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  BITS OF BLARNEY

  BY

  R. SHELTON MACKENZIE

  EDITOR OF "THE LIFE OF CURRAN," "SHEIL'S SKETCHES OF THE
  IRISH BAR," &c.

  [Illustration]

  REDFIELD

  No 34 BEEKMAN STREET

  NEW YORK.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
J. S. REDFIELD,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Southern District of New York.


  EDWARD O. JENKINS,
  PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER,
  26 Frankfort St., N. Y.




TO J. S. REDFIELD, ESQ.


MY DEAR SIR:--The deified heroes of the Norse mythology are believed to
spend their afternoons in drinking something stronger than lemonade out
of their enemies' skulls, and some ill-natured persons, seizing on the
idea, have declared that publishers use the skulls of their authors as
drinking-cups, in the same manner. For my own part, I discredit the
assertion--as far as my relations with yourself enable me to judge; I
suspect that the time has gone by when Napoleon's health was drank as "a
friend of literature," because he had shot a bookseller; and I give you
unlimited permission to use my skull, in the Norse fashion, provided
that you wait until "in death I shall calm recline," when I shall have
no further occasion for it. In