1830.] 



Domestic find Foreign. 



47-' 



be found to take the poem. Out of 

 some hundreds, perhaps two or three 

 younglings might be duped. 



Not quite to overlook Hannah Maria 

 Bourke, we will take a specimen no 

 matter where 

 And now beneath the sable lash 

 Of his bright eye there shot the flash 

 Of kindled wrath, as when lightnings fly, 

 Through night's dark gloom, across the sky t 

 Thus, like to that electric tire, 

 Sparled the flashes of his ire } 

 For now a wild and shrilly shout 

 Proclaimed the hunters on their route, 

 And that the stag had left his lair 

 Beside the Mucruss inland Mere : 

 And now upon the dark blue tide 

 A small black speck was seen to glide,. 

 Like as upon Ganges' stream. 

 At sunset, flits the solar beam; 

 As quick as light then glided o'er 

 A chieftain's curragh (a leather boat) to the 



shore ; 



The monarch blew a blast, to guide 

 The frail skiff to the island's side ; 

 And saw, with pleasure, flutter light, 

 The pendant of the Darlo knight 

 Waving, like Sappho's plumage fair, 

 O'er the clear surface of the Mere. 



That, we think, will do ; those who like 

 it know where to find more of the same 

 quality, while those who can see that 

 all is said by rote, will feel there can be 

 no thought, and to go on must be lost 

 labour. 



An Historical Sketch of the Danmonii, 

 the Ancient Inhabitants of Devonshire and 

 Cormvall, fye., by Joseph Chat taw ay. We 

 expected, from the preface, in a small 

 compass, to get at the <}ream of the story, 

 antiquities and tradition df British Corn- 

 wall ^ and we have found nothing but a 

 dry outline of fabulous or unauthenti- 

 cated events from the days of Brutus, 

 tiie great, great grandson of vEneas, and 

 his companion Corinseus, the kinsman of 

 ./Eneas, the killer of the giant Gog-ma- 

 gog at Plymouth, and first king of the 

 Danmonii, in the year 1148 B.C., down 

 to the deposition of Condor, by William 

 the Conqueror with scarcely a grain of 

 common sense from beginning to end. 

 Mr. Chattaway considers the monkish 

 historians (though obviously he knows 

 nothing of them but from scraps at se- 

 cond hand) as worthy of all credit, save 

 only where they are manifestly endea- 

 vouring to aggrandize their own esta- 

 blishment ; and, accordingly, with a 

 corresponding faith, we suppose, and a 

 becoming gravity, he relates, on their 

 authority, how the "primitive inhabi- 

 tants of Britain were giants, the off- 

 spring of the thirty-one daughters of 

 Dioclesian, king of Syria, who having 

 assassinated their husbands on their nup- 

 tial night, by the persuasion of their 

 elder sister, Albina, their father com- 

 manded them to be put into a ship with- 



out either rudder, sails, or pilot, when 

 after enduring incredible hardships, they 

 were cast on this island (to which Albina 

 giave her name, calling it Albion), arid by 

 demons became the mothers of the abo- 

 riginal Britons." 



Mr. Chattaway's familiarity with the 

 common chronology of historical facts is 

 very striking, and fully settles the ques- 

 tion of competency for his undertaking. 

 " Pythias," he says, " in the reign of 

 Alexander the Great, sailed from Mar- 

 seilles to the C8th degree of north lati- 

 tude, and made such reports as, though 

 they gained him the credit of being a 

 notorious liar, led to a new expedition 

 in search of the Tin Islands, in the year 

 350 B.C." that is fourteen years" be- 

 fore Alexander's reign began. During 

 the reign of Claudius, and in the year 

 49 A.D., the Britons, it seems, rebelled 

 from the Romans, in which rebellion the 

 Danmonii took the lead, because they 

 were burdened with taxes, and harassed 

 by the pride and insolence of the sol- 

 diersthat is long before the Romans 

 visited the West. The Romans, again, 

 are represented as withdrawing their 

 troops from Britain, in the year 410 ; 

 that is, forty years before the fact, ac- 

 cording to the' usual accounts, and Mr. 

 Chattaway gives no reason for changing 

 the date. 



A Cornish vocabulary closes the vo- 

 lume. Dolly Pentreath, a fish-woman of 

 Mount's Bay, was, it seems, the last 

 who spoke the language as her mother 

 tongue, she being above twenty before 

 she could speak English. She died in 

 1788, at the age of 102, and was buried 

 in the church-yard of her native parish, 

 St. Paul's, near Penzance, where a mo- 

 nument was erected to her memory, on 

 which was an epitaph in Cprnish and 

 English. So says Mr. Chattaway 's text ; 

 but, in his notes, it appears that neither 

 monument nor epitaph can be found, 

 nor can the place of her burial be iden- 

 tified. 



Memoirs of the Life and Works of 

 George Romney, fyc., by the Rev. John 

 Romney, B.D., formerly Fellow of St. 

 John's, Cambridge. A new biography, 

 in these biographical times, of this emi- 

 nent painter, by some competent autho- 

 rity, was not, it seems, at all superfluous. 

 Cumberland's is but a sketch, and Hay- 

 ley's, notwithstanding his long intimacy 

 with the artist, neither correct npr 

 friendly. The only man Hying in pos- 

 session of the requisite materials was 

 his son, and certainly the only one suf- 

 ficiently interested to correct mistakes, 

 and remove misapprehensions. Rom- 

 ney was of the class of the self-taught 

 came late into the profession was little 

 connected with artists Was no R.A., 

 and did not wish to be* was a man of 



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