Better still: less verbiage, and a nicer perception beautifully illustrated: Let no one, however, venture to think that even a brief half-hour's conversation with another man of strong mind can be a matter of mere indifference-indeed, I know not that it ever is so, with any one, wise or foolish, ugly or pretty, good or bad. We are all nothing but traders in this world, mere hucksters, travelling pack men, with a stock continually changing, increasing, diminishing. We go forth into the world carrying a little wallet of ideas and feelings; and with every one to whom we speak for a moment, we are trafficking in those commodities. If we meet with a man of wisdom and of virtue, sometimes he is liberal, and supplies us largely with high and noble thoughts, receiving only in return sweet feelings of inward satisfaction; sometimes, on the other hand, he will only trade upon equal terms, and if we cannot give him wisdom for wisdom, shuts up his churlish shop and will deal with us no more. If we go to a bad man, we are almost always sure to be cheated in our traffic, to get evil or useless wares, and often those corrupted things which, once admitted to our stock, spread the mould and mildew to all around. Often, often, too, in our commerce with others, do we pay for the poisons which we buy as antidotes, all that we possess of good, both in feeling and idea. But when we sit down by beauty, and gentleness, and virtue, what a world of sweet images do we gain for the little that we can give in exchange? Ay, and even in passing a few light moments with a dear, innocent child, how much of bright and pure do we carry away in sensation!-how much of deep and high may we gain in thought! Oh no!-it is no indifferent thing with whom we converse, if ideas be the riches of the spirit." "Tales of the Jury-Room" have been set in a whimsical framework, both as to incident and the situation of the story-tellers. There is a trial for a breach of promise of marriage; there is an English stranger with more curiosity than prudence, who contrives to conceal himself in the Jury-room; the twelve good men cannot agree in their verdict, and are shut up for the night, during which they entertain themselves with tales, one following another; and even the prying tourist contributes his yarn, having discovered himself by sneezing. The staple of the volumes therefore consists of unconnected stories; although the incidents to which we have alluded, furnish matter to render the framework a sort of tale of itself. With regard to the subjects of the tales; they are not all of the nature that might be looked for from Irish Jurors; that is to say, they are not all national, nor even what might be expected from travelled persons, or respectable retired gentlemen who give reminiscences of their services in foreign parts. One or two of the narrators must be supposed to have derived their subjects from reading authors belonging to countries far distant from Erin; and there is even recourse had to ancient times for characters and incident. Nor can it be overlooked that the English stranger who ensconces him self in the Jury-room, perpetrates something like to an Irish bull; for he comes forward with what savours more of Hibernia than Britannia, or any other land divided from the Emerald Isle. Still, the bulk of the tales are national, in regard of subject, sentiment, style, and dialect; and all of them are told with fluency, spirit, and natural effect. But there is not much that is powerful or novel. They will amuse rather than deeply impress the reader; they illustrate and embody certain superstitions as well as historical points, rather than discover to us the cast of mind which offers acceptance to such nutriment and exercise as the traditions and the supernatural in them contain. We quote one truly characteristic example, it contains, besides, an apposite truth under its wild garb : Meanwhile, the story-teller and his strange master found themselves on a wild heath in Sligo, where they beheld O'Connor of Connaught at the head of a powerful army, with a vast herd of cattle and other spoils, which he had driven from the bondsmen of Munster. The Caol Riava went up and saluted him: "Save you, O'Connor," he said boldly. "And you likewise," replied the Monarch; "what is your name?” "Call me Giolla De," said the Caol Riava: "what is the cause of the confusion which I observe among your forces?" "We are expecting an attack from the Munster men," replied the King, "and are at a loss how to drive the spoils and repel the enemy at the same time." "What made you drive them at all?" said the Caol Riava. "You know," replied the King, "that a monarch ought always to be ready to redress the slightest grievance of his subjects. Now it happened that a Connaught woman lent a basket to a woman of her acquaintance in Munster, who refused to return it at the appointed time. I heard of the injury, and immediately raised an army to avenge it. I am now returning with the spoils; a portion of which I intend to bestow on the poor woman who lost her basket." "And what will you do with the rest?" inquired the Giolla De. "I will keep them myself," said the King, "to signalize my victory, and enhance the national glory, after the way of all great kings." "I'm afraid it will give you enough to do," replied the Caol Riava; "for before you leave this heath you will have more Munster men to meet you than there are purple bells all over it." "That's what I fear," said the King. "What will you give me if I help you?" said the Caol Riava. "You!" cried one of O'Connor's men with a burst of laughter; "it cannot make much difference to O'Connor whether you go or stay." "What reward would you require?" asked O'Connor. "A share, little or much, of any thing you may get while I am with you," replied the Giolla De. 66 Agreed," exclaimed the King. Very well," said the Giolla De; "do you hold on your journey driving your spoils, while I coax the Munster men home again." The King proceeded, and saw nothing of the men of Munster until he reached his own domain, where he arrived before any of his retinue. "The wrong a King doth, were it huge as a mountain And my troth shall be plight by the word of a King." The instant he had uttered these lines, the Caol Riava and the storyteller vanished from the eyes of O'Connor, who looked around for them in vain in all directions. But what astonished him still more was, that not a particle of all the spoils he had driven from Munster remained with his host; nor could any thing be found throughout the whole army but an old basket, which the Connaught woman, already spoken of, recognized as the one she had lent to the Munster woman. ART. XII.-Poems. By ROBERT NICOLL. Second Edition. Edinburgh: Tait. THE character of these Poems, and the circumstances of the author's life, require that they be noticed at considerable length in our pages. The new pieces added to this edition, and a memoir of the author, give the modest volume a claim upon our attention, even although on the first appearance of the lyrics, we had allowed them some space in our pages. Robert Nicoll was the son of a Perthshire farmer, who at the period of this son's birth, and for five years later, was in comfortable circumstances for his station and calling. The father, however, having become bound for a relative to the amount of six hundred pounds, was ruined in consequence of the debtor absconding. The whole of the unfortunate farmer's property was sold; he was obliged to become a common labourer, finding employment as such upon the very lands which he had rented, when he had a competency; his wife too, who had before been in circumstances which enabled her to devote herself to profitable reading, as well as to educating her children, was subjected necessarily to domestic drudgery, and had also to take at times to field labour, in which her eight children appear to have joined as soon as they had strength to work. But the touching facts, and which are quite characteristic of the peasantry of Scotland, are not yet fully indicated: the reduced parents failed not to give their children such an education as fitted them afterwards to attain to respectable situations in life. The particulars which we are about to mention relative to Robert will throw some more light upon the condition of the family and the character of their education, at the same time that we obtain a view of a son of poverty and of genius, whose history will not pass away even in the annals of literature. Robert says, in a biographical letter to a bookseller in Edinburgh, and referring to the period of his father's ruin, "I was then too young to know the full extent of our misfortune; but young as I was, I saw and felt a great change. My mother in her early years, was an ardent book-woman. When she became poor, her time was too precious to admit of its being spent in reading, and I generally read to her while she was working; for she took care that her children should not want education. Ever since I can remember I was a keen and earnest reader. Before I was six years of age Ι read every book that came in my way, and had gone twice through my grandfather's small collection, though I had never been at school." He goes on to state, that having attained his sixth year, he was sent to the parish-school, which was three miles distant; "and I generally read going and returning. To this day I can walk as quickly as my neighbours, and read at the same time with the greatest ease. I was sent to the herding at seven years of age, and continued herding all summer, and attending school all winter with my fee (wages)." A few notes are supplied by Robert's younger brother, Mr. William Nicoll, now of Glasgow. In adverting to the poet's childhood, it is said, "Even at this early period Robert was a voracious reader, and never went to the herding without a book in his plaid; and he generally read both going and returning from school. From his studious disposition, though a favourite with the other boys from his sweetness of temper, he hardly ever went by any other name than the minister. When about twelve he was taken from herding and sent to work in the garden of a neighbouring proprietor. With the difference that he had now less time for reading than before, the change in his employment made very little change in his habits. He went to school during the winter as usual." We are farther told, that it was in one of those winters that he began the Latin Rudiments; and, besides writing and accounts, he seems to have acquired some knowledge of geometry. "We should however say that Nicoll knew little of any science, and nothing of any language save English, and his own beautiful Doric. He never made any pretension of the sort. His slight acquaintance with the Latin Rudiments must, however, have been of use to him when he subsequently taught himself grammar from Cobbett's useful compendium. But his regular school-learning, whatever its amount, was all acquired at intervals, and in the dull season of the year when he could not work out of doors." Speaking of the period when he was between eleven and twelve, Robert himself says, in his letter to the bookseller, in reference to a book-club which had been established in the village of his native parish, "when I had saved a sufficient quantity of silver coin, I became a member. I had previously devoured all the books to be got in the parish for love, and I soon devoured all those in the library for money. Besides, by that time I began to get larger fees, and I was able to pay 1s. 6d. a month, for a month or two, to a bookseller in Perth for reading. From him I got many new works; and among the rest the Waverley Novels. With them I was enchanted. They opened up new sources of interest and thought, of which I before knew nothing. I can yet look with no common feelings on the wood in which, while herding, I read Kenilworth." About his thirteenth year, Robert began to scribble his thoughts, and to make rhyme; and his brother relates that he was so far honoured as, at this age, to become the correspondent of a provincial newspaper, the manager of which, in requital of small scraps of parish news, sent him an occasional copy of the journal. The editor, however, afterwards found a correspondent more suitable, at least in point of age, and the boy was deprived of his office; not without chagrin "at the abrupt disruption of this his first connexion with the press." "As Nicoll himself describes simply and interestingly his first attempts at composition, and various succeeding steps in his progress. nearly as I can remember, I began to write my thoughts when I was thirteen years of age, and continued to do so at intervals until I was sixteen; when, despairing of ever being able to write the English language correctly, I made a bonfire of my papers, and wrote no more till I was eighteen. My excursive course of reading both poets and prosers, gave me many pleasures of which my fellows knew nothing; but it likewise made me more sensitive to the insults and degradations that a dependent must suffer. You cannot know the horrors of dependence; but I have felt them, and have registered a vow in heaven that I shall be independent, though it be but on a crust and water." He goes on to relate:-"To further my progress in life, I bound myself apprentice to Mrs. J. H. Robertson, wine-merchant and grocer, in Perth. When I came to Perth, I bought Cobbett's English Grammar; and by constant study soon made myself masVOL. II. (1842.) No. II. T |