The county being, after its fashion, grateful, the fellow townsmen of John Banim resolved to inanifest their belief in the fact that Kilkenny, the College, Windgap, and some other places existed, and that John Banim had done a little to make them stand before the world as something more than names in an atlas. Accordingly in the Kilkenny, and other Irish papers of December, 1852, the following announcement appeared : "BANIM TESTIMONIAL. At a Public Meeting of the friends and admirers of the genius of the late JOHN BANIM, held in the Tholsel, Kilkenny, on Wednesday, 15th December, 1852, the Mayor of Kilkenny in the Chair, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted : Proposed by the Rev. Dr. Browne, Kilkenny College, and seconded by J. M. Tidmarsh, Esq., T.C. 1. That it is the opinion of this Meeting, that a suitable Testimonial to the memory of the late JOHN BANIM, be erected in this, his native City.' Proposed by Robert Cane, Esq., M.D., and seconded by the Rev. James Graves 2. That the best mode of evincing our respect for the name of JOHN BANIM, would be, to erect (if the funds admit thereof), a Public Testimonial, which would be, at the same time, ornamental to the City, and prove of use and convenience to the Public at large.' COMMITTEE. The Most Noble the Marquis | John Potter, Mayor of Kil- هم Daniel Cullen, Ex-Mayor of Rev. Dr. Browne, Kilkenny Rev. James Graves, Kilkenny. City, Inch-House, Kilkenny. William Shee, Sergeant-at- Richard Smithwick, J.P., Z. Johnson, M.D., &c., Kil- James Tidmarsh, T.C., Kil- C. O'Callaghan, Kilkenny. John Lawson, Solicitor, Kil- Michael Shortall, Solicitor, J. Poe, Solicitor, Kilkenny. J. M'Creery, St. John's Place, James O'Neill, John-st., Kil- John Čampion, Patrick-st., Thomas Hewetson,T.C., Rose- Thomas Cody, T.C., Rose- Treasurer :-Daniel Cullen, Ex-Mayor of Kilkenny. Secretaries: John Thomas Campion, John's-bridge. John G. A. Prim, Editor of Kilkenny Moderator. Subscriptions will be received by the Treasurer, Secretaries, or by any of the gentlemen of the Committee." The Testimonial selected was a bust in marble, executed by Hogan, the resemblance being caught, for the most part, from Mulvany's picture, and in the year 1854 it was placed in the Tholsel of Kilkenny. This, reader, is the conclusion of the Biography of John Banim. Is there no moral to this life history? Is there nothing to follow the "Here Lies ?" Aye, lessons of labor, of patience, of love, of hope, of charity, of faith in God when hope was all but dead, of honor, of patriotism, and of firm, but smiling, endurance. But there is another lesson-a dead man of genius may have a bust erected to grace his memory in his native town, but he may not have a tombstone to cover his bones and to mark his grave, even though it can be procured for ten pounds. Before closing this paper we beg to direct the reader's attention to the subjoined appendix. We have printed it as we desire to show that Michael Banim is worthy some mark of the nation's appreciation of his genius, and of his very considerable share in the authorship of the Tales By The O'Hara Family. Michael is no longer a young, active man: he is now very different from that Barnes O'Hara for whom Cauth Flannigan and Peggy Nowlan selected the shirt which "was not a shirt entirely" he is a hard worked man, subsisting upon the small profits of his general shop, aided by the per centages of a cess collector; he has to rear a young family on such means as these, and considered it a triumph of financial ability when he was enabled, last summer, to send his eldest daughter, a young girl of astonishing ability and literary taste, to school to a convent in France. We ask for no present aid from the nation to Michael Banim, but we do ask that, at the death of John Banim's widow, now in weak health, the pension which she receives, shall be transferred to Michael Banim, should he then be living, or to his eldest surviving daughter if he be dead. This is not demanding much, but we have no doubt it will be granted, if the citizens of Kilkenny petition for it, through an old and an sincere friend and patron of John Banim's-His Excellency the Earl of Carlisle. See IRISH QUARterly Review, Vol. V., No. 17., p. 38, note. The gentleman who has favored us with the letter printed at p. 67, has supplied us with many valuable notes of Banim's every day life, which shall be inserted in the June. number of this REVIEW. These notes are of the very greatest interest, and cannot fail to prove acceptable to every admirer of John Banim's genius. THE IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. XXII.-JUNE, 1856. ART. I.-SLICK'S HIGH LIFE IN NEW YORK. High Life in New York. By Jonathan Slick, Esq., of Weathersfield, Conn. A Series of Letters to Mr. Zephariah Slick, Justice of the Peace, and Deacon of the Church, over to Weathersfield, in the State of Connecticut. York: Bunce and Brother, 1856. New THERE are two classes of readers from whom the work before us has but a small chance of welcome. Those, who, confiding in the strength of their mental digestion, prefer taking their "utile" unmixed, and who hold in utter contempt, minds weak enough to relish the addition of the "dulce," probably consider, that Judge Haliburton has retrograded sadly in giving to the world a series of mere humorous sketches. According to their views, he for the first time, "really promised something great" in his English in America,* and no doubt had his present work been of a similar cast, instead of being so lamentably mirthful, they might have been inclined to forgive and forget in the sober political historian, the trivial varieties of Sam Slick. But, fortunately for Judge Haliburton, and indeed it may be for society at large, the possessors of intellects so far exalted, are decidedly in the minority. The public appetite is in general pleased with variety, and evinces a repugnance to intellectual dyspepsia, which must be very discouraging to those lofty-minded beings, who, forgetful of the days when James's Powder was rendered grateful to their juvenile palates, by the addition of raspberry jam, deny the utility of humour, as a vehicle for wholesome truth. The opposition of the class of enemies to humorous writing, is founded on the • See IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. I. p. 523. VOL. VI.-NO. XXII. 7V |