out some local recollections of an interesting kind. At the Cross (cross roads) about a quarter of a mile from the house, a person named James Carney, commonly called Shamus Rou, was hanged in chains, forty years ago, for the murder of a tythe-proctor. A heap of stones, by the roadside, marks the spot where the victim received the mortal blow. Near to this is a field, where more recently a magistrate of the county broke his neck at a fox-chase. The historical ruins, on the verge of the bog, have been already mentioned. In the bog itself there have been discovered, within the last half century, a Carthaginian sabre, wanting only the handle, and three quarters of the blade; some fragments of a gold bracelet, of the fashion usually worn by court-ladies in the time of King Malachi, and the horns of a moosk deer, and the body of a man in high preservation, supposed to be the remains of an ancient Irish Rapparee such is Bloompark.

"The present Sir Orlando Casey,"-meaning thereby, at the least, an Irish baronet; but there never was a late, and never will be a future Sir Orlando. Orlando Casey was an active, pushing, and prosperous button-manufacturer of the city of Dublin. In the course of time he threw himself into the Corporation, seized the proper moments to be loyal, proposed resolutions, coughed down amendments, figured upon juries in ninety-eight, was made a sheriff, carried up an address to the Castle, and came down "the present Sir Orlando Casey."

Considering the long-bowism of the above, no one would suspect that Miss M'Swadlum was over-piously inclined; yet, strange to say, she has contrived to reconcile a departure from accuracy in her reports of sublunary transactions with the most edifying anxiety for the souls of her benighted countrymen. From her spiritual alertness she is styled by the profane wits of the county, Saint Celestina ; but she smiles in exalted scorn at such impious waggery. One of her favourite plans for carrying her holy objects, has much originality. The moment the potatoe crop is expected to fail in a particular district, Miss M-Swadlum, ever remembering that food for the soul is the great want of Ireland, lays in a supply of the most nutritious tracts, and keeping a steady eye upon the progress of the visitation from the first perceptible collapse of the public jaw, down to the final stages of abdominal grumbling, seizes the happy moment of confirmed inanimation, and pours in the mental aliment upon the attenuated population. This method of conversion has not succeeded according to its merits; for Popery, more indomitable than the wild elephant, refuses to be subjugated even by an empty stomach; but Miss M'Swadlum does not repine at the failure. "She feels," to use her own expressive language, "a noble consciousness of having done her duty." And yet her powers of proselytism are unquestionable. Since her ministry commenced (about five years ago) she has brought over two lame beggarmen of Kilmaclush to eat meat on a Friday; and latterly a most interesting little half-starved orphan girl, only six years old, has been so moved by her arguments and her gingerbread, that she has consented to become a good child, and renounce the errors of Popery, upon the sole condition of being comfortably provided for in a Protestant charityschool.

Her

Miss M'S. has been for the last ten years in her thirtieth year. person is rather above the middle size; but this she corrects by a pious

stoop. As to her face, from her rapturous holiness it must be admitted that she has "Heaven in her eye;" but there is nothing celestial about the other features. They are, on the contrary, rather marked by a certain terrestrial acidity, which strangers to her spiritual worth might at first sight confound with the symptoms of an intolerant spirit. Her dress is elaborately ascetic, both in form and colour: she has determined not to risk her eternal prospects for the sake of worldly flounces and trimmings, and looks upon flame-coloured silk as a type of neverending combustion. Her ordinary conversation is tea-and-tractish; that is to say, she talks of new plans of conversion, and of the failings of her neighbours. She thinks that Sir Harcourt Lees is the most lucid of divines, in his lucid intervals; she thinks the Church is in danger; she thinks with Doctor Magee that the religion of the Catholics is abominable-and further agrees with him in thinking that they have no religion. She thinks that Doctor Doyle, with his Popish propaganda doctrines, wants to set fire to all Ireland, and particularly to the parish of Kilmaclush; and to avert such a crisis, she thinks that Mrs. Hannah More ought to be made an Irish bishop, and that Lady Morgan ought to be crucified.

Miss M'Swadlum is a permanent vice-president of the KilmacrushLondon-Favel-Hibernian-Female-Branch-Auxiliary- Tract-distribution Society; but she denies that she either proposed or seconded their celebrated fourth supplemental resolution-" that, to prevent misrepresentation, all the important objects of the society were in future to be carried into effect by a committee, to consist of twelve gentlemen and as many ladies, with liberty to increase their numbers."

THE FOREST SANCTUARY, A POEM.*

"THE Forest Sanctuary" is a very charming poem, bearing those characteristics which distinguish all the hitherto published poetry of Mrs. Hemans, and with which our readers must be familiar. Among our later female writers, Mrs. H. is eminently conspicuous for purity of subject, grace, fertility of fancy, and a mode of expression at once feminine and happy. She commonly uses imagery of great force and beauty, tinged with that melancholy hue of thought, which, however irreconcileable it may appear with our general impressions of pleasurable sensation, is undeniably one of its most obvious excitements. In her shorter detached pieces, Mrs. Hemans has exhibited great felicity and beauty; a sustained elegance of diction and imagery, which in longer poems could hardly be expected, and the want of which in an equal proportion might, by hasty readers, be considered a falling-off. Too few observe the aim of a writer, or look at the way in which he wishes his efforts to be regarded. Each one examines a work with his own prepossessions and notions of what is correct, and few agree respecting it. criticise as if there were a fixed standard for the productions of genius, and its labours were to be tried by the graduated rule of an academy or society of literature; an idea still more preposterous. While a third class, if they see a writer has produced some exquisite morceau of a few stanzas, expect that the next thing he undertakes, however much it may differ in character, subject, or length, shall be sustained at an equal pitch of excellence, throughout its whole compass. For the last reason particularly, the present poem will not please many readers, so much as some of Mrs. Hemans' former and shorter

"The Forest Sanctuary, a Poem. By Mrs. Hemans." 8vo. pp. 505.

Some

productions. But this is not the way to judge rightly; let it be examined by itself, without reference to preceding efforts. Though "The Forest Sanctuary" may possess less interest for some readers than if the story had been made more of, by the introduction of startling incidents and passionate details, the author has looked upon it in a different point of view; and while dealing less minutely and more generally with her subject than some may think right, has given us a poem which throws no discredit on her well-deserved reputation.

The scene of "The Forest Sanctuary" is laid in Old Spain, in the sixteenth century. The time is during the short reformation, which cast upon that now most degraded of nations, a casual brightness only to render the succeeding gloom more hideous. The curse of priestcraft and superstition, the infamous connection of political and religious power, for the purpose of enchaining and debasing the human mind, inactive for a moment to recoil with more hellish violence, had allowed the light of the reformation au interval to cast one feeble flash before it was utterly extinguished. It was at that period a priest, named Gonzalez, and his two sisters were burned near each other, for the reformed faith; and upon this incident Mrs. Hemans has founded part of her poem, with those additions and alterations of poetical invention, which were needed to work out her design. The hero of the poem is a reformed Spaniard, and it commences by his address to his son, followed by a retrospective view of the sufferings of his three friends Alvar and his sisters, and his own imprisonment and ultimate flight to America. The opening stanzas are very beautiful :—

"The voices of my home!-I hear them still!

They have been with me through the dreamy night—

The blessed household voices, wont to fill

My heart's clear depths with unalloy'd delight!

I hear them still, unchang'd :-though some from earth
Are music parted, and the tones of mirth-

Wild, silvery tones, that rang through days more bright!
Have died in others,-yet to me they come,

Singing of boyhood back-the voices of my home!

They call me through this hush of woods, reposing

In the grey stillness of the summer morn,

They wander by when heavy flowers are closing,

And thoughts grow deep, and winds and stars are born;
Ev'n as a fount's remember'd gushings burst

On the parch'd traveller in his hour of thirst,

E'en thus they haunt me with sweet sounds till worn

By quenchless longings, to my soul I say

Ob for the dove's swift wings, that I might flee away,

And find mine ark !—yet whither ?—I must bear
A yearning heart within me to the grave.

I am of those o'er whom a breath of air

Just darkening in its course the lake's bright wave,
And sighing through the feathery canes-hath power

To call up shadows in the silent hour,

From the dim past, as from a wizard's cave!·

So must it be!-These skies above me spread,

Are they my own soft skies?—Ye rest not here, my dead!"

The whole poem is descriptive of mental suffering rather than of action. In this Mrs. Hemans has followed what is at present, perhaps, the popular taste, but by so doing has rendered her subject less striking than it would have been had it unfolded a succession of forcible details. There was a good opportunity for poetical description in the preparatory horrors of the Auto da fè; but respecting this dreadful scene, Mrs. Hemans is brief; fearing, no doubt, to injure her main effect. The Spanish narrator of his story dwells upon the fate of his friends, martyred for embracing the Protestant doctrines. The descrip

tion of the brother and his two sisters is good; that of Inez, indeed, so beautiful that we must copy it here.

"And she to die !-she loved the laughing earth

With such deep joy in its fresh ieaves and flowers!
-Was not her smile even as the sudden birth
Of a young rainbow, colouring vernal showers?
Yes! but to meet her fawn-like step, to hear
The gushes of wild song, so silvery clear,
Which, oft unconsciously, in happier hours
Flow'd from her lips, was to forget the sway
Of Time and Death below,-blight, shadow, dull decay!
Could this change be?—the hour, the scene, where last
I saw that form, come floating o'er my mind:
-A golden vintage-eve;—the heats were pass'd,
And, in the freshness of the fanning wind,
Her father sat, where gleam'd the first faint star
Through the lime-boughs; and with her light guitar,
She, on the greensward at his feet reclin'd,

In his calm face laughed up; some shepherd-lay
Singing, as childhood sings on the lone hills at play.

And now-oh God! the bitter fear of death,
The sore amaze, the faint o'ershadowing dread,
Had grasp'd her!-panting in her quick-drawn breath,
And in her white lips quivering;-onward led,
She look'd up with her dim bewilder'd eyes,
And there smiled out her own soft brilliant skies,
Far in their sultry southern azure spread,

Glowing with joy, but silent !-still they smil'd,

Yet sent down no reprieve for earth's poor trembling child."

The refinements of inquisitorial cruelty, the depraved inventions and studies in blood of priests, kings, and inquisitors, to render the agonies of expiring nature more intense, the horrible delay in proceeding to the place of execution, and fiendish mummeries attendant upon it, afford fine scope for poetical description. Mrs. Hemans has avoided these, evidently with design. They were too ungentle for her muse, and would have disturbed the placid feeling, which it was no doubt her wish to produce on the mind of the reader; a feeling in itself consonant with that Christian resignation, with which she has invested the hero of her verse. After condemnation, the three prisoners are led to the place of death. On their way, when near to the fatal pyre, the trampling of a horse is heard. Its rider Alings himself off, and rushing towards Inez, clasps her in his arms. He endeavours to persuade her to abjure her new faith, and live for him. In her struggle between "love, faith, fear, and a dream of life," nature gives way, and she expires in her lover's arms. The survivors are led to the stake, and the narrator flies from the horrid sight, which he has not energy to behold.

"Away-away I rush'd ;-but swift and high
The arrowy pillars of the firelight grew,
Till the transparent darkness of the sky
Flush'd to a blood-red mantle in their hue:
And, phantom-like, the kindling city seem'd
To spread, float, as on the wind they stream'd,
With their wild splendour chasing me!—I knew
The death-work was begun-I veil'd mine eyes,
Yet stopp'd in spell-bound fear to catch the victims' cries.
What heard I then?—a ringing shriek of pain,
Such as for ever haunts the tortur'd ear!
-I heard a sweet and solemn-breathing strain
Piercing the flames, untremulous and clear!
-The rich, triumphal tones!-I knew them well,
As they came floating with a breezy swell!

Man's voice was there-a clarion voice to cheer

In the mid-battle-ay, to turn the flying

Woman's-that might have sung of Heaven beside the dying!
It was a fearful, yet a glorious thing,

To hear that hymn of martyrdom, and know
That its glad stream of melody could spring
Up from th' unsounded gulfs of human woe!
Alvar! Theresa!-what is deep? what strong?
-God's breath within the soul!-It fill'd that song

From your victorious voices !—but the glow

On the hot air and lurid skies increased

-Faint grew the sounds-more faint-I listen'd-they had ceas'd!" The narrator is next found in a cathedral, meditating religiously and alone. He prays; is comforted by his devotions; and returns to his habitation. There are some very beautiful passages in this part of the poem.

The second canto, for we should have before this observed, that the poem consists of two cantos, opens with an invocation to Nature, to assist him in looking back on "a dungeon's air;" where, it appears, he endured a long imprisonment after the martyrdom of his friends. There is an indistinctness about some parts of the story, detaching the attention from the movements of the narrating Spaniard, arising from the too general description and want of minuter detail respecting personal incidents. But it is probable that, as the narrator speaks only from recollection of the past, and neither he nor the author is describing passing events, that this was designed. However it may be, we, on this point, must be satisfied with the gift she has made us of a new and delightful addition to our rich stock of poetry from the modern female pen.

From his dungeon the Spaniard, after a tedious confinement, the history of which is well told, and where the captive exclaims,

"How oft would Sorrow weep

Her weariness to Death, if he might come like sleep," proceeds to his family in the mountains, and embarks with them for America, to enjoy there, in the bosom of a primeval nature, amid woods and savage fastnesses, that "free thought" which God gave to all men, but which felon despotism even in our time seeks to rifle us of;-that free worship, which, amid the pomp, and hypocrisy, and persecution of nations styling themselves civilized, priests and kings refuse to their fellow men. In that wild asylum, with his altar under the open heaven, he enjoys his faith, and prepares for old age and death. Before he embarks, he musters up his recollections of the bygone time, of his country and native soil, of his boyhood and love, of his sufferings and those of his friends, of his father's hall, and his own ancestral fame. Then in his own words

"O'er the blue deep I fled, the chainless deep!"

On his passage he loses his Leonor, his wife. His reflections respecting her are very touching, but we cannot give them room, any more than many detached stanzas of great beauty. We are unable to resist extracting the last four or five with which the poem concludes:

"And we have won a bower of refuge now,

In this fresh waste, the breath of whose repose
Hath cool'd, like dew, the fever of my brow,
And whose green oaks and cedars round me close,
As temple-walls and pillars, that exclude
Earth's haunted dreams from their free solitude;
All, save the image and the thought of those
Before us gone; our lov'd of early years,

Gone where affection's cup hath lost the taste of tears.

I see a star-eve's first-born !-in whose train

Past scenes, words, looks, come back. The arrowy spire

Of the lone cypress, as of wood-girt fane,

Rests dark and still amidst a heaven of fire;