ceased to be, or our common apprehension of what is to be, can amount to, in our estimate of either boundary. There we saw, or to speak more properly, grew acquainted with the entire sweeping pageant of human life-in its various details;-and of human society at its various stages-and in difə ferent regions. Men were not coldly and correctly described or painted, but we were all on a sudden thrust into their company and concerns; we saw them and felt for them while acting or suffering; we heard them speaking; we became their friends or their foes; we beheld them, in their dwellings, arrayed in the costume of the period, practising their arts, snatching their transient enjoyments, or writhing beneath the torture of their private griefs, or of their public calamities; governed by their prejudices and passions, powerfully swayed by the influence of their national jealousies or antipathies as well as by their religious prepossessions and their individu al pursuits-In short there was made to pass before us, (or rather we our selves were hurried unresistingly along with it) a bustling, busy, active living crowd of human beings like ourselves-taking their part in some momentous revolution or pursuing their own private schemes of honor, or of selfishness, bodied forth to our conceptions, and almost to our senses, in the palpable fulness of their homely or their more imposing reality. The picture was vivid and warm, and breathed individual energy, and was instinct with life. It possessed all the light and more than the truth, and nothing of the indistinctness and misty generalizations of history. This is true both of the prose and the poetry of Sir Walter Scott. We do not merely allude to the prose compositions that are under the sanction of his illustrious name, but to those anonymous and immortal productions which, laying all the cant of affected delicacy aside, we plainly and in so many terms, unhesitatingly ascribe to his genius. It was not therefore surprising, to find all contemporary prose, and very nearly all contemporary poetry, thrown into the shade by his latter works, resuming, as they did, in a more popular shape and a more generally attractive name, and with a more complete developement, some of those characters, incidents and manners which had been previously the subject of his poems or at least of the interesting notes appended to them; besides the additional merit of bringing new periods and events, together with actors and sufferers of a different stamp, and various countries, and more engrossing historical interest before the delighted reader. He succeeded in shedding a fresh grace over what before was sufficiently important and pleasing; and he carried his triumph to the highest, when he turned the attention, the anxiety, the curiosity, the zeal and the industry of scholars and men of the world, of professional men and merchants, of theologians and of soldiers, of solemn duchesses and pretty milliners, of gay colonels and bookish curates, to the neglected records of his country and of other countries, to the moral and the spirit of their history and to the more striking lineaments even of their physical aspect. The old, grim, repulsive and mummy-like features of antiquarian study, began to look bland, and fresh, and smiling beneath his touch; and faces of youth and beauty and forms of elegance and of majesty, peered forth from the dusty, neglected, and almost forgotten recesses of history; and beneath the veil of what is very incorrectly denominated fiction, began to invite and seduce, into the most serious and useful branches of learning, those classes of readers, who, before this remarkable revolution, had been the sworn enemies of every thing like close application or regular pursuits. There must be readers of poetry and devourers of novels, in this imperfect world of ours, and, in spite

of the "saints" of the Evangelical Magazine, and the dogged and grumbling utility-men of the Westminster Review. The sinful and backsliding romancers must be permitted to remain on this earth, being really too numerous and too fair a portion of mankind to be piously exterminated at one fell swoop-being unfit for heaven, at least for the heaven of the bigots, and not being as yet so godless and cast-away, as to merit hell-fire. The more humane and charitable line of conduct towards them, in our opinion, would be to convert, not to destroy them: and the most judicious and prac ticable plan for their conversion and improvement, is to neutralize the poison that lurks, or may lurk in their favourite banquet, and, through the medium of their idolatry, and the responses of their beloved oracles, to win them back, unconsciously it may be, but on that account, the more certainly and safely to the sound and "true faith."

Of this important and valuable mission, Sir Walter is unquestionably the chief apostle; his labours have been more unremitting, his zeal more enthusiastic, his plans better concerted, and his success more brilliant than that of any of his fellow-labourers; for he has had his fellow-labourers, in this, his high vocation, with fainter or stronger traits of resemblance to himself, with nearer or more remote approaches to his excellence, and, of course, with various and corresponding degrees of effect upon the public mind. The influence of his name and of his writings, has not only spread over the whole of Europe, but has reached the Transatlantic regions, and, besides creating unbounded admiration for what he has himself produced, has also kindled into life and hope and emulation, the kindred genius of some powerful writers in that quarter of the world, who, with scanty materials, and none of the charms and attractions linked with old historical recollections, at their disposal, have absolutely done wonders, and have gone very near rivalling the great parent fountain, out of which they first imbibed the generous inspiration by which they have been sustained and invigorated. His works have been read and admired-they have also been imitated; and the healthful progeny which has grown up, on every soil and under every climate, at the bidding, and by the genial and fostering care of the master-spirit, are stamped with his image, and are fast springing into the towering elevation. and the gigantic dimensions of his frame. In Ireland, and for Ireland, little or nothing had been done, at least in that peculiar walk of literature that the great writer we are speaking of, has chosen to tread, and to illuminate. It was not a dearth, but a squandering and misapplication of native genius that we laboured under. We had a plentiful stock of impassioned declamation, of splendid bar-eloquence, of exquisite dramatic productions (the most fascinating, witty, and sparkling comic writers in the English language, we know to have been Irishmen ;) of history, we had what was very poor and very objectionable, we had the miracles and dreams and drivelling of old rhyming annalists, succeeded and replaced by the petulence and calumnies, and the hot and acrimonious recriminations of conflicting zealots and fiery partisans, whose industry was mischievous, and whose indolence was full of malice; who searched no question to the bottom, lest they should stumble on the truth that lay there, and that they instinctively recoiled from; who fumbled amongst manuscripts and memoirs, not to investigate facts, but to vindicate party, and to support theory; who battled for victory, not for virtue, and who practiced to perfection, the important artifice of remembering to forget, whenever occasion should require. The names of Currie, Leland and Plowden, furnish the only exception worth noticing, to the above state

H

ment; and even these have a great many literary imperfections on their head, and are tolerated, simply because we have no better. In poetry, the only author deserving of attention, is Moore; who,--though he has accomplished to this hour no one great national work that we had a right to expect from his rich and brilliant fancy,-his copious knowledge, and his unquestioned and disinterested patriotism, has made a temporary, but inadequate compensation, by publishing his Irish melodies, in which he has "married the beautiful and affecting airs of his country, to his own immortal verse." Most of what he has already written, is exquisite in its kind--but it contains not enough of what is Irish; and this is not the place to pen fruitless lamentations, or utter unavailing censure on the caprice, the wantonness, or the supineness of his muse. Shiel, to be sure, idolizes Ireland and liberty, but he has not yet done any thing of consequence in their behalf, but uttered a number of fervidly-eloquent and poetically-garnished harangues. He has toyed and dallied with the Tragic drama--but it is not Irish, and it will live no longer than the equally-beautiful and highly-finished and richly embellished trifling of his contemporaries-Bowles, and Haynes, and Milman, and Croly and Hemans-all very fine and declamatory, and descriptive and poetical; but displaying none of the power and bustle and variety and life of the genuine drama, destined of course, to enjoy a frail and fluctuating reputation, and, to outlive it. We have lost Maturin, whose astonishing genius created an atmosphere of poetry around him, which he breathed in the midst of the stale and heartless realities of every-day life, and the distressing vicissitudes of his humble and unprotected condition; his eccentricities, though great, were studiously exaggerated by meanness and by malice; his pride still greater, was not soothed, but repelled by vulgarity, and by the superciliousness of those whom accident had placed above him; it was often goaded into madness by the dependant condition in which his young and helpless family, and his amiable wife were sunk, and the terrible disappointments that, from time to time, quashed his endeavours to extricate them from it; his talents greater than either his pride or his eccentricities, were exerted by fits and starts, and were perpetually straightened and cramped, and awkwardly recalled from their free-born and natural impulses and aim, by the demure and pharisaical trammels of professional prejudices and etiquette. Yet he exhibited marvelous power, even in his earliest efforts. The great passions were those he excelled in delineating, and the incidents by which they came to be more fully developed, and more searchingly analyzed, events of great magnitude, and situations of extraordinary interest, peril, and delicacy, when the passions are made to conflict with each other, and to wreak their storm of blight and death upon the victim who endures them. The hurricane of the soul, which rushes along, and sweeps whatever is most flourishing and stately, down into dismantled wrecks, and scattered and shrivelled fragments; or the whirlpool which boils and foams, and devours all that is beautiful, and all that is happy, and leaves not even a vestige, or floating emblem of what is gone down for ever into the dark and fathomles waste; the tremendous extremities of all consuming sorrow, as well as of intoxicating pleasure, were the themes he was fondest, and best qualified to paint because he felt the prototype within his own agonized spirit. It would be difficult to point out in the whole range of first-rate romances, any thing half so powerful and impassioned as his Milesian chief," his "Montorio," his "Melmoth," and his "Pour et contre;" notwithstanding the tasteless extravagance and unrestrained exuberance of some parts of the imagery, and the swollen and unchastised

Orientalism of his diction in some passages; notwithstanding, also, the recent political animosities and heart-burnings on which he touched in one of those fictions, and the fanatacism he so pungently ridiculed in another. We had once great hopes of Lady Morgan, but those hopes have been nearly extinguished. We know full well that she can never cease to love Ireland; but latterly, the singleness of her attachment to it has been divided, and its strength has been diluted by her wide-spreading cosmopolitism, and all-embracing Theophilantrophy, since she has taken it into her head to lord it over Austria, to preach to the Pope, write about Italy and painting, concoct crude constitutions, digest precious morceaux of deism, assume at once, and manfully, the philosophical breeches, and become a she-Cloots, the orator of the human race. She has performed nothing for her country equal to her "Wild Irish Girl," which, spite of its undeniable faults, had many excellencies of a high order, and breathed a patriotism at once delicate, enthusiastic, and tender. "Florence M'Carthy" is a flat concern altogether; though it pretends to a more emphatic, and imposing character. The feeling that, here and there, gleams through its weary pages, always ends in sentimentalism, and is dashed over by a tide of languid declamation. She is frequently striking and even picturesque in the descriptive parts; but she fails most deplorably, while essaying any thing like a sample of humour: it being in fact, a feeble and pitiable transcript of the vulgar slang of Dublin witlings, or else a broad and exaggerated version of rustic blunders, and hackney-men's drollery. If, in truth, as we anxiously desire, she were converted, then she would live in the undying memory and gratitude of the Island that has given her birth! If her fine talents were won back to more legitimate, and more truly glorious purposes than she has recently kept in view; then, our beautiful legends, our traditionary lore, our innumerable historical incidents, (full of thrilling interest, and bearing the impress of a high moral grandeur, which the meagre and trivial and impoverished channels that have conveyed them down to our times, have been unable to degrade, though they have made them obscure) would be presented to us in some becoming dress, and with their appropriate ornaments, by the genius of Lady Morgan-for she has the gift, though it is perverted. But in order to bring about the above desirable consummation, she, or whoever else is destined by heaven, to break the spell that enchains us, and to accomplish the prophecy of our intellectual ascendancy, must devote to this paramount emprise, the individual and unwearied earnestness of constant labour, the patient accumulation of rich materials, and above all, a heart-felt and generous sympathy.

Of Miss Edgworth, it is unnecessary to say any thing: her meritorious exertions, having placed her far above our censure or our praise. In the department of fiction that she has chosen to adorn, she has stood, and will stand, without a compeer. She has resisted the temptation, so readily yielded to by inferior writers, of earning a splendid but transient popularity, by catering for the prevailing taste, and falling in with the fashionable current of perplexed intrigues, sentimental amours, hair-breath escapes, enchanting and angelic heroines, most accomplished swains, and sighing heroes. She has disciplined her acute and powerful mind, to the humble but noble task of making fictitious narrative the vehicle of the most substantial and useful instruction; for the correction of the inveterate prejudices, the silly pride, the ruinous folly, or laughable affectations that beset every class of Irish society, and proved so formidable an obstacle to the improvement

and happiness of private life. She is entitled for this important service, to the gratitude of every citizen in the community, and of every lover of mankind. But we must be free to say, that the bias-useful, important and invaluable, though it is-that her genius has been necessarily subjected to, in the discharge of her vocation as our great moral teacher, must, in so far, disqualify her from executing with success and vigour, that particular branch of literary labour to which we referred above, and which has not as yet met in Ireland, a truly competent artist. Miss Edgeworth is too deeply and exclusively busied and profitably and laudably busied-in present interests and necessities, and in the removal of existing defects, and the exploding of absurdities that have been long and fatally incorporated in the tissue of ordinary life, to be able to go back into past scenes, and bring before her own conceptions, and the delighted attention of her readers, forms and manners, costumes and opinions, discussions and revolutions, that belonged to periods now enveloped in the dim and indistinct shadows of remote history.

It was in the company of this admirable writer and accomplished woman, that Sir Walter Scott, together with his son and daughter, and his son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, so justly distinguished for the beauty, and strength, and originality of his writings, made their rapid summer excursion throughout Ireland; touching of course at the principal points of attraction; but staying at no place long enough, either to become acquainted with the more interesting localities, and the moral and historical associations linked with them, or to enjoy the alternate softness and grandeur of the scenery, which, at every step, must have gratified their view. He had scarcely time to glance, even superficially, at so many objects that courted his attention-and were worthy of it. But labouring, as he was reported to do, under certain restrictions as to time, he could not indeed have done better, than to take as the companion of his journey, the respected individual, who was able and willing to supply every broken or missing link, in the train of his observations or of his reflections, and to correct, by the genuine wit, the profound discernment, the correct and classic taste, and the truly philosophical impartiality of the first of Irishwomen, whatever degree of misconception, undue prepossession, imperfect knowledge, misinformation, or hasty induction, may still be supposed to cleave to the character and the genius of the greatest writer of Scotland. We hope that he will not long defer the period of revisiting our Island, and of proving that his first hasty interview, only engendered a stronger wish to be on a more intimate and friendly footing with us. As we have already trespassed so far, in this article, on the patience of our readers, we willingly defer to a future occasion, the discussion of the question, whether the great Scottish poet and novelist, may be equally qualified to illustrate the history, the traditions, superstitions, and the fluctuating destinies of Ireland.