And its zone of dark hills-oh! to see them all brightening,
When the tempest flings out his red banner of lightning,
And the waters come down, 'mid the thunder's deep rattle,
Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle;
And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming,
And wildly from Malloc the eagles are screming :
Oh, where is the dwelling, in valley or highland,
So meet for a bard as that lone little island ?

How oft when the summer sun rested on Clara,
And lit the blue headland of sullen Ivara,

Have I sought thee, sweet spot, from my home by the ocean,
And trod all thy wilds with a minstrel's devotion,
And thought on the bards who, oft gathering together,
In the cleft of thy rocks, and the depth of thy heather,
Dwelt far from the Saxon's dark bondage and slaughter,
As they raised their last song by the rush of thy water.

High sons of the lyre ! oh, how proud was the feeling
To dream while alone through that solitude stealing;
Though loftier minstrels green Erin can number,

I alone waked the strain of her harp from its slumber,
And gleaned the gray legend that long had been sleeping,
Where oblivion's dull mist o'er its beauty was creeping,
From the love which I felt for my country's sad story,
When to love her was shame, to revile her was glory!

Last bard of the free! where it mine to inherit

The fire of thy harp and the wing of thy spirit,

With the wrongs which like thee to my own land have bound me,
Did your mantle of song throw its radiance around me;

Yet, yet on those bold cliffs might Liberty rally,

And abroad send her cry o'er the sleep of each valley.
But, rouse thee, vain dreamer! no fond fancy cherish,
Thy vision of Freedom in bloodshed must perish.

I soon shall be gone-though my name may be spoken
When Erin awakes, and her fetters are broken-
Some minstrel will come in the summer eve's gleaming,
When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming,
To bend o'er my grave with a tear of motion,

Where calm Avonbuee seeks the kisses of ocean.
And a wild wreath to plant from the banks of that river
O'er the heart and the harp that are silent for ever."

These verses are of a very high order, and are, perhaps, the finest in the collection. Of a homlier and inferior kind, but still tender, and not without merit or national style of sentiment, take from "The Court of Cahirass" these lines :

"On a fine summer's morning, if you saw but this maiden,
By the murmuring Maig, or the green fields she stray'd in;

Or through groves full of song, near that bright flowing river,
You'd think how imperfect the praise that I give her.

In order arranged are her bright flowing tresses,
The thread of the spider their fineness expresses ;*
And softer her cheek, that is mantled with blushes,
Than the drift of the snow, or the pulp of the rushes.
But her bosom of beauty, that the heart which lies under,
Should have nothing of womanlike pride, is my wonder;
That the charms which all eyes daily dwell on delighted,'
Should seem in her own of no worth, and be slighted.

When Charity calls her she never is weary,

Though in secret she comes with the step of a fairy;
To the sick and the needy profuse is her bounty,

And her goodness extends through the whole of the county.

I felt on my spirit a load that was weighty,

In the stillness of midnight, and called upon Katey ;
And a dull voice replied, on the ear of the sleeper,

Death! death!' in a tone that was deep, and grew deeper.

'Twas an omen to me-'twas an omen of sadness,
That told me of folly, of love, and of madness;

That my
fate was as dark as the sky that was o'er me,
And bade me despair, for no hope was before me."

As we began merrily and burlesquely, we must not end thus melancholily. And yet our last specimen shall differ from both kinds; for it may be said to fall under the head, Irish imprecation and cursing. It would appear that a Mr. O'Kelly had lost or been robbed of his watch at Doneraile; and being a poet, how otherwise could he do but give utterance to his wrath and hatred in a professional form? Accordingly he opened in the manner now to be copied, although we must jump over a considerable portion of the stanzas, there being the same sort of play of rhyme upon a great number of conceivable and ordinary things. That rhyme, however, is clever.

Alas! how dismal is my tale !—
I lost my watch in Doneraile;

My Dublin watch, my chain and seal,
Pilfered at once in Doneraile.

"The verse of an Irish song, in which the poet describes the first meeting with his mistress, was thus translated to the editor by Mr. Edward Penrose :

'Her hair was of the finest gold,

Like to a spider's spinning;

In her, methinks, I do behold
My joys and woes beginning."

It is not unworthy of notice that this ditty, filled with indignant bursts, has become popular in the part of the country to which it refers.

VOL. 1. (1839.) NO. IV.

RR

570

ART. XI.

1. Memoirs of Aaron Burr. By M. L. DAVIS. New York.

1839.

2. The Private Journal of Aaron Burr. Edited by M. L. DAVIS. New York. 1839.

THOSE who have taken a deep interest in American politics, and whose recollections go so far back as 1800, must be familar with the name of Aaron Burr. But we venture to say, that without reading the two publications we have now before us, neither will the peculiar sort of partizanship, which so inveterately prevails in the United States, be accurately understood, nor the character of a very distinguished singular and marked man be appreciated.

Aaron Burr was at one time all but President of the United States of America: he was Vice-President of the Union, of the greatest and most promising Republic that the World's history can point out; and yet he lived for many years the neglected, the despised of his countrymen, and died nobody. How was this? An irregularity and untrainedness of temper united with first-rate ability, is to be instanced in this case, rather than anything comprehended under the facile, and easily expressed term, Misfortune. Aaron Burr, in fact, stands forth as a beacon not only to politicians, but a lesson to all erratic spirits, or those who possessed of extraordinary talent and opportunities seek no counsel but the gleams of their own genius. And yet how unfortunate would it be, for the interests of society or for the purposes of poetry, were there no irregular, wayward, tempest-tost men like Aaron Burr! What a loss should we sustain if such individuals were not self-chroniclers; or if they did not attract some such admiring sympathetic souls as Mr. M. L. Davis! The world of life would be destitute of relief, -the history of mankind would furnish one tame, one even tenour of mediocrity that was virtueless, viceless; that is to say, that all the smoothness of arid deserts, all the tiresomeness of uniformity, let it, if you will, be that of beauty, would cloy us, and render the world a sphere in which there were no landmarks, no goals, no arousing and arresting examples.

Not such were the life and times of Burr. A man of genius, of remarkable adventure, the sign-post, so to speak, of democratic vicissitude; in his own country, the subject of the most opposite constructions, in the old world the critic and the scorn of popular feelings, as well as sometimes the rallying point of deep laid friendships, he comes here before us, partly in the guise as dressed out by himself, and partly in the attire of one long familiar with all his ways, a sympathizer, but not a thick and thin apologist.

In fact the "Memoirs of Aaron Burr," by Mr. Davis, is an honest and ample piece of biography. There is congeniality in its conception; in its execution it bears every symptom of impartiality and sound judgment as regards the ends to be served by such works.

He brings out clearly and strongly, not only the admirable features of his hero, but the obliquities of his disposition and conduct and the rocks on which he split.

The

Aaron Burr was the Grandson of a German nobleman. His father was the first President of Princeton College, New Jersey ; and what in our estimation is still more noble in his escutcheon, his mother was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards. He himself was a soldier of capacity, prowess, and celebrity. He also stood at the head, or in the first rank at the Bar; and what is not less memorable, he killed his greatest legal competitor in a duel, from which period he may be said to have become a broken man. particulars which led to, accompanied, and followed these events must be sought for in the first of the works befere us, and in the general political history of the United States of America. It will be sufficient for us, with the view of directing attention to the biographical and national character of the subject, to select a few particulars as recorded in the " Memoirs," and a few passages from the "Journal."

Burr was from his boyhood a person who was not merely subject to sudden impulses, but his adherence and perseverance were equal to the fulfilment of all such promises. We find him in 1775, when the war broke out, and when he broke off with all his kindred, joining the army, under extraordinary circumstances, and, for anything that we understand, without much previous reflection. We are told that

"One day he heard Ogden and some youug men of the army conversing, in an apartment adjoining that in which he was lying, on the subject of an expedition. He called Ogden to his bedside, and inquired what was the nature of the expedition of which they were speaking. Ogden informed him that Col. Arnold, with a detachment of ten or twelve hundred men, was about to proceed through the wildnerness for the purpose of attacking Quebec. Burr instantly raised himself up in the bed, and declared that he would accompany them; and so pertinacious was he on this point, that he immediately, although much enfeebled, commenced dressing himself. Ogden expostulated, and spoke of his debilitated state-referred to the hardships and privations that he must necessarily endure on such a march, &c. But all was unavailing, Young Burr was determined, and was immoveable. He forthwith selected four or five hale, hearty fellows, to whom he proposed that they should form a mess, and unite their destiny on the expedition through the wilderness. To this arrangement they cheerfully acceded. His friend Ogden, and others of his acquaintance, were conveyed in carriages from Cambridge to Newburyport, distant about sixty miles; but Burr, with his new associates in arms, on the 14th September, 1775, shouldered their muskets, took their knapsacks upon their backs, and marched to the place of e.barcation."

True, he had determined before this, and probably in consequence