NUMBER XXVIII. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20th, 1807. It was a party coloured dress, HUDIBRAS. THE peculiarities of Miss Owenson's style are so considerable, that a selection from those which are to be found in her favourite Novel, of The Wild Irish Girl, may be no unacceptable present to my readers. It will enable such as wish to form themselves upon this model, to familiarize their pens by practice with the Owensonian manner; and may qualify others to form an estimate of that public taste, by which her ingenious work is highly relished and approved; whilst my lucubrations are most consistently held in sovereign contempt. After a number of head-rubbings, brain-rummages, and delibe rations, commensurate to that dulness, in which an Irish public has given me my degree, I have at length adopted, for the title of my selection, GLORVINIANA. Vol. I. "A soothing solace, almost concomitant to its "afflictions." p. 2. "Rejection to an offer." p. 11. "If you would retribute what you seem to la"ment." p. 12. "The shores of the Steep Atlantic." p. 13. (So called, as it might seem, by some Irish Bard.) "Excuse the procrastination + of our interview, "till we meet in Ireland; which will not be so im"mediate, as my wishes would incline." p. 15. "The bed of Procrostus," p. 16. (Owensonicé, for Procrustes.) "While you, in the emporium § of the world, are "drinking," &c. p. 19. Notes and illustrations. * Ci-devant commensurate. + Ci-devant postponement. i. e. We meet will not be so immediate. § Qu. If Miss Owenson meant to write Symposium?—I doubt her being a Platonist. Be that as it may, her novel of The Wild Irish Girl, and heroine, Glorvina, were in great vogue at "Vibrating between a propensity and an ad"herence." p. 21. N. B. This appears to be an Irish Vibration. In England they are not in the habit of at once adhering to one thing, and vibrating between that thing and another. "The organization of those feelings." p. 24. Organized feelings!-Why has not man a microscopic eye, wherewith to discern their organization? "That dreadful Interregnum of the heart; Reason and Ambition." p. 25. 66 Reader bear in mind (non meo periculo, sed Owensonis) that Interregnum, means a division of empire between two. "My father suffered me, pro tempo, to become a guest, mal voluntaire, in the King's Bench." p. 59 and 25. "They borrowed their cheeriness of manner from "the native Exility of their temperament." p. 41. This is a cut above me. I cannot even blunder round about a (conjectural) meaning. "The compact uniformity of Dublin excites our "admiration." p. 42. the time of the publication of this essay. The samples of style which the Anonymous has given, will be found in the pages referred to, of Phillips's edition, in three volumes. P sources of sublimity, Burke forgot to notice the compact. I have somewhere read of a person, who on being introduced into Westminster-abbey, for the first time, declared that it was mighty neat. "Dispersion is less within the coup d'œil of ob"servance, than aggregation." p. 42. The above remark is one of indisputable truth; and has the additional merit of not being trop recherchée. ແ "The natives of this country have got goal for goal with us." p. 45. The meaning of this position is not completely within the coup d'œil of my observance. "The penalty of Adam; "The seasons change. "The desolation of its boundless bogs awakens "in the mind of the pictoral+ traveller all the pleasures of tasteful enjoyment." p. 53. "The paradisial charms of English landscape." p. 53. "The dawn flung its reserved tints on the scene, "crowned with misnic forests." p. 54, 55. Notes and Illustrations. * Shakspeare corrigé, He wrote “difference.” + Q. should this be pectoral, or pick-tooth? Au reste, how singularly beautiful must this boundless and desolate morass have been! I presume that Miss Owenson, though an Irish woman, does not mean to assert that her Aurora diffused the tints, which she was at the same time reserving for her private use. I rather conjecture that the passage will run thus, when translated into French. Dans l'abandon de sa pudique retenue, L'Aurore &cet.-As for the "misnic forests," the tints which have been "flung" on them are so "served," that for my life I cannot conjecture what they are. "Hence horrible shadows!" hence I say! "re "As soon as my proximity was perceived, the "manners of my hostages* betrayed a courtesy, "amounting to adulation." p. 60. "The old woman addressed me sans çeremonie.”+ Ibid. "So many languages a man knows, so many times "is he a man, said Charles the fifth." Ibid. It is true we do not so express ourselves at this day. But Charles was a German; and did not, any more than Miss Owenson, speak English. "As soon as we arrived at the little auberge, to "which we were sojourning." p. 65. "My route Notes and Illustrations. * Ci-devant hosts. + Glorvinicé for sans façon. Not in France; as a reader might imagine: but in Ireland, -Sojourning is (licentià prosaicâ) for journeying. |