BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. LIX. DECEMBER, (PART II.) 1821. VOL. X. DEAR NORTH, IRISH MELODIES. It has often struck me with astonishment, that the people of Ireland should have so tamely submitted to Mr Thomas Moore's audacity, in prefixing the title of Irish to his melodies. That the tunes are Irish, I admit; but as for the songs, they in general have as much to do with Ireland, as with Nova Scotia. What an Irish affair for example-" Go where glory waits thee," &c. Might not it have been sung by a cheesemonger's daughter of High Holborn when her master's apprentice was going in a fit of valour to list himself in the third Buffs, or by any other such amatory person, as well as a Hibernian Virgin? And if so, where is the Irishism of the thing at all? Again, When in death I shall calm recline, my NO. I. tered as plumbs in the holiday puddings of a Yorkshire boarding-school, and scattered, for the same reason, just to save appearances, and give a title to the assumed name. There's the Vale of Ovoca, for instance, a song upon a valley in Wicklow, but which would suit any other valley in the world, provided always it had three syllables, and the middle one of due length.. Is Were I in a savage mood, I could cut him up with as much ease as a butcher in Ormond market dissects an ox from the county of Tipperary; but I shall spare him for this time, intending, if I have leisure, to devote an entire paper to prove his utter incompetence; at present I shall only ask, whether, in these pseudo-Irish Melodies, there is one song about our saints, fairs, wakes, rows, patrons, or any other diversion among us? there one drinking song which decent individuals would willingly roar forth Tell her it fed upon fiddlesticks! Pret- after dinner in soul-subduing soloes, or ty food for an Irishman's heart for the give to the winds in the full swell of a ladies! Not a man of us from Carn- thirty-man chorus? Not one-no— sore Point to Bloody Forland would not one. Here am I, M. M. Mulligive a penny a pound for smiles; and gan-who, any night these twenty as for wine, in the name of decency, is years, might have been discovered by that a Milesian beverage? Far from it him whom it concerned, discussing indeed; it is not to be imagined that my four-and-twentieth tumbler, and I should give five or six shillings for a giving the side of the festive board, or bottle of grape-juice, which would not the chair presiding o'er the sons of be within five quarts of relieving me light, with songs fit to draw nine souls from the horrors of sobriety, when for out of one weaver, and, of course, hearthe self-same sum I could stow under ing others in my turn-ready to declare my belt a full gallon of Roscrea, drink that never was song of Moore's sung beyond comparison superior. The idea in my company; and that is decisive. is in fact absurd. But there would be If any one should appeal from my long no end were I to point out all the un- experience-let such unbelieving perIrish points of Moore's poetry. Allu- son leave the case to any independent sions to our localities, it is true, we jury, selected indifferently from all dissometimes meet with, as thinly scat-tricts, from the honest Inishowen *This expression, I own, is Irish; but it is lost by the common punctuation, mistress dear, which is just as bald an epithet as any man would wish to meet with on a day's journey. VOL. X. 4 H Bryan, W. Lowe and Co. Poultry, printers. Chandler, C. East Stonehouse, Devon, master ma riner. Chubb, W. P, Aldgate, chemist. Clifford, E. Chancery-lane, broker. Coutes, J. Weobley, tanner. Cowper, W. Liverpool, draper. Crump, J. Birmingham, money scrivener. Dray, J. Great Windmill-street, Haymarket, dealer. Forbes, J. and Co. Oxford-street, chemist. Gelsthorp, J. Molyneux-street, Mary-le-bone. Germain, G. Commercial Road, Middlesex, merchant. Gibson, T. jun. and Co. Liverpool, ship-bread bakers. Goodman, T. late of Witherley, Leicestershire, jobber in cattle. Gosling, G. Chesterfield, wine merchant. Green, G. and Co. Sheffield, edge tool manufac turers. Hall, T. Eagle-street, Red Lion-square, coachmaker. Handsword, H. Winchester-street, merchant. Hart, J. Bradford, Wilts, shopkeeper. Haydon and Co. Welbeck-street, auctioneers. Humphries, I. Witham Priory, Somerset, innholder. Ingram, T. Lower Thames-street, fishmonger. Johnson, J. Sculcoates, York, cornfactor. Irving, N. Carlisle, innkeeper. Ketland, T. and Co. Birmingham, gunmakers. Kinner, W. and S. Notting Hill, stage coach pro prietors. Kippen, D. Lambeth, timber merchant. Lloyd, C. Thetford, bookseller. Morris, W. Wellclose-square, tavern-keeper. Murray, J. Sebirgham, Cumberland, dealer. Northcote, H. J. Lime-street, wine merchant. Parsons, T. Castle-street, Holborn, jeweller. Pool, W. Smith-street, Clerkenwell, coal mercht. Railston, J. North Shields, ship-owner. Rawlins, J. and Co. Leicester-square, tailors. Saintmare, J. Jaques and Co. City Road, rectifiers. Savory, C. South Efford, Devon, limeburner. Scott, T. Stoke-upon-Trent, earthenware manufacturer. Sherwin, J. Burslem, ironmonger. Simister, J. and Co. Birmingham, button makers. Spencer, T. Gray's Inn-lane, livery stable keeper. Ugart, D. Wilson-street, Finsbury-square, merchant. Vincent, W. Stepney, ropemaker. Ward, J. City, importer of foreign fruits. White, S. A. Edingley Cotton Mill, Notts, cotton spinner. Whitney, W. Ludlow, innkeeper. Wilkinson, J. Wapping, oil merchant. Wilson, J. S. and Co. Theobald's Road, coach makers. Wood, J. Birmingham, broker. Wright, J. Mill Wall, Poplar, anchorsmith. ALPHABETICAL LIST of SCOTCH BANKRUPTCIES, announced between the 1st and 30th November, 1821, extracted from the Edinburgh Gazette. Aitken, Andrew, manufacturer, Glasgow. chant in Edinburgh, now spirit-dealer and mer- Milroy, Adam, china, glass, and earthen-ware Sinclair, James, merchant, Stromness. DIVIDENDS. Crawford, James & Andrew, warehousemen and merchants, Glasgow; a first dividend 23d Dec. Drummond, John, architect and builder in Oban; a dividend 28th December of 3s. 6d. Forbes, William, merchant and agent, Aberdeen; dividends after 19th December. Galloway, Robert, merchant, Dundee; a first dividend on 19th December. Hamilton, John, wright and builder in Lanark, and Hamilton, William, wright and builder there; a dividend 27th December. Hardie, James, merchant, Glasgow; a dividend 1st December. Macqueen, Hamilton, & Co. wine-merchants, Glasgow; a final dividend 4th December. Moodie, James, merchant, Dunfermline; a dividend of 6s. 6d. per pound on 10th December. Paterson, Richard, clothier in Edinburgh; a first dividend on 24th December. Turnbull, John, skinner and wool-merchant, Galashiels; a first dividend 14th December. Shaw & Fergusson, merchants, Glasgow; a dividend on 31st December to the creditors who have lodged claims under the sequestration, but no dividend to the creditors of any of the individual partners. Melody the second is pathetic, being the Lamentation of a Connaught Ranger, discharged. I had eleven cousins in that regiment. I may as well give it as my opinion, that the only cure for our present difficulties, is to go to war without delay; and I venture to say, if an aggregate meeting of the seven millions of us could be called any where, a war would be voted nem. con. I don't much care with whom, that being an afterthought, but I certainly would prefer having a shaking of those ugly-looking garlic-eaters, the Spaniards, who are now so impudent as to imagine they could have fought the French without us. I heard one Pedro Apodaca say as much, and I just knocked him down, to shew him I did not agree with him in opinion. I would engage, that 200,000 men would be raised in a day in this country, and if we would not batter the Dons I leave it to the reader. The third is amatory. Compare this with the best of Tom Moore's ditties. But to be sure it is absurd to think of a man of his inches talking of making love to half the girls of the country, as he does in Little's poems. The fourth is warlike-something in the manner of Sir Walter Scott's Gatherings. It relates to a feud in Kerry. (2) The fifth is convivial, and was extempore. I did not write it with the other four, but actually chaunted it on the spur of the occasion this morning, at the time noted. It is to the famous tune of Lillebullero-my uncle Toby's favourite; and the tune, as you may see, by Burnet, with which Lord Wharton whistled King James, of the unsavoury surname, out of three kingdoms. It is among us a party air, and called the Protestant Boys; but honest men of all parties must approve of my words. They come home to every man's feelings. The last is sentimental. I wrote it merely to prove I could write fine if I liked; but it cost me a lot of trouble. I actually had to go to the Commercial Buildings, and swallow seven cups of the most sloppish Bohea I could get, and eat a quartern loaf cut into thin slices before I was in a fit mood to write such stuff. If I were to continue that diet, I should be the first of your pretty song writers in the empire; but it would be the death of me in a week. I am not quite recovered from that breakfast yet-and I do not wonder at the unfortunate figure the poor Cockneys cut who are everlastingly suffering under the deleterious effects of tea-drinking. I have scribbled to the end of my paper, so must conclude. Believe me to be, my dear North, Your's truly, MORTY MACNAMARA MULLIGAN. P. S. Why don't you come to Dub lin? 9, Suffolk Street, Nov. 16, 1820. SONG I. SAINT PATRICK. A FIG for St Den-nis of France, He's a trumpery fellow to brag on; A fig for St George and his lance, Which spitted a (2) The tune of this ("The Groves of the Pool") is indigenous of the South of Ireland. There is a capital song to this tune, by R. Millikin of Cork, beginning with "Now the war, dearest Nancy, is ended, and peace is come over from France." Millikin is the author of the Groves of Blarney, which Mathews sings with so much effect. The Standard-Bearer has supplied us with some lines on that unknown poet. See No. LVII. p. 382. There is a sort of sketch of his life in Ryan's Worthies of Ireland. We should gladly make room for a fuller account, with specimens of his poetry. If it is good—as we are sure it must-its locality will be of little consequence. C. N. heathenish dragon: And the saints of the Welshman and Scot Are a pi-ti-ful couple of pipers, Both of whom may just travel to pot, If com pared with the pa-tron of swipers, St Patrick of Ireland, my dear. 1. A fig for St Dennis of France, He's a trumpery fellow to brag on; 2. He came to the Emerald Isle On a lump of a paving-stone mounted; Which mighty good sailing was counted; So bring me a flagon of drink, To keep down the mulligrubs, burst ye, 3. He preach'd then with wonderful force, With a pint he wash'd down his discourse, "For," says he, "I detest your dry preaching." The people, with wonderment struck, At a pastor so pious and civil, Exclaimed, "We're for you, my old buck, And we pitch our blind gods to the devil, 4. This ended, our worshipful spoon It chanced he was treating a party; 5. The pewter he lifted in sport, And they all took a hawl at the stingo, 6. Next day, quoth his host, ""Tis a fast, And the leg most politely complied. 7. You've heard, I suppose, long ago, How the snakes, in a manner most antic, And trundled them into th' Atlantic. The people of Ireland determine; With mighty good reason, I think, Since St Patrick has fill'd it with vermin, 8. O! he was an elegant blade, As you'd meet from Fair Head to Kilcrumper, And though under the sod he is laid, Yet here goes his health in a bumper! I wish he was here, that my glass But as he is not, why, alas! Because all the liquor is out! SONG II. LAMENT OF A CONNAUGHT RANGER. ith the melancholy expression of days gone by. I WISH to St Patrick we had a new war, I'd not care who 'twas |