boldly to make the [bardic] visitation of a province, ofessorship of Eire,

s, be it ever so trifling,

these [premises] are unknown.

I that doctor poets, who, taken their degree in some should decree on questions of right; but, in fact, little respected in a land where might was right, as the only remedy. I must acknowledge, at the e met with a curious proof that the poetic powers eably with Lord Macaulay's view, a principal source The instance is, that among the ancient Welsh, the musician of the hall of a chief, was entitled to the raid, provided he had previously sung an inspiriting ly, we obtain a notion of the value of a bard, who, ned the part of brandy, such as was served out to in Sebastopol.

words of that distinguished and ennobled essayist, in its original sense of a creation (whence the Scots "a maker"), and premising that children are, of all aginative, observes that, in a rude state of society, h a greater variety of ideas. "It is, therefore," he a state of society that we may expect to find the t in its highest perfection." The greatest of poets, worlds, and then imagined new," has, indeed, given orking of the art in which he excelled, in these feli

As the imagination bodies forth

orms of things unknown, the poet's pen

s them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing al habitation and a name.

been asserted that imagination produces no more upply, since none can idealise what neither eye has If then it be true that imagination is merely drawn whose memories are best stored may be understood hly the chief ingredients of the poetic talent. Yet, the heat of genius, the vis animæ fervida, be wantn of thought may indeed be crowded with ideas, but not there that shall draw it up the heights of the

h bards, we are considering, knew nothing of steam ers, as means of annihilating time and space; and, in were their minds stored with civilised imagery, that om this vast warehouse is quite primitive and contake them on their own ground, the rocky wilderness, rey, and the fowls of its keen air, I am of opinion that d in love and appreciation of the sublime and beautiful ndoners of our own day, to whom little flowers peeprock, and the mere lichens adorning its surface are iceful. What frenzied Gaelic bard ever described ry with fuller admiration than did George Gordon,

D. Barrington's Observations on the Statutes..

fifth Baron Byron, of Rochdale, in manufacturing Lancashire? To
him, high mountains were a feeling; and, he asks:

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

Is not the love of them deep in my heart
With a pure passion? Should I not contemn
All objects, if compared with these? and stem
A tide of suffering, rather than forego
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm
Of those whose eyes are only turned below,

Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow ?

How shall we turn from this nervous verse to the pulings of Celtic children of the muse? Let us cry," New lamps for old !" new wit, faney, and wisdom, in lieu of old and incomplete. Some one said once, that more wit and pleasantry were uttered at many a modern dinner-table in London, during the hour after the soup, than would have furnished out a half-dozen of jokers of such jokes as Lord Bacon has taken the pains to record. To judge by his repertory of jests, our ancestors were easily pleased. Every one knows that the ancient office of jester, or fool, is now filled by jocose "diners-out;" and, it is agreeable to believe that these latter are, professionally and generally, considered superior to their predecessors, and far excelling the dull fellows who gave dinners in Elizabeth's time. A poem is not better for being old than a joke is, especially if both are indifferent, and if the former neither makes us smile nor teaches us what is worth learning. One fault to be found with old Irish poetry is, that it is far less humorous than are contemporary English ballads, such as the stirring series styled "Robin Hood's Garland," so replete with merry jests and quaint repartees, that one can laugh at as if they were as good as new. Seriousness, verily, is the characteristic of most of the elder poetry; a quality Elia accounts for, in his inimitable essay on "Imperfect Sympathies," by the want of candlelight among our troglodite ancestors, who, says he, found it useless to be witty, since, being in the dark, any one that made a joke must have had to feel his neighbours' cheeks to ascertain if they grinned.

"New lamps for old!" is the best cry since, though it was bad in the mouth of the African magician in Aladdin-modern illumination as far excels the knowledge of men who lived in caves, as our gas, bude, and electric lights outshine a rushlight. This cry is implied and recommended in the remarkable apophthegm of Lord Bacon, that "the antiquity of the world is not in the past time, but in the present." Our own age is the oldest, and all recorded knowledge and experience is ours. Of the art of poetry it must be true, as of other arts, that its general perfectibility has increased with the growth of time. In this view, let me, without pausing to compare the rude rhymes of old Irish bards with the polished odes and lyrics of Moore, and forsaking the theme of the poetry of "The Island of Song" for a glance at that of neighbouring lands, observe how the poetic talent of Scotland brightened from the time when Archdeacon Barbour versified the exploits of the Bruces, and when Sir David Lindsay threw off his coarse and clever satires, to our own age, when it has been enriched by the elaborate perfection of the muse of Abbotsford. Again, it is the artistic inferiority of Chaucer and Spenser, far less than the obscurity of their archaic diction, that has rendered them half eclipsed by the brilliant galaxy of modern English poets. In

Devent

course, shine forth in its degree of magnitude, in minary may appear: yet assuredly not so brightly ess, as if assisted by reflected and borrowed lights. much as I despise premeditated and unimproving

uphold the principle that there should be no right, in poetic and literary ideas, but that the best most felicitous expression of them. Molière's frank C'est mon bien, et je le prends partout où je le acknowledgment of this Gallic poet's freebooting of the airy good he coveted, and a plain pleading of ignment for plagiarism before a court of literature. to grosser matters was, no one need be reminded, a time-honoured custom, among Gaelic chiefs, to e amiss in a raid, unless it were too hot or too be sure that their bards were prevented from imositions in similar fashion solely by their state of

ose my disquisition on the merits of antique Irish may notice that there are no depths to sound that roofs of extraneous gold having been mingled with e; and that, moreover, however depreciatory may be are quite fortified by those of the author of "Lalla s history of his country, dismisses Brian Boru's chief with the remarks that the remains of this royal bard's y no means a favourable notion of his poetic powers; thmical distichs, or ranns, scattered through annals, of the most negative description." The value of all mens of lore consists, indeed, not in their poetic merit, in the facts of history they have preserved; the is case, richer and rarer than the amber. Verses parchment and paper were invented, the medium of not entitled to criticise runes and ranns, that were eep certain traditions, as to events and laws, in national itten by bards whose eyes were rolling about at the

etic merit of early specimens of verse that might claim law and history distichs into consideration, I avow e of my taste for these frelics, and remember the E a stern opponent of the claims of Macpherson's eat philosopher of Fleet-street, Dr. Johnson, in. thus accomplishments of Highland poets: "The bard was a barbarians, who, knowing little himself, lived with no more." This summary of the ancient condition of e, or want of it, cannot be refuted. Many of those and took up their vocation in default of capability to sion but music, for which the very deprivation of one senses especially, as is well known, adapted them. quite shut out from them by entrance at the sight. e same natural defect did not preclude "the blind old e" from describing the shield of Achilles, nor, though ne vision of Milton, prevent his rapt intelligence from bove the empyrean, or to the dark shades below.

NOTES ON NOTE-WORTHIES,

OF DIVERS ORDERS, EITHER SEX, AND EVERY AGE.

BY SIR NATHANIEL.

And make them men of note (do you note, men ?)-Love's Labour's Lost, Act III. Sc. 1.

D. Pedro. Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,

Balth.

Do it in notes.

Note this before my notes,

THE credit enjoyed, first and last, by Josephus, as the "great Jewish historian," has been fluctuating enough. Denounced by his own countrymen, he was valued at the highest rate by early Christian writers, who accepted him without demur as a witness in favour of much wherein they were polemically interested. Then again he was scrutinised in no friendly fashion by more searching investigators of a later day. Bayle* mentions, in his article on Abimelech, that his indignation against Josèphe was a thing of very long standing, as well as of firm standing too. Le Père Hardouin is so hot against Josèphe, that he can't bear to hear him called Joseph, the name of a Christian saint: le bon Père has nought but scorn for the renegade Jew, and insists on calling him Josèphe, nothing (not a letter, not one poor vowel) less†-no one, that we are aware of, disputing the excited Father's liberty to take that liberty (if it be one) with the name in question. Basnage is another pronounced opponent. Baronius in his Ecclesiastical Annals does Flavius Josephus some damage. Salien and Salméron withhold not the scourge from his shoulders. Bochart, Le Clerc, Gillet, Calmet, and others, show up his habit of tampering with the sacred text, and wresting a plain record to suit his crooked purpose. Voltaire is shrewd and caustic-is himself, in fact-in his strictures on the denationalised Hebrew. Later again there has been a reaction. The authority of Josephus has been defended by

*Dict. hist. et littér.

"Je ne veux plus l'appeler Joseph, ce serait le confondre avec saint Joseph. Je n'ai que du mépris pour ce Josèphe; car je le nommerai toujours ainsi." Father Hardouin is something piquant in a pet.

More telling and more dignified is the remark of Manasseh Ben Israel, in allusion to the historian's Romanising ways-that his histories should have borne the name of Flavius, not of Josephus.

me of them perhaps interested ones, such as Jost,* a History of the Israelites since the age of the cains the excellence of this suspected witness, and me expense of that of Eusebius, the pseudo-Philo, s, and many obscure Roman and Greekish-Roman of legendary lore. In our own country a turn in favour, has occurred since Dr. Traill's translation,† to a cautious reviewer to observe at the time, that e historian, after having been admitted without maintained rather for the sake of ulterior consideraround of its own merits-and next unduly depreeasons-was now rising again in general estimation, rch disclosed fresh evidence in its favour: the hisJosephus in this respect being compared to that of have been subject to unreasonable suspicion, and ted by the results of recent investigation in a manner and surprising." But sturdy objectors there are, and e surprise will act as a very mild shock, and to whom be found utterly wanting. Both at home and abroad inkers who can't be brought to terms with Josephus, hers of more penetrable stuff the joys of being thus d. As examples of this recalcitrant and, if you will, s, may be named, among English scholars, Thomas among French, Philarète Chasles. Both are antik-bone, each in his peculiar way.

hasles, has written a rather elaborate essay on the subs the first seventy pages of his Etudes on Early e Middle Ages. The former, Mr. de Quincey, has ieces, leaving whoso will to sweep up the bits, in more ltifarious tractates-in the ingenious paper (more inay it? than convincing) on the Essenes, and in the uisition on Secret Societies. Given Josephus as an the Temple of Fame-then are both gentlemen, the l, stalwart iconoclasts, neither of whom is in the mood articular swashing blow. And to Josephus a niche of appropriated, with all the honours. Witness Chaucer