this charge is groundless: Mr. Markham as a poet is truly original, and

"There's only one slight difference between Him and his epic brethren gone before"

that two people happened to hit upon the same thought, and one made use of it first, that's all. Now let us produce some parallel passages.

BYRON.

"Even as the simoom sweeps the blasted plains."

MARKHAM.

"Like the simoom that wither'd as it pass'd."

BYRON.

BYRON.

"From his baldric drew

His bugle."

MARK.

"His bugle from his baldric he unstrung."

ROBIN HOOD.

"And a fat buck went bounding o'erthe lea.'

MARKHAM.

"Its swelling notes went bounding o'er the lea.'

BYRON.

"One effort-one-to break the circling host!" They form-unite-charge-waver-all is lost!"

MARK.

We think these extracts will establish the resemblance we asserted as existing between the Author of the "Corsair" and the " Bard of the Glens," and we have clearly traced striking similarities to authors dead and aliveknown and anonymous. One only of our discovered likenesses remains unproven, and that is the strong coincidence of conception in Mr. Markham, and the Great Unknown" who produced that unmatched and unmatchable lyric, intituled, "The Groves of Blarney."

In the second canto, where Macdonald is defeated, and Hope commits a a faux pas―

"But now the slippery dame had gone astray,"

the hero is naturally enough dolorous and cast down, and mark the in

MARKHAM,

"Flew to her lord, and clung to his embrace."

BYRON.

"List! 'tis the bugle,

One kiss--one more-another-oh! adieu !"

MARK.

"Hark to the bugle's thrilling swell! One kiss-adieu-another-oh! farewell!"

of the Glens" adopts to restore his confidence. Nothing but the simple expedient of employing an Irish thrush!

"But while his prospects doubt enwrapt in mist,

A little bird sung in his ear-PERSIST!"

There's a contrivance to renovate

abandon Repeal for ever.

"And, tho' like bears they have tied us to a

stake

Yet e'en in chains we'll red destruction make.”

This shall close our quotations. Can any one be more naive and desperate?

But in one thing the Bard of the Glens is unrivalled, and that is, the In cursing department of epic poetry.

this we hold ourselves to be excellent

judges. We have heard a Connaught priest anathematize a refractory congregation-we have read the curse of Kahama-heard of that of Cromwell, and read Sir Jonah Barrington's version of "the Glorious Memory," "the great guns of Athlone," and "the Bishop of Cork" included; but before all these give us Mother Macquillan's !

If the reader has a doubt, we refer him to canto 3, stanzas 34, 5, 6, and 7, and we will wager our Perryian pen, (third patent and silver holder), to the stump of " a grey goose," that in the English language no execration shall be produced to equal" the Avenged Bride's."

Before we take leave of" The Bard of the Glens," and we do so reluctantly, we must observe, that while perusing"The Avenged Bride," it struck us forciblyhow much this interesting poem had suffered from an evident dislike on the author's part, to employ occasionally his own sweet and euphonious vernacular. Mr. Markham must be aware that in the art of book-making, the more languages an artist can lug in the better. What, let us ask, has obtained for Milady Morgan so much admiration and abuse? Nothing, setting politics and her knighthood" aside, but her happy adaptation of divers tongues, foreign and domestic. Whether, while interchanging with a cardinal "the top of the morning," the ould Doctor, all is done in good or requiring a squeeze of lemon from French, or "very choice Italian." To mark the truth of our critique, we may mald is killed, and the heroine, perquote the couplet where Ned Macdoceiving that he is demolished, naturally enough requests the dead man

to tell her so :

66

"Edward! 'tis thine Adelia; speak, speak, speak!

Edward! oh, my poor heart, when wilt thou break ?"

2

and this question remaining unanswered, the next is naturally concerning the reason of the celabitur auctor. Now, unfortunately, this is even more difficult than the former, as it cannot be answered without the aid of the author himself, whereas the other perhaps may. He has not, however, left us altogether in ignorance of his motives for concealment, as in an advertisement prefixed to the fifth edition of Natural History of Enthusiasm" he intimates his opinion that he may thereby "better be the instrument of effecting good;" and then proceeds as follows:-"Those who will still ask, Why should not the author now declare himself? may, if they please, suppose that he is engaged in a task more arduous than the one he has already accomplished, the difficulty and peculiar delicacy of which press so heavily upon him, that he is glad to keep free from those secondary motives that might disturb him were he to step out from his obscurity."

The question, How can the concealment of his name the better enable him to do good? involves some curious considerations, which it may not be amiss to mention. In the first place, supposing the author to have been previously unknown to the public, as well in that capacity as in any other, a work of intrinsic merit could gain nothing by having his name appended, and might probably lose, by wanting the additional recommendation of a stimulus to inquiry, as well as of the possibility of its emanating from some distinguished individual. If, under these circumstances, it is successful, its authorship then becomes the best claim to public confidence, which might be even partially diminished by the discovery of its obscure parentage. If, again, he were already a public character, it is questionable whether it might not, on the whole, suffer more than it could gain by being acknowledged. None but feeble and shallow minds require the passport of a great name ere they can venture to pronounce a favourable judgment-minds like that of the vain critic who condemned as poor and worthless that very poem (Essay on Man) which, had he known it to be Pope's, he would have been the first to extol. On the other hand, as some strong minds have been blinded by

prejudice to the merits even of a Milton, similar feelings might operate here, and the resulting depreciation be greater than the advantage that might be gained by the extrinsic aid of authority.

name,

There is yet another case supposable. The author may have already appeared before the public in his own and his acknowledged productions may have even been such as were not unworthy of the reputation he subsequently attained in his anonymous capacity; and yet, from accident, caprice, or want of the usual accessory modes of gaining attention, they may not have been so successful as they deserved. Now, suppose farther, that, anxious so to give to the world his opinions on certain momentous points as that they should make the strongest possible impression, he conceived the most likely way to succeed would be to stimulate curiosity by appearing in a mask, and calling in the aid of mystery; he would surely act wisely in adopting such a plan of proceeding. Now, we have a strong suspicion that our last supposition is nearest the truth; and as the author no longer needs any such adventitious aids, and has, we think, completely established his right to speak boldly and be listened to respectfully; if we stretch forth our hand it will be to endeavour to pluck off, not the wreath that sits with so much credit on his brows, but the mask that has hitherto prevented the world from knowing to whom the credit was due. When the strangers of Corinth discovered that the Plato whom they so earnestly desired to see was identical with the pleasing and unassuming individual with whom they had been holding such familiar converse, their first emotions of surprise and pleasure were perhaps not unmingled with disappointment at finding that the renowned philosopher was not much unlike other men, except in superior amiability: but, if men of sense and correct feelings, they must only have thought the more highly of him afterwards. We are not singular, either, in the opinion we are about to deliver, and which, as far as we are concerned, is founded principally on a strong similarity in manner and style, wherever the subject admitted of it, and a striking coincidence in sentiment and phraseo

logy, that the author of "Natural History of Enthusiasm" and the author of "The Process of Historical Proof" is one and the same person, Mr. Isaac Taylor.

It will naturally be expected that we should produce some of those instances of coincidence which have led us to this conclusion, in order to enable our readers to judge for themselves how far it was warranted: at all events, we think we shall clearly show that it has not been hastily or unadvisedly deduced. In the extracts we are about to bring forward for this purpose, we have marked in italics the words and sentences to which we would direct particular attention on account of their coincidence.

In the Process of Historical Proof," (London, 1828,) we find, in pp. 143, 144, 145, and 148, the following pas

sages:

"Though not of the most frequent occurrence, yet neither are fanatical excesses so rare as that their proper characteristics should be unknown. Nor is there any peculiar difficulty, either in defining the elements, or in describing the appearances of that state of mind to which the term fanaticism belongs. The primary ingredient of this vice is enthusiasm, which, as connected with the religious emotions, may be termed a passionate and unreasoning expectation of supernal benefits. Enthusiasm, in its simple state, is a mild disorder of the imagination. But to this element, almost innoxious if alone, fanaticism adds a mixture of the malignant passions; the excitement, thus sharpened and inflamed by the poison of atred, becomes in the highest degree dangerous to the subject of it, and mis chievous to society. Enthusiasm is an error; fanaticism a vice. The one produces follies; the other crimes. Armed with power, fanaticism snatches at the word, the brand, the rack. Oppressed, and deprived of the means of active harm, the same passion inspires an iron fortitude in the endurance of self-inflicted torments, or a brazen contumacy in contemning the tortures inflicted by another. The same prison-court, or the same hall of justice, has not seldom exhibited, at ence, both the phases of fanaticism. There sits one fanatic on the judgment seat! and there writhes another fanatic on the rack!....... .The indications of the vice with which he [the fanatic] is

VOL. VI.

infected will show themselves in every word, in every look; for, in every word, in every look, there will be, at once, an element of extravagance and an element of malignity.......... Where in this epistle [ Peter] is there the touch of extravagance? or where do we discover that dash of malignity-that envenomed fang of misanthropy, which is the proper indication of fanaticism?"

Let us next turn to "Fanaticism,"

(1833,) and in pp. 28, 29, 30, 84, 85, and 87, we shall read as follows:

"Discordances, still more extreme, belong to the popular senses of the word FANATICISM; for, inasmuch as it takes up a more pungent element than the term enthusiasm, it commonly draws some special emphasis from the virulence or prejudices of the mouth whence it issues....... tive religious emotions were spoken of: In another volume, spurious and imagina

.......

our present task is to describe the various combinations of the same spurious pietism with the malign passions. After quite rejecting from our account that opprobrious sense of the word fanaticism which the virulent calumniator of religion and of the religious assigns to it, it will be found, as we believe, that the elementary idea attaching to the term in its manifold applications is that of fictitious fervour in religion, rendered turbulent, morose, or rancorous, by junction with some one or more of the unsocial emotions: or if a definition as brief as possible were demanded, we should say that fanaticism is enthusiasm inflamed by hatred. ..... But the fanatic, inasmuch as he is an enthusiast born, must take up yet another and a more sparkling element of character; and it is nothing else than the supposition of corrupt favouritism on the part of the deity he worships, towards himself and the faction of which he is a member. The fanatic-and this we must keep in mind is not a simple misanthrope, nor the creature of sheer hatred and cruelty: he does not move like a venomous reptile, lurking in a crevice or winding silent through the grass, but soars in mid heaven as a fiery flying serpent, and looks down from on high upon whom he hates. Imaginative by temperament, his emotions are allied to hope and presumption more closely than to fear and despondency: he firmly believes, therefore, in the favour of the supernal powers towards their faithful votaries; and, in expectation of still more signal boons than yet he has received,