The same act is enriched with an awful picture of a fair country ravaged by the oppressor.

"DUMNORIX.

Our fields are desolate,

Loaded with mortgage, and hard usury,
For wine and oil they bear the loathsome weed-
Nightshades and darnels, docks and matted furze.
The plain is now a marsh, breathing blue steams,
That kill the flock; the blossom'd hill a heath;
The valley, and the vineyard, loneliness;
Where the rare traveller sees but mouldering graves,
And hears but brayings of the mountain deer,
That come, unscared, to wanton in the stream."

In the third act, Hamilcar's delineation of the gems, is well worthy of the Muse of Dryden; and so is Aspasia's definition of Love, which finishes with such force and fire:

Your halls shall be a pile of gorgeousness;

Tapestry of India; Tyrian canopies;
Heroic bronzes; pictures half divine,
Apelles' pencil; statues, that the Greek
Has wrought to living beauty; amethyst urns,
And onyx, essenced with the Persian rose;
Couches of mother-pearl, and tortoise shell ;
Chrystaline mirrors; tables, in which gems
Make the mosaic; cups of argentry,

Thick with immortal sculptures :-all that wealth
Has dazzling, rare, delicious,-or the sword
Of conquerors can master, shall be yours."

*

* *

*

Oh! I could give you fact and argument,

Brought from all earth-all life-all history ;

Light as the lark's upon the morning cloud,
Struck down, at once, by the keen shaft of Love;
Of hearts, that flow'd like founts of happiness,

Dried into dust by the wild flame of Love;

Of maiden beauty, wasting all away,

Like a departing vision into air,

Love filling her sweet eyes with midnight tears,
Till death upon its bosom pillow'd her;

Of noble natures sour'd; rich minds obscured;
High hopes turn'd blank; nay, of the kingly crown
Mouldering amid the embers of the throne ;-
And all by Love. We paint him as a child,—
When he should sit, a giant on his clouds,
The great disturbing spirit of the world!"

Even this is excelled by a view of rural life, in the fifth act; and equalled in many other parts of this transcendent production. But it is not exaggeration to affirm that Catiline, if thoroughly examined, would be esteemed, by good judges, the pride of modern British literature. It will be so hereafter; yet now-who talks of Croly's Catiline?

Another work by the same hand has always struck me as exhibiting most extraordinary powers; I mean the "Tales of the Great St. Bernard." But it may be said of the writer, as Johnson says of Goldsmith on his marble, that there is scarcely any kind of writing which he has not tried, and that whatever he has produced has come forth embellished by the brilliancy of his genius. Already known as the author of "Salathiel," and many other effusions in prose and verse, and with an established reputation as a poet, a scholar, and a critic, he has, in the "Tales," without the aid of versification, as has been admitted, increased not only his literary, but his poetical, renown, tenfold.

No one who recollects what the definition of true poetry is, can hesitate to assign a very high place indeed, among efforts in the glorious calling of the poet, to these Tales. They abound, especially in the serious portions, in glowing imagery, descriptions the most faithful and vivid, and an adaptation of language to its legitimate purpose, surpassing nearly everything either in prose or verse which these times can show. Extravagant as this assertion may appear to some, I feel convinced that, from the volumes alluded to, I could, without any trouble, save the toil of transcribing, bring forward a thousand instances in support of what I have advanced. But -where beauties are so numerous as, literally, to sparkle in every page, I shall content myself with the above general observations, and refer my reader for proofs to the books themselves.

PERSONAL SKETCHES OF HIS OWN TIMES. BY SIR JONAH BARRINGTON.*

This publication by Sir Jonah Barrington, in two volumes octavo, belongs to the class of autobiography, and is, on that account, entitled to some excuse. Besides, it contains various proofs of talent, much interesting political discussion, anecdotes of eccentric individuals, and many curious miniature likenesses of distinguished public characters. But-it also contains an incalculably greater quantity of downright

*London, 1827.

nonsense, absurdity, and vulgarity than could, perhaps, be found in any other work of its kind in any known language. It is, moreover, carelessly written, and as carelessly printed.

Page 22, vol. i. In making mention of a female relative of his family, his great aunt Elizabeth, Sir J. says, "She contrived besides, a species of defence that I have not seen mentioned in the Peccata Hibernia,' or any of the murderous annals of Ireland." This mistake in the spelling of the word pacata may be intentional: it is too gross to be the effect of ignorance, and strongly resembles the author's manner of being pleasant.

Page 50. "Attachment of the Irish country people to all whom they thought would protect or procure them justice."

A careless or even slovenly style affords no apology for a person, belonging, as Sir J. B. did, to a learned profession, who allows this common, but egregious grammatical blunder, to appear in his page. A well-taught boy of twelve years old would know that whom cannot govern the verb would. The words "they thought," being in a parenthesis, though not so marked, the sentence should have run—“ whom they thought likely to protect," &c.

Page 61. "Some of the most distinguished of my contemporary collegians." This is a perfect specimen of Sir J. B.'s general mode of composition. The gentlemen in question might have been his fellow collegians, or his contemporaries when at the

University, but his collegians they could not have been!

Page 79. Sir Jonah here commences a story which continues for several pages, intended as a humorous description of a drunken Irish revel among gentry visiting at his brother's hunting lodge; and the reader, who pleases, may consult the printed statement. It is a miserable performance, a mess of gross vulgarity, ungrammatical writing, blundering application of words, outrageous exaggeration of incidents scarcely laughable, and totally inadequate to the production of the merriment averred to have been provoked; falsehoods, and, which are still more nauseous-half-falsehoods; a sordid picture of sordid manners, resembling in no one feature the frolics of gentlemen of any nation in any age.

Page 105. "And bring back the book, and a dead man's bone." Here the adjective dead would appear to be rather superfluous: but the whole story in which the expression occurs is contemptible, and contemptibly related.

Page 137. "I had the pleasure of meeting her frequently at the Lady-Lieutenant's parties." There is no such functionary as a Lady-Lieutenant in Ireland, nor any where else. Who ever heard of the Governor and Governess of India !

Page 145. "My reader need not." This usage may be termed the universal error; yet, it is an error: reader is singular, and should govern the verb in the singular number, needs.