The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 28, 1857.

only for want of a better book. The subject
did not allow that admirable writer to show
his peculiar powers. " Mastery over language"
was by no means a special characteristic of
Swift. The rhetoric of exalted passions, of
romantic sensibility, ef high-toned enthusiasm,
was not amongst his gifts. His " Anglicism "
of style was genuine and idiomatic, but the
comparative narrowness of its limits can be
at once seen by contrasting his style with the
prose works of Dryden. But Swift, we do not
forget, had a pure grammar and precision of
syntax which were often wanted in Dryden,
who indulged too much in what he has himself
called " his !idly way of writing." The re•
ference to Bentley should have been more
special and minute ; while the sentence
on Pope is a curiosity for its length,
besides being most faulty in its grammar. Its
" and's " and " as's" remind one of the in-
tricacies of " Rosamond's Bower." But
passages like this are not common in the
volume.

It is likely that this work may reach another
edition, and we advise Mr. Yonge to cite his
authorities, and to add a good index. His-
torical works can be more easily enlarged than
almost any other kind of composition.

The Life of John Baitint, the Irish Novelist. By
Patrick Joseph Murray. London: Lay.
WE can easily understand that this is not a
species of biography likely to find favour with
a particular class of critics. The fash;on of
the present time is to make the hero of a
biography little more than a peg on which to
hang a certain amount of literary or antiqua-
rian anecdote. The stream of his existence is
scarcely visible as it creeps along between the
tangled mass of gossip, dissertation, and com-
mentary with which it is overgrown. We do
not mean to deny that works of this kind are
often very pleasant reading. As a narrow
brook, with its reeds and sedges and thick
overhanging hawthorns, may be more pictu-
resque than a river, so an essay on the Irish
litterateurs of Banitn's day would doubtless be
a very agreeable and interesting volume, but
Banim himself would be smothered by it.
We want to have the man brought out into
the light—to see him by himself, and not
merely as one of a class. Now, this one great
object is just what Mr. Murray has accom-
plished. There is no pretension about his
book whatever. He makes no attempt to
show off a range of miscellaneous reading, or
that large acquaintance with little things for
which so many contemporary memoir-writers
are distinguished. He has given us a simple
and straightforward narrative of Banim's
career—his struggles, joys, and sorrows from
his birth to his death—and has produced, we
are bound to confess, as interesting a tale as
it has often been our pleasure to peruse. One
piece of advice we may perhaps tender to Mr.
Murray without giving him offence, and that
is, to moderate in future the excessively Car-
lylesque tone of his style. His opening pages
are greatly disfiguted by this unfortunate
peculiarity. None can wield Mr. Carlyle's pen
but himself. In any other hand it scrawls,
and splutters, and blotches, till the paper is
pretty well spoiled.
John Banim was born at Kilkenny on the
3rd of April, 1798—an ominous year. His
father was a respectable yeoman, but with so
much intelligence as to desire a good educa-
tion for his children. John was sent to school
in his fourth year, and after numerous changes,
completed his studies in Kilkenny College ; a
seminary from which many famous Irishmen
have proceeded—among others, Bishop
Berkeley, and, according to Mr. Murray, Dean
Swift. Banim, like Pope, was a precocious
author, and in his tenth year being struck
with Tom Moore's appearance at the Kilkenny
Theatre, he called on the bard next morning
with a copy of verses:—
Moore, remembering probably the trembling anxiety
with which he had, in his fourteenth year, sent " the
attempts of a youthful muse " to the editor of " The
Anthologia Hibernica," and the " honour end glory " which
he enjoyed when he found himself, shortly afterwards,
called " our esteemed correspondent T. M.," received his
odd little visitor kindly. He read a few of the verses,
inquired as to his progress at school, advised him to be
attentive and diligent, and closed the interview by asking,
if there was anything he could do to oblige " his brother