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. Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging; Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about the summer waters." 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 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 family 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 hospi→ tality 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.” 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 long in this "vale of sorrow after the decease of his wife. While on a visit at the house of Mrs. McDermot, of Alderford, in the county of Roscommon, he expired in the month of March, 1738, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and was interred in the parish-church of Killronañ, in the diocese of Avedagh, but "not a stone tells where he lies." says The manner of his death has been variously related; but that his excessive partiality for a more sparkling stream than flows at Helicon, was the cause of his decease, is a point that all his biographers have agreed on. Goldsmith "his death was not more remarkable than his life. Homer was never more fond of a glass than he. He would drink whole pints of usquebaugh, and, as he used to think, without any ill consequence. His intemperance, however, in this respect, at length brought on an incurable disorder, and when just at the point of death, he called for a cup of his beloved liquor. Those who were standing round him, surprised at the demand, endeavoured to persuade him to the contrary, but he persisted; and when the bowl was brought him, attempted to drink but could not; wherefore, giving away the bowl, he obser |