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this corps was calculated to excite in the minds of their enemies. It may surely be allowed to the bravest man to prefer fighting with decent and respectable looking men like himself, to encountering a set of beings of such a ghostly and unearthly aspect. Most men, we believe, had much rather submit to the regular cut and thrust of our common dragoon, than have any thing to say to a battalion of mounted saulies, who appear to have come, rather for the purpose of attending their funeral, than of affording them a fair chance for their lives in manly and equal combat.

Nor are the duties attached to the rank held by Lieutenant Quillinan in the army, likely to be at all favourable to the production of poetical inspiration. To ride in rear of a troop to visit stables-peep into camp-kettles -and to take care that a certain number of men periodically parade in clean shirts and pipe-clayed breeches, are not the occupations precisely most favourable to the nurture of the "mens divinior," or the "os magna sonaturum." They are humble but necessary duties, and are the more intolerable to the man of talent that they require the unremitting vigilance of his senses, without affording any exercise to the faculties of his mind. We confess we do not regret that such formidable obstacles should exist to the success of the military poet. For though we have no objection to a small ode on a victory, or a few laudatory stanzas on a favourite commander, yet we protest most strongly against all and every other soldier, whether horse, foot, or dragoon, who shall presume, like Mr Quillinan, to write, print, and disseminate an heroic poem, in four cantos. If there is any principle in political economy set completely at rest, it is that of the advantages arising from the division of labour, of which such a proceeding would be a total violation. It is the duty of some men to fight battles, and the pleasure of others to sing them. It is quite sufficient that Achilles should kill Hector without afterwards turning his own trumpeter, and celebrating his achievements in tuneful verse. Had this really been the case, Troy had long since been forgot; and we should object quite as strongly to any attempt on the part of Mr Scott or Mr Wordsworth to head forlorn-hopes, or volunteer out-piquets,

as we now do to the unauthorized assumption of the bays, by their military rivals. Having thus eased our consciences, we shall proceed to a more particular examination of the merits of the work before us.

The first canto of Dunluce Castle * opens with the introduction of a person wholly unconnected with the story, who treats us to a description of the Giant's Causeway, and other natural curiosities, and then entirely disappears. The name of this gentleman is M'Quillin, and as he is obviously of kith and kin to the author, we may suppose he was naturally anxious that he should cut a respectable figure in the eyes of his readers. It is rather astonishing, therefore, to find him introduced in the character of a Johnny Raw, who is not content with walking quietly on the road, or picking pebbles on the shore, but must stop and stare like a stuck pig, or, as Mr Quillinan calls it, "feed his raptured glance" on every hill, cape, and promontory of the country. The following is the opening of the poem :

"Perplex'd in wild amazement's trance,
The stranger roam'd on Antrim's shore,
And now had fed his raptur'd glance,
From Fairhead point to Cape Bangore,
Enthusiast! &c."

Such affectation is contemptible enough, and perhaps can only be parallelled by the innocent enthusiasm of Leigh Hunt, about his flower-pots and his cabbage-garden, and his silly ravings about social enjoyments, when he drinks tea on a Sunday evening with his family and his brother Jack, in the balcony of the Black Dog.

As might naturally be supposed, Mr M'Quillin, on arriving at the Giant's Causeway, is more than ever perplexed in wild amazement's

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trance,

and loses no time in feed

ing" his raptured glance" on the beautiful and grand specimens of the Bassaltic column which it displays. Unfortunately, however, he has a strange knack of discovering resemblances existing only in his own diseased imagination. It would be much too unpoetical to view things as they really are; and therefore, this gentleman finds it absolutely necessary to metamorphose these unfortunate pillars into the likeness of every thing

Dunluce Castle, a poem, in four cantos, by Edward Quillinan, Esq. of the third dragoon guards.

in the heaven above, or the earth beneath. He looks on one side, and behold, strange to say, that

"There bravely shooting from the rock, A ship seems launching from its stock."

He turns his optics to another, and lo! "There giant pillars form a range That seems some Gothic ruin strange, And draw from him who gazes on A sigh for ages that are gone!" He tries it once more, and sees "Dark dungeon of tyrannic power Appears a melancholy tower, From whence, to pitying fancy's ear, Come sounds of wail and wo and fear !" and to crown all,

"There robed in venerable gloom, Seems model of monastic dome, WHERE SERAPHIM OF HIGHEST CLASS

DESCENDAT MORNING HOUR OF MASS!!" It would be utterly unpardonable in us to weaken the effect of the above beautiful and original descriptions by any observations of our own. We can only afford our readers another short specimen of Mr Quillinan's descriptive powers before we enter more immediately on the story of the poem. Still talking of the Giant's Causeway, he proceeds to inform us―

"It well might cheat the keenest eyes
To think that human hand had laid
That sea-invading esplanade;
Its polygons so perfect are,
And vertically regular;

And yet so dark and fierce they seem,
That might imagination deem,
(Each upward set without its wain),
Was even Hell's artillery train,
There placed by demons with intent
To blast the crystal firmament!"

There is something extraordinarily fine in all this, though it smells rather too much of the shop. But we must now have done with the first canto, and proceed to give a short account of the affecting narrative developed with so much skill and talent in the remainder of the poem. We are informed by Mr Quillinan, that Dunluce Castle was (God knows how many centuries ago) the seat of the noble family of the M'Quillins. Indeed it might still have remained so but for the arrival of a deep Scotsman called M'Donnell (Qu. Macdonald) and his pretty daughter. M'Quillin's son, a young gentleman, called Owen, speedily falls a victim to the charms of the young lady, and M'Quillin himself to the acts of her father. There

existed, it seems, a cavern connected with the castle, which

"Possessed an unexpected vent Unknown to public use."

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This secret he is spooney enough to disclose to the Scotsman, who introduces thereby into the castle a party of his Highland friends. They are fortunate enough to catch all the family napping, and accordingly proceed, secundum artem, to cut their throats, which is effected without any material accident. A great deal of flirtation has, in the meantime, been carrying on between young M'Quillin and M'Donnell's daughter, Marion. The ferocious Highlander, after disposing of the rest of the family, tosses Mr Owen over a rock, and with a sort of gratuitous barbarity altogether unaccountable, concludes the sad catalogue of slaughter with the murder of his own daughter. This story, it must be admitted, possesses much tragic interest, and our readers will soon see that the advantages which it afforded him have by no means been neglected by Mr Quillinan.

In the following extract, we have a description of the advance of the Highlander and his party through the

aforesaid cavern to the attack of the castle. The two last lines we think partake of the fault we before alluded to, and smell a little of the dragoon. However, there is a stillness and solemnity about it altogether extremely im◄ pressive—

"But on their still and cautious path, M'Donnel and his clan had sped, The clamour-raising winds of wrath, Conspired to lull their tread ; The Scot his silent followers drew Thro' every well-known subtle clue, Thro' vaults whose striking damp obscure, No human sense might long endure; Where not a sentry kept his vigil, And secrecy had hid her sigil! The short and emphatic direction given by Sandy to his followers, we think, too, is exceedingly spirited and characteristic:

"""Tis well-now closer draw the snare, Around you is their nest, Despatch, and stillness be your care, Away-you know the rest!" Horrors now begin to thicken on us. All the retainers of the Irish chieftain are knocked on the head as quietly as could be desired, and M'Donnell creeps to M‘Quillin's bed-side ;

"Resolved the deed of darkest crime' Should by his own fell arm be wrought,

And give his name to after-time
In hues of villany sublime."

He finds his prey dosing, and is just
about to despatch him; but, having
fortunately eat rather a hearty supper,
"Harsh and uneasy visions past
Upon his troubled brain;"

and his host awakes time enough to save himself. The following is the animated description of the combat which takes place between them. We have no doubt it will remind our readers of the death of Marmion, or that of Hassan, in the Giaour.

rays

"Now wrestling fierce the wall he made, And snatching thence a hanging blade, The dragging foe he from him flings, Then on with furious valour springs, Forth leaps M'Donnell's sword amain; They meet they part-they close again; They grapple now, and now the light The lamps dim afford, Strikes full upon the traitor's sight, Down drops the hero's sword! Great powers of heaven and earth, he cries, What sight is this to blast mine eyes? Say, horrid semblance, art thou not M'Donnell, the confederate Scot? That subtle damned renegade! While thus by dire amaze betrayed, The generous chieftain sunk, Rushed full upon his naked breast, Deep in his heart his faulchion prest, And prone the warrior sunk; Yet spare my children, ere he died, Oh! spare my children, feebly cried!" Now, with all our admiratio of the above fine passage, we do not precisely see the grounds on which M'Quillin can with any propriety term his adversary a renegade. The Highlander appears to have been troubled with few religious principles of any kind; and those which he had, bad as they were, he never seems to have renounced. Mr Quillinan, however, appears to understand the word to mean

a person who breaks into a castle and
kills the owner of it-an interpreta-
tion for which Dr Johnson had not
Passing over this,
quite prepared us.
and other frivolous objections, we shall
now present our readers with the most
sublime passage in the whole poem.
It consists of an address from the poet
to the burglarious Celt.

"Now dark M'Donnell take thy sword,
And lift it to thy lip abhorred,
Aye, let that sacrilegious lip,
Its every gout of crimson sip;
Nay, upon blood let blood-hound sup,
Drink, dark M'Donnell, drink it up;
For 'twill supply thee to the hilt,
The deepest deadliest drug of guilt,
That e'er on soul of mischief fell,
And clogged it till it sunk to hell."

The

This is in the true military taste, and with the favourable impression it must leave on the minds of our readers, we shall now close our extracts. love scenes between Owen and Marion are wrought up in the most approved manner, according to the best recipes adopted by Miss Owenson and Miss Porter, but we must leave them to be enjoyed by those who choose to

feed their raptured glance" by perusing the volume itself. The work is from the private press of Sir Egerton Brydges, who discharges the pleasing duties of editor. We should say the printing was beautiful were absurd it not disfigured by an mass of gaudy and tasteless decoration. One of the vignettes, we observe, at the commencement of a poem intended to be very pathetic, contains a delineation of a pocket handkerchief, an instrument, however, which we can assure the most lacrymose young lady she will find not the smallest occasion for in perusing the poems of Lieutenant Quillinan.

ACCOUNT OF AN AUTOMATON CHESS PLAYER, NOW EXHIBITED AT NO. 4, SPRING-GARDENS, LONDON.

A VERY clear and animated description of this extraordinary piece of mechanism, which may really be called a wonderful creature, has been written by a friend of ours, an Oxford graduate; and we think our readers may be amused by some particulars of what may be called its life and char

*

acter. Our friend is one of the best chess-players we know ; yet we believe that he was hard put to it by the Automaton, who is, in his own peculiar way, quite a second Phillidor. who know any thing of the fascinating game of chess are aware of the constant exercise of acute judgment required in

*Printed for J. Hatchard, Piccadilly. 1s. 1819.

All

anticipating the designs of an antagonist, and in frustrating those that cannot be foreseen. Indeed, it is acknow

ledged to be about as difficult a thing to win a great game of chess, as a great battle-and, therefore, our Automaton may yet make a brilliant figure some day or other as a general officer.

The inventor, or rather, it should be said, the father of this creature, was Wolffgang de Kempelen, a Hungarian gentleman, aulic counsellor to the royal chamber of the domains of the Emperor in Hungary. Being at Vienna in the year 1769, he offered to the Empress Maria Theresa, to construct a piece of mechanism more unaccountable than any she had previously witnessed; and accordingly, within six months, the Automaton chess player was presented at court, where his extraordinary mental powers excit

ed the liveliest astonishment. M. de Kempelen, some years afterwards, publicly exhibited him (for we shall not degrade a man of genius by the application of a vile neuter) in Germany and other countries. In the year 1785, M. de Kempelen visited England, and at his death in 1803, this worthy Automaton became the property of that gentleman's son, who may be distinguished from his incomprehensible brother by the term, "filius carnalis," and by whom (notwithstanding the apparent violation of the free spirit of our laws, and of nature herself,) he was sold to the present exhibitor, a person, it is said, of great ability in the science of mechanics.

After this short historical notice, our Oxford friend (who, by the way, has seemingly forgotten his promise to send us an occasional article) thus introduces to us the son of the aulic counsellor.

"The room where it is at present exhibited has an inner apartment, within which appears the figure of a Turk, as large as life, dressed after the Turkish fashion, sitting behind a chest of three feet and a half in length, two feet in breadth, and two feet and a half in height, to which it is attached by the wooden seat on which it sits. The chest is placed upon four casters, and together with the figure, may be easily moved to any part of the room. On the plain surface formed by the top of the chest, in the centre, is a raised immoveable chess-board of handsome dimensions, upon which the figure has its eyes fixed; its right arm and hand being extended on the chest, and its left arm somewhat raised, as if in the attitude of holding

a Turkish pipe, which originally was placed

in its hand.

"The exhibitor begins by wheeling the chest to the entrance of the apartment with

in

which it stands, and in face of the spec

tators. He then opens certain doors contrived in the chest, two in front, and two at the back, at the same time pulling out a long shallow drawer at the bottom of the chest made to contain the chess men, a cushion for the arm of the figure to rest upon, and some counters. Two lesser doors, and a green cloth screen, contrived in the body of the figure, and in its lower parts, which covers them is raised; so that the are likewise opened, and the Turkish robe construction both of the figure and chest internally is displayed. In this state the automaton is moved round for the examination of the spectators; and to banish all suspi cion from the most sceptical mind, that any living subject is concealed within any part of it, the exhibitor introduces a lighted candle into the body of the chest and figure, by which the interior of each is, in a great measure, rendered transparent, and the most secret corner is shewn. Here, it may be observed, that the same precaution to remove suspicion is used, if requested, at the close as at the commencement of a game of Chess with the Automaton.

"The chest is divided by a partition, into two unequal chambers. That to the right of the figure is the narrowest, and oc cupies scarcely one third of the body of the chest. It is filled with little wheels, levers, cylinders, and other machinery used in clock-work. That to the left contains a few wheels, some small barrels with springs, and two quarters of a circle placed horizontally. The body and lower parts of the figure contain certain tubes, which seem to be conductors to the machinery. After a sufficient time, during which each spectator may satisfy his scruples and his curiosity, the exhibitor recloses the doors of the chest

and figure, and the drawer at bottom; makes some arrangements in the body of the figure, winds up the works with a key inserted into a small opening on the side of the chest, places a cushion under the left arm of the figure, which now rests upon it, and invites any individual present to play a game of Chess.

"At one and three o'clock in the afternoon, the Automaton plays only ends of games, with any person who may be present.

On these occasions the pieces are placed on the board, according to a preconcerted arrangement; and the Automaton invariably wins the game. But at eight o'clock every evening, it plays an entire game against any antagonist who may offer himself, and generally is the winner, although the inventor had not this issue in view as a necessary event.

"In playing a game, the Automaton makes choice of the white pieces, and always has the first move. These are small

advantages towards winning the game which are cheerfully conceded. It plays with the left hand, the right arm and hand being constantly extended on the chest, behind which it is seated. This slight incongruity proceeded from absence of mind in the inventor, who did not perceive his mistake till the machinery of the Automaton was too far completed to admit of the mistake being rectified. At the commencement of a game, the Automaton moves its head, as if taking a view of the board; the same motion occurs at the close of a game. In making a move, it slowly raises its left arm from the cushion placed under it, and directs it towards the square of the piece to be moved. Its hand and fingers open on touching the piece, which it takes up, and conveys to any proposed square. The arm, then, returns with a natural motion to the cushion upon which it usually rests. In taking a piece, the Automaton makes the same motions of the arm

and hand to lay hold of the piece, which it conveys from the board; and then returning to its own piece, it takes it up, and places it on the vacant square. These motions are performed with perfect correctness; and the dexterity with which the arm acts, especially in the delicate operation of castling, seems to be the result of spontaneous feeling, bending at the shoulder, elbow, and knuckles, and cautiously avoiding to touch any other piece than that which is to be moved, nor ever making a false move.

"After a move made by its antagonist, the Automaton remains for a few moments only inactive, as if meditating its next move; upon which the motions of the left arm and hand follow. On giving check to the King, it moves its head as a signal. When a false move is made by its antagonist, which frequently occurs, through curiosity to observe in what manner the Automaton will act: as, for instance, if a Knight be made to move like a Castle, the Automaton taps impatiently on the chest, with its right hand, replaces the Knight on its former square, and not permitting its antagonist to recover his move, proceeds immediately to move one of its own pieces thus appearing to punish him for his inattention. The little advantage in play which is hereby gained, makes the Automaton more a match for its antagonist, and seems to have been contemplated by the inventor as an additional resource towards winning the game.

"It is of importance that the person

matched against the Automaton, should be attentive, in moving a piece, to place it precisely in the centre of its square; otherwise the figure, in attempting to lay hold of the piece, may miss its hold, or even sustain some injury in the delicate mechanism of the fingers. When the person has made a move, no alteration in it can take place: and if a piece be touched, it must be played somewhere. This rule is strictly observed by the Automaton. If its antagonist hesitates to move for a considerable time, it taps smartly on the top of the chest with the right hand, which is constantly extended upon it, as if testifying impatience at his delay.

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During the time that the Automaton is in motion, a low sound of clock-work running down is heard, which ceases soon after its arm returns to the cushion; and then its antagonist may make his move. The works are wound up at intervals, after ten or twelve moves, by the exhibiter, who is usually employed in walking up and down the apartment in which the Automaton is shown, approaching, however, the chest from time to time, especially on its right side.

At the conclusion of the exhibition of the Automaton, on the removal of the chess men from the board, one of the spectators indiscriminately is requested to place a Knight upon any square of the board at pleasure. The Automaton immediately takes up the Knight, and beginning from that square, it moves the piece, according to its proper motion, so as to touch each of the sixty-three squares of the chess board in turn, without missing one, or returning to the same square. The square from which the Knight proceeds is marked by a white counter; and the squares successively touched, by red counters, which at length occupy all the other squares of the board.'

Our friend, the Graduate, whose own skill in mechanics is well known, offers some speculations on the theory of this wonderful person's generation. These exhibit all his wonted acuteness, but, as he confesses that they leave the mystery of the Automaton's powers still unexplained, we content ourselves with referring the curious reader to his own very entertaining pamphlet.

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