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It is a melancholy but indisputable truth, that, taken as a class, men of literary greatness are seldom gifted with that kind of temperament which ensures long life. […] To those who ask why such a short and fretful span of existence was allotted to these men [Dermody, Maturin, Millikin, Callanan, Furlong, Wolfe, O’Brien, Maginn, Griffin [and] the highly gifted John Banim], we reply that […] the mind of a man of genius is too frequently of such a character as to unfit him for the general business and purposes of ordinary life. Its frame, being more refined and delicate, is also much more easily injured by either calamity or enjoyment than are those of minds cast in a coarser and stronger mould […. &c.].
The truth is, that the chief reason why men of genius differ from other men is, that whilst the general mass of mankind act from fixed motives or settled principles, whether good or bad, and consequently calculate the results of their actions, it happens unfortunately for the man of genius, that he seldom acts from any fixed principle at all. His actions are essentially impulsive … everything he does is marked by an ardour or neglect that amounts to eccentricity which, although it often injures himself, is, after all, nothing more than the natural result of a temperament too highly wrought for the cold-blooded habits of the world. […]
Among the many great names which the literature of Ireland has produced within the last half century, there is none of his particular class that can take rank above that of John Banim. On considering the period in which he wrote, too, we cannot but be struck at the admirable adaptation of his genius to the political exigencies of the pecular times in which its greatest power was manifested, and we may add, when it was most required at the hands of both him and his country. […] To the idle relaxations of literature he could not, because he wished not, to stoop. He seemed to think of bothing but his country, and to feel with something approaching to indignation that she and her people had long been misgoverned and maligned. His genius, in fact, was high, and fierce, and haughty; yet with such admirable and many tact was it regulated, that in scarcely a single instance throughout his wors does he suffer it to pass bounds of political or religious defence; on the contrary, associated with his boldest and most uncompromsing reclamations there is the coolness and courtesy of a man who feels that truth is never properly assisted by violence, and that the dignity of vindication is only degraded by the unbecoming display of intemperance and resentment. […]. This, in a man so young as Banim then was, must be pronounced proof of singular skill and judgement on his part, especially when we reflect that his works were published in that country from whose legislative privileges Ireland then expected a charitable relaxation from religious thraldom.
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Banim’s works, published and read in England as they were, unquestionably produced a powerful influence over the British mind. Strong, full of fire - dark we grant, but smouldering and repressed, like the genius of his indignant country - replete with powerful and striking imagery, both moral and physical - sometimes curbing with difficulty the headlong impulses engendered by oppression, and again passing form the vehemence of the anguished and agitated heart to the exhibition of its mournful and most pathetic emotions - it surely cannot be surprising that a spirit so powerful as this, so new to British feeling, so varied, so comprehensive in its grasp, stern, firm, uncompromising, putting itself forward as the exponent of our Irish temperament - equally indicative of its tenderness and its strength, its generosity and its resolution - surely it cannot be doubted for a moment that the hand of John Banim - long palsied by calamity before death, but now for every palsied in the grave - prompted as it was by his noble head and Irish heart, did as much to vindicate our country from falsehood and calumny as any that ever bore a pen in her defence. When he was alive he did not forget his country; and now that he is no more, we hope his country will not forget him or those who were so dear to him.
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The first impression after a perusal of his works is, that his genius was strong but gloomy. This, however, we apprehend, was not altogether its real character; and we think that our view of the case is borne out by the fine glimpses of rich humour which appear in him from time to time. But, in estimating his mere literary talents, it is impossible, we again assert, to separate the author from the patriot.’ […T]he gloom proceeds, not so much from the melancholy of his natural temperament, as form the same cause which poured its sorrowful spirit into our fine old Irish melodies - in other words, it was the mood of a man who felt that he wrote in the darkness which overshadowed his country. / Banim’s style is vigorous, occasionally rough and unpolished, but always graphic and natural. He is also often unequal to himself; but, on the other hand, he had produced passages which for breadth, vigour and conception, power of imagery and of language, are not surpassed by anything in Sir Walter Scott. the best specimen of his style is to be found in his tale of The Fetches […].
In the volumes which comprise Crohoore of the Billhook and The Nowlans, he appears to immeasurably greater advantage than he does in any of his other works, and we think the reason is obvious: we cannot but feel that, whilst composing the former, he forgot everything but the subject before him, and the consequence is, that these two novels are impressed with a force of intellect much more powerful, and an originality of manner much more Irish and national, than are to be found in his subsequent writings. Had he, therefore, still forgotten all other assocatiations, but those of his own literature and its peculiar spirit, he would have left behind him a much ampler monument of his genius than he did. Unfortunately, however, he began to imitate Sir Walter Scott, and to frame his fictions in the spirit of a coutnry far different from his own. Nor was this all. his plots and characters, instead of rising naturally from the warmth of his own Irish conceptions, were projected in the cold artificial mould of imitation. This was agreat want of judgement on his part, and in a man of less intellect would hav been ruinous. As it was, his reputation did not rise as it ought, and as it would have done, had he avoided the impracical task of forcing the genius of one coountry into the trammels of another. The literature of every country possesses a character and spirit peculiar to itself. In this spirit every man, when treating of that country, her history, or her people, should write; and he who neglects to do so, no matter how comprehensive his intellect or how unquestionable his talents, will certainly exercise them at great disadvantage. Independently of this, there is something painful in beholding one original genius striving to tread in another’s footsteps - an effort which has never yet been attended with success.
This was the great literary error of Banim’s life - an error in which no man of less power could afford to continue as he did, with undiminished fame. […] Banim’s knowledge of the peasantry was extensive enough, but neihter very intimate nor profound; and for this reason it is that the vocabulary of their language is rather limited. The people, in his hands, are easy and natural in dialoguep but then it is evident that they speak the idiom of the locality, even though an extended one. So far as he goes, he is perfectly trustworthy, and may be relied on without scrupe with respect to their language, feelings, and actions. Unlike Mrs. Hall, he does not give us for the conversation of our countrymen and country-women a monotonous and sickening repetition of the same emasculated verbiage, studded here and there with a bit of Irish phraseology, stolen form writters who know Irishmen and their language thoroughly. Unlike Mr. Lever, he never tramples upon truth and probability, nor offers disgusting and debasing caricatures of Irish life and feeling, as the characteristics of our country. He would not, for instance, clothe a Catholic priest in black buckskin breeches, because he happens to love the manly exercise of horesmanship, nor would he have him romping and raking to-day, in a stae of drunkenness and sobriety, and stiffened winto spasms of convulsive piety to-morrow. No, no; John Banim’s pictures are always well coloured, and truthful, and in admirable keeping. He is, in every sense, self-dependent and original; nor will fyou find a stale or stolen joke in all his works. There is, in fact, more difference between Banim and Lever than there is between pantominie and legitimate drama - between John Kemble and a buffoon.’
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‘In the stucture of his plots Banim is not generally successful, although they unquestionably contain specimens of singularly felicious invention. He sometimes, forinstance, introduced too much machinery, by which he distracts the attention and weakens the general effect; but on the other hand, the harmony preserved between his incidents and the characters selected to develop [sic] them is certainly admirable, and rearely excelled by any writer living or dead. Had he, however, made his plots in some cases less complicated, he would have avoided the difficulty which many a writer in common with him has felt - not excepting Sir Walter Scott himself, who, as well as Banim, was often guilty of the same error, as in Rob Roy, for instance - the difficulty, we mean, of having superfluous charcters on hand at the close of the work, or overlaying a plot with unnecesary mystery, which would otherwise be clear - a mystery which confuses, but does not excite us.
As it is, we think Banim has written the best historical novels which this country has produced; but we are far, indeed, from saying the best which the genius peculiar to it is capable of producing. His mind had compass, and strength, and feeling, to execute far greater and better works than any which bear his name. As we have already said, the most obvious impediment to his success was a desire to imitate Sir Walter Scott, a man whose very errors have about them all the splendour of the highest genius. Had Banim been deeply acquainted with the antiquarian and legendary lore of our country - had he mastered its history, imbibed its spirit, and allowed himself to be guided on his course by the light of its genius and his own - had he kept his eye steadily upon the national features of our people, and fallen back upon grander events and more glorious names than those he has selected, there is no doubt that he possessed powers capable of producing a series of works which must have become houshold terms of endearment amongst us - works which would have taken up their abode, not only in the liraries of the wealthy, but, what would be afar greater triumph, in the hearts of the people.
In the meantime, it is right that we should award him the meed to which he is entitled, and that is, indeed, a high one. Let us not forget his general truthfulness - his moral integrity, as witness to facts as well as character - his great force of imagination - his humour, pathos, and the strong Irish energy with which he reclams [sic] against the wrongs of his country - let us remember all this, and we cannot but feel proud of the man, and of the important accessions he hasd made to our literature.
[… Of] the biography […] little […] has reached us. [...] It is generally understood that this play [Damon and Pythias] was a joint performance between Mr. [Richard Lalor] Sheil and Banim; but this, we have been assured on good authority, Banim always strenuously denied, affirming that Mr. Sheil only made some slight alterations in the mansucript. Conecte with the representation of this play, there has been a further statement made to us - not resting, however, so far as we know, on the authority of Banim himself - which, if true, would go to prove that Mr. Sheil’s share in the literary partnership was one more profitable to himself than honorable or laborious. We trust, for the credit of our country and the honor [sic] of our distinguished countryman, that the actual circumstances attendant on the employment of his influence for its production on the stage vary from the circumstantial detail which we have heard. We strongly incline to think so; andwhilst in candour we cannot forbear from alluding to a rumour current in literary circulates, we feel bound to intimate, at the same time, our disbelief of a story which reflects on the generosity and the sense of justice of our gifted orator and dramatist.
[Carleton calls Banim] a powerful painter, full of darkness and strength [whose] paintings are consequently to be classed more with those of Salvator Rosa than with the productions of any other master we could name. He painted as it were in prison, with the strong light falling upon the stern but pallid features of reckless men, who sat in the gloomof the dungeon, or who, when at large, had their fierce visages lit up by the red glare of midnight conflagration; for it ought not to be forgotten that the oppression which makes daylight a crime to the persecuted wretch oftern turns the very darkness of his vengeance into the fearful poetry of actual passion. For the same reason the dignity of tragedy had it origin in the deeper fierceness of mans revenge. Just as strong and stern are we in our enmity against such revenge; but when harsh and heartless laws are found to engender the very crimes they were intended to repress, and when no experience of their disasterous results has led to a spirit of humanity in those who framed them, we may feel pain but not surprise at seeing the justice of the law in such cases opposed by the justice of the hear, and the criminal of an act of parliament drawing a strong and dangerous distinction between legislative and moral guilt.
To say that Banim was the apologist of either kind of guilt, would be an act of injustice to his memory. No; there is, on the contrary, a tone of high moral feeling and strong religious obligation stamped upon all his writings; and in circumstances where many periods of less rigid notions upon matters that involve political duties might suspend their condemnation of an illegal act, the is always the foremost to inclucate obedience ot the law, whilst it is a law, and in no instance is found to defend him who, by an act of moral guilt, ventures to violate it. [END; Col. 5.]
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