couched in decorous and cautious terms. The author has his choice, to hear these opinions read or to have the result sent to him, drawn up by the secretary. If an author agrees to make corrections, he is entitled to a second reading, on which occasion it must be accepted or rejected. This reading must take place as soon as the author is ready. Every piece accepted is registered with the name of the author or his representative. Every new piece shall be put in study in its turn of acceptance. The distribution of parts and the choice of doubles belongs to the author, but no actor can be compelled to go out of his line. If an actor shall, without consent of the superintendent, refuse a part in his line, cast by the author, he shall forfeit three hundred francs, and suffer farther punishment at the discretion of the superintendent, if he repeats the offence. No double is permitted in a new piece unless the principal has played it at least six times. An actor may, at the request of an author, play a new part out of his line, but when he ceases to play it, the part returns to its line, as adjudged by the committee.

During the six first nights of a piece of five or four acts, the author shall be allowed thirty seats, viz. twenty in the pit and ten in the first boxes. For pieces of three acts, twelve in the pit and eight in the first boxes. For pieces of one or two acts, ten in the pit and five in the first boxes. After the six first nights, the seats are reduced to six for a piece of five or four acts; four for a piece of three acts; and two for a piece of one or two."-Vol. ii. pp. 379, 380.

We cannot close these agreeable volumes without offering a few words expressive of the respect and esteem with which the whole tenor of this work has inspired us for its writer. Mr. Dunlap appears, throughout every page, the staunch and uncompromising supporter of genuine virtue; every obstacle by which the morals of a nation may be beset, meets with his unsparing hostility; and in the elaborate performance before us, we see in conspicuous characters the ardent and benevolent mind yearning for the improvement and happiness of his species. Mr. Dunlap, as a native American, might well be forgiven for avowing a considerable degree of resentment against England; but he is evidently above such vindictive impulses. He is impartial, nay indulgent; and though he never allows his feelings of patriotism to be in a state of doubt for a moment, yet there is not a single sentiment to be found in his volumes which would not do credit to the most general of philanthropists. As furnishing materials for a complete historical view of the universal stage in the 18th and 19th centuries, these volumes are invaluable.

ART. II.-Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. Second Series. In 3 Vols. 8vo. Dublin: Wakeman. 1833.

THIS second series of stories of the Irish peasantry, is greatly exceeded in almost every quality that constituted excellency by its predecessor. The former publication was the spontaneous offering of the author's heart; the present one is a work of labour, and carries with it all the disagreeable characteristics of being executed as a task. It would seem that the writer, having exhausted the flower of his stock, is now compelled to endeavour, by laborious art, to keep up the supply of that commodity, which the hand of nature had prepared for him before. Such must be the conclusion of every reader, when he finds that a principle of contrivance is adhered to throughout every narrative in these volumes, and that each of the stories is modified into an illustration of some feature of the supposed moral condition of Ireland.

The author thus has departed from the basis of his first series of stories. In those he may be said to have described his countrymen as he found them; in the present series, on the contrary, his distribution is altogether arbitrary, and is made subservient to some end, which is much more allied to theory than it is to reality. The accusation which is so often deservedly brought against the literary men of Ireland, that they are too prone to an excessive adulation of their countrymen, falls pointless, at all events, against the person of the present writer. The very first of the stories which appears to us to be worthy of particular attention, displays a specimen of character amongst the peasantry of Ireland, in which are at once concentrated the worst and most degrading of vices. It is not merely with the crimes which ignorance or superstition may occasion that the author depicts the portrait, nor yet with those excesses into which unconquerable passion may transport his Irishman, but he exhibits the latter as one vicious on deliberation, and as adding to a contempt for the voice of conscience, the guilt of hypocrisy. It is in vain that the writer declares, that in this specimen he only exposes the nature of the low and cunning Connaughtman; it is still more useless for him to state, that the class of jobbers thus represented in his tale, are as numerous in other countries as in his own: every reader will take the description as a general one, and will form his own opinion of the peasantry accordingly..

The story to which we allude is an unequivocal exaggeration, and is very unjustly held up as a representation which in any manner resembles the truth. It is, however, in the execution, remarkably clever, and had the treachery and ingratitude been left out, would be exceedingly amusing. Phil Purcel, a pig-driver of much renown, rendered himself an object worthy of rural history, by being at once the greatest knave and the most popular man in his

circle. How he could be so well known as a bad character, yet so much treated as a good one, can only be explained by the fact that he never was seen to laugh, and as a grave cheat is a phenomenon of the rarest possible occurrence in Ireland, Phil Purcel enjoyed the full advantages of his good fortune. The leading feature of this man's mind was his profound duplicity, and his whole life consisted merely of a series of contrivances undertaken from impulse alone, and occupying that time which with other men is entirely dedicated to business. He was able to assume every form of imposture which the particular occasion he was interested in required; but in adopting an aspect and tone of country simplicity, Phil had certainly no equal. We speak advisedly, inasmuch as the whole of the author's narrative is an attestation of the success of Purcel's consummate dissimulation. This man had been bred to "the profession," as the author calls it, of "pig-driving," which he raised by his talents to the most exalted pitch of consideration. In one of his commercial excursions to England, Purcel had the good luck to overreach a Yorkshireman; in fact, he induced the latter to become a purchaser of nearly the whole of his stock of pigs, at a price three times greater than that which he would have received for them in Ireland. One of the animals only remained on hand, and the way in which he effected the sale of it is well worth describing :

"A gentleman was one evening standing with some labourers by the way side when a tattered Irishman, equipped in a pair of white dusty brogues, stockings without feet, old patched breeches, a bag slung across his shoulder, his coarse shirt lying open about a neck tanned by the sun into a reddish yellow, a hat nearly the colour of the shoes, and a hay rope tied for comfort about his waist; in one hand he also held a straw rope, that depended from the hind leg of a pig which he drove before him; in the other was a cudgel, by the assistance of which he contrived to limp on after it, his two shoulder blades rising and falling alternately with a shrugging motion that indicated great fatigue.

"When he came opposite where the gentleman stood he checked the pig, which instinctively commenced feeding upon the grass by the edge of the road.

Och,' said he, wiping his brow with the cuff of his coat, mavrone orth a amuck,* but I'm kilt wit you. Musha, Gad bless yer haner, an' maybe ye'd buy a slip of a pig fwhrom me, that has my heart bruck, so she has, if ever any body's heart was bruck wit the likes of her: an' sure so there was, no doubt, or I wouldn't be as I am wit her. I'll give her a dead bargain, Sir; for it's only to get her aff av my hands I'm wantin, plase yer haner—husth amuck—husth, a vehonee! Be asy, an' me in conwersation wit his haner here!'

"You are an Irishman?' the gentleman inquired.

"My sorrow on you for a pig!"
"Silence pig! Silence, you vagabond!"

I am, Sir, from Cannaught, yer haner, an' 'ill sell the crathur dag cheap, all out. Asy, you thief!'

"I don't want the pig, my good fellow,' replied the Englishman, without evincing curiosity enough to inquire how he came to have such a commodity for sale.

"She'd be the darlint in no time wit you, Sir; the run o' your kitchen 'ud make her up a beauty, your haner, along wit no throuble to the sarwints about sweepin' it, or any thing. You'd only have to lay down the scrahag on the flure, or the misthress, Gad bliss her, could do it, an' not lave a crumblin' behind her, besides sleepin', your haner, in the carner beyant, if she'd take the throuble.' "—pp. 235–237.

Notwithstanding the repeated refusals of the gentleman to bargain for the pig, Purcel drove her to his house, affecting, in his pretended simplicity, to believe that the denials which were given him were in reality so many expressions of readiness on the part of the Englishman to take the live article on any terms. When the pig arrived at the place where Purcel had destined it to be driven, the ladies of the family came out to see the Irish monster and his four-footed companion. They surveyed the scene with astonishment, and condescended so far as to enter into conversation with the barbarian, whom they expected to have found endowed with the usual appendages of a wild creature. The author arranges the scene with admirable art. The ladies, young and old, looking on the spectacle presented before them, are inclined to show contempt and dislike, when the oily-tongued Connaughtman commences with a burst of admiration of their beauty, and by and by they all seem mightily struck with the unexpected civilization which they found in the Patlander. After the pig-driver received payment for the pig, he looked at the money with a delight which soon subsided into a sigh, when he said, "Arrah, may be yer haner 'ud give me the price o' my bed an' a bit to ate, Sir, an' keep me from brakin in upon this, Sir, God bless the money, I'm thinkin' o' the poor wife an' childher, Sir, strivin', so I am, to do fwhor the darlins." The audience were all in tears at the tenderness of the Irishman, and a shilling was handed to him to pay for his lodging. He was not, however, to be put off in this way, and a second appeal for a wisp of straw in the outhouse was readily granted, together with a plentiful meal :

"Phil then proceeded to the house, was sent to the kitchen by the young lady, and furnished through the steward with an abundant supply of cold meat, bread, and beer, of which he contrived to make a meal that somewhat astonished the servants. Having satisfied his hunger, he deliberately, but with the greatest simplicity of countenance, filled the wallet which he carried slung across his back, with whatever he had left, observing as he did it :

Fwhy, thin, 'tis sthrange it tis that the same custom is wit us in Ireland beyant that is here; fwhor whinever a thraveller is axed in, he always brings fwhat he doesn't ate along wit him. An sure enough it's

the same here amongst yees,' he added, packing up the bread and beef as he spoke, but Gad bliss the custom, any how, fwhor it's a good one!'

When he had secured the provender, and was ready to resume his journey, he began to yawn, and to exhibit the most unequivocal symptoms of fatigue:

Arrah, Sir,' said he to the steward, you wouldn't have e'er an ould barn that I'd throw myself in fwhor the night? The sarra leg I have to put undher me, now that I've got stiff wit the sittin' so lang;* that, an' a wishp o' sthraw, Sir, to sleep an, an' Gad bliss you!'

66 6

Paddy, I cannot say,' replied the steward; but I shall ask my master, and if he orders it, you shall have the comfort of a hard floor and clean straw, Paddy, that you shall.'

Many thanks to you, Sir; it's in your face, in thrath, the same gudness an' ginerosity.'

"The gentleman, on hearing Phil's request to be permitted a sleeping place in the barn, was rather surprised at his wretched notion of comfort than at the request itself.

"Certainly, Timmins, let him sleep there,' he replied; 'give him sacks and straw enough. I dare say he will feel the privilege a luxury, poor devil, after his fatigue. Give him his breakfast in the morning, Timmins. Good heavens,' he added, what a singular people! What an amazing progress civilization must make before these Irish can be brought at all near the commonest standard of humanity!'

At this moment Phil, who was determined to back the steward's request, approached them.

་

"Paddy,' said the gentleman, anticipating him, I have ordered you sacks and straw in the barn, and your breakfast in the morning before you set out.'

Thrath,' said Phil, if there's e'er a sthray blessin' goin', depind an it, Sir, you'll get it, fwhor your hanerable ginerosity to the sthranger. But about the slip,' Sir, if the misthress herself 'ud shake the wishp o' sthraw fwhor her in the far carner o' the kitchen below, an' see her gettin' her supper, the crathur, before she'd put her to bed, she'd be thrivin' like a salmon, Sir, in less than no time; an' to ardher the sarwints, Sir, if you plase, not to be defraudin' the crathur of the big piatees. Fwhor in regard it cannot spake fwhor itself, Sir, it frets as wise as a Christyeen, when it's not honestly thrated."

Never fear, Paddy; we shall take good care of it.'

"Thank you, Sir. But I aften heerd, Sir, that you dunna how to feed pigs in this counthry in ardher to mix the fwhat an' lane, lair (layer) about.' "And how do you manage that in Ireland, Paddy?'

"Fwhy, Sir, I'll tell you how the misthress, Gad bliss her, will manage it fwhor you: Take the crathur, Sir, an' feed it to-morrow till it's as full as a tick-that's fwhor the fwhat, Sir; thin let her give it nothin' at all the next day, but keep it black fwhastin'-that's for the lane (lean). Let her stick to that, Sir, keepin' it atin one day an fastin' anodher, for six months, thin put a knife in it, an' if you don't have the fwhat an' lane,

"This is pronounced as in the first syllable of Langolee,'—not like the Scotch lang."