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FAMOUS SONGS
The Reverend Francis Sylvester Mahoney, the author of " Shandon Bells," was born in Cork, 1805, and died in a monastery in Paris (to which he had retired two years previously) in May, 1866. He took Holy Orders after studying in a Jesuit College at Paris; but eventu-ally he became a litterateur and journalist. He was a constant contributor to " Fraser's Maga-zine," "Bentley's Miscellany," the "Athenseum" and other papers. He later became corre-spondent at Rome for the " Daily News," and still later acted as Paris correspondent for the " Globe." Under his adopted name of Father Prout he achieved much celebrity by writing prose and Irish verse in "Fraser's Maga-zine." These writings have been collected and republished and have become classics. He was not of a very clerical nature—that is as far as his priestly calling goes—but was greatly loved and respected by all who knew him. He was Bohemian to the backbone, and as full of fun as an Irish Leprachaun—careless in his dress but careful of his witty company. He wrote his celebrated verses when he was a student at an Irish college in Rome. It is said that the opening lines are still to be seen in a room there, scratched on a wall just above where his bed used to be. He was doubtless a
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