Shaman Laughs

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Shaman Laughs

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.
and would prefer one playful charm of a Ninon to all the classic lore
of a Dacier.
But you will say, I could scarcely come off worse with the pedants
than I did with the dunces; and you will say right. And, to confess
the truth, I believe I should have been easily led to desert the
standard of the pretty fools, had female pedantry ever stole on my
heart under such a form as the little soi-disant Princess of Inis-more.
’Tis indeed, impossible to look less like one who spouts Latin with
the priest of the parish than this same Glorvina. There is something
beautifully wild about her air and look, that is indescribable; and,
without a very perfect regularity of feature, she possesses that
effulgency of countenance, that bright lumine purpureo, which
poetry assigns to the dazzling emanations of divine beauty. In short,
there are a thousand little fugitive graces playing around her, which
are not beauty, but the cause of it; and were I to personify the word
spell, she should sit for the picture........ A thousand times she swims
before my sight, as I last beheld her; her locks of living gold parting
on her brow of snow, yet seeming to separate with reluctance, as
they were lightly shaken off with that motion of the head, at once so
infantile and graceful; a motion twice put into play, as her
recumbent attitude poured the luxuriancy of her tresses over her
face and neck, for she was unveiled, and a small gold bodkin was
unequal to support the redundancy of that beautiful hair, which I
more than once apostrophized in the words of Petrarch:

“Onde totse amor l’oro e di qual vena

Per far due treccie bionde, &c.

I understand a servant is dispatched once a week to the next post

town, with and for letters; and this intelligence absolutely amazed
me; for I am astonished that these beings, who
 “Look not like the inhabitants of the earth,
And yet are on it,”

should hold an intercourse with the world.

This is post day, and this packet is at last destined to be finished
and dispatched. On looking it over, the title of princes and princess
so often occur, that I could almost fancy myself at the court of some
foreign potentate, basking in the warm sunshine of regal favour,
instead of being the chance guest of a poor Irish gentleman, who
lives on the produce of a few rented farms, and, infected with a
species of pleasant mania, believes himself as much a prince as the
heir apparent of boundless empire and exhaustless treasures.
Adieu! Direct as usual: for though I certainly mean to accept the
invitation of a Prince, yet I intend, in a few days, to return home, to
obviate suspicion, and to have my books and wardrobe removed to
the Lodge, which now possesses a stronger magnet of attraction
than when I first fixed on it as my headquarters.

LETTER VII.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

T
his is the sixth day of my convalescence, and the first of my
descent from my western tower; for I find it is literally in a
tower, or turret, which terminates a wing of these ruins, I have
been lodged. These good people, however, would have persuaded
me into the possession of a slow fever, and confined me to my room
another day, had not the harp of Glorvina, with “supernatural
solicitings,” spoken more irresistibly to my heart than all their
eloquence.
I have just made my toilette, for the first time since my arrival at
the castle; and with a black ribbon of the nurse’s across my
forehead, and a silk handkerchief of the priest’s supporting my arm,
with my own “customary suit of solemn black,” tintless cheek,
languid eye, and pensive air, I looked indeed as though “melancholy
had marked me for her own or an excellent personification of pining
atrophy” in its last stage of decline.
While I contemplated my memento mori of a figure in the glass, I
heard a harp tuning in an underneath apartment. The Prince I knew
had not yet left his bed, for his infirmities seldom permit him to rise
early; the priest had rode out; and the venerable figure of the old
harper at that moment gave a fine effect to a ruined arch under
which he was passing, led by a boy, just opposite my window. “It is
Glorwna then,” said I, “and alone!” and down I sallied; but not with
half the intrepidity that Sir Bertram followed the mysterious blue
flame along the corridors of the enchanted castle.
A thousand times since my arrival in this transmundane region, I
have had reason to feel how much we are the creatures of situation;
how insensibly our minds and our feelings take their tone from the
influence of existing circumstances. You have seen me frequently the
very prototype of nonchalence, in the midst of a circle of birthday
beauties, that might have put the fabled charms of the Mount Ida
triumviri to the blush of inferiority. Yet here I am, groping my way
down the dismantled stone stairs of a ruined castle in the wilds of
Connaught, with my heart fluttering like the pulse of green eighteen,
in the presence of its first love, merely because on the point of
appearing before a simple rusticated girl, whose father calls himself
a prince, with a potatoe ridge for his dominions! O! with what
indifference I should have met her in the drawingroom, or at the
opera!—there she would have been merely a woman!—here she is
the fairy vision of my heated fancy.
 Well, having finished the same circuitous journey that a squirrel
diurnally performs in his cage, I found myself landed in a stone
passage, which was terminated by the identical chamber of fatal
memory already mentioned, and through the vista of a huge folding
door, partly thrown back, beheld the form of Glorvina! She was
alone, and bending over her harp; one arm was gracefully thrown
over the instrument, which she was tuning; with the other she was
lightly modulating on its chords.
Too timid to proceed, yet unwilling to retreat, I was still hovering
near the door, when turning round, she observed me, and I
advanced. She blushed to the eyes, and returned my profound bow
with a slight inclination of the head, as if I were unworthy a more
marked obeisance.
Nothing in the theory of sentiment could be more diametrically
opposite, than the bashful indication of that crimson blush, and the
haughty spirit of that graceful bow. What a logical analysis would it
have afforded to Father John on innate and acquired ideas! Her
blush was the effusion of nature; her bow the result of inculcation—
the one spoke the native woman; the other the ideal princess.
I endeavoured to apologize for my intrusion; and she, in a manner
that amazed me, congratulated me on my recovery; then drawing
her harp towards her, she seated herself on the great Gothic couch,
with a motion of the hand, and a look, that seemed to say, “there is
room for you too.” I bowed my acceptance of the silent welcome
invitation.
Behold me then seated tete-a-tete with this Irish Princess!—my
right arm thrown over her harp, and her eyes riveted on my left.
“Do you still feel any pain from it?” said she, so naturally, as
though we had actually been discussing the accident it had
sustained.
Would you believe it! I never thought of making her an answer;
but fastened my eyes on her face. For a moment she raised her
glance to mine, and we both coloured, as if she read there—I know
not what!
“I beg your pardon,” said I, recovering from the spell of this magic
glance—“you made some observation, Madam?”
“Not that I recollect,” she replied, with a slight confusion of
manner, and running her finger carelessly over the chords of the
harp, till it came in contact with my own, which hung over it. The
touch circulated like electricity through every vein. I impulsively
arose, and walked to the window from whence I had first heard the
tones of that instrument which had been the innocent accessory to
my present unaccountable emotion. As if I were measuring the
altitude of my fall, I hung half my body out of the window, thinking,
Heaven knows, of nothing less than that fall, of nothing more than
its fair cause, until abruptly drawing in my dizzy head, I perceived
her’s (such a cherub head you never beheld!) leaning against her
harp, and her eye directed towards me. I know not why, yet I felt at
once confused and gratified by this observation.
“My fall,” said I, glad of something to say, to relieve my school-boy
bashfulness, “was greater than I suspected.”
“It was dreadful!” she replied shuddering “What could have led
you to so perilous a situation?”———
“That,” I returned, “which has led to more certain destruction,
senses more strongly fortified than mine—the voice of a syren!”
I then briefly related to her the rise, decline, and fall of my
physical empire; obliged, however, to qualify the gallantry of my
debut by the subsequent plainness of my narration, for the delicate
reserve of her air made me tremble, lest I had gone too far.
By heavens I cannot divest myself of a feeling of inferiority in her
presence, as though I were actually that poor, wandering,
unconnected being I have feigned myself.
My compliment was received with a smile and a blush; and to the
eulogium which rounded my detail on the benevolence and
hospitality of the family of Inismore, she replied, that “had the
accident been of less material consequence to myself, the family of
Inismore must have rejoiced at the event which enriched its social
circle with so desirable an acquisition.”
The matter of this little politesse was nothing; but the manner, the
air, with which it was delivered! Where can she have acquired this
elegance of manner?—reared amidst rocks, and woods, and
mountains! deprived of all those graceful advantages which society
confers—a manner too that is at perpetual variance with her looks,
which are so naif—-I had almost said so wildly simple—that while
she speaks in the language of a court, she looks like the artless
inhabitant of a cottage:—a smile, and a blush, rushing to her cheek,
and her lip, as the impulse of fancy or feeling directs, even when
smiles and blushes are irrevalent to the etiquette of the moment.
This elegance of manner, then, must be the pure result of
elegance of soul; and if there is a charm in woman, I have hitherto
vainly sought, and prized beyond all I have discovered, it is this
refined, celestial, native elegance of soul, which effusing its spell
through every thought, word, and motion, of its enviable possessor,
resembles the peculiar property of gold, which subtilely insinuates
itself through the most minute and various particles, without losing
any thing of its own intrinsic nature by the amalgamation.
In answer to the flattering observation which had elicited this
digression I replied:
That far from regretting the consequences, I was emamoured of
an accident that had procured me such happiness as I now enjoyed
(even with the risk of life itself;) and that I believed there were few
who, like me, would not prefer peril to security, were the former
always the purchase of such felicity as the latter, at least on me, had
never bestowed.
Whether this reply savoured too much of the world’s
commonplace gallantry, or that she thought there was more of the
head than the heart in it, I know not; but, by my soul, in spite of a
certain haughty motion of the head not unfrequent with her, I
thought she looked wonderfully inclined to laugh in my face, though
she primed up her mouth, and fancied she looked like a nun, when
her lip pouted with the smiling archness of a Hebe.
In short, I never felt more in all its luxury the comfort of looking
like a fool; and to do away the no very agreeable sensation which
the conviction of being laughed at awakens, as a pis-aller, I began to
examine the harp, and expressed the surprise I felt at its singular
construction.
“Are you fond of music?” she asked with naivette.
“Sufficiently so,” said I, “to risk my life for it.”
She smiled, and cast a look at the window, as much as to say, “I
understand you.”
As I now was engaged in examining her harp, I observed that it
resembled less any instrument of that kind I had seen, than the
drawing of the Davidic lyre in Montfaucon.
“Then,” said she, with animation, “this is another collateral proof
of the antiquity of its origin, which I never before heard adduced,
and which sanctions that universally received tradition among us, by
which we learn, that we are indebted to the first Milesian colony that
settled here for this charming instrument, although some modern
historians suppose that we obtained it from Scandinavia.” *

* It is reserved for the national Lyre of Erin only, to

claim a title independent of a Gothic origin. For “Clar-
seach,” is the only Irish epithet for the harp, a name more
in unison with the cithera of the Greeks, and even the
chinor of the Hebrew, than the Anglo-Saxon harp. “I cannot
but think the clarseach, or Irish harp, one of the most
ancient instruments we have among us, and had perhaps its
origin in remote periods of antiquity.”—Dr. Bedford’s Essay
on the construction, &c. of the Irish Harp.

“And is this, Madam,” said I, “the original ancient Irish harp?”

“Not exactly, for I have strung it with gut instead of wire, merely
for the gratification of my own ear; but it is, however, precisely the
same form as that preserved in the Irish university, which belonged
to one of the most celebrated of our heroes, Brian Boni; for the
warrior and the bard often united in the character of our kings, and
they sung the triumphs of those departed chiefs whose feats they
emulated.”
“You see,” she added with a smile, while my eager glance pursued
the kindling animation of her countenance as she spoke,—“you see,
that in all which concerns my national music, I speak with national
enthusiasm; and much indeed do we stand indebted to the most
charming of all the sciences for the eminence it has obtained us; for
in music only, do you English allow us poor Irish any superiority; and
therefore your King, who made the harp the armorial bearing of
Ireland, perpetuated our former musical celebrity beyond the power
of time or prejudice to destroy it.”
Not for the world would I have annihilated the triumph which this
fancied superiority seemed to give to this patriotic little being, by
telling her, that we thought as little of the music of her country, as of
every thing else that related to it; and that all we knew of the style
of its melodies, reached us through the false medium of comic airs,
sung by some popular actor, who in coincidence with his author,
caricatures those national traits he attempts to delineate.
I therefore simply told her, that though I doubted not the former
musical celebrity of her country, yet that I perceived the Bardic order
in Wales seemed to have survived the tuneful race of Erin; for that
though every little Cambrian village had its harper, I had not yet met
with one of the profession in Ireland.
She waved her head with a melancholy air, and replied—“the rapid
decline of the Sons of Song, once the pride of our country, is indeed
very evident; and the tones of that tender and expressive instrument
which gave birth to those which now survive them in happier
countries, no longer vibrates in our own; for of course you are not
ignorant that the importation of Irish bards and Irish instruments
into Wales, * by Griffith ap Conan, formed an epocha in Welch
music, and awakened there a genius of style in composition, which
still breathes a kindred spirit to that from whence it derived its
being, and that even the invention of Scottish music is given to
Ireland.”! **
“Indeed,” said I, “I must plead ignorance to this singular fact, and
almost to every other connected with this now to me most
interesting country.”
“Then suffer me,” said she, with a most insinuating smile, “to
indulge another little national triumph over you, by informing you,
that we learn from musical record, that the first piece of music ever
seen in score, in Great Britain, is an air sung time immemmorial in
this country on the opening of summer—an air, which though
animated in its measure, yet still, like all the Irish melodies, breathes
the very soul of melancholy.” ***

* Cardoc (of Lhancarvan) without any of that illiberal

partiality so common with national writers, assures us that
the Irish devised all the instruments, tunes, and measures,
in use among the Welsh. Cambrensis is even more copious in
its praise, when he peremptorily declares that the Irish,
above any other nation, is incomparably skilled in symphonal
music.—Walker’s Hist. Mem. of the Irish Bards

** See Doctor Campbell’s Phil Surv. L. 44; and Walker’s

Hist. Irish Bards, p. 131,32.

*** Called in Irish, “Ta an Samradth teacht,” or, “We

brought Summer along with us.”

“And do your melodies then, Madam, breathe the soul of

melancholy?” said I.
“Our national music,” she returned, “like our national character,
admits of no medium in sentiment: it either sinks our spirit to
despondency, by its heartbreaking pathos, or elevates it to wildness
by its exhilarating animation.
“For my own part, I confess myself the victim of its magic—an
Irish planxty cheers me into maddening vivacity; an Irish
lamentation depresses me into a sadness of melancholy emotion, to
which the energy of despair might be deemed comparative felicity.”
 Imagine how I felt while she spoke—but you cannot conceive the
feelings unless you beheld and heard the object who inspired them—
unless you watched the kindling lumination of her countenance, and
the varying hue of that mutable complexion, which seemed to ebb
and flow to the impulse of every sentiment she expressed; while her
round and sighing voice modulated in unison with each expression it
harmonized.
After a moment’s pause she continued:
“This susceptibility to the influence of my country’s music,
discovered itself in a period of existence when no associating
sentiment of the heart could have called it into being; for I have
often wept in convulsive emotion at an air, before the sad story it
accompanied was understood: but now—now—that feeling is
matured, and understanding awakened. Oh! you cannot judge—
cannot feel—for you have no national music; and your country is the
happiest under heaven!”
Her voice faltered as she spoke—her fingers seemed impulsively to
thrill on the chords of the harp—her eyes, her tear swollen, beautiful
eyes, were thrown up to heaven, and her voice, “low and mournful
as the song of the tomb,” sighed over the chords of her national lyre,
as she faintly murmured Campbell’s beautiful poem to the ancient
Irish air of Erin go brack!
Oh! is there on earth a being so cold, so icy, so insensible, as to
have made a comment, even an encomiastic one, when this song of
the soul ceased to breathe! God knows how little I was inclined or
empowered to make the faintest eulogium, or disturb the sacred
silence which succeeded to her music’s dying murmur. On the
contrary, I sat silent and motionless, with my head unconsciously
leaning on my broken arm, and my handkerchief to my eyes: when
at last I withdrew it, I found her hurried glance fixed on me with a
smile of such expression! Oh! I could weep my heart’s most vital
drop for such another glance—such another smile!—they seemed to
say, but who dares to translate the language of the soul, which the
eye only can express?
 In (I believe) equal emotion, we both arose at the same moment
and walked to the window. Beyond the mass of ruins which spread
in desolate confusion below, the ocean, calm and unruffled,
expanded its awful bosom almost to infinitude; while a body of dark,
sullen clouds, tinged with the partial beam of a meridian sun, floated
above the summits of those savage cliffs which skirt this bold and
rocky coast; and the tall spectral figure of Father John, leaning on a
broken pediment, appeared like the embodied spirit of philosophy
moralizing amidst the ruins of empires, on the instability of all
human greatness.
What a sublime assemblage of images.
“How consonant,” thought I, gazing at Glorvina, “to the
sublimated tone of our present feelings.” Glorvina waved her head in
accidence to the idea, as though my lips had given it birth.
How think you I felt, on this sweet involuntary acknowledgment of
a mutual intelligence?
Be that as it may, my eyes, too faithful I fear to my feelings,
covered the face on which they were passionately riveted with
blushes.
At that moment Glorvina was summoned to dinner by a servant,
for she only is permitted to dine with the Prince, as being of royal
descent. The vision dissolved—she was again the proud Milesian
Princess, and I the poor wandering artist—the eleemosynary guest
of her hospitable mansion.
The priest and I dined tete-a-tete; and, for the first time, he had
all the conversation to himself; and got deep in Locke and
Malbranche, in solving quidities, and starting hypothesis, to which I
assented with great gravity, and thought only of Glorvina.
I again beheld her gracefully drooping over her harp—I again
caught the melody of her song, and the sentiment it conveyed to the
soul; and I entered fully into the idea of the Greek painter, who drew
Love, not with a bow and arrow, but a lyre.
 I could not avoid mentioning with admiration her great musical
powers.
“Yes,” said he, “she inherits them from her mother, who obtained
the appellation of Glorvina, from the sweetness of her voice, by
which name our little friend was baptized at her mother’s request.”
Adieu! Glorvina has been confined in her father’s room during the
whole of the evening—to this circumstance you are indebted for this
long letter.

H. M.

LETTER VIII.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

T
he invitation I received from the hospitable Lord of these
ruins, was so unequivocal, so cordial, that it would have been
folly, not delicacy to think of turning out of his house the
moment my health was re-established. But then, I scarcely felt it
warranted that length of residence here, which, for a thousand
reasons, I am now anxious to make.
To prolong my visit till the arrival of my father in this country was
my object; and how to effect the desired purpose, was the theme of
my cogitation during the whole of the restless night which
succeeded my interview with Glorvina; and to confess the truth, I
believe this interview was not the least potent spell which fascinated
me to Inismore.
Wearied by my restlessness, rather than refreshed by my transient
slumbers, I arose with the dawn, and carrying my port-feuille and
pencils with me, descended from my tower, and continued to wander
for some time among the wild and romantic scenes which surround
these interesting ruins, while

“La sainte recueihnent la paisible innocence

Sembler de ces lieus habiter le silence.”

until almost wearied in the contemplation of the varying

sublimities which the changes of the morning’s seasons shed over
the ocean’s boundless expanse, from the first gray vapour that arose
from its swelling wave, to that splendid refulgence with which the
risen sun crimsoned its bosom, I turned away my dazzled eye, and
fixed it on the ruins of Inismore. Never did it appear in an aspect so
picturesquely felicitous: it was a golden period for the poet’s fancy or
the painter’s art; and in a moment of propitious genius, I made one
of the most interesting sketches my pencil ever produced. I had just
finished my successful ebauche, when Father John, returning from
matins, observed, and instantly joined me. When he had looked over
and commended the result of my morning’s avocation, he gave my
port-folio to a servant who passed us, and taking my arm, we
walked down together to the seashore.
“This happy specimen of your talent,” said he, as we proceeded,
“will be very grateful to the Prince. In him, who has no others left, it
is a very innocent pride, to wish to perpetuate the fading honours of
his family—for as such the good Prince considers these ruins. But,
my young friend, there is another and a surer path to the Prince’s
heart, to which I should be most happy to lead you.”
He paused for a moment, and then added:
“You will, I hope, pardon the liberty I am going to take; but as I
boast the merit of having first made your merit known to your
worthy host, I hold myself in some degree (smiling and pressing my
hand) accountable for your confirming the partiality I have
awakened in your favour.
“The daughter of the Prince, and my pupil, of whom you can have
yet formed no opinion, is a creature of such rare endowments, that
it should seem Nature, as if foreseeing her isolated destiny, had
opposed her own liberality to the chariness of fortune; and lavished
on her such intuitive talents, that she almost sets the necessity of
education at defiance. To all that is most excellent in the circle of
human intellect, or human science, her versatile genius is constantly
directed; and it is my real opinion, that nothing more is requisite to
perfect her in any liberal or elegant pursuit, but that method or
system which even the strangest native talent, unassisted, can
seldom attain (without a long series of practical experience) and
which is unhappily denied her; while her doating father incessantly
mourns that poverty, which withholds from him the power of
cultivating those shining abilities that would equally enrich the
solitude of their possessor, or render her an ornament to that society
she may yet be destined to grace. Yet the occasional visits of a
strolling dancing-master, and a few musical lessons received in her
early childhood from the family bard, are all the advantages these
native talents have received.
“But who that ever beheld her motions in the dance, or listened to
the exquisite sensibility of her song, but would exclaim—‘here is a
creature for whom Art can do nothing—Nature has done all!’
“To these elegant acquirements, she unites a decided talent for
drawing, arising from powers naturally imitative, and a taste early
imbibed (from the contemplation of her native scenes) for all that is
most sublime and beautiful in nature. But this, of all her talents, has
been the least assisted, and yet is the most prized by her father,
who, I believe, laments his inability to detain you here as her
preceptor; or rather, to make it worth your while to forego your
professional pursuits, for such a period as would be necessary to
invest her with such rudiments in the art, as would form a basis for
her future improvement. In a word, can you, consistently with your
present plans, make the castle of Inismore your headquarters for
two or three months, from whence you can take frequent excursions
amidst the neighbouring scenery, which will afford to your pencil
subjects rich and various as almost any other part of the country?”
Now, in the course of my life, I have had more than one occasion
to remark certain desirable events brought about by means
diametrically opposite to the supposition of all human probability;—
but that this worthy man should (as if infected with the intriguing
spirit of a French Abbe reared in the purlieus of the Louvre) thus
forward my views, and effect the realization of my wishes, excited so
strong an emotion of pleasurable surprise, that I with difficulty
repressed my smiles, or concealed my triumph.
After, however, a short pause, I replied with great gravity, that I
always conceived with Pliny, that the dignity we possess by the good
offices of a friend, is a kind of sacred trust, wherein we have his
judgment as well as our own character to maintain, and therefore to
be guarded with peculiar attention; that consequently, on his
account, I was as anxious as on my own, to confirm the good
opinion conceived in my favour through the medium of his partiality;
and with very great sincerity I assured him, that I knew of no one
event so coincident to my present views of happiness, as the power
of making the Prince some return for his benevolent attentions, and
of becoming his (the priest’s) coadjutor in the tuition of his highly
gifted pupil.
“Add then, my dear Sir,” said I, “to all the obligations you have
forced on me, by presenting my respectful compliments to the
Prince, with the offer of my little services, and an earnest request
that he will condescend to accept of them; and if you think it will
add to the delicacy of the offer, let him suppose that it voluntarily
comes from the heart deeply impressed with a sense of his
kindness.”
“That is precisely what I was going to propose,” returned this
excellent and unsuspecting being. “I would even wish him to think
you conceive the obligation all on your own side; for the pride of
fallen greatness is of all others the most sensitive.”
“And God knows so I do,” said I, fervently,—then carelessly added,
“do you think your pupil has a decided talent for the art?”
“It may be partiality,” he replied; “but I think she has a decided
talent for every elegant acquirement. If I recollect right, somebody
has defined genius to be ‘the various powers of a strong mind
directed to one point:’ making it the result of combined force, not
the vital source, whence all intellectual powers flow; in which light,
the genius of Glorvina has ever appeared to me as a beam from
heaven, an emanation of divine intelligence, whose nutritive warmth
cherishes into existence that richness and variety of talent which
wants only a little care to rear it to perfection.
“When I first offered to become the preceptor to this charming
child, her father, I believe, never formed an idea that my tuition
would have extended beyond a little reading and writing; but I soon
found that my interesting pupil possessed a genius that bore all
before it—that almost anticipated instruction by force of its tuitive
powers, and prized each task assigned it, only in proportion to the
difficulty by which it was to be accomplished.
“Her young ambitious mind even emulated rivalry with mine, and
that study in which she beheld me engaged seldom failed to become
the object of her desires and her assiduity. Availing myself,
therefore, of this innate spirit of emulation—this boundless thirst of
knowledge, I left her mind free in the election of its studies, while I
only threw within its power of acquisition, that which could tend to
render her a rational, and consequently a benevolent being; for I
have always conceived an informed, intelligent, and enlightened
mind, to be the best security for a good heart; although the many
who mistake talent for intellect, and unfortunately too often find the
former united to vice, and led to suppose that the heart loses in
goodness what the mind acquires in strength, as if (as a certain
paradoxical writer has asserted) there was something in the natural
mechanism of the human frame necessary to constitute a fine
genius that is not altogether favourable to the heart.
“But here comes the unconscious theme of our conversation.”
And at that moment Glorvina appeared, springing lightly forward,
like Gresset’s beautiful personification of health:

“As Hebe swift, as Venus fair,

Youthful, lovely, light as air.”

As soon as she perceived me she stopt abruptly, blushed, and

returning my salutation, advanced to the priest, and twining her arm
familiarly in his, said, with an air of playful tenderness,
“O! I have brought you something you will be glad to see—here is
the spring’s first violet, which the unusual chilliness of the season
has suffered to steal into existence: this morning as I gathered herbs
at the foot of the mountain, I inhaled its odour ere I discovered its
purple head, as solitary and unassociated it was drooping beneath
the heavy foliage of a neighbouring plant.
“It is but just you should have the first violet as my father has
already had the first snowdrop. Receive, then, my offering,” she
added with a smile; and while she fondly placed it in his breast with
an air of exquisite naivette, to my astonishment she repeated from
B. Tasso, those lines so consonant to the tender simplicity of the act
in which she was engaged:

“Poiche d’altro honorate

Non dosso, prendi lieta
Queste negre viole
Dall umor rugiadose.”
 The priest gazed at her with looks of parental affection, and said,
“Your offering, my dear, is indeed the

‘Incense to the heart;’

and more precious to the receiver, than the richest donation that
ever decked the shrine of Loretto. How fragrant it is!” he added,
presenting it to me.
I took it in silence, but raised it no higher than my lip—the eye of
Glorvina met mine, as my kiss breathed upon her flower: Good God!
what an undefinable, what a delicious emotion thrilled through my
heart at that moment! and the next—yet I know not how it was, or
whether the motion was made by her, or by me, or by the priest—
but somehow, Glorvina had got between us, and while I gazed at
her beautiful flower, I personified the blossom, and addressed to her
the happiest lines that form “La Guirlande de Julie” while, as I
repeated.

“Mais si sur votre front je peux briller un jour,

La plus humble des fleurs sera la plus superbe

I reposed it for a moment on her brow in passing it over to the

priest.
“Oh!” said she, with an arch smile, “I perceive you too will expect
a tributary flower for these charming lines; and the summer’s first
rose”—she paused abruptly; but her eloquent eye continued, “should
be thine, but that thou mayst be far from hence when the summer’s
first rose appears.” I thought too—but it might be only the fancy of
my wishes, that a sigh floated on the lip, when recollection checked
the effusion of the heart.
“The rose,” (said the priest, with simplicity, and more engaged
with the classicality of the idea, than the inference to be drawn from
it,) “the rose is the flower of Love.”
I stole a look at Glorvina, whose cheek now emulated the tint of
the theme of our conversation; and plucking a thistle that sprung
from a broken pediment, she blew away its down with her balmy
breath, merely to hide her confusion.
Surely she is the most sentient of all created beings!
“I remember,” continued the priest, “being severely censured by a
rigid old priest, at my college in St. Omer’s, who found me reading
the Idylium of Ausonius, in which he so beautifully celebrates the
rose, when the good father believed me deep in St. Augustin.”
“The rose,” said I, “has always been the poet’s darling theme. The
impassioned lyre of Sappho has breathed upon its leaves. Anacreon
has wooed it in the happiest effusions of his genius; and poesy
seems to have exhausted her powers in celebrating the charms of
the most beautiful and transient of flowers.
“Among its modern panegyrists, few have been more happily
successful than Monsieur de Barnard, in that charming little ode
beginning:

“Tendre fruits des pleurs d’aurore,

Objets des baisers du zephyrs,
Reine de l’empire de Flore,
Hate toi d’epanoir.”

“O! I beseech you go on,” exclaimed Glor-vina; and at her request,

I finished the poem.
 “Beautiful, beautiful!” said she, with enthusiasm. “O! there is a
certain delicacy of genius in elegant trifles of this description, which
I think the French possess almost exclusively: it is a language
formed almost by its very construction a’eterniser la bagatelle, and
to clothe the fairy effusions of fancy in the most appropriate drapery.
“I thank you for this beautiful ode; the rose was always my idol
flower; in all its different stages of existence, it speaks a language
my heart understands; from its young bud’s first crimson glow, to
the last sickly blush of its faded blossom. It is the flower of
sentiment in all its sweet transitions; it breathes a moral, and seems
to preserve an undecaying soul in that fragrant essence which still
survives the bloom and symmetry of the fragile form which every
beam too ardent, every gale too chill, injures and destroys.”
“And is there,” said I, “no parallel in the moral world for this lovely
offspring of the natural?”——
Glorvina raised her humid eyes to mine, and I read the parallel
there.
“I vow,” said the priest, with affected pettishness, “I am half
tempted to fling away my violet, since this idol flower has been
decreed to Mr. Mortimer; and to revenge myself, I will show him
your ode on the rose.”
At these words, he took out his pocket-book, laughing at his
gratified vengeance, while Glorvina coaxed, blushed, and
threatened; until snatching the book out of his hand, as he was
endeavouring to put it into mine, away she flew like lightning,
laughing heartily at her triumph, in all the exility and playfulness of a
youthful spirit.
“What a Hebe!” said I, as she kissed her hand to us in her airy
flight.
“Yes,” said he, “she at least illustrates the possibility of a woman
uniting in her character the extremes of intelligence and simplicity:
you see, with all her information and talent, she is a mere child.”
 When we reached the castle, we found her waiting for us at the
breakfast table, flushed with her race—all animation, all spirits! her
reserve seemed gradually to vanish, and nothing could be more
interesting, yet more enjouee, than her manner and conversation.
While the fertility of her imagination supplied incessant topic of
conversation, always new, always original, I could not help reverting
in idea to those languid tete-a-tetes, even in the hey-dey of our
intercourse, when Lady C.——— and I have sat yawning at each
other, or biting our fingers, merely for want of something to say, in
those intervals of passion, which every connexion even of the
tenderest nature, must sustain—she in the native dearth of her
mind, and I in the habitual apathy of mine.
But here is a creature who talks of a violet or a rose with the
artless air of infancy, and yet fascinates you in the simple discussion,
as though the whole force of intellect was roused to support it.
By Heaven! if I know my own heart, I would not love this being
for a thousand worlds; at least as I have hitherto loved. As it is, I
feel a certain commerce of the soul—a mutual intelligence of mind
and feeling with her, which a look, a sigh, a word is sufficient to
betray—a sacred communion of spirit, which raises me in the scale
of existence almost above mortality; and though we had been
known to each other by looks only, still would this amalgamation of
soul (if I may use the expression) have existed.
What a nausea of every sense does the turbulent agitation of
gross commonplace passion bring with it. But the sentiment which
this seraph awakens, “brings with it no satiety.” There is something
so pure, so refreshing about her, that in the present state of my
heart, feelings, and constitution, she produces the same effect on
me as does the health-giving breeze of returning spring to the
drooping spirit of slow convalescence!
After breakfast she left us, and I was permitted to kiss his
Highness’s hand, on my instalment in my new and enviable office.
He did not speak much on the subject, but with his usual energy.
However, I understood I was not to waste my time, as he termed it,
for nothing.
When I endeavoured to argue the point (as if the whole business
was not a farce,) the Prince would not hear me; so behold to all
intents and purposes a hireling tutor. Faith, to confess the truth, I
know not whether to be pleased or angry with this wild romance:
this too, in a man whose whole life has been a laugh at romancers
of every description.
What if my father learns the extent of my folly, in the first era too
of my probation! Oh! what a spirit of bizarte ever drives me from the
central point of common sense, and common prudence! With what
tyranny does impulse rule my wayward fate! and how imperiously
my heart still takes the lead of my head! yet if I could ever consider
the “meteor ray” that has hitherto mis led my wanderings, as a “light
from heaven,” it is now, when virtue leads me to the shrine of
innocent pleasure; and the mind becomes the better for the
wanderings of the heart.
“But what,” you will say, with your usual foreseeing prudence
—“what is the aim, the object of your present romantic pursuit?”
Faith, none; save the simple enjoyment of present felicity, after an
age of cold, morbid apathy; and a self resignation to an agreeable
illusion, after having sustained the actual burthen of real sufferings
(sufferings the more acute as they were self created,) succeeded by
that dearth of feeling and sensation which in permitting my heart to
lie fallow for an interval, only rendered it the more genial to those
exotic seeds of happiness which the vagrant gale of chance has
flung on its surface. But whether they will take deep root, or only
wear “the perfume and suppliance of a moment,” is an unthought of
“circumstance still hanging in the stars,” to whose decision I commit
it.
Would you know my plans of meditated operation, they run thus:
—In a few days I shall avail myself of my professional vocation, and
fly home, merely to obviate suspicion in Mr. Clendinning, receive and
answer letters, and get my books and wardrobe sent to the Lodge,
previous to my own removal there, which I shall effect under the
plausible plea of the dissipated neighbourhood of M———— house
being equally inimical to the present state of my constitution and my
studious pursuits; and, in fact, I must either associate with, or
offend these hospitable Milesians—an alternative by no means
consonant to my inclinations.
From Inismore to the Lodge, I can make constant sallies, and be
in the way to receive my father, whose arrival I think I may still date
at some weeks’ distance; besides, should it be necessary, I think I
should find no difficulty in bribing the old steward of the Lodge to
my interest. His evident aversion to Clendinning, and attachment to
the Prince, renders him ripe for any scheme by which the latter
could be served, or the former outwitted: and I hope in the end to
effect both: for, to unite this old chieftain in bonds of amity with my
father, and to punish the rascality of the worthy Mr. Clendinning, is a
double “consummation devoutly to be wished.” In short, when the
heart is interested in a project, the stratagems of the imagination to
forward it are inexhaustible.
It should seem that the name of M———— is interdicted at
Inismore: I have more than once endeavoured (though remotely) to
make the residence of our family in this country a topic of
conversation; but every one seemed to shrink from the subject, as
though some fatality was connected with its discussion. To avoid
speaking ill of those of whom we have but little reason, speak well,
is the temperance of aversion, and seldom found but in great minds.
I must mention to you another instance of liberality in the
sentiments of these isolated beings:—I have only once attended the
celebration of divine service here since my arrival; but my absence
seemed not to be observed, or my attendance noticed; and though,
as an Englishman, I may be naturally supposed to be of the most
popular faith, yet, for all they know to the contrary, I may be Jew,
Mussulman, or Infidel; for, before me at least, religion is a topic
never discussed.
Adieu,
 H. M

LETTER IX.

TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.

I
have already given two lessons to my pupil, in an art in which,
with all due deference to the judgment of her quondam tutor,
she was never destined to excel.
Not, however, that she is deficient in talent—very far from it; but it
is too progressive, too tame a pursuit for the vivacity of her genius.
It is not sufficiently connected with those lively and vehement
emotions of the soul she is so calculated to feel and to awaken. She
was created for a musician—there she is borne away by the magic of
the art in which she excels, and the natural enthusiasm of her
impassioned character: she can sigh, she can weep, she can smile
over her harp. The sensibility of her soul trembles in her song, and
the expression of her rapt countenance harmonizes with her voice.
But at her drawing-desk, her features lose their animated character
—the smile of rapture ceases to play, and the glance of inspiration to
beam. And with the transient extinction of those feelings from which
each touching charm is derived, fades that all pervading interest,
that energy of admiration which she usually excites.
Notwithstanding, however, the pencil is never out of her hand; her
harp lies silent, and her drawing-book is scarcely ever closed. Yet
she limits my attendance to the first hour after breakfast, and then I
generally lose sight of her the whole day, until we all meet en-famille
in the evening. Her improvement is rapid—her father delighted, and
she quite fascinated by the novelty of her avocation; the priest
congratulates me, and I alone am dissatisfied.
But from the natural impatience and volatility of her character,
(both very obvious,) this, thank Heaven! will soon be over. Besides,
even in the hour of tuition, from which I promised myself so much, I
do not enjoy her society—the priest always devotes that time to
reading out to her; and this too at her own request:—not that I think
her innocent and unsuspicious nature cherishes the least reserve at
her being left tete-a-tete with her less venerable preceptor; but that
her ever active mind requires incessant exercise; and in fact, while I
am hanging over her in uncontrolled emotion, she is drawing, as if
her livelihood depended on the exertions of her pencil, or
commenting on the subjects of the priest’s perusal, with as much
ease as judgment; while she minds me no more than if I were a well
organized piece of mechanism, by whose motions her pencil was to
be guided.
What if, with all her mind, all her genius, this creature had no
heart!—And what were it to me, though she had?———
The Prince fancies his domestic government to be purely
patriarchal, and that he is at once the “Law and the Prophet” to his
family; never suspecting that he is all the time governed by a girl of
nineteen, whose soul, notwithstanding the playful softness of her
manner, contains a latent ambition, which sometimes breathing in
the grandeur of her sentiment, and sometimes sparkling in the
haughtiness of her eye, seems to say, “I was born for empire!”
It is evident that the tone of her mind is naturally stronger than
her father’s, though to a common observe, he would appeal a man
of nervous and masculine understanding; but the difference between
them is this—his energies are the energies of the passions—hers of
the mind!
Like most other Princes, mine is governed much by favoritism; and
it is evident I already rank high on the list of partiality.
 I perceive, however, that much of his predilection in my favour,
arises from the coincidence of my present curiosity and taste with
his favourite pursuits and national prejudices. Newly awakened,
(perhaps by mere force of novelty,) to a lively interest for every thing
that concerns a country I once thought so little worthy of
consideration; in short, convinced by the analogy of existing habits,
with recorded customs, of the truth of those circumstances so
generally ranked in the apocryphal tales of the history of this vilified
country; I have determined to resort to the witness of time, the light
of truth, and the corroboration of living testimony, in the study of a
country which I am beginning to think would afford to the mind of
philosophy a rich subject of analysis, and to the powers of poetic
fancy a splendid series of romantic detail.
“Sir William Temple,” says Dr. Johnson, “complains that Ireland is
less known than any other country, as to its ancient state, because
the natives have little leisure, and less encouragement for enquiry;
and that a stranger, not knowing its language, has no ability.”
This impediment, however, shall not stand in the way of one
stranger, who is willing to offer up his national prejudices at the Altar
of Truth, and expiate the crime of an unfounded but habitual
antipathy, by an impartial examination, and an unbiassed inquiry. In
short, I have actually began to study the language; and though I
recollect to have read the opinion of Temple, “that the Celtic dialect
used by the native Irish is the purest and most original language
that now remains yet I never suspected that a language spoken par
routine, and chiefly by the lower classes of society, could be acquired
upon principle, until the other day, when I observed in the Prince’s
truly national library some philological works, which were shown me
by Father John, who has offered to be my preceptor in this wreck of
ancient dialect, and who assures me he will render me master of it
in a short time—provided I study con amore.
“And I will assist you,” said Glorvina.
“We will all assist him,” said the Prince.
 “Then I shall study con amore indeed!” returned I.
Behold me then, buried amidst the monuments of past ages!—
deep in the study of the language, history, and antiquities of this
ancient nation—talking of the invasion of Henry II, as a recent
circumstance—of the Phoenician migration hither from Spain, as
though my grandfather had been delegated by Firbalgs to receive
the Milesians on their landing—and of those transactions passed
through

“The dark posterns of time long elapsed,”

as though their existence was but freshly registered in the annate

of recollection.
In short, infected by my antiquarian conversation with the Prince,
and having fallen in with some of those monkish histories which, on
the strength of Druidical tradition, trace a series of wise and learned
Irish monarchs before the flood, I am beginning to have as much
faith in antediluvian records as Dr. Parsons himself, who accuses
Adam of authorship, or Thomas Bangius, who almost gives fac
similies of the hand-writing of Noah’s progenitors.
Seriously, however, I enter on my new studies with avidity, and
read from the morning’s first dawn till the usual hour of breakfast,
which is become to me as much the banquet of the heart, as the
Roman supper was to the Agustan wits “the feast of reason and the
flow of soul,”—for it is the only meal at which Glorvina presides.
Two hours each day does the kind priest devote to my philological
pursuits, while Glorvina, who is frequently present on these
occasions makes me repeat some short poem or song after her, that
I may catch the pronunciation, (which is almost unattainable,) then
translates them into English, which I word for word write down.
Here then is a specimen of Irish poetry, which is almost always the
effusion of some blind itinerent bard, or some rustic minstrel, into
whose breast the genius of his country has breathed inspiration, as
he patiently drove the plough, or laboriously worked in the bog. *

CATHBEIN NOLAN.

I.
“My love, when she floats on the mountain’s brow, is like the dewy
cloud of the summer’s loveliest evening. Her forehead is asa pearl;
her spiral locks are of gold; and I grieve that I cannot banish her
from my memory.”

II.
“When she enters the forest like the bounding doe, dispersing the
dew with her airy steps, her mantle on her arm, the axe in her hand
to cut the branches of flame; I know not which is the most noble—
the King of the Saxons, ** or Cathbein Nolan.”

* Miss Brooks, in her elegant version of the works of some

of the Irish Bards, says, “’Tis scarcely possible that any
language can be more adapted to lyric poetry than the Irish;
so great is the smoothness and harmony of its numbers; it is
also possessed of a refined delicacy, a descriptive power,
and an exquisite tender simplicity of expression: two or
three little artless words, or perhaps a single epithet,
will sometimes convey such an image of sentiment or
suffering to the mind, that one lays down the book to look
at the picture.”

** The King of England is called by the common Irish “Riagh

Sasseanach.”

This little song is of so ancient a date, that Glorvina assures me,

neither the name of the composer (for the melody is exquisitely
beautiful) nor the poet, have escaped the oblivion of time. But if we
may judge of the rank of the poet by that of his mistress, it must
have been of a very humble degree; for it is evident that the fair
Cathbein, whose form is compared, in splendour, to that of the
Saxon monarch, is represented as cutting wood for the fire.
The following songs, however, are by the most celebrated of the
modern Irish bards, Turloch Carolan, * and the airs to which he has
composed them, possess the arioso elegance of Italian music, united
to the heartfelt pathos of Irish melody.

* He was born in the village of Nobber, county of Westmeath,

in 1670, and died in 1739. He never regretted the loss of
sight, but used gaily to say, “my eyes are only transplanted
into my ears.” Of his poetry, the reader may form some
judgment from these examples. Of his music, it has been said
by O’Connor, the celebrated historian, who knew him
intimately, “so happy, so elevated was he in some of his
compositions, that he excited the wonder, and obtained the
approbation of a great master who never saw him, I mean
Geminiani.” His execution on the harp was rapid and
expressive—far beyond that of all the professional
competitors of the age in which he lived. The charms of
women, the pleasures of conviviality, and the power of poesy
and music, were at once his theme and inspiration; and his
life was an illustration of his theory, for until his last
ardour was chilled by death, he loved, drank and sung. He
was a welcome guest to every house, from the peasant to the
prince; but in the true wandering spirit of his profession,
he never staid to exhaust that welcome.

I.
“I must sing of the youthful plant of gentlest mien—Fanny, the
beautiful and warm soul’d—the maid of the amber twisted ringlets;
the air lifted and light footed virgin—the elegant pearl and heart’s
treasure of Eriu; then waste not the fleeting hour—let us enjoy it in
drinking to the health of Fanny, the daughter of David.”

II.
“It is the maid of the magic lock I sing, the fair swan of the shore
—for whose love a multitude expires: Fanny, the beautiful, whose
tresses are like the evening sun beam; whose voice is like the
blackbird’s morning song: O, may I never leave the world until