vinces, and a fellow who perished deservedly by the javelin of some young patriot admirer of round towers in Persia. In the article alluded to, this incredulous Thomas goes on to say, that these same Fathers, to whom he afterwards refers his Irish gentleman in the catch-penny travels, are totally "unfit to be guides either in faith or morals." (it. ib.) The prurient rogue dares to talk of their "pagan imaginations!" and, having turned up his ascetic nose at these saintly men, because, forsooth, they appear to him to be but "indifferent Christians," he pronounces them to be also "elephants in battle," and, chuckling over this old simile, concludes with a complacent smirk quite self-satisfactory. O for the proboscis of the royal animal in the Surrey Menagerie, to give this poet's carcass a sound drubbing! O most theological, and zoological, and super-eminently logical Tommy! 'tis you that are fit to travel in search of religion!

If there is one plain truth that oozes forth from the feculent heap of trash which the reviewer accumulates on the merits of the Fathers, it is the conviction in every observant mind, drawn from the simple perusal of his article, that he never read three consecutive pages of their works in his life. No one that ever did no one who had banqueted with the gorgeous and magnificent Chrysostom, or drained the true Athenian cup of Gregory Nazianzene, or dwelt with the eloquent and feelingly devout Bernard in the

cloistered shades of Clairvaux, or mused with the powerful, rich, and scrutinising mind of Jerome in his hermitage of Palestine,-could write an article so contemptible, so low, so little. He states, truly with characteristic audacity, that he has mounted to the most inaccessible shelves of the library in Trin. Coll. Dublin, as if he had scaled the "heights of Abraham," to get at the original editions; but believe him not; for the old in-folios would have become instinct with life at the approach of the dwarf-they would have awakened from their slumber at his touch, and, tumbling their goodly volumes on their diminutive assailant, would have overwhelmed him, like Tarpeïa, on the very threshold of his sacrilegious invasion.

Towards my young friend O'Brien of the towers he acts the same part, appearing in his favourite character—that of an anonymous reviewer, a veiled prophet of Khorasan. Having first negotiated by letter with him to extract his brains, and make use of him for his meditated " History of Ireland"-(the correspondence lies before me)-he winds up the confidential intercourse by an Edinburgh volley of canister shot, "quite in a friendly way." He has the ineffable impudence to accuse O'B. of plagiarism, and to state that this grand and unparalleled discovery had been previously made by the author of "Nimrod ;"* a book

* Nimrod, by the Hon. Reginald Herbert. 1 vol. 8vo. London, 1826. Priestley. A work of uncommon erudition; but

which Tommy read not, neither did he care, so he plucked the laurel from the brow of merit. But to accuse a writer of plagiarism, he should be himself immaculate; and while he dwells in a glass house, he should not throw stones at a man in a tower.

The Blarney-stone in my neighbourhood has attracted hither many an illustrious visitor; but none has been so assiduous a pilgrim in my time as Tom Moore. While he was engaged in his best and most unexceptionable work on the melodious ballads of his country, he came regularly every summer, and did me the honour to share my humble roof repeatedly. He knows well how often he plagued me to supply him with original songs which I had picked up in France among the merry troubadours and carol-loving inhabitants of that once happy land, and to what extent he has transferred these foreign inventions into the "Irish Melodies." Like the robber Cacus, he generally dragged the plundered cattle by the tail, so as that, moving backwards into his cavern of stolen goods, the foot-tracks might not lead to detection.

the leading idea of which is, that these towers were fire-altars. O'B.'s theory is not to be found in any page of it having the remotest reference to Ireland; and we are astonished at the unfairness of giving (as Moore has done) a pretended quotation from "Nimrod," without indicating where it is to be met with in the volume.-O. Y.

Some songs he would turn upside down, by a figure in rhetoric called iστεроν πроτεроν; others he would disguise in various shapes; but he would still worry me to supply him with the productions of the Gallic muse; for, "d'ye see, old Prout," the rogue would

say,

"The best of all ways

To lengthen our lays,

Is to steal a few thoughts from the French, my dear.'"

Now I would have let him enjoy unmolested the renown which these "Melodies" have obtained for him; but his last treachery to my round-tower friend has roused my bile, and I shall give evidence of the unsuspected robberies:

It would be easy to point out detached fragments and stray metaphors, which he has scattered here and there in such gay confusion, that every page has within its limits a mass of felony and plagiarism sufficient to hang him. For instance, I need only advert to his "Bard's Legacy." Even on his dying bed this "bard" cannot help indulging his evil pranks; for, in bequeathing his "heart" to his "mistress dear," and recommending her to "borrow" balmy drops of port wine to bathe the relic, he is all the while robbing

old Clement Marôt, who thus disposes of his re

mains:

"Quand je suis mort, je veux qu'on m'entère

Dans la cave où est le vin;

Le corps sous un tonneau de Madère,

Et la bouche sous le robin."

But I won't strain at a gnat, when I can capture a camel-a huge dromedary laden with pilfered spoil; for, would you believe it if you had never learned it from Prout, the very opening and foremost song of the collection,

"Go where glory waits thee,"

is but a literal and servile translation of an old French ditty, which is among my papers, and which I believe to have been composed by that beautiful and interesting "ladye," Françoise de Foix, Comtesse de Chateaubriand, born in 1495, and the favourite of Francis I., who soon abandoned her: indeed, the lines appear to anticipate his infidelity. They were written before the battle of Pavia.