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students, who were candidates for the priesthood, had been deprived of the means of education; and that there would be a difficulty of obtaining priests to perform the necessary duties of religion, without the establishment of a seminary.

Mr. Burke, whose intemperate zeal for the advancement of popery I before mentioned, used his utmost exertions for the accomplishment of that object, and when Lord Fitzwilliam was coming to Ireland, he recommended to his lordship the reverend doctor Hussey, an Irish priest, who had been bred at Seville in Spain, as a person well qualified to superintend that institution.

After the departure of Earl Fitzwilliam, and during the administration of Lord Camden in the year 1795, this institution was established by an act of parliament, by which certain trustees were empowered to receive donations for establishing and endowing an academy for the education of persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, and to acquire lands free from forfeiture by mortmain. Little short of 40,000l. was granted for its establishment at first; and in every subsequent session, a regular charge of 8000l. has been made to parlia ment for its annual support; but it is worthy of observation, that no donation has been made to it by the Roman Catholic body, or by any individual of that order, except by Lord Dunboyne, who died in the year 1800, and left an estate of cool. a year toward the en. dowment of that college; yet the Roman Catholics raised immense sums of money in the years 1794 and 1795, for purposes not the most friendly to that protestant state, which laid the foundation of, and richly endowed their seminary.

Lord Dunboyne had been popish bishop of Cork, and on getting the title and an estate, he became a convert to the established church; and with singular dissimulation gave the strongest indications of sincere conversion for some years; but in his last moments he relapsed into popery and, in consideration of having obtained absolution for the great crime of having been a heretic, he left an estate worth 1000l. or 1200l. a year, to promote the institution before mentioned. A striking proof of the strong and indelible impression which the popish superstition makes on the human mind, where it has been early imbued with it!?

The passages which we shall now copy are stated by the author to be the relations of other persons, but they are not, on that account, intitled to the less credit; and if the information be authentic, it merits attention:

Some persons of acute discernment in the counties of Wexford and Wicklow have made the following observations to me, which prove that the war was a religious one: that no papist ever lamented, or does so to this hour, the relations they have lost in the rebellion: no wife was ever seen to shed a tear for the death of her husband, or a father or mother for the loss of a son. In one instance only, nature prevailed, and a tear started from the eye.

Another circumstance observed by the same persons proves it to have been founded in religious bigotry: the men who bore formerly very excellent moral characters, were guilty of murder, robbery, and

perjury

perjury, without remorse; and that numbers were persuaded, contrary to the sentiments of nature, and the obligations of true religion, not only to neglect, but to violate all the ties of duty, friendship, gratitude and humanity, in prosecuting the war.'

Whether, if the British government had continued its support to the measures of Lord Fitzwilliam, the rebellion would have been prevented; whether it was wise, while it yet raged, to put to death the rebel prisoners; whether, if their fate had been suspended till the conclusion of the contest, the massacres on the other side would have been so general, or have been perpetrated in any instance; are questions which the author has had too much delicacy to discuss. We censure not this reserve, but regret the want of it in other instances, which equally required the exercise of it. We ardently wish success to all legitimate measures for strengthening the protestant interest in Ireland; and some of those which are here suggested may deserve consideration. We see no objection to the plan of erecting towns and villages, to be peopled with protestants, in those parts in which the population is chiefly catholic; nor to that of obliging the clergy to perform at least a part of the service, and always to preach, in the Irish tongue, in those parishes in which English is not generally spoken. The extension of the protestant charter-schools, however, as now constituted, we cannot approve, because they are not compatible with the degree of toleration actually enjoyed by the Catholics-but, if the scheme should be divested of all that wears the appearance of intolerance and illiberality, it would meet with our warmest concurrence. We are well aware of the supercilious contempt with which, in all probability, this tenderness of ours will be treated by him who can coolly and deliberately employ his pen in defence of the mode of extracting evidence by whipping, of supporting public order by free quarter, and of giving vigour to the laws by kidnapping ment and sending them on board tenders. For the author's arguments under these heads, we must refer our readers to the work itself.

In an Appendix, containing an answer to the charge of having published his work too soon after the events of which he gives an account, Sir Richard Musgrave quotes Plutarch's obferva

"That it is difficult to attain truth in history, since if i the writers live any length of time after the events which they relate, they can be but imperfectly informed of them; and if they describe the persons and transactions of their own times, they are tempted by envy and hatred, or interest and friendship, to disguise or pervert the truth." He then adds; Conscious

that

that I have not been biassed by any such sinister motives, and desirous of establishing the authenticity of the occurrences which I have related, I resolved to publish a narration of them, while the eye-witnesses of them were still living.'

It ought not to be omitted that it does not appear that the author himself was, in any instances, an eye witness of the transactions which he relates. How this happened we are not informed: but we are rather surprised at the circumstance; especially as in one case of no very pleasant complexion, we learn that he resolutely carried into effect the sentence of the law with his own hands. The following is the passage to which we refer ;

The spirit of insurrection spread over most parts of Munster. The conspirators bound each other by oath to resist the laws of the land, and to obey none but those of captain Right; and so strictly did they adhere to them, that the high sheriff of the county of Waterford* could not procure a person to execute the sentence of the law on one of these miscreants who was condemned to be whipped at Carrickon-Suir, though he offered a large sum of money for that purpose. He was therefore under the necessity of performing that duty himself, in the face of an enraged mob.'

It is now time to close our account of this volume. In the spirit and scope of our observations, Sir Richard will perhaps say that we have violated the terms of complaisance which have formerly passed between us: if he should so think and so declare, we can reply that we sincerely regret the necessity which he imposed on us for expressing such disapprobation. The horrid nature of the crimes which he has depicted, and the evil tendency (in our opinion) of his manner of delineating them, would easily account for and might well justify some deviation from the rigorous calmness, and the dispassionate judg ment, which it is the critic's positive duty to display on a subject of such moment. We can with truth affirm, however, that we have sedulously endeavoured to repress all misguiding emotions, and all acrimonious language thence resulting; and that it has been our aim to confine ourselves to the delivery of those sentiments which it was our duty to declare, and of that impressive warning against the operation of a work, the pernicious influence of which we cannot too much deprecate and counteract.

Some pamphlets in reply to Sir R. Musgrave will be mentioned in the Catalogue of this Review.

The writer of these pages was High Sheriff at that time.'

ART.

ART. XI. Richard the First, a Poem: in Eighteen Books. By Sir James Bland Burges, Bart. 2 Vols. 8vo. 18s. Boards. Egerton. 1801.

WE

JE are very pertinacious advocates for truth; and therefore. we shall confess, though the avowal may be mortifying, that critics are not less fallible than poets, when they undertake the vocation of prophecy. From the perusal of a former publication by Sir James Burges, we were induced to speak, favourably of his poetical talents; and to augur that he would excel, if he employed them on a subject better adapted to the display of his powers than that which had then engaged them. The performance which we are now to review has disagreeably convinced us of our mistake; and as it was said of Galba that he would have been reckoned deserving of the empire if he had not attained it, so we must observe of Sir James Burges, that his genius might have been esteemed equal to the composition of an heroic poem, had he never hazarded the attempt. Whether the story might have been more happily chosen, and the incidents better arranged, so as to have imposed a lighter burden on the author in executing the mechanical part of his work, we shall not now inquire. Our province is only to report the actual result of his labours.

The principal characteristic of this work appears to us to be, that it contains a chronicle of Richard I. in verse; and when we consider the structure and length of the composition, we are astonished at the labour and perseverance displayed in it The author, we have heard, has great facility in the composi tion of verse: it may perhaps even be said of him that

"In hora sapè ducentos,

Ut magnum, versus dictabat, stans pede in uno:" Hor. but rapidity very seldom insures excellence, and, in a poetical composition of the higher sort, will perhaps always obstruct it.

Sir James has adopted the stanza of Spenser and Drayton, which is similar to that of Ariosto; and he has completed eighteen books, each of which includes, on an average, more than a hundred of these painful and thorny stanzas. It is a disadvantage to this work, that, although the form of the verse is antient, the diction is entirely modern not an eke, nor an yclept, is to be found.. This preference of the language of his own times ought surely to have induced Sir James to have adopted the modern heroic measure. The models, which he may be supposed to have had in view, are also distinguished by their custom of introducing the subject of each book with

* Rev. vol. xx.. N, S. p. 818,

one

one or more stanzas of general discussion, or romantic gaiety. In this respect, Ariosto has commanded the highest admiration; and his preliminary sallies, like the introductory chapters in Fielding's Tom Jones, are frequently re-perused by those who are perfectly familiar with his story :-but in Richard I. the history is carried on without any other relief than the divisions of the books; and so little art has been employed in arranging the story, that Richard's Speech before the diet of Worms is continued through almost six books,-nearly one third of the whole composition. Long speeches were not the fashion of that time; and the eloquence attributed to Coeur de Lion becomes him no better than would a serjeant's coif, or a full-bottom'd wig.

In the machinery of the poem, the author seems to have chiefly imitated Tasso; and he has availed himself of the circumstances of the present times, to introduce a new allegorical personage, False Philosophy. whose part, however, might have been played by any of the demons whose titles are familiar to our ears. The age of allegory is past; and readers speedily lose their patience, when the dull moral lies too plain below.

It is now time to produce some specimens, from which our readers may judge of the propriety of our remarks; and we select the following passages, with an equal view of doing justice to the author and to ourselves. The first contains the speech of Satan to his council, in book I., in which we might suppose that the poet would have been animated by the recollection of Milton:

"When to your delegated care I

gave

The charge of watching o'er my race select,

I look'd, great Chiefs! for zeal and efforts brave.
But well your sov'reign's mandates ye respect!
Behold yon hostile fleet, whose course direct
Destruction bears 'gainst Saracenic towers;
See how the heavens serene their course protect,
And, as the leaders cheer their warlike powers,
Mark how on every brow vindictive fury lours.
"Is then the mem'ry of your wrongs o'erpast?
Where is the hate resolv'd, the wrathful flame,
Which fir'd th' ætherial race from Heav'n when cast?
Patient of wrong, effeminate and tame,

Of prowess vaunt no more, but bow with shame.
Shall we, to torments doom'd, resign'd, and weak,
Sink in oblivious sloth our well-earn'd fame,
Or boldly daring shall we vengeance seek,

And rush on perils new our great revenge to wreak?
"But perils daunt ye, and revenge is cold:

Else here inglorious would ye not remain,

When

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