Gallia next thy triumphs own;

Lo! there thy proudest banners wave; Whilst Albion guards her sea-girt throne, And free born millions arm to save. Blameless Bourbon, virtuous king, Thy wrongs the breast of soft-eyed Pity wring;

Hemmed round by harpies in the civil strife,

Rebellion's dagger drinks thy life. Hoar time can ne'er efface the guilty stain;

The horrid tale shall vengeful history tell;

By the coarse hands of vulgar villains slain,

The prince, the martyr, and the christian fell.

But awful Justice raised her sword sublime,

And scarce a wretch survived the sacrilegious crime.

III 2.

With zeal the rising nation glows, Vengeance nerving every soul, Resolved the tide of ceaseless war to roll

On the curst author of their country's woes.

See Austria's eagle, vigorous from his wound,

Prune the strong wing, and lead the embattled van;

United Europe rouses at the sound, Conspired to crush the foe of God and

man.

The tyrant flies, he bleeds, he dies,
Victorious Freedom views his fall,
The nations free, exulting see,

Triumphant Justice rule the ball Whilst thou,grim monster, as thy favourite fell,

Curst the rejoicing world, and murmuring plunged to hell.

..........

MARRIAGE REGULATIONS IN INDIA.

MALTHUS, in his Essay on Population, quotes from Sir William Jones the regulations respecting matrimony, existing in India. "Girls with too little or too much hair; who are too talkative, who have bad eyes, a disagreeable name, or any kind of sickness, who have no brother, or whose father is not well known, are all with many others excluded ;" and the choice will appear to be in some degree confined, when it must necessarily rest upon a girl, whose form "has no defect; who has an agreeable name; who walks gracefully like a Phenicopteros or a young Elephant ; whose hair and teeth are moderate respectively in quantity and size, whose body has exquisite softness."

ART. 30.

Modern Chivalry: containing the Ad. ventures of a Captain, and Teague O'Regan, his servant. By H. H. Brackenridge. Philadelphia. J. Conrad & Co. 2 vols. 12mo. 1804.

Ir is a pleasure, in this land of cent. per cent. to see, now and then, a spark of humour and amusement enliven the shade. We are glad to find a man, willing to sacrifice a little of his time to divert his fellows with merriment or please them with the productions of taste. In the novel department our indigenous fruits have, though numerous, been but meagre. True it is that a scrutinizing hand might draw from their dusty shrouds, several respectable tomes, of American parentage, whose title pages are stamped with this alarming name. True it is, that in this thing we have been unusually anxious to equal, if not the eminence, at least the fertility of our European brethren. Many of us have doubtless dwelt with great sympathy on the pathetick history of the

unfortunate Dorcasina Sheldon, and have been inclined to believe that

the ingenious author had almost mournful tale of the "Coquette," out-quixoted Don Quixote. At the the doleful disasters of "Reuben and Rachel," the interesting intricacies of the "Trials of the Heart" the "Spectator," &c. &c. many fair misses under fifteen years of age, for whose use they were composed, have wept, and thought, they “ had full cause for weeping." With more respect we would mention the labours of a southern adventurer in the lands of fiction. "Arthur Merwyn" and "Wieland" are by no means destitute of merit ; though the latter is rather too likely to frighten little children in the night. In the adventures of " Updike Underhill," we have seen the pen of the novelist guided with no vulgar skill by a hand that now holds the sceptre of justice. The writer of the work we are to examine, like the author last mentioned, has descended from the bench of law, to laugh his neighbours out of their foibles, and convince them of their errours, The distributor of redress and equi

ty, when he puts off the Judge, and assumes the executioner, ought at least to be as careful, as any other man, that he does not act without a warrant ; that his lash, if keenly applied, is required by justice and regulated by reason.

Works of the burlesque kind have accomplished their object generally in two ways, either by giving to a trifling incident the buskined majesty of epicks, or by degrading the real dignity of an elevated subject into coarse and homespun apparel. The first kind is exemplified, among other instances, in the "Lutrin" of Boileau, the " Rape of the Lock," and the "Fun," by Gay; the other in the "Batrachomyomachia," attributed to Homer, its imitations, by Addison, in Latin verse, and especially by the travesties of Homer and Virgil.

It is necessary, that in a work of the burlesque kind, there should be some object or class of objects proposed to be laughed at, and to this end the reader's attention should be directed. In Don Quixote we see the gallant profession of knight errantry, which its absurdities and extravagancies had made a subject of satire, bestowed on the inconsistent character of a plain country gentleman and applied to the common incidents of life. These two incongruities lay the foundation for the ridiculous adventures, and pointed satires of that inimitable work. In the Hudibras, the subject proposed is the superstition of the English Levellers and Independants. Here a considerable part of the humour arises from the inconsistent character of the knight, as he is there drawn, and his squire with the office of defenders of religion. On the whole however, the plan is much less regular and well digested in this respect, than that of Don Quixote.

To an unfinished performance we can scarcely impute it as a fault.

The

The work before us on the first glance has the appearance of being on the same plan with those, just mentioned. We are presented with Capt. Farrago, and his Irish seryant, Teague O'Regan. We see them arranging their equipage in the outset of the work, and setting out in quest of adventures; we follow them from town to town, over hill and dale, "over brook, and through briar;" we are successively led from one place to another, without knowing their name or geography, and introduced to one adventure after another, without the least thread or connexion, and at the end of the book we turn back to inquire why Captain Farrago, and his bog-trotting servant were sent on this hard, and fatiguing expedition, rather than we or any other men. Captain is presented to us as a plain rustick gentleman, whose notions were clear on all subjects, though his modes of expressing them were rather stiff and quaint; whose conversation was a little tinctured with the learning of the ancients, and the good sense of former times. Such a person is certainly not very likely to leave the quiet of a retired and rural life, to perambulate the country, and correct the disordered notions of his neighbours. An author however has a magick art, to which almost all difficulties may be brought to yield. Judge B. actu ally kidnaps the Captain from this quiet, and solitary retirement, and sends him to seek his fortune "et modo Thebis ponit, modo et Athenis." In order however to have some loop hole for his interference in affairs entirely foreign from his own, he is saddled with an Irish servant, who becomes the subject of most of the adventures. In these

adventures there is much uniformity. At the first town Teague is proposed as candidate for Congress, at the next he is mentioned, as a member of the Philosophical Society, at another he is requested to deliver an oration on the fourth of July, or to perform the honourable duty of editor of a paper. The reader is soon tired of this sameness of plan, and of this want of connexion in the incidents. Were it not that the lash of the satirist is allow ed to fall almost indiscriminately, and that much exaggeration is nenecessary to give a ludicrous colour to the tame incidents, and characters of common life; were it not for these reasons, we should be disposed to blame the Judge for exhibiting Teague, a complication of every species of roguery, and barbarousness, as a true example of the Irish character. We should be disposed to blame; Sir John Carr, and Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Owenson, the champions of Ireland, would show him but little mercy.

says

This work then has but small pretensions to the title of a regular performance of the burlesque kind. But it may be said, that we have been all this time "querentes nodum in scirpo;" and that the author avowedly makes no pretensions to any thing of that kind. For on p. 28. part 2, Vol. I, he "I mean this tale of a Captain travelling, but as a vehicle to my way of thinking on some subjects, just as the ancients introduced speakers in a dialogue, or at feasts," and at the conclusion of the work, "The vehicle, that I have chosen of supposed travels, and conversations, affords great scope,and much freedom, and furnishes an opportunity to enliven with incident. Doubtless it is of the same nature, with many things in the novel way, written by philosophick men, who

chose that mode of writing, for the purpose merely of conveying sentiments, which, in a didactick work under the head of tract or dissertation, could not so easily gain the at tention of their readers." This apology however, gives but little excuse for the mode of execution, if, as we have stated, it be faulty. It is not unlike that of the lady, who excused herself from weeping at a pathetick sermon,when the surrounding audience were all in tears, by saying, that she belonged to another parish. Undoubtedly every author has a right to make his work whatever he pleases; but if he clothes it in the form and circumstance of any class of works before known and defined, as such it must be judged in some respects, that is to say, as far, as it is a merit to execute it on a regular plan, conformed to the rules of criticism, which, in their turn, are drawn from the great examples of eminent preceding authors. The author of Madoc, after choosing an important historical fact, and relating it in poetical narrative, with the proper ap pendages of episodes, descriptions, characters, &c. finding that it is in some measure deficient in unity, and perhaps in some other requisite qualities, declares, in his preface, with great independence, that his poem assumes not the degraded title of Epick. But as an Epick it was written, and as an Epick, it has been, and must be judged, notwithstanding the protest of its author. And the propriety of this principle is obvious. No protest would forbid an author from receiving the allowance of praise that his work had deserved, and why should it shield him from any part of the disapprobation.

From this general view of the work, we proceed to judge of it