recollection of her Marathon and Thermopylæ, we glow with as pure an ardour over the historical memory of her pictured Thunderer, or in the actual presence of her Farnese and Apollo. In Greece, a painter* was allowed to assume the regal purple and golden crown. In Greece, painters and statuaries were eligible to the highest offices of the state. In Greece, it was the law that none but men of noble birth should profess the Art.‡ Pamphilus, the master of Apelles, was a statesman and a philosopher as well as an artist. By his influence the elementary principles of the Art were taught in the public schools of Greece, and its acquirement associated with a liberal education.§ When Emilius, after subduing all Macedonia, demanded of the Athenians their most renowned philosopher to educate his children, and their best painter to superintend the ornaments for his triumph, the Athenians sent Metrodorus to the Roman General, telling him, they had provided in one person all he had required of two.§ Metrodorus was an artist. "From the political structure of ancient Rome, we must not expect much practical excellence in the Art. But that which the Romans either did not or could not rival, they knew how to admire and appreciate. Quinctilian, Pliny, Tacitus, are often the historians or eulogists of ancient Art; and Cicero himself plucks from the garland of the graphic muse some of his sweetest flowers of exemplification. "The Augustan age of Britain does not present a character which stands more boldly forward than that of Reynolds. Those who do, and those who do not, understand his excellence, concur in estimating it as a high national honour and ornament. The more than Augustan age of Britain, her present age, displays a galaxy of talent, as various as it is consummately excellent. With the senate, the field, the cabinet-with science, philosophy, poetry, great and immortal names are connected. Yet, against any of them, the names of West and Lawrence may be fearlessly arrayed. They stand as high as any in national estimation. They are as often appealed to as evidence of national character. They are as much the boast of their country. Their fame is as widely diffused through polite * Apelles. + Vide MOORE-F. Junius de Picturâ veterum. Pliny. § Turnbull-Rise and Decline of Art in ancient Greece and modern Italy. nations. They are parallels to Britain's proudest names, and can be produced to the same extent. "During thirty years, the profession of arms would seem to have been the only one pursued with enthusiasm in France, yet her Arts were not forgotten. In the hot career of her unrivalled success, elated and laurelled with triumph, France could pause, and hold out to Art the hand of patronage and protection. The genius of victory, gathering up all her trophies, often came to the genius of Art, and sued for her graphic immortality. Denon, David, Le Fevre, Le Theyre, were or are contemporaneous with every era of thirty years of political convulsion in France;-bright names, like bright stars, have risen around them in the national horizon, yet theirs have not been eclipsed. "Italy has, at present, no name, no character, but that which her Arts reflect upon her. It is the only current which keeps her floating up to the level of nations. Italy, that was the warschool of the world-whose thought was intelligence-whose tongue was oratory-whose breath was patriotism-whose sword was victory-Italy is a province-an abject, trampled province. Her Tully, her Cato, her Scipio, her Augustus, her Brutus, are no more-Italy has only her Canova." And so the life of a literary man of our day was entered upon. To Banim, as to all others, it was the cold, stern enchantress, the demon Mistress, that wins men's love, and then claims health, and energy,. and buoyant youth's bright blooming hours, as smallest duties offered in her worship-and thus Banim, and Laman Blanchard, and Thomas Hood, have each been types of this class, and to each we may apply these lines of Charles Mackay : ""Mid his writing, And inditing, Death had beckoned him away, CHAPTER III. FIRST PLAN OF TALES BY THE O'HARA FAMILY MICHAEL -LETTERS-PROGRESS THEM-LETTERS-ILLNESS-PUBLISHES DEAD-ALIVE;" EXTRACTS-OBTAINS BY THE O'HARA FAMILY "-LETTERS. WHILST visiting his family, after the production of "Damon and Pythias," Banim frequently wandered away through the lovely scenery of the county Kilkenny; he generally resided, on these occasions, with some friend of his father, and was always accompanied by his brother Michael. Few counties in Ireland can present scenery more varied or picturesque than Kilkenny. Thomastown, Jerpoint, and Kells, possess monuments of older days, interesting and valuable to the antiquary: Inistiogue, and Woodstock, once the residence of the authoress of "Psyche," are glowing in all the pride of leafy loveliness; and every feature of sylvan beauty is enhanced by the proximity of the bright, pure, gentle-flowing Nore. Banim's favourite spot, amidst these scenes, is thus described in "The Fetches" "It rises from the edge of the Nore, at about thirteen miles from Kilkenny, into curves and slopes, hills and dales, piles of rock, and extensive spreads of level though high ground; hills and dales are thickly or wildly planted; and mountain streams, made rough and interesting by the stony impediments in their course, seek their way through the bending and shivered banks and fantastic woods; sometimes leaping over an unusually steep barrier. The waterfalls send their chafings among the woods and hollows, which on all sides, and at a distance, reply; and these voices of nature, together with the nearly similar noise of the rustling trees, or the crackling of their knotted arms in the blast, are the only, or the overmastering sounds that disturb the solitude. "Extrinsic interest has lately attached to this fine scenery on account of its having been the last residence on earth of a lady not unknown in the literary world. In fact, the present proprietor is a Mr. Tighe; and here the gentle author of 'Psyche,' that gentleman's aunt by marriage, breathed the last notes of her femininely sweet song, and the last breath of a life she was almost too good and pure to have longer breathed, in a bad and gross world. Here she sang, in sighings of the heart, her last melancholy farewell to the 'Odours of Spring;' and, alas, the flowers she addressed had not wasted their perfume till they were transplanted to her grave. A beautiful girl, long the humble protegée of the minstrel, culled them with her young hands, and in recollection of notes that the silent tongue had once murmured, placed them on her bed of clay, and thus in the tears of beauty and of youthful sorrow, they were there nurtured. The grave is one of many in the church-yard of the village that skirts the domain. The river runs smoothly by. The ruins of an ancient abbey that have been partially converted into a church, reverently throw their mantle of tender shadow over it: simple primroses and daisies now blossom round. It is a place for the grave of a poetess. "But when Tresham visited this district, it had, for him, the single yet abundant interest of its own beauty. Even as he approached it, the introductory scenery grew fair and enchant ing. The country outside of Kilkenny was uniform; but at last, from the highest point of a rough, mountain-road, his eye was at once flung over a semicircular extent of hill, dell, and mountain, broken into every desirable shape of the picturesque, and thrown and tossed about, as if in the awful sportiveness of the creating hand. Hill bestrode hill, the guardian giants of the race appearing pale and mysterious in the distance; while through the midst, in the depths of a spacious valley, the lady Nore curved on her graceful course. "It was the first approach of an unusually fine evening in September, and the red sun, setting over an extreme vista at Tresham's back, lackered all the opposite scene with gold: producing, at the same time, those stretching shadows that make evening the painter's best hour for the study of his chiaroscuro. At every turn of this road the scene only changed into another mode of beauty. From a nearer point appeared the lowly village of Inistiogue; a few white cottages, glinting, like white stones, at the bases and in the mighty embrace of hills, richly planted. Its light and not inelegant bridge spanned the crystal river, groups and groups of trees massing behind it; and, over all, the high grounds of Woodstock rising in continued and variegated foliage. Tears of pleasure filled Tresham's eyes. He felt it was happiness to live in so fair a world; alas! he enjoyed the scene as if he had been doomed to enjoy it.” Amidst these quiet haunts Banim loved to linger. The first round of life's great ladder of fame was, he fancied, passed; the jostling crowd who, panting and eager, thronged its foot, were no longer to be feared; and day dreams, such as only the young poet knows, made bright and joyous the hopeful musings of that autumn after he had seen one of his sky-rockets go off." It was not that he felt unwilling still to labour and fast, and watch and wait. Fame to him was like that image of Love in "Gondibert "—and made all and everything bright and sunny "As if the thing beloved were all a Saint, And every place she entered were a shrine." |