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 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



THE EXILE OF ERIN; OR, THE SORROWS OP A BASHFUL IRISH- 

 MAN. LONDON, 1835. 



ALL men are modest with a difference. But it would be as absurd in 

 a man (especially since the mining and banking speculations of a few 

 years ago) to wear his heart upon his sleeve, as to carry his modesty 

 about him. He leaves it at home with his wife, or commits it to the cus- 

 tody of his attorney, or securely conceals it somewhere, so that it may 

 never be discovered. This may not, at the first blush, appear to be the 

 case ; but after a little reflection we shall find it to be strictly true. A 

 large capitalist invests his property, or keeps a banker ; but your purity- 

 striken rogue carries his loose cash in his pocket. Accordingly, it would 

 seem that the most modest men make the least display of their modesty ; 

 and that the bashful blockhead will soon run through the miserable pit- 

 tance of blushes left him by his father. Of the really modest man it may 

 be said 



" Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit ;" 



but the paltry pretender mounts his bit of red with all the prompt ala- 

 crity of a train-band captain. 



The ingenious author of the book before us appears to have adopted 

 this philosophical view of the question, and Mr. Terence O'Blarney, the 

 Exile of Erin, and the narrator of his own sorrows, displays in every occur- 

 rence of his eventful life a truly Milesian modesty. 



The Exile of Erin is a book, which, to be properly appreciated, should 

 be read throughout. There is no giving a fair notion of it by extracts. It 

 is sustained by a lightness and elasticity of style, which we should have 

 been glad to see charged with more materials. There is in it enough of 

 incident and adventure ; but being professedly a history and not a novel 

 the characters introduced, as in real life, " come like shadows, so depart." 

 It should have been longer, or we must bargain for a continuation of the 

 Bashful Irishman's sorrows. We feel, when we arrive at the end of the 

 book, that we could wish to know more of the very pleasing individuals 

 contained in it. It is like taking one of the short stages and discovering 

 that, by a happy accident, we have fallen in with four or five choice 

 spirits ; when, behold ! the coach stops the steps are let down ; the wags 

 make their exit, and we follow with a heavy heart, wondering where they 

 came from, where they are going, and whether we shall ever see or hear 

 of them again. 



And yet, notwithstanding our avowed belief that the extracts we are 

 about to make from this lively and humorous work, will hardly convey a 

 true notion of the book as a whole, we cannot resist offering a taste of its 

 quality to our readers. The following extract is in the grave style of our 

 sorrowing and bashful friend: 



' f Oh London, who art the cradle and the grave of Hope, how many as- 

 piring pilgrims, some destined to achieve celebrity, but more to die neg- 

 lected and broken-hearted, are at this moment, while I write, bending their 

 steps towards thee ! What acts too of folly, madness, and guilt, are at the 

 same instant of time in course of perpetration within thy circuit ! Yet if 

 sin profane thy name, the virtues, sure, redeem it by their presence. Lo, 

 thou canst boast Humility in lawn sleeves; meek Charity making public 

 announcement of her benefactions ; Modesty gazing at some half-denuded 



