celebrate the achievements of some descendant of Captain Rock, and inspire him to emulate the martial glories, and sanctimonious attention to "ecclesiastical affairs," by which his great ancestor was so distinguished? Shall his lay be in 2027 light his candle at the flames of their houses, to leade him in the darknesse; that the day was his night, and the night his day; that he loved not to be long wooing of wenches to yeeld to him, but where he came he tooke by force the spoyle of other mens love, and left but lamentation to their lovers; that his musick was not the harpe, nor layes of love, but the cryes of people and clashing of armor; and, finally, that he died, not bewayled of many, but made many waile when he died, that dearly bought his death.-Doe you not thinke, Eudoxus, that many of these praises might be applyed to men of best deserts? Yet are they all yeelded to a most notable traytor, and amongst some of the Irish not smally accounted of. For the song, when it was first made, and sung to a person of high degree there, was bought (as their manner is) for fourty crownes.-Spenser's View of the State of Ireland. * [SCENE-Ireland.] Pursuers (at a distance). Stop that villain! Stop him! Stop him! The Man pursued. O! blood and ounds, boys, don't stop me-clear the way! People. What did you do? The Person pursued. I only killed a Proctor. [Exit, running. (One of the Pursuers enters)-Why didn't ye stop that villain, when ye heard me screeching to ye? People. Why, what did he do? The Pursuer. He stole my shirt. People. 000! the thief of the world! he tould us that he only killed a Proctor-we'll catch him for you directly-000! the murdering vagabone! [Exeunt, running, and yowling and screeching. "Through Leinster, Ulster, Connaught, Munster, "Rock's the boy to make the fun stir?" And "Where art thou, Genius of Riot ? "Where is thy yell of defiance? "Why are the Sheas and O'Shanghnessies quiet? "Up from thy slumber, O'Branigan! "Rouse the Mac Shanes and O'Haggarties! "Courage, Sir Corney O'Toole !be a man again"Never let Heffernan say, 'what a braggart 'tis !' "Oh! when Rebellion's so feasible, "Where is the kern would be slinking off? "CON OF THE BATTLES! what makes you so peaceable? "NIAL THE GRAND! what the dev'l are you thinking of?” Are the ever, songs CAPTAIN ROCK. of the Minstrels of Erin to be for "The Song of Sorrow"-" Weep on! Weep "on!"-" The Lamentation of Limerick"-and "The Dirge?"-and is the music of Ireland to be for ever, in its wild and doleful swell and fall, the voice of agony, and its dreary echoes of the heart in its breaking? The very finest piece of political irony I ever met with, is to be found in that book of Mr. Moore, which I have called by the name of the ancient Irish Bannert-The Sun-burst of Irish History. When Captain Rock, under vehement apprehension that order and tranquillity might be established in Ireland, by some measures of conciliation which glories were darting Around thee, through all the gross clouds of the world, MOORE. These are some of the words adapted by the Author of the Melodies to that exquisite Irish air, Savourneen Deelish. were said to be contemplated by the Government, expresses his fears to his aged father, he, who knew better, by long experience, exhorts his son not to be disheartened by any rumours of such an intention; to be of good cheer, that he has nothing to apprehend, (this is the spirit of the passage)— that he may depend upon the Government for the perpetuation of anarchy!-This is the ne plus ultra of political irony. Every other example must be to it, only as the species to the genus summum. There is a spot upon a mountain promontory in Fingal, where, in my early boyhood, external Nature first burst upon my vision in beauty and sublimity, not separated, but in combination. Upon the eastern side of the solitary mountain, where it shelves abruptly to the sea, and so near its summit, that there was a glorious expanse of horizon, was a little fountain, bursting among the rocks, and wild flowers, and sun-beams. A bee hummed over the flowers, close to the fountain and its little rill; some sea-gulls wheeled and floated in the air, high above the sea that broke upon the shore; and there was a distant bark with white sails, holding on her course upon the swelling tide. Whenever I call this scene to remembrance, "pure, bright, and elysian," it floats in my imagination like a vision of enchantment. This is the pure elysian enchantment of external Nature, without any intermingling of feelings inspired by the history of the times of old*.-" Canst * Book of Job. "thou loosen the bonds of Orion, or canst thou " bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?"-No; and there are other sweet influences too, that, while man retains his nature, never can be bound there is given Unto the things of earth that time hath bent, A spirit's feeling * there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement And when I stand in the ancient Cathedral of Limerick, and listen to the choir and the organ; when I hear the chant of the High Mass, and ringing of the Mass-bell, and view the incense ascending from the Altar in one of their Convent Chapels; when I wander through the garden of the Holy Sisterhood of St. Clare, and view their figures gliding among the Gothic ruins, or when I stand within the sanctuary of their Convent Chapel; when I sit upon the ancient bastion in St. Munchin's Cemetery, upon a gloomy evening, and listen to the sullen swough of the wind among the dark elms over my head, and the rushing flood of the Shannon, that sweeps at its basement, and hear the roar of the bugles, the beat of the drum, and "the voice of the trumpet," within the court of the Castle;-I become inspired by a feeling, solemn and mournful; different from that of which I am susceptible in any other place in the world, but not very unlike that with which, upon the shore of the solitary lake where he reposes, I hear the wind whisper at night in the grass, around the grave of my Father, whom I have never seen. * Chaucer. APPENDIX. No. I. I HAVE said (page 49), " many of those loose "C masses might be removed under water by the diving"bell, or perhaps by another machine, of which I "shall describe the principle, and of which the con"struction suggested itself to me since I began to "meditate upon the present subject."-Not having actually verified the theory by experiment, I of course do not pronounce any thing absolutely, even though I am warranted by the highest professional authority in anticipating that it will succeed. Before I describe this Machine, I shall give, from the "London Philosophical Magazine and Journal*," an account of my descent in the diving-bell, the principle of which happened to suggest itself to me after I had been under water in a common one. I shall then give an analysis of the principle on which I constructed it, and then give an analysis of the theoretical principle on which I propose that the new Machine should be formed. ACCOUNT OF THE DESCENT OF A DIVING-BELL, NEWLY INVENTED BY T. STEELE, ESQ. M. A. To the Editor of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. SIR, As improvements in physical science at present excite an interest in this country altogether without precedent, and as the great national work, the Breakwater in Plymouth * Number 341. September, 1826. |