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Shakspeare. "Sir," replied he, "bad translations torment and vex them, and prevent their understanding your great Dramatist.-A blind man, Sir, cannot conceive the beauty of a rose, who only pricks his fingers with the thorns."

JOHN KEATS.

THIS imaginative being died at Rome, Feb. 23rd, 1821, whither he had gone for the benefit of his health. His complaint was a consumption, under which he had languished for some time; but his death was accelerated by a cold, caught in his voyage to Italy. It is rather singular, that, in the year 1816, he expressed an ardent desire to visit these classic regions;—and, five years after, his wish was gratified.

The Sonnet, in which he expresses a hope that he may at some period visit the shores of Italy, is one of his earliest productions, and is too beautiful to be omitted in this humble tribute to his memory.

"Happy in England! I could be content

To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown

Through its tall woods with high romances blent;

Yet, do I sometimes feel a languishment

For skies Italian, and an inward groan

To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,

And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,

Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging;
Yet do I often warmly burn to see

Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about the summer waters."

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Keats was, in the truest sense of the word, a Poet. There is but a small portion of the public acquainted with the writings of this young man ; yet they are full of elevated thoughts and delicate fancy, and his images are beautiful and more entirely his own, perhaps, than those of any living writer whatever. He had a fine ear, a tender heart, and, at times, great force and originality of expression; and notwithstanding all this, he has been suffered to rise and pass away, almost without a notice. The laurel has been awarded (for the present) to other brows; bolder aspirants have been allowed to take their station on the slippery steps of the Temple of Fame, while he has been hidden among the crowd during his life, and died at last, solitary and sorrowful, in a foreign land.

TURLOUGH CAROLAN.

THIS minstrel bard, sweet as impressive, will long claim remembrance, and float down the stream of time, whilst poesy and harmony have power to charm. He was born in the year 1670, in the village of Nodder, in the county of Westmeath, on the lands of Carolan's town, which were wrested from his ancestors by the family of the Nugents, on their arrival in this kingdom, with King Henry II. His father was a poor farmer, the humble proprietor of a few acres, which afforded him a scanty subsistence. Of his mother little is known;-probably the daughter of a neighbouring peasant, in the choice of whom, his father was guided rather by nature than by prudence.

It was in his infancy that Carolan was deprived of his sight by the small-pox. This deprivation he supported with cheerfulness, and would merrily say, "my eyes are transplanted into my ears." His musical genius was soon discovered, and procured him many friends, who determined to aid its cultivation, and at the age of twelve, a master was engaged to instruct him on the harp; but his diligence in the regular modes of instruction was not great, yet

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his harp was rarely unstrung, for his intuitive genius assisted him in composition, whilst his fingers wandered amongst the strings, in quest of the sweets of melody. In a few years this "child of song" became enamoured of Miss Briget Cruise. His harp, now inspired by love, would only echo to the sound; though this lady did not give him her hand, it is imagined she did not deny him her heart, but, like Apollo, when he caught at the nymph "he filled his arms with bays," and the song which bears her name is considered his chef-d'œuvre; it came warm from his heart, while his genius was in its full vigour.

Our bard, however, after a time, solaced himself for the loss of Miss Cruise, in the arms of Miss Mary Maguire, a young lady of good fa mily in the county of Fermanagh. She was gifted in a small degree with both pride and extravagance, but she was the wife of his choice, he loved her tenderly, and lived harmoniously with her. On his entering into the connubial state, he fixed his residence on a small farm near Moshill, in the county of Leitrim: here he built a neat little house, in which he practised hospitality on a scale more suited to his mind than to his means: his profusion speedily consumed the

produce of his little farm, and he was soon left to lament the want of prudence, without which the rich cannot taste of pleasure long, or the poor of happiness.

At length Carolan commenced the profession of an itinerant musician. Wherever he went, the gates of the nobility and others were thrown open to him; he was received with respect, and a distinguished place assigned him at the table: Carolan," says Mr. Ritson, seems, from the description we have of him, to be a genuine representative of the ancient bard."

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It was during his peregrinations that Carolan composed all those airs which are still the delight of his countrymen. He thought the tribute of a song due to every house in which he was entertained, and he seldom failed to pay it, choosing for his subject either the head of the family, or the loveliest of its branches.

The period now approached at which Carolan's feelings were to receive a violent shock. In the year 1733, the wife of his bosom was torn from him by the hand of death, and as soon as the transport of his grief was a little subsided, he composed a monody teeming with harmony and poetic beauties. Carolan did not continue

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