91 



worth while to trouble the Academy with the comrnunicatioii, 

 as it would be treating the insane pretensions, now and then 

 put forward in the newspapers for this person or the other, 

 with too much respect to discuss them seriously, or at all ; 

 but another and a very important purpose would be answered 

 by the publication of this authentic copy of the poem, from 

 Wolfe's autograph, in their Proceedings. The poem has 

 been more frequently reprinted than almost any other in the 

 language; and, an almost necessary consequence of such fre- 

 quent reprints, it is now seldom printed as it was originally 

 written. Every person who has had occasion to compare 

 the common editions of Milton, or Cowper, or any of our 

 poets, with those printed in the life-time of the authors, is 

 aware that no dependence whatever can be placed on the text 

 of the books in common use. Every successive reprint from 

 a volume, carelessly edited, adds its own stock of blunders 

 to the general mass. Wolfe's ode has been, in this way, quite 

 spoiled in many of its best passages. The Academy had 

 now the opportunity of correcting these mistakes by pubhsh- 

 ing an authentic copy of the poem. Dr. Anster stated the 

 fitness of this being done by the Academy, not only from its 

 being the natural and proper guardian of every thing relating 

 to the literature of Ireland, — which alone would seem to him 

 asufficient reason, — buteven yet more,from the circumstance, 

 that the Academy's Proceedings must command a circulation 

 over the Continent, which it would be in vain to expect for 

 any private publication. The poem has been often trans- 

 lated ; and the strange blunders which have got into our 

 copies are faithfully preserved in the translations. In a Ger- 

 man translation of the ode, three stanzas of a poem, consist- 

 ing of but eight, are spoiled by the translator's manifestly 

 having read an imperfect copy of the original. In one it is 

 quite plain that the stanza, which closes with the lines — 



" And we heard the distant and random gun 

 That the foe was sullenly firing," 



