1831.] The Ghost of Kilsheelan. 647 



an' the 500 note were found exactly as the ghost tould Biddy ; and 

 Mr. Fitzgibbon an' the priest never let Cooney alone till he owned to the 

 murder, and that the two poor boys, who by this time should be the 

 father of fourteen, or fifteen children apiece, were completely innocent. 

 Cooney was accordingly hung at the next assizes, an' there wasn't a 

 Carey, nor a Dorney, in Tipperary, that wasn't at the hangin' 

 in Clonmel. As to that, we have revenged ourselves well on them 

 Cooneys ; for at the last fair o' Thurles, the Careys gave three Cooneys 

 such a thrashing that it will be mighty quare thing entirely, if one 

 o' the three live to see next Christmas day. Take my word for it, 

 that the worst kind o' cattle in Ireland are the informers ; but this, your 

 honour, is the town of Callen : I don't go any farther I hope you 

 won't forget myself, that's both guard an' driver." ' B. H. 



ON THE HEAUTY OF SHAKSPEARE^S EPITHETS. 



A MODERN writer on poetry, in one of his astounding dogmas, asserts, 

 that " all epithets are poetry." 



It is not the intention of this essay to assert as much, or even to agree 

 to as much : all that it purposes to shew is, that some epithets are, in 

 their very essence, poetry what these are, and what poets have been 

 most successful in the use of them. 



Poetry does not consist only in a certain number of words or syllables 

 measured out in lines, but in thought, exalted above the level of every- 

 day thinking, expressed in words intended, and which must be so 

 received and understood, in their highest and most intellectual sense. 

 Nor is this all which is necessary to that first and finest species of writ- 

 ing : to elevated thoughts must be added justness and beauty of expres- 

 sion, that justness and that beauty, which, while they confer dignity 

 and grace 011 what is even homely, add grandeur to what is great. The 

 finest aid to expression is certainly the Epithet- used, not to eke out the 

 line, but to fill it full, almost to overflowing, with what it should con- 

 tain poetry. There is more beauty in this beautiful part of poetic 

 painting than is discerned by the million. Perhaps it requires the fine 

 tact of a true poet, in the first place, to appreciate, and, in the second, 

 discreetly to use, this ornament. It is, indeed, a felicity of touch which 

 none but superior poets should attempt, for none but these can hope to 

 succeed : a mere coupler of rhymes, who aims at this excellence, will 

 most assuredly fail : it is " a grace beyond the reach" of his art. The 

 great masters of song have succeeded in it ; the " great small" have wisely 

 abstained, from a modest consciousness of its difficulty. The miraculous 

 effects in colouring which " savage Rosa dashed" into his pictures, in 

 his hands became spots of beauty a painter of an inferior genius, daring 

 the same effects, would mar even what he had done well. 



In dipping into obsolete poets obsolete only because old we some- 

 times derive a higher pleasure from an expressive epithet, in what fasti- 

 dious readers of the Muse would set down as a crude piece, than from 

 the most polished pieces of writers, whose utmost merit consisted in their 

 taste in appreciating and re-using the old jewels and golden ornaments 

 of minds undeniably rich in mental possessions, but, nevertheless, want- 

 ing in that judgment which is tutor to genius the knowing how to use 



