When round the bowl, of vanished years We talk with joyous seemingWith smiles that might as well be tears, So faint, so sad their beaming; While memory brings us back again Each early tie that twined us, Oh, sweet's the cup that circles then To those we've left behind us! And when, in other climes, we meet As travellers oft look back at eve, Still faint behind them glowing,— The Last Rose of Summer. I'll not leave thee, lone one! To pine on thy stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them. Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead. So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, Oh! who would inhabit A Vision. 'Up,' said the Spirit, and, ere I could pray I looked and I saw a wizard rise, With a wig like a cloud before men's eyes; In his aged hand he held a wand, Wherewith he beckoned his embryo band, And they moved and moved, as he waved it o'er, And I heard the while that wizard elf As Hume ere moved for, or Omar burned. To ask his name, when the screams without, (From Odes on Cash, Corn, Catholics, &c.) The Vale of Cashmere. Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave? shown, And each hallows the hour by some rites of its own. Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing. (From 'The Light of the Harem' in Lalla Rookh.) Namouna, the Enchantress. Hence is it, too, that Nourmahal, Amid the luxuries of this hour, Far from the joyous festival, Sits in her own sequestered bower, With no one near to soothe or aid But that inspired and wondrous maid, Namouna, the enchantress-one O'er whom his golden race the sun For unremembered years has run, Yet never saw her blooming brow Younger or fairer than 'tis now. Nay rather, as the west-wind's sigh Freshens the flower it passes by, Time's wing but seemed, in stealing o'er, To leave her lovelier than before. Yet on her smiles a sadness hung, And when, as oft, she spoke or sung Of other worlds, there came a light From her dark eyes so strangely bright, That all believed nor man nor earth Were conscious of Namouna's birth. (From 'The Light of the Harem' in Lalla Rookh.) The Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore were edited by Lord John Russell, who applied the £3000 paid by Longmans for the copyright to the benefit of Moore's widow. This work, published in 1856, is in many respects most unsatisfactory, but remains the only Memoir of the poet on a large scale. Moore's poetical works were collected and edited by himself in 1842, with autobiographic introductions to the principal pieces. C. LITTON FALKINER. James Wills (1790-1868) was the younger son of a Roscommon squire of good estate and of Cornish extraction. He was educated near Dublin, and entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1809. Here he formed one of a brilliant coterie of undergraduates, among whom the best-known name is that of Charles Wolfe the poet. In 1821 he entered at the Middle Temple with the intention of being called to the Bar; but the loss of a considerable fortune through the improvidence of an elder brother left him without the means of pursuing a legal career. He returned to Ireland, and, having married, in 1822 he settled near Dublin. He took orders in the same year, but being for a time without preferment, he devoted himself eagerly to literary pursuits, which were thenceforth the main interest of his life. He became an active contributor, both in prose and verse, to the Dublin University Magazine, Blackwood's Magazine, the Dublin Penny Journal, and other periodicals. Later he was connected with the Irish Quarterly Review. In 1831 he published in Dublin The Disembodied and other Poems, being a collection of poems written during several years; and in 1835 there appeared the Philosophy of Unbelief, a work which had a wide vogue in its day, and in which the author's strong bent for metaphysical speculation asserted itself. By this time Wills had been nominated to a curacy in Kilkenny, the county in which most of his subsequent life was passed, and in which he held successively two important parishes. But his clerical duties interfered but little with his literary activity, and in 1839 he published the first volume of an important biographical work, Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen, which occupied him for several years. This work was subsequently reissued under the rather misleading title of The Irish Nation. Though scarcely designed on any scientific principle, it was prosecuted with great industry, and is still valuable for its notices of many minor figures in Irish history and literature who are not elsewhere commemorated. Wills's other original contributions to literature include Dramatic Sketches and other Poems (1845), The Idolatress and other Poems (1868), as well as several theological publications. His longer poems give evidence of a strong dramatic instinct, while his shorter pieces are frequently spirited and even powerful, and indicate the striking personality and many-sided sympathies of their author. Wills was the father of the well-known nineteenth-century dramatist, W. G. Wills. To the Minstrel O'Connellan. Ierne's isle around, Thy hand its sweetness ringeth, Above the minstrel throng, In the castle, in the shieling, In the memories of the heart. Though fairy music slumbers O'er harp and heart-string plays. By thee the thrill of anguish Is softly lulled to rest; By thee the hopes that languish, Rekindled in the breast. Thy spirit chaseth sorrow Like morning mists away, And gaily robes to-morrow In the gladness of thy lay. Thomas Colley Grattan (1792-1864) was the son of a Dublin solicitor, read law for a time, became a militia officer, lived much in Paris and Brussels, and for a while was consul in Boston, U.S. He commenced his literary career with a poetical romance entitled Philibert (1819). In 1823 appeared his Highways and Byways, picturesque tales of Continental wandering and adventure. These were so well received that he wrote a second series, published in 1825, and a third in 1827. In 1830 he ventured on a novel in four volumes, The Heiress of Bruges, a Tale of the Year Sixteen Hundred, dealing with the Flemish struggle against the Spaniards. He produced also Tales of Travel, histories of the Netherlands and of Switzerland, and some twenty works in all, including a tragedy, several novels, and books on America. His pictures of ordinary life in French provinces, sketched with cheerful observant spirit as he wandered in highways and byways, were perhaps his best work. Richard Lalor Sheil (1791-1851) was a distinguished ornament of that school of Irish rhetoric in which Grattan's is the most illustrious name. The son of a retired Cadiz merchant, a native of Tipperary, he was born at Drumdowney, County Kilkenny. He received his school education in England, first at the establishment of a French émigré at Kensington, and afterwards at Stonyhurst. In 1807 Sheil matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin. Four years later he entered Lincoln's Inn, but his call to the Irish Bar was deferred through straitened means until 1814. To defray the expenses preliminary to his admission to the Four Courts he wrote Adelaide, the first of a series of plays which were to engage his leisure in the next few years. Sheil, however, though possessed of considerable literary gifts, was no Sheridan, and it cannot be said that his plays are undeserving of the oblivion that has overtaken them. What success they enjoyed in their day was due mainly to the fine acting of Miss O'Neil. The defect which was noted in most of them-that the interest was too exclusively concentrated on the heroine-was doubtless due to their being written largely to suit that actress. The most fortunate, and perhaps the most deservedly fortunate, of these dramatic efforts was Evadne, produced in 1819. Sheil's progress at the Bar was slow, nor did he ever attain a commanding position there. His earlier years at the profession were, indeed, much more occupied with literature than with law, and when he did apply himself to legal matters it was chiefly to observe and reproduce the characteristics of the leading lawyers of the day. In 1821, in conjunction with W. H. Curran, a son of the great orator of that name, he contributed to Colburn's New Monthly Magazine a series of 'Sketches of the Irish Bar,' which attracted considerable attention. Sheil's articles in this series were subsequently collected in Legal and Political Sketches. They are in every instance brightly and pointedly written, and, though meant for the hour only, they embalm much that the historian of the times will value. It is neither by his dramas nor by his essays that Sheil best deserves remembrance, and yet it was not until he had acquired a notable reputation in both these capacities that he attained to fame as an orator. As early as 1813 he had made a speech on the Catholic question before a Dublin audience which had been highly praised by competent critics; but more than ten years were to elapse before he revealed his real powers in this direction. The agitation for Catholic Emancipation aroused all the strongest feelings of an imaginative and emotional temperament, and the speeches he delivered on political platforms in Ireland in 1825 had a marked influence on public opinion in that country. Sheil heartily co-operated with O'Connell in the campaign which terminated in the Clare election; but it was not until three years after the cause of Emancipation had triumphed that he entered the House of Commons. In that assembly Sheil was less successful than on the platform, for reasons which have been sufficiently given by a most friendly critic, Thomas Moore: 'His voice has no medium tone, and, when exerted, becomes a scream; his action theatrical and of the barn order of theatricals; but still his oratorical powers are great, and capable of producing (in an Irish audience at least) great excitement' (Moore's Diary, September 1830). But despite these drawbacks some of Sheil's parliamentary speeches reach the highest level of oratory, and the fine rebuke (quoted below) to Lord Lyndhurst for his scornful description of the Irish people as 'aliens' is a good example of the force and dignity of his best passages. Sheil was associated, but not very closely or heartily, with the Repeal movement, and subsequently drew closer to the Whig than to the avowedly Irish party in the House of Commons. As such he was taken up by Lord John Russell, was appointed Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and nominated to the Privy Council. In Russell's Ministry of 1846 Sheil was Master of the Mint; and in 1850 he became Minister at the court of Tuscany, a position he continued to hold until his death in the year following. Speech in the House of Commons on Irish Municipal Bill, 1837. Tell me, for you were there-I appeal to the gallant soldier before me (Sir Henry Hardinge), from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast-tell me, for you must needs remember-on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance-while death fell in showers-when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly sciencewhen her legions, incited by the voice and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset-tell me if for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the 'aliens' blenched. And when at length the moment for the last and decisive movement had arrived, and the valour which had so long been wisely checked was at last let loose-when, with words familiar but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault, tell me if Catholic Ireland, with less heroic valour than the natives of your own glorious country, precipitated herself upon the foe. The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland flowed in the same stream and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together; in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited; the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust; the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate? And shall we be told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out? The Speeches of the Right Honourable Richard Lalor Sheil, M.P., were edited in 1845, with a Memoir, by Thomas MacNevin; Sketches, Legal and Political, were edited, with notes, in 1855, by M. W. Savage (2 vols.); Memoirs of Richard Lalor Sheil, by W. Torrens McCullagh, were published in the latter year. William Carleton (1794-1869) was the son of a small farmer in Tyrone, and the youngest of fourteen children. His origin was of a kind well suited to equip the future story-teller for his task; for Carleton's father, though of humble position, was a man of considerable native power, and acquainted with the Irish as well as the English tongue. Carleton got most of his early education in one of those hedge-schools which he was afterwards to describe so inimitably. Born a Roman Catholic, he was intended by his parents for the priesthood; but conscientious scruples interfered with this prospect, and eventually Carleton became a Protestant. Having somehow acquired a fair education, he became a tutor to a farmer's family in Louth, whence he removed to Dublin. After some time spent in the drudgery of teaching, he succeeded in getting appointed to a school in Mullingar, where he settled for a time, contributing articles on literary subjects to the local newspaper. From Mullingar he went to Carlow, but in 1828 returned to the capital, where, becoming acquainted with the Rev. Cæsar Otway, the editor of the Christian Examiner, he was invited to become a contributor, and began his literary career. From 1828 to 1834 Carleton contributed to the periodical just named the series of sketches which form his principal contribution to literature. His Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry were drawn from life, and in part, indeed, embalmed the actual experiences of the writer. For minute observation, and for the insight into the character of the Irish peasantry which they display, Carleton's stories have never been surpassed. The first collected series appeared in 1830, and a second in 1833; while Tales of Ireland were issued in 1834. The Traits and Stories soon won their way to public favour, and for the next few years Carleton was a constant contributor to Irish periodicals of every kind. In 1837 he commenced in the Dublin University Magazine his first sustained novel, Fardorougha the Miser. Though this work, by far the best of his more elaborate efforts, more than sufficed to refute the criticism that Carleton could only write short tales, its importance is not comparable with that of the Traits; nor, indeed, can it be said that the author achieves in any of his novels the success of his shorter stories. Fardorougha was followed in 1841 by The Misfortunes of Barney Branagan, another series of tales, and in 1845 by Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. Valentine M'Clutchy (1845), Rody the Rover (1847), and The Tithe Proctor (1848) are all novels in which various phases of the Irish land war supply the colouring matter; while The Black Prophet (1847) is occupied with the Potato Famine. Others of Carleton's novels are The Red Hall, or the Baronet's Daughter (1852); The Squanders of Castle Squander (1854); Willy Reilly and his dear Colleen Bawn (1855); and Redmond, Count O'Hanlon (1862). Interspersed between these were written a vast quantity of short tales. In 1848 the merit of Carleton's work was acknowledged by the grant of a Civil List pension of £200 a year. The last months of his life were occupied with a long-contemplated, but constantly postponed, autobiography, which was left unfinished. It is by his Traits and Stories rather than by his novels that Carleton lives and deserves to live. Of the many writers who in the second quarter of the nineteenth century sought to illustrate the manners and character of the Irish peasant, none used so realistic a brush and none produced so vivid an impression. His verse is not a very considerable part of Carleton's work; but Sir Turlough, or the Churchyard Bride, has a weird impressiveness, and has been praised by Sir Theodore Martin as 'the most successful legendary ballad of modern times.' An Irish Village. The village of Findramore was situated at the foot of a long green hill, the outline of which formed a low arch as it rose in the eye against the horizon. This hill was studded with clumps of beeches, and sometimes enclosed as a meadow. In the month of July, when the grass on it was long, many an hour have I spent in solitary enjoyment, watching the wavy motion produced upon its pliant surface by the sunny winds, or the flight of the cloud-shadows, like gigantic phantoms, as they swept rapidly over it; whilst the murmur of the rocking trees, and the glancing of their bright leaves in the sun, produced a heartfelt pleasure, the very memory of which rises in my imagination like some fading recollection of a brighter world. At the foot of this hill ran a clear, deep-banked river, bounded on one side by a slip of rich level meadow, and on the other by a kind of common for the village geese, whose white feathers, during the summer season, lay scattered over its green surface. It was also the playground for the boys of the village-school; for there ran that part of the river which, with very correct judgment, the urchins had selected as their bathing-place. A little slope, or watering-ground in the bank, brought them to the edge of the stream, where the bottom fell away into the fearful depths of the whirlpool, under the hanging oak on the other bank. Well do I remember the first time that I ventured to swim across it, and even yet do I see, in imagination, the two bunches of water flaggons on which the inexperienced swimmers trusted themselves in the water. About two hundred yards above this, the boreen [a little road or by-road] which led from the village to the main road crossed the river by one of those old narrow bridges whose arches rise like round ditches across the road- -an almost impassable barrier to horse and car. On passing the bridge, in a northern direction, you found a range of low thatched houses on each side of the road; and if one o'clock, the hour of dinner, drew near, you might observe columns of blue smoke curling up from a row of chimneys, some made of wicker creels plastered over with a thick coat of mud; some of old, narrow, bottomless tubs; and others, with a greater appearance of taste, ornamented with thick circular ropes of straw, secured together like bees' skeps with the peel of a brier; and many having nothing but the open vent above. But the smoke by no means escaped by its legitimate aperture, for you might observe little clouds of it bursting out by the doors and windows; the panes of the latter, being mostly stopped at other times with old hats and rags, were now left entirely open for the purpose of giving it a free escape. Before the doors, on right and left, was a series of dunghills, each with its concomitant sink of green, rotten water; and if it happened that a stout-looking woman, with watery eyes, and a yellow cap hung loosely upon her matted locks, came, with a chubby urchin on one arm, and a pot of dirty water in her hand, its unceremonious ejection in the aforesaid sink would be apt to send you up the village with your finger and thumb (for what purpose you would yourself perfectly understand) closely, but not knowingly, applied to your nostrils. But independently of this, you would be apt to have other reasons for giving your horse, whose heels are by this time surrounded by a dozen of barking curs, and the same number of shouting urchins, a pretty sharp touch of the spurs, as well as for complaining bitterly of the odour of the atmosphere. It is no landscape without figures, and you might notice, if you are, as I suppose you to be, a man of observation, in every sink as you pass along, a'slip of a pig' stretched in the middle of the mud, the very beau ideal of luxury, giving occasionally a long luxuriant grunt, highly expressive of his enjoyment; or, perhaps, an old farrower, lying in indolent repose, with half-a-dozen young ones jostling each other for their draught, and punching her belly with their little snouts, reckless of the fumes they are creating; whilst the loud crow of the cock, as he confidently flaps his wings on his own dunghill, gives the warning note for the hour of dinner. (From 'The Hedge School' in Traits and Stories.) C. LITTON FALKINER. Michael Banim (1796-1874) and John Banim (1798-1842), two brothers who are best known as the authors of Tales of the O'Hara Family, represent a remarkably successful instance of literary collaboration. It has never been possible to assign correctly the respective shares of the two brothers in the fame collectively acquired. But it seems as though the higher reputation enjoyed by the younger was due rather to the resolute self-abnegation of his senior than to his superior merit. The Banims were born in Kilkenny, where their father kept what Moore in his Diary describes as ‘a little powder and shot shop,' much resorted to by local sportsmen. They were educated together at Kilkenny College; but John, evincing a taste for painting, was in 1813 sent to Dublin to study drawing. After some years devoted to art John turned to literature, and quickly produced two dramas, Turgesius and Damon and Pythias, of which the latter was produced at Covent Garden by Macready and Charles Kemble in 1821. He also wrote an elaborate poem, The Celt's Paradise. In the following year-John having settled in London, where he contributed to the Literary Register the brothers commenced the publication of the O'Hara series. The tales at once became popular, and as a result of their success the next work published by them, Boyne Water (1825), found a numerous audience. These stories were mostly conceived on historical lines, and they did much, as was intended, to interest the English public in Irish questions and to lead to a fuller comprehension of certain phases of Irish character. A further series of Tales appeared in 1826, and included The Nowlans, for which Colburn gave a large sum. This work failed, however, to sustain the reputation of its predecessors, a failure due probably to the breakdown of John Banim's health. The brothers, however, continued to collaborate, John's intellectual activity being maintained in spite of bodily failure, and in 1829 a final series of O'Hara Tales appeared. John had meantime produced independently a set of essays, Reflections on the Dead-Alive (1824), and Sylla, a tragedy, besides numerous contributions to magazines. In 1836 he became paralysed in the lower limbs, and received a pension of £150 from the Civil List, together with a further grant of £40 yearly for his daughter. His strength thenceforward ebbed away, and though he survived six years longer, he had ceased to work. A Life by P. J. Murray appeared in 1857. Michael Banim long survived his younger brother, but like him was all his life in straitened circumstances. In 1853, however, he was appointed postmaster of Kilkenny, and on his retirement twenty years later received an allowance from the Royal Literary Fund. His chief works after his brother's death were Clough Fionn (1852) and The Town of the Cascades (1864). The O'Hara Tales have often been compared to the Waverley Novels, and no doubt they, like Miss Edgeworth's and Gerald Griffin's works, served in a great degree to do for Ireland what the 'Waverley' series did for Scotland. But the Banims lacked the broad sanity and kindly humour of Scott, while they were without the wholesome cheerfulness of Maria Edgeworth. They moved, especially the younger, on a more tragic plane, and it is the more gloomy elements in the Celtic temperament that they most success |