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pleasures, guilt and remorse, grief and fear, distress and agony of soul? Do revelation and reason, death and judgment, do all your sober and retired thoughts preach you this one lesson, repentance? And yet can you resolve to plunge yourselves in that filthiness which must be washed off with tears? Can you resolve to indulge those cheating and deceitful lusts which will one day fill your soul with shame and sorrow, with distraction, horror, and amazement?

Ah, infatuation! ah, bewitchery! that ever a rational creature should live in such an open defiance and hostility against his reason! And yet, if repentance, after many years, and innumerable sins, would be more easy; if your sins would be more easily conquered, or more easily atoned; this frenzy would not want some little color. But how contrary is this to truth.

THE LIFE OF T. CAROLAN,

THE CELEBRATED IRISH MUSICIAN AND LYRICAL WRITER

"Erin from her green throne surveys

The progress of her tuneful son,
Exulting as the minstrel plays,

At the applause his harp has won.

Then grieve not for the loss that shades
Fair nature's landscape from your view;
The genius that no gloom invades,
She gave in recompense to you."

CAROLAN was born in 1670, in the village of Nobber, in the county of Westmeath. He is among the last of the Irish bards of any distinction. His father was a poor farmer, the humble proprietor of a few acres, which yielded him a scanty subsistence. Carlan lost his sight at a very early age, by the smallрох. He soon evinced a fondness for music and poetry, and received every encouragement from his friends that their limited means would allow. At twelve years of age he commenced a thorough course of musical study, under a proficient master, who instructed him upon the harp; but unfortunately for him, his remarkable genius was not coupled with that rigid application so requisite to success. Genius seldom makes diligence her companion: her perfect cre

ations appear at her bidding, and if nature does not give them breath, she disowns her offspring.

Carolan spent the most of his life as an itinerant musician, singing at the houses of the great, where he never failed to meet with a cordial welcome. He thought the tribute of a song due to every house in which he was entertained, and never failed to pay it, choosing for his subject either the head of the family, or some one of its loveliest members. He is said to have composed upward of four hundred pieces; and contributed much towards correcting and enriching the style of national Irish music, by his productions. He alternately tried almost every style of music, the elegiac, the festive, the amorous, and the sacred; and has so much excelled in each, that we scarcely know to which of them his genius was best adapted. Among the numerous instances in which he displayed a knowledge of harmony and purity of taste, not common to the Irish at that period, the following is perhaps the most striking :

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His fame as a musician having reached the ears of an eminent Italian music-master in Dublin, he devised a plan for atting his abilities to a very severe test. He singled out an elegant piece of music in the Italian style; but here and there he altered or mutilated it, in such a manner that none but a real judge could detect the alterations. Carolan, quite unaware that it was intended as a trial of his skill, gave the deepest attention to the performer who played the piece, thus altered, in his presence. He then de

clared it to be an excellent piece of music; but, to the astonishment and satisfaction of the company, added humorously, 'but here and there it limps and stumbles.' He was then requested to rectify the errors, which he accordingly did. In this state the piece was sent back to Dublin; and the Italian master no sooner saw the amendments, than he cordially pronounced Carolan to be a true musical genius.

Aside from his superior musical abilities, he was a very fair poet, and has left coupled to his music many fine lyric poems. As music always tends to soften and refine the feelings, and to kindle in the soul deep and ardent passions, Carolan was by no means exempt from this rule. Being frequently dependent upon others for kind offices, and perhaps sometimes accused by them of ingratitude, he no doubt felt most keenly, at times, his forlorn and friendless condition. When he grew to manhood, there was a time when his harp could only reëcho the impulses of love. About this time he became warmly attached to a young lady by the name of Bridget Cruise. But Bridget, it appears, did not unite her lot with his; and he afterward loved and married Mary Maguire, of a good family, in the county of Fermanagh. After this event, he built him a neat little house, on a small farm near Mars-hill, where he lived, it is said, more merrily than wisely.

An interesting anecdote is related of our blind poet and musician, in which it appears he was able to recognise a very dear friend, who had long been ab

sent, by the shape of her hand. Many years after his marriage, he went on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory, a cave in the island of Soughderg, Donegal; and on returning to the shore, met several pilgrims waiting the arrival of the boat that conveyed him. On assisting some of these into the boat, his hand unexpectedly met one which caused him to start, and he instantly exclaimed, "This is the hand. of Bridget Cruise!" His sense of feeling had not deceived him. It was the hand of her he had once loved so passionately. It is by no means uncommon for the blind to recognise their friends by touching their hands; yet the narrator of this anecdote, (as though fearful the account might be thought fabulous and legendary in a few generations,) adds: "I had this anecdote from his own mouth, and in terms which gave me a strong impression of the emotion which he felt on meeting the object of his early affection."

By many it is thought wonderful, that blind persons should be able to recognise their friends by the sound of their voices, or the peculiar form of their hands. To us, it appears no more strange, than that the seeing should recognise a friend by the countenance he is in the habit of wearing every day; to say nothing of the one he has in reserve for extra occasions. The reserve is only a counterfeit of the one nature gave him, though perhaps a little more highly carved and polished. If there are some faces more striking than others, there are some voices more at

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