find the fullest employment for their candour and impartiality. As the returns, as far they relate to the Catholic population, must be for the most part matter of estimate, great differences of opinion will undoubtedly arise; all that we can expect from the clergy is, that each should give his honest and unbiassed judgment on the subject; it may be to him a subject of regret that the disproportion on the side of his own church should be so considerable as it will frequently be found; but we confidently hope that this will never be permitted to affect his calculations. On the parts of the publication which are peculiarly Mr. Mason's, we have a few suggestions to make. The first is, that we could wish that some kind of order had been preserved in the arrangement of the parishes, either alphabetical, provincial, or diocesan. The twenty-nine parishes stand, we admit, in this volume in the alphabetical order of their names; and it is perhaps intended that the same practice shall be observed in future volumes; but this we must be allowed to say will, in the end, be no order at all. Mr. Mason's work, in its present form and style of printing, would probably consist of fifty volumes; and if each volume is to contain parishes of all counties, of all dioceses, and of names beginning with every letter from A to Z, it is clear that it would be just as well to let the printer place them according to his own fancy. We venture to suggest to Mr. Mason the propriety of adopting the ecclesiastical arrangement by archiepiscopal provinces and dioceses; in each diocese it might be proper to arrange the parishes alphabetically. The objection to this has not escaped us; namely, that the publication must then be delayed till all the materials have been collected. Now this we think an objection which, if Mr. Mason and we do not greatly over-rate the zeal of the clergy, cannot be of any considerable weight. The history of one parish could not occupy much more tinie than that of another; and if the task of the editor be only, or little more than, to arrange the reports which he receives, the publication might surely go on sufficiently quickly. But where is the necessity for this prodigious haste? We have already said that we think the editor has something more to do than merely to receive the reports and correct the press, and we see no reason why he might not look to extend the period of his labours to three or four years. We are aware of the impatience of the Irish character, but this we think would be sufficiently gratified, and public interest kept alive, by the publication of a volume every six months. Of the shape too of the publication we beg leave to say, that for such an object the octavo size seems to have been inconveniently adopted. Quartos, printed as quartos used to be of old, upon paper not too expensive, appear to us the best form for a work of such magnitude. VOL. XIII. NO. XXV. F magnitude. Nor should we despair of seeing, by due economy of space, the reports from each of the four provinces brought into one volume. The quarto has also the advantage of affording a more suitable size to the plates with which Mr. Mason may present his readers; but we regret to be obliged to say that the execution of the plates which have been published in this volume is utterly disgracefulwe fear that the Irish artists are not very able; certain it is that nothing can be worse than those engravings, and that even in the mere mechanical process of striking-off, the negligence of the workman appears to have rivalled the incapacity of the artist. It may seem doubtful whether it be worth while to go to the expense of a map of each parish-we are of opinion that it is; and that these maps should enter as far as may be possible into local details: but then we would have no other engravings; no coins, no tombs, no landscapes, which even if well executed would not compensate for the increase of expense; but executed as they are in this volume, throw an appearance of vulgarity and ridicule over a respectable and valuable work. On the whole, we earnestly recommend that the volume now published should be considered in the light rather of a Prospectus, than as the foundation of a work, and that Mr. Mason should with all diligence endeavour to prepare a publication, in quarto, of one of the archiepiscopal provinces. If this change of system should create any additional expense, we are quite sure it would be more than compensated by the superior value which the work would acquire; but if it should be necessary, we trust that the liberality and public spirit of the Irish government would be able to find some means of contributing to the expense of a work, the risk of which might become too great for an individual like Mr. Mason to bear, and the pecuniary responsibility of which could not fail to harass and distract his mind from his literary part of his undertaking. We are glad to learn from the dedication that Mr. Mason's work has the countenance of Mr. Peel, the chief secretary of the lord lieutenant. It is well becoming a young man of generous feelings, of high literary attainments, and of enlarged views of his political duty, to exert the influence of his station for the local advantage of that part of the empire with which he has become officially connected; and when we see him endeavouring to encourage a spirit of literary inquiry into useful objects, and assisting with his support the humble labourers in the field of local history, we cannot refuse to offer our tribute of applause, and to express our satisfaction that Mr. Mason prosecutes his useful work under such favourable auspices. ART. ART.IV. Roderick, the last of the Goths. By Robert Southey, Esq. Poet Laureate, and Member of the Royal Spanish Academy. London: Longman and Co. 1815. Two vols. 12mo. No poet in our language, or perhaps in any other, has been more the object of contemporary criticism than Mr. Southey. The frequency and boldness of his flights astonished those who could not follow him, and who, naturally enough, when they saw him enlarging the range of his art beyond their conception, solaced themselves with an opinion of his having deviated from its rules. If poetry has any fundamental rules but those which best exhibit the feelings of the human heart, we confess that we are strangers to them. It is in proportion to his knowledge of these, and to his power of developing and delineating their action and effects, that the world in general will bestow their tribute of approbation upon the poet. Whether he lays his scene in heaven or earth, his business is with human sympathies, exalted perhaps by the grandeur of the objects which excite them, or called into existence by the circumstances which he creates, but still in their nature, progress, and ends, in every sense of the word, human. These must be the main springs and active principles of a poem; and, compared to them, the power of all other machinery is weak and puerile. Our notions of divinity (unassisted by the light of Revelation) must be founded on the experience of what we ourselves feel and think. The gods who are to be introduced into a poem must have a shape and a tangibility. We can invent no form more agreeable to the eye, or more complete and adequate to all known purposes, than our own; and we can imagine no mode of intellectual existence different from that for which our own minds are constructed. By increasing the size, the beauty, and majesty of these deities, we endow them at once with a personal superiority; and by heightening in them the attributes of our own nature to a degree beyond that in which we ourselves possess them, we obtain an idea of beings of enlarged powers and intelligence. These may serve for gods to those who will be contented to take them as such; but in fact they are only mortals highly endowed. The poet can oppose them to each other, and allot to each what portion of power he pleases; but when they are called in as auxiliaries they merely rob the real characters in the poem of their interest without exciting any for themselves. No one in reading the Iliad cares much about the party feelings that distract the parliament of Olympus. Hector is not a favourite with the reader because the side on which he fights is that of Mars and Venus. We love F 2 him him for his own sake, not for that of his patrons. When Mars, indeed, descends into the field, his presence serves to heighten the brilliancy of the scene, and to make the tempest of war rage with increased fury; but for the main interest nothing is gained by this interference. If he were made to exert his super-human powers, his antagonists could have nothing to oppose to them; and as the contest would be unequal, and the result foreseen, it would excite less attention than a contest between mere mortals; if these powers are suspended in the god during the struggle, he can only fight like any other hero of the poem, whose place he would usurp for the time. When Diomedes is obliged to quit the field in consequence of the manifestation of the wrath of Jupiter, who does not see that the sublimity of the passage consists in the quickness with which the intelligence passes between the god and the mind of the hero? Τυδείδης δε διάνδιχα μερμήριξεν Ιππες τε τρέψαι, και ἐναιιβιον μαχέσασθαι. Σήμα τιθεις Τρώεσσι, μάχης ἕλεραλκεα νίκην. Ιλ. Θ. 167. Here the communication is immediate, and without the intervention of any subordinate agent. The machinery if such it may be called, which Mr. Southey has employed in all his former poems, is of this nature. It is a machinery of intelligence and the passions, and it forms the distinguishing feature of his composition. In Joan of Arc he has made all the great events to result from the enthusiasm and virtues of his heroine. Her communications with heaven are carried on through the medium of an exalted feeling to whose dictates her prowess is to be attributed. The consequences which follow the display of it are just and natural. Her character is sufficiently elevated above common life to make it worthy of the lofty tones of poetry, yet not placed above the sphere of human sympathies, nor degraded by being made the puppet of a set of imaginary agents. In the romance of Thalaba the same system is preserved; and though it is a tale of entire fiction which requires that the reader should admit the existence of magic for its basis, yet Thalaba is assisted by no power which might not be more than equally the protector of his antagonists; and so far from being superior in preternatural means, when he has cast off the ring which Mohareb reproaches him for wearing, he opposes only to the sorcerer the enthusiast mind, The inspiration of his soul: `and when he asks the penitent angels Haruth and Maruth for the talisman talisman which is to protect and guide him to the end of his mission, he is answered, Son of Hodeizah, thou hast found it here, The talisman is Faith. With Faith for his defence and Enthusiasm for his guide, he meets still severer trials, and ultimately accomplishes his object through the operation of these feelings. Had he carried unerring weapons, or been made invulnerable, he would merely have appeared as a tool to work out the purposes of others, and the moral agency and influence of his character would have lost its value in our eyes. In Madoc, the next great poem which Mr. Southey produced, we have a series of human adventures and natural difficulties. Madoc is opposed to those who have every natural advantage on their side, subtlety, impetuous courage, a knowledge of the country, and overwhelming numbers. But he conquers as often by his mildness and forbearance as by his fortitude. The influence of superstition has all the effect upon the minds of his savage enemies which the actual presence of superior agents could bestow on them. Here neither nature nor historical truth is violated. The tribes of Aztlan are impelled by that which is to them a divine power: oracles and omens in the hands of their priests are to them the voice of their gods; and though even here something like machinery is employed, yet it is apparent only through the medium of the passions and purposes which it excites in their breasts. There it acts with demoniacal energy; but our good sense is never shocked by the absurdity of preternatural interference, in favour of either party. The pure faith of christianity could not be subjected to such profanation, and the unseen influence of the gods of Aztlan yields to the virtue and the wisdom of Madoc. The Curse of Kehama' may be thought to deviate from the principles observed in the preceding poems, but a little examination will shew that this is not the case. The actors are all, except Ladurlad and Kailyal, endowed with super-human powers, and the opposition between them is maintained upon pretty equal grounds. The cause, however, to which the gods incline, is not always the most fortunate. Kehama, in the course of the poem, possesses himself of omnipotence, and drives the deities from their seats. In power he is therefore superior to them, but to enjoy it he wants immortality. He wants too, without being conscious that he does so, omniscience to wield it. The inordinate desire, successful in every step, and increasing by gratification, has only one more to take, but that one leads to destruction, and the immortality which it ensures brings with it an eternity of misery. In this extraordinary poem, founded as it is upon the most extravagant F3 |