In a letter written to his father, Christmas Day, 1813, he says: "There is nothing in the intercourse with strangers to compensate one for the absence of kindred; but I must not murmur against what cannot be avoided. The festival of Christmas reminds me that I am desolate. There is no equivalent for the peace and blessings I have hitherto enjoyed at our Christmas hearth." Poor Banim gave expression then to the feelings of many an exiled Celt, who yearned for the "Christmas hearth," at home. anew. After two years of separation, the artist of eighteen summers returned to the old hearth-stone, and was fortunate in securing a lucrative situation as teacher of drawing in one of the boarding-schools of his native city. And now the old drama in which the poet-painter was to take his part was enacted Annie D, a boarder in the academy where he professed drawing, was, we are told, “fair, bright-eyed, full of the fresh beauty of seventeen, artless, innocent and pure-minded." Her teacher, only one year her senior, forgot the grave moral of the history of the tutor Abelard and the pupil Eloise; and, day after day, a deep ardent passion grew within his breast and ripened into a love strong and abiding, which on the part of Annie was reciprocated. Many a sunny morn and dewy eve saw the young artist and his plighted Annie, as they went their way to the favorite trysting place on the flowery banks of the Nore, ostensibly for the purpose of sketching landscape views, but in reality to talk of love, which is closely connected with, and always had the greatest influence on, the fine arts of painting and poetry. Of the many effusions to the idol of his heart, space will permit us to select only one, and that must be very short: I thank thee, high and holy pow'r, That thus upon my natal hour, If thy dispensing hand had given I'd change them all for Anna's smile. Annie's father, a country squire, hearing of his daughter's attachment, took means' of cutting off all communication between the lovers; but "love that laughs at locksmiths" soon found means of evading the vigilance of the squire, and correspondence was kept up until Annie was removed from the boarding school and forced to return the miniature, letters and poems of her lover. The poor girl brooded over the passion of her heart until it sapped her vitality, and, as her father was unrelenting in his determination that she should never see John Banim, she died in despair and of a broken heart. Being informed of Annie's death and of her fidelity to him during so trying and painful a separation, the noble-hearted painter was inconsolable. Being too poor to hire a vehicle, he started on foot for the home of his affianced, some twenty miles distant. It was a cold, rainy November day, and when he reached the corpse of his beloved that night he felt footsore, weary and wet. Entering the house cheek and shrunken he gazed silently on the pallid form which once seemed so beautiful to him. That warm heart and lively, laughing eye were now stilled in death. The agony which his features betrayed, as he stood there beside the bier, attracted attention, and revealed the lover of the deceased girl. Her sister, recognizing Banim, rudely ordered him from the house. He retired to an outhouse, where he fell into a dreamy stupor, which lasted until the funeral cortege was formed next morning. He had not tasted a morsel since the preceding morning; but grief had banished all cravings of hunger, and he only looked for the privilege of seeing his Annie once more before the coffin-lid closed forever on her cherished form. He followed the hearse to the churchyard, saw the last sod placed over her grave, and then, the mourners having departed, cast himself almost unconscious on the mound that marked the final resting-place of all that was dearest to him on earth. How long he remained in this position no one knows. Next day his brother found him some distance from Kilkenny, in a half conscious state, and prostrate, almost, in body and mind. The stamina of life was buried with his first love, ambition fled, and his taste for literature and painting lay dormant for a long time. After a year of prostration and pain, Banim's health returned, and with it his love of literature. Like Gerald Griffin, he first became a contributor and then editor of a local newspaper, the Leinster Gazette. Finding this position ill suited to his taste and independent spirit, he moved to Dublin in 1820, where he wrote not only for the metropolitan press, but also for several country papers. Here he became acquainted with Charles Philips, the poet and orator, who had then published his poem entitled "The Emerald Isle," also with Shiel, William Curran and Lord Cloncurry. To the latter he dedicated his first long poem, "The Celt's Paradise," for which he obtained £20 from Warren, the publisher, of Bond street, London. This successful adventure in the region of literature prompted the young artist, like Lover and Hazlitt, to relinquish the brush for a mightier instrument, and to launch into the literary ocean. At his very outset he wrote the tragedy, "Damon and Pythias," which his fellow-countryman, Macready, the "reformer of the stage," produced at Covent Garden Theatre in May, 1821. This being a complete success, like Lord Byron, Banim might have said: "I rose next morning a famous man." In London he conceived the idea of rivalling Scott as a novelist, and for that purpose entered into partnership with his brother Michael, to whom he wrote the following instructive letter, which we give here, hoping it may be of some value to the young readers who aspire to literary distinction: LONDON, May 2d, 1824. "MY DEAR MICHAEL-I have read attentively, and with the greatest pleasure, the portion of the tale you sent me by J. H. So far as it goes, I pronounce that you have been successful. Two of the personages do not stand out sufficiently from the canvas. Aim at distinctness and at individuality of character. Open Shakespeare, and read a play of his; then turn to the list of dramatis personae and see and feel what he has done in this way. "Of a dozen characters, each is himself alone. Look about you; bring to mind the persons you have known; call them up before you; select and copy them. Never give a person an action to do who is not a legible individual. Make that a rule, and I think it ought to be a primary rule with novel writers. Suppose one was to get a sheet of paper, draw up thereon a list of persons, and after their names write down what kind of human beings they shall be, leaving no two alike, and not one generalized or undrawn. After Shakespeare, Scott is the great master-hand of character, and hence, one of his sources of great |