Through the treason of an officer of the Irish horse, the enemy were suffered to throw a pontoon-bridge across the Shannon, and Ginkell, sending over a large force, succeeded in cutting off the communication between the town and the Irish cavalry stationed on the Clare side of the river. The following day the fort which protected Thomond bridge was carried, and as the Irish were retreating before overwhelming numbers into the town, the French officer in charge of the Thomond gate, fearing the enemy might enter with the fugitives, unfortunately drew up the drawbridge, leaving the Irish at the mercy of their focs. A scene of fearful carnage ensued. The enemy allowed no quarter, and the massacre proceeded till the corpses were piled to the level of the parapet of the bridge.

That night, at the council of war held in the city, it was decided that to prolong the defence was useless, all hope of the long-expected aid from France having vanished. The next day the drums of the garrison beat a parley. The enemy agreed to a truce; negotiations were opened and hostages exchanged. In a few days the articles of capitulation were drawn up. They consisted of a military and a civil treaty. The terms were honourable to the garrison. The civil treaty granted to their Catholic fellow-countrymen such privileges in the exercise of their religion as they enjoyed in the reign of Charles II., also security of their estates and property. Two months from the date of signature that treaty was openly violated by the English justices.

The evening of the capitulation, the English infantry took possession of the Irish town. The castle and the English town were reserved for the Irish troops till, according to the stipulations of the treaty, the transports would be in readiness to convey them to France. Some days later the garrison marched out with military honours, and drew up on the Clare side of the Shannon. The Irish troops were required to choose to accept free passes from Ginkell and return to their homes, to enter the Williamite service, or volunteer for France. Of the infantry, 2,000 returned home, 1,000 passed into the Williamite army, the remaining 11,000 and the whole of the cavalry elected to embark for the Continent. They sailed from Cork and Limerick, and on their arrival in France, were honourably received and enrolled in the service of the French monarch. Their subsequent history is epitomized in the touching lines of Davis:

"In far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade,

Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade."

GLEANINGS FROM IRISH LITERATURE.

MILTON, who says that "to produce true poetry, the writer must be a true poem," has assigned the highest place in literature to composition in verse; and this idea has been expressed by Anthony Trollope in a late essay, in which, contrasting poetry and prose, he says:-"By the consent of all mankind, poetry takes the highest place in literature. The nobility of expression, and all but divine grace of words which she is bound to attain before she can make her footing good, is not comparable with prosc. The writer of poetry has soared above the earth, and can teach his lessons as a god would teach." There may be as much beauty in the thoughts of the prose writer, but the poet evolves them in the divinest words, the divinest music. Many of the themes of oratory are of the highest order, but the forms of speech and song make all the difference.

It was once said that eloquence was the distinguishing characteristic of the genius of Celtic France: and the same has been said of that of Ireland. In pulpit eloquence France still remains unrivalled. No other country can show an array of names as great in this department as those of the great classic periodBossuet, Massillon, and others which will occur to the reader. It is, on the other hand, in political and forensic oratory, illustrated by Burke, Grattan, Curran, Plunket, Sheridan, O'Connell, Shiel, that Ireland has produced the most splendid effusions. Burke's style, whether in speech or writing, is remarkably copious, expansive, and strong; while Grattan, above all other orators in modern times, realizes the French idea of eloquence, as "logic on fire." Burke excels in description, instances of which may be adduced from many of his writings-such as the well-known passage in the Reflections on the Revolution of France, in which he depicts his recollections of Marie Antoinette in her youth, with the noble comment on the degeneracy of the chivalrous spirit, which follows. His most splendid speech is that on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts. Among its shining passages are those in which he alludes to the great utilitarian works of the old princes of Hindostan: "Those were the works of real kings, testators to a posterity which they embraced as their own"-and that still grander passage, epic, in its terrible vigour, in which he describes the descent of Hyder Ali on the plains of the Carnatic.

Lord Brougham has remarked that the great value of Burke's writings is not in their logic, but in their detached views. He was an universalist who delighted in the acquisition of all species of knowledge, and from a full mind originated novel views and illustrations. No other oratory so abounds in ideas as that of Burke; he is alike eminent in dissertation and description. In some writers the words are weaker than the thoughts-spe solent ramos

frangere poma. In that of Burke the eloquent language is as potent as the ideas.

The approach of the Moore Centenary recalls the poetry and prose of one of our most classic writers. In Moore's songs nothing can surpass the appropriateness with which sentiment accords with simile. His language is everywhere pure and choice, without being picturesque. It is often said his songs were written for the drawing-room, not the cottage; but any cottager who can read can understand his songs as easily as a penny ballad. They do not, to be sure, deal with the feelings and manners of the rural population like those of Burns; but as one touch of nature makes the whole world akin," those of Moore should have also their universality.

In his poetry, as in his prose, it is in the employment of metaphor and comparison that Moore is chiefly distinguished. As a critic has remarked, if imagery were the chief excellence of poetry, he would be the greatest of writers. The habit of producing short exquisite poems, seems to have interfered with the power of giving dramatic animation to, and breaking up his descriptive prose into masses of light and shade. But as far as writing correct and elegant English is concerned, Moore's prose remains a classic exemplar of scholarly refinement, brilliancy and taste. Turning to his lyrical writings-by-the-way, it was his habit to compose his songs in bed of a morning, or when seated at his piano, just as Curran composed his fine eloquent passages with his violin in his hand-one is struck with the exhaustless versatility of fancy and sentiment which he embodied in the finest collection of lyrics in any language. "He is, at least," says Lord John Russel, "our greatest lyrist." His range of subjects are the emotions of love, sorrow, festive feeling, patriotic sentiment-all which are evolved with versatile grace. His best and most finished songs are those in which he pursues the regular principle of adapting a sentiment to a comparison, or illustrates a sentiment by one, or by a metaphor. Some half-dozen of Moore's songs are among the few perfect things in literature. The language is clear; but he never paints, never uses a pictorial word, thus showing some deficiency of the imaginative faculty, whose presence is always manifested in the colour or picturesqueness of the language. Take one of Moore's most characteristic songs or passages, say :—

"There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream,

And the nightingale sings round it all the day long;
In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream,
To sit in the roses and hear the birds' song.

That bower and its music I never forget,

But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year,

I think is the nightingale singing there yet?

Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?

"No, the roses soon wither'd that hung o'er the wave,
But some blossoms were gather'd while freshly they shone,
And a dew was distill'd from their flowers, that gave
All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone.

Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,
An essence that breathes of it many a year;
Thus bright to my soul, as 'twas then to my eyes,

Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer!"

These verses are perfect; and even more complete and exquisite than the Birds' Song in Tasso. Compare them with, perhaps, the most exquisite few lines in Shelley :

"Music, when sweet voices die,
Vibrates in the memory.

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Roses, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved's bed;

And so the thoughts when thou art gone,
Love himself will slumber on."

And we see the difference between the most perfect art of the song-writer and the finest poetic treatment.

In his “Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion," Moore has displayed his eminent talents as a controversialist; and in his "Memoirs of Captain Rock," we see him treating the political condition of Ireland with rich humour and irony. The latter is a very brilliant Irish book, abounding in innuendo and satire, and enlivened almost as much by witty illustration as his poetry with exquisite comparisons, images and metaphors. Anecdotes and good things culled from his studies in classic and modern literature are neatly set in its pages to illustrate and enliven them. The spirit of patriotism animates the whole. In short, he has put all the attributes of Irish character into this satirical brochure, from which, as a specimen of his prose, we extract the following fine passage, in which he recalls the hopes with which the Irish people were animated by the Revolution of 1782— the most complete, successful, and glorious, which distinguishes the history of any ancient or modern nation:-

"When I contemplated such a man as the venerable Charlemont, whose nobility was to the people like a fort over a valley: elevated above them solely for their de fence; who introduced the polish of the courtier into the camp of the freemen, and served his country with that pure Platonic devotion which a true knight of the times of chivalry proffered to his mistress-when I listened to the eloquence of Grattan, the very music of freedom: her first fresh matin song after a long night of slavery, degra dation and sorrow-when I saw the bright offerings which he brought to the shrine of his country-wisdom, genius, courage, and patience, invigorated and embellished by all those social and domestic virtues, without which the loftiest talents stand isolated in the moral waste around them, like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wilderness !— when I reflected on all this, it not only disheartened me for the mission of discord which I had undertaken, but made me secretly hope that it might be rendered unnecessary; and that a country which could produce such men, and achieve such a revolution might yet, in spite of the joint efforts of the Government and my family (ie., the Rocks), take her rank in the scale of nations and be happy."

In Moore's "Life of Byron," he adopts the modern fashion of letting the personage illustrate his life by his letters. The "Life of Sheridan" is a more brilliant performance. Moore has depicted the wit, dramatist, orator, and politician in a congenial spirit. When the work came out, critics considered its style too

brilliant for that of biography. The efflorescence of imagery it displayed was new in this species of composition. They looked for a statue of Hyperides in clay, and "Anacreon Moore" produced one in marble, finished ad unguem, and with all the embellishments which love of the subject deemed suitable. It contains many sound political dissertations and reflections, and many eloquent sketches of contemporary characters; among them, that of Edmund Burke, which has never since been equalled. In referring to the two periods of Burke's political life-his early career, when he was the greatest genius who ever sustained the Whig party; and his second period, when the excesses of the first French Revolution led him to speculate on the future of a state of liberty with such a facilis descensus into license-speculations since historically realized-and impelled him to throw the whole force of his mind upon the subject of the conservation of future society, alluding to the change produced by contemporary events in France on the opinions of Burke, Moore says:

"He has attained in the world of politics what Shakspeare, by the versatility of his characters, achieved in the world in general-namely, such an universality of apprecia. tion, that it would be difficult for any statesman of any party to find himself placed in any situation for which he could not select some golden sentence from Burke, either to strengthen his position, by reasoning or illustration, or adorn it by fancy. Burke was mighty in either camp; and it would have taken two great men to effect what he, by this division of himself, achieved. His mind, indeed, lies parted asunder in his works, like some vast continent severed by a convulsion of nature-each portion peopled by its own giant race of opinions, differing altogether in features and language, and committed in eternal hostility to each other."

Grattan has been called "the poet of Irish politics;" so may Burke be named the philosopher of universal politics-the science of power and government; the system of the principles and problems of national and social liberty, and of stability. Like Bacon, he took "all knowledge as his empire," brought all his acquirements to bear upon his theme. His first writings are a text-book of liberal ideas, his second of conservative. Terrified at the excesses of the French Revolution, the result of conditions long crisifying; of enlightened principles misunderstood, and acted on by ignorance; he set himself to arrest the ruin which threatened civilization itself, and by checking the wild course of French democracy, to save England and Europe. The cannon of young Napoleon cleared the chaos for a time, but the armementaria cali, the intellectual weapons which can be utilized to neutralize the possibility of future popular excesses, are to be found in the later writings of Burke, who employs the experience of the past as a guide to the future. Kant says, "that the genius of Italy resides in the leaves; of Germany, in the root; of England, in the fruit"-Southern efflorescence, patient analysis, and the practical spirit, respectively. As an illustration of the latter, the orator Burke is a true descendant of the utilitarian philosopher, Bacon.

N. W.