got upon his legs soon after, and made a very brilliant rhetorical speech, but carefully avoided all allusion to Moore. Many persons present thought it had an odd appearance. "I differ with you," said Coppinger, "Moore might speak of Sheil, but Sheil could not afford to speak of Moore."

Some of the rising generation who have seen the great colossal statue to Moore, in College-street, bent and stooped like the top-heavy frame of an enormous old man, may have been inspired with a false notion of Moore's real altitude, which in point of fact was exceedingly diminutive. Coppinger having been invited to an evening party, at Moore's mother's in Abbeystreet, sat down on a low footstool to converse with "Bessie" and her caro sposo. Moore was standing, and his face, though in close proximity, was barely on a level with Coppinger's.

Coppinger had some amusing Bar anecdotes, of which he had personal knowledge. Everybody is tired hearing of the jokes of Lord Norbury; but Standish O'Grady, afterwards Lord Guillamore, was quite as much a wit. A well-known Dublin attorney, having practised in early life in the police courts, he contracted, to some extent, the phraseology usually heard before-what a London cockney would designate, "Beaks." Sometime about the year 1820, he became engaged in a suit, tried before Chief Baron O'Grady, in the Court of Exchequer, and addressed the Bench as "your worship," repeatedly during the day. The Chief first smiled at the misnomer, but afterwards waxed testy, and in a burst of irritation exclaimed, Sir, you have been worshipping me all day." The attorney bowed, and sat down, but having occasion again to address the Bench, observed, "My Lord Chief Baron, if I might presume-" "Sir," roared O'Grady, cutting him quite short, "You have been presuming since 11 this morning."

O'Grady once asked Jack Ryan, a well-known solicitor, to dine with him. Ryan paid very marked and continued attentions to the claret. At length the Chief asked him if he would like punch. "No thank you Chief," responded Ryan, "Not being particular, I'll stick to the claret.'

But enough of the cap and bells. Some short obituary notices of Mr. Coppinger have recently appeared in the newspapers, the tone of which cannot but be gratifying to his family and admirers. The Dublin Evening Post said:

"Mr. Coppinger was one of the steadiest labourers in the great national movement for religious freedom; and to the last hour of his life, he was sincere, consistent, and really patriotic."

The Freeman's Journal said:--

He was secretary to the Catholics of the great County of Cork, and acquired considerable distinction by the ability and the energy with which he worked the Catholic question in that fine county. Nor was his name unknown in the greater meetings on Burgh Quay, where he occupied a prominent position among the more distinguished Catholic chiefs. Since then, however, Mr. Coppinger withdrew from public life and lived quietly, and unostentatiously, a simple and worthy citizen content to discharge less stormy duties than those which were incident to a more youthful period of his life. He had a great fund of anecdote respecting the public men with whom he was associated in early life, and by his information could supply many a link in the chain of events which have been unchronicled by the few writers conversant with that interesting period of our history.

Mr. Coppinger was an accomplished letter-writer: but it does not come within the objects of this paper to publish any selection from his correspondence. There is one letter, however, written not long before Mr. Coppinger's death, which, as it adverts in touching language to a domestic calamity that no doubt accellerated his end, and embittered his last moments, it may prove interesting to subjoin. The letter is addressed. to the author of "The Life, Times and Contemporaries of Lord Cloncurry."

58, Amiens-street, Dublin.
Wednesday.

My Dear Sir, I was favored at a late hour last night with your most kind and esteemed letter of condolence on the death of my beloved child, conveying in terms at once feeling, and consoling, and such only as could flow from the pen of one whose writings are so universally prized, the expression of that sympathy, which you, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick so tenderly entertain at the afflicting bereavement it has pleased Providence to visit me with. For this sympathy I feel, be assured, as indeed I ought to do, deeply, and sensibly grateful. That you should think of me at such a moment, when the angel of death had struck my darling child, who was the pride of my family, and whose cherished memory can never be effaced from my sorrowing heart, is such a proof of kindness, that I know not how to express my acknowledgements sufficiently. I beg to assure you that I sincerely appreciate this generous sympathy, conveyed in words at once so touching and so

true, and at the same time, so calculated to impart the balm of consolation in the hour of affliction. It was of Gastric fever of fourteen days duration my sweet child died; and for the last two or three days, we had but slender hopes of her recovery.

"Requesting you will present my sincerest regards to your good lady, and again thanking you for your very kind sympathy, I remain with grateful esteem,

My Dear Sir,

Ever yoursmost faithfull y,
STEPHEN COPPinger.

To William John Fitzpatrick, Esq.,

Stillorgan."

Mr. Coppinger is reported by the Freeman as having been amongst those who paid the last tribute of respect to the remains of Mr. John O'Connell at Glasnevin Cemetery on Friday, May 28th. On the same day he attended the meeting of the Prospect and Golden Bridge Cemetery Board at 17, Usher's quay, and the expression of his face betokened such internal decay and debility that Mr. Matthias J. O'Kelly hired a covered car in which he brought his suffering friend home. In a few hours after he was dead. Diabetes-the wasting disease which so suddenly carried off the late Judge Jacksonhad been fatally at work.

Mr. Coppinger having been through life a practical religionist there was no need for a hurried death-bed repentance, and he died calmly and happily. How expressively true are Landor's words:"Heaven is not to be won by short hard work at the last, as some of us take a degree at the University after much irregularity and negligence. I prefer a steady pace from the outset to the end, coming in cool, and dismounting quietly.'

ART. VIII. POETS AND POETRY OF GERMANY.

Poets and Poetry of Germany-Biographical and Critical Notices, by Madame L. Davésiés De Pontés.-2 Vois. London, Chapman and Hall, 1858.

The poetry of every people undergoes with the nation to which it belongs, certain changes or phases dependant on the growth of taste, intellect, wealth or power. At first the rudeness of barbarism or tribe-life, produces war songs, or metrical accounts of the achievements of heroes, sung perhaps extemporaneously to excite the followers of chiefs to glorious deeds. in battle. Mingled with these, the superstitions of heathenism, whose influence on the mind of man in a savage state is greater than that of any earthly power, are introduced to terrify the wavering or cowardly into the observance of the duties they owe their fellow men, by the idea of unseen agents watching their actions. When the nation has settled down to pastoral life, and abandoned the roving, marauding, or conquering phase, the bucolic era arises, when the delights of country life are sung, the woodland deities are invoked, and a host of kind, beneficient fairies, elves, and nymphs, who protect and watch over the husbandman, are invented. The gathering of men into towns, the building of fortalices, and the consequent strife for dominion, give rise to romances, songs celebrating feats of arms, ladies' love, and a more advanced form of religious superstition, founded on the more agreeable part of the creed of the nation. These forms of poetry alternate with each other until the popular element has gained the upper hand, when songs of the affections, high class lyrics, epics and dramas, in varied order, bring the language to its highest state of perfection.

Among some people the first phase partakes more of the heroic than of the mythological, as among the Greeks and Romans, whose mortals were kept separate and inferior to the deities. In others, as the Scandinavians and Teutons, mythology prevails almost exclusively, or the heroes themselves are turned into Gods. Odin, originally a mere mortal, peoples the Walhalla with his paladins and followers. Thor, the god of battles, seems to have been originally conceived as a blacksmith, with his huge hammer by which he vanquished giants. The second phase is almost completely wanting among the relics of

the Teutonic tribes, the only evidence of its having once existed being the legendary lays of gnomes, cobolds, nixes, dwarfs, and other inhabitants of the words and fields, who play a very large part in the pages of early German romance. The third phase is by far the most prolific, reproduced at various intervals from the 8th to the 16th century, alternating with the lyrics of minne-singers, the songs and hymns of the meistersänger, and the legendary tales of wizards, witches, and goblins. When all these had died out, and the wars engendered by the reformation had spent their strength throughout the land, the revival of letters in the rest of Europe produced a chastening influence on the literature of Germany. Bodmer and others, by their influence as professers in many of the universities, fashioned taste of the people and them to a due appreciation of the merits of composition. They commenced the era of modern poetry, which has been brought on by various stages of perfection to the writings of Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, Schiller and Goethe. Whether the German language has yet attained it greatest degree of perfectibility, is a question not yet decided, and probably will not be finally settled for another half century. But the most reasonable theory is, that it being a language, which in its present form has not been fashioned and shaped into general use, for a long time after the principal tongues of Europe had been so, it may still require a vast deal of developement. Certain it is that its literature within very recent times has advanced with giant strides.

German writers generally distinguish three marked periods of their national poetry. The first or heathen extends from the earliest times, when the achievements of Odin and his fellow deities were celebrated in the Edda, down to the twelfth century, when the Hohenstauffen dynasty ascended the imperial throne. The second or Schwabian period comes down to the times of Wieland and Goethe, whose age formed the third epoch, sonetimes called after Charles Augustus, Duke of Weimar, a celebrated revivor and patron of letters. The heathen division cannot be said to be properly named, as it includes not only many Saga, dating from before the spread of Christianity in the north, but also many metrical ballads and poems of the middle ages, in which are introduced the superstitions and chivalry of the new religion. This classification is however very convenient, as the poetic power of the German people did not during that great lapse of time, undergo any considerable increase of strength or perfection.