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ment, they discovered to be a Scotchman, of the name of Donald Donald, a native of. Inverness. He had been taken prisoner at the battle of Rosetta, had nearly forgotten his own language, and seemed perfectly reconciled to his situation. He was now a good Mussulman in every respect. They offered to ransom him for 2,000 piastres, but he seemed indifferent about obtaining his liberty, and his master grew jealous of his interviews with them. Before they left Miniet, the Bey gave him in marriage one of the women of his harem, after which they heard no more of him.

There is nothing new or important in the measures of precaution adopted by our travellers to preserve themselves from the contagious effects of the plague; Mr. Legh observes that in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean the quarantine regulations are efficient; but that in England they are not only ineffectual but absurd. One officer of the Board of Health hands up a Bible for the captain of the ship to kiss, on making oath, which, on being returned, would be sure to communicate infection, if any existed in the ship; another produces a number of queries, to which the captain must give written answers on the present occasion our travellers remonstrated, telling the officer that nothing was so infectious as paper; but he contented himself with replying that the orders of the Privy Council were peremptory, and must be obeyed.' It would seem, therefore, that if we have hitherto been fortunate enough to escape this dreadful calamity it is in spite of the perilous precautions of the Privy Council.

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The progress of our travellers through Lower Egypt, their voyage to Malta and residence on that island, afford nothing of interest or novelty that would justify the protraction of this article which has already proceeded to a greater length than originally we had intended; and we cordially take leave of Mr. Legh, with a hope that if he or Mr. Smelt should have in their possession any sketches, drawings or measurements of the ruins of Nubia, they will not withhold them in a second edition.

ART. II. I. The Emerald Isle, a Poem. By Charles Phillips, Esq. Barrister at Law. Dedicated by Permission to the Prince Regent. London. 1813. Embellished with a full length Portrait of Brian Borhoime, King of Ireland. 4to. pp. 159. II. The Speech of Mr. Phillips, delivered in the Court of Common Pleas in Dublin, in the Case of Guthrie versus Sterne; with a short Preface. 8vo. London. pp. 42.

III. Speeches of Mr. Phillips on the Catholic Question; with a Preface. 8vo. London. pp. 40.

IV. An Authentic Report of the Speech of the CELEBRATED and

ELOQUENT

ELOQUENT Irish Barrister, Mr. Phillips, delivered at Roscommon Assizes. 8vo. London. pp. 20.

V. The Speech of Counsellor Phillips on the State of England and Ireland, and on a Reform in Parliament; delivered at Liverpool, Oct. 31, 1816. 8vo. London. pp. 16.

WE have really been at a loss in what light to consider the series of works before us; they are all planned and constructed on a scale of such ridiculous exaggeration, there is so little law in the pleadings, so little poetry in the poems, and so little common sense in the prose, that we almost suspected that they were intended to ridicule that inflated and jargonish style which has of late prevailed among a certain class of authors and orators in the sister kingdom, But, in opposition to this internal evidence, there are so many circumstances of external testimony, that we have been reluctantly driven to conclude that Mr. Charles Phillips is not a censor, but a professor of the new school; and that having lost his own wits, he really imagines that the rest of the world may be brought to admire such fustian in verse and such fustian in prose as cannot, perhaps, be equalled except in Chrononhotonthologos, or Bombastes Furioso.

Our readers must be aware, that we are generally inclined (though we do not shrink from giving our own honest opinion) to permit authors to speak for themselves; and to quote from their own works such passages as may appear to us to justify our criticism. We will not be more unjust to Mr. Phillips, and shall, therefore, select from his poems and pamphlets a few of those parts which are marked by his peculiar manner, and which we are well assured he considers as the most admirable specimens of his genius.

We shall begin with the following panegyric upon a certain King. of Ireland called Brian Borhoime, whose age was as barbarous as his name; and whose story is as obscure as Mr. Phillips's eulogy, 'Look on Brian's verdant grave—

Brian-the glory and grace of his age;

Brian-the shield of the emerald isle;
The lion incensed was a lamb to his rage,

The dove was an eagle compar'd to his smile!

Tribute on enemies, hater of war,

Wide-flaming sword of the warrior throng,

Liberty's beacon, religion's bright star,

Soul of the Seneacha, "Light of the Song."

I.-10, 11.*

The darkness which envelops the history of old Brian may be. pleaded in excuse of the above passage, but what shall be said for

*To save space, the references are made to the number of the publication in the list. prefixed to this Article.

the

the following apostrophe to the late Bishop Berkely?—the Emerald
Isle is, we ought to acquaint our readers, a series of apostrophes to
Irish worthies, from Fin Macoul and Brian Borhoime, down to Mr.
Curran and the wretched Dermody.

'And Berkely, thou, in vision fair,
With all the spirits of the air,
Should'st come, to see, beyond dispute,
Thy deathless page thyself refute;

And, in it, own that thou could'st view
Matter-and it immortal too.'-I.-33.

The following invocation to Farquhar, on the comedy of the Re eruiting Serjeant, which was finished in his last illness, is a fine specimen of the grandiloquence in which Mr. Phillips delights to envelop the commonest ideas.

Swan of the stage! whose dying moan
Such dulcet numbers poured along,
That Death grew captive at the tone,

And stayed his dart to hear THE SONG !'—I.—36. The song! what song? Serjeant Kite's is the only one we recollect in the piece; which, for a 'dying moan,' is comical enough.

Every one remembers Cooke the actor. He was remarkable for playing one or two parts with considerable force and skill, but his general character, even as a player, was certainly not very pre-emineut. He had, however, it seems, the good fortune to be an Irishman, and accordingly hear in what numbers Mr. Phillips lauds him.

'Lord of the soul! magician of the heart!
Pure child of nature! fosterchild of art!
How all the passions in succession rise,
Heave in thy soul and lighten in thine eyes!

Beguiled by thee, old Time, with aspect blythe,' &c. &c.

I.-39.

and so forth for six lines more, with which we will not afflict our readers. We shall conclude our poetical extracts with the description of a traitor, which will remind our readers of some of the most splendid passages of Lord Nugent's Portugal.

the traitor's impious soul

Blasphemes at grace and banishes controul;
It loaths all nurture but the fruit of crime;
It counts, by guilty deeds, the course of time,
Sees hell itself, but as the ideot's rod,

Deifies guilt and mortgages its God!'—I.-67.

We shall now give a few instances of the nonsense on stilts, which Mr. Phillips believes in his conscience to be English prose; and however he may differ from us in his opinion of their merits,

we

we venture to assert that he will not accuse us of having selected

the worst passages.

Magna est veritas et prevalebit—is a trite proverb, and no very complicated idea; yet this simple sentence is in Mr. Phillips's version bloated out to the following size.

6

Truth is omnipotent, and must prevail; it forces its way with the fire and the precision of the morning sun-beam. Vapours may surround, prejudices may impede the infancy of its progress; but the very resistance, that would check, only condenses and concentrates it, until at length it goes forth in the fulness of its meridian, all life, and light, and lustre—the whole amphitheatre of Nature glowing in its smile, and her minutest objects gilt and glittering in the grandeur of its eternity.'.III.-20.

Goldsmith had compared his Parish Priest

To some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.'

This is one of the most simple and sublime passages in English poetry: Mr. Phillips-who, by the way, is as great a plagiarist as Sir Fretful, and somewhat in his manner-thus adopts it as his own.

The hand that holds the chalice should be pure, and the priests of the temple of Religion should be spotless as the vestments of her ministry.. Rank only degrades, wealth only impoverishes, and ornaments only disfigure her; her sacred porch becomes the more sublime from its simplicity, and should be seated on an eminence, inaccessible to human passions—even like the summit of some Alpine WONDER, for ever crowned with the sunshine of the firmament, which the vain and feverish tempest of human infirmities breaks through harmless and unheeded.'— III.-34.

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In this same style of travestie, Mr. Phillips renders either unintelligible or ridiculous every thing he touches. He censures Mr. Grattan because,' as he elegantly expresses it, an Irish native has lost ITS raciness in an English atmosphere.'-II.-15. When he alludes to Monseignor Quarantotti's letter, he will not condescend to mention it but as the rescript of Italian audacity? When the Duke of Wellington invades France, we are told that an Irish hero strikes the harp to victory upon the summit of the Pyrenees.'-p. 35. And when he would say that Mr. Grattan is an ornament to his country, it is expressed that he poured over the ruins of his country the elixir of his immortality'!—III.—35.

When some judicious persons at Liverpool toast the health of this wild ranter, he modestly and intelligibly describes the effect which this great event will have in Ireland

Oh! yes, I do foresee when she (Ireland) shall hear with what courtesy her most pretentionless advocate (Mr. Phillips) has been

treated,

treated, how the same wind that wafts her the intelligence, will revive that flame within her, which the blood of ages has not been able to extinguish. It may be a delusive hope, but I am glad to grasp at any phantom that flits across the solitude of that country's desolation'!!— V.-2.

There is, it seems, a certain Irishman of the name of Casey resident in Liverpool, and, we presume, he was one of the promoters of the before-mentioned toast; for Mr. Phillips, after a magnificent description of this worthy gentleman, exclaims, in an agony of patriotism, Alas, Ireland has little now to console her except the consciousness of having produced such men'-as Mr. Casey of Liverpool!

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We reserve for the last example of Mr. Phillips's style, two passages which, we are informed by Mr. Phillips himself or his editor, (if indeed Mr. Phillips be not his own editor,) were received with enthusiastic applauses. The first is meant to be a satire on bigotry and the other a panegyric on Mr. Grattan

But, oh! there will never be a time with Bigotry-she has no head, and cannot think-she has no heart, and cannot feel-when she moves, it is in wrath-when she pauses, it is amid ruin-her prayers are cursesher God is a dæmon-her communion is death-her vengeance is eternity -her decalogue is written in the blood of her victims; and if she stoops for a moment from her infernal flight, it is upon some kindred rock to whet her vulture-fang for keener rapine, and replume her wing for a more sanguinary desolation!'-III.-22.

When the screech-owl of intolerance was yelling and the night of bigotry was brooding on the land, he came forth with the heart of a hero! and the tongue of an angel! till, at his hidding, the spectre vanished; the colour of our fields revived, and Ireland, poor Ireland,' &c. &c.-III.—14.

Such-to speak figuratively of this great figure-maker—such are the tumid and empty bladders upon which the reputation of Mr. Phillips is trying to become buoyant. We believe our readers will, by this time, think that we have fully justified our opinion of the style of this Dublin Demosthenes.

But we have something more than mere errors of style to object to Mr. Phillips; we shall say little of the want of professional ability which his two pleadings exhibit, because he so little intends them to be considered as legal arguments, that there is but one passage in the statement of two legal cases in which there is the slightest allusion to the law, and that allusion only serves to shew the advocate's ignorance of, and contempt for, the more serious parts of the profession he was exercising.

'Do not suppose I am endeavouring to influence you by the power of DECLAMATION. I am laying down to you the British law, as liberally expounded and solemnly adjudged, I speak the language of the English

Lord

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