in an incursion into Westmeath, having taken a prey of cows from them, Niall MacHugh O'Higgins gave him such an airing, in the poetic vein, that he died in five weeks after, of the venom (say the Four Masters) of Niall's verses. "This," add they," was the second poetical miracle performed by this Niall O'Higgin; the first being the discomfiture of the Clan-Conway, the same night they plundered Niall at Cladann, and the second the death of Sir John Stanley."

66

Mr. Hardiman, in his learned notes to the Statute of Kilkenny, has collected a number of instances, showing the prevalence of the belief in the blighting powers of the old Irish rhymers, who will not stick to affirm," saith Reginold Scott, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, "that they can rime either man or beast to death.' "On this subject," says Mr. Hardiman, after citing a case from the Book of Ballimote, of a certain filea, who being affronted by the people of Leinster, blighted all the corn and grass of that province for an entire year,—

"There is extant a singular poem, addressed, in the sixteenth century, to the O'Briens of Thomond, by the Irish bard of that territory, Tiege MacDaire, in which he states, that he has a deadly weapon a poisonous satire-to cast, which would cause shortness of life, and against which neither the solitudes of valleys, the density of woods, nor the strength of castles, would protect his enemies. He then adduces examples from Irish history, of the destruction caused by the satires of ancient bards, amongst which he enumerates the satire composed by Criuthmbheal; the satirist for [against] Breas MacElathan; the one composed by Neidh, for Caicher, king of Connaught, which at first, by supernatural means, disfigured his face, and finally caused his death; and the one composed by Dallan Forguill, which wounded and withered King Aodh Mac Ainmire. The bard then warns O'Brien not to force him to fling this ominous weapon at him-a weapon which, from its miraculous nature, would extinguish all his good deeds, raise a disgraceful blush on his cheek, check his prosperity, and shorten his life."

Descending to more modern instances, Mr. O'Donovan (to whom Mr. Hardiman acknowledges himself obliged for the above information) states

that the bitterest composition of this kind which he has met with, "is the one composed for the celebrated Dr. Whaley of Dublin, astrologer and almanac-maker, about the year 1691, by Ferdoragh O'Daly, whose brother the doctor is said to have caused to be prosecuted and hanged." O'Daly, it seems, attacks the doctor for his devilish dealings with the moon and stars, whereby he had, with his basilisk eyes, destroyed the benign influence of these luminaries, insomuch that the crops and foliage of the earth had been withered, the birds had forgotten their songs, and the young of animals were destroyed in utero.

"He then begins," says Mr. O'Dono

van,

"to wither this astrologer with imprecations; calls on various diseases

of a violent nature to attack him; and calls down upon him the curses of God, the angels, the saints, and of all good men. Dr. Whaley, however," he proceeds to remark, "does not appear to have melted before this aoir of O'Daly, for he lived to a great age, and composed more effectual lampoons against the Irish than the bards, who were then certainly not in the zenith of their power, had composed against him. His almanacs throw much light on the history of the ferocious times in which he lived."

Taking leave of these pestilent fellows and their lampoons, we would desire, before concluding this portion of our notice of Mr. O'Donovan's work (for it is a subject to which we must return, at least once again), to say something on the uses and abuses of material of the kind we have just been citing, in the promotion of modern art and literature. And first, with regard to matters of art, we are satisfied that as yet the accumulation of material is by no means sufficient to enable either the painter or the sculptor to treat subjects taken from these times successfully. Those who have knowledge enough of events to have such subjects in contemplation, are generally men of a genius far too proud and fastidious, to undertake anything which they are unable to treat rightly and completely in all its details. But, what men of this class shrink from, others of a lower caste of genius attempt, and, in attempting, vulgarize. Mr. MacClise is open to this censure. He ought not

Before

to have attempted the illustration of Moore's historic or national melodies. The costumes of the Niebelun. gen Lay are not suitable to these sub. jects. Ossian himself, so dressed and accoutered, suffers disparagement_in propriety and dignity. The St. Pa trick of the sign-boards ought to have no place on the canvas of artists who would preserve the higher associations of their country's history. the men really capable of undertaking these subjects, can be satisfied of the security of the new ground they have to enter on, learning must still advance much farther in one of its slowest and most cautious processes. It is in the museum of the Academy the first outlines of our future great pictures of Irish subjects will have to be drawn; and till we know what the objects there really are-and as yet we are ignorant of the uses of some of the most conspicuous of them-we must be satisfied to deal with Druidic and Eamanian times in the drier way of scholastic investigation, and avoid, in the mean time, the encouragement of rash and incompetent illustrators.

We cannot help remarking, in connexion with this subject, a singular evidence of the mistakes which the Irish of the present day are apt to make in their picturesque revivals of ancient times. From several notices in the Annals, it appears almost certain that the colours of Strongbow and his associates were green. Our readers will recollect that, as the central Continental nations call strangers from their respective surrounding territories "Welsh," so the Irish apply the term "Gall" (probably another form of the same word) to foreigners in general; but discriminate between the foreigners of different countries by descriptive adjectives annexed. Thus they call the Danes, "Dubh-Galls," or black foreigners; the Normans, "FinnGalls," or white foreigners; and, in like manner, in the time of Strongbow, they called the Anglo-Norman invaders, "Glass-Galls," or green foreigners, on account, as it would seem, of the prevailing colour of their costume.

Next to the painter, the romancewriter most requires the help of these adjuncts to give vividness and character to his story, though with a power to use or to dispense with them more at his convenience; yet even he, we think, must still find himself in a

strange country, embarrassed and ineffective, as often as he travels back in search of adventure behind the seventeenth century. Beyond that point he also, we think, must still be satisfied to attend the slow progress of the antiquary. But the poet has a privilege above all others. His materials are pre-eminently the face of nature and the emotions of the human heart; and he can present these at any point of time backward, with less of the apparatus of costume and manners, than any other realizer of ideal scenes to the imagination. For him there is abundant material, from century to century, back as far as tradition reaches; and capable, every particle of it, to be turned to the loftiest national purposes, so as it be only taken up in a generous spirit, passed through the fire of a free genius, and enunciated with frankness and simplicity; but, if ever there were subjects which will not bear affectation or mannerism, they are these hints and fragments from a rude but sincere antiquity. In dealing with them, our young poets must recollect that the language which they use is English, and that the introduction of Irish phrases into their compositions, is as anomalous as if English refrains were introduced into the songs of France. It is not by uncouth names, either of persons or places, that the Irish sentiment is to be caught, or the Irish mode of thought or feeling imparted: true poetry is best expressed by the least conventional language; and new forms of expression ought never to be sought for, unless when they suggest new ideas, or stir the feelings by new modes of approach. We would, therefore, seek to draw our young writers, on whom so much depends, away from some of the more prevalent mannerisms of their school, and invite them back to the use of material of this kind in more classic modes of composition.

Commending these collections, then, on the one hand, to our scholars and historians, as examples and incitements to further accumulations; and, on the other, to our young poets, as mines of rough but precious intellectual ore, we postpone, for another occasion, the remarks we purpose to make on many other subjects of great interest here treated of by the O'Clerys and their

commentator.

THIS is a wonderful age for advising and directing. If people go wrong in these days, it is not for want of plenty of counsel and direction; if they go astray, it is not for lack of forests of sign-posts. We do everything now, no longer by the card, but by the book. There are books for all ages, sexes, sizes, sorts, and conditions ; books of instruction for all; hints to everybody; rules for doing or not doing, and not a few for misdoing and undoing, all things. Everything conceivable is reduced to art and science, to method and precept; whether you want to make a pudding or your willto buy a horse, or dance a polka-to educate your son, or drain your farm -you have only to go to your booksellers, find what book or books have been written expressly on the subject, order, or put them in your pocket, and you must be unlucky indeed if you do not find your own case provided for to a nicety, your own difficulties precisely foreseen, and every inch of the road you want to travel laid down as clearly as any route in a map of Switzerland, or any course in an admiralty chart.

This is one of the most noticeable characteristics of the times we live in. Life is still a "mighty maze," but no longer without a plan;" at the entrance of every labyrinth stands an Ariadne to conduct you through its windings; for every Telemachus there are at least a dozen Mentors.

Our

fathers thought themselves well off with a Reading made easy," and a general dissertation on "The Whole Duty of Man;" but every possible subject is made easy for us, and as to duties, we have not one work but twenty upon the duties of fathers, mothers, stepmothers, godmothers, nieces, nephews, and country-cousins -a treatise "De Officiis" for every variety of the human family (down, we believe, to the very hobbledyhoy), under all possible and impossible varieties and vicissitudes, combinations and permutations of circumstances. The spirit of the age is the spirit of lecturing, teaching, drilling, instructing, informing, indoctrinating, inculcating, imbuing, and instilling. We

are so scholastic that we school our schoolmasters themselves, open academies for governesses, and it will only be one little step further to catechise our divines, doctor our doctors, and instruct attorneys how to prepare bills of costs. It is tolerably clear, therefore, that as "in the multitude of counsellors there is safety," so in such a crowd of intellectual and moral physicians and pharmacopolists-amongst such an infinite variety of helps, aids, guides, manuals, handbooks, hints, advices, and directions-he must be a dull fellow who either literally or metaphorically ever loses his way, or knocks his head or his shin against a post.

There is this, indeed, to be feared, that where there is so much advicegiving, there cannot be very much leisure for advice taking. The people who go wrong must needs be, to a great extent, the people who occupy themselves so benevolently teaching others to go right. We dare to say it would be found upon inquiry, that the only member of the community who enters a room awkwardly, or commits a solecism at dinner, is the author of "Hints upon Etiquette." In like manner, it is fairly to be presumed that nobody is now capable of making a bad bargain in horseflesh but the writer of The Gentleman in Search of a Horse;" that Miss Lambert is the very girl to drop a stitch in her needle-work; Mrs. Ellis the woman to forget her grandchildren at Christmas; and that the "Complete Angler" never killed a trout in his life. How much better then is it to sit on the form with the pupils, than on the chair with the teachers. We have only to be modest and unassuming, take counsel instead of giving it, read books instead of undertaking to write them; and the voyage of life is as plain sailing as the Pas de Calais, or the run from Liverpool to New York.

At the same time it is as hard to escape the mania of directorship as to avoid the influenza. We fear we have caught this epidemic ourselves, for we have been looking about us to discover if, by any chance, any nook

or corner has been left unvisited by this busy spirit, that we might try and appropriate it to ourselves; and it has occurred to us that there is some little room left still for advising and directing in the very important department of dinner-giving. We have had no "Hints to Amphitryons," or "Handbooks to Hosts;" let us then jump into this little chasm without a moment's delay, and lay down a few simple rules, which our readers will, of course, follow or disregard, at their sovereign will and pleasure. That the majority will follow them, however, we have every reason to hope and believe-a belief founded not merely upon our conviction of the intrinsic excellence of our precepts, but upon the fact, that they will be found strictly conformable to the established usages and customs of a very large segment of the Irish social circle. In fact, we propose to follow a method strictly Baconianthe subject being one that deserves a treatment no less respectful — and found our general prandial laws upon a wide induction from the observed phenomena of the table.

Rule 1. Never give a dinner in the absolute sense of the word give; by which you will understand me to mean, that no sensible man will cover his board with fish, flesh, and fowl, soups, wines, fruits and ices, except with the honest purpose of repaying a debt contracted at another man's table, or with a wise view to a fair and handsome return upon the capital he has previously invested in hospitality. You see on what high grounds I place the dinner-giving principle-the probity that can never rest without discharging an obligation, or the prudence that shrinks from an unremunerating, and therefore wasteful, expendi

ture.

It may be objected, that this is to place conviviality on a commercial footing. If you think you see any force in the objection-if you doubt whether dinners have any connexion with buying or selling, or fancy they should be matters of sentiment only, go to market, and convince yourself of your error. The poulterer and fishmonger will quickly show you the mercantile nature of the transaction. But is it in a commercial country like this we are to be told that commercial principles are not to be applied

to the most important business of human life?

2. The number of the company to be invited is one of the first considerations. Ascertain accurately how many people your table will hold, and be sure to ask a few more, that your guests may be close and comfortable. Suppose your table, for instance, holds twelve conveniently, invite fifteen or sixteen; if it is just the table for sixteen, you may very well issue cards for two-and-twenty. It is the duty of a host to bring his friends together; and, besides, there will be more likelihood of intellectual intercourse when people cannot use their hands with perfect freedom, to say nothing of the economy of fooda duty so imperative in times like the present.

3. A dinner is to be contemplated in two points of view-with respect to quantity, and with respect to quality. The rule with respect to the former is so well known, that it need hardly be stated. A dinner sufficient for any given number of guests, is also sufficient for the same number increased to the extent of a third, or more. Thus a dinner for ten is a dinner for fourteen; a dinner for twelve will be enough for sixteen or eighteen; and a dinner for sixteen is amply sufficient for any larger number.

4. The quality of a dinner is to be regulated, in some degree, by your obligations, but more, a great deal, by your motives and views. Dinners given should bear some proportion to dinners received; but an apparent proportion is all that you need be anxious to preserve. To act on the system of entertaining exactly as you have been entertained, will involve you in incalculable expense; to say nothing of the real shabbiness of the principle, which, to be fully carried out, would require the production and comparison of the bills of fishmongers and confectioners, wine-merchants' accounts, &c. In short, I cannot advise you better on this head than by referring you to my first rule. Let probity and discretion direct you, and you will neither give too bad a dinner on the one hand, nor too good a one on the other. A dinner is good enough in all conscience, if it is accepted in the light of a return, and does not put an end to convivial relations, in case you desire to continue them.

5. When it is possible to return a splendid dinner with a plain one, it ought of course to be done. This requires courage and management. Some people do it as a jeu d'esprit; others with an affectation of eccentricity, as if it was a whim of theirs, or an hereditary oddity; some do it whiningly and suppliantly, with a rigmarole story about the non-payment of their rents (which you know to be strictly true, inasmuch as they have no rents to receive). But the best plan is the bold one. If you resolve

to return a haunch of venison with a shoulder of mutton, make no bones of it, but tell your friends roundly that you are very angry with them for giving such costly banquets, and that you are determined to punish them with a good, plain, family dinner.

6. Never perplex yourself about sorting your guests properly; no man has a right to object to meet his fellow-creatures under any circumstances, much less at a dinner; if people are disagreeable to one another, that is the very reason for asking them to meet; they may overcome their mutual antipathies, and at all events you will have the satisfaction to think that you have done all in your power to reconcile them, and may safely boast that you have brought them together.

7. The hour of dinner is a point of some consequence; but you need not name the same hour in all your invitations. When you invite orally, you may be as vague as you like "half-past six, or seven; not later than half-past seven, or about eight." You thus not only consult the convenience of your guests, but you guard against the inconvenience of several simultaneous arrivals, besides teaching your cook the invaluable lesson of being semper paratus.

8. Whatever your hour be, be sure not to order dinner until all your guests have assembled. It is a mistake to think that people grow more ravenous, like wild beasts, by postponement of feeding-time. In general it is the reverse. As to the dinner being spoiled, that is only the proper punishment for guests who fail in punctuality; and moreover, if people can sometimes eat cold dinners in the open air (as they do at pic-nics), they may very well manage to eat them in comfortable dining-rooms. Those who arrive in time are always the com

VOL. XXXI.-NO. CLXXXIII.

plainants upon such occasions; but you are not to gratify a portion of your company (and that the greediest) at the expense of others, whose very tardiness shows that they have had other occupations to engage them beside mere attention to their animal comforts.

9. Light your table modestly and umbrageously. Nothing injures the eyes like the glare of a great many lamps and chandeliers. You can tell your company how much you love a

dim religious light;" or you may have a passage from Shakspeare or Shelley, on the charms of twilight, ready to quote. I need scarcely add how much the aspect of a great many of your dishes will probably be improved by shade; particularly the most mysterious, those chef-d'œuvres of your cook, which combine the advantanges of at once piquing curiosity and repressing appetite.

Lamps are to be preferred to candles for such lighting as is actually indispensable. The little accidents to which illumination with oil is subject, contribute amazingly to enliven a dull dinner; supposing all your lamps to go out simultaneously (the worst that can happen), you may console yourself by thinking that your entertainment will never be forgotten; it will be as memorable as a total eclipse of the sun; and if the smell of oil is not the most agreeable incense in nature, you can safely inform the company that there are worse odours in the world, as the Sanatory Commissioners know well.

10. Be careful not to overheat your parlour, particularly in winter. No fires ought to be lighted for at least a week before the entertainment, and then a moderate one kindled a few minutes before dinner will generally suffice. Great fires produce draughts of air in proportion, and if the room is a little too cool, the wine will be all the better for it; indeed, in frosty weather you may thus dispense with ice altogether. Remember, too, that I take for granted you have packed your company well, in obedience to my second direction.

11. When you happen to have a tolerably good fire, do not permit the use of screens, to intercept its influence from the company, and deprive you of the credit of keeping a warm house. Those who have their backs

2 c