For our part we have no fear that the improved habits and peaceable demeanour of the people can be taken an unfair advantage of, to retard the progress of true liberty and equal rights. A sober people are eminently entitled to political freedom; they must and shall have it! Under what circumstances is liberty dangerous? In the hands of a drunken and licentious population; but a sober and virtuous community can never be too free. Let every man who loves his country, cherish the feeling that, in carrying forward, with a high and steady hand, those measures which he feels are for the good of his country, he is now working for a people who eminently deserve an extension of their rights. Let him feel that he is now backed by a community who are able to appreciate freedom, because they are disenthralled from a galling and crushing bondage. ON BEING TAXED WITH ABSENCE OF MIND WHILST CONVERSING TETE-A-TETE. Did I seem absent whilst my heart-strings hung On the least whisper of thy silv'ry tongue? Did mine eye wander-whilst my soul's fixed gaze Drank up the flood of love-inspiring rays From thy bright orbs?-'Twas then thyself that didst Thyself eclipse. Thou, planet-like amidst Thy starry satellites-didst still outvie Thine own dear charms and thy soul-beaming eye My love's deep tide-to thee its magnet true! M. THE NATIVE MUSIC OF IRELAND.. Positively, a man ought not to holloa whilst he is still in the wood. We ventured in our last number-a parlous thing-to pass the censure of our opinion upon Moore -clarum et venerabile nomen, for the mis-spelling of certain Irish names; and lo! eo instanti that we were doing so, we were ourselves in the act of publishing a work, with errors of as bad a kind, whereof some editor of the sixteenth century might have criedhad he lifted up his head from his grave-editio sanè vitiosa et spurcatissima, quæ, in inculto illo et superstitionum et ignorantiæ plenissimo sæculo contaminata, multis et insignibus erroribus, unà cum frivolis in margine notulis indiciisque intempestivis, et uberrimâ mendorum aliorum segete, scatebat. Now may a typographer cry, "Oh, that mine enemy would print a book!" " But, in sooth, let it not be said of us, that we are an enemy; and truly, we aver, that although our book hath recoiled on our own" defenceless pate,' we were not guilty of committing the blunders, nor can we allow it to be said that they occurred indoctorum hominum et Celtica saltem nescientium scriptorum inscitiâ. We do not seek to disguise them, being in no collusion with the delinquents; for we here openly acknowledge the fact to be, that the very sentence wherein we vented our sorrowful exclamations upon Moore for his spellings or misspellings, pronunciations or mispronunciations, of Irish names, there appeared in our early impressions leaċt Nagtamna, which ought to have been leaċt magżamna.* It is to the crime of negligence alone, (and we think we could mitigate even that charge,) that we plead guilty. * Behold, in addition, "the list, the complete list," of the other blunders, by misprint, in the Irish of the January number of the Dublin Monthly Magazine: We take this early opportunity of remarking on the forms of the CAPITALS for the Irish letters mand 1), in the fount of types which we are now using. We vehemently 1842.-FEB. As candid confession is good for the soul, we wished to disburthen our conscience of this sin, before we should proceed further in our business. Now for work. No. IV. Here is an air, familiarly known as household words, in every quarter of this country, north, south, east and west, in Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught-a universal favourite with our people, -fascinating in its strain, we might say catching at first hearing, and adhesive, clinging to the ear and the heart, when it is thrown on the waters and found again after many daysand yet we have not seen it anywhere published before. In its structure it is extremely simple, being in the primeval Celtic form, so many samples of which we have already helped to rescue from oblivion, as in our Music for 1841, in The Citizen, Nos. 10, 14, and 29,-that is to say, the first and fourth, and the second and third phrases of the strain are similar. We apply the axiom which we announced last month, and direct the second part to be repeated. By this, the variety capable of being educed from materials so simple as the two phrases of these airs is fully attained. Look at it, even drily, as if you were exploring combinations in the DOCTRINE of CHANCES; and you find, that as the first part differs from the second by the inversion of the phrases, so the second part takes fresh life on this repetition, because, in the first instance, it succeeds the close of the second phrase, but now, with a new effect, it succeeds the close of the first phrase. Thus you attain three varieties from two elements. disapprove of the form "ণা" for a capital m, because it too much resembles "1)." We prefer the form given in Vallancey's Grammar, Dublin, 1781, p. 31; the Rev. Paul O'Brien's Grammar, Dublin, 1809, p.5. Another excellent form is that used by O'Reilly in his dictionary, letter " M," in the initials of the words there collected. Strange to say, he uses in the letters which head his columns, this objectionable form, "41" nearly. The confusion proceeding from this source is well exemplified by the fact, that Hardiman, in his Irish Minstrelsy, London, 1831, appears to have used this form "1" for a capital " 1)" throughout, and not for "m" anywhere. At the same time, and upon the same principle, we very much approve of the form "M" for the capital " 1)," in "this here" present fount. It may not be so classic as the form given in Vallancey and O'Brien ub. supr. which O'Reilly also adopts in the initials of his words, whilst he uses in the headings of his columns a figure less M-like and more N-like. Here again we bring up Hardiman's book to illustrate the inconvenience; for in it this M-like figure, a little better developed, is actually (and very naturally) used for the capital "m." The Germans are blamed, and justly we think, for too rigid an adherence to antique forms of letters, which, from mutual resemblances, may readily be mistaken one for another. The great object of printing ought to be understandibility. Where that is sacrificed to fanciful elegance or mystified correctness, the public of this age will find too much reason for applying the old adage Si non vis intelligi, The "emphatic sixth" reappears here with all its native freshness and beauty. In all the traditional versions of the Song which has come down to us with this air, there is a cronan; according to some of them in three long lines; according to others in four. We have a setting of this air in two-four time, of which we do not approve. The version of the air which we now publish, (as well as one copy of the words, of which we have made some use,) we owe to our friend Paddy Coneely "the Galway Piper," concerning whom we shall presently have more to say. The following stanzas are formed upon the old song and its various readings, as they have reached our hands from sundry quarters. We shall endeavour by our notes, to make our song serve the purposes not only of a "new edition, with emendations," ad fidem optimarum (et pessimarum) editionum diligenter expressa, et cum purioribus (tam cum corruptissimis et violatissimis) exemplaribus accuratè collata, but a complete Variorum copy and as it were Lectionum Variarum Index Locupletissimus. IRISH MOLLY O! I. Oh! who is that poor foreigner that lately came to town, CHORUS. She's modest, mild and beautiful, the fairest I have known- * Oh! who is that?] Omnes ferè membranæ et editiones aliter hic, et in carmine et in choro, hæc loca habent. Vulgatam lectionem vir doctus, poeta noster, spernit; proculdubio τὸ "guinea” tolerari non placet; locum tamen restitui, si cum bond typographorum gratiâ potuisset fieri, optamus. Igitur reponatur, As I was a-walking one morning in May, I met a pretty Irish girl by chance upon the way; CHORUS. She's my valentine, the beautiful, the fairest one I know, The primrose of Ireland, or England also, The primrose of Ireland all for my guinea O! And the only one entices me is Irish Molly O!" Codex Coneelianus omnino sic habet; at in MS. Corkagensi legimus, Alii melius sic, "She's a gallant, she's a beauty." "She's handsome, she's beautiful." Notat tamen codex Waterfordiensis (typis Kelliensibus expressus), "She's my gallashti) of beauty." II. When Molly's father heard of it, a solemn oath he swore, III. CHORUS. Mac Donald heard the heavy news-and grievously did say- "And all for the sake of my Irish Molly O!" IV. CHORUS. "There is a rose in Ireland-I thought it would be mine; "But now that she is lost to me I must for ever pine, "Till death shall come to comfort me, for to the grave I'll go; "And all for the sake of my Irish Molly O! v. CHORUS. "And now that I am dying this one request I crave, "And on the stone these simple words I'd have engraven so "Mac Donald lost his life for love of Irish Molly O!" CHORUS. When Molly's father.] Nomen patris nusquam apparet, atqui senem fuisse codex Water fordiensis testatur : "When Molly's old father he came for to know, That she was in love with a Scotch laddie O! He sent for M'Donald, and thus to him did say, If you court my daughter Molly, I will send you far away." Mirificè sudat in hoc optimus Drakenborchius, mutuum fuisse amorem inter juvenem puellamque; sed frustra; ex P. Coneelio transcripta editio melius habet, "That she was loved by a Scotch laddie O! He sent for young M'Donald, thus for to say." Mac Donald heard.] Multum molestiæ hic locus doctis viris præbuit; quibus codicis Waterfordiensis suspecta erat auctoritas, nec immeritò, ubi legitur, "Since Molly has deceived me, all by her father's means, Through lonesome woods and vallies I mean to spend my days." Satis hoc absonum atque abhorrens Jac. Gronovio videtur; Hibernicum tamen sonat; Sed nodum hunc solvimus ex MS. Coneelian. in quo scriptum invenimus ferè ut suprà. Farewell.] Secundum MS. Coneelian. "Adieu my lovely Molly dear, if that may be the way," A poor forlorn pilgrim.] "Like a poor," &c. Omnes Codd. Vett. Wander.] "ramble." Cod. Waterfordiens. Must] "will," MS. Coneelian. And] "Tis." Ibid. Ireland] "Dublin." Omnes Codd. Vett. It] "She." MS. Coneelian. satis lepidè. But now that she] Variè hic MSS. et Codd. Vett. "Let her If you My For my "Tis } } corpse it will be lifted by the dawning of the And its S all for the sake of a bonny Irish maid." day, |