debted to Irish wit, fancy, and humour, for the richest treats, which render the leisure of the learned delectable, and the amusement of the idle instructive.*

Even the arts, in these stirring times of social concentration, awakened from their long and deadly slumbers; and the slowly reviving school of painting in England received some of its most noted disciples from Ireland, a country so little adapted, by its miseries and its commotions, to the cultivation of the most tranquil and meditative of intellectual pursuits. At this time, too, the Irish muse found a willing and a worthy priestess in one of the fair daughters of the land, where her temples had so long been closed; and "the mother of sweet singers," awakened by the genius of national melody, beheld her sons "Thronging round her magic cell,"

as in the days of the Mayos § and the O'Connors. ||

The triumphs of Carolan, the last of the Fir-sgealaighthes, or Irish Troubadours, were followed by those of Handel and Piccini¶; and something more than the middle of the eighteenth, she produced almost all the best dramatic writers on the British stage: Congreve, Howard, Southerne, Steele, Farquhar, Phillips, Kelly, Jones, Orrery (Earl of), Tate, Concanen, Dobbs, Bickerstaff, Brook, Centlivre, Griffiths, Jephson, Murphy, Macklin, O'Hara, West, Goldsmith, Sheridan, &c. &c. And among the actors, Wilks, Quin, Sheridan, Barry, Mossop, Macklin, Havard, O'Brien, Brown, Woffington, Clive, Fitzhenry, &c.

Denham, Parnell, Swift, Sterne, Burke, Goldsmith, the Sheridans; to whom may be added Molesworth, Millar, Wood, Webb, Pilkington, Johnson (Chrysal), &c. &c. Even the women no longer deemed it the exclusive purpose of their being "To suckle fools and chronicle small-beer;"

and the elegant and witty productions of Mesdames Millar, Pilkington, Centlivre, Grierson, Griffiths, Sheridan, Barker, Brook, contributed to the general stock of national literature.

† Jervas (Pope's Raphael), Bindon, Roberts the landscape-painter, Barrett, &c. Miss Brook, the elegant translator and composer of the "Relics of Ancient Irish Poetry."

§ The Lord Mayo, of the early part of the eighteenth century, here alluded to, was a model of the genuine Irish resident nobleman, living in his rural palace surrounded by his family, his bards, and musicians. One of these, "his retainer," David Murphy, composed an Irish Ode of some celebrity, called "Tiagherna Mhaigho," the "Lord of Mayo," which another of his retainers, O'Keeneghan, set to music. This Carolan was wont to play at night in the hall of the Burkes, on his harp. It happened that during Carolan's last visit to Lord Mayo, Geminiani arrived from Italy by special invitation from the amateur Earl; and his Italian music completely usurped the attention of the Ladies Susan and Bridget Burke, of whose praise Carolan was especially jealous, and he frankly complained to his noble host of this neglect. Lord Mayo, rallying the bard on his feelings, concluded by telling him, that when he should produce the same music as Geminiani, he would meet with the same attention. On this Carolan proposed a wager, that he on his harp would follow the Italian in any piece of his composition, but that Geminiani should not follow him through an Irish planxty: the wager was accepted by the Italian, and won by the Irish bard.

The O'Connors of Ballingar, the favourite residence of Carolan.

"In the year 1740, the sublime genius of Handel roused our feelings from the lethargy into which they had fallen."-Memoirs of the Irish Bards.

Banished from London by the intrigues of a party, Handel † fled to Ireland,

+ Pope alludes to this banishment of Handel in his Dunciad:

"Strong in new arms, lo! Giant Handel stands

Like bold Briareus with an hundred hands,-&c. &c. &c.
Arrest him, Goddess, or you sleep no more :

She heard, and drove him to Hibernia's shore."

though the wild sweet tones of the Irish harp were still occasionally heard in the pauses of the Messiah and of the elegant Armida, still, taste, improving with the developement of the art, soon rendered the Italian and German schools of music the exclusive study in Ireland; and they excited an enthusiasm which well belonged to a people who, in all their wretchedness and degradation, had found in music a vehicle for their feelings and their passions, for their deep-seated indignation, and their long-meditated revenge. St. Bridget now hid her diminished head in her "cell of the oak*;" while St. Cecilia saw more tapers lighted at her shrine in the Irish capital than ever illumined her dusky chapel in the Trastevere at Rome. Music halls were built for public con-certs; and musical societies, assuming the importance and dignities of corporate bodies, were formed out of the amateur † and professional talent of the country; while the conciliating genius of harmony, refusing that "to a party which was meant for mankind," devoted its divine powers to smoothing political austerities, reknitting the social affections, and promoting the first of all human virtues-charity. I Oh! surely this was the true purpose for which the Divinity breathed into the soul of man that fine susceptibility to the mystic charm of harmony, which lulls the harsher passions, and substitutes the excitement of delicious sensations for the bitter feelings and harassing emotions which the cross purposes of life call hourly into existence. Who now in Ireland but may look back with regret to the philharmonic societies "of other times," from the magic of whose strains a shelter rose for the wretched, and in whose bands men of all parties blended the "concord of sweet sounds." Who that in the present day has witnessed in the capital of Ireland, the different and dark purposes to which music and musical society have been perverted, but must lament that the sweetest of the arts should have been pressed into the service of civil dissension -should have fulfilled the purposes of party intrigue, and gratified the malice of a narrow-souled faction. Who but must shudder to perceive its influence directed to rousing the irritable fibre, and stirring up the bile of political malady; to exciting by its "musical cheers" the passions of the powerful few against the suffering many, and fomenting by its choicest harmonies the discord of social disunion and the dissonance of party hatred. Spirits of Handel and of Arne, of Calcott and of Mozart, how little did ye dream in your philosophy that your Heaveninspired strains should serve as the war-whoop of faction, the death-song of domestic peace, and national confraternity!!

where, with his friend Dubourg, the first violin of his age, he was received with rapture. His first public exhibition in Dublin was the Messiah, which he performed for the benefit of the city prisons. Whoever had the happiness of knowing the late Richard Kirwan, the Irish philosopher, may judge of the enthusiasm of the travelled Irish gentlemen for Italian music, and the vogue which Piccini obtained through their means.

St. Bridget was accustomed to pray under the shade of an oak, a circumstance which has given its name to an Irish county, Cil doire, the cell of the oak (Kildare.) +"Concerts were the favourite amusement in the houses of the nobility and gentry, and musical societies were formed in all the great towns."-Memoirs of Irish Bards.

The Philharmonic Society gave up its subscriptions towards building the hospital in Townsend-street, 1753.

THE SWEDISH MINER.*

LIKE grey Time bent over Beauty's decay,
She gazed in her night of age

On him whom she loved in the early day
Of her old life's pilgrimage-

She gazed with worn cheek, and with sight weak and dim,
On her lover unchanged in years or limb.

He was as he parted when they met last,
Though fifty long years were gone,
And he look'd not as if an hour had past

Since they talk'd in the moonlight alone

Of their fondness and passion, their joys and their fears,
And counted on bliss in this valley of tears.

They parted in promise, and met no more-
While none knew the fate of his youth;
She had travell'd life's ocean almost to the shore
With the dream of their plighted truth;
"Twas all that remain'd to enliven her lot,
But half of its charm was now rased or forgot.
And she was decrepid and palsied, while he,
Save the power of breathing her name,
Seem'd fresh in his young immortality,

And the vigour and grace of his frame;
His limbs were firm, and his locks of jet
Lay on his temples unsilver'd yet.

Oh was he the same! yes, the form was there,
That form she had loved so well;

But her trembling dotage no more can share
What alone with young years must dwell-
The affection of first love's heavenly glow-
The thrilling kiss from the heart's overflow.
These were not for her, they were long since dead,
As he that recall'd them now-

But though life from his heart had for fifty years fled,
It still warm'd her own old brow-

And could he revive, he would turn him away

From a tottering remnant of life in decay.

She was almost pleased that he did not live,
Since for her he could never be-

Thus the last of age may some likeness give
Of a first love's jealousy:

Though the fragrance and bloom of the flower be gone,

It still asks to be valued and look'd upon.

O'er her dead love she gazed on her crutches bent,

And thought of her youthful prime;

And her shrunk heart many a keen sigh sent

Back to the ancient time;

And a tear from a fount that had long been dry

Crept forth as she bade the young corse 'good-bye.'

The body of a young Swedish miner was lately discovered in one of the mines of Dalecarlia, fresh and in a state of perfect preservation, from the action of the mineral waters in which it had been immersed. No one could recognize the body save an old woman, who knew it to be that of her lover:-he had perished fifty years before!

SKETCHES OF INDIA.-NO. I.

THOSE who have been acquainted with the British possessions and native states of India, for the last twenty or thirty years, must have remarked a change which has been gradually taking place in the appearance, and what may be termed the moral costume, of these countries; since they have become more pervious to and familiarized with the sight of European travellers. An air of magic, a feeling of romance hung in days of yore over every part of this land of promise; a spell framed of novelty and magnificence fascinated every adventurer that touched its strand, and prepared him for scenes of wonder, luxury, and riches; nor was his expectation disappointed. Whatever the price he might pay in loss of time or health, pleasures courted his acceptance, and an almost ideal state of luxury and grandeur opened on his view, calculated to revive in his mind, if not to realize, the wonders of those Arabian tales that delighted his boyhood.

The perfect contrast which every thing that meets the eye of an European when he lands in India affords to all he has left behind him, even in these later days, transports him quite to another world; and how much greater must the effect have been in former times, when little or nothing savouring of Europe was to be seen in any part of that country. "As far as the East is from the West," so opposite is the appearance of the natives and their soil, their complexion, dress, language, manners, character; their climate, sky, vegetation, yea, even the very odours and perfumes that float upon the air, to every thing a native of the British isles can have seen in the country he has quitted. The crowds of natives that hover around him when he lands, with their dark bodies in a state of almost primitive nakedness, offering a strong and strange contrast to their pure white and almost feminine garments; their respect, and offers of service; the novel appearance of the streets through which he passes; the rich fruits offered in profusion to his acceptance, more grateful and inviting from the intense heat of the climate; the spacious apartments to which, when he finds a home, he becomes introduced, with the various inventions of necessity or luxury for rendering this heat supportable; the palanquins, horses, carriages that await his call, all so different from any thing he can have seen before, seldom fail powerfully to excite the imagination of the new corner.

But if this be the case upon his landing in a part of the country deeply tinctured with European manners, how greatly will this excitement be increased if his fate lead him into the interior and to the court of a Native prince. There any thing connected with Europe is lost sight of, and eastern manners and eastern pomp assume its place: the Natives, unchecked by the control of their conquerors, exhibit their inherent taste for luxury and show; numerous and glittering cavalcades, rich costumes, elephants, camels, and horses magnificently caparisoned, with multitudes of attendants gaily attired in all the pride of their various official badges, silver sticks, spears, and arms of all descriptions, flit along and dazzle the eye at every turning; crowded and rich bazaars, with the endless variety of scenery and incident they afford, attract the gaze in passing through the streets, and the increase of glitter and show, of noise and bustle, is striking beyond description. But, besides all this, there is a tone peculiar to such places difficult to describe, de

pending greatly upon the intercourse with Native society which a residence in such situations must involve; upon the continually associating with, and entering to a certain degree familiarly into the domestic habits of those who differ so widely from every thing hitherto known in manners and character, even in the most trivial acts of life; upon the novel and peculiar appearance of all that surrounds one, the dresses, the furniture, the architecture; the nature of the conversation turning upon subjects and adventures quite peculiar to the country and its customs; of the occupations and amusements, the shows, nautches, feasts, the very ceremonies attendant upon each act of the day, even the perfumes and flowers, and the thousand little nothings, which, though almost impercep→ tible themselves, are like the condiments of life, and give it its peculiar flavour. It is under the influence of all this, and the enjoyments which such places afford, that an European grows fascinated with India, and particularly with the courts of her Native princes, till, custom becoming a second nature, he loves and would pine for want of what at first only dazzled and amused him. It is in the loss of this tone, in the decay of this kind of intercourse, of this Asiatic costume of society, that the change to which I allude consists. In the wide range of our Indian dominions nothing of the sort now can be found; the courts of all the Indian princes these include, have changed into quiet and monotonous civil stations, where the object is to introduce European, and discard Native habits.

Perhaps were the loss of ancient feelings only in question, this change, though surely to be regretted, would be of comparatively small importance; but the consequences of such a line of conduct, it is to be feared, go further: so far from entertaining a wish to conciliate the conquered, and thereby to lighten their chains, and dispose them to become contented and peaceable subjects, it might be thought that the policy of the conquerors of India was the very reverse, and had in view to oppress and even annihilate every family of rank within their dominions; and the consequence is, that there are now few noble Mahometan families to be met with of easy fortunes who are not borne down by depressing circumstances which crush their native energy.

It is contrary to the usage of the Company's government, indeed contrary to the nature of its constitution, to employ any Native, let his rank or respectability be what it may, in an office yielding a salary of more than three or four hundred rupees per month: this is a consideration too small to tempt individuals of good family, or at least far too small to keep those honest that accept such offices. Native families of rank are thus debarred from a great source of respectable provision for their younger branches; and labouring under very considerable disabilities of different descriptions besides, let their property be what it may, they must in time decay and fall into want; for the elder branch is forced to support the rest, seeing that they have no means of supporting themselves; at his death a subdivision, and too often a scramble for the property, ensues; and all is thus gradually frittered away. It is, indeed, melancholy to see the descendants of noble old Moghul or Palace families, whose ancestors came into India with the Ghaurees, the Lodis, the Timoors of old, sunk into such obscurity and poverty, that they are forced to sell piecemeal the property they have preserved from the wreck of their fortunes, to furnish their wives and children with bread.