THESE volumes consist of the principal contributions of the late Mr. SHEIL to the New Monthly Magazine at a period when that periodical, edited by THOMAS CAMPBELL, was particularly distinguished by the interest and brilliancy of its articles. The Sketches of the Celebrities of the Irish Bar attracted much attention at the time, and were admired, wherever they were read, as well for their fidelity as portraitures, as for the spirit and elegance with which they were written.
The intrinsic merit of the Papers would have been sufficient of itself to justify the republication of a careful selection from them; but the press of New York having recently issued a promiscuous collection of them, the proprietor of the copyright felt that it was a matter of duty not only to himself, but to the Authors of the Papers, to present them to the public in a correct and authentic form.
The project of the Sketches did not originate with Mr. SHEIL; the idea was first suggested by his friend Mr. WILLIAM HENRY CURRAN, who commenced the series with a character of the late LORD PLUNKET, and in numerous other papers largely contributed to the success of the design. Notwithstanding this fact, the American publisher has not only confounded Mr. SHEIL’S contributions with Mr. CURRAN’S, assigning the whole to the pen of the former, but has had the assurance to pretend in his preface that a compilation so discreditable was undertaken with the approbation and authority of Mr. SHEIL himself.
It must also be observed, that in the American edition, the most palpable mistakes of the press in the original Papers are religiously preserved and repeated; and the errors in the classical quotations (those everlasting stumbling-blocks of printers) are copied with scrupulous nicety. We are informed, in a cautious note, that by “Goethe’s Metempsyphiles,” may possibly have been intended “ Goethe’s Mephistophiles.” A slip of the pen so obvious as “ the Chorus of Apothecaries in Moliere’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” remains uncorrected. In one place, CHARLES BUTLER, the lawyer, is confounded with ALBAN BUTLER, the [v] divine, and affirmed to be the author of the “ Lives of the Saints.” In another the late EARL GREY is represented, in the year 1825, as still overwhelmed with sorrow for the death of Mr. Fox ; - in short, there is no end to the blunders and absurdities with which the publication abounds.
Mr. SHEIL’S papers, here reprinted, naturally subdivide themselves into the Sketches of the Bar and articles illustrative of the Author’s political career. In selecting and arranging the materials, the Editor has thought it desirable to subjoin a few occasional notes, for the most part explanatory of allusions to local occurrences, or circumstances which the lapse of time has involved in obscurity. In a few instances, where the subject seemed too minute and trivial to be either entertaining or instructive to the public at the present day, a Paper has been omitted ; and the Editor has exercised the same discretion in one or two other cases, where he could not but feel that the Author himself, if living, would have decidedly objected to republication, as an unbecoming revival of personalities, which would no longer find a justification or excuse in the conflicting interests and excited passions of the hour.
The date of the appearance of each Paper has been carefully given; and the Author’s notes, of which, however, [vi] not more than two or three will be found in the course of the work, are distinguished from the Editor’s by the letter A affixed to them.
[…] When the Sketches of the Irish Bar first appeared, they purported (for reasons no longer existing) to be written by an Englishman, who had visited Ireland. This is mentioned here, solely in order to prevent any perplexity to the reader, in the occasional passages, throughout the series, in which this assumed character of the writer is indicated. |