for a moment in his love of letters. You take me in my weak part,' said Herbert, and the subject would carry us too far. I would remark, however, that but for the Solons, the Romuluses, the Charlemagnes, and Alfreds, we should have no Homer or Shakspeare to charm us.' I know this is your favourite theme,' said the minister, and you know how much I agree with you. But this is not precisely the question raised by Sir George; which is, the superiority in the temple of fame enjoyed by men distinguished for their efforts in song or history-but who might have been mere beggars when alive-over those who flaunted it superciliously over them in a pomp and pride which are now absolutely forgotten.' 'I will have nothing to do with supercilious flaunters,' replied Herbert; I speak of the liberal, the patriotic, who seek power for the true uses of power, in order to diffuse blessing and protection all around them. These can never fail to be deservedly applauded: and I honour such ambition as of infinitely more real consequence to the world than those whose works-however I may love them in private--can, from the mere nature of things, be comparatively known only to a few. All that is most true,' said Mr. Wentworth; and for a while public men of the description you mention fill a larger space in the eye of mankind; that is, of contemporary mankind. But extinguish their power. no matter by what means, whether by losing favour at court, or being turned out by the country, to both which they are alike subject; let death forcibly remove them, or a queen die, and their light, like Bolingbroke's, goes out of itself; their influence is certainly gone, and where is even their reputation? It may glimmer for a minute, like the dying flame of a taper, after which they soon cease to be mentioned, perhaps even remembered.' 'Surely,' said the doctor, this is too much in extremes.' 'And yet,' continued Wentworth, have we not all heard of a maxim appalling to all lovers of political fame, "that nobody is missed ?" Alas! then, are we not compelled to burst out with the poet :

Alas, what boots it with incessant care

To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?'

Both Sir George and De Vere kindled at this; and the doctor himself smiled, when
the minister proceeded. In short,' said he, when a statesman, or even a con-
queror, is departed, it depends upon the happier poet or philosophic historian to
make even his name known to posterity; while the historian or poet acquires im-
mortality for himself in conferring upon his heroes an inferior existence.' Inferior
existence!' exclaimed Herbert. Yes; for look at Plutarch, and ask which are most
esteemed, himself or those he records? Look at the old Claudii and Manlii of Livy;
or the characters in Tacitus; or Maecenas, Agrippa, or Agustus himself-princes,
emperors, ministers, esteemed by contemporaries as gods! Fancy their splendour
in the eye of the multitude while the multitude followed them! Look at them now!
Spite even of their beautiful historians, we have often difficulty in rummaging out
their old names; while those who wrote or sang of them live before our eyes. The
benefits they conferred passed in a minute, while the compositions that record them
last for ever.' Mr. Wentworth's energy moved his hearers, and even Herbert,
who was too classical not to be shaken by these arguments. Still, however,' said
the latter, we admire, and even wish to emulate Camillus and Miltiades,
and Alexander; a Sully and a Clarendon.' Add a Lord Burleigh,' replied the
minister, who, in reference to Spencer, thought a hundred pounds an immense sum
for a song!
Which is now most thought of or most loved ?-the calculating minis-
ter or the poor poet? the puissant treasurer or he who was left "in suing long to
bide ?" Sir George and DeVere, considering the quarter whence it came, were de
lighted with this question. The doctor was silent, and seemed to wish his great
friend to go on. He proceeded thus: I might make the same question as to Horace
and Mæcenas; and yet, I daresay, Horace was as proud of being taken in Mæcenas's
coach to the Capitol as the Dean of St. Patrick's in Oxford's or Bolingbroke's to Wind-
sor. Yet Oxford is even now chiefly remembered through that very dean, and so per-
haps would Bolingbroke, but that he is an author, and a very considerable one, himself.
We may recollect,' continued he, the manner in which Whitelocke mentious Milton

e Milton, a blind man," was made Secretary to Cromwell. Whitelocke was rst subject in the state, and lived in all the pomp of the seals, and all the of Bulstrode; while the blind man waked at early morn to listen to the g him good-morrow at his cottage-window. Where is the lord-keeper

ere the blind man? What is known of Addison as secretary of state? and His Excellency compare with the man who charms us so exquisitely in his When I have visited his interesting house at Bilton, in Warwickshire, sat -study, and read his very books, no words can describe my emotions. I s official atmosphere here, but without thinking of hi at all. In short, there lightful superiority in literary over political fame, that the cne, to say the stalks in cold grandeur upon stilts, like a French tragedy actor, while the ds itself into our warm hearts, aud is hugged there with all the affection of a all the admiration of a lover.' 'Hear! hear!' cried Sir George, which was De Vere and Herbert himself.

Clifford, or the Constant Man,' produced in 1841, is also a tale l life; and as the hero is at one time secretary to a cabinet minr. Ward revels in official details, rivalries, and intrigue. In r author produced Chatsworth, or the Romance of a Week.' rd wrote some legal, historical, and political works now forand held office under government in the Admiralty and other ents for twenty-five years. Canning said sarcastically that law-books were as pleasant as novels, and his novels as dull books.

JOHN BANIM-EYRE EVANS CROWE-CESAR OTWAY.

BANIM (1800-1842), author of Tales of the O'Hara Family,' to unite the truth and circumstantiality of Crabbe with the nd gloomy power of Godwin; and in knowledge of Irish er, habits, customs, and feeling, he was superior even to Miss orth or Lady Morgan. The story of the Nowlans, and that hore of the Bill-hook, can never be forgotten by those who nce perused them. The force of the passions, and the effects e, turbulence, and misery, have rarely been painted with such stering energy, or wrought into narratives of more sustained Trowing interest. The probability of his incidents was not attended to by the author, and he indulged largely in scenes of and violence-in murders, abductions, pursuits, and escapese whole was related with such spirit, raciness, and truth of e and colouring, that the reader had neither time nor inclinanote defects. The very peculiarities of the Irish dialect and ciation—though constituting at first a difficulty in perusal, ways too much persisted in by Mr. Banim-heightened the ative flavour of the stories, and enriched them with many new cturesque words and phrases.

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Tales of the O'Hara Family' were produced in 1825 and 1826. were followed, in 1823, by another Irish story, The Croppy,' cted with the insurrection in 1798. 'We paint,' said the , from the people of a land amongst whom, for the last six ed years, national provocations have never ceased to keep alive rongest and often the worst passions of our nature; whese

pauses, during that long lapse of a country's existence, from actual conflict in the field, have been but so many changes into mentai strife, and who to this day are held prepared, should the war-cry be given, to rush at each other's throats, and enact scenes that, in the columns of a newspaper, would shew more terribly vivid than any selected by us from former facts, for the purposes of candid, though slight illustration.' There was too much of this strong writing' in The Croppy,' and worse faults were found in the prolixity of some of the dialogues and descriptions, and a too palpable imitation of the style of Scott in his historical romances. The scenes peculiarly Irish are, however, written with Mr. Banim's characteristic vigour: he describes the burning of a cabin till we seem to witness the spectacle; and the massacre at Vinegar Hill is portrayed with the distinctness of dramatic action. Nanny the knitter is also one of his happiest Irish likenesses. The experiment made by the author to depict the manners and frivolities of the higher classes-to draw a sprightly heroine, a maiden aunt, or the ordinary characters and traits of genteel society was decidedly a failure. His strength lay in the cabin and the wild heath, not in the drawing-room. In 1830 Mr. Banim published The Denounced,' in three volumes, a work consisting of two tales-The Last Baron of Crana, and The Conformists. The same beauties and defects which characterise 'The Croppy' are seen in The Denounced;' but the Conformists is a deeply interesting story, and calls forth Mr. Banim's peculiarities of description and knowledge of character in a very striking light. His object is to depict the evils of that system of anti-Catholic tyranny when the penal laws were in full force, by which home education was denied to Catholic families unless by a Protestant teacher. The more rigid of the Catholics abjured all instruction thus administered; and Mr. Banim describes the effects of ignorance and neglect on the second son of a Catholic gentleman, haughty, sensitive, and painfully alive to the disadvantages and degradation of his condition. The whole account of this family, the D'Arcys, is written with great skill and effect.

In 1838 Mr. Banim collected several of his contributions to periodical works, and published them under the title of The Bit o' Writin', and other Tales.' In 1842 he sent forth an original and excellent novel, in three volumes, Father Connell,' the hero being an aged and benevolent Catholic priest, not unworthy of association with the Protestant Vicar of Wakefield. This primitive pastor becomes the patron of a poor vagrant boy, Neddy Fennell, whose adventures furnish the incidents for the story. This was destined to be the last work of the author. He died in August 1842, in the prime of life, in the neighbourhood of Kilkenny, which also was his birthplace. Mr. Banim began life as a miniature-painter; but, seduced from his profession by promptings too strong to be resisted, and by the success of a tragedy, "Damon and Pythias," he early abandoned

dopted literature as a profession; and he will be long re1 as the writer of that powerful and painful series of novels, f the O'Hara Family.' Some years previous, the general was attracted to Mr. Banim's struggle against the sufferrivation which came in the train of disease that precluded 7 exertion; and on that occasion Sir Robert Peel came to f the distressed author, whose latter years were restored ive country, and made easy by a yearly pension of £150 civil list, to which an addition of £40 a year was afterwards the education of his daughter, an only child.' Besides the have mentioned, Mr. Banim wrote Boyne Water,' and tical pieces; and he contributed largely to the different ; and annuals. The Tales of the O'Hara Family' had a name that carried general attraction to all lovers of light and there are few of these short and hasty tales that do n some traces of his unrivalled Irish power and fidelity of n. In some respects Mr. Banim was a mannerist: his e extended over a wide surface of Irish history and of charler all its modifications; but his style and imagination were chiefly to the same class of subjects, and to a peculiar mode g them. A Life of Banim, with extracts from his corres -unfolding a life of constant struggle and exertion-was in 1857, written by Mr. P. J. Murray.

Description of the Burning of a Croppy's House.

h kept a brooding and gloomy silence; his almost savage yet steadfast ed upon the element that, not more raging than his own bosom, dewelling. Fire had been set to the house in many places within and withough at first it crept slowly along the surface of the thatch, or only sent wreaths of vapour from the interior, or through the doorway, few minuntil the whole of the combustible roof was one mass of flame, shooting serene air in a spire of dazzling brilliancy, mixed with vivid sparks, and inst a background of dark-gray smoke.

earth appeared reddened into common ignition with the blaze. The und gleamed hotly; the very stones and rocks on the hillside seemed por; and Shawn-a-Gow's bare head and herculean shoulders were covered ng showers of the ashes of his own roof.

nded eye fixed, too, upon the figures of the actors in this scene, now renly distinct, and their scabbards, their buttons, and their polished black kering redly in the glow, as, at a command from their captain, they sent de three shouts over the demolition of the Croppy's dwelling. But still, breast heaved, and though wreaths of foam edged his lips, Shawn was sitle Peter now feared to address a word to him. And other sights aud oclaimed whatever attention he was able to afford. Rising to a pitch of hat overmastered the cheers of the yeomen, the cries of a man in bodily k on the ears of the listeners on the hill, and looking hard towards a spot luminated, they saw Saunders Smyly vigorously engaged in one of his ciplinarian to the Ballybreehoone cavalry. With much ostentation, his of torture was flourished round his head, and though at every lash the he sufferer came loud, the lashes themselves were scarce less distinct. group challenged the eye. Shawn-a-Gow's house stood alone in the village. ance before its door was a lime-tree, with benches contrived all round the which, in summer weather, the gossippers of the village used to scat This tree, standing between our spectators and the blaze, cut darkly

against the glowing objects beyond it; and three or four yeomen, their backs turned to the hill, their faces to the burning house, and consequently their figures also appearing black, seemed busily occupied in some feat that required the exertion of pulling with their hands lifted above their heads. Shawn flashed an inquiring glance upon them, and anon a human form, still, like their figures, vague and undefined in blackness, gradually became elevated from the ground beneath the tree, until its head almost touched a projecting branch, and then it remained stationary, suspended from that branch.

Shawn's rage increased to madness at this sight, though he did not admit it to be immediately connected with his more individual causes for wrath. And now came an event that made a climax, for the present, to his emotions, and at length caused some expressions of his pent-up feelings. A loud crackling crash echoed from his house; a volume of flame, taller and more dense than any by which it was preceded, darted up to the heavens; then almost former darkness fell on the hillside; a gloomy red glow alone remained on the objects below; and nothing but thick smoke, dotted with sparks, continued to issue from his dwelling. After everything that could interiorly supply food to the flame had been devoured, it was the roof of his old house that now fell in.

By the ashes o' my cabin, burnt down before me this night-an' I stannin' a houseless beggar on the hillside lookin' at id--while I can get an Orangeman's house to take the blaze, an' a wisp to kindle the blaze up, I'll burn ten houses for that one!'

And so asseverating, he recrossed the summit of the hill, and, followed by Peter Rooney, descended into the little valley of refuge.

The national character of Ireland was further illustrated by two collections of tales published anonymously. entitled 'To-day in Ireland,' 1825; and Yesterday in Ireland,' 1829. Though imperfectly acquainted with the art of a novelist, this writer is often correct and happy in his descriptions and historical summaries. Like Banim, he has ventured on the stormy period of 1798, and has been more minute than his great rival in sketching the circumstances of the rebellion.— MR. EYRE EVANS CROWE, author of a History of France,' and of "The English in Italy and France,' a work of superior merit, was the author of these tales.-The REV. CESAR OTWAY, of Dublin, in his Sketches of Ireland,' and his Tour in Connaught,' &c., has displayed many of the most valuable qualities of a novelist, without attempting the construction of a regular story. His lively style and humorous illustrations of the manners of the people render his topographical works very pleasant as well as instructive reading. Mr. Otway was a keen theologian, a deterrained anti-Catholic, but full of Irish feeling and universal kindliness. He died in March 1842.

GERALD GRIFFIN.

Gerald Griffin, author of some excellent Irish tales, was born at Limerick on the 12th of December, 1803. His first schoolmaster appears to have been a true Milesian pedant and original, for one of his advertisements begins, When ponderous polysyllables promulgate professional powers and he boasted of being one of three persons in Ireland who knew how to read correctly; namely, the Bishop of Killaloe, the Earl of Clare, and himself, Mr. MacEligot! Gerald was afterwards placed under a private tutor, whence he was removed to attend a school at Limerick. While a mere youth he became con