which accompanied the crush of that overgrown empire. Some unsuccessful attempts, to convert the Irish to christianity, had been made by their next neighbours, the Britons. The great body of the people still remained attached to their favorite superstitions. Their conversion was reserved by the inscrutable decrees of divine providence for St. Patrick. But if the Irish came later into the fold of Christ, than some other nations, they soon made ample amends for their delay. The fervent zeal, the ardent charity of Patrick was approved by the author of revealed religion. God vouchsafed to reveal to him, that he was destined for the great work of planting and establishing the doctrine of the cross in Ireland. Patrick, well instructed in religion, knew, that to undertake this mighty charge, to initiate pagans into the mysteries of Christianity, he must derive mission and authority from the successors of the apostles, to whom the Redeemer had delegated the power of teaching and preaching his doctrine, to all nations, even to the consummation of the world. An attempt of a layman to dispense the bread of life-to announce the divine word-to communicate the awful mysteries to the people, was never made in the early ages of Christianity, and would be then abhorred as an open contradiction to the doctrine of St. Paul, who says: "How shall they hear, without a preacher? and how can they preach, unless they be sent ?" Such is the profound humility of saints, that they are utter strangers to their own virtues. Their imperfections are constantly before their eyes. The thought of attaining a certain state of conversion, to which impeccability is annexed, which some moderns pretend to, never entered the mind of this eminent servant of God. Patrick dreaded the sacred ordination, spent some years in preparation, and would not have offered himself for it, had not divine grace banished his fears, and supported his trembling humility with heavenly consolations. His conspicuous sanctity created an obstacle to his episcopal consecration and mission into Ireland. His relations, and the clergy of the country, charmed with the odour of his vitues, laboured to detain him among them. They made him the most advantageous offers; they painted, in the most lively colours, the danger of exposing his person among a people, who were the declared enemies of Romans and Britons, and ignorant of the true God. His good friends did not reflect, that true zeal despises riches, and is inflamed by a near prospect of danger. He surmounted these difficulties; was ordained bishop; disposed of his patrimony; forsook his relations and friends; and departed for Ireland, determined to renounce every personal advantage, to face every danger, for the sake of communicating to strangers the truths of eternal life. We have now the apostle of Ireland on the scene, where he obtained greater glory, which secured to his memory more respect, more admiration, than any conquering hero could ever procure from mankind, by the most splendid victories. Having no armour but the cross-no sword except the word of God-he effected, in a large a large and populous nation, a revolution, which the united efforts of philosophers could never produce in one city. Paganism was propagated by flattering the strongest passions of corrupt nature; Mahometanism by the sword: the progress of modern infidelity, comparatively much smaller, originates from a desire of indulging every appetite, without the dread of future purishment. Patrick declared open war against every passion of a nation reputed ferocious, and corrupted by superstition. He braved, unarmed and alone, the sword of persecution: he loudly inveighed against every vice, commanded the practice of virtue, and threatened eternal punishment. Yet he conquered: he subdued the hearts of the whole nation, and established the christian religion on the ruins of paganism. Is not the finger of God here visible? I defy the most acute reasoner to account for this event by means purely natural. I should compose a long history, were I to relate minutely all the labours of this truly apostolic man, during forty years of mission in Ireland. He supported his preaching by a conduct eminently holy. He traversed often the whole kingdom, heedless of every danger, anxious only to instil the saving truths of the gospel into the minds of the unenlightened inhabitants. God communicated to him the gift of working miracles. He restored sight to the blind, health to the sick, and recalled nine persons to life. It is not the fashion of this age, to give credit to the visions and miracles related in the lives of saints. It is to be wished that the sages of the eighteenth century, would reflect, that their system of slighting miracles, is often subject to greater difficulties, than the belief of sincere christians in the testimony of reputable authors, who relate these wonderful facts. For the present, I rest the truth of this remark on one query: which of these two suppositions is the more reasonable; that Patrick, endowed with the spirit of God, converted the Irish nation to the belief of the mysteries of christianity, engaged the body of the people to exchange the superstitious rites of their old religion for the observance of the most difficult precepts of the gospel, supporting his doctrine by miracles; or that he effected all this by means merely human? Assign' those natural causes, within the sphere of his agency, and we shall abandon his miracles. So efficacious was his preaching, that many thousands were thereby excited, not only to the exact observance of the precepts. of christianity, but also to the rigid practice of its sublimest counsels. To renounce ambition, every attachment to riches, to abstain from the enjoyments of unrestrained lust, and to sacrifice even the lawful pleasures of the married state, are among those virtues, to which our amiable Redeemer promises the greatest rewards. So powerful was the word of life in the mouth of our saint, that not only the body of the Irish nation cheerfully submitted to all the restraints of the gospel, but also in every part of the kingdom, great numbers of these newly-converted pagans, of both sexes, shewed the practicability of the evangelical councils, by 4 embracing embracing all the rigours of the religious state, This ardour, diffused over all Ireland, was not a temporary effort of these neophites, kindled by the blaze of Patrick's sanctity: such deep roots had these sublime virtues, planted by him, and fostered by his care, taken, that Ireland obtained and supported for many ages, the title of the island of saints. Troops of christian heroes, inflamed with the evangelical spirit, issued from this seminary of sublime virtue, conquered superstition, prostrated idolatry, and diffused the light of the gospel in many nations. Missionaries from Ireland succoured the efforts, of St. Austin and his fellow-labourers in converting the heathen Saxons, who invaded Britain; and communicated the knowledge of the gospel, with the alphabet, to these fierce, unlettered conquerors. The apostolical labours of the Irish were extended much farther. Many nations of Germany and France received the christian doctrine from their hands: nay, they displayed in Italy, which had always been, from the time of St. Peter, the seat of true religion, the sublimest virtues of the gospel. * * I have, my brethren, given you a short but faithful narrative of the life and actions of the spiritual father of Ireland. He died in a good old age, praising God for the wonderful success of his labours. His pure, generous soul flew to the mansions of bliss, to receive the reward mentioned by the prophet Daniel, saying: "those, who instruct many in justice, shall shine as stars for all eternity." My dear Sir, "I HAVE not been as early as, to all appearance, I ought to have been, in my acknowledgments for your present. I received it in due time; but my delay was not from the want of a due sense of the value of what you have sent, or of the honour you have done me in sending it. But I have had some visitors, to whom I was obliged to attend and I have had some business to do, which, though it is not worth your while to be troubled with it, occupied almost every hour of the time I could spare from my guests: until yesterday it was not in my power so much as to open your Tacitus. "I have read the first book through; besides dipping here and there into other parts. I am extremely delighted with it. You have done, what hitherto I think has not been done in England: you have given us a translation of a Latin prose writer, which may be read with pleasure. It would be no compliment at all to prefer your translation to the last, which appeared with such a pomp of patronage. Gordon was an author fashionable in his time, but he never wrote any thing worthy of much notice, but that work by which he has obtained a kind of eminence in bad writing: writing: so that one cannot pass it by with mere neglect. It is clear to me, that he did not understand the language from which he ventured to translate; and that he had formed a very whimsical idea of excellence with regard to ours. His work is wholly remote from the genius of the tongue, in its purity, or in any of its jargs. It is not English or Irish, nor even his native Scotch. It is not fish nor flesh, nor good red-herring: your's is written with facility and spirit, and you do not often depart from the genuine native idiom of the language. Without attempting, therefore, to modernize terms of art, or to disguise ancient customs under new habits, you have contrived things in such a manner, that your readers will find themselves at home. The other translators do not familiarize you with ancient Rome. They carry you into a new world. By their uncouth modes of expression, they prevent you from taking an interest in any of its concerns. In spite of you they turn your mind from the subject, to attend with disgust to their unskilful manner of treating it; from such authors we can learn nothing. I have always thought the world much obliged to good translators like you. Such are some of the French. They who understand the original, are not those who are under the smallest obligation to you. It is a great satisfaction to see the sense of one good author in the language of another. He is thus alias et idem. Seeing your author in a new point of view, you become better acquainted with him. His thoughts make a new and a deeper impression on the mind. I have always recommended to young men on their studies, that when they had made themselves thorough masters of a work in the original, then (but not till then) to read it in a translation, if in any modern language a readable translation was to be found. What I say of your translation is really no more than very cold justice to my sentiments of your great undertaking. I never expected to see so good a translation. I do not pretend that it is wholly free from faults; but at the same time I think it more easy to discover them than to correct them. There is a style which daily gains ground amongst us, which I should be sorry to see farther advanced by the authority of a writer of your just reputation. The tendency of the mode to which I allude is, to establish two very different idioms amongst us, and to introduce a marked. distinction between the English that is written, and the English that is spoken. This practice, if grown a little more general, would confirm this distemper, such I must think it, in our own language, and perhaps render it incurable. "From this feigned manner or falsetto, as I think the musicians call something of the same sort in singing, no one modern historian, Robertson only excepted, is perfectly free. It is assumed, I know, to give dignity and variety to the style. But whatever success the attempt may sometimes have, it is always obtained at the expence of purity, and of the graces that are natural and appropriate to our language. It is true, that when the exigence calls for auxiliaries of all sorts, and common language becomes unequal to the demands of extraordinary thoughts, something ought to be VOL. 2.-No. 12. 3 D cop conceded to the necessities which make "Ambition virtue:" but the allowances to necessities ought not to grow into practice. Those portents and prodigies ought not to grow too common. If you have here and there (much more rarely, however, than others of great, and not unmerited fame) fallen into an error, which is not that of the dull or careless, you have an author who is himself guilty, in his own tongue, of the same fault, in a very high degree. No author thinks more deeply, or paints more strongly ; but he seldom or ever expresses himself naturally. It is plain that, comparing him with Plautus and Terence, or the beautiful fragments of Publius Syrus, he did not write the language of good conversation. Cicero is much nearer to it. Tacitus, and the writers of his time have fallen into that vice, by aiming at a poetical style. It is true, that eloquence in both modes of rhetoric is fundamentally the same; but the manner of handling is totally dif ferent, even where words and phrases may be transferred from the one of these departments of writing to the other. "I have accepted the licence you have allowed me; and blotted your book in such a manner that I must call for my shelves, I wish you would come hither for a day or two. Twenty coaches come almost to our very door. In an hour's conversation we can do more than in twenty sheets of writing. Do come and make us all happy. My affectionate compliments to our worthy Doctor.-Pray believe me, with most sincere respect and regard, "My dear Sir, "Your most faithful and obedient humble servant, "EDM. BURKE." INSTRUCTIONS TO JUVENILE SPRIGS. FOR SPRING RIDING IN ROTTEN ROW. MR. EDITOR, As the season is fast approaching when we may expect various displays of Equestrian ability in Hyde-Park, I beg permission, through the medium of your Monthly Vehicle, to communicate such shades of instruction (for obtaining distinguished priority), as may not be known to those, who are anxiously emulative for the hour of initiation in a spot of so much local celebrity. The com `mencement of the season is about the middle, or latter end of Febuary; it is therefore full time you begin to provide yourself with a Bucephalus, Pegasus, or even what you please; in doing which, remember, if you wish him to become an object of attraction, be must have a palpable appearance of blood; if he luckily possesses enough, it is totally immaterial whether he has a leg to stand on; and that he may suffer no jocular depreciation for his infirmity, don't omit to procure his pedigree at the time of purchase; whether it |