sion of the majority of the original Comet Club from the Comet, in December, 1831, they, in connexion with some other gentlemen, all, with but one meritorious exception, independent of any thing they might make by literature, formed themselves into another political and literary society, called the "Irish Brigade," and set up a new periodical, entitled, not the CATHOLIC, as the Quarterly Review has supposed, but the IRISH MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Neither the 66 Irish Brigade," nor the society from which it originally sprang, were exclusively Catholic. Their objects were exclusively nothing but whatever exclusiveness or sectarianism can be detected in the words, "LET NO MAN BE OBLIGED TO PAY FOR A PRIEST OR A RELIGION IN WHICH HE DOES NOT BELIEVE-REFORM IN PARLIAMENT and REPEAL OF THE UNION." These measures continued to be generally advocated by the new society in their Magazine, as well as in other publications of similar views. In fine, the Irish Monthly Magazine was kept up for some years, until, from various motives connected with the increasing private avocations and engagements of the members of the body in which it originated,—some of whom were in parliament, others at the bar, and others again excusable deserters of politics and literature for a tie of a more "in I LINES, [BY THE LATE DOMINICK RONAYNE, ESQ. M. P.] Suggested by the patriotic device of the Irish Monthly Magazine-an engraving of the present Bank, and former Parliament House of Ireland, with the motto "FUIT ET ERIT" underneath! Yes, it has been, and it again shall be, That house, remembrancer of pride and shame, Shall see o'erturned the money-changers' board, teresting and domestic nature"-the publication was discontinued. At present, no intercourse, but one naturally resulting from the "auld lang syne" of a brotherhood in national feeling and the love of literature, subsists between the scattered members of the two societies noticed by the Quarterly. As to their past career, the best proofs of its merits are contained in the preceding history of the rise and progress of Irish anti-tithe agitation, and in the acknowledgement of such an able opponent as the Quarterly, that each of those societies "exhibited PUBLIC PROOFS that ITS labours were NOT frivolous or unproductive." That this was the case, even independent of whatever literary ability their exertions might be deemed to possess, is, indeed, not to be wondered at. "When the sentiments of a people," says Napoleon, "are against the government, every society has a tendency to do mischief to it." Any government, whatever it may be in name, can be only the representative of misgovernment in reality, while connected with the defence of what I have shown to be such a monstrous and unparalleled anomaly as the Irish Church; and the success of the Comet Club only proved how well its original members knew the feelings of their countrymen, in fearlessly acting upon the noble aspiration of Doctor Doyle, that "OUR HATRED OF TITHES MAY BE AS LASTING AS OUR LOVE OF JUSTICE!" POSTSCRIPT ΤΟ "DAVID'S LAMENT.” David's Lament and Wolfe's Lines on Sir John Moore-Critical defect of the latter as compared with the former poem, and the other chief remains of Hebrew song on important national events-Obscurity of Wolfe's lines particularly demonstrated by their translation into French by Father Prout-Fittest place for those lines in a biography of Sir John Moore, or some future standard History of England, on the model of the modern French historians, Michaud, Barante, and Thierry-Historical use of national songs-Geddes's critical version of, and comments upon, David's elegy-Concluding remarks on the monotonous spirituality of Hebrew poetry. THE beautiful lament of David, in the melancholy nature of the public occurrence which suggested it, in its excellence as a composition, and in the circumstance, that if the Hebrew bard left no other production behind him, it alone would suffice to immortalize him as a poet, may be compared to our countryman Wolfe's lines on the burial of Sir John Moore. Those lines, however, although as deservedly as universally admired, are far inferior to David's exquisite elegy. Contrasted with it, they display rather description than sentiment, rather images than feelings, rather selection than creation, rather painting than poetry. There is also, in Wolfe's lines, an inexcusable "sin of omission" which is not in David's elegy, though in a production like the latter, composed in an age and amongst a people ignorant of the principles of literary criticism, such a fault would be so much more pardonable than in a modern English poem. The fault is that noticed by Johnson, in his critical observations on Pope's epitaphs-particularly of Sir Wm. Trumbal and Mrs. Corbet-viz. the non-insertion in a poem of the name of the person upon whom it was intended to be written. "To what purpose," says the Doctor, “is any thing told of him whose name is concealed?.........The virtues and qualities so recounted....are scattered at the mercy of fortune to be appropriated by guess." Then, after remarking upon an epitaph with such an omission, that "the name, it is true, may be read upon the stone,"-meaning in a prose heading to the verse-the Doctor adds:-" But what obligations has it (the name) to the poet, whose verses may wander over the earth, and leave their subject behind them, and who is forced, like an unskilful painter, to make his purpose known by adventitious help ?" A remarkable instance of the justice of this criticism occurs in Claudian's description of Stilicho's defeat of the Goths, under Alaric, in the great battle fought at Pollentia, March 29th, A.D. 403. "In this engagement," says Gibbon, "which was long maintained with equal courage and success, the chief of the Alani, whose diminutive and savage form concealed a magnanimous soul, approved his suspected loyalty, by the zeal with which he fought, and fell, in the service of the republic; and the fame of this gallant barbarian has been imperfectly preserved in the verses of Claudian, since the poet, who celebrates his VIRTUE, has omitted the mention of his NAME." This brave Alan chief, from the double fact of his having contributed so gallantly to a victory that saved Rome and Italy, and his having acted thus, notwithstanding the suspicions of treachery entertained against him, must have been so well known, at the time of Claudian's contemporary eulogium, that every one could recognise to whom the poet's description referred; whereas now, not even the adventitious aid of Claudian's commentators is able to ascertain the NAME which their author omitted to mention.' The praises of the poet, however splendid, are consequently all so much homage thrown away, as being unappropriated by name to him alone for whom they were designed. Such a practice, indeed, of writing at rather than of a character, is justifiable in a satirical production, in which, from prudential considerations, it may be either necessary or expedient to point out the subject of the composition, merely by the qualities or the acts attributed to him. Thus, the obscurity of Persius is justifiable, in his omitting to name, when he wrote against, the brutalities of a NERO. Thus, the law of libel, or statute De Bello Getico, v. 581-593. edit. Gesner. for the punishment of offensive statements in proportion to their acknowledged truth, would justify a modern poet in limiting to a merely nameless notoriety the princely infamies of a CUMBERLAND. A poet, in such a case, is like Ulysses in the Cyclop's den; he only resorts to anonymous means as the best or safest method of destroying a monster. But, in a poem, written, or supposed to be written, for the purpose of commemorating national feelings of sorrow, admiration or triumph, whenever such statements and the peculiar representatives of them may be both clearly and safely expressed, we should certainly not be left indebted for an exact knowledge of who those personages, as well as their adversaries, were, to the lame and extraneous expedient of an epigraph or a note.' Yet to this expedient we 'Where such political obstacles exist to the expression of sentiments of nationality, as might be apprehended under an ultra Tory regime in Ireland, or a Muscovite despotism in Poland, an anonymous allusion, by the poet of a subjugated nation, to the objects of its interdicted admiration or regret, is excusable, as the result of necessity. Of this description of poems is Moore's melody, "Oh, breathe not his name," on Emmet, and the following elegant lines, on the same subject, by a member of the original Comet Club, written before Emancipation, or while the Tories were in power, though not printed till 1831, in one of the early numbers of the Comet. THE UNINSCRIBED TOMB. "I am going to my cold and silent grave; my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world: it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph for, as no man who knows MY motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace; and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done."-ROBERT EMMET. 66 1. 'Pray, tell me," I said, to an old man who strayed, |