426.

Mr. Phillips's Speech.

[VOL. 4

the presumption of Prometheus, we have called down fire from Heaven...with the wing of Dædalus we have traversed the ambient oceans of air...but is the happiness social man extended? Have we improved in the art of Legislation ?...Those questions you have heard admirably answered by my booourable friend, to whose eloquent expositions you have listened with such deep delight— hear! hear!] let it be my task to point out less observable evils...look to the University of Ireland! She weeps for her children, and will not be comforted, for they are not. ...The voice of the HISTORICAL SOCIETY' is silent...dust hath defiled the volumes that re cord the glorious and gigantic march of Genius... the bookworm hath battened on the

at the altar of history; they heard not of that lever, whose pressure is the present, whose power is the past, whose fulcrum is the future: they thought not on the ruins of Rome; they looked not to the example of Athens; they thought not on that fallen nation, whose merchants were the princes of the earth. No! they were chaunting their idle paans of praise; they were parading through the palaces of Paris, they were visiting the vallies of Waterloo! Basking in the delightful delusion, they were lulled into a dull and dreamy repose by the courtly lays of the laureat, or sublimated to a frantic enthusiasm by the inebriate inspiration of another prophet of the lakes, a very Montorio of madness, a lay preacher, one who dreams dreams, and sees visions, forsooth.---Well-treasures of thought...the triumphs and the no matter---his fantastic feats of German jugglery are applauded!---I strove to break the slumber of death, but mine was the voice of one crying in the wilderness---Wo to those who bow down at the altars of National Insolvency----their deity is a demon---their shrine is the table of the money-changerthe incense of their adoration is wafted on the tainted sighs of an injured and insulted people; the bread of their impious communion is moistened with sweat, and leavened with the blood of indigence :---the minister----but need I name the ministers of the accursed sacrifice! [Name! name! no! no!] Oh! I loathe the sickening scene of senatorial servility---of Plebeian prostration !---if we must have a Parliament, why are its numbers limited? Why is its sphere of action confined in this æra of universal genius, when mind at length asserts its inherent om nipotence over the essential grossness, and the accidental fluctuations of matter, why is not the intellectual strength of the kingdom represented ?---but mark, for a moment, the wretched policy of these borough-mongering sinecurists--they deify Wealth--they despise Wisdom---like the mechanic---whose eye turns hastily from the hill of Howth, from the -harbour of Dunleary, and rests in delighted repose on the tin tube---the whirling wheels, and all the mean and miserable machinery of the steam-boat!

trophies of Literature... Solitude sits in the chambers, where Age gazed in mute admiration, while Youth hastened to decide...where Wisdom watched with wonder the wild and wanton wing of Eloquence, as it rose in unimaginable fight, above the calculating ken of minds, corrupted by the cold contagions of self-vaunting Pride,....clouded by coarse communion with self-sufficient prejudice. [Hear! hear!] Pass where the hurricane hath past!...visit the vale which the earthquake hath visited !...where the bank bloomed with beauty, where the flower flourished, where the river rolled and reflected the lovely and luxuriant landscape, where the wild bird caunted his carols of thoughtless praise...behold the rifted rock...rugged and ragged...black with lightning and barren of vegetation...behold the putrid and offensive spots, poisoned and polluted by pestilential pools, where the liquid loveliness, that now lingers in loathsome stagnation, once cheered and charmed the sense of musing meditation. Such is that theatre of thought !...such that circus of competition!...that focus of fancy, to which all the rays of genius converged, in which all the gleams of poetry and all the glow of oratory, the impassioned emphasis...the articulate alliteration...were collected and concentred. Oh I could dwell on the radiant retrospect for a measureless eternity! I could console myself for the contemptuous contumely of the critic, by "Better, far better were the slavery of the reverting to those days...of rapture, which African, than, the boasted birthright of the dullness could not depress...of reputation, Briton.... What though he toils beneath a tor- which awoke the envy of no enemy! These, rid Sun....what though he shrinks under the my friends, are the rich recollections, that Scourge of the taskmaster, what though for shed a long line of lustre on the lawn of life ages he has vainly waited for the Avatar of...these are the charming associations, that spirit, whose fiat shall burst the fetters that, cherished in childhood, mingle with of his political thraldom....what though the the memory of man. .that make the heart a chains of a tyrant gall his dusky arms, can habitation of delightful images...a spirit that the pangs of bodily torture rival in intensity raises the soul above the clouds and cares of the agonjes of the mind?....Our slavery is sublunary scenery, a pillar of glory, whose the slavery of the soul !....Our chains are the pedestal is earth, whose pinnacle is eternity. chains of the heart! Listen not to the...[Bursts of unsophisticated admiration. ]” schemes of these black and bloated Vampires, that rise from the vaults of Corruption and Rottenness, to feast upon the heart and

the hopes, upon the blessings and the blood of their country!....years have glided by.... generations have passed away....even centuries....those vast segments of the circle of time, have waned and wasted.... Literature

hath advanced... Poetry hath extended her

reigu... Eloquence is the attribute of universal man...Science hath spread her conquests from the University to the Universe...with

The Printer's Devil has just hinted to us, that this is not a Speech of Mr. Phillips' at all-and that we have been imposed upon. If so, we beg Mr. Phillips' pardon for our stupidity, and

return thanks to the author of the

Speech, whoever he is, for the amusement he has afforded us.

it certaines does not belong to The Willig, thoug it is are attempt It a card one two to imitate his styl.

Venice-Rome-Tivoli-Ancient Buildings.

ITALY AND SICILY.

TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY. BY AUGUSTUS WILLIAM KEPHALIDES.

From the Literary Gazette.

Jupiter at Girgenti (Agrigentum,) was The Temple of the Olympian the most colossal of antiquity, and so large, that it was indeed never finished, yet people flocked from all quarters to see it: and how diminutive is it, compared to the largest churches of Eu dwelling-houses must have been still rope! not to mention St. Peter's. The more confined, which is most clearly to be seen at Pompeii. The ancients in their houses must have crowded one fore they examine the remains of ananother like swine. People, betiquity, should carefully clip the wings of all extravagant ideas.

upon

TIVOLI.-We would advise no trav

eller, particularly if he has seen Sicily, or the environs of Naples, to make the little journey from Rome to Tivoli with tiquities, as there is nothing to be seen great hopes of finding remarkable anbesides some pillars of the Villa of Maecenas, except the very picturesque, indeed, but extremely confused ruins of the immense Villa of Adrian :—of all the other villas, of which Tivoli was the centre, there are scarcely any traces. On the other hand, how inconceivably charming and delightful, in this loveliest

428

The Colosseum-Kircher's Museum-The Lazzaroni.

spot of Italy, is Nature. Never did the fancy of a Poussin or of a Claude Lorraine, dream of a landscape, so complete in itself, so soft, diversified, and wondrously sweet, as Nature really paints at Tivoli before our eyes. Where are the olive trees so fresh and green, the pines and cypresses so slender and lofty, the mountains so beautifully rounded, and so wildly torn? Where do the crystal-waters so rush in milkwhite streams down the rocks, the brows of which are crowned with ruins two thousand years old? Where is the sky so blue and golden, the air so balsamic, and the evening red so glowing? No Idyl of Theocritus equals the poetic charm of this delicious Paradise.

THE MUSEUM OF KIRCHER, AT ROME. Here, among other rarities, we saw an old skait hanging up. Upon our expressing our surprise at it, we were told that it was an instrument the Turks made use of. Thus, in the Vatican, a volume of German poems, in the title-page of which there were some asterisks, was set down in the catalogue as a Treatise on Astronomy.

THE COLOSSEUM-The aspect of the Amphitheatre of Flavius Vespasianus, is beyond every thing colossal, and almost oppressive. The rent walls tower into the evening sky. and the moon shines through the compartments of the upper story, as if it were a lantern suspended in the midst of the vast edifice. This awe-inspiring sight, shews at once the character and the energy of all the ages of Rome together, for the Colosseum rises with such commanding majesty and savage gloom, from its profound sepulchre to the skies, that it seems to threaten to crush the whole world like a dwarf. After the Ave Maria you may not enter into it; and that it may not become the abode of robbers, guards are stationed at the entrances. Nay, even when we approached it a little too near, the Popish soldiers, thinking undoubtedly no good of us, called to us, alarmed," Remain a stone's throw from me, or else I shall fire!" In reality these guards have their arms generally loaded with ball.

THE LAZZARONI.

[VOL.4

After the army of Murat had been entirely disorganized in the immense race from the Po to Naples, and the Imperial army, in spite of all its efforts, had been unable to overtake it, the gov ernment of Joachim naturally began to be dreadfully shaken in the city itself; and as it was really odious to the majority (since the Italians seek relief, and at least find amusement in every change,) and of course hateful to those of the opposite party, the Lazzaroni, during this intervening period when Murat was already hurled from the throne, though the Austrians had not entered the city, took advantage of the opportunity, under the pretext of repla cing the Bourbons on the throne, to set Naples on fire and to plunder whatever they could. They therefore assembled under their chiefs, for each separate quarter of the city has its Capolazzarone in which to lodge the fruits of their pil over it, hired, beforehand, warehouses lage, and regularly portioned out the also combined, by a secret conspiracy, city for the purpose of plunder. They with the many thousand prisoners who are collected from all parts of the kingdom in the Castle del Carmine; and if these wretches had got loose, they would as it were have torn the unhappy city to pieces. The citizens, however, immediately formed out of their own body a numerous guard, which was joined by a great many officers belong ing to the broken up regiments; and these were at that time the deliverers of the city. The prisoners in the Castle del Carmine had by the treachery of a gaoler, freed themselves from their chains, and had already got into the first court yard, when the city guard in the greatest haste, planted some howitzers on the roof of the nearest house, and fired at these banditti, partly from the house with grenades, and partly through the grates of the windows with small arms, till those who were not killed or wounded fled back into their dens, An equally active and successful war was made upon the Lazzaroni; whereever any of these poor devils were found together, they were shot without

VOL. 4.]

Barrow's History of Polar Voyages.

429

ceremony and it is very probable that descension does not allow any person many of them fell the innocent victims to be refused admittance to him, was of private revenge, though they, on previously informed how difficult it their side defended themselves with would be to have any conversation stones, pistols, and daggers, and sent with this Bohemian. When the audimany of the city guard into the other ence commenced, therefore, His Holiworld. At length, after a week's pain- ness, with embarrassment, merely said ful anxiety, the Austriaus marched into to the lieutenant, at the same time clapthe city, in a column that filled the ping him on the shoulder, “ Bravo whole breadth of the Toledo, at once guerriere, bravo guerriere." The truedrove all the vagrants out of that im- hearted Bohemian, hastily seized the portant street, and then placed piquets hand of His Holiness, shook it heartily, of Hungarian dragoons at the corners and said, "Bravo Papa, bravo Papa," of the streets, who also cut down a con- at which the Pope could not help siderable number of the Lazzaroni, af- laughing heartily, and so they parted. ter which the city was more tranquil. Yet still nothing but the Sicilian or Austrian cockade could afford protection from their savage fury; for instance, they tore off from the uniforms of the military their French Orders, and many of them atoned for these disorders with their lives; the chief leader was a fanatical priest.

THE POPE.

At this time there was a great number of Austrian officers at Rome, so that scarcely a day passed on which several strangers did not get introduced to the Pope. Among the rest, a Bohemian lieutenant, who understood not a word of any language besides his own native dialect, wished to have an audience of His Holiness. The Pope, whose con

THE CATHOLIC SERVICE.

The more we have had occasion to be edified by the dignity and the sublime solemnity of the Catholic service in our own country, the greater was our surprise at finding it so disfigured in Italy-its true country: nay, the soul is not even elevated by tolerable music in the Italian churches; they trumpet and pipe without reason as if for an Opera, and play the organ as for a dance. In San Luigi di Francesi, at Rome, we ' heard the complete music of an Opera performed, in honour of the Bourbons; and whereas we had expected to have in Italy the finest sacred music, we had this pleasure only once, but then indeed in almost divine perfection, in the Sextine Chapel.

BARROW'S HISTORY OF POLAR VOYAGES.
From the Literary Gazette.

▲ CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF VOTAGES of northern expeditions, we can scarce-
INTO THE ARCTIC REGIONS, &C. FROM
THE EARLIEST PERIODS OF SCANDINAVIAN
NAVIGATION. BY JOHN BARROW, F. R. S.

ly conceive that a work of greater merit could have been executed. An excellent map of the Polar regions is prefixed, and within the compass of one entertaining volume, the reader agreeably obtains full and accurate intelligence of all that has been achieved in this important investigation, The work indeed may be considered not only as useful in itself, but as forming a necessary prelude to those narratives which may be expected from the recent voyages of Captains Ross and Buchan.

"In the compilation (says Mr. Barrow) no pretensions are set up to au

Barrow's History of Polar Voyages.

1