'

No hope thus left him in the strife,
He kneel'd to Gaul, and begg'd for life.-
"No,' said the chief; it may not be !
The devil waits dinner for the three!
Henceforth with earth thou hast no tie,
The man is damn'd that dreads to die:
But one relief for thee is left,
And, here it is.'-With that he cleft
The stalvart craven to the brow,
Severing his ample brain in two.-
"Beshrew thee for a bloody Scot,
If thou'st not done what I could not!'
Saith Sutherland, as turning by,-
But seeing the tear in Ross's eye,
And sorrow on his nut-brown cheek
So deep that word he could not speak,

The burly chief he kindly press'd

Unto his bold and kindred breast." P. 402.

A large proportion of the poem is written in this delectable style; aud however Mr. Hogg may protest against critics, reviewers, and other destroyers of vermin, we must take the liberty to tell him that every body will laugh at such lines as these. To shew him however, that we speak in sorrow rather than in anger, and to substantiate our assertion respecting the occasional brightness of his poetry, we extract parts of the boat race, and the invocation to the Fairy Queen. The allusion to Spenser, Shakspeare and Milton, is modest—an epithet which seems inseparably attached to Scotchmen, whether poets or prosers, whether tories or whigs, whether quidnuncs or philosophers. Mr. Hogg enjoys his full share of the national property, and long may he preserve it. "Around an isle the race was set,

A nameless isle, and nameless yet;
And when they turn'd its southern mull,
The wind and tide were fair and full;
Then 'twas a cheering sight to view
How swift they skimm'd the ocean blue,
How lightly o'er the wave they scoop'd,
Then down into the hollow swoop'd;
Like flock of sea-birds gliding home,
They scarcely touch'd the floating foam,
But like dim shadows through the rain,
They swept across the heaving main
While in the spray, that flurr'd and gleam'd,
A thousand little rainbows beam'd..
"King Eric's bark, like pilot swan,
Aright before the centre ran,

;

"O come to my bower, here deep in the dell,
Thou Queen of the land 'twixt heaven and hell;
Even now thou seest, and smilest to see,
A shepherd kneel on his sward to thee:
But sure thou wilt come with thy gleesome train,
To assist in his last and lingering strain:
O come from thy halls of the emerald bright,
Thy bowers of the green and the mellow light,
That shrink from the blaze of the summer noon,
And ope to the light of the modest moon!
O well I know the enchanting mien

Of

my loved muse, my Fairy Queen!

Her rokelay of green, with its sparry hue,

Its

;

warp of the moonbeam and weft of the dew;
Her smile, where a thousand witcheries play,
And her eye, that steals the soul away;
The strains that tell they were never mundane
And the bells of her palfrey's flowing mane;
For oft have I heard their tinklings light,
And oft have I seen her at noon of the night,
With her beauteous elves in the pale moonlight.

"Then, thou who raised'st old Edmund's lay
Above the strains of the olden day;
And waked'st the bard of Avon's theme
To the visions of his Midnight Dream-
Yea, even the harp that. rang abroad
Through all the paradise of God,

And the sons of the morning with it drew,
By thee was remodell'd, and strung anew-
O come on thy path of the starry ray,
Thou Queen of the land of the gloaming grey,
And the dawning's mild and pallid hue,"
From thy valleys beyond the land of the dew,
The realm of a thousand gilded domes,
The richest region that fancy roams!

"I have sought for thee in the blue hare-bell,
And deep in the fox-glove's silken cell;

For I fear'd thou had'st drunk of its potion deep, And the breeze of the world had rock'd thee asleep;

Then into the wild-rose I cast mine eye,
And trembled because the prickles were nigh,
And deem'd the specks on its foliage green,
Might be the blood of my Fairy Queen ;
Then gazing, wonder'd if blood might be
In an immortal thing like thee!

I have open'd the woodbine's velvet vest,
And sought the hyacinth's virgin breast;
Then anxious lain on the dewy lea,
And look'd to a twinkling star for thee,
That nightly mounted the orient sheen,
Streaming in purple and glowing in green;
And thought, as I eyed its changing sphere,
My Fairy Queen might sojourn there.
"Then would I sigh and turn me around,
And lay my ear to the hollow ground,
To the little air-springs of central birth,
That bring low murmurs out of the earth;
And there would I listen, in breathless way,
Till I heard the worm creep through the clay,
And the little blackamoor pioneer
A-grubbing his way in darkness drear;
Nought cheer'd me on which the daylight shone,
For the children of darkness moved alone!
Yet neither in field, nor in flowery heath,
In heayen above, nor in earth beneath,
In star, nor in moon, nor in midnight wind,
His elvish Queen could her minstrel find,

"But now I have found thee, thou vagrant thing,
Though where I neither dare say nor sing;
For it was in a home, so passing fair,

That an angel of light might have linger'd there:
I found thee playing thy freakish spell

Where the sun never shone, and the rain never fell,
Where the ruddy cheek of youth ne'er lay,
And never was kiss'd by the breeze of day ;-
It was sweet as the woodland breeze of even,
And pure as the star of the western heaven,
As fair as the dawn of the sunny east,

And soft as the down of the solan's breast." P. 362.

These are pretty verses, and Queen Hynde must be acquitted for their sake.

ART. VII. Letters from the Irish Highlands. 8vo. 359 pp. 10s. 6d. Murray. 1825.

THERE is matter of all sorts in this little volume, good, bad, and indifferent. The author or authors pretend to be resident Irishmen, but we suspect that they are only visitors. If the suspicion is unjust, they might have guarded against it by favouring the public with their names. The masquerading fashion which prevails among Hibernian writers, not only subjects their readers to much perplexity, but will occa sionally prove troublesome to themselves: and we sincerely wish, that this or any other circumstance would induce them to throw aside their alias domino, and appear at Albemarlestreet in their proper persons.

The errors which disfigure the work are, a recommendation to introduce the poor rates into Ireland, a notion that small farms do no mischief, and that the existing misery is owing to the increased value of the currency. The best portions are, those which recommend the strict administration of impartial justice, the encouragement of fisheries and manufactures, the legalisation of private distilleries, and the extinction of jobbing in all its branches. Those which describe the religious condition of the cottages, and the conduct of their priests, are likewise well worthy of attention. The indifferent parts are occupied with delineations of mountain scenery and Irish character. In the former, the authors do not excel; in the latter, they are very inferior to the writer of "Captain Rock Detected." Presuming that our readers have made up their minds respecting the necessity of some amendment in the conduct of Irish landlords, and trusting that Government will settle the stills and the fisheries, we shall confine ourselves principally to the subjects of religion and education; and it will be seen, that our authors bear very strong testimony in favour of the opinion expressed in our last Number. They are no great friends to the established clergy, and their evidence therefore is doubly valuable.

"One of the inspectors from The Kildare Street Society for promoting the Education of the Poor,' hearing by accident of the girls school which is established here, he called to see it, and gave us an opportunity of understanding fully the views and principles of the society. They profess to be upon the liberal plan of educating the poor without any interference with their religious opinions; but whether the standing rule, that every school in their connexion must place the Scriptures in the hands of the children, is not as contrary to this principle as it is to the practice of the Romish church, seems to me very doubtful. That the Bible is to be read without note or

comment verbal or oral,' appears but a still wider departure from the principles of the Roman Catholic Church."

"The very different situation in which the English and Irish poor are placed, makes a line of conduct commendable, and, indeed, necessary here, which would be cowardly and dangerous with you. In Ireland, the Protestants, generally speaking, are called upon to educate their Catholic dependants. Are they to do it in the true spirit of Christian benevolence, by enlightening their understandings, and inculcating those principles of morality and religion, which are common to both parties? or are they to violate the plain dictates of justice, and entrench on the natural bounds of parental authority, making use of their power, as landlords, in compelling the tenants to sacrifice to temporal interest what they believe to be the spiritual welfare of their children ?" P. 88.

"The Roman Catholic faith is, in Cunnemarra, so predominant, that no Protestants are to be met with, except in the families of the two or three resident gentlemen, and some of their immediate dependants, as farm servants, mechanics, &c. On this estate, I do not suppose that a single Protestant was to be found, till within the last seven years. Of course, the children who attend the school, with scarcely an exception, are Catholics; yet, although the mistress is a Protestant, and it is in the hands of a Protestant landlord, it has been established these five years, with very little opposition from the parish priest. Indeed, I cannot help thinking that if a due mixture of firmness and toleration were at all times shewn, we should not so often hear of those acts of violence which must alike disgrace the professors of all religions. In some places, I have heard of the priest inflicting corporal punishment on those children who attended the schools, in defiance of his authority; and the tremendous sentence of excommunication is the threat commonly held out to the parents: 'the very ground whereon he treads is cursed.' Where a spirit of proselytism exists among the Protestants, and where conversions are, directly or indirectly, attempted, a priest, who acts from conscientious motives, must certainly exert himself to prevent the attendance of the children; and this he will of course endeavour to effect, either by secret persuasion or open violence, according to the bent of his own character and temper. In other cases, the opposition of the parish priest is, I believe not unfrequently, contrary to his own inclination, in consequence of the peremptory orders of his bishop; who, in case of disobedience, as one of them said, has power to command me to the deserts of Africa, or the wilds of America, for the remainder of my days.""

"An instance of this kind was mentioned to us the other day, by a clergyman, who some years ago held a curacy in one of the northern counties of Connaught. He was on very friendly terms with the priest, who, nevertheless, was desired by his bishop strenuously to oppose the school established by the Protestants. This order he obeyed, by occasionally fulminating the thunders of the church against the unfortunate little scholars, giving however