Faintly as tolls the evening chime Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. These are specimens of Master Tom's rogueries ;-of the man, who because Sheridan called him a "little lascivious butterfly," cooly sat down to slander and disgrace his departed friend, and did so under the mask of regard for his reputation. And now having heard them, will you not agree with me in the propriety of addressing Moore with the same compliment which Homer pays Mercury ; Τουτο γαρ ουν και επειτα μετ' αθανατοις γερας έξει to Immortal honour awaits thee, O Thomas Little! for thou shalt be known to all posterity as the chief of thieves. I find I have delivered a long oration, so, Keleher, pass the bottle. If it be the sun of our table, it is right that it should go round. THE LATE WILLIAM MAGINN, LL.D. Ω νθρωπε κεισαι-ζων ἔτι μαλλον των ύπο γης εκείνων.— SIMONIDES apud ARISTID. On Saturday the 20th. of August, just as the Morning Star began to glitter in the firmament, and the early sunbeams to come forth, died William Maginn, LL.D., in the 49th. year of his age; and on the Monday week following, his earthly remains were deposited in the quiet little churchyard of Walton-upon-Thames, the hamlet in which he breathed his last. His funeral was quite private, and was attended only by a very few friends, who loved him fondly while he lived, and venerate his memory now that he is gone; and the tears that fell upon his grave were the last sad tribute to as true and warm and beautiful a soul, as ever animated a human breast. The place in which he is buried is one, that his own choice might have selected, for the Spirit of Repose itself seems to dwell around it, and lends a new charm to its rustic beauty. No noise is ever heard there but the rustling of the trees, or the gay chirp of the summer blackbirds, or the echo of the solemn hymns, as they ascend to heaven in music on the sabbath. Strangely contrasted, indeed, is its peacefulness with the troublous scenes of his many-coloured life, and provocative of pensive reflection the gentle silence that invests it like a spell. The rude villager, as he passes over his grave, little dreams of the splendid intellect that slumbers beneath; or the host of sweet and noble traits that lived within the heart already mouldering under his feet into a clod of the valley. But his genius has already sanctified the ground, lending to it the magic which entwines itself with the homes or tombs of celebrated men-rendering it henceforward a classic and muse-haunted solitude, to which history will point; and making it for all time a spot to which the scholar will piously resort, and where the young enthusiast of books will linger long and idolatrously in the soft sunlight or beneath the radiant stars. The character of Maginn, while he lived, was but little understood; and now that he is dead, we hope it will not be misrepresented. Yet rarely has a man of such exalted genius passed from among us without winning that universal celebrity which he so eminently deserved. This disadvantage was chiefly owing to his having confined the labours of his mind to periodical literature alone; but in that department who so brightly shone as he? Who so universal in his knowledge—so profound in his wisdom -so eloquent in advocating the Constitution and the Protestantism of these realms-so intrepid in resisting the march of Revolution and Infidelity, and in exposing the flimsy veil of sophistry and falsehood in which the demagogues of all times have wrapped up their real designs, and seduced the unthinking-so terse and brilliant in epigram-so appropriate in anecdote-so simple and luminous in style-so playful and original in wit? Pronounced by a high and amiable authority* abler than 6 * Dr. Moir-the far famed Delta of Blackwood. Coleridge,' he lived without attaining the fame of that extraordinary man; declared by another deep and intellectual observer* of his character to be quite equal to Swift,' he never achieved the authority in literature, or the renown that mantled round the head of St. Patrick's Dean. But great, indeed, and illustrious must have been the genius, which could thus secure the eulogy of two men whose opinions must carry with them respect and consideration, and whose abilities and virtues vouch for the value and the sincerity of their sentiments. A brief summary of the leading points of his intellect, will enable us to judge whether these praises were inconsiderately conferred, or were the gift of close and accurate observation: and whether to him also may not be applied the saying of Plato on Aristophanes. that the Graces had built themselves a temple in his bosom,' or the still loftier encomium pronounced by Selden on the learned Heinsius, 'Tam severorum quam amaniorum literarum Sol'-a master of all literature-of the beautiful and sublime, of the graceful and the profound. The first and chief attribute of his mind was its Originality. The works of no distinguished man, within our own reading at least, display the same vein of thought and style. There is scarcely a subject on which he has written that he has not treated it in a new manner, illuminating the grave by the liveliness of his fancy, colouring the witty by the solidity of his judgment; for he possessed * Dr. Macnish the Modern Pythagorean. both in an extraordinary degree, and his mind resembled a mine of gold, curiously prankt on the surface with flowers, but truly valuable within. Nor was his genius acquired by long and patient study; on the contrary, it beamed very beautifully in his earliest years-the fair aurora of his future brilliancy. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in his tenth year, and was a doctor of laws in his twenty-fifth-a precocity rivalled but by that of Wolsey, who was a bachelor when only fourteen. And though his reading was immense, no man was less of a copyist of other men's thoughts, a stealer of other men's fire, than William Maginn. His memory was the strongest in the world, and was a rich storehouse of all learning, so that he might with propriety be called, like the sublime Longinus, the living library.' Often when in want of some scholastic illustration for our own writings, have we applied to him, and never did we ask in vain. Quotations the most apposite; episodes the most befitting; obscure points of literary history, an elucidation of which we had ineffectually hunted for; sketches of minor literary men of other lands, the difficulty of finding which those conversant with such studies alone can appreciate; stray lines and sentences from authors read only once in a century, and quoted but as curiosities: parallel passages in the Greek and Latin and Italian and German authors :-all these he could refer to without a moment's deliberation, as easily as if they had formed the business of his whole life. And yet, like Scott, no eye ever saw him reading. |