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KIRWAN, DEAN OF KILLALOE.

orators of eminence have appeared among the divines, though many of them have been pious med. One appeared in Ireland a few years Dho, to use the emphatical expression of Mr. n, "broke in upon the slumbers of the pulpit." eed scarcely say, that we allude to Dr. Kirwan, of Killaloe! That he was a great orator, the fer in which he was attended sufficiently evinced. Tans crowded to hear him, who on no other occasion ared within the walls of a church; men of the world had other pursuits, and men of profession, physilawyers and actors, in short, all to whomeloquence highest order had any charms. The pressure of owds was immense; guards were obliged to be Ted without, to keep off from the largest churches erflowing curiosity, which could not contribute tely to the great charities for which he genereached. The sums collected on these occaexceeded any thing ever before known. In stance, such was the magical impression he ed, that many persons, ladies particularly, after uting all the money they had upon them, their watches, rings, and other valuable o into the plate, which next day they re

impulse; and had to boast the association of many great names, who rose from poverty to reputation. This had been long the employment, and indeed chief means of subsistence, of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke. Such were the men at whose depression this legal bye-law aimed! Never was there a more illiberal and base attack on literary talent; he could find no parallel to it in the History of England, except one indeed, in the reign of Henry IV. which went to exclude lawyers from sitting in parliament. At this, as might be expected, the body who now sought to proscribe others, was mightily offended; they branded the parliament with the epithet of indoctum; and Lord Coke had even the hardihood to declare from the bench, that there never was a good law made therein. It was impossible to imagine a single reason for the enactment of the bye-law complained of. It was a subversion of the liberty and respectability of the press; a most unjust individual proscription; a violation of the best principles of our constitution. For," concluded Mr. Sheridan, "it is the glory of English law, that it sanctions no proscriptions, nor does it acknowledge any office in the state, which the honourable ambitious industry even of the most humble may not obtain." Mr. Stephen followed Mr. Sheridan in a very manly speech. He declared that he had been a member of Lincoln's Inn for thirty-five years, but that he had not the most remote connexion with the framing of the obnoxious bye-law alluded to; he thought it a most illiberal and unjust proscription; a scandal rather to its authors than its objects. "I will put a case," said Mr. Stephen; "I will suppose a young man of education and of talent contending with pe

cuniary difficulties---difficulties not proceeding from vice, but from family misfortunes. I will suppose him honestly meeting his obstructions with honourable industry, and exercising his talents by reporting the debates of this house in order to attain a profession. Where, I ask, is the degradation of such an employment? Who would be so meanly cruel as to deprive him of it? The case, sir, which I have now supposed, was thirty years ago my own!"

Sir John Anstruther was also a member of Lincoln's Inn, but reprobated the bye-law referred to. Obnoxious as it was, however, it was a curious fact, that it originated with an individual who had been particularly loud in his professions of regard for the liberty of the press. Mr. Henry Clifford (of O. P. notoriety) was its father!

THE SLAVE TRADE.

In one of the last discussions on the slave trade, Sir Charles Pole said, "while he deprecated the motion (for the abolition), he rejoiced that it had been brought forward thus early, because it shewed the cloven foot which had been attempted to be concealed." To this remark, Mr. Sheridan very spiritedly replied. "An honourable baronet," said he, "has talked of a cloven foot; I plead guilty to that cloven foot; but this I will say, that the man who expresses pleasure at the hope of seeing so large a portion of the human race freed from the shackles of tyranny, rather displays the pinion of an angel, than the cloven foot of a demon." He then entered into a view of the slavery of the West Indies, which was unlike all other

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slavery, and thus concluded: “A Mr. Barclay, to his eternal honour be it spoken, who had himself been a slave owner in Jamaica, and who regretting that he had been so, on a bequest of slaves being made to him, emancipated them; caused them to be conveyed to Pennsylvania, where they were properly instructed, and where their subsequent exemplary conduct was the general theme of admiration. With this fact before him, should he be told, that he must give up all hope of abolishing slavery? No: he would never give it up, but exclaim in the words of the poet,

"I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me when I sleep,

And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.”

IMPROVISATORI.

The gift of extemporaneous versifying seems confined to the south of Europe. It is indeed unwillingly credited elsewhere; and yet there is nothing more common in Italy, than to see, during the carnival, two masks meet, defy, challenge, and attack each other in verse; and answer, stanza for stanza, to the same air, with a vivacity, dialogue, melody, and accompaniment, which to those who have not witnessed it, is almost inconceivable. In the large towns of Italy, it would not be easy to find a polished company in which one of the guests is not capable of giving pleasure by the exercise of his art. Even the idle vulgar have their professional improvisatori, as well as the more elegant votaries of the muse among the nobility. These exercise their art in squares and market

places. In a few moments a circle is collected round the wandering Homer, who delivers in about an hour as much poetry, as will suffice to keep him from hunger for the next two or three days; and such a virtuoso is the more reckless of futurity, because he is sure to find, whenever he wishes, another audience at the next square.

In general, these songs have not much poetical merit; but they are often rich in naïve expressions and pointed ridicule; and as to the most common Italian, poetical propriety is not wholly unknown, for they all read their celebrated poets, and commit much of their works to memory; so most of their artificial extemporaneous productions bear commonly some marks of regularity and precision.

Some examples there are, however, of improvisatori, who, uniting great delicacy of mind and taste to very superior talents, and from much exercise having acquired a singular facility, have shewn themselves capable of producing unpremeditated verse, which would not only bear perusal, but even the ordeal of the severest criticism. Such, among others, was the famed Corilla, and the Abbé Lorenzo of Verona, spoken of by Bettinelli; and such also is Francisco Gianni of Rome, who is at present (1807) famous, and has carried this art to such a height of perfection, as it rarely, if ever, attained before, as his printed improvisi sufficiently prove.

There is another species of improvista, or impromptu, which, though more nearly allied to art than to eloquence, often partakes of the latter; it is the Extem

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