THE ANONYMOUS.

[During the years 1807 and 8 a periodical paper appeared in Dublin, under the title of The Anonymous, and after attaining its fifty-second number was republished in two volumes. Of the authors we have no certain information, but conjecture has assigned many of the essays to Anacreon Moore and Mr. Cur ran; and truly such is the sparkling wit and the rich vein of humour which pervade them, that the brightest wits of the Irish capital might be proud to own them. For the amusement of our readers, we extract a very ludicrous criticism on the style of Miss Owenson; from which they may easily predict that though Anonymous at present, from the diffidence of their parents, these gay volumes will soon acquire a name for themselves, both splendid and durable.] MISS OWENSON'S NOVELS.

It was a party coloured dress,
Of patched andi piebald languages:
For she could coin or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit:
Words so debased and hard, no stone

Was hard enough to touch them on:
These she as volubly would vent,

As if her stock could ne'er be spent;

And when with hasty noise she spoke 'em,
The ignorant for current took 'em.

HUDIBRAS.

The peculiarities of Miss Owenson's style are so considera. ble, that a selection from those which are to be found in her favourite Novel, of The Wild Irish Girl, may be no unacceptable present to my readers. It will enable such as wish to form themselves upon this model, to familiarize their pens by practice with the Owensonian manner; and may qualify others to form an estimate of that public taste, by which her ingenious work is highly relished and approved; whilst my lucubrations are most consistently held in sovereign contempt. After a number of headrubbings, brain-rummages, and deliberations, commensurate to that dulness, in which an Irish public has given me my degree, I have at length adopted, for the title of my selection,

GLORVINIANA.

VOL. I.

"A soothing solace, almost concomitant to its afflictions." p.2. * Ci-devant cammensurate,

Rejection to an offer." p. 11.

"If you would retribute what you seem to lament." p. 12. "The shores of the Steep Atlantic." p. 13. (So called, as it might seem, by some Irish Bard.)

"Excuse the procrastination* of our interview, till we meet "in Ireland; which will not be so immediate,† as my wishes would "incline." p. 15.

"The bed of Procrostus," p. 16. (Owensonicé, for Procrustes.) "While you, in the emporium of the world, are drinking,". &c. p. 19.

"Vibrating between a propensity and an adherence." p. 21. N. B. This appears to be an Irish Vibration. In England they are not in the habit of at once adhering to one thing, and vibrating between that thing and another.

"The organization of those feelings." p. 24.

Organized feelings!-Why has not man a microscopic eye, wherewith to discern their organization?

"That dreadful Interregnum of the heart; Reason and Ambi"tion." p. 25.

Reader bear in mind (non meo periculo, sed Owensonis) that Interregnum, means a division of empire between two.

"My father suffered me, pro tempo, to become a gu st, mal voluntaire, in the King's Bench." p. 59 and 25.

"They borrowed their cheeriness of manner from the native "Exility of their temperament." p. 41.

This is a cut above me. I cannot even blunder round about a (conjectural) meaning.

"The compact uniformity of Dublin excites our admira"tion." p. 42.

Sublime compactness! When treating of the sources of sublimity, Burke forgot to notice the compact. I have somewhere

* Ci-devant postponement. ti. e. We meet will not be so immediate. + Qu. If Miss Owenson meant to write Symposium?—I doubt her being a Platonist. Be that as it may, her novel of The Wild Irish Girl, and heroine, Glorvina, were in great vogue at the time of the publication of this essay. The samples of style which the Anonymous has given, will be found in the pages referred to, of Phillips's edition in three volumes.

read of a person, who on being introduced into Westminster-abbey, for the first time, declared that it was mighty neat.

"Dispersion is less within the coup d'œil of observance, than "aggregation." p. 42.

The above remark is one of indisputable truth; and has the additional merit of not being trop recherchée.

"The natives of this country have got goal for goal with "us." p. 45.

The meaning of this position is not completely within the coup d'œil of my observance.

"The penalty of Adam;

"The seasons change.”

"The desolation of its boundless bogs awakens in the mind "of the pictoralf traveller all the pleasures of tasteful enjoy"ment." p. 53.

"The paradisial charms of English landscape." p. 53.

"The dawn flung its reserved tints on the scene, crowned "with misnic forests." p. 54, 55.

I presume that Miss Owenson, though an Irish woman, does not mean to assert that her Aurora diffused the tints, which she was at the same time reserving for her private use. I rather conjecture that the passage will run thus, when translated into French. Dans l'abandon de sa pudique retenue, L'Aurore &cet.-As for the "misnic forests," the tints which have been "flung" on them are so "reserved," that for my life I cannot conjecture what they "Hence horrible shadows!" hence I say!

are.

"As soon as my proximity was perceived, the manners of my "hostages‡ betrayed a courtesy, amounting to adulation." p. 60. "The old woman addressed me sans çeremonie."§ Ibid. "So many languages a man knows, so many times is he a "man, said Charles the fifth." Ibid.

It is true we do not so express ourselves at this day. But Charles was a German; and did not, any more than Miss Owenson, speak English.

Shakspeare corrigé, He wrote " difference."

†Q. should this be pectoral, or pick-tooth? Au reste, how singularly beautiful must this boundless and desolate morass have been!

+ Ci-devant hosts.

$ Glorvinice for sans facon.

"As soon as we arrived at the little auberge, to which we "were sojourning." p. 65. "My route lay partly through a "desolate bog, whose burning surface gave me an idea of Arabia "Deserta;" (where there are no bogs.) "Here I threw my listless length at the foot of a spreading beech;" (of the same speeies with those which flourish in the deserts of Arabia.t) p. 66. "I soon, however, raised my eyes, from the sweet ode to "Lydia; and beheld a poor peasant driving a sorry cow. Het "was a thin, athletic figure;§ and as he and Driminduath were going my road, and the day was young, this curious triumviri” (consisting of the cow, Murtoch O'Shaugnessy, and myself,) “that "might have put the Mount-Ida triumviri" (composed of Juno, Venus, and Minerva,)" to the blush of inferiority, set off toge ther." p. 67, 68, and 208.

"As for" (triumvir) “Driminduath, she, poor beast, was almost an anatomy." p. 69.

Accordingly, the athleta who drove her, and who was himself an anatomy,|| "could not get nobody¶ to take her off his "hands." Ibid.

"I astonished this native, by making use of the fine word "alternative."-" Anan! exclaimed he, staring," not like a lean cow; but a stuck pig. It is no wonder he was thin; for, in true peasantic idiom, he stated himself to be "returning home with "a full heart and an empty stomach."-His cow was as full of sensibilities as himself. She too had "a full heart." In this

• Not in France; as a reader might imagine: but in Ireland.—Sojourning is (licentiâ prosaicâ) for journeying.

† And which are just as common in Irish bogs as they are there. It seems odd that draining should be the process for reclaiming bogs that remind Miss Owenson of Arabia Deserta.-Qu. would the desert be improved by draining? Cato's army might tell us that the deserts of Africa would not.

# Not the cow, but the man. My reader will just now find that this information is not superfluous.

Where the landscape, undique collatus, consists of bog and beech, the figures are very appropriately thin and athletic.

"Who drives fat oxen, should himself be fat."
Who drives lean kine, ought therefore to be thin.

¶Very Irish, this phraseology.

latter statement, our authoress sibi constat: she had early informed us that Driminduath was "a sorry cow." p. 74.

"This account touched my very soul;-so deeply (indeed) "that I presented him with some sea-biscuit. Thy national ex"ility, said I to myself, cheers thy natural susceptibility. While "I said this, he was humming an Irish song." p. 76. I knew it was Irish by the hum.

"This facetiousness, of a temperament complexionally plea"sant, was however, frequently succeeded by such heart-rending "accounts of poverty," (Readers, your handkerchiefs, at heartrending wo!)" as shed* involuntary tears" (mal-voluntaires,) on those cheeks, which, a moment before, were distended by the exertions of a boisterous laugh." p. 79.

What an interesting triumvir! But I have done with this triumvirate, (of whom Lepidus is not one;) and proceed to other Amænitates Owensonianæ.

"This articula mortis." p. 106. "A perpetual state of eva"gation keeps up the flow and ebb" (keeps down the ebb I should suppose,)" of existence." p. 107.

"Were my powers of comprehension equal to the philologi"cal excellencies of Goody Two-shoes or Tom Thumb,† I would study Irish. But alas! as Torquatto Tasso says,

"Se perchetto a me stesso quale acquisto

"Faro mai che me piaccia." p. 108.

"My steed, I expect, will be as famous as the Rozinante of "Don Quixote, or the Beltenebros l'Amadis de Gaul." p. 109. Allow me to add, or the Dapple of Sancho Panza.

"I shall pitch my head quarters at my father's lodge.” p. 112.

i.e. the accounts shed tears; borrowing the narrator's cheeks, to shed them on. This is a bold figure; and as sublime as obscurity can make it.

Which every reader must admit they are not. From what follows, it might be inferred, that Goody Two-shoes and Tom Thumb are translations from the Irish: which, however, is not the case.

Here we learn, either that Amadis had a steed of the name of Beltenebros; or had in his day possessed the thin athletic Rozinante. According to the former construction, the elision of the particle of has a novel and fine effect.