from him in brilliant succession, while he appeared entirely unconscious that he was speaking more than household words. Not a few of his collegiate contemporaries still retain indelible impressions of the instruction and delight which they experienced in intercourse with him; not a few, as they deplore that intercourse for ever closed on earth, will recall these touching words:" Ejus sermone ita tum cupidè fruebar, quasi jam divinarem, id quod evenit, illo extincto, fore, unde discerem, neminem."-Crc., De Sen.

WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER was born at Annerville, near Clonmel, of an ancient and highly respectable family. His father was a member of the Established Church; his mother, for whose memory he entertained the liveliest affection, was a zealous Roman Catholic. By her solicitude, her son was baptized and educated in the Romish faith. The exact date of his birth is uncertain; strange to say, he was himself ignorant of it; and such is the imperfect registration in the Roman Catholic polity, that there is extant no record either of his birth or baptism. By those who should be best acquainted with the fact, he is stated to have been born in the year 1814; and, according to this computation, at the time of his decease he had only reached his thirty-fourth year. He could not certainly have much exceeded that early age; for he obtained his scholarship in 1832, and reckoning his age at twenty years, about the usual average, he could not have completed his thirty-sixth year.

In early childhood his residence was removed to Garnavilla, a lovely spot upon the banks of the river Suir, about two miles from the town of Cahir. The enchanting scenery of the neighbourhood made an ineffaceable impression upon his susceptible temperament, and developed, almost in infancy, his poetic talents. He almost "lisped in rhyme," and some of his boyish compositions would do honour to the maturest efforts of the British muse. To these happy days of his dawning imagination he ever delighted to travel back in meditation. Often, amidst the hurry of business, or the hard abstractions of mental science, he would pause for a moment; in that moment he was back amidst the memories of infancy; the scene from which his early inspirations, his primary ideas of beauty, were derived, was before him in all its first absorbing vividness. I remember, more than once, to have observed him penetrated

with profound emotion, and on inquiring the cause, to have been informed, that he was, in thought, visiting the favourite haunts of his childhood upon the banks of the River Suir. Constant allusions to his early home are scattered through his poetry. I copy the following Sonnet, the first that is suggested to my recollection:

"Groves of my childhood! sunny fields that gleam

With pensive lustre round me even now!
Rivers, whose unforgotten waters stream
Bright, pure as ever from the rifted brow
Of hills whose fadeless beauty, like a dream,
Bursts back upon my weeping memory,—how
Hath time increased your loveliness, and given
To earth and earth's a radiance caught from heaven!
My soul is glad in floating up the tide

Of years; in counting o'er the withered leaves
That Time hath strewed upon the path of Pride:

Yes, glad, most glad;-and yet the feeling grieves,

With peace and pain mysteriously allied,

That sway and swell my breast like ocean's stilly heaves."

The following exquisite lines were suggested by the same scenery. They were composed in early youth, although not published until July, 1835, when they appeared in the Dublin University Magazine.

FRAGMENTS WRITTEN ON THE BANKS OF THE SUIR.

I've borne my pen to this, the slumberous haunt

Of infant Zephyrs, birds, and flowers, and bees—

To dignify my solitude with thought:

And thus interpreting the ideal forms
That shadow the still mirror of my soul,

Paint them in language as they pass. "Tis vain!
Mine eyes are dim, surcharged with radiant hues,
And language will not answer to my call.
Nay, Sleep, the child of Silence, comes to seal
The gate of sense, beckon the outgazings back
Of that strange spiritual eye which sees
A world in vacancy! "Twere better link
The pearls of poesie in chamber lone,
Gathering from thought, than thus to dare essay
To fix those charms which vary as we view,
And wilder the rapt gaze o'erpower'd, o'erswept,
By waves of ever-changing loveliness!

And yet this stream (as sure in course, as deep,

As silent, and as swift, as smothered hate
Maturing to determinate revenge:

Of

-Words true, but alien to the quietude
my heart's sabbath sunshine-holy light!)
And yet this stream!-its noiseless prayer
A soul to company its tranquil way;

invites

The soul to float upon a stream as smooth,
Mid thoughts as fair as bloom its verdurous banks,
And like it picturing every changeful cloud

That gives and shrouds, and gives and shrouds again
The purity intense of heaven! (Oh, such

Are the unquiet fancies that o'ercast

The still profound of soul.) Who hath not felt
How soothes the natural melody of streams,
And how their liquid-murmuring flow of light
Seduces
weary hearts to reverie!

Spirit of brightest visions!-for to thee
Turns my fond soul in every raptured hour,
Links thee with every paradisal scene,

Peoples the grove, the grot, the glen, with thee!

How oft, surrendered to the placid sway

Of thee and fancy, have I heard upburst

The harmony that sleeps among the strings,

Roused by thy cunning hand! and as I've listened.
My fancies gently modulant have flowed,

As flowed the music from thy harp and heart,
Attracted into sweetest servitude,

The strong entrancement of the speaking strain:
While mine eyes closed, and left their sister sense
To reign alone, and Hearing then was life!
So nature's music, struck from the deep waters,
Wiles on the willing soul to rainbow dreams,
To all that's fair-to Eden-land-to thee!

From this home, whose memory he thus fondly cherished, he was removed for education, while still only nine years old, to the endowed school of Clonmel. The respected principal of that establishment, the Rev. Dr. Bell, who was not more distinguished for the many eminent scholars whom he trained, than for the filial affection which his pupils preserved towards him in maturer life, was not slow in discovering the rare en

dowments of the modest and retiring child. Butler soon became specially beloved by his master, and a peculiar favourite throughout the school. He was never a proficient in the noisy games of his coevals, but his playful wit and amiable manners made him universally popular. His leisure hours were devoted to poetry and music, in which he became exquisitely skilled. He was not a hard student in the ordinary courses, but he was

a constant and discursive reader. He was early familiar with the philosophical writings of Lord Bacon (of which he was an enthusiastic admirer), and of the most distinguished of the Scottish metaphysicians. He perused the classics as a poet rather than a philologist, for verbal criticism was a branch of knowledge to which he was never much attracted. While still a school-boy, he had penetrated deep into the profundities of metaphysics, his most loved pursuit, and was accomplished in the whole circle of the belles lettres. His taste for oratory was fostered by the annual exhibitions for which Dr. Bell's seminary was so famous; and some of his youthful efforts are still remembered as master-pieces of public speaking.

It was during his pupilage at Clonmel, about two years before his entrance into College, that the important change took place in Butler's religious views, by which he passed from the straitest sect of Roman Catholicism into a faithful son and champion of the Church of Ireland. He had been from the cradle deeply impressed with a sense of religion, and conscientious in the observance of the rites and ceremonies of his creed. His moral feelings were extraordinarily sensitive. For long hours of night he would lie prostrate on the ground, filled with remorse for offences which would not for one moment have disturbed the self-complacency of even well-conducted youths. Upon one occasion, when his heart was oppressed with a sense of sinfulness, he attended confession, and hoped to find relief for his burdened spirit. The unsympathizing confessor received these secrets of his soul as if they were but morbid and distempered imaginations, and threw all his poignant emotions back upon himself. A shock was given to the moral nature of the ardent, earnest youth; he that day began to doubt; he examined the controversy for himself, and his powerful mind was not long before it found and rested in the truth.

Upon his entrance into Trinity College, Dublin, Butler still pursued the same extensive but desultory course of studies for

which he had been remarkable at school. He never much applied himself to the mathematics, nor did he cultivate the classic tongues as a grammarian or philologist. Soon, however, his character was known throughout the University as a wit and an accomplished scholar. His prize compositions, both in prose and verse, were so pre-eminently distinguished, that, unlike most essays of that sort, they attracted the attention of the heads of the College, and stamped him as a man of rare and varied genius.

Whilst still an undergraduate, he became a copious contributor, in both verse and prose, to the periodical literature of the day. His refined taste in criticism, and his eloquence of diction, naturally made him one of the most popular, as well as the ablest, of reviewers. In the Dublin University Magazine alone, there appeared, from time to time, during his college course, enough of poetry and of essays on the most various subjects, historical, critical, and speculative, to fill several volumes. It is much to be hoped that some selection from this valua ble mass of material may be made, and given to the public. It would be hard to point to compositions which exhibit greater variety of power in a single mind, than the Analysis of the Philosophy of Berkeley, the articles on Sismondi, on Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, on Oxford and Berlin Theology, and the playful effusions entitled Evenings with our Younger Poets. The subjects range over widely distant fields, but all are handled and elucidated with the same masterly facility. His poetical contributions to the same periodical, and to others, were frequent, and many of them are of an extremely high class of merit. It is impossible for any reader not to admire them as compositions, but there is a certain air of melancholy pervading their whole tone of thought, with which many true lovers of poetry could not sympathize. The very beauties of the landscape, of which he was a passionate lover, produced an impression on his mind, in which sadness. seemed to be mingled in far larger proportion than joy.

The following lines were written soon after his coming into residence at the University. They may serve as an illustration of what was always a very prominent trait in his character, an almost rapturous delight in looking upon, and endeavouring to converse with, children still almost infants. His feelings towards the little rambler who had chanced to stray