,000 men. In 1815 the number was reduced to 83,000. In 1836 it increased to 90,511, and in 1840 to 98,706. This augmentation has been derived chiefly from the expansion of the cod fishery, which, in consequence of the encouragement it has received, increased from 30,584 tons, and 8,108 men in 1816, to 54,995 tons and 11,499 men in 1839. Besides the ships expressly fitted out for the fishery, there are between 60 and 80 other vessels employed in conveying cargoes of cod from the banks to the colonies. There are likewise a number of transports engaged in carrying between 50,000,000 and 60,000,000 lbs. of salt, and also pitch, flour, and other necessary provisions for 13,000 men during eight months of the year. This keeps annually employed about 50,000 tons of shipping. It may be said, therefore, without exaggeration, that the cod fisheries furnish France with 12,000 able seamen, being nearly one-fourth of the whole number required for her navy, but at the same . time insufficient to man her fleets in time of war. No other part of her sea-going trade could produce a similar result, as it would require 170,000 tons of colonial merchantmen to supply the 12,000 sailors furnished by the cod fishery. The loss of St. Domingo deprived France of the employment of 167,665 tons of shipping, and still her trade with that island engaged no more than 9,855 men.

THE FIRST LEAP.

INGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY J. F. KERRING, ESQ., Jux.

We are this month enabled to present our readers with a “maiden" engraving from the easel of Mr. Herring, jun., of Great Wilbraham, Cambridge ; a worthy son of a worthy sire. By way of illustration, we have for the nonce deserted the beaten prose track, and betaken ourselves to verse. Here it is :

The red-cock was "going it strong" with his crowing,

To bid the farm-lads " look alive ;"
From its ivy-clad tower, the screech-owl's pét bower,

The church-clock had just sounded " five :"
Then John Browdie and bride, lying snug side by side,

Were thus roused by a Billy Clodpole :
Oh Maister! I swear, t'ould President mare
Has just dropped a bonnie colt foal,"

John whipped on his things, and with seven-league springs

To the loose box right quickly hè crossed;
Then out came an " I say, my gallant young giay,

You're the image of old Lanercost :
I'll be bound you're a lump of good stuff, for a trump

Was thy sire ; and to love I've good reason
Thy dam, for in front of the Holderness Hunt

She has borne me full many å season."

That night o'er the fire he named him "The Friar,"

And ladled out punch from a bowl;
And swore his young crack, with “Dark Tom" on his back,

Should at Aintree fly first past the goal ;
Such air-castles were pleasant and bright for the present,

So he sat with his cronies and built on ;
And his “ 500 guinea" pet race from a spinney,

In the first flight, he viewed, steered by “ Wilton,"

Two years fled-on the bits and the monkey he fits,

And gives him a taste of the ring ;
While sportsmen this lingo used--- Browdie, by Jingo,

That seems an uncommon smart thing."
"I must keep him on chaff," quoth J. B. with a laugh,

“He's so smart' he won't wait for a mount ;
Yesterday after hounds, he jumped clean out of bounds,

To hunt on his own account.' We shall give the remainder of this sublime effüsion when Mr. Herring, in a future number, shows us the gallant grey after his “ Last Leap."

CHAP. I, Ireland is a marvellously queer country; and much as they might differ touching politics and other points, I never met with any person or persons, familiar with the manners and habits of the Emeralders, who did not bear a concurrent testimony to this fact. The fair sex-and so Daniel O'Connell often declared for weeks before the rent-day-are so particularly virtuous, that by comparison Dian and Lucrece (authoritate, the defunct Liberator) were to them no better than “hildings and harlots;" while the lords of the creation--meaning thereby " the lads of the sod"--are so remarkable for a nice respect to “ meum and tuum,” with that pleasing quality ascribed in their advertisements to waiters by the proprietors of boiled-beef shops, called "general civility,'' that Tom Moore relates a pleasant story in rhyme, of a young gentlewoman of admitted beauty, who made a pedestrian tour from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, with a gold ring upon a rod, and returned in all honour to the place she started from, her purity unassailed, and that less valuable portion of her property, namely, the metallic, unassailed by the most godless member of the swell mob.

The departed patriot used to bellow sessionally for “ Justice to Ireland !" and demand that she might be made « great, glorious, and free !” while the Sasenach oppressors in the lower house, instead of voting a fresh five millions, used to reply to this affecting appeal by laughter and “ Oh, oh !” Tom Steele went to his account in the same hereditary bondage that he was born. King O'Brien, merely for assuming his regal rights, is accommodated, as the Irish say figuratively, “ with lodgings in a stronger house than ever his father built ;" while a patriot, to whoni neither Bruce nor Wallace could hold a candle, for an ingenious plan of reforming state-abuses by the simple agency of swords and soda-water bottles, has been transmitted to Bermuda, and employed much against his will--as the Israelites were taught brick-making-to teize oakum in the dockyard of the oppressor.

When Irish patriotism remains unsung, can it be held surprising that her deeds of arms are unrecorded ? Then again the green isle-green we will call it, although Saxon tourists unblushingly assert that the bogs they passed over were brown as the dhudeeine* of the car-driver, and declare, further, that “the boy's" inch of clay had been on constant duty for a twelvemonth. Then again, we emphatically declare, that from England " the gem of the sea" has received the worst of usage; and instead of evincing kindness, like a sister as she calls herself, no bad stepmother could have behaved worse. If Peter Donovan clears a fair, and sends a couple of fractured collar-bones for reduction

* Anglicè = A cutty pipe.