we remarked poor emaciated-looking devils, who scarcely seemed to have blood enough in their system to animate a flea-old fellows that used to come regularly with their miserable spindles tied up in flannel, and look ing, with their long thin persons, as they managed to stand up in their chair-carriages, like a very decoction of ramrods, a living essence of pokers and tongs; haven't we seen these same old fellows, after coming a few times to the Pump-room, assume day by day a more rubicund expression, cast off gradually their swathings of flannel, and finally discharge their chair, and kick the herculean propeller of the same, for giving his advice to the re-animated skeleton to be careful and not catch cold? Haven't we made inquiries, and discovered that these same ndividuals-upon whom sextons used to cast a most covetous leer, and undertakers used to grow fat on the sight of have transferred their fee from the digger of graves to the tier of bands, and are happily married to some fair invalid, who has come down, a miserable, puling, discontented old maid, from the fens of Lincolnshire or the Mendip fogs, and goes off, in about three months, a jolly, laughing, married dame, with no idea that such a thing as illness is to be met with in the world? And this is the place our bilious friend the rhymester traduces in this fustian style! We don't defend Bath as faultless.-Heaven for give us all!-we havn't been there for some years, and the place may be considerably changed. We don't say that every maiden in Bath is beautiful as a Houri, or intellectual as Joanna Baillie, or poetical as Mrs Hemans. But we maintain that the greater proportion of the belles who patronize the Pump-room, if they whisper, don't always whisper nonsense; and happy would it be, if, whenever any one feels inclined to talk nonsense, they would convey their absurdity in a whisper;-that is to say, the nonsense which results from emptiness, for we are quite ready to contend, that the nonsense of a talented man or a clever woman, is ten times more agreeable,and quite as instructive, as their sense. O, to hear sweet nonsense, flowing in a continuous stream, from beautiful red lips! When the mind, which still looks animated in the eyes, turns a crowd of glittering

trifles from the tongue like playful children,-little laughing, light-haired boys and girls out of a noisy school,

where every now and then a thought drops out among the trifles, that surprises us by its unexpected strength, -as occasionally among the children we see one who delights us, among the glee and wildness of the others, with her sedate and pensive beauty. And pray, who is always to be at the trouble of talking sense? A man pays a very poor compliment to his friend's understanding, if he never_relaxes from his starch'd-up wisdom, but continues talk-talking sense-nothing but sense-till the bystanders, for soon he has no listeners, are tempted to give him a douse over the chops with the toddy-ladle, and feel convinced, to a moral certainty, that the animal must be a Whig. Johnson's relaxations were excessively delightful, though, no doubt, they were somewhat dangerous to his friends. His efforts at playfulness looked like the unwieldy gambols of some portentous whale, that puts the whole ocean into a state of agitation in its mirth, and occasionally sinks some boat, with all its gaping and astonished occupants, by a facetious waterspout from its nostrils, or a humorous flap with its tail. We have no doubt that the exceedingly" sensible" author before us would despise any man who indulged in the appearance of playfulness on any subject so important as the state of the weather, or heat of the day, or any of those acute remarks with which people of his sober stamp generally commence their sensible conversation. Laugh on, young men and maidens ! chatter nonsense as much as you can -not less accomplished do ye appear in the eyes of judging men, that your smile is a little too prolonged. Not less pure do ye seem, oh, light-hearted and bright-haired virgins! that you sometimes saunter an idle hour away in Milson Street, or the Pump-room; and not less admirable and affectionate will ye be as wives and mothers, that you don't at present always talk "like a printed book," or always look as prim as if you were conversing with these intolerant old maids- your aunts!

But his chief and bitterest assault is directed against the Rooms. The cause of his enmity against them we have hinted at before. No man gives

We had not imagined that there breathed in a Christian land a man who was so lost in his feelings to Christian charity. Is one gay night, one brilliant assemblage of all that is most bright and fascinating, to corrupt the purity and destroy the happiness of any girl who is a spectator of it? Far from it. With what a much stronger relish will she return to the quiet delights of her country home perhaps to yonder white-walled parsonage among the sycamores, where duly as the Sabbath bell is tolled, she has been seen supporting the tottering steps of her greyhaired father into the house of God, the beloved of all the villagers, and the ornament and pride of that old man's widowed hearth? Is once being present at an assembly to wash away all her former recollections, to take the sweetness from the strains of "that winged song, the restless nightingale, which turns its lone

heart to music,"is it to make her despise the simple beauties that she was once fond of-and from the effects of that one overwhelming night, when she saw seven or eight hundred welldressed people, with all the paraphernalia which he has conjured up, of light hearts, gay glances, robes, feathers, perfumes, and mirth, to make her ever after a puling sentimental whining girl, sighing to leave her quiet birthplace, and mingle for ever in the laborious pleasures of a " ball-going young lady?" We don't believe that it ever had this melancholy effect upon any man, woman, or child, since the creation till now. She talks of the gaiety of that evening for two days, and on the third she has totally forgotten, unless when reminded by a chance look at her gauze or feathers, that she ever was at a Bath ball in her life. One other quotation and we have done.

This example comes with peculiar force, as having happened within the sphere of our author's knowledge, and to one of his own acquaintance. But, in addition to the causes to which he has attributed her death, attending balls, smiling, rouging, and being pretty, he has forgot what we are informed by one of the surgeons of the hospital, was one of the main instruments of her decease. We allude to the immoderate use of gin, which the author knows as well as we do, was the unfortunate propensity of his defunct friend and kinswoman, Miss Joanna Scraggs. But no more of this.

We advise our friend, the satirist, to give up versifying, as a sort of trade in which he will never excel. Let him stick to his blacking and shoe brush, and we have no doubt he will earn more coppers as deputy boots at an inn, than ever he will acquire laurels by writing poems. His Bath, even as a satire, is a complete failure. It is too general either to be feared or use◄ ful; but let the natives be particularly on their guard, for, as we intend shortly to visit their city, we shall show in old Maga, that "A chield's amang them taking notes, An' faith he'll prent it."

How comes it to pass, that among the numerous endeavours to amuse the reading public with scenes of humble Irish life and manners, offering, it should seem, a rich field for genius to expatiate on, so few have been little better than miserable failures? Miss Edgeworth, alone, seems to have enjoyed the happy talent of just description, as well in the humorous as the pathetic; the rest, for the most part, bearing to her pictures the same proportion which extravagant caricatures do to the vivid representations of Hogarth's pencil. We may sometimes find a single scene tolerably well exhibited, or a natural representation of Hibernian character in a short essay, such as lately appeared in your Miscellany, under the title of the "Irish Yeoman," but in works professing to give an ample delineation of Irish humour, feelings, habits, and manners, I have not been fortunate enough to meet with any deserving of just commendation, save those of Miss Edgeworth.

Shakspeare, whose comprehensive range of mind nothing seems to have escaped, and to whom nihil humani was alienum, is, as far as I know, the first who introduced the peculiarity of Irish character to public notice, and that only in one of his dramas. It was not, however, yet ripe for such a purpose; and all that can be said of the great dramatist is, that he laid the foundation. Captain Macmorris appears but in one scene, and is remarkable only for a hot temper, an intrepid spirit, and a profane tongue. Those of his nation had mixed little with the English in Shakspeare's time, and it is probable, that the great Bard drew the portrait less from personal knowledge than the report of others. The same may be said of the Scotch, one of whom appears in the same play (Henry V.), and is distinguished only by his northern dialect; the great influx of Caledonians being subsequent to the reign of Elizabeth, during which most of Shakspeare's dramas were written. · Of Welsh peculiarities, from his own intimate acquaintance with them, he has made frequent and happy use, and would have done the same with the others, had he possessed an equal knowledge. It was not, I believe, un

til the commencement of the 18th century, that the character of native Hibernians afforded so copious and frequent a subject for the novelist and play-writer, the success of whose early labours on the stage, particularly, has given birth to a number of descriptions, for the most part extravagant and overdrawn, the natural result of imitation falling into incompetent hands. Literary labour seems to be in this respect the reverse of mechani cal. When a very useful or ingenious piece of mechanism brings emolument or excites admiration, it is sure to be not only copied, but improved, by others, among whom, perhaps, there might be none possessed of the same inventive powers as the original contriver. But let a novel work of lite rary merit be brought forward, though it shall find thousands of copiers, how few will be the instances of adequate and commendable imitation! What a host of pens and printers have been pressed into the service of romance and novelism by the appearance of the Waverley Novels! The wish to be equally agreeable and instructive, was very natural, but the wishers, unfortunately, for the most part at least, forgot what was first not only to be wished for, but to be attained, a genius capable of equalling or approximating the compositions of the great Leader. Ireland being out of his way, obvious. ly afforded fine ground for something like rivalship, in contrasting the amusing varieties of her national character. It had, indeed, been successfully trod before, by the lady above men tioned, whose works will bear no disadvantageous comparison with any of a like nature. It had also been trampled by the bog-trotting buskins of Lady Morgan; who, wild as her fictions are, is somewhat more at home in endeavouring to paint the rude manners in which she was bred, than those of the civilized countries into which she has intruded. She always put me in mind of a passage in Hamlet's advice to the players, to apply which, the reader has only to substitute the word "writer" for " players." "Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of

Christian, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably." Truly, her Ladyship is one of the vile imitators of humanity, and yet she has her admirers, Sir Jonah Barrington among the rest. -No wonder-" Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi." Well! 'tis all for the good of trade. As long as there are superficial readers, there will be superficial writers, and to say nothing of both being worse employ ed, as was probably the case before the invention of printing, a man of humanity finds great consolation in thinking, that a vast number of persons earn their daily bread in the fabrication of paper, the casting of types, the working of presses, and all the eteeteras that go to the production of volumes, which, after a few months, or at most years, are only fit for lining trunks, or wrapping spices.

Though I will not say that the Tales of the O'Hara Family were written with a view of rivalling the Waverley, or of rendering Irish subjects as productive of general interest and delight, as Sir Walter Scott has rendered those of Caledonia, I may at least venture to affirm, that they owe their birth to the success of his incomparable compositions. In this respect, Ireland did afford new and fair ground for honourable emulation in well-wrought adventures, deduced from stories of the olden time, in scenes of rich romantic beauty, and in skilful delinea tions of Irish character, modern as well as antique. But oh, sad indeed is the falling off, and mortifying the disparity! For why? A different genius illumines the brain, a different spirit rules the heart, and a very different hand governs the pen. I had been led to expect much from the representations of that lively genius which produced the burletta of Midas, and I believe some other compositions of a like nature. I had heard those talents praised" highly," if not (as Shakspeare says) "profanely," so that they were among the few works of the kind which I had a desire to see, though before I made them my own, I thought it prudent to try and borrow them from a friend. I have more than once been sadly taken in by list

ening to puffs, for puffers every writer contrives to find even among those from whom some degree of sound judgment is expectable. How this is managed, I don't pretend to say-partiality to a friend, or unwillingness to appear ill-natured, or any thing in short, but saying that the reproach cast upon the greatest city of old times, is true of London Omnia venalia Roma. Scarce a work issues from the recessesof the printing house, but you see it puffed, sometimes openly and liberally, sometimes incidentally as it were, in some sly corner of a Periodical, a Magazine, a Literary Journal, or a newspaper. It is true, few of any note escape the knife of critical dis section, and some are handled a little too roughly; but it is also true, that others escape either with a slight scratch, or without any censorial animadversion.

It is some comfort to a person, who, like me, possesses, or fancies that he possesses, a little of criticizing talent, when he does happen to light upon a book of false pretensions, to think that he has got a subject wherein that talent may be amusingly employed. But then it must be worth cutting up, otherwise the zest of employment is gone; for who would descend to the task of refuting folly, and commenting upon absolute dulness? Fortunately I have a neighbour or two, to whom, having many an hour to spare from the ordinary pursuits of life, and minds not very hard to be pleased, every new tale is welcome, particularly in the long evenings of a winter in the country. As they have the means of gratifying their reading propensities, they are good customers to the bookseller, who knows their palates, and takes care to supply them with suitable provision; such literary dainties as have reference to their own country being most acceptable. To one of these kind friends my pocket is indebted for retaining the price that otherwise would have gone to cumber my shelves with the tales of the O'Hara Family. I have already told you how much my hopes of entertainment had been raised by the promise of the name-they were still farther enhanced by the title page announcing, a Second Edition. Oh, thought I, my hour for amusive reading will this night pass smoothly; and so as soon as