IRISH SONGS.
It is impossible to conceive any trash more despicable than the slang songs which are current amongst the common people in Ireland; and this is the more to be lamented, as the extreme susceptibility of the people makes them liable to be easily moved to either good or evil by their songs. Even the native Irish songs, as we are informed in Miss Brooke's Reliques of Irish Poetry, are sadly interpolated with nonsensical passages, which have been introduced to supply the place of lost or forgotten lines; and of humorous lyrical poetry, she says there was none in the language worth translating. Moore has given to the beautiful airs of Ireland beautiful words; but Moore is a poet for ladies and gentlemen, not for mankind. It may be, that there are not materials in Ireland, for a kindred spirit to that of Burns to work upon; but the fact is but too true, that the poor Irishman has no song of even decent ability, to cheer his hours of merriment, or soothe the period of his sadness. Honour and undying praise be upon the memory of Burns, who has left to us those songs which, like the breath of nature, from whose fresh inspiration they were caught, are alike refreshing to the monarch and the clown!—Ibid.