Here, too, is another, not so bold or impassioned as the former, yet very beautiful and very tender-ay, and teeming with aspirations and hopes for which every true Irish heart must sigh; wishes which must stir every Irish bosom-a Future which every Irishman would desire to see realised: "Bless the dear old verdant land!

Brother, wert thou born of it?
As thy shadow life doth stand,
Twining round its rosy band,
Did an Irish mother's hand

Guide thee in the morn of it?
Did thy father's soft command

Teach thee love or scorn of it?
"Thou who tread'st its fertile breast,

Dost thou feel a glow for it?
Thou, of all its charins possest,
Living on its first and best,
Art thou but a thankless guest,
Or a traitor foe for it?
If thou lovest, where the test?
Wouldst thou strike a blow for it?

"Has the past no goading sting

That can make thee rouse for it?
Does thy land's reviving spring,
Full of buds and blossoming,
Fail to make thy cold heart cling,
Breathing lover's vows for it?
With the circling ocean's ring

Thou wert made a spouse for it!
"Hast thou kept, as thou shouldst keep,
Thy affections warm for it,
Letting no cold feeling creep,
Like the ice breath o'er the deep
Freezing to a stony sleep

Hopes the heart would form for it-
Glories that like rainbows weep

Through the darkening storm for it? "What we seek is Nature's right

Freedom and the aids of it;
Freedom for the mind's strong flight,
Seeking glorious shapes star-bright
Through the world's intensest night,
When the sunshine fades of it!
Truth is one, and so is Light,

Yet how many shades of it!
"A mirror every heart doth wear,

For heavenly shapes to shine in it;
If dim the glass or dark the air,
That Truth, the beautiful and fair,
God's glorious image, shine not there,
Or shine with nought divine in it,-
A sightless lion in its lair,

The darkened soul must pine in it! "Son of this old down-trodden land,

Then aid us in the fight for it;
We seek to make it great and grand,
Its shipless bays, its naked strand,
By canvas-swelling breezes fanned.
Oh! what a glorious sight for it!
The past expiring like a brand,
In morning rosy light for it!

There is but one other class of compositions in the volume before us which needs our notice. We allude to the author's translations from various modern languages. Upon this subject we shall be brief. We do not undervalue the translator's merits, nor underrate the difficulty of his task: far from it. We know well that the former is considerable, because the latter is arduous. To reproduce a poem of any language in another, transferring the spirit as well as the mere sense of the original, and, with these, to preserve all those fine and almost undefinable tones of shade and colour, of light and warmth, which

VOL. XXXVIII.—NO. CCXXV III.

scem to cling as inherently to the language of the original as the hues do to the down on the butterfly's wing, and as liable to be destroyed by the unskilful manipulation of him who would transfer them-to do all this, and in language, too, which betrays not the secret of translation by reason of its possessing the grace, and freedom, and fluency of an original-is, we repeat, an arduous task, and needs all the qualities of the poet, save one, the power of original thought. We admire and value the performance of such an one much as we do the fine copies of Raffaelle's great paintings.

3 с

They display the power of the copyist in his accuracy of sketch, his happiness in catching every expression and attitude, his justness of colouring, his harmony of toning-in all that the great master brought to the creation of the original, save the mind to conceive it. Such being our estimate of translators and translations, we should proceed to the examination of Mr. M'Carthy's performances in this line upon these principles, were he nothing more than a translator. As, however, we have shown that he is an original mind, we shall content ourselves with observing, that his translations are, as we might expect them to be, very graceful, very spiritual, and, as far as we have had opportunity to examine them, very faithful.

But it is not with translation that we would have Mr. M'Carthy chiefly Occupy himself. If we be at all right in our estimate of him, he has original powers that should conduct him to higher and better things than he has yet achieved; and most assuredly he is amply endowed with those accessorial qualifications of taste, language, and sense of harmony, without which the greatest minds are inadequate to communicate their thoughts to others without the loss of much of their strength and splendour in the medium of transmission. We think he is capable of producing a longer and more continuous poem than any in the volume before us. He will find subjects in abundance; let it not be one of mere narrative or description. Let it be one of thought and passion, rather than mere action; let it have a high purpose-the evolution of a great moral principle, the inculcation of some

great truth. Were we to offer an opinion as to its form, we would say there is no vehicle so manageable, and, at the same time, so effective, as the dramatic.

We have another mission for Mr. M'Carthy, one which we would forward with all the energy of Irishmen ; one which has long been a favourite speculation of our hearts. Let him aid in that great national work to which we have already alluded in the commencement of our observations-the preservation of our beautiful national airs by the aid of national words. This his lyrical powers abundantly qualify him for. It is a debt of patriotism which every real poet owes to his native land; a debt which Scottish bards have paid with filial piety to their mother land, till her name is famous, and her melodies familiar through the world, chaunted in every court and every bower, as the troubadours of old sung the charms of their mistresses wherever they went; a debt which Irishmen have yet so ill discharged. him, however, in doing so, not subserve the purposes of party politics, or sects, or creeds. Independent of these, the neutral ground is ample enough, upon which the poet may wander, and meet with others, fellow-labourers in the same grateful work, the celebration of our native land, her beauties, her capabilities, her legends, her loves, her pastimes; the instruction of her people, by drawing out and fostering the personal and social feelings, by cultivating all kindly affections, repressing strife and enmity, and giving them a taste for those harmless and healthy enjoyments of song and music, which civilise and soften the human heart.

Let

LEGISLATION ON THE PROMISSORY

WHETHER in rivalry or in sympathy, Science in the world of nature, and Will in the world of man, have been, for more than five-and-twenty years past, accomplishing great changes, with a rapidity which would have appeared to the men of former generations wholly unattainable. Everywhere we see proofs of the dominion which man has gained over external nature; not, like the necromancers of old, to cherish his acquisitions as a mystery, but to place them at the disposal of society, and make them conducive to the convenience of all its members. And everywhere we discern, in evidences of change effected and premonitions of change to come undeniable proofs, that human will has not been less enterprising and authoritative in dictating change to institutions, social and politi cal, than art and science have been in compelling the elements to do their bidding.

In this marvellous progress, social and scientific, the British Empire has now, as ever, held a foremost place. Spirits seem to have toiled at her command; under the earth, on the earth, on the waters, her work has been featly done; and Prospero was never endowed by the poet's genius with ampler authority, or provided, as his ministers, with daintier sprites, than the genius of Science and Art have realised for England. Nor has progress been less marked in her political history. Emancipation of the slave; abolition of civil disabilities on account of religion; reform, parliamentary and municipal; enlargement of educational advantages; repeal of corn law protection; and a free trade so daring as to contemn reciprocity; such are the enter

prises with which the England of the politician makes response to the England of art and science, as distinguished in its mines and steam-boats, and railways, and telegraphs, and in its systems of machinery more complex and more powerful than the world ever witnessed in days of old.

But there is a marked and a most instructive distinction between the processes through which science has made secure advance, and those in which the spirit of political enterprise exerts itself. The distinction is not less than is found between principle and passion or predilection. Science, in every stage of its advances, has truth for its companion and guide; it discards prejudice, discriminates between the permanent and the accidental, and sees in principles of universal application, the germs of beneficial results. Thus, in the world of nature, the spirit of science is a spirit of prophecy. Not so in political enterprise. There passion, party, "time and the hour," prevail against the enduring and the true; and in many an instance the predictions and promises that succeed best, because they dazzle most, are those that are not "attained to," but contradicted by "old experience.'

Yet

It seems to be a vice of British legislation that it is governed to an extent little to be excused in a reflecting people, and (notwithstanding all that may justly be said) a moral people, by rash promises of great good to come. perhaps we ought not to wonder that it should be so. It is a rare thing to find a man who will endure the labour of thought necessary to ascertain the value of evidence, where contention is sharp, and where the assurance attaina