"O not to see the stars of Heaven serene, O none of these can to my buried heart And gladness to my eyes,) ever impart We strenuously recommend this anonymous writer to follow the service of the Muses. In descriptive poetry, and in that poetry which delights among the calm and peaceful affections, he is by nature qualified to excelwhile, in translation he is, from the fineness and delicacy of his tact (provided he keep down his fantastic ingenuity) likely to surpass every competitor. Sacred Songs. By THOMAS MOORE, "CONTEMPLATIVE piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, cannot be poetical," &c. The essence of poetry is invention such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are few, these days, that because Sternhold and Hopkins, and Tate and Brady, were eminently pious and devotional versifiers, therefore all that is to be said in poetry, on the subject of devotion, had been said by them, we should all see the absurdity of such a declaration; and equally arbitrary and unjust, it appears to us, is the assertion we have quoted. The doctrines of religion may be few and simple; the analogies, the combinations, the reflections, which they suggest to the mind of cultivated man, are boundless as its powers of enjoyment. There are some individuals, it is true, who regard the imagination as so dangerous a foe to true religion, that they will not allow her how often men of taste appear among any place in their systems. Observing the opponents of religion, they seem literal enough to suppose, that the less the taste is cultivated, the more devo tional we shall become. Hence they draw the line closer and closer, separating what is beautiful from what is true, and discarding every flower which might have been bound round the majestic front of Truth, without any diminution of her dignity. It is perfectly true, that, in the reception of articles of belief, we should look to no records less variable than those of divine revelation. Let our first principles be as simple as possible. Let not the traditions of men, however pleasing to our own imaginations, be any thing more to us than subjects of interesting speculations Lets all that we know by nature of the Being that made us, bow down to that revealed delineation of his and, being few, universally known: tures rutes with which the Scrip but few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression."* So says Dr Johnson. It is happy for the world, that, in spite of the prognostics of literary prophets, there is something in the mind of man too buoyant to be borne down by any of those impossibilitat of cool unima been conjured by ginative critics. It is idle to tell us what cannot be done in the walks of point at which the or us. But grant that our faith is fixed by these unerring standards, and where is the harm of resorting to those affecting associations, of striking those strings within us, to which we have recourse when we wish to awaken inferior recollections? We must give religion all the advantage we can. In the world she will have enemies, and none more sturdy than would hail her as the sourder of the those who, if they knew her as she is, most noble conceptions. We will not sacrifice one iota of her simplicity for the sake of dressing her up for the acceptance of men of the world; but imaginatiets powe ist let her not be known to men of genius must stop. If any were to assert, 150 ANI." 2012573til 910AI as the foe of a hastened and pure imagination.wied sloeg in v fit. We regard the volume before us s something quite new in its kind. It may perhaps soften down some "stubborn prejudices." Here is a poet, a man of unquestioned genius, bringing in his first, and we trust sincere, offering at the shrine of devotion. Whether he has lost his fire, his tenderness, and his originality, in exchanging the subjects on which he exercised them for others of far transcending excellence, our readers must judge,-more, however, from a perusal of the collection of "Sacred Songs," than from the few specimens we can give. Contemplative piety," says Dr Johnson, " cannot be poetical." In opposition to this doctrine, we cannot forbear citing the following song: 1 66 "The bird let loose in Eastern skies, Ne'er stoops to Earth her wing, nor flies Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, 2 "So grant me, God, from every stain Of sinful passion free, Aloft, through virtue's purer air, To steer my course to Thee! No sin to cloud, no lure to stay My soul, as home she springs, Thy sunshine on her joyful way, Thy freedom on her wings !" There is a very beautiful and affecting tribute to the memory of a young girl in the author's neighbourhood, who was carried off, a few weeks after her marriage, by a fever. We should The carrier pigeon, it is well known, flies at an elevated pitch, in order to sur mount every obstacle between her and the place for which she is destined-MOORE. regret that it is not in our power to make room for it, but that it is idle to suppose our pages can give celebrity to compositions such as this. There are some exquisite stanzas also, beginning, "O thou who driest the mourner's tear," which will probably be the most popular in the collection, from their touching delineation of feelings, which we have all, or most of us, at one time or other, experienced. Our readers may recollect a passage in "The Antiquary," in which Edie Ochiltree comthe "flowers that smell sweetest by moonlight to the good deeds of men, that show fairest in adversity— in the darkness of sin, and the decay of tribulation." Somewhat similar is the idea in the following stanza: pares "That broken heart, Which, like the plants that throw Their fragrance from the wounded part, Breathes sweetness out of woe." We must conclude here, however. The temptation to transcribe is almost irresistible, but we must resist it; and we trust that the collection before us will be better known than we can make it by our extracts. The greatest defect of Mr Moore's style, and one which is least of all tolerable in devotional poetry, is too much studied ornament. His metaphors are generally correct, and always ingenious; but they sometimes want that natural freshness which flows from immediate inspiration, and they not unfrequently approach to absolute conceits. Like several others of our most distinguished living poets, he is also a good deal of a mannerist, and too much addicted to copy from himself. But these faults are less apparént in the present than in any of Mr Moore's minor publications; and we look forward with considerable interest to the progress and termination of a work which has been so well begun. manners, with which she is most thoroughly acquainted, and which she appears to exhibit in all their varieties, with perfect truth of colouring. To no writer, indeed, are the Irish so much indebted as to Miss Edgeworth, for representing their national character in its proper light. Their less judicious patrons have generally repelled, in a storm of indignation, the obloquy pointed against them; and, wishing to exhibit only the bright side of their character, have thrown before all their faults the cloud of national partiality, and thus magnified them, to the eye of prejudice, by the additional obscurity through which they were viewed. Miss Edgeworth, on the contrary, always appears to take it for granted that the prejudices against her countrymen arise entirely from their being imperfectly known; and without claiming to them any thing like perfection, seems, with an air of the most insinuating candour, to present their virtues and their vices alike undisguised. Ormond, the hero of this tale, had lost his mother in his infancy, while his father was in India. Sir Ulick O'Shane, Captain Ormond's early friend, had taken the child from the nurse to whose care it was left, and had brought up little Harry at Castle Hermitage with his own son, as his own son." He had been his darling, literally his spoiled child: nor had this fondness passed away with the prattling playful graces of the child's first years; it had grown with his growth." Sir Ulick, however, though naturally kind, had long been a political schemer. He had shifted with Every change of ministry, and engaged in successive plans for his own aggrandisement, till his necessities became as great as his ambition-a passion to which all his other feelings were kept in strict subordination. With all the accommodating versatility of a courtier, he possessed talents and accomplishments which, with more prudence and better principles, might have rendered him eminently respectable, and given him unlimited influence in the political management of the district in which his property lay. In his earlier years he had possessed, in a high degree, the art of insinuating himself into the delicate female heart; "And the fame of former conquests still operated in his favour, though he had long since passed his splendid meridian of gal lantry. To go no farther than his legiti mate loves, he had successively won three wives, who had each in their (her) turn been desperately enamoured. The first he loved, and married imprudently for love, at seventeen. The second he admired and married prudently for ambition at thirty. The third he hated, but married from necessity for money at forty-five. The first wife, Miss Annaly, after ten years' mar tyrdom of the heart, sunk, childlessvictim, it was said, to love and jealousy. The second wife, Lady Theodosia, struggled stoutly for power, backed by strong and high connexions; having moreover the ad vantage of being a mother, and mother of an only son and heir," &c. This son, named Marcus, had been from childhood the companion of Harry Ormond; but their tempers and dispositions were in every respect opposite. Ormond, though hasty and violent, was warm-hearted, frank, and unsuspecting. Marcus was selfish, designing, insolent, and vindictive. At the opening of the story, we are introduced to a party at Castle Her mitage, of which the principal personages were Lady Annaly and her daughter, relations of Sir Úlick's first wife, since whose death they had never till now visited the baronet, with whose treatment of their relative they had every reason to be displeased. Miss Annaly was a young lady of great beauty and accomplishments; and for these, and still weightier reasons, Sir Ulick was anxious to effect a union between her and his son. One day, during this reconciliation visit, Ormend and Mar cus had been engaged to celebrate the birth-day of Mr Cornelius O'Shame, who whimsically styled himself the King of the Black Islands-" next to Sir Ulick, the being upon earth to whom Harry Ormond thought himself most obliged, and to whom he felt himself most attached." While the party at Castle Hermitage were making preparations for dancing, and Sir Ulick was anxiously waiting for the return of his son to lead off with Miss Annaly, they were startled by a bloody figure tapping at the window, and peremptorily demanding the keys of the gate, which Lady O'Shane bad caused to be locked. Miss Annaly sat opposite the window at which this figure appeared. "For Heaven's sake what's the matter?" cried Sir Ulick, on seeing Miss Annaly grow suddenly as pale as death. They rose, and, accompanied by Lady O'Shane, and The E' her evil genius Miss Black, followed the direction which the apparition had taken. Several persons approached from a turn in the shrubbery, carrying some one on a hand-barrow. Ormond appeared from the midst of them, and in an agony of remorse exclaimed, "If he dies, I am a murderer." The young men having drank at Mr Cornelius O'Shane's more than was consistent with the sobriety of were returning from the Black Islands, and afraid of being late, were gallopping hard, when, at a narrow part of the road, they were stopped by some cars. Their impatience, and the tyrannical temper of Marcus, led to a scuffle, which un happily terminated in Ormond's pistol going off accidentally and lodging a ball in the breast of Moriarty Carroll, one of the drivers.l-tow sew alo After much opposition on the part of Lady O'Shane with whom Ormond had never been a favourite, the wounded iñan was allowed to remain for the night in the gardener's lodges Or mond never quitted his bedside; and his horror and anxiety during that terrible night are very naturally des cribed, driw noted ads bare won To his alarmed and inexperienced eyes the danger seemed even greater than it real ly was, and several times he thought his patient expiring when he was only faint from loss of blood. The moments when Ormond was occupied in assisting him were the least painful. It was when he had no thing left to do, when he had leisure to think, that he was most miserable; then the morse, gony of suspense, and the horror of reTod, were felt, till feeling was exhausted; and he would sit motionless and stupified till he was wakened again from this suspension of thought and sensation by some moan of the poor man, or some delirious startings. From this racking state of fear and self-condemnation he was somewhat relieved by the sympathy of the wounded man himself. Toward morning the wounded man Hay easier; and as Ormond was stooping over his bed to see whether he was asleep, Moriarty opened his eyes, and fixing them on Ormond, said, in broken sentences, but so as very distinctly to be heard. Don't he in such trouble about the bikes of me dovery well, you'll see and even suppose I wouldn't not a frind I have shall ever prosecute'll charge 'em not-so be asy for you're a good heart and the pistol went off unknownst to you I'm sure was no malice let that be your comfort Te might happen to any man, let alone geff VOL. I. tleman-Don't take on so-and think of young Mr Harry sitting up the night with me?-Oh! if you'd go now and settle your self yonder on the other bed, sir-I'd be a great dale asier, and I don't doubt but I'd get a taste of sleep myself while now, wid you standing over or forenent me, I can't close an eye for thinking of you, Mr Harry." Ormond immediately threw himself upon the other bed, that he might relieve Moriar ty from the sight of him. The good nature and generosity of this poor fellow increased Ormond's keen sense of remorse. As to sleeping, for him it was impossible; whenever his ideas began to fall into that sort of confusion which precedes sleep, suddenly he felt as if his heart was struck or twinged, and he started with the recollection that some dreadful thing had happened, and wa kened to the sense of guilt and all its horrors. Moriarty, now lying perfectly quiet and motionless, and Ormond not hearing that he had breathed his last. A cold trehim breathe, he was struck with the dread mor came over Ormond," &c. The agitation of Miss Annaly, on seeing Ormond in so frightful a situa tion the preceding evening, had alarme ed the suspicions of Sir Ulick, who determined to have Ormond sent from Castle Hermitage; while he so man aged as to appear willing to retain him at the hazard of even separating from Lady O'Shane, and thus to induce the generous youth to banish himself from the family to prevent such a catas trophe. In this exigeney, Ormond naturally turned his thoughts to Cor nelius O'Shane, who had always shewn him particular kindness, He wrote to him a statement of all that had happen ed, and received an invitation full of cor diality, mingled with some indignation at this sudden change in his cousin's behaviour. His reception is very characteristic of the primitive manners and single-hearted generosity of this eccentric monarch of the Black Islands. Welcome, Prince, my adopted son, welcome to Corny castle palace, I would have said, only for the constituted authorities of the post-office, that might take exceptions, and not be sending me my letters right. As I am neither bishop nor arch, I have, in their blind eyes or conceptions, no right-Lord help them!-to a temporal palace. Be that as it may, come you in with me, here into the big room and see there's the bed in the corner for your first object my boy your woundell schap And I'll visit this wound, and fix it and him the first thing for ye, the minute he comes up. His Ma jesty pointed to a bed in the corner of a large apartment, whose beautiful painted ceiling and cornice, and fine chimney-piece with earyatides of white marble, il accord 4 Ma ed with the heaps of oats and corn-the thrashing cloth and flail which lay on the floor. It is intended for a drawing-room, understand,' said King Corny, but, till it is finished, I use it for a granary or a barn, when it would not be a barrack-room or hospital, which last is most useful at pre sent.'" King Corny was practically what the wise man of the Stoics was theoretically," et sutor bonus-opifex solus, sic rex." "He had with his own hands made a violin and a rat-trap, and had made the best coat, and the best pair of shoes, and the best pair of boots, and the best hat; and had knit the best pair of stockings, and had made the best dunghill, in his dominions; and had made a quarter of a yard of fine lace, and had painted a panorama." In one respect, however, he differed essentially from the Stoics; against whose affected contempt of pain, we find him thus ingeniously reasoning, when tortured with the gout. "In the middle of the night our hero was wakened by a loud bellowing. It was only King Corny in a paroxysm of the gout. Pray now," said he to Harry, who stood beside his bed, now that I've a moment's ease, did you ever hear of the Stoics that the book-men talk of, and can you tell me what good any one of them ever got by making it a point to make no noise, when they'd be punished or racked with pains of body or mind? Why, I will tell you all they got all they got was, no pity; who would give them pity that did not require it? I could bleed to death in a bath as well as the best of them, if I chose it; or chew a bullet, if I set my teeth to it, with any man in a regiment-but where's the use? Nature knows best, and she says, roar! And he roared-for another twinge seized him," &c. Among other good effects which Ormond's remorse for wounding Moriarty had produced on his mind, it had induced him to form a resolution never to drink till he lost command of reason. This resolution had nearly brought him into disgrace with his royal patron, the second day after his arrival in the Black Islands; but their temporary misunderstanding only led them to know and love one another the more, and his Majesty bound himself by an oath never to insist on his drinking more than he chose. That the newly-created Prince might not be another Lackland, King Corny solemnly invested him in the possession of one of the prettiest farms in the Black Islands as his principality. Something was still wanting, however, to Prince Harry's happiness. He sometimes inquired from King Corny, with a certain degree of anxiety, whither his daughter Dora had gone, and when she was likely to return. She had gone to the continent of Ireland to her aunt's by the mother's side, Miss O'Faley, to get the advan tage of a dancing-master; but that Ormond might cherish no feelings towards her which might give him pain in future, Corny informed him, that in consequence of a foolish vow which he had made, over a punch-bowl, ten years before her birth, she was engaged to White Connal of Glynn. The portrait of Miss O'Faley is painted in so lively colours, and, if a little overwrought, is at least so amusing a caricature, that we should be strongly tempted to present it to our readers, did our limits permit. This strange composition of oddities, half French, half Irish, soon arrived, for the first time, at the palace of the Black Islands, with her charge Dora, who had improved, under her care, entirely to her satisfaction. Dora was exceedingly pretty, though not regularly handsome; smart, lively, and, as the beaux in the neighbourhood thought, remarkable elegant. In short, she was just the thing to be the belle and coquette of the Black Islands: the alternate scorn and fami liarity with which she treated her admirers, and the interest and curiosity she excited by sometimes taking de lightful pains to attract, and then ca priciously repelling, succeeded, as Miss O'Faley observed, admirably. Ormond, notwithstanding the friend ly caution of King Corny, and his own resolution to regard Dora as a married woman, was soon inspired with a feeling towards this fair princess, which, if not absolutely love, was at least a little incompatible with his re solution. Neither Miss O'Faley nor Dora was much inclined to the alli ance with White Connal, who, though rich, was selfish, mean, and vulgar. Ormond was a favourite of the aunt, and not disagreeable to the niece. Mademoiselle (as Miss O'Faley was generally called,) had formed a scheme for marrying Dora privately to Ormond, before White Connal should come to claim her. Still King Corny was true to his word.Connal appeared sooner than was expected, and in spite of all her French |
