Mich. Mich. Raff. You drove your pencil round, and thus—and thus :— 'Tis a free sketch; I know it. Thou shouldst paint Pope. Raff. A painter, holy father; and a good one.— Some drawings, which your holiness Ay, and slow to live. True;-but it lives for ever. Pope. Mich. Pope. Raff. Like Renown, And listen to music, and quaff nectar-dew, He hath a liberal fancy. He fills his horn fuller than Fortune's. And hear the wolves upbraiding the cold moon, My soul Pope. Mich. Pope. Mich. Raff. Mich. Ruff. Mich. Pope. Mich. Ruff. Mich. Raff. A mountain riven-a palace sack'd—a town To the centre, split in fragments)-Famine,-Plague- These are my dreams:-and sometimes, when my brain Again for me, good Michael. We must shew Ay-its Creation. What wilt thou paint,-a World? Make it fresh and fair: Breathe all thy soul upon it, until it glow I'll make it bare. Still earth should bloom? From dust, strong, active, like the autumnal stag: On his bright eye, but therein gently unfold Now for thine Eve. Right! 'Twill grow and blossom. Um! Must there be a woman? "Must!"-Thou wouldst paint a barren world indeed. Thou never lovedst. Mich. Raff. Mich. I have: nay, I love still. Whom? what? Mich. MINE ART. Raff. Pope. Mich. Why, so do I:-yet I love women too. Thy humour feeds one sense and starves the rest. Birds and the desert brutes awaited him : Nought else. A world there was (fair if thou wilt); See his picture. "Dominus Deus formavit hominem ex solo terræ." Raff. Raff. Pope. Pope. Pope. Raff. Mich. Pope. Mich. Raff. "ope. After his birth, indeed, we may have wrought Alas! he fell. He ate perdition from the woman's hand. Why not?-yes. Yes, the fierce moral. That let me do; for I have sketch'd already What is this? The Judgement. Ay, the Judgement. Look! In the middle, near the top, shall stand Of followers, and Apostles hovering near. Here shall be seen the bless'd, and there the damn'd,- Down to perdition. Insolent visages, Born in the sleep of Sin, shall flesh their fangs ; Dwarfs, devils, and hideous things, and brute abortions; Some who make sick the moon, and some who hide Their monstrous foreheads in a reptile's mask : Pale Palsy, and crook'd Spasm, and bloated Plague, Thy figures haunt me, like Disease. Come again. I will: farewell! Father, thy holy blessing. [Exeunt. SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR.-NO. VIII. Serjeant Goold. THE French Revolution had scarcely burst upon the world, and its portentous incidents were still the daily subject of universal astonishment or dismay, when there arose in the metropolis of Ireland a young gentleman, who, feeling jealous of the unrivalled importance which the Continental phenomenon was enjoying, resolved to start in his own person as an opposition-wonder. He had some of the qualifications and all the ambitious self-dependence befitting so arduous a project. Nature and fortune had been extremely kind to him. He was of a respectable and wealthy family. His face was handsome; his person small, but symmetrical and elastic, and peculiarly adapted to the performance of certain bodily feats which he subsequently achieved. As to his general endowments, he was, upon his own showing, a fac-simile of the admirable Crichton. He announced himself as an adept in every known department of human learning, from the prophetic revelations of judicial astrology, and the more obsolete mysteries of magic lore, up to the lightest productions of the amatory muse of France. He professed to speak every living language (except the Irish) as fluently and correctly as if he had been a native-born. He played, sung, danced, fenced, and rode with more skill and spirit than the masters of those respective arts who had presumed to teach him. He had a deep sense of the value of so many combined perfections, and acted under the persuasion that he was called upon to amaze the world. His friends, who had perceived that beneath his incomprehensible aspirations there lurked the elements of a clever man, recommended the Bar as a profession in which with industry, and his 10,000l., for he inherited about as much, and a rising religion, for he was a Protestant, he might fairly hope to gratify their ambition, if not his own. He assented; and submitted to pass through the preliminary forms-rather, however, under the idea, that at some future period it might suit his views to accept the chancellorship of Ireland, than with any immediate intention of squandering his youthful energies upon so inglorious a vocation. He felt that he was destined for higher things, and proceeded to assert his claims. He never appeared abroad but in a costly suit of the most persuasive cut, and glowing with bright and various tints. He set up an imposing phaëton, in which with Kitty Cut-adash, of fascinating memory, and then the reigning illegitimate belle of Dublin, by his side, he scoured through streets and squares with the brilliancy and rapidity of an optical illusion. He entertained his friends, the choicest spirits about town, with dinners, such as bachelor never gave before-dishes so satisfying and scientific, as to fill not only the stomach, but the mind-claret, such as few even of the Irish bishops could procure, and champaigne of vivacity exampled only by his own. He furnished his stable with a stud of racers; and if I am rightly informed, he still, half-laughing, half-wondering at his former self, recalls the times when mounted upon a favourite thoroughbred, and flaming in a pink-satin jockey-dress, he distanced every competitor, and bore away the Curragh cup. I have spoken of his dancing. Tradition asserts that it was not confined to ball-rooms. I am told that at the private theatre in Fishamble-street, a place in those days of much fashionable resort, he was known to slide in between the acts, in the costume of a Savoy peasant, and throw off a pas seul in a style of original dexterity and grace, which to use an Irish descriptive phrase, "elicited explosions of applause from the men, and ecstatic ebullitions of admiration from the ladies." He was equally remarkable for his excellence in the other manly exercises. He thought nothing of vaulting over four horses standing abreast. He was paramount at foot-ball; and astonished and won wagers from the Bishop of Derry himself (the noted Lord Bristol), who was supposed to be the keenest judge in Ireland of what the toe of man could achieve. Before assuming the forensic robe, our aspirant for renown set out upon a Continental tour; and according to his subsequent report, although he travelled in strict incognito, gathered fresh glory at every post-town through which he was whirled along. After a considerable stay at Paris, where, however, he arrived too late to stop the revolutionary torrent, he passed on and visited several of the German courts-gave "travelling opinions" upon the course of policy to be respectively pursued by them at that critical juncture, and afterwards satisfied himself that the most important events that followed were mainly influenced by his timely interposition. He left Germany with some precipitation. The rumour ran that there were state-reasons for his departure. The subject was too delicate to be revealed in all its circumstances, but upon his return to Ireland his friends heard in broken sentences of a certain Palatine princess-the dogged jealousy of royal husbands-the incorrigible babbling of maids of honour-muttered threats of incarceration-and a confidential remonstrance on the part of a very sensible man, a member of the Aulic council, respecting the confusion that might hereafter ensue, should it come to be suspected that the stream of reputed legitimacy had been reinforced by a tributary rill of Munster blood. Upon his reappearance in Ireland, our prodigy, exulting in the fame of his Continental exploits, was about to commence a new course of wonders in his native land, when an unforeseen occurrence in the form of a dishonoured check upon his banker came to ―repress his noble rage And freeze the genial current of his soul. He discovered that he was a ruined man. The patrimonial ten thousand pounds which had given an eclat to all he did, had vanished. The road to glory still lay before him, but he was without a guinea in his pocket to pay the travelling expenses. In this emergency there were three courses open to him-to cut his throat-to sell his soul to the Protestant ascendancy-or to be honest and industrious, and ply at his profession. He chose the last-and (the most wonderous thing in his wonderful career) it came to pass, that notwithstanding the many apparent disqualifications under which he started, he rose, and not slowly, to an eminence which no one but himself would have ventured to predict. He is now 66 quantum mutatus ab illo," a very able and distinguished person at the Irish Bar, Mr. Serjeant Goold. And if I have ushered in my notice of this gentleman with an allusion to the freaks of his youth, of which after all I may have received an exaggerated |