We, in the hope of coming in for a share of the spoils of those authors, who, for their manifold transgressions of the rules of that great lawgiver, Aristotle, have suffered sentence of outlawry, and may be knocked on the head by any body-we, too, will essay to establish a claim to a seat in the great court of criticism, that stern inexorable Areopagus, where no author was ever yet acquitted entirely to his own satisfaction. For this purpose we propose to exhibit to our readers an Irishman, and not only an Irishman, but a Wild-Irishman! We entreat the ladies not to be frightened at our introducing such a strange animal, for we assure them that, though a Wild-Irishman, he is as tame a poet as any of the present school of fashionable bards. It is a matter of infinite regret to us, that, in our zeal to establish the dignity of our profession, we have left ourselves hardly sufficient room to make a few preliminary observations which are necessary, before we treat our readers to this royal hunt. We have selected an Irishman for the subject of our strictures, though, doubtless, in the course of our progress, the intelligent reader will perceive that our object is higher game. An Irishman is at all times a fair subject of criticism, because, according to the most authentic accounts of their neighbours the English, who ought to know, and who doubtless have no motive to disguise the truth, he is an animal entitled to none of the privileges of social life, except the privilege of living in his own country, without the protection of the laws. Such a man may, therefore, lawfully be offered up as the scape-goat of other notorious offenders, who could not be attacked without manifest danger of rousing a whole nation upon our backs. This would not do for us young beginners.

But before we proceed to hunt the Irishman, we will turn aside to make a few general remarks, the application of which will be perceived by and by.

And first, we will notice the vast superiority which that fashionable mode of writing pursued by our hero, and the school to which he belongs, possesses over every other extant. In the first place, all former writers of poems which affected to have any subject at all, were most preposterously sedulous that it should be one of sufficient notoriety to be interesting to the generality of their readers, without the aid of a multiplicity of notes. They, simple VOL. II. New Series.

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souls! thought, that as they professed writing a poem, the prin cipal part of it ought, at least, to be in verse of some kind or other. So, too, actuated by the same erroneous idea, and unacquainted with the real art of poetry, they supposed that the cha racters who figured in their works, ought to be persons, either altogether imaginary, or, if traditional or historical, persons of respectable character, and not highwaymen, freebooters and pickpockets, who would be likely to plunder the reader in the first page.

But the school to which our author belongs, and which may be called the school of modern chivalry, with a singular species of invention, which, though allied to poetic genius, is not quite genuine, has found out an entire new system, that bids fair, we think, to supersede every other. It is neither more nor less than choosing a subject from out of the lumber of forgotten provincial antiquity, and for their acters your alias follows with half a dozen names. Notorious freebooters, who, if their fame had not been preserved in the traditionary Newgate calendar of the times, would have descended to Hades, without any memorial but the mouldering remains of some moss-grown castle, ruined by their nightly depredations.

The advantages arising from this new system are so obvious that we should be surprised it had not been adopted long since, did we not know that the greatest discoveries in science and in art appear so simple after their discovery, that every body believes he could have made them with perfect ease. By this simple improvement in the epic art, the reader is introduced into the society of an entire set of new acquaintance, who, though, perhaps, not of the most reputable characters, cannot fail to delight him by their novel stories of conflagrations, robberies, ravishments, and other brilliant exploits of modern chivalry. The poet also has thus the great advantage of acting as master of ceremonies, performing the polite modern manoeuvre of introduction with due grace, and giving what character he chooses to each individual, whose fortunate obscurity enables him to indulge in the greatest latitude of excursive genius. This introduction is made by notes, which answer the double purpose of making us much better acquainted with our company, than would easily be

done in verse, and at the same time increasing the size of the book; which last is a great matter with the bookseller, who pays. according to bulk. We would, however, venture to suggest an improvement in this plan, which is, that as these notes are intended for the purpose of introducing those distinguished characters, they ought, in conscience, as well as propriety, to precede the poem, as the trumpeter does the army, and the herald did the knight of yore. By this happy arrangement we should become acquainted with the hero before we entered on his exploits, and accompany him in his maraudings with an additional degree of interest. Thus, also, we should be enabled to recognise every actor in his heroic dress, which, when put on by one of our modern poetical men-milliners, so alters his appearance, that none but an old acquaintance can possibly recognise him. Great trouble is also saved in delineating characters in verse, which is a task none but a pains-taking genius, like old Homer, would think of doing now a days.

The reader will gather from the foregoing remarks, that with regard to fable and character the modern epic is decidedly superior to the ancient in novelty, which, after all, is undoubtedly the prin cipal source of all genuine pleasure. How much superior in point of novelty and interest, are the sublime and obscure heroes of the great modern school, whom none but some plodding provincial antiquary ever before heard of, to the hackneyed names of Greece and Rome; nations whose fame is so provokingly illustrious, that it is scarcely possible to extract any thing new from their tradition or history?

Another reason for preferring this new epic school to every other, is the great superiority observable in the characters of its heroes. How far more picturesque and poetical is their courage and enterprise; and how much they exceed those of Homer, Virgil, Tasso, or even Milton's Devils. Homer has indeed given to the actors of his immortal poem many characteristics of the simplicity of their æra, making them rather boasting and abusive, as well as wanting in that chivalric deference to the fair sex which is a sure indication of refinement. But though we find that they cooked their own dinners, it does not appear they were in the habit of stealing them, except in one instance, where the pious

Æneas makes free with some cattle that certainly did not belong to him. With respect, however, to those notable burnings and ravishments which make up so large a portion of the embellishments of the modern epic, and which are so admirably adapted to improve our taste as well as manners, the ancient poets are deplorably deficient. They were deterred, probably, by that stiff classical taste, which is calculated to restrain the imagination, and curb those brilliant raids of outlawed genius; and it is greatly owing to the brave indifference of our favourite school of poets, that the noble art of poetry is now brought to such perfection. We mean the art of manufacturing a superfine poem out of the roughest materials, pretty much in the same way that superfine paper is manufactured from rags.

Nothing, indeed, but the restraints of a fastidious taste could possibly have prevented the ancient poets from seizing that great and prolific source of the sublime, vulgarly called stealing, which the mighty master of the modern epic has turned to such notable account. We know not that Mr. Burke admits stealing into his enumeration of the sources of sublimity, but whether he does or not, we maintain that a genuine thief, if properly managed, is better calculated for the hero of a poem, than one half of the demigods or conquerors on record. The ingenious Mr. Gay, in the Beggar's Opera, seems to have been the first to perceive the great value of the highwayman to the poet, and his character of Macheath probably suggested the idea of converting thieving to epic purposes.

Scarcely any thing, indeed, can be more nobly calculated for poetic narration, than the manners, characters, and exploits of these distinguished knights of the new chivalric order of the post, except the actions of our Indian neighbours, whose scalpings, burnings, howlings, dancings, midnight maraudings, and feasts of blood, would form an admirable companion picture. Should there be any aspiring epic in this country, ambitious of figuring in modern chivalric poetry, we recommend the late exploits of the Indians at French Town on the Raisin, or the equally gallant exploits of their illustrious aud christian allies at French Town on the Chesapeake. Tecumseh, Split-Log, Col. Proctor, and the gallant Admiral Cockburn would furnish a notable dramatis-personæ, and their far famed

achievements form the most brilliant embellishments to such a work.

Nothing, we think, can be more evident than the superiority of the new order of knights of the post, over those of the stiff, buckram age of chivalry, when it was the great ambition of a knight to be "without fear and without reproach." What, for instance, can be more ridiculous than the awkward courtesy of the old knights-more puritanical than their devotion—or more fantastically ridiculous than their gallantry? And what would a buck critic of Bond-street say to their passing all their lives in protecting the ladies, instead of hunting them to ruin for their amusement? The knights of the post are, on the contrary, most heroically deficient in good manners, most picturesquely indifferent to religion, most fashionably destitute of morality, and therefore much nearer the ton of the present day. The old knights considered it their greatest glory to lay down their lives in defence of the rights of the weak-the new knights to lay down theirs for intrenching on those rights. The former believed it their solemn duty to protect the chastity of women, the latter to destroy it by force. The former, by their oath of knighthood, were bound to the observance of all the severe ordinances of the strictest honour; and the latter, if they took any oath at all, bound themselves by the true tie of modern chivalry, that of fidelity to their illustrious associates in midnight depredations.

The reader must at once perceive the superior poetical effect of these heroic traits in the character of the knights of the post, and will surely readily acknowledge the exquisite propriety of making their exploits the subject of an heroic poem. The burning of houses, the stealing of cattle, the sublime spectacle of ruined fields and smoking villages, and now and then, by way of bonne-bouche, a ravishment, are a thousand times more interesting than the dull picture of the buckram knight combating under the sacred banner of his faith; going about redressing wrongs, unhorsing his antagonist at bloodless tournaments, or sighing at the feet of some high born damsel. Who does not admire the picture of Johnny Armstrong ascending the gallows with a white cap on his head, to die for offending the laws, infinitely more than that of the finical Chevalier Bayard, reclining under a tree, and with his eyes fixed on