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Dollaraper annum} 1
VOL. XIX.
nat ae " Go THE HARP.
How long wilt thou slumber, sweet harp of our dear isle,
. Neglected and sad as the silent, cold grave?
- [by chords all slumber, nor cheer’d by a lov'd smile,
‘ ‘T'o waken thy tones o’er the land of the brave.
" Gone, gone are the days when thy melody sounded,
By the eummer-breeze borne o'er our dear native plains ;
“°* Or when touch'd by the bard, and by beauty surrounded,
Made happy young hearis by thy owa sweetest strains.
And gone are the days when thy music was blended
': With the songs of the miastrel or voice of the fair ;
Or the bard sung aloud, when the festive scene ended
><* The deeds of the heroes who once flouris’d there.
And goue are the brave hearts who fought with devotion—
. Who bled io defence of their country and thee,
» And who clung to thee still ’mid each stormy commotion,
To shield thee from insult, and make themselves free.
’
_sBut the daye are not gone when, my country to waken,
‘Thou’lt breathe thy sweet voice o'er each valley again ;
Bat thy tones shall re-ecto o'er mountain and glen.
if For the clouds that obscured thee are quickly dispelling—
, | The sun again bursts forth to shine on thee long,
«And cheer thee, with lustre the beauties revealing
Of the land of our fathers—the country of song !
a
' ‘THE DEVIL MAY OARE,
Aia—" That old head of Denis.”
Musba, “ Queen of the Sea,” isit trae what they say
‘ ‘All about the grand “ speecbing” you bad other day
‘About Ireland, and Dan, and Repeal? I declare <”
1 thiok you were bullied; but devil may care,
They shao't bully Paddy—so devil may care. ':
ve 4
Lheard, when a boy, you were geatle and troee—
That you lov'd poor old Ireland and Irishmen too—
i ‘That your beart was as just as your form was fair, ;.
And I wished you were here: but the devil may care,
I've got my own darling—so devil may care. by
‘And you've got young Albert, and long may you reign, _ |
And Tightsome and orightsome, and strung be the chain.
Ther binds you together io love, now so rare ;
Te be found at * Head Quarters ;" but devil may care, _
. That's a case for the lawyer’s—so devil may care.
hee ne
Le
But Paddy a * case” of his own has just now,
So off goes my “ caubeen,” and here's my best bow;
++ My helly is empty. my back is all bare, |”
» J'm bungry and naked ;.but devil may care, |
* \ Gond times are approaching—so devilmay care.
* A cushla mackree,”.we are wounded and sore,
y) .' So bad that we cannot endure it much more; yr.)
A cure we must have, though the Saxons may stare
“and “curse like a trooper ;” but, devil may care,
ie Slain fane,”* is our watchword—so devil may care.
rho ‘Through many a century of darkness and gloom eal
| |) We writhed in out sorrow and wept at our doom ; 1
: «We begged and implored, bnt they laughed at our prayer—
> © whe auewer they gave us wae—‘ devil may care, "
+ You're mere frieh” rebela—so devil may care,
yt, no longer like cowards, we'll kneel tothe foe--
: eo ‘words they will butter no parsoips” we know; ‘
Sl. Que nicuTs the must give *on the pail”—a child's abare’
¢°% Weclvim and must get.: By St. Patrice, we owear,
Sug 0 AVe wout be put off with a "devil may care.”
4
'
. . ba 8) : .
thea rouse you, Victoria, and give us our own, *
4 . se sent ition of “aliens” shall stand round your throne ;
4 > And. och} with aueb arms encircled who dare, . t
23." Piuck the red rose of Brivoin 7 .** The devil may care” — ~
She mey cry, come all Europe—"The devil may care. k
——
‘Shin fane'—Ourselves-—or “ Ourselves alone
.. NATIONAL GALLERY,
ae The Late John Ranim. }
(From the Nation.]
pyre eet
.. of xempere t
exceptions to this, a)
i i tigay boty then, We know that the mous ofe reer de eluale who triumph of great but unguarded minds shall continue to excite
pet the tre tear brifliant to excess, but un-| the envy of little ones, ¢o it will be to'the end of time.’ '
twa’ i Indeed there is not h :
ce in the public mind must pay for his fame, but
oduce 8 lamnenrabie catego He snes fatal “penalty. The public look pon bien ag their
‘bin the last thirty or forty years, | property, and conscious dulness thinks itself justified not only
even wi ody, Maturin, Milliken, | ia making bim the common topic of ite conversation, but make
° ifn, and, | bim minister to an ineatiable ‘spirit of Prarient curic
pheay® ar
=. genius show ust
foe possessed
: fortunately, 28 fe
soiry but ea
: come wader this deadly calegory-?
~ merate, alas, 100 maby.
irate yen en Mag
Callanan, , Furlong, , es Magion.
transient as it was brilliant.
2010
» Thou shalt soon be re-strung—thou shait not be forsaken— *
D.O'H.
‘c+ | the severest effects of its worst and most abandoned principles
: vie’ tielancholy but indisputable truth. that, taken asa ite superiority over the insolence of wealth and rank—is it to be
eat wea of literary greatness are seldom gified with thai kind
o elass, hich eosuree lung life, ». Of course, there are , i ines @ inept t
meat. whi there are to every other general proposi- which that moment of mingled weakness and inspiration, has
3
sg Ye LES
NS 4
<S it
SV NSS
SS er
fp
OISY
DAW
SS
Eruth ts powerful and well prevatl.
NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28,1843.
were early called, and none of whom had more than passed the
meridia of life. ‘Then bas not/Scotland ber Fergusson, and
ber Burns, and England ber-Bloomfield, Chatterton, Kirk
White, vahappy Keats, and Byron, with many others,’ whom
we might add to this melascuoly register? Sta
To those who ask why such a short’ and fretfal span of exis-
tence was allotted to these en, we reply that it does not require
much philosophy to solve the difficulty, if it be one. “The mind
ofa man of genius is too frequently of sucha character as to
unfit him for the general busicess and purposes of ordinary life.
Its frame, being more refined and delicate, is also much more
minds cast in a coarser and atronger mould.. Whilst it looks
with the eye of intuition into the bidden springs that regulate
human action, and its effects upon society, it grows gradually
aod unconsciously so absorbed upon-these contemplations as (o
become, for the most part, incapable of regulating its own mo-
tions, or guarding its own position in the world; and hence the
-| striking simplicity of character aod absence of ordinary prudence
for which its possessor’ is it general remarkable. .This is one
great disadvantage of high intellect; but there are a thousand
oibers which all operate against it io the struggles. © The truth
’ |is, that the chief reason why mea of genius differ from other
men is, that whilst the general mass of mankind act from fixed
motives or settled principles, whetber good or bad, and conse-
< | quently calculate the results of their actions, it happens unforty-
nately for the man of genius, that be seldom acts from any fixed
principle at all. ¢EHis actions are essentially impulsive, and aa
his miod is always warm and earneat in ita emotions, whether
of good or evil, the consequences are, that everything he does is
marked by ao ardour or ceglect that amounts to eccentricity
which, although it often injures himself, is, after all, nothing
more thao the natural result of a temperament too highly wrought
for. the cold-blooded habits of the world. : From men of this
stamp it ia useless—nay, scarcely just—to expect the same uni-
formity and consistency of action which we would from those
»| who are guided by cool reason and a strong perception of tbeir
own selfish interests. ‘Oh, if there be one curse in life worse,
and more to be deprecated than another, itis to be gifted with
quick, generous, and sensitive feelings, and doomed to live and
act with mankiod through their medium. ‘It is this unequal
confiict between a life of sensations and impulses on the one
side,’ and cool reflective purpose on the other, that occasions
|| such a waste of the vis vile on the part of the manof genius, and
which by the irritability and consequent exhaustion it produces,
in a thousand slights and reseotments—in wounded pride, peg-
lect, poverty, unjust censure, consciousness: of its own worth,
perhaps of its failinge—it is this, we say, or all these causes put
together—that senda. so many finely touched spirits—alas, too
finely touched—to an early, but not a forgottea grave. :
And yet these mea who have eo strong a claim, not only upon
the forbearance but the gratitude of the world, instead of receiv-
ing either the one or the other at its hands, usually experience
from its worst and most abandoned men. For who else could
be cowardly and heartless enough-to heap wantoa injury upoa
those whose gift, whilst it confers only delight and benefit to
others, is a fatal one to themselves, and, through its efforts 10
give pleasure, brings home to their own bosom little else than
misery aod suffering from a hundred sources. We fear, how-
ever, tbat the world will never be taugbt either charity or jus-
tice, or gratitude, upon the subject of this its inhuman outrage
_| against the sacred claims which genius and intellect have upon
it, and that so long ae these rare gifts appear in it, they will con-
tinue as they have been, with but. few exceptions, to be treated
with that injustice and neglect and injury which those who pos-
sess them seem born to as their only inheritance: °°” :
' But, perhaps, amongst all that the cbild of impulse and genius
is doomed to suffer, there is nothing so bitter to bis beart, or that
falls with such a disastrous blight upon bis spirit, as the illiberal
privilege which society assumes under all ils phases of treating
him, his actions, and bis motives, wilb more malignant severity
“than it deals tocommon men.. His temptations are indeed very
reat. His society is courted, and be is importuned to mingle
is scenes which often ‘relieve, and for a moment give glimpses
of hope and happiness to a beart that is perhaps at the moment
breaking. “Naturally social as such men are,*is it much to be
wondered at,’ that—forgetting, or io striving to, forget, the bar-
rowing scenes of their domestic poverty and distress, the current
:}of the soul loosened and set a-going, the imagination lit, the
depths of humour stirred, and the electric chain of wit touched—
oh! is it to be wondered at that when the pride’ and conscious-
ness of intellect is added to this—its capricious play with dul-
ness—its disdain of the mean and base, and the fierce delight of
wondered at that ‘the. pitiful sense of their inferiority should
prompt wealth and rank afrerwards to the treacherous revenge
pot into their hands? And yet thus it is, and as long a6 the
{-Thie, however, is a penalty which every man of genius who
easily injured by eitber calamity or enjoyment than are those of | Dermody, and F
$ Office, No. 70 Bayard
t) Street, in therear,
No. 43.
though last not least, the highly-gifted Jobo Banim, all of whom, furnishes him with such a theory and system of life as it pleases,
+ and perhaps as he never thought of. «. His failiogs—for where ie
; there a man of genius without them ?—are exaggerated—his
! principles misrepresenied—his slightest act canvassed and con-,
d d-=bi are made 1 d ‘bis very
poverty, perhaps, coostructed ioto a charge against him. “If he
| is generous or-unskilful in the management of money, then hé
must necessarily be profligate in its expenditure—if- of social |
babits, be is, of course, a drunkard—if poor and unable to meet
his engagements, dishonest—if——but it is vonecessary to pro-
ceed farther upon so sickening a subject. When a man broods
over these things, and thinks upon the fate of Burns, Chatterton,
urlong, be will not, nor need he feel surprised
that vbe light of so mavy great and brilliant spirits has been one
after anvther so soon and so prematurely extinguished in bitter-
ness and death, in desertion and the'grave. Peace be with
them! that peace which the world never gave them, and which
it cannot. now take away! #
é ihe many great names which the literature of Ireland
has produced within the last half century, there. is none of bis
particular class that can take rank above that of Jobn Banim.--+
On considering the period in. which be wrote, too, we. cannot
but be struck at the admirable adaptation of his genius to the
political exigencies of the. peculiar times in which its greatest
power was manifested, and we may add, when it was most reé
quired at the hands of both him and bis country. If it be true,
as we believe it is, that great spirite are produced by great occa-
sions, we probably will not err in asserting tbat Ireland owes the
exhibition of Bacim’s geoius, together with the wide spread sym-
pathy which it created for her, to the mighty struggle for relig-
ious freedom in which she was theo engaged. ‘There glows
through his writings a burning love of his religion and his coud-
try, which, were they advocated with a feeble pen. much less ©
with one so powerful as his, would produce great results from
the conviction of stern truth and indignant siacerity which cha-*
racterizes them. t is this forcible 'chatacter of earnestness
by which he is distinguished fronf most, if not from all, other *
writers of his time and country. ‘To the idle relaxations of lit-
erature he could not, because he wished not to stoop. He seem-
ed to think of nothing but his. country, and to feel with some-~
thing approaching to indignation that she and her people bad
been tong misgoverned and maligned. Hie geniue, io fact, was
high, and fierce, and haugbty; yet with such admirable and
maoly tact was it regulated, that.in scarcely a single instance
throughout bis works does he suffer it to pass the bounds of po-'
litieal or religious defence; on the contrary, associated with bis
boldest and most uncomprising reclamations there is the coolness
and courtesy of a man who feels that truth is never properly as-',
sisted by violence, and tbat the dignity of viadication is only de-
graded by the unbecoming display. of intemperance and resent-
ment. This naturally gave great effect to bis writings, inasmuch
as whilst be asseried his own principles with earnestness and
vigor, he needlessly alarmed no strong prejudice opposed to
them. * The consequence was, that the man and his arguments
both were respected, and bis works which was therefore Jooked .
to as truthful, won confidence from others because it was evident!
that he felt calmly and reeolutely conscious of bis own honesty,’
This, in a man 80 young es Bavim then was, wust be pronoun-.
ced ag a proof singular skill and judgment on his part, especially «
when we reflect inat his works were published in that country |
table relaxation from religious thraldom.” .* byes gage
| Banim’s works, published and read in England as they were,
unquestionably produced a powerful influence over the British
mind. » Strong, full of fire—dark, we grant, but mouldering aad’,
repressed, like the genius of his indignant country—replete with :
powerful aod striking imagery both moral and physical—some- i
times curbing with difficultythe headlong impulses engendered,
by oppression, and again passing from the vebemence of the an-”
guished and agitated beart to the exhibition of its mournful and -
most pathetic emotions—it surely cannot be surpriging that a
spirit so powerful as this, 80 new to British feeling, so varied, 80 °
comprehensive in its grasp, stern, firm, uncompromising, putting |
itself forward asthe opponent of our Irish tem perament—equally
indicative of ite teuderness aad its strength ite generosity and ite '
resolution—surely it cannot be doubted for a moment that: the '
hand of John Banim—long palsied by calamity before death |
but now for ever palsied in tbe grave—prompted asit was by bis 1
noble head and Irish heart, did as much to vindicate our country ©
from falsebood and calumay as any other that ever bore a pen’
in ber defence... When he was alive he did not forget that coun-.,
try; and now that he is no more, we hope bis country will not «
forget him or those who were so dear to him. +: .
ra Thus much we deemed due to the Political spirit, manly and *
independent, but neither ungenerous nor offensive, which breathy:
eg through his worke; aod cur reason is a just one—because we »
would wish to place on record in the firat place, the service which |
he rendered to bis cause and to his countrymen. oy .
) We now proceed to canvass his ‘merits, merely as a literary,
man and a uovelist; and it is unnecessary to say that thia will ~
be done in a fair and impartial spirit, for those who have read *
bis works know that he can afford 10 be dealt with justly and ,*
without flattery, |r
The first impression left upon the mind after a perusal of his works iss
that his genius was strong my. This, however, we apprehend, ‘(
was vot altogether its real character; and we think that our view of
case is borae out by the fine glimpse of rich homour which appear
bim from time totime. B i
jut, ia estimating bis mere literaryyalent
ity, aod
&
>
ba impo:
ible, we again assert, to separate the author from the patriot.
. :
one \
from whose legislative privileges Ireland then expected a chari- |