determined opponents; and their behaviour has been eventually at tended with important effects. Even Mr. Hume, inconsistent and partial as he sometimes appears, though he treats their principles as frivolous, and their conduct as ridiculous, has bestowed on them, as is here observed, the highest eulogium that his pen could well dictate : "So absolute (says he) was the authority of the crown, that the precious spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved by the Puritans alone, and it was to this sect that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution *.”—It might have been concluded that this oppressed people would have experienced greater lenity, at least, on the accession of James I. than they had obtained in the foregoing reign: but, observes Mr. Neal, If King James had any principles of reiigion beside what he called King-craft, or dissimulation, he changed them with the climate; for from a rigid Calvinist he became a favourer of Arminianism in the latter part of his reign; from a Protestant of the purest kirk on earth, a doctrinal Papist; and from a disguised Puritan, the most implacable enemy of that people, putting all the springs of the prerogative in motion to drive them out of both kingdoms.'

We have only farther to add that, since the publication of the first volume, the editor has met with Mr. Neal's letter to Dr. Hare, Dean of Worcester; which, he thinks, does the author credit, as it is written both with ability and temper: by an extract from it, he finishes his Advertisement.

Two farther volumes of this work are published: but we have not yet seen them.

POETRY and DRAMATIC.

Art. 24. The Country Parson, a Poem. By John Bidlake, A. B. &c. I2mo. IS. Cadell jun. and Davies. 1797.

yet

Mr. Bidlake has pursued the track of the modern imitators of the incomparable author of "the Fairy Queen," and, as we think, with no inconsiderable success. Though, however, we cannot allow equal merit to the Country Parson' with the "Castle of Indolence,' Mr. B. is not deficient in the powers of description, nor in the enchanting faculty of cloathing moral sentiment in the rich and variegated garb of poetic allegory. It will not be deemed injurious to the praise due to Mr. Bidlake, if we speak of Spenser and Thomson in a strain of more elevated panegyric. The genius of the author of "the Seasons" bears, in our opinion, a strong analogy to that of the pensive, descriptive, and moralizing Spenser. Both poets abound in admirable sentiments; both were enthusiastic lovers of Nature; and both were in the highest degree capable of captivating the heart by pathetic representations, and of holding the fancy in bondage by circumstantial and forcible imagery. How far Mr. Bidlake has caught from these bards a power to paint, and a philosophical spirit, the following quotations may serve to evince.-In the description of the Vicar's Garden, this stanza particularly pleased us:

There too the Currant hangs its loaded Head;
Pomona's Pearls and Crimson Gems all bright.

* Hume's History of England, vol. v. p. 189. Svo edition, 1763. Plethoric

Plethoric Gooseberries, amber, green, or red,
Whose Giant Size may Rivalship excite,

With harmless Pride, nice Culture's Care requite.
And there the Strawberry, 'mid her Veil of Green,
Bashful with modest face shrinks back from Sight,
True Virgin beauty blushing to be seen:

And what so sweet as Chastity in Beauty's Mien ?

The author, making an eulogy on the honest Love of Pre-eminence exhibited in the character of the Vicar, contrasts it with the vicious pride and servility of the Courtier :

Nor wants he reverence due; that dear delight

Of whatsoe'er degree, of high or low.
No mind so humble but will claim this right;
This dearest Commerce social Compacts know;
For with this jealous claim all Bosoms glow.
For this the Courtier, whom proud titles deck,
Now aims to rule, now servilely will bow:
To higher rank can cringe, and stoop the neck,
Full glad to catch the favour'd smile and watch each beck.
Yet he mean time the proudest of the proud,

An haughty Tyrant, and an abject Slave,
With fond Complacence eyes the menial Crowd,
That at his Levee wait, and favour crave;
Where golden Fools, and every fawning Knave
The ready Welcome meet.-The little mind
Can ne'er with native Dignity behave;

Tho' rais'd, still ever low; tho' free, confin'd:

Ennobled Slaves are found the meanest of Mankind.'

In adopting the difficult stanza of " the Fairy Queen," Mr. Bidlake has sometimes matr'd his English by occasionally omitting the article:

So Alderman the feast of reason deems,'-

The pride of Clarke who singer's scat ascends.'

Some of the final lines of the author's stanzas appear to us deficient in melody, if not in metre:

And what so sweet as Chastity in Beauty's Mien ?-
And fill with grateful Melody his blest retreat-

But bless'd by galden Temperance equal joys maintains-
In little Minds that cannot raise supreme delight.

In the final Alexandrine line of the Spencerian stanza, the ear is most pleased when the Casural pause takes place at the 6th syllable, and thus divides the verse.

Art. 25. Poems: containing the Goldfinch, a Rhapsody, in Three
Cantos; a Translation of Ovid's first Heroic Epistle of Penelope to
Ulysses; Sonnets, &c. By a Student of Lincoln's Inn.
2s. 6d. Johnson.

4to.

The poem of the Goldfinch, which forms the principal part of this. collection, is so widely digressive that it is not easy to analyse it.Perhaps some of our readers, on perusing the following lines, with

which it opens, may think any attempt of that sort a waste of time and labour:

Whether it be, some ruling star above
Gave at my birth my future life to love,
Or, as in sounder casuists may be found,
Such matchless beauties in our isle abound,
As might in bishops wake rude lay desires,
And light in hermits' breasts unhallow'd fires;
Oft hath it griev'd me sore, in woman kind
Hearts so perverse, and foes to man to find,
That the warm kiss from virgin lips supply'd,
The touch, the soft embrace to us deny'd,
And all the little favours of the fair,

The bird, the squirrel, or the lap-dog share.
This ill with Nature, worse with manners suits;
As if these human were, and we the brutes.'

To gratify the curiosity of others, however, who may not be quite so fastidious, it may suffice to say that the principal subject is a Goldfinch; which engages so much of the attention of Laura as to excite the jealousy of her lover, who gives vent to his complaints in very violent language. The lady, however, contrives to assuage his fury, by assuring him that she has love and tenderness enough, in her nature, to content both the Goldfinch and himself. In many parts of the poem, the author attempts to be satirical. The four following lines seem to be aimed at the Reviewers:

Pedants, scarce fit at college to preside,

Whom even heads of houses must deride,

Reviewers turn, and, oh their pow'rs of face!

For who-'s-that Godwin's creed dare Burke's displace." Open as we are to conviction, and thankful for any just rebuke, it is matter of concern to us that this author should express himself so unintelligibly as to prevent our profiting from his kind admonitions. This poem is followed by a translation of the Epistle of Penelope to Ulysses from Ovid; and the writer justly observes that there is no good translation of Ovid's Epistles. We conceive, indeed, that the execution of a work of that sort would be attended with some diffi culty, and would require talents of which the writer of the specimen before us is not possessed.The other pieces, an imitation of Sappho's Ode to Venus ;'- Le baiser rendu,' from Fontaine; and a few others, may be passed over in silence, without any very great injury to the author.

Art. 26. Elegy to the Memory of the Rev. Wm. Mason. 4to. IS. Cadell jun. and Davies. 1797.

The writer of this elegy having, in the usual form of classic invo cation, called on the nymphs of the woods and mountains to lament the death of the respectable poet who is the subject of it, thus on a sudden checks himself;

Hence, Pagan dreams! I mourn a Christian dead ;'— and he then proceeds, in strains of very sublime and appropriate fraise,

to

to celebrate the memory of his friend as a poet, as a man of virtue, and as a Christian.

His Breast, of lawless Anarchy the Foe,

For Britain swell'd with Freedom's patriot Zeal *;
Nor thus confin'd, for every clime could glow,
And in a slave's a Brother's wrongs could feel:
Could feel o'er Afric's race when Avarice spred
er bloody wing, and shook in scorn the chain;
Justice, hand in hand by Mercy led,

W

TT

› Christian Senates cried, and cried in vain!
Now their new Guest the sacred Hosts include,
They who on Earth with kindred lustre shone ;
Whom love of God to love of Man subdu'd,

Nor Pride, nor Avarice sear'd the Heart to Stone.
There shall he join the Bards, whose hallow'd Aim
Sought from the dross of Earth the Soul to raise ;
Disdain'd the Meed of perishable Fame,

And sunk the Poet's in the Christian's Praise.

• There 'mid Empyreal light shall hail his GRAY;
There MILTON thron'd in peerless Glory see;
The Wreath that flames on THOMSON's brow survey;

The brighter Crown that, CowPER, waits for thee.'

The whole of this elegy appears worthy of the poet to whose memory it is consecrated: the lines are strong and correct: the topics of eulogy and lamentation are judiciously chosen and happily applied; and the last stanza of those which we have cited above concludes the elegy with equal propriety and dignity.

Art. 27. Juvenile Essays in Poetry. By J. Donoghue.

Is. 6d. Seeley, Owen, &c. 1797.

12mo.

Placed by the hand of Providence at an humble distance from the great, with no merit to plead, no patronage to ensure success, I have taken up the pen, with a boldness which necessity alone could inspire, to contribute to the better support of a precarious existence.' On reading this passage at the commencement of the author's preface, the brow of the critic must be relaxed by the feelings of the man, Sorrow is sacred, and industrious poverty claims our compassion and our aid. Though we cannot recommend these juvenile poems to those who are much conversant with this enchanting province of literature, yet we think it our duty to inform a numerous set of readers, to whom all poetry is amusing, that such a publication is abroad; and not to with-hold the motives of the author in venturing this edition.

To shew the nature of the writer's complaints, and of his poetical powers of announcing them, the following specimen may be thought sufficient:

"Where Taw majestic rolls his briny pride
Cerulean to his source, I punctual stray'd;

* See the Secular Ode on the Anniversary of the Revolution.'

REV. AUG. 1797.

Ꮮ Ꭵ

Along

Along his banks I woo'd the whispering breeze;
Eve o'er the vale her darkling mantle spread
Of dusky tint; the Welkin lower'd deep,
Save the faint glimmerings of the pale-ey'd West,
Or distant Taper trembling on the wave.
Grief dew'd my cheek, and all my bocom heav'd
With palpitating throb; morose despair
Dash'd on the ground the salutary cup
Contentment offer'd to the sickly life,
And thus grief languish'd from
my
woe-tun'd tongue
"What tumults oft await the soul refin'd

By education, but by wealth unblest,
When worth forlorn hies to the squalid cot
And unbefriended dies-Ah me! Condemn'd
The wintry chill of indigence to feel,

Whose blossom withers with the breath of love,
And checks the embryo promise of my youth;

Whose bread is bitterness, whose drink is woe.'

Some of the contents of this small collection are, The Consolation of Genius.-The Morning Walk.-Epigram.-Peace.-The Envious Rose.-The Fair Penitent.-To Myra, a Sonnet.-In Imitation of Horace.-Sonnet.-A, Night Piece.-Every one has his Pursuit. -On the Death of H. G. Tippets, Esq.-The Wife Revenged, from the French.-The Wishes, ditto.-Address to the French, May 1795.--The Disconsolate Female.-The Scolding Wife, &c. Art. 28. Poems, by T. F. Dibdin. 8vo. pp. 117. 38. 6d. Boards. Booker, &c. 1797.

The writer of these Poems acknowleges, in his preface, that the greater part of them were written when he was under the age of twenty; we were not therefore surprized to find many marks of haste, negligence, and immaturity. The truth of that common axiom, • Poeta nascitur, non fit,' we are induced by long experience to admit only with much reserve and limitation. The flight of unfledged bards is precipitate and dangerous, and too often resembles the fate of Icarus. We think, however, that Mr. Dibdin has given, both in his prose and his verse, some promises of improvement, which a due measure of industry and application may probably enable him to ful fill. As advice to youthful writers is in general not very pleasant, and in the present case perhaps it will be deemed less so if given in the language of the person to whom it is addressed, we will permit Mr. D. in the following citation to be his own instructor; pre mising, moreover, that the lines convey the best specimen of the au thor's writing:

'Whate'er advantage Genius may bestow,

"Tis Industry that makes each power to grow:
Whate'er kind Nature to our parts may give,
'Tis Industry that makes those parts to live:
As when a gem with native lustre lies,
And, buried in the mine, for ever dies*,

*The gem dying in the mine seems a new idea.

What