We should have been glad to have concluded this notice of Mr. Townsend's book with praise, but it is not possible, in any point of view, to be satisfied with his account of Smith O'Brien's trial. This is the only Irish trial in the volume. In the second volume of the work is the trial of O'Connell for conspiracy, which is, in many respects, much more ably executed. We cannot give high praise to these volumes. It is not always possible to make out a clear account of what actually passed in court, from Mr. Townsend's narrative, and that narrative is very confusedly distributed between what he calls "introductions" to each trial, and the abstract of the trial itself. In his "introductions," he is naturally led into disquisitions, in which he assumes his reader to be al THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH. The voice of Nature, in her changeful moods, And 'mid the wavings of the ancient woods, Murmurers, now filled with joy, now sad and low. Thou gentle Poet, she hath tuned thy mind To deep accordance with the harmony That floats above the mountain summits free, And thy calm strains are breathed as tho' the Dove The soul of music and the heart of love; For with a holy tranquillizing power, They fall upon the spirit, like a gleam Of quiet starlight on a troubled stream. ON READING MRS. HEMAN'S LAST LYRIC. DESPONDENCY AND ASPIRATION. Thy life was ever freshened by the streams Of Knowledge blent with Beauty, and thy soul Did mirror then the star-light of its dreams, As in soft glory they were wont to roll. And in thy dying hour, as Israel's being Longed for a draught from that pure well, whose flow Had been like music to his youthful life; So was the spirit yearning for the spring Of living waters-but their current low Ebbed from thy soul, by feverish pain controlled. And when at length, 'mid toil and fervent strife, Once thy lips-like him on Judah's sod, Thou poured'st it forth-an offering to thy God! THE POETS AND POETRY OF MUNSTER.' A NEAT little volume, with this title, has been lately published by O'Daly, of Dublin, containing specimens of the indigenous poetry (principally songs) of Munster, both in the vernacular and in an English dress, and accompanied by the music to which they were set. Of the translations it is sufficient to say they are Clarence Mangan's-of course excellent: he entered into the spirit of Irish verse with a facility that is surprising, when we remember that (to use the words of the preface) "he was totally unacquainted with the original language, and made his versions of Gaelic poetry from literal translations, furnished to him by Irish scholars." In O'Daly's pretty little book the Munsterman hails, as familiar words, the names of his old acquaintances, Andrew M'Grath, the merry pedlar (or merrymonger, as commonly called); Timothy O'Sullivan, the pious; Denis M'Namara, the foxy; William O'Heffernan, the blind; John O'Tuomy, the merry; Father William English, and others; but he asks, "where is Dermod O'Curnan?-why has all mention of him been omitted?"-yet he deserved a niche in that miniature temple of the Momonian muse, as well from the interest attached to his tragical story, as from the intrinsic merit of his poetry, which is elegiac in its genius, and often terse and antithetical in style, and evinces a mind of much natural refinement. We have never met with any of O'Curnan's poems, translated or printed; and though we have seen some of them in MS. among the peasantry, in the county of Waterford, we believe they are chiefly preserved by oral tradition. O'Curnan seems to have been unknown to Edward O'Reilly, who does not allude to him in his "Chronological Account of nearly Four Hundred Irish Writers ;" therefore a short account of the illfated bard may not be superfluous. Dermod O'Curnan, the son of a farmer, was born about, or a little before, 1740, in the county of Cork, but resided, after he grew up, in the parish of Modelligo, county of Waterford. Young O'Curnan was peculiarly gifted by nature; he had a finely formed person; a strikingly handsome face; a lively disposition; agrecable manners; deep and ardent feelings, and considerable abilities; and was, from his early youth, a poet. Unhappily he fell in love with a pretty peasant girl, a native of Modelligo (the "Mary" of his poems), who was proud of the attachment of a young man so much superior to her usual associates, and encouraged, perhaps reciprocated, his love. But she saw that other girls were anxious to attract his attentions at their dances and rustic recreations; and, inspired by the demon of jealousy, she repaired to one of those old crones of whom formerly there were too many, who professed to deal in charms, spells, and philtres, and purchased from her a potion said to be of virtue to keep her lover constant to herself. This she contrived to mingle in his drink at some convivial meeting; the mischievous compound attacked his brain, and the unfortunate Dermod became incurably deranged. His whole temperament changed; he lost his vivacity, and became melancholy, moody, and unsocial, but retained his poetic talent; and though aware of the fatal injury inflicted on him by his Mary, he still remembered his passion, which seemed to gather intensity from his madness. But now he had become an object of terror and dislike to her, and she repelled him harshly whenever he approached her, as he often did, to complain of his shattered health and his troubled brain, of which he was quite sensible. Her cold and disdainful manner augmented his malady, and he wandered about the solitary parts * The Poets and Poetry of Munster: a Selection of Irish Songs by the Poets of the last Century, with Poetical Translations by the late James Clarence Mangan, now for the first time published. With the Original Music, and Biographical Sketches of the Authors. By John O'Daly, Editor of "Reliques of Irish Jacobite Poetry," &c. Dublin: John O'Daly. of Modelligo, a wretched being, ragged, barefooted, sallow, sickly, with scarcely a trace of his former beauty left; but still frequently composing poems on his love and his despair, which he could be induced by kindness to repeat to his friends, by whom they were committed to memory. At length he disappeared for some time, and was supposed to have left that part of the country. But one Sunday morning, in the latter end of summer, while all the rural population was at Mass, he suddenly entered the cottage of his scornful love, near Farnane Bridge. It happened that It happened that she had remained at home alone, and was employed cutting brambles with a bill-hook, to feed the fire on which the potatoes were boiling for dinner. Immediately on O'Curnan's entrance he began to speak to her of his enduring attachment, and to entreat her pity; but instead of trying to soothe and amuse the maniac till some one should come in, it appears that she foolishly irritated him by contemptuous expres. sions, and especially by taunting him with his infirmity. Knowing himself to have been in this respect her victim, he became infuriated beyond the usual pitch of his delirium-and, in a wild paroxysm of frenzy, snatching up the billhook, he severed her head from her body. Remarkable retribution! she fell a sacrifice to the madness that she had occasioned by her own superstition and jealousy. No sooner was the fatal deed done, and O'Curnan's fury appeased by the blood of the murdered woman, than the feeble light of such reason as he commonly retained dawned again upon his mind; he became conscious of the nature and the consequences of his act, and rushed from the house to conceal himself. The dismay of Mary's family, at finding her headless corpse, on their return from chapel, may be conceived. On searching for the murderer, the track of the madman was easily discovered; he was found lying hid among the standing corn in a neighbouring field; the blood on his hands and clothes bore witness against him, but none such was needed; he confessed all that had passed with sufficient coherency, and was conveyed to prison. The fate of O'Curnan was the reverse of that of Sophocles: when the Greek poet was charged with de. rangement, his verses were accepted by the judges of the case as a proof of his sanity; O'Curnan's, on the contrary, furnished to his jury a strong presumption of his lunacy, which being established by evidence as to his habits, and their cause, the "Mad Poet" was acquitted of wilful murder, but was confined for life as a dangerous maniac. The tragedy we have related occurred about eighty-seven years ago. After O'Curnan had lost his reason, chancing one day to meet the object of his unfortunate attachment, he complained to her of illness; she asked him, "What ailed him-what was his sickness?" In reply to which, he poured forth a poem which he afterwards recited to persons who committed it to writing. A manuscript copy was given to us by a country schoolmaster who taught Irish; and from that we make the following translation direct from the vernacular: THE LAY OF THE AFFLICTED BARD. Thou art my pain, my Mary !-pining ever, In one short month thou'lt find me with the dead. Where is the cure to stay my health's perdition?— 'Tis with youth's blossom, 'tis with beauty's charm. Love, my free gift, 'tis that has caus'd my anguish : Ah, woe is me! I may not call her mine. Give me, my Mary, once thy lips' soft pressure; This poem is very characteristic: the complaints it expresses are symptomatic of derangement; the loss of sleep and appetite; the failure of recollection and discernment, yet the consciousness of his state, the knowledge that his beloved was "she who wrought his harm;" the hopelessness of cure, unless the antidote should proceed from her, as did the bane; and then the touching allusion to his heart's memory, that would recognise her, though it forgot all else. In the mad songs written by some persons, in the character of maniacs (such as Robert Herrick's "Mad Maid's Song," "Good-morrow to the day so fair," &c.,) and even in Shakespeare's, if we may never before had they witnessed so affecting, because SO natural, an Ophelia. As the difference between the sane and the insane actress's representation of the distracted maiden, so is the difference between the song of a really frenzied poet and that of him who only assumes the character of a maniac at the moment of writing. The song of Eamonn-na-chnoic, or Ned of the Hills, the celebrated freebooter, is given in O'Daly's book; but the version differs so much from that which we have been accustomed to hear, that we venture to give a translation from our own familiar Irish copy, because it is so much more characteristic of the outlaw. Ned of the Hills, properly Edmund O'Ryan, of the County Tipperary, sprung from an ancient and once wealthy family, the O'Ryans of Kilnelongurty, but ruined by the confiscations that followed the civil wars. To a well-born man thus rendered destitute, who could not dig, and was ashamed to beg, it often appeared that no alternative for existence remained but that of a freebooting career, which he persuaded himself into believing a just retribu tion-a spoiling of the spoilers. To this idea, and to the losses the outlaw had sustained by forfeiture, a strong allusion is made in the Irish song in our possession (said by tradition to have been written by Edmund O'Ryan himself), but which is not to be found in O'Daly's copy. The song, it will be observed, takes the form of a dialogue between the outlaw and his love; we have preserved the metre as nearly as we could:. *He was born in the latter part of the 17th century. THE SONG OF NED OF THE HILLS. We'll watch through the long hours together." "I gaze on the light in thy soft blue eye, And my thoughts they urge me with thee to fly There the grass is most green, the birds most sweet, "Long is the night, and my heart is devoid Of warmth, as the wintry sun's gleaming: To the lone haunted Dun* repairing; "Dear little Mora! though wedding with me There are, in our Irish version, many touches characteristic of the outlaw, which are not in the Gælic copy printed by O'Daly, such as the proposed watchfulness, as if to guard against surprise (in the first stanza)-the allusion to his wrongs, and the deed of befitting vengeance that he meditated; the faithful readiness of his mistress to leave her home and wander with him throughout Munster, even harbouring for security in places reputed to be haunted; the allusion to the reproach she would incur by becoming the wife of a bandit; and his own sensibility to his impoverished state, rendered more acute when he thought of that love which he could but so ill requite. There is one "Edmund of the Hills,' as from the Irish, by Lady Morgan (when Miss Owenson), from what original we know not: it has one or two ideas in common with ours and O'Daly's; but is simply a love song, without a single touch of distinctive character; and might as well be the lay of the most peaceable and orderly man in the community, even of a justice of the quorum himself, as of an outlaw. The story of Edmund O'Ryan, or Ned of the Hills, is that of many of the Irish outlaws in the olden times. Scions of proud and honourable fami Literally, Dun na n-gealt, the Dun of the wild sylvan beings, or satyrs. There is a Gleann na n-gealt in Kerry. Literally, "Munster, a province, and the half of Ireland;" alluding to the division of Ireland into two halves, between Con of the Hundred Battles, and Eugene More, alias Mogha Muadhat; the southern half, Munster, which then included Leinster, being called Leath Mogha, Mogh's half; the rest was Leath Choinn, Con's half. |