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enjoyment would be lost to thousands upon thousands, by the want of those most deeply touching strains. Dear music of my country! I cannot speak of it without using the language of enthusiasm; I cannot think of it without feeling my heart glow with tenderness and pride! Well may Ireland exult in the possession of such strains; but she will exult more when freedom shall bid her indulge the proud feelings that of right belong to her!

If the character of a people were to be judged by its national music—and is there a truer criterion?—where, in the world, would there be found a people of more intense sensibility-that sensibility, which, though it may, in its unconfined expansion, often exceed the limits within which cold prudence would confine it, is still the root of all genius, and the source of every generous feeling!

Could we suppose a being of another planet to come down to live among the inhabitants of this, ignorant of every language but music-that language of the heartwhat strains would allure him like those of this green island? In what region would he be addressed with such eloquent language, whether of gayety or tenderness, of sorrow or of joy, as in this bright land of song?

Alas for those who are insensible to its beauty! It is among them that the dull and ungenerous bigots will be found who spread poison in the land which they tread. Could music penetrate their stony hearts, the melodies of Ireland would make them weep for the ill they were the means of perpetuating on this unhappy island; and they would embrace that ill-treated people with a generous affection, anxious to make reparation for past injuries.

PEARL OF THE WHITE BREAST.

From the Irish.

There's a colleen fair as May,

For a year and for a day

I've sought by every way-Her heart to gain.

There's no art of tongue or eye,

Fond youths with maidens try,

But I've tried with ceaseless sigh-Yet tried in vain.

If to France or far-off Spain,
She'd cross the watery main,

To see her face again-The sea I'd brave.
And if 't is Heaven's decree,

That mine she may not be,

May the Son of Mary me-In mercy save!

O thou blooming milk-white dove,

To whom I've given true love,

Do not ever thus reprove-My constancy.
There are maidens would be mine,

With wealth in hand and kine,

If my heart would but incline-To turn from thee.

But a kiss, with welcome bland,

And a touch of thy dear hand,

Are all that I demand,-Wouldst thou not spurn; For if not mine, dear girl,

O Snowy-breasted Pearl!

May I never from the Fair-With life return!

CHARLES PHILLIPS.

(1787-1859.)

CHARLES PHILLIPS was born in Sligo, about 1787. He received his early education there, and at fifteen went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he was graduated in 1806; he was admitted to the Irish bar in 1812, and speedily made a reputation by his florid style of oratory, which, though effective with jurors, was condemned by some critics. He took a principal part in the agitation regarding Catholic emancipation, and in 1813 he was presented with a national testimonial and publicly thanked by the Catholic Board. O'Connell eulogized him warmly, which good turn Phillips reciprocated. In 1812 he was called to the English bar, where his reputation had already become known, and in 1842 he was appointed Commissioner of the Bankruptcy Court of Liverpool. In 1846 he obtained the post of Commissioner of the Insolvent Debtor's Court of London, in which city he died in 1859.

NAPOLEON.

From An Historical Character of Napoleon.'

He is fallen!-We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his awful originality. A mind bold, independent, and decisive; a will despotic in its dictates; an energy that distances expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character, the most extraordinary perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell. Flung into life in the midst of a revolution, that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity;with no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves; competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest-he acknowledged no criterion but success-he worshiped no God but ambition; and, with an eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary

to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the Republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune he reared the tower of his despotism; a professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; and, in the name of Brutus, he grasped, without remorse, and wore, without shame, the diadem of the Cæsars!

Through this pantomime of his policy, fortune played the clown to his caprices. At this touch crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems vanished; the wildest theories took the color of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat assumed the operations of victory-his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny; ruin itself only elevated him to empire.

But, if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent; decision flashed upon his councils, and it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects, his combinations appeared utterly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adoption. His person partook of the character of his mind-if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmountspace no opposition that he did not spurn; and, whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and endowed with ubiquity! The whole Continent of Europe trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs and the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performancesromance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplaces in his contemplation-kings were his people-nations were his outposts—and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chess-board!

Amid all these changes, he stood as immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the field or the drawing-room-with the mob or at the levee-wearing the Jacobin bonnet or the iron crown-banishing a Braganza or espousing a Lorraine-dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating a defeat at the gallows of Leipsic he was still the same military despot.

Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the darling of the army. Of all his soldiers, not one forsook him, till affection was useless, and their first stipulation was for the safety of their favorite.-They knew well if he was lavish of them, he was prodigal of himself; and that if he exposed them to peril, he repaid them with plunder. For the soldier, he subdued every people-to the people he made even pride pay tribute. The victorious veteran glittered with his gains, and the capital, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the miniature metropolis of the universe. In this wonderful combination, his affectation of literature must not be omitted. The jailer of the press, he affected the patronage of letters-the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy-the persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning! The assassin of Palm-the silencer of De Stael-and the denouncer of Kotzebue he was the friend of David-the benefactor of De Lille-and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England.1

Such a medley of contradictions, and, at the same time, such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character.-A royalist-a republican, and an Emperor-a Mahometan-a Catholic, and a patron of the synagogue a subaltern and a sovereign-a traitor and a tyrant-a Christian and an infidel-he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, potent, inflexible original -the same mysterious incomprehensible self-the man without a model, and without a shadow.

His fall, like his life, baffled all speculation. In short, his whole history was like a dream to the world, and no man can tell how or why he was awakened from the reverie. Such is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleon Bonaparte, the first, and, it is to be hoped, the last, Emperor of the

1 Sir Humphrey Davy had the first prize of the Academy of Sciences transmitted to him.

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