To woo and win the girl of your heart, give me a rich brogue and the least taste in life of blarney! There's nothing like it, believe me,--every inflection of your voice suggesting some tender pressure of her soft hand or taper waist, every cadence falling on her gentle heart like a sea-breeze on a burning coast, or a soft sirocco over a rose-tree.

And then, think, my boys,--and it is a fine thought after all,--what a glorious gift that is, out of the reach of kings to give or to take, what neither depends upon the act of Union nor the _Habeas Corpus_.

No! they may starve us, laugh at us, tax us, transport us.

They may take our mountains, our valleys, and our bogs; but, bad luck to them, they can't steal our 'blarney;' that's the privilege one and indivisible with our identity.

And while an Englishman raves of his liberty, a Scotchman of his oaten meal, blarney's _our_ birthright, and a prettier portion I'd never ask to leave behind me to my sons.