is due to certain well meaning and influential gentlemen for their untiring efforts to suppress and eradicate from the institution those agents of its destruction, and which if allowed to continue, will render it inevitable. But if it is to succeed its success we fear must be attributed to the support of the middle ranks, who, we have just grounds to believe, are its main supporters at present.

The classes of this institute are at tended by persons who should be made to seek instruction in other places more suited to their positions. We advert to this feature of its management because we are aware of the injustice done to the children of mechanics or workmen, who would be only too glad to send them to learn the subjects taught in many of the classes. But if the Dublin Mechanics' Institute were what its name imports, men of superior circumstances and high positions would not be allowed to join it for the purpose of having a "cheap read," and that their children might be taught accomplishments at a "cheap rate." To certain gentlemen connected with it we accord the praise that is justly due to them for the active and zealous part they have taken to reconcile its members on more than one occasion; yet we cannot but observe, and at the same time regret, that there are still connected with the Institution certain individuals who, it would appear, glory in disseminating discord and party feeling among those of the working classes who attend it. It is a subject of regret, as we have already observed, that such an Institute should be converted at times into an arena of party politics and religious bigotry. We are not now censuring any section, we are merely stating what we, and thousands of others, know to be the shameful fact, We know that the Mechanics' Institute of Dublin was originated, fostered and brought to a high position by some of the most benevolent and influential of our fellow citizens; that its board was composed of, and its affairs conducted by many who had but one object in view,-the welfare of the Mechanics. But unfortunately these gentlemen allowed some turbulent, disaffected individuals to steal in amongst them, who in the end drove the original founders out, and made the Institute designed for the good of the poor, a scene of politics and party spirit, a forum of debate for halffledged orators, instead of a school of science for the working man. It is unnecessary for us to state how rejoiced we shall be when we hear of harmony and good will existing among the

members of this institution, and that discord and religious hostility shall be heard of no more. Its directors well know that facts speak more forcibly than speeches, however eloquent; knowing this it would be perhaps wise to prevent many of those would-be party leaders from delivering addresses calculated to create ill and envious feelings among the unwary and credulous portion of the members; for, to say the least of some of the meetings that have lately taken place in this institution, they were anything but creditable. Let us hope that we shall never witness such again. We shall now pass from it, and in doing so, wish that some steps may be taken to entitle it to the name it at present holds. If such be done there is no doubt that the number on Rolls in the English class will far exceed that given in the Directors' Report for last year, which we believe was THIRTY-SEVEN.

In a preceding part of this paper we stated that we did not desire Institutions devoted solely to the education of Protes tants or Roman Catholics, but one for the benefit of all classes, without reference to any creed or sect. It is evident that an institute like this would be really National: to render it so we would strongly recommend that it should be placed under the Commissioners of Irish National Education: we care not what may be the objections urged against this, for our part we hold it it to be the only way by which such institutes can be rendered successful. Experience has strengthened us in this view, and we could, if space permitted, adduce many cogent reasons for entertaining this opinion. Our readers well know that the National System is the only system suited to Ireland, and this time itself has sufficiently proved. Could the Commissioners be induced to give the matter their consideration, and open for the working classes of Dublin a Model National Mechanics' Institute, such as we have endeavoured to describe, there is no doubt it would be attended with the most signal success, if committed to proper managers and Trained Teachers. With the Commissioners are the confidence and well wishes of the vast majority of the Irish people. These they have justly earned, for till their appointment knowledge was as a sealed casket to the Irish poor, and there is every reason to believe it would continue so till this day, did not the Legislature extend its powerful arm and burst the seal. There never has been a greater boon conferred upon any country than National Education has proved to Ireland, and it affords us

more than ordinary satisfaction to see such men as Sir John Pakington come forth to urge a similar system for England.

In closing our paper we would have our readers to bear in mind, that the grounds on which we urge the opening of Mechanics' Institutes are exactly those on which our Viceroy, the Earl of Carlisle, urged their encouragement and support, namely-" to raise the toiling masses of our countrymen above the range of sordid cares and low desires--to enliven the weary toil and drudgery of life with the countless graces of literature, and the sparkling play of fancy, to clothe the lessons of duty and of prudence in the most instructive as well as the most inviting forms-to throw open to eyes, dull and bleared with the irksome monotony of their daily task-work, the rich resources and bountiful prodigalities of nature,-to dignify the present with the lessons of the past and the visions of the future-to make the artizans of our crowded workshops, and the inhabitants of our most sequestered villages, alive to all that is going on in the big universe around them, and amidst all the startling and repelling distinctions of our country, to place all upon the equal domain of intellect and of genius."

ART. IV.-ODD BOOKS.

1. Catalogue of the Valuable, Select, and Distinguished Library of the late John Smith Furlong, Esq., Q.C., and Bencher of the Honorable Society of Kings' Inns, Which will be Sold by Auction, by Charles Sharpe, at his Literary Sale Room, 31, Anglesea Street, on Tuesday, 26th May, 1846, and Ten following Days, Commencing at 1 o'clock Each Day. Dublin: Printed by Webb and Chapman.

1846.

2. Catalogue of The Valuable Library of the late Frederick William Conway, Esq., Comprising Rare and Early English and Foreign Theology; Ecclesiastical History and Antiquities; Illuminated and other Manuscripts of the XIII, XIV, and XV Centuries; With many Very Fine Specimens of Early Printing; Standard Literature in the English, French, Italian, and Spanish Languages; a Noble Collection of the Greek and Latin Classics; Works relating to Ireland and America; the Drama; Bibliography; Illustrated Works, &c., Which will be Sold by Auction, by H. Lewis, in the Literary Sale Rooms, 31, Anglesea Street, on Tuesday, May 30th, 1854, and Twenty-Four following Days. Dublin, 1854.

There is certainly more of pain than pleasure in the contemplation of the eccentricities of genius. We do not refer, of course, to that abuse of natural gifts, and their application to the cause of infidelity or indecency, for which some writers are infamous; of that obliquity of moral vision, which produced the Essays of a Bolingbroke, or of a Hume, the Pucelle of a Voltaire, and the Contes et Nouvelles of a LaFontaine, but of an idiosyncrasy which leads to the expenditure of superior powers on subjects of a trifling, absurd, or merely curious character.

We cannot look upon these memorials of misdirected industry and talent without a painful calculation of what the efforts they cost, if properly applied, could have done for literature and humanity. As if, too, the labor and expenditure of mind bestowed on such works, exhausted, in the single effort, the entire resources of the writers, these authors, though in

their follies and absurdities displaying great powers and superior acquirements, have, in nearly every instance, remained content with such reputation as they gained by their bizarre productions; and have sat down in easy idleness for the rest of their existences. Whether this inactivity is to be ascribed to exhaustion of brain, or to satisfied ambition, or whether indeed a life-time was not more than sufficient for the invention and completion of such "curiosities of literature," whatever be the cause, the result is much to be deplored.

The eccentricities of which we are about to write have assumed various forms of development. In some instances the singularity lies in the subject, in others in the manner in which the subject is treated, and in others again in a laborious alliteration, or in a peculiar arrangement of type upon the page into various shapes, as glasses, crosses, and soforth.

Shape, indeed, appears generally to have been an ingenious device to attract the popular eye, and to supply the place of merit and substance in the matter, with singularity in the form. It appears to have been practised at a very early period in literary annals; Simmias of Rhodes, conjectured by Vossius to have lived in the reign of Ptolemy Lagus, wrote three pieces which are called the Wings, the Egg, and the Axe, the verses of each being so arranged as to form these respective figures.* It is probable that he was also the author of Syrinx, or Pipe of Pan, which is generally ascribed to Theocritus, and printed in the editions of his works. The verses of which this poem are composed are so arranged as to form the shape of a shepherd's pipe. We have also the Altar, and Organ, Latin poems of Publius Optatianus Porphyrius, and in more modern times we have the Urania of Balthazar Boniface, which contains 26 printed and 22 engraved pages, and figure verses resembling a Tower, (turris) a Shield, (clypeus) a Pillar, (columna) an Hour glass, (clepsydra) and others. In the poems of Charles Francis Panard, called, by Marmontel, the La Fontaine of Vaudeville, are to be found several of these puerilities. The Glass, and the Bottle, and the Lozenges, each resembling one of those articles, are amongst the number.t

Still more laborious was the composition of those poems, if they deserve the name, in which the initial of each word

See Spectator (Chalmers' Edition, London: 1822) vol I. p. 284. For the glass and bottle, see IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, No. XI. Vol. II. p. 630. Art. "Fashion in Poetry and The Poets of Fashion."